15 minutes of 1000 fans

I just read TOP's discussion of 1000 True Fans. I agree with John Scalzi's comments, by the time you can get "1000 true fans" you already have a (untrue?) fanbase well in excess of 1000, or even more likely, 100,000.
I probably have close to 1000 people who enjoy my photography, and maybe even follow what I am doing on this blog, my home website, or my deviant art page. From all these people, I have no "true fans". I haven't made a cent directly from these sites (yet...) But do I resent this? Not at all, in fact I think it is very cool that some people like what I am doing. It lets me show off what I am doing. It gives me an outlet for my creativity.
The concept of subscribers paying a yearly fee is very much a double edged sword. If you are being paid to produce work, you are expected to produce work of the same type and caliber as your previous work. Experimentation becomes much more dangerous.
To illustrate what I think this means, I will use two successful Canadian photographers as examples.
Freeman Patterson has always been an inspiration for me. In my view, he has stayed true to his "artistic vision" (for want of a better term). He does make his living from photography and design, but he still pushes his personal envelope. I hope I am not putting words in his mouth, but I see him as enjoying photography first and foremost. The money and business are secondary. If no one else enjoyed his vision (blatantly impossible, his photography is amazing...) I think he would still be out crawling through grass taking photos of spider webs...
Another talented photographer who I will not mention by name, uses photography as a means to an end. I was at a lecture of his once, right after the release of another of his books. He was recounting a story of a cab ride between interviews. He suddenly asked the cabbie to stop. He stepped out of the car and took a photo. When he got back in the cabbie asked him if he got a good shot. His reply was along the lines of "Not really, but someone will buy it."
I am not saying one of these approaches is better than the other. One stresses "success" as an artist, the other, financial success.
The "1000 True Fans" strategy encourages the second approach. You are producing work for a financial end. Your motivation is to please your existing clientèle because they have already paid you. I think most portrait and commercial photographers already subscribe to this model. Most studios I know have a base of repeat customers that make up a large part of their income.
I guess the bottom line is, What is most important to you? Money or freedom? It is very difficult to have both...

This reminds me of an old joke:
A man approaches a hot dog vendor and notices there are two prices for hot dogs.
"what is the difference?" asks the hungry man.
"If you choose the less expensive hot dog, I mutter "cheapskate" under my breath."


If you send me $100 a year, I promise I will produce more work. However if you don't send $100, I will still produce the same artwork, I will just mutter "cheapskate" under my breath...



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Open Source Software

I have said it before, I am not a writer, I am a visual person. I love photography. I also want to create with the least amount of hassle, but with the most control. That may seem like two opposite ideals, but that is what I want...
I also don't want to be forced into working the way someone else works. I have been using Ubuntu for quite a while now, and I really like the workflow.
In terms of Photography, I download my photos into Digikam and do a quick purge of out of focus, badly exposed, and other failed images. I also give the photos "tags" and a cursory rating so they will be easier to find later. Digikam also has some decent editing/correction tools to give a basic feel to the photo. I use these to get a handle on where I want to take the photo.
Once I have decided to work on a photo, I open it in RawTherapee and tweak the colours and process the raw file. I save a 16 bit png file.
The next program I use is either Cinepaint (still a bit kludgy to work with), Gimp (no 16 bit support...yet) or Krita. Here I do any spotting and dust removal, selective area enhancement and so on. I save a final version as a tif, and a scaled down version as a jpg. I upload the jpg to my website (which uses gallery2).
From this workflow, you will notice a couple of things. First, I use a lot of opensource software. What I like about opensource is the rapid improvement of the software. With a lot of eyes on the program, someone somewhere will fix any niggling problems. With a lot of commercial software, these niggling problems are not always addressed. Often you are told (indirectly) to just deal with it. Now don't get me wrong, Adobe's Photoshop, for example is a great program. In fact, I once taught a college level course on Photoshop, and there are a few things that are much easier to do in Photoshop than in other programs, however, the purchase price is getting astronomical. Recent versions are only marginally better than the previous, but still cost the same. And of course there are still the niggling things, Photoshop needs A LOT of memory, files are huge, some people have trouble with the interface... but these things don't always get addressed.
With a program like gimp (besides the very unfortunate name) things tend to move faster. If the program is not fulfilling the needs of a group, someone can "fork" the program to produce something like cinepaint that does address those needs. Innovation tends to move faster int he open source world. Chances are if something bugs me, it also bugs someone a lot smarter than me who can fix it without worrying about financial return on investment. Never underestimate how much some small annoyance can drive a person...
The second thing you may notice (if you use Linux yourself) is that I use a mix of Gnome and KDE programs. In the commercial world, this is almost like using both Microsoft and Apple programs at the same time on the same computer. I think it is better to be able to use the best tool possible for the job, rather than be tied to what someone else thinks you should do. For example, I use Digikam to organize my photos. There is a similar program called f-spot for Gnome, but it does not quite jive with the way I work with my images.
I guess the whole point to this post is to show that open source software is capable of some outstanding results that easily rivals commercial products. The two images linked had extensive editing before they were finished. And open source products do not try to pigeon hole your work or style into what the designers feel is the "best".
I really hate to admit it, but I seem to have become an open source evangelist..... Damn...
Oh, and I guess I better include a photograph, cause this is a photography blog...

What a Sunrise

Yesterday morning I noticed that it was foggy out, so I thought I would go up to Duncan early to take a few photos before I picked up my kids. As I drove up the Malahat pass, I came above the fog, and it looked amazing. I stopped at a viewpoint and captured the image below.




There were many other people taking shots as well, but a stranger came up to me and handed me his business card. He said his camera batteries died, and he figured I would get some good shots.
I looked at his card, and he is owner of a large graphic and web design company.

I guess my point is that it is worth "stopping to smell the roses". Not only did I get a very nice shot, I also got a bit of a business lead.

One more eagle photo

Here is another in the series of photos I took in Goldstream before Christmas.



I have worked on it quite a bit. I moved the top eagle to the right a bit, to get it away from the trees. Getting the colours and tones just right took a lot of tweaking.
And I worked on the whole image with FOSS graphic programs Including DigiKam, Krita, Cinepaint, and Gimp.
It is easy to get into political discussions when talking about open source software, but I do believe we are witnessing the beginning of a new economy.

But enough of that, I really like this photo...

Merry Christmas...
We are having a rare white Christmas here, so of course I had to go out in the snow and find some images. One of my favorite places is Goldstream park. This time of year the eagles (as well as a ton of seagulls) come to feed off all the dead salmon.
I was amazed at how much snow we actually got, I mean Victoria is the warmest city in Canada. People here don't buy winter tires. Heck, show shovels are rare...
But I loved it.

Here are a couple of my favorite shots.

Snow and other stuff

It snowed last night.
Now for a lot of Canada, that is nothing this time of year, but for Victoria, it is a big deal....
This morning I went out for a walk in the snow. I must like the cold. I was out for over 3 1/2 hours. I was a bit concerned that my un-weathersealed camera might not handle the conditions, but is came through fine.
I also found that the snow seems to have brought out the best in people. Everyone was very happy, outgoing, and even excited about the snow. Maybe the grumps were still huddling indoors...
I was having so much fun, before I realized it, I was all the way over by Ross Bay Cemetary. I didn't realize it was within (extended) walking distance! On the way back, I stopped at the Governors Residence and captured this shot...




I will be putting more up on my site soon...

And speaking of my site, I have been looking at Free Hostia as a webhost. (I am thinking it is time to move my site out of my living room) So far it is looking good, I set up a wordpress site for a friend and it seems fine. For my own site, I use Gallery2 software, as it seems to have the features I like, while being very customizeable. I guess my new year's resolution is to make money from my photography.

Saving Stuff...

I have been running my own server for a while now. I started largely as an experiment to see how cheaply I could make a running website. (It originally cost me zero dollars, including the computer, but a TON of time...) Later it evolved into a full blown home server.
At the present time, I am running two servers in my living room. One runs my photo site, and the other is a storage server. The second is the subject of this blog...
As photographers, even with judicious editing, we amass a lot of images. And while hard drive space gets cheaper and cheaper, hard drives still fail. I really did not want to lose years of work. Through my research on building my own website (a topic for another day...) I came across SME Server. A few things I like about this Linux distribution:

1. very simple and very fast
2. runs on cheap, old hardware. Both my servers are old discarded machines.
3. runs raid "out of the box"
   
4. easy to configure and run (more on this below)
5. works well with windows networks (XP at least, I had problems with Vista, which was one of the reasons I moved completely to Linux)
6. well maintained, many updates.

Let me start with the last point first. There are almost literally a million Linux distributions out there. Many of them are very specialized, many of them are a hobby of a small group of people. SME has a large group of people working on constantly improving it. The really cool thing about open source software is that any programmer anywhere can look at the program and improve it. The more eyes looking at a project, the faster it improves. Also, because so many eyes are looking at it, it is much harder to bugger it up by adding spyware, etc. The rule of large groups says most people are very reasonable, "it is the few that spoil it for the many". or to state it more directly, any sufficiently large group tends to act to its collective best interest.
While I consider myself fairly computer savvy, I am not a computer tech. I can follow instructions, but I don't want to spend all my time configuring or fixing my system. now that may seem a bit strange considering how I have my Ubuntu desktop setup, but while I like eye-candy, I do just want it to work!

On to point 5. did I say Vista sucks for networking? In fact Samba (the Linux version of MS Windows networking) is better at networking than the Windows it is supposed to be copying. Also Linux (and Unix that it was originally based on) were designed from inception to be network aware. Permissions, user groups, etc are much easier to manage on a Unix based system. SME servers shows up in windows XP as a shared network drive. Same for my Ubuntu. Apparently OSX is supported as well, but I have not tested this. FYI an SME installation is seen from Vista, but Vista is not able to log on without a lot of hoop jumping, and the final straw was that all these hoops had to be jumped through every time I accessed the drive. I could not find any way to get Vista to save my settings. Just frustrating.

And finally, a note on RAID. If you don't know what it is, it is basically an instant backup of everything you store. All files are stored on both of the two (or more, but that gets a bit more complicated to explain) installed hard drives. If one drive fails, you still have all your data backed up on the second drive. You can take out the bad drive, install a new one, and the system will rebuild itself. You can read more here

New Images up

OK, I got a few new images up...
check them out.

new stuff

OK, I have neglected this site again. I do plan on adding some more photos on my website soon, so please be patient...
as a teaser here is one I took today

one post per month?

Wow, a whole month has passed.
I went down to Port Angeles to visit a friend. We did some hiking and I ended up with these images...

A forest photo

I was out in a local park and found this image


I think it has potential.

Paths to Creativity

The Online Photographer has an interesting article on creativity and art education. I can relate. I did go to photo college, and I like to think that I have used some of that education in a lot of the jobs I have worked at throughout the years. I think art school helps fan the creative flames. For me it confirmed that I enjoy photography, and that I do have some talent.

new photo

Low Tide, and a day off, and I found this scene.
It is a bit different from my usual minimalist approach, but I like it. I want to see how it looks big, say around 20"x30".
I am also thinking of starting a line of greeting cards. I will post any appropriate links here soon...

The Drive Home

Last night on the way home from dropping off my kids, I set up a camera to try to capture the drive home.
so far this is my favorite:



This photo is quite simple, but I think next time, I will try to include less of the dashboard. (I still like the gauges showing though) and I will have to mount the tripod a bit differently so the dash is sharper, less motion blur...

Another one from the series I like is this one:



You can even see a star trail in the center.
I have more in my experiments album.

One of the nice things about digital is that these experiments are very cheap. One of the problems with digital, at least with this camera (Fuji S2) is that it used a dark frame subtraction to get rid of chip noise. This means that for every exposure of say 15 seconds, the camera takes another shot with the shutter closed and then calculates the chip generated noise and removes it from the original shot. While this gives very low noise and smooth night time images, the camera is not ready for the next shot until this second "exposure" is done. In other words a 15 second exposure takes 30 seconds until the camera is ready for the next shot.
For the technically curious, there is no other noise reduction on these images. One has a little sharpening, and they both have a bit of colour tweaking, but the S2 is great for night shots.

On a funny note, (funny - strange coincidence not funny - Ha Ha) I noticed that the odometer is almost at the same spot (53,000 and change) as this shot in my last car:



Now for a trivia question: Both the cars in these shots are the same model, but different years. Any guesses?

World Press Photos

The 2007 World Press Photo Awards have been announced.

So far my favorite is this image of struggling against all odds.

And there are a lot more very amazing images.

Self Plagiarizing Artist

I came across this artists site the other day, and it got me thinking yet again about plagiarism.
If you did not know the first series of fingerprints, for example, were all taken by the same artist, you would call it plagiarism. But what if you see this idea and come up with a concept of your own, say using spaghetti. Is that plagiarism?
This site at least credits the originals, so I guess that is not plagiarism...
I decided that it was time to get a definition of this plagiarism concept...

Plagiarism is the unauthorized use or close imitation of the language and thoughts of another author and the representation of them as one's own original work. Unlike cases of forgery, in which the authenticity of the writing, document, or some other kind of object, itself is in question, plagiarism is concerned with the issue of false attribution.

(from wikipedia)

It is also interesting to note that this definition and the concept behind it are under dispute.

From my understanding, almost all the issues of plagiarism deal with the written word. Taking a quote out of context, publishing another authors work, etc.

But back to my opening argument. Since the first photographer mentioned above did a series of images relating science to unrelated physical objects, no one else can do this ever again? How sad. And further to that, if you had never seen these photos and you created something similar, how can you be held responsible for plagiarism?
I argue that as human beings living in a society where communication is only getting wider and more open, we almost always use ideas of others to build up our own, either consciously or not.
Back to photography, when you are shooting an image (here the term shooting includes pre-visualization, image design/creation, or any other term used by other photographers through the ages, and for that matter artists back even farther...) do you not try to remember how other photographers/artists have approached similar problems? Use other peoples ideas and concepts to enhance your own approach? I don't think there is an artist of any medium who has not studied his peers and the masters of his craft. That is how we learn.
I guess my problem is that I don't see a clean separation between learning from past masters, homage to past masters, and stealing from past masters. Maybe I see plagiarism as a whining,"you took my idea and did it better, how dare you" or "my interpretation is better than yours, nyah nyah"
If someone were to take one of my photos and improve on what I was trying to say, I would be honored (I am tempted to bold, highlight, and set neon lights around "improve") All I ask is that they show me the work afterwords so I, in turn, can learn from them.
Ooohhh, THAT is what plagiarism is:

Plagiarism is the using of ideas without respect or honor for the people who helped you get past certain problems

Ok, I guess now I should start my list of people who have influenced my photography... on second thought, it would sound too much like an Oscar acceptance speech... I know who you are... Thanks

Plagiarism in Photography

There has been a bit of talk on The Online Photographer about photographic plagiarism. I don't think this is possible. I remember in photo school, one of the studio assignments was to find a photo and recreate it. It was a lesson in lighting, composition, and large format technique (ok, it covered a lot of bases...)
I learned a lot from this... It is surprisingly hard to copy a scene. First you need to analyze the camera angle, depth of field, lens etc. Then you need to analyze the quality and direction of light. It is not a trivial matter to recreate the scene.
I also found out that "copying" someone else is a good starting point for your own creativity. For the above assignment, I made a completely different photo that reflected a lot more of my own personality.
This brings us to the root of my argument. Photography as an art form reflects the personality of the artist/photographer. No two people have the same personality (ok, some people have the same lack of personality, but that is a different problem...).
Now, outside of the studio, in the "real" world two photographers can be standing in the same spot and see different scenes, I am sure we all have experiences here. I remember shooting with a friend. We both stopped at the same scene but we only had one sheet of film between us (we were sharing a 4x5 camera). We both agreed on placement of the camera, but I saw a vertical, while my friend saw a horizontal. We shot wide and later in the darkroom printed our individual crops. They were both strong interpretations of the scene.
but lets assume, for the sake of argument that two photographers see the same scene, or it is a well photographed scene. Why are these two photographers shooting the scene? At the risk of sounding like a bad art critic, what is their motivation? If the motivation is just to record the scene, what exactly is being plagiarized? the scene itself? If the motivation is to emulate another photographer, where can you draw the line between plagiarism and learning from a master?
The cliche about imitation and flattery comes to mind.
There is also the adage about nothing new under the sun...

But now we get to the legal aspect. I am not a lawyer, and I have not discussed this with anyone with legal knowledge, but my opinion of the situation is this: If you have a great photographic idea, and I copy it and I make a ton of money from it, where do you stand? Should you get a payment from me? Why? If the original idea is so great and worthy of recognition (by cash or fame) why did you not profit? Art is not like other commodities. You cannot undercut price, each creation is an original. (I am not talking about re photographing other prints, which would violate copyright) If I am a better marketer than you, should I not get paid better? If I refine your idea closer to my ideas, should I not benefit?
Now, if the images are so close, such as some of those in question, then I argue that the photograph is just a recording of the original scene and doesn't have any intrinsic value. Anyone could come by and capture the image.
Photography, in my mind is about extracting the essential elements from the world around us. These essential elements vary according to the message we want to say. If your message is, "I really respect Edward Weston, and I would be honored to try and emulate his approach to photographing peppers", great. If your message is "I think that photo is very banal and simple to copy", is your opinion less valuable? Your opinion may not be popular, your opinion may be naive, but one of the huge values of art is the possibility to have your own opinion.
So is plagiarism possible in photography? Is plagiarism possible in opinions? Can you really copy a true piece of art?