Sometimes nothing seems to move. Everybody is pushing for something, everything, now or sooner. And it gets past the point when it matters. A sort of a post stress status where the things that really matter reclaim the center stage they've been patiently waiting for. The evenings out here are waiting to be rediscovered. They won't wait for ever.

Well, here we are again. Five months off-air and nothing to show for it. I originally took the whole site offline because it was just getting too much to manage. Then I decided to do a complete redesign. The trouble is, this is actually a pretty complex site, with quite a lot of legacy, and I just could not work out a strategy, let alone a design. I considered splitting it into two parts, but that means extra hassle and extra work. I considered moving it to a different host, but after signing up, I discovered that the new host didn't support remote login to MySQL (bloody stupid), so that was the end of that. Finally it seems easier to go with the flow. Maybe I'll find a way to switch from MovableType, which really a pain in the neck, to something more manageable. Maybe I'll just fiddle at the edges. But hopefully I will be more active.

Well, time of reflection and all that, so here is a bit of seasonal philosophising. In the last couple of weeks, I've been spending quite a lot of time on Flickr. Previously, I bought into the "old world", i.e pre-2005 Internet, that Flickr was just full of here-is-my-cat, here-is-me-unpacking-my-iMac, and hopeless holiday snapshots from the world of oblique horizons. Fueled by writings such as Mike Johnson's amusing parody, I, and I suspect others, felt a smug sense of superiority over these "newbies". Well, guess what:

Wrong. Wrong. Wrong

There is some utterly fantastic work on Flickr, and the scary thing is, it is almost infinite. It certainly seems that digital photography has opened the floodgates, and brought forth a flood of creativity. Flickr has spawned true media megastars, such as Iceland's Rebekka Guðleifsdóttir, but also countless other wonderfully creative artists. Here's just a few I've discovered, pretty much through random walks through comment trees: Helga Kvam - also from Iceland. Graham Foster, from Wales. James Vornov, from the USA. Whimsical Chris Hawkins, from the UK, or all over the world Agata, discovered through Chris, from the UK The list is basically endless. Every day, new people join, new people upload photos, and new discoveries are made. So what to make of all this creativity ? The urge to be recognised is a strong character trait, particularly evident in creative people. But in Flickr, you can drown in creativity. Nobody has time to recognize you. A few people, like _rebekka, will get huge recognition. It is difficult to avoid saying that the fact that she is female, attractive, and quite exotic does not do her any harm, but at the same time, she's hardly lacking in talent or originality. Compare her work, or that of countless others, with the self-styled "fine art photographers" who's pompous web sites proclaim their various unique visions. Are these "artists" better ? Nope. They're actually quite often dull, pretentious, very boring, and very irrelevant. Ok, so that's another gross generalisation, but to be honest, there are plenty of photos on Flickr I'd rather look at than the average "fine art portfolio". There is also a refreshing lack of gear addiction on Flickr, at least that I've noticed. You get the occasional "did you take that with you 20D" comment, which can probably be translated as "could you post a topless self-portrait please", but in general, the great leveler of (more or less) 800 x 600 pixels sure adds a touch of democracy to the proceedings. There is a real spirit of experimentation, of trying things out in public, which is infective. I've certainly published stuff on my Flickr photostream which I probably would not have published here. Flickr is endless and full of stars, and actually, it isn't even the only universe (although it probably works better than the rest). I feel very diminished in this company, probably at best a very, very dim flicker in a far off corner. But it really feels good to cut loose from the remaining aspirations to "fine art".

Last week I visited the Shell BBC Wildlife Photographer of the Year show in London (you can try the link, but the site seems to be almost always down - total incompetence). I've never been to any of these shows before, although I've obviously seen the books. I was struck by three things. First, although the standard is incredibly high from a technical point of view, from an artistic point of view it is pretty dull. Obviously there are some exceptions, but I really got the feeling that the jury was making awards based more on difficulty, novelty, and perhaps zoology, than photography. The winning photo, of a walrus foraging on the ocean floor off the coast of Greenland was obviously extremely difficult and dangerous to take. It is a remarkable document of animal behaviour. But is it a good photo ? I'm not so sure. There isn't much to commend it on the standard criteria of composition etc, and the photographer himself states that it was pure luck, and he didn't even realise he'd taken it - or indeed, if I understand correctly, that it was possible to take it. So as a document, it stands - like a snapshot of Elvis climbing out of crashed flying saucer - but as a photograph, especially if there was no actual intention to take this image, well I'm not exactly a highly qualified critic, but I'm uneasy. The displays showing the works of young photographers (is this a characteristically British thing ?) were impressive. But again, to be harsh, were they good photography ? Most, if analysed, seemed to be the work of highly pampered kids (how many get a Nikon D80 or similar and get taken on Safaris in Africa ?) who may, or may not, have had the shot pretty much set up for them. I'm not saying they are worthless - I'd be happy to have taken any of those photos - but they seem to say more about the ruthless efficiency of the DSLR, and the wealth of a small minority of people, than much else. The final rant follows on from this: in parallel, the British newspapers were full of Tony Blair & co. cashing in on the latest climate warnings. Now, regardless that Blair's take on this is possibly the most cynical piece of hypocrisy I've ever seen, would it not seem a bit uncomfortable that shows such as the Shell Wildlife Photographer of the Year are implicitly encouraging a mass growth in worldwide tourism ? How about weighting entrants on the basis of how far they travelled to take their photos ? Andy Rouse felt compelled to enter a penguin photo - fair enough, but the most remarkable photos I've seen from him in the past year were his kingfisher studies, taken with cycling distance of his home, I believe. If the awards are to focus on Wildlife rather than Photography, then it would be nice to see some evidence that responsible behaviour towards the environment is taken into account. After, Shell spends millions on adverts convincing us of its environmental responsibility. And pays for these adverts through sales of vast amounts of aviation fuel....

Well, the speculation is ramping up on what Olympus will or will not deliver at Photokina. I don't particularly care, as I can't afford it anyway. But it will be interesting to see if Olympus are still interested in anything approaching the pro DSLR market. There's a lot of talk about what MUST be provided and how "Oly" (or "OLY" for the more Neanderthal) has to do X, Y, or Z, or else the writer will "leave". Ho hum. Since the various fora represent probably around 1%, if that, of Olympus DSLR owners, and are by defintion dominated by geeks and nerds, rather than photographers (yes, thanks, I do appreciate I'm in the same boat), the relevance of all this venting is, frankly, low. Not as low as the relevance of this column, however, and that isn't going to stop me listing, for the benefit of my 3 readers, what I would not give up. These are the basic features which convinced me to buy an E-1, and which I expect as a baseline in whatever comes to replace it, if anything:

• Clear, bright (for a DSLR), 100% coverage viewfinder (short of top end Canikons, nothing else on the market has this)
• Interchangeable finder screens
• Weatherproof
• Dust shaker
• Superb ergonomics
• Quiet shutter / mirror

And these are the improvements I would like to see, in something close to the same body:

• Better autofocus. Much better. More AF points, more sensitive, and more reactive
• Larger screen, with instant histogram display
• Permanent ISO display in viewfinder - even better: user configurable viewfinder display
• Better high ISO performance: 1 stop would be ok, 2 better. (i.e, current ISO 400 quality at ISO 1600)
• More resolution: ability to print at A3+ at 240dpi without too much upsizing, so around 10Mpix, but 8Mpix would be ok.

And if I don't get everything I DEMAND, then I'M LEAVING!