Well, here is my first post on this blog for about 6 months. Having resurrected the site, I had to spend some time reversing out of some changes I'd made which in particular affected this blog. As I wrote elsewhere, I've decided to drop the major makeover and just make detail improvements when time allows. I'm not terribly happy with the site, especially with the design of the photo galleries, which is really getting creaky, but for now it will have to do. In the interim I haven't had a lot of time for photography, but I did end up buying an Olympus E-400. You can see some photos from it here (and many more, for now, on my Flickr pages). I was quite smitten by the E-400 the first time I picked it up. Reverting back to a "classic" shape has allowed Olympus to create a DSLR much smaller than most others, but without sacrificing handling, at least for me. It has more or less replaced the E-1, as really there is little if anything that the E-1 does significantly better. It is a little more fiddly than the E-1 in manual mode, due to the lack of a second dial, and things like DOF preview are awkward. But the image quality more than makes up for it, and when paired with the 14-45mm lens, it really is a quite practical "take it anywhere" DSLR. It doesn't _quite_ fit in a pocket, but it isn't far off. The screen menu easily makes up for the lack of a settings panel. The fast access to parameters, and the clever way in which you can go deeper into options settings if you need to, but have the basics right up front, is really excellent. Ok, dedicated buttons for things like ISO, AF mode, drive mode, etc, are certainly very nice to have, but you can't have such a compact body as well as all the E-1 buttons and controls, and the compromises that are made are made very well. To be honest, it doesn't quite have the "wow" factor that the E-1's ergonomics and handling gives me and many others, but for every day use, it is really a very fine camera, and one which, unlike say the Nikon D40, caters for beginners, without in any way ruling out advanced users. I'll post more on the E-400 in weeks to come.

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.

Lightroom doesn't quite hit the target as a DAM yet. And it isn't quite as useful as Photoshop/Camera Raw for RAW processing. I'm on record as being somewhat skeptical about the principal LR enthusiasts, as they almost all have a vested interest (books, DVDs) etc, and I find it unlikely that they're really as deeply into LR as they say they are in their real work. However...as far as I can see, there isn't anything better. There are alternatives, and all have their pros & cons. LR 1.0 is a leading RAW converter with some interesting extras tagged on - but it doesn't really match the marketing hyperbole. For DAM, iView MediaPro is, or possibly was, a much better solution, apart from one major, major flaw - it can't handle versions - and one less major flaw, that it is all a bit clunky and old fashioned. The versions limitation can be worked around in a very clumsy way using multiple catalogs, but the potential for screwups is all too high, and iView's rather arcane terminology doesn't help. The worst thing about iView is that since acquisition by Microsoft, the priority appears to be rebadging rather than investing into turining it into a real competitor. The future does not look promising for "Expression Media" as a pro tool. There just isn't really a solution yet. I've invested in LR in the hope that it will improve. The fact that is is sickeningly overhyped does not blind me to the fact that it has an excellent engineering and product management team behind it. Aperture is, in theory, better, IF you like it's non-workflow approach (I do), if you have a Mac (I do) and if you have the patience of a saint (I don't) and can put up with it's very limited range of RAW format support (I can't). Great concept though, but somehow it doesn't seem that Apple is nimble enough to turn it into a winner.

Following on my recent posts about Flickr, and reading some of the comments generated on other blogs, I noticed a strange thing. There are quite a few erudite photography blogs out there, with excellent photography and informed, intelligent discussion - Colin Jago's photostream just to name one. However, the gender distribution in these circles is approximately 100% male. On the other hand, whilst this is not in any way statistically sound, I can't help noticing that on Flickr, there is an extremely strong representation of highly talented women photographers. I've mentioned a few before, but here are a few others well worth a look, all with a very different feel: Esther Hernandez, who is most definitely carving out a strong personal style; Salbjörg Rita Jónsdóttir, a media arts student who is equally at home with striking, stylised portraits as well as original takes on landscape; Agnieszka, who perhaps approximates closest to the "photoblog self-documentation" style; Yubi4, who seems to carry her camera everywhere, and produces a stream of visual consciousness. I really could go on adding to the list for hours, but what you will not find here, either in the descriptions or the comments, is any discussion of gear beyond a brief note in a profile, or an automated EXIF tag, or indeed any discussion of art or higher meaning. True, the format encourages rapid turnover, and is not really geared to thoughtful debate, but whilst the male members of Flickr do, often, try to present themselves as terribly interesting artists, the women, on the whole, just get on with it. Much of the debate between us men about both gear and art, and musings about technique and deeper meanings does seem to just go in circles (or explode into flame wars...). Why, I wonder, do we let this talking about photography take so much of our time away from us ? Why do we have this urge to verbalise so much ? Are we so insecure ? Side note: the recent Lightroom podcast by the tireless George Jardine, interviewing Maggie Taylor and Jerry Uelsmann seems to reinforce the point. Uelsmann went on and on (and on) about himself, his art, his inspiration, etc etc, whilst Taylor hardly got a word in edgeways, and when she did, she tended more to talk about more down to earth matters. They're both interesting, talented artists, but Taylor seems to be much more content to just let her work speak for itself.

As you explore photo sharing sites such as Flickr (and probably Smugmug, PBase, etc etc) it is interesting to observe the pattern of comments on posted photos. It is a cliché that all comments on these sites don't venture far from "kool capture thanx for posting", and whilst the overwhelming majority are terse one liners, generally posted in the hope of attracting attention to one's self, some do have a degree of content (note that attracting attention to one's self is what such sites are about...and, frankly, when you strip away the layers of pseudo-intellectualism, it is what most photography is about too). Photos get a higher profile based on the number of comments they attract. Since the churn rate is so huge, for a photo to stand out, it really has to grab attention. Often you come across comments such as these from photographers "This photo didn't get as much attention as others, so I am glad you liked too!", attached to very interesting shots. The photographer is puzzled that other shots, which seemed less good, got far more feedback. Essentially it comes down to the short-term effect of these sites: visitors are presented with such an overwhelming choice, that they rarely accord more than a few seconds to each photo. Therefore, attention grabbing photos are going to get a higher profile than subtle ones, and therefore, knowing, attention grabbing photographers are going to concentrate on this sort of shot. Of course, to be a high rated photographer on Flickr it does not do any harm at all to be attractive, young, female, and not averse to posting a high volume of self-portraits :-p (I do wonder if certain photographers who fit that description are not tempted to post a completely banal photo, just to watch it rack up 100 comments rom a bunch of sad, lusting sycophants) Such is the influence of Flickr et al on the general public's view of what makes a good photo, I would not be surprised if this starts to have a wider effect. How would Michael Kenna fare on Flickr ? Not too well, I fear. Hey, but it's fun. To illustrate: this photo, which I'm quite pleased with, has so far received 10 views and 0 comments: Whereas this postcard shot is 49 people's favorite, has 643 views, and 26 comments go figure....