Moving

Just in case anyone is actually following this, I am moving this blog to my own website.
Please visit alanklughammer.com/info

My Daughter, the protoge

I took my kids to Goldstream today, in part because my daughter needed a "colourful picture" for school.
Since she forgot her camera I let her use my DSLR. She apparently has been watching, because she knew how to hold it properly. She also learned about shutter speed and its relationship to motion, and at the same time, how shutter speed effects aperture to get a correct exposure.
Of course she then started asking about all the buttons on the camera.
On a serious note, it is a real fine line encouraging your children. For the longest time neither of my kids wanted much to do with photography, on either side of the camera. I have managed to convince them (rarely) to pose for pictures, but until today, I have not really seen any interest in taking "art" pictures, even though they both have strong creative streaks.
I guess I am just in Thanksgiving / Proud Pappa mode...

New site

I have finally registered my name. I now have a site under alanklughammer.com

But I still don't write much. Lots of photos though...

Artists

From a post on slashdot

The fact is that any artist is a giant milling machine - in goes ideas and concepts and styles and techniques and disparate things (like banana cereal and dogs peeing against trees) and they all churn and ferment and process and grind and beak down and clump together and then

... ping ... up pops an idea, which because the milling machine is an artist of some description, needs to get expressed in some manner (the non-artist merely stalls at the last step - the process is not unique to artists).

Pretty much sums it up....

More on Copyright

I was reading more on the proposed copyright bill at cbc.ca. It really looks like a candy-coated suicide pill.
There are some seemingly positive aspects, such as it would be legal to format shift content. ie, it would be legal to play your cd's on your ipod. BUT, if the producer puts a "digital lock" on the content, it becomes illegal to break it.
So what constitutes a "digital lock"? How about a text file on the cd saying, "Please do not copy this."

reductio ad absurdum

and further:

Clement has said he would like to fast-track Bill C-32

No I do not trust this ....

Copyright

It seems that copyright (and "intellectual property" in general) is in the news a fair bit lately. Canadian parliament is threatening to pass a highly restrictive "DCMA" style law a la the USA.

As a photographer, I value my work. I do not want someone else taking my art to promote their product, for example, but on the other hand, I do not want to have all art hidden away and unaccessable to the world or, especially, future generations.
A common argument is that Walt Disney's original cartoon, "Steamboat Willy" is still under copyright. In other words, it is illegal to show a cartoon that our grandparents enjoyed as kids. Put in perspective, imagine if Shakespeare could not have written Julius Caesar because the original story was not available. Or if Mozart could not have written his operas because the stories he based them on were tied up in legal knots. Please explain to me how this "promotes the arts".

All art is based on the work of others before. In fact many great works were meant as tributes to masters. My fear is that historians will look back on this century as a second dark ages. Where instead of religion holding all power over publishing works, mega-corporations hold artists hostage.

I read a reply on slashdot that may be on the right track (I lost the link) that advocates aboloshing copyright altogether. maybe the pendulum has to swing the other way for a while to restore balance. It may be rough for artists, but then most artists do what they do for love rather than money...

links:
- Against Intellectual Monopoly

Stuff....

I have said it before, I am not a writer. I am very visual.
I was out this morning with my camera when someone came up to me to ask what I was taking a picture of. I couldn't really explain. I tried to talk about lines and colour, but they just gave me a blank look. Now if they were to see the image, could they then see?

This has happened to me before with photographers as well. I was out taking photos and saw the image below. My friend asked me what I saw. Later he was amazed. He appreciated the final image, but he could not see it beforehand.



I guess I will stick to photography....