where to live

Victoria usually has two seasons, summer and rain. Spring and fall tend to merge. We "never" get a winter.
This year we got a winter


As a consequence, we are now having an "ugly" season. The flowers are just barely coming up, but the mud left from the floods and rain is still covering much of the ground.

So as I was out for a walk the other day, I was speculating on where would be an interesting place to live. I have never been up north. A place lijke Dawson Creek, or Yellowknife would be interesting. I understand there are some downsides, but it would be fun to live there for a couple of years anyway...

Or maybe I am just too romantic...

More on Plagiarism

... and yet another post on plagiarism.

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.

They are coming out of the woodwork

Maybe it is just a figment of my overstretched imagination, but plagiarism seems to be a hot topic.
There is a discussion on, of all places, slashdot. Maybe this all a consequence of some of the more ridiculous copyright and patent laws being presented. (I won't provide any examples, as there are way to many to choose from...) or the perception of loss of personal freedom, especially in the USA.

My father had a (tongue in cheek) saying, plagiarized from some unknown person no doubt, "What's yours in mine, and what's mine is none of your business". That seems to be a prevalent opinion of many. I can learn from you, I can take your ideas and expand on them, but you cannot copy my ideas. Maybe that is one reason I really like the open source software movement. This movement basically says we, as a society, are much stronger when we collaborate and share ideas.

Maybe as a society we need to grow up and become less petty. Just let me keep all my ideas to myself...

With due respect to pollock

Do you need to waste some internet time?
try this site to create a Jackson Pollock homage
or here to make one of your drawings dance (with a million of their friends)

but now I have to get back to work...

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