Jack Shares Things

Resetting Twitter

Fri, 05 Feb 2010 21:49:58 -0500

It’s not you, it’s me.

I’ve been following just short of 600 people on Twitter. That’s too many. Signal to Noise failure happened at somewhere around 200 I think. Time to cull some of the folks with, shall we say, less signal.

I started by scanning my follower list and deciding one by one who to unfollow. That was torture. I’d never get anywhere because I want to follow everyone. In the end I just blanket unfollowed everyone. What a relief!

Now I’ll just add back those I miss one at a time, up to a personal limit of 200. You should unfollow me too - it feels good.

Love and Hate with the Hasselblad

Wed, 03 Feb 2010 19:41:00 -0500

I gave in to a crazy bout of gear lust this past year and picked up a lovely Hasselblad 500C/M kit. One touch and I was in love. And just look at it. To me, the camera itself is a work of art. Its looks and heritage combined with the stellar reputation of the Zeiss lenses and how could one go wrong?

I hated it. Nothing about the way it handled was easy. It’s impossible to focus using the standard focusing screen and waist-level finder. The Internet told me I should use the newer Acute-Matte D screen instead. Fine, bought that too. While the image on the new screen was much brighter, I still couldn’t focus the thing. Making it worse is that the focus throw on the lens is nearly an entire revolution. This makes for a very fine-grained focusing action, but it gave me wrist cramps spinning the thing so far one way and the other. On top of that, every photo I shot was crooked. Of course having the image reversed, left to right, makes framing a moving subject impossible. “Get a 45 degree prism,” said The Internet. Got that too. The prism fixed the reverse issue, and made it easier to shoot level, but the magnification was lower, actually making it harder to focus. I tried a portrait shoot with the new prism — not one photo in focus. Oops, didn’t notice the prism had a diopter. Dialing that in helped.

I’d decided to sell the whole kit and get something easier to handle. Maybe a Mamiya 7 or Contax 645. Trouble was, those aren’t 6x6. I love the square format of the Hasselblad. Also, the shots that I didn’t screw up were awesome. They were right about the “Zeiss glass.” And again, just look at it.

As a way to practice, I’ve been shooting some studio portraits at my house. By “studio” I mean a muslin backdrop and a single Alien Bees strobe in my living room. This, to my surprise, has been fun. Also, my hands have been getting used to the awkward controls and my brain has been adjusting to the ground glass and camera’s crazy viewfinder.

Now I’m beginning to get it. This might just be a terrific studio camera. When there’s time to slow down and be deliberate it works pretty well. I may be coming around and thinking that we’ll get along okay after all.

I’m keeping it.

Current iPhone home screen

Wed, 03 Feb 2010 17:35:06 -0500

Current iPhone home screen

AC/DC whole lotta rosie And the Grammy goes to!… (This...

Tue, 02 Feb 2010 20:37:51 -0500

AC/DC whole lotta rosie

And the Grammy goes to!…

(This is the single greatest AC/DC song.)

"I believe that the alchemy of light on film informs a kind of content that is not remotely..."

Tue, 02 Feb 2010 18:02:00 -0500

“I believe that the alchemy of light on film informs a kind of content that is not remotely duplicated by electronic imaging systems. These systems transfer information with great precision but a silver gelatin photograph transcends the subject and leads one into much higher levels of content.”

- Ralph Gibson via The Online Photographer

This sounds a little like pretentious hoo-ha at first but I agree with him completely.

Darkroom printing is easy but not convenient

Sun, 31 Jan 2010 22:17:19 -0500

It’s a shame people don’t print more photographs. Handling a nice big glossy print is just way better than viewing a photo uploaded to Flickr at, what, 800px wide a computer screen. Those of us who still shoot film have 2 basic choices for getting our negatives printed. First is by scanning them into the computer and printing them on an inkjet printer. The second is using a darkroom. Nearly everyone has given up darkroom (“wet”) printing because it’s either too hard or it takes too much time. An all-digital printing workflow is just so much more convenient. I spent this past weekend printing both by scanning and in my darkroom. Conclusion? Scanning and printing via computer is convenient, but I’m starting to think traditional printing is actually easier.

Scanning

Scanning film sucks. Everything about it sucks. Trying to get even slightly curled negatives into any sort of film holder is an exercise in futility. Then there’s the scanning software. All scanning software sucks, and sucks hard. I use Vuescan, SilverFast Ai Studio, and Epson’s own software for the V750. I’m convinced they’re just competing to see which can be voted the most user-hostile.

Printing

Assuming you’ve successfully wrestled the scanner to the ground, it’s time to print the file. Hope you’re into monitor calibration, color management, drivers, and ridiculous ink prices. I became so frustrated trying to get a handful of prints made via scanner that I just gave up, went into my basement and printed them the old fashioned way. It took a little longer, but was actually easier. Working in the darkroom is quiet, deliberate, nothing crashes, and when I’m finished I have something “hand-made” to show for it.

I’m still getting the hang of this wet printing thing, but I’m finding that basically all it requires is fresh chemicals and a light bulb. Easy enough.

Hmmm, this could be why all my enlargements on the Beseler have...

Sat, 30 Jan 2010 14:35:15 -0500

Hmmm, this could be why all my enlargements on the Beseler have sucked.

"Guess I’ll have to get used to the blue legos; until you get used to the rapidly accelerating..."

Sat, 30 Jan 2010 11:08:37 -0500

“Guess I’ll have to get used to the blue legos; until you get used to the rapidly accelerating irrelevance.”

- kung fu grippe

"Are we in some kind of uncontrollable spiral if our solution to being distracted by the programs on..."

Fri, 29 Jan 2010 17:58:13 -0500

“Are we in some kind of uncontrollable spiral if our solution to being distracted by the programs on our computer is to add yet another program? In my case, I think a ‘roided up NFL linebacker with an hourglass in one hand a large mallet in the other would be more effective. At least until I convinced him to give Twitter a try.”

- Confession 23: I Spent 6 Hours Tweaking Productivity Software

"We lose nothing by having closed systems. Only our chance to pontificate endlessly, to people who..."

Thu, 28 Jan 2010 20:53:22 -0500

“We lose nothing by having closed systems. Only our chance to pontificate endlessly, to people who don’t think you’re as smart as your derogatory t-shirt claims.”

- I Love Walled Gardens, by Rory Marinich

Ouch

Now Playing: Genesis - Abacab

Thu, 28 Jan 2010 17:26:00 -0500

I guess it’s okay for a decent prog-rock band to go for a hit single or two.

My Thoughts on the iPad

Thu, 28 Jan 2010 17:08:00 -0500

Thoughts about the iPad? I don’t have any thoughts about the iPad — at least none worth sharing. I’ve never seen one in real life, let alone used one. What value could I possibly add by pretending I know anything at all about it?

That’s right, none.

(And please ignore all speculative Twitter messages I may have accidentally posted yesterday - that was probably not even me.)

"But if I want to write a truly great app, it has to be a desktop app. And this will be true forever,..."

Thu, 28 Jan 2010 12:42:31 -0500

“But if I want to write a truly great app, it has to be a desktop app. And this will be true forever, or until there is no difference between the web and the desktop.”

- Red Sweater Blog – Can’t Catch Me

He’s right. And I think will remain so, regardless of the number of people claiming otherwise.

As usual, I’m totally in live with Joanna Newsom Joanna...

Wed, 27 Jan 2010 20:32:16 -0500

As usual, I’m totally in live with Joanna Newsom Joanna Newsom 81 Video

"This is not a rant about the difference between film and digital. It’s a rant about the..."

Wed, 27 Jan 2010 19:44:09 -0500

“This is not a rant about the difference between film and digital. It’s a rant about the difference between craft and convenience.”

- The Visual Science Lab: Sunday Rants and Opinions

What a terrific piece by the always real Kirk Tuck.

"My main message to you, fanboys, is this: it’s too early to draw any conclusions. Apple hasn’t given..."

Wed, 27 Jan 2010 16:19:20 -0500

“My main message to you, fanboys, is this: it’s too early to draw any conclusions. Apple hasn’t given the thing to any reviewers yet, there are no iPad-only apps yet (there will be), the e-bookstore hasn’t gone online yet, and so on. So hyperventilating is not yet the appropriate reaction. At the same time, the bashers should be careful, too. As we enter Phase 2, remember how silly you all looked when you all predicted the iPhone’s demise in that period before it went on sale. Like the iPhone, the iPad is really a vessel, a tool, a 1.5-pound sack of potential. It may become many things. It may change an industry or two, or it may not. It may introduce a new category—something between phone and laptop—or it may not. And anyone who claims to know what will happen will wind up looking like a fool.”

- The Apple iPad: First Impressions - Pogue’s Posts Blog - NYTimes.com

"Claiming that he completely forgot about the much-hyped electronic device until the last minute, a..."

Wed, 27 Jan 2010 11:20:22 -0500

“Claiming that he completely forgot about the much-hyped electronic device until the last minute, a frantic Steve Jobs reportedly stayed up all night Tuesday in a desperate effort to design Apple’s new tablet computer. “Come on, Steve, just think—think, dammit—you’re running out of time,” the exhausted CEO said as he glued nine separate iPhones to the back of a plastic cafeteria tray.”

- Frantic Steve Jobs Stays Up All Night Designing Apple Tablet | The Onion

Still Love The Onion.

Let sleeping dogs lie

Mon, 25 Jan 2010 23:10:56 -0500

Let sleeping dogs lie

Using Stickyscreen for my browser's start page

Mon, 25 Jan 2010 22:09:37 -0500

That is what greets me every time I open a new Safari tab or window. Silly, eh? The nu-minimalists will scoff, but it’s actually stopped me from wandering off on a few occasions.

Just go to http://www.stickyscreen.org/ and type in whatever feel-good motivational message you want. Then make that your browser’s start/home page.

Tablet Schmablet, I've got a Snap 1+1!

Mon, 25 Jan 2010 21:00:01 -0500

Wow, this has been sitting in my basement, ignored, for nearly 20 years now. On a whim, I plugged it in tonight and sure enough, it booted right up - into MS-DOS 3.30.

Made in 1990, it runs on 2 floppy drives. One for DOS and one for, well, everything else. I think there’s an Intel 8088 processor inside(tm). State of the art!

I ran my entire life on this thing, thanks to Microsoft Works 2.00A, apparently.

It was a Spreadsheet, Word Processor, Database and “Communications” (whatever that was.) It’s flat, like a Tablet!

With any luck, I’ll be able to order a suitable replacement from Apple on Wednesday.