What Is Real, Anyways?

An essay I just wrote complaining about the constant barrage of 'is it photoshopped?' that still persists in spite of years of photographers trying to explain it.  I probably won't change any of the nay-sayer's minds either, but I at least wanted to say something, and along the way, show off the different ways a single image might be seen.

A comment I left on a blog where the author was showing that a few web adds (on other photography blogger's sites) sold more of his product (an HDR video tutorial) than major print ads in 2 well-distributed magazines, and asking why the BIG names (Nikon, Canon, etc) still advertise on those magazines:

I think one reason the big name camera makers (and software makers) publish in the main magazines is simply to keep the magazines alive at all. As much as blogs are the best tools for helping the hobbyist move forward and learn, the magazine, sitting on the shelf, looking spectacular while carrying the headlines that effectively say “Yes, you can do this!” is what is really selling the cameras themselves. The magazine on the shelf *creates* the hobbyist, without which many of us would be taking crappy shots on an iphone and thinking we were creating “art”. So yeah, even if a particular add in a particular magazine doesn’t “sell” a camera in and of itself (the reviews might, but the ad won’t), the ad keeps the magazine alive, and that keeps the hobby alive (by creating NEW hobbyists) in ways that the blogs don’t.

Blogs like yours help build the talents and experience of the hobbyists (and aspiring professionals) but it doesn’t create them, and so it doesn’t sell cameras in the same way. If the camera makers were only fighting for the people who are hobbyists now but didn’t look to future growth, it would collapse much as many other industries and institutions already have (such as, say, the disappearing audience for classical music).
Stop Advertising in Photo Magazines – Head West to the Web

...as I'm tired of politics (every day really is becoming the same thing over and over, and I'm pretty sure I've got outrage fatigue), and don't talk about work (so you've missed the most obnoxious of my daylight savings time rants), and am basically getting 5-6 hours of sleep a night if i'm lucky...and i'm luckier than faireraven so there you go.

I also haven't really had a chance to take the camera out anywhere in quite some time, though I have been taking lots of shots of Wiggles.  Only attending MDRF occasionally, and with her in tow, means little time for much of anything in detail.  However, I did finally get the camera out this Saturday and captured a few nice ones at pub sing, like

From MDRF 2011

and

From MDRF 2011

so, there you go. more where that came from at the album or on facebook.

Today's selections for the Best Of.

Zion National Park, April
New York Renaissance Festival, August
National Harbor, September
Bellagio Conservatory, Las Vegas, April
Antietam Battlefield, September
"Dinner Herd", Grand Canyon Village, April
Camouflaged King, MDRF, Oktoberfest Sunday

From The Sunset Collection

ISO 100, f/13, 13 second exposure, focal length 18. cropped a bit to take uglier cars out. :)

Here's an example of contrast between two ways of capturing running water.

Short exposure, catching it as sharp choppy waves

F/5.6, exposure 1/6th second. From 2010-11-01 Great Falls in Fall Colour

or Long exposure, smoothing out the whitewater into a foam

F/29.0, exposure 10 seconds. From 2010-11-01 Great Falls in Fall Colour

needlesstosay, you'll need the tripod handy for the latter...

The Ghosts of World War II's Past (20 photos) - My Modern Metropolis:

Taking old World War II photos, Russian photographer Sergey Larenkov carefully photoshops them over more recent shots to make the past come alive. Not only do we get to experience places like Berlin, Prague, and Vienna in ways we could have never imagined, more importantly, we are able to appreciate our shared history in a whole new and unbelievably meaningful way.