Still waiting for Photosynth 1.0 and now they're dangling 2.0 as well

I wrote about Photosynth last year, with great excitement and at great length I might add (with too much length and excitement some of you might add) and after all this waiting and not seeing anything come out of it, I'm now getting all excited for the next evolution of this software.

The idea of a individual documentation being universally chained and bound to create a richer, deeper and more informative tapestry is exciting. And the new transition structure and ability to navigate "key frames" (my term, not theirs) around public images opens up whole new methods for structure and navigation. Plus now you don't just point at stuff and zoom around, now you actually walk though it in near real-time.

(Awesome!)

Check it out in the video below (I'd say more, but I really can't add to anything I didn't say last year.)



If that video wasn't enough for you, check out the SIGGRAPH 2008 conference paper the team submitted for all the jargon filled goodness.

Oh MS, I have a sneaking suspicion you're just using this as tech demos that will be implemented in other products (MS Live Maps anyone? Google Maps street view killer perhaps?)-- why do I let you rile me all up and get excited? Why?!

I finally get Twitter! I believe! I believe!

I was an early adopter of Twitter, signing up for it in the wake of the buzz it created at South by Southwest 2007, but I didn’t write anything for a couple weeks, unsure of what I could use it for or even who would care what I had to say.

At the time I was working at the Santa Cruz Sentinel as a shooter and Ryan was over in the web department making waves, so being old friends we naturally seek each other out to shoot the breeze for a moment or two each day.

One day the topic of Twitter came up and while we were both trying to figure out what was the best use for it, it was decided that I should at least post something instead of leaving it blank. So for about the next 11 months my status remained “I’m part of the Ryan Sholin generation” (an inside joke).

That was until a few weeks ago when I finally added it to my phone and started updating via text. All of a sudden Twitter made sense.

See the part that bugged me was having to sit at a computer to update, it didn’t make any sense when I already had a Facebook status bar for that. But now I was updating 2,4, 10 times a day from my phone and interacting with people all day via my phone.

I’m finally seeing the amazing power Twitter can wield and how it is/can be the tool we’ve been seeking at newspapers to help us reach out to people and have that dialogue that will make the newsroom interactive.

I’ve often said the future of news is a back and forth between the public and the professional staff, and if used correctly Twitter can take us one step closer toward that goal. (And why is this a goal? Because it’s human nature, we don’t want to just be talked at, we want to talk back. That’s why Web 2.0, maybe just Web at this point, has taken off. And it‘s always been that way from the get go, i.e. Geocities and Anglefire, vBulletin.)

With this tool and the publics love of cell phones, we've suddenly opened up a new means of direct communication with the public. It makes sense, everyone text messages right? I could go and point tothe stats, but anyone that has visited a movie theater know it's true.

Much like RSS feeds, Newsrooms can set up Twitter feeds to alert readers to new content. The President just declared war in Iran, ding! readers know of it right away and rush to read about it on your site thanks to the attached hyperlink. It can even go deeper with specific feeds for specific topics, such as sports (Sharks just got knocked out of the playoff 30 secs ago), weather (dust storms from China sweeping in, it's a Clean Air Day) or traffic (wreck on 101, take 280 instead). And all along, you're building brand recognition and loyalty. Not to mention fulfilling the newspapers role as a community commodity.

Reporters could look to it for story ideas in their beats-- lots of rumors about a new iPhone, maybe the tech writer should look into it. It's almost like watching the ticker in the old days for surges in "key words" like "flash flood" or "New Orleans is under water."

And that reporter, once they land the interview with Apple CEO Steve Jobs to talk about the iPhone rumors, can allow the public to submit ideas for questions they want answered. That's what ReadWriteWeb, a popular tech blog, did to learn that data portability was the topic of interest for readers looking forward to their interview with Mark Zuckerberg at SXSW. Readers got to have a say in content while still letting the person of authority hold on to the reins. This allows readers to participate in newsroom 2.0, become invested in the result of the story (readership baby!) and still keeps the professionals in a position to accurately and responsibly report.

We can debate weather the questions were good or not in the YouTube debates, but I think we all agree it was a good idea to get the public involved, and besides the journalist is still the watchdog. Joe Schmo can never replace the ethically trained professional.

Then it's also help just to talk to your network for ideas on things to do when your in a new city (like I did in DC).

Even use it instead of text messaging in case you lose your phone to let people know you lost your phone (you won't exactly have all those numbers off the top of your head).

Twitter can also be set up as a plug in tool for other sites and used to update them. Such as the GoogleMaps mashup that allowed Twitter users on Super Tuesday to "tweet" in where they voted, who they voted for and any other comments they wished to share.

And if none of that sounds interesting, you can always just use it to get out of jail.

Twitter allows everyone to submit one stitch to the quilt, one verse to the rhyme, one dime to the march. It’s the delivery mechanism that will finally take us one step closer toward the promise of Newsroom 2.0.

I’m finally seeing Twitter for the tool it can be.

It’s exciting.

Strobist thought it was cool...

Ran into a big hunk of equipment complications today, basically I need a portable power pack, and so in my research I ended up heading over to see what ol' man David Hobby, aka the Strobist guy, was up to these days.

I see he's posted this video for Canadian rock group "Aquaplane" which was composed entirely out of still photographs.



The video, IMHO, is a utter failure, or as you l33t speakers say: an epic fail (seriously, when did that become a popular saying?!). It's not for the photos or the production value, it's because the style of the video does not match the band or the song. That old wisdom, it can look cool, but if it doesn't tell the story it ain't worth $#!t holds true here.

Nevertheless, this does give me an opportunity to start thinking about new tools for multimedia and how we can tell our stories with different techniques.

The process they are employing here is an old one. Basically a sense of depth and movement is created by placing different visual elements on different planes and then moving a camera in zooms and pans about the scene to give it that "inside the image" illusion.

Walt Disney first employed it in Bambi, by animating multiple glass plates with different layers of the forest and then sliding them in and out as the camera tracked in on the action. The result was very much the same and it never really moved beyond animation or Magic Eye toys until Adobe created After Effects and some animators and photo guys got curious. (In the simplest of terms you're cutting out each element and then placing it on a different layer that you can then slide around at various speeds in front of a camera.)

Recently I've seen the famous 1976 do this to great effect (1976 is also why I know so much about how it's done since I was obsessed with reverse-engineering it) and also the opening credits of the TV show "How I meet your mother" uses it as well.



In the last couple months I've seen lots of new developments in multimedia tools: Vumox, Animoto, PhotoSynth (still looks promising) and the video flash players keep evolving (the new BlipTV looks nothing like the old one)... and now that many of us have gotten past the hurdle of just learning how to do it, we can start thinking about how we present it.

Maybe After Effects is the next program to learn...

Finally a use for Twitter I understand

Scrolling by Google Maps the other day, continuing with my OCD fueled need to always check the maps before heading out for an assignment, I noticed a little button for Super Tuesday elections.



I thought about writing something about how Twitter and Google teamed up to produce this real-time update of election proceedings with Twitter comments feed to the map along with primary results as they come in. Hey, finally a use for Twitter I understand!

But then I saw this comment fly across the map and luckily I was able to quickly get a screen capture because it's way cooler!

It may be hard to read, but user "JPhilipson" of Hawaii is Twittering "When does Hawaii have their primary?"

A valid question or subversive humor of an outlander feeling left out?

It's a new age, just your average Joe is now able to chime in and be heard, and become more than just a consumer but share in the dialouge.

Plus it's a document of history and that's pretty cool in my book.

Organizing photos goes all Philip K. Dick

I don't write about technology often, I know, this coming from the guy that posts about video-hosting websites, new cameras, RAW processing and Microsoft's table computer thing, but honest I don't do it often, check!

Anywho I was looking at the Natchway speech from the TED awards again, and I saw this other video on the site for a software application called Photosynth, which presents us with a new way of organizing, manipulating and viewing digital images.



(They were recently acquired by Microsoft as well... It looks like Microsoft is positioning itself as a major player in digital imaging?)

Pretty amazing right?

I think it's cool to think about organizing and being able to move stuff around and arrange your files in a GUI that's both slick and fast, not to mention the amazingly innovative and revolutionary idea of, as its creator Blaise Aguera y Arcas calls it "creating hyperlinks between images" based on the content of those pictures. Which is like the Google Maps new local pictures tab (which got into some trouble) but ten times cooler!

Still not getting it?

Imagine all the pictures on Flickr of the Golden Gate bridge being combined to create a mosic of images rendered into a 3-D space that you as the user are free to move around, zoom in and out off, click on any point to see a real picture of that point, from that point and from virtually every angle allowing for you to generally direct your own unique navigational experience though the collection.

This is revolutionary and can change the way we store and call up information.

It creates a "collective memory" of the real world space and archives it for anyone looking to see it.

Think of it as a visual wiki (btw, if that term catches on, I coined it!)

I've seen some baby steps made into this area in journalism with data based multimedia, most notably Andrew DeVigal is steering some really intertesting experiments in this area at the New York Times, but after seeing Photosynth in action, it only hints at the potential and challenges us to go much further.

What I find really interesting

Now this is all new and as you can see, quite fascinating (for me) and "from the world of tomorrow!", but what I find to be really the most interesting thing is what's found at 1:42 of the video.

The video goes on to show how this technology is so developed for image processing and delivery, that it can not only store entire novels, but also newspapers; that can be zoomed in and out of and navigated from pages within a section or other sections all together within seconds. (Look just watch the video, I'm never going to do it justice by trying to describe it.)

My pal Ryan's been talking about e-Paper for a while and how it's going to replace printed newspapers, well, as much as I'll miss the smell of ink (maybe they can sell it in a mist?) and tearing out interesting articles, pictures, comics and ads that I'll want to place in my sketchbook or research more about (maybe e-Paper can come with del.icio.us.) I can't deny it.

E-paper is coming, assuming RSS and online delivery doesn't replace it as wi-fi comes to cell phones and everything from a PSP to TiVo to refrigerators with built-in screens (I've still got one on reserve Hanna ;) are starting to connect to the web and offer information everywhere anytime whenever.

I can see e-paper and something like photosynth combining and giving us the next newspaper, or newspaper 2.0 or whatever the techie marketers will call it.

What I find really-really interesting

Ok, that's what I find to be really fascinating, but what I find to be really-really fascinating is the new forms of multimedia we can produce with this technology on newspapers.

Yes folks, this is the most important part and the ideas that I think are relevent to our industry and to me as a photographer and new-media thinker.

Say we're sent out to cover another protest story (yes, another one) and we're looking for a new angle (just to challenge ourselves if nothing else) and of course if you're anything like me, you're thinking multimedia. So why not cover the protest and get all the killer pictures you always do (you're so good) and of course we'll get the ambient sounds and interviews (of course) but what about the presentation?

Many of us just throw it in soundslides or edit a video in Final Cut, Premier Pro or iMovie, but we never really think about presentation or what sort of interface the viewer will use to engage with our work.

Some of this can be caulked up to time constraints and impeding deadlines (I know every time I've done multimedia it's always been on my own time) but a larger reason is that everyone already at a paper is so busy trying to learn the new programs and tools used to make these new things that no one is thinking about how to show them off... because Flash is hard and many papers don't have multimedia editors (yet) to budget for these things.

So I'm looking at Photosynth and I'm thinking of that protest story and I'm getting excited thinking about all the possibilities.

Like rendering the photos into a 3-D environment and interviews could be mapped to the subjects with a picture of them where they were in the 3-D space when you spoke to them and then map the ambient sounds to their sources within the environment. Birds chirping in the tree, the plane flying over at the end of the street, the ding-dong of the cross walk sign, the wheels of the skateboard from that kid on the sidewalk...

This could allow letting people navigate their own way through the story and find interviews and story blocks and pictures in completely unique and innovative ways.

Copy from a story could show up in newspaper boxes, posters on walls could link to related stories, zooming out to a birds eye view could turn the scene into info graphics or other data-based multimedia).

And we can then take it one step further by inviting the public to submit their pictures from the event to further develop the archive of the collective memory.

How cool is that?

I know some folks on photo staffs will hear things like this and fear it, but I say embrace it. Embrace it before the kid fresh out of college (me) embraces it and comes into your newsroom.

Want more? Here's NASA's take on it.

There isn't any reason why we shouldn't be doing this.

Newspaper's biggest failure and for some reason we continue to ignore it

The biggest failure of the newspaper industry has been failing to change and adapt with its audience.

We all say that readership is down and that newspapers are dying (a moment of silence for our brothers and sisters at the Dallas Morning News) and frankly subscribers are dying (old age) and we aren't getting new ones.

At the same time we run stories about how the youth market is watching, reading and buying less traditional media (TV, newspapers and CDs) and is instead turning to new-media (YouTube, GoogleNews and iTunes), but somehow while we are writing these stories and recognizing these trends we are not actually applying the lessons to our bussiness models!

WTF?

Why am I bringing this up? Because apparently it's not as obvious as I thought it was.

And I'm getting fed of of trying to convey this fact.

The newspapers of the future are Facebook, MySpace and other social networking sites. Because think about the function of a newspaper. Newspapers have always been meant to serve as a central hub of information for a community, to document, report and investigate the daily goings on and inform the people with a balance of the "want to know" and "need to know."

Where is that happening today in the desired 18-35 market today but on social networking sites?

It's not too late, we can still save newspapers, but we have to stop living in denial and embrace the change.

No one can do this better than newspapers, let's get out act together before someone else learns how.

The wake up call has been ringing for years, maybe it's time we stop hitting snooze?

I have some ideas on how to start fixing things, but I've been told I write to much, so I'll save it for a future post.

Rant over.

(And yes, this may quite possibly be one of the shortest posts on SLR ever.)

Photoshop on your iPhone!

Awesome! Now you can edit photos on the go, and it's the same complete version as your laptop/desktop!

Double awesome!!

Another one bites the dust

No I'm not talking about Alberto Gonzales and the mass exodus of the Bush administration, I'm talking about my laptop battery.

Yup, it can't hold a charge anymore, and I've been very limited in my online time. Darn.

I thought that only happened to Apple folks, seriously how many of you have not had to change the battery yet? And no I'm not Apple bashing, I'm just saying I'd rather spend $300 less on my tools.

But that's not all folks... on my other laptop I now have two half-inch long bars of dead pixels. This thing was brand new in February, WTF!

And finally, oh yes the computer woos continue, on my work issued laptop (this one's an Apple BTW) the screen degrades into a blurry pixelated mush every time I bring it out of sleep mode. No one knows what's going on, but fellow ABQ Journal staffer Richard Pipes thinks it may have taken a bad fall in Iraq (great, even my laptop is a better traveling than me).

Yay technology!

Blogopaloza, it's del.icio.us!

This is my pledge to you, I will post something new everyday for the next two weeks.

Why? I'm curious to see what happens.

Also, late last year I finally added my del.icio.us feed to SLR, you can find it in the column on the right, just scroll down a bit.

I've been posting a lot of items to it fairly regularly, using it for the stories and topics that I think are interesting but don't warrant a full blown post, plus it let's me make my smart @$$ one liners!

Check it out if you like what I write about, like how I think, have a similar sense of humor or are just curious to see what shapes my crazy thoughts.

That's that for now, I'm off onto another assignment.

Stay Tuned.

It's like clock work, Canon announces the 40D

Yeah it's basically an advertisement for Canon, but the 40D has finally been made official, that's awesome! (Time to pick up a 30D on the cheap?)

It brings the Live View from the MarkIII, bumps up the pixels to 10 million, brings over the dust reducing sensor shake from the Rebel XTi and is just something new and cool to play with.

(Who needs a MarkIII anyway? It just makes you a lazy photog and takes a large chunk of your bank account.)

Take a look at the details. (P.S. Told ya Fang, suck it!)

How is news changing? Ask some experts!

I spend a lot of time talking about and thinking about new media and how it is going to change the news business and what we need to do to make sure we change with it. There's been more than a few posts here on SLR and talks in person to anyone willing to listen. But have no fear, this isn't a set up another such topic, this time I'm going to point you to some experts on the matter.

Found this event in my inbox and I thought I'd share.

The Silicon Valley Social Media Club is holding an event tonight at Yahoo! headquarters on just such a subject; and they're invited some of the most involved minds to chime in on how news aggregators have created a new model for news sources and a new conversation between comsumers and producers.

Look at that lineup, I think this might be more then the "we already know this stuff" discussion.

No longer is the news a static product which only reports, now it is a conversation between readers that shapes which stories rise to the top, which points of view prevail and provide on the fly feedback on what the public needs to know and wants to know.

Thursday, August 23, 2007
6:30 pm PT - 8:30 pm,
@ Yahoo! Sunnyvale, CA

I'd go, but I'm in New Mexico.

If you make it, let me know how it went. (Psst... podcast it!)

Later

Cake and software and multimedia and random thoughts

There should be a software application called "Cake" and then you're slogan could be "and you can eat it to"... and you can make T-Shirts that say "eat it!"

And the program would be for letting us create Hollywood style special effects in our multimedia pieces.

(Hey I said the thoughts were random, I just had them as I was half asleep this morning.)

Also, marketing agencies should hire me to think like this all day for them.

Which brings up an interesting point, (no, not marketing agencies) why aren't there more applications being designed for the purposes of multimedia? Soundslides is cool but where's our version of After Effects and Flash (maybe CS3 will come to aid here?) and Pro Tools?

Or maybe you disagree? Maybe we should just learn to use the full packages that are already available. But if that's the case, why are so many shooters using iMovie instead of Final Cut, Avid or Premier Pro?

Hmm... could it be because it's easier.

IMO, the market is ripe for some enterprising company or individual to create the distribute the new software tools that will be specific to our craft(and you better get on it quick before the next Brian Storm-type realizes it).

A hard day's iPhone

I think there's some rule today that anyone with a blog has to write something about the iPhone.

I think it's the 28th Amendments: Congress shall make no law that allows for leniency on blogs that do not gush and exude fuel for the iPhone hype machine. (Our economy depends on your disposable income after all.)

And I suppose I could talk about how the iPhone's built in Wi-Fi and easy access to RSS aggregators is going to revolutionize communication and how we get our news.

Or I could go negative and talk about it's hefty price tag and contract, navigation system that forgets to include voice prompts (thus making it useless as a GPS while driving), or it's built in battery pack that comes rated for 300-400 charges with only a one year warranty (365days/yr * 300-400 charges/battery * 1/warranty = you're screwed), or the absence of memory card slots (how about a SD or CF card for us photogs?).

Or I could use the iPhone as the lastest example of the new media to deliver content to and the importance of old media to embrace it or be left behind.

Or I can just make the obvious joke... ahem... Apple released the iPhone earler today to much fan fare... oh, this just in, the iPhone shuffle will be out on Wednesday and will store 500 random numbers at half the price. (zing!)

or... the iPhone is reportedly selling out at some locations, and for the most part it was peaceful, but panick did strike when the first iPhone owners came out of the store and realized they had no one to call... now there are millions of nerds who are desperately seeking phone numbers to put in their iPhone. (pow!)

or... Apple promises the phone can do anything from finding a place to eat to the show times of movies to constantly updated traffic information, not included is the ability to actually call a girl for you to go to that dinner, movie or drive across town. (boom!)

But... I'm feeling a little spry today and I'm thinking I'll have a little fun with it, it's just a phone after all.

So let me now present, without further ado and without any further delay, hmmm... does this look infected... where was I? Oh right, enjoy "A Hard Day's Phone Call"

Interior/Day/Office

Me (on phone): So yeah, I'll stop by and pick up some stuff before coming over.

Extreme Office Punk #2: Is that an iPhone?

Me: Uh...

close up on my eyes (first cord from "Hard Days Night")

EOP#2: Oh my god

ME (continuing): .. um...uhhh.....

close up on EOP#2 eyes (first cord from "Hard Days Night")... his eyes go wide... my eyes go wide

(In series of quick cross cuts)

Me (in slow mo): Noo-

EOP#2 (in slow mo): Duuuuudeees--

ME (cont'd): ooo-

EOP#2 (cont'd): heeee's gooot aaan--

ME (cont'd): ooo-

EOP#2 (cont'd): iiii

ME (cont'd): ooo-

EOP#2 (cont'd): phhhoo

ME (cont'd): ooo-

EOP#2 (cont'd): oooo

ME (cont'd): ooo-

EOP#2 (cont'd): ooonneee!!!

(Wide shot as we freeze in place, iPhone in my hand on my side.

Rotating tracking shot on my face and then EOP#2's face as all around us the sound of chairs scratching the ground starts and the sounds of phones, computer keyboards and other office noises stops.

Wide shot, as all around us everyone in the office is now standing up and staring at me, not unlike zombies. No one is moving.

The big clock on the wall moves it's hand and makes a louder than normal *tick in the absence of all the other office noise

The office water cooler makes an audible water bubble gurgle thing (what would you call that?)

A bead of sweat rolls down my brow.

My iPhone rings.

I gasp and look down at it.)

Secretary: It is an iPhone!!!

(I look up in fear)

Bob (lunging forward): iPhone!!!

(I step back and Bob falls to the ground, and person tries to grab it as well, I moves out of reach, then another tackles me and I fall down. Kick myself lose stand up again, backed almost to the wall... (shown in a series of frantic quick cuts)

Pan left to right, see the entire office closing in.

Alex: iPhone!

Sara: iPhone!!

Bob (on ground, say it like a zombie): iiiiphooone!

(I keep backing up until I hit the wall behind me with my hand, it's a window and I pull it up frantically and jump out on to the fire escape.

"It's a Hard Day's Night" plays as I head down the fire escape and continue running though the streets as everyone from the office chases me and onlookers on the street join in as I run by.

The people chasing me are like zombies and only say one thing "iPhone!!!"

Gag#1: I sit on a park bench with a newspaper in my face, the mob runs past me from right to left and I lower the paper to look at them, think I'm smug and smile at the guy next to me. My phone rings and I lose my smile and look fearful again. He tries to grab the phone and I continue running to the right. The mob also returns into the frame and runs left to right.

Gag#2: Running in one door as they chase me and coming out another, then putting a chair in front of the door, then someone hands me a shelf, then a pile of books... then it's revealed that the person handing me the stuff is one of them... chase is on again.

Gag#3: The iPhone starts beeping. I tell everyone to stop. I look at it. "Battery Low" Cut to we're sitting at a cafe as I recharge the battery while everyone is sitting around drinking coffee and waiting. It finishes charging and the chase is on again.

The chase concludes on the edge of a river by a wind mill as the angry mob approaches me saying "iPhone" and carrying torches.

I end up getting knocked back as they approach and I drop the iPhone in the lake. It is destroyed as a current smashes it into a rock.

Everyone calms down, some shake their head, others look around as if unsure of where they are, a women gets up and is knocking the cobwebs loose.

Woman: What was that all about?

Me: The balance of nature.

END

Multimedia isn't making the world fall apart, photojournalism is just evolving

I have a lot of random thoughts throughout the day, today I had one that I just had to write down. It was supposed to be only one sentence and part of a new series I was toying around with, but as it so often happens I got on top of the soapbox and looking down realized I was afraid of heights. So I just stayed up there.

Remember how before everyone was asking should I learn html... and then it was Dream weaver... and now it's Flash.

Everyone is asking should I learn Flash (imho, it wouldn't hurt) and I'm already hearing whispers of should I learn Avid... should I learn ProTools? (I also hear, should I learn RSS... but that's another story.)

It seems to me that we keep getting caught up on the things that are holding us back, like learning how to hold and hammer with these new tools, and we keep losing sight of the thing that makes us who we are in the first place, our creative eye that was deemed special enough for a yearly salary.

Maybe we need to stop worrying about the medium and worry more about the quality of the content that flows through that medium.

During the NPPA Summit in Portland, Carolyn Cole, LA Times staff photographer and Photojournalist of the Year 2007, showed her piece from the Immersion course and despite having never done it before- she'd mentioned that she was unfamiliar with the process and the programs, and stories from others had confirmed it- on her first time at bat she hit one out of the park. Because she didn't forget that she's a photographer first and she knew how to ask those in the know for help and guidance in filling in the blanks.

I'd love to link to the piece now so you can see what I'm talking about for yourse;f, but they haven't been posted yet. But promises have been made.

I'm not saying don't learn Flash or Avid or CSS or whatever else is out there, what I'm saying is don't learn it if you don't want to. The foundation of this business is still compelling images and if you got that down, you got nothing to worry about.

If you don't believe me, just take a look at some of the other pieces (as soon as they're posted) that came out of the Immersion Workshop. And while it will get hard to tell, yes, they were all done by newbies.

A serendipitous end at the Santa Cruz Sentinel

My time at the Santa Cruz Sentinel has come to an end, last Wednesday was my last. I worked Mondays, and it was kinda weird waking up and not having to drive for an hour over over the hill today. Everything has to come to an end sometime.

For my last day there wasn't much on the roster, but it was a hot day (the first of a mini heat wave actually) and so I went out looking for weather art. When I returned I filed my stories and didn't have much left to do, and seeing as how it was my last day and I had time, I pitched an idea to produce a slideshow.

I find it kind of fitting that my last day at the paper ended on the beach... and with a slideshow.
I wanted to try something different and sorta went nuts with the editing. Take a look, it's sorta my parting valentine for the paper. I had some good times there and I'm gonna miss it... hmm.. that sounds like a list full of reminiscing...

• I'll miss debating the latest news or ethical developments in photojournalism with Shmuel Thaler.
• I'll miss running into Ryan Sholin everyday and having one of us say "did you see this online..." But seriously brah, you can't let you're daughter's first movie be Transformers, that's child abuse :P
• I'll remember that first day of looking though the archive and seeing all the cool stuff in there... and then wasting all that time looking at old movie stuff and press packets for TGIF (if I have to explain it, you're to young... and a loser).
• I'll chuckle when I think of all the office politics and romances that I'm not supposed to know about.
• I'm miss getting to joke around with Anthony L. Solis in the office and then checking out his photos on Flickr.
• I'll remember getting lost twice on the way out to an assignment with Soraya Gutierrez and talking about Rage Against The Machine... not to mention rage in general (I still say it was her fault!)
• I'll wonder how it was that I always (well 99% of the time) ended up driving the reporter to all of our assignments... I'm the out of townee after all.
• I'll remember the day I got the frantic phone call that the front page story fell through and I'd better do a really really good job (no pressure of course the message said) to help fill the gap "or else."
• I'll always wonder why it took me three weeks to finally go to a beach.
• I'll remember the hum of the printing press in the basement as it rumbled to life each night and vibrated the floor in the photo room.
• I'm not gonna miss waiting for a free computer... or saving all my Photoshoped work to a portable hard drive to move over to the only Mac with soundslides (but no Photoshop) only to discover it's behind a door that was supposed to be unlocked.
• I'm not gonna miss waiting 15 minutes for Photo Mechanic to start up for that matter either.
• I never did figure out how to check my work e-mail... I hope there wasn't anything important in there.
• I'll laugh at all the times I ran out on false alarms for spot news... like going out to a fire and instead finding Frisbee golf (which it turns out is normal) and the time a guy brought dynamite to Costco in his car and went inside to ask "Should I have this?"
• I won't miss (or understand) having to move my car every hour in Watsonville.
• I'll remember the day I spent on a story covering bookstores and discover that book stores are pretty cool places.
• It's a sad fact, but no one actually ever drives the speed limit... unless a cop is around, and even then the cop doesn't drive the speed limit either.
• I'll sorta regret not going to New York City for spring break.
• But I'll miss being the point man while two of the three staff shooters were on vacation during spring break.
• The day I was told that I'm getting too many front pages and doing too good of a job (apparently it's possible).
• I'll remember when everyone felt I was being taken advantage of with an unpaid internship and they threw a few bucks my way.
• I'm gonna miss the photo advice from Matt King, less art, more limbs. Got it dude!
• I'm not gonna miss becoming known as the go to guy for pictures of pets and kids during my first month there. Thankfully that changed.
• I'll always remember the day I finally got to go to the beach.
• I won't miss the racist old woman at the bank who asked me where I'm from and wanted to teach me the ways of America. I told her "I can't help it if they let brown people and white people walk on the street together in Canada." (I'm not from Canada.)
• I won't miss the hippies who believe that listening to George Harrison's post India sitar and doing Yoga somehow makes them spiritually enlightened and somehow as I'm an Indian, that makes me their mystic conduit into the mysteries of the East. Seriously guys, we're just different, stop thinking you're somehow better than others in the West just because you want to be different like us.
• The day I returned the light kit at school only to need it on the very next assignment. Lesson learned, take out a loan and buy a light kit.
• I won't miss the time I was blocked in at the fairground with a deadline and couldn't get my car out until way past midnight. (I meet my deadline, don't ask.)
• I won't forget the garlic fries on the Boardwalk or standing in the framework of the Big Dipper and trying to hold the camera as steady as possible while the roller coaster shook the rails and wooden structure almost violently.
• I'll remember the letter from a reader who cried after seeing my pictures.
• I'll miss going down to Watsonville and sharing in all sorts of censored shenanigans... and telling them they were better than the main office and then doing the same when I was back in Santa Cruz.
• And this will be my last time being a part of the week in pictures.
• There's so much I'll remember and look back on... but mostly I'll always remember all the cool people I met while on assignment and all the things I learned about them, from them and about myself.

It's been fun, but every chapter has to come to a close.

The return of the light table

Microsoft came out with this new do-hickey (that's a technical term BTW, don't hurt yourself trying to say it) that's a table top touch screen PC today and that got me thinking (don't worry, it didn't hurt much), why not use them as light tables?



I remember the old days of taking a loop and marking archival sheets when a worthy frame came across my eye. And I remember leaning over a light table for hours sometimes trying to navigate the balancing act of the perfect photo package as one picture was moved here or there and another was slowly creeping in as a candidate.

It was fun and frankly I miss those days. There's something about holding the frame in your hand or freely being able to move images about and shuffle though a stack of slides on a whim.

I think that's why CDs are still around, I know that if I really like an album, I buy the CD (congrats Silversun Pickups, the last CD before you was... I think The Killers, before they blew up thank you) because I like the idea of having the booklet and artwork in my hands.

It's why I subscribe to a paper even though I can just read the same news in my RSS feeds, there's just something about holding that paper in your hands and turning the page, wiping the ink on your pants by accident, pulling apart those pages that are stuck together and the smell of the ink on that paper that I'll use to smack my brother with later. Maybe ePaper will replace this one day, but I'm in no rush.

Microsoft's table has got be excited, and I'm not much of a tech-head when it comes to these things, but it just brings up all sorts of old memories and new ideas. Just imagine Photo Mechanic on a table top device like this. I for one think that would be awesome!

Why not convince some Photo Editors to buy a couple and use them as light tables?

This adaptation for photo use gets me thinking, what else can we adapt?

How about a version of SoundSlides that outputs a video for iPods to download via RSS feeds?

In SoundSlides, it's nice to have the new Ken Burns push and pull and the ability to micro manage transitions, but how about expanding on that and giving us dissolves and pan moves.

This ones crazy, but how about memory cards that come loaded with scripts that behave like certain films stocks/looks: infrared, Holga, chrome, gelatin, etc. It's like buying film in the old days and industry-wide standards on a script will remove the ethical delemias that Photoshop introduces.

Speaking of Photoshop, how about a stripped-down photographer's version that won't cost $800 and doesn't come with all that extra stuff that only gets photographer's like Allan Detrich (read his piece in NewsPhotographer... it's an eye opener) and Brian Walski in trouble.

How about pimping out our cameras with built-in Wi-Fi for transmitting and turning that LCD screen into a touch screen to let us edit from the field and move pics around into various folders right on the stop. Got a great picture of #45 diving for a touchdown? Tag it for a selected folder and by the end if the game you've got your first edit already done.

That's just a few off the top of my head, let me hear some of yours.

Another case of ethics?

I had thought about chiming in on Allan Detrich's firing from the Toledo Blade after it was discovered that he turned in some altered images as the genuine article, but there was nothing I felt I could add to the debate that hadn't already been said.

And besides, you've got Detrich himself speaking about the incident to Jim Merithew of the San Francisco Chronicle. Why do you need to hear from anyone else?

Word spread fast in the photojournalism community and within mere hours of the news I had already been e-mailed by colleagues with articles and his portfolio.

It's a shame, clearly the man was talented, but I guess the temptation to push it just a little bit was to much. (I've got ideas for ways to avoid the temptation, but that's a topic for another post.)

So why am I bringing it up today? Well, today once again I am reminded that in my career field of choosing, the real world doesn't always live up to the ideals we that we learn and debate in academia.

The Press Club of Dallas today announced that their yearly contest had been tampered with and that awards going back to 2005 may have been acts of fraud.

The entries for the 2006 Katie Awards apparently never went before judges, and competitions from 2004 and 2005 also are under investigation, said club President Tom Stewart.

The Press Club has a nearly 50 year history of honoring journalist and photographers in Arkansas, Oklahoma, Colorado, Texas, Louisiana and New Mexico. It's a shame to see this happen and for the pattern of fraud, lies and deceit to continue.

And after a quick visit to Wikipedia it doesn't look like it's anything new or that it's going to end anytime soon.

Just a few off hand:

-1980's Pulitzer Prize winning story on an 8-year-old heroin addict turned out to be a web by lies spun by Janet Cooke of the Washington Post.

-In 1992 The Oregonian admitted to ignoring allegations of sexual harassment charges against Oregon Republican Sen. Robert Packwood, even keeping hush after knowing of his behavior with one of their female reporters

-2006 hit Wired Magazine hard when freelance writer Philip Chien's articals couldn't be varified and it was discovered that he had even tried to mislead fact checkers with planted e-mails.

-Recently it was revealed that one of Katie Couric's online columns had been plagiarized from a Wall Street Journal article (seriously, like no one reads the WSJ!??) Couric survived the discretion unscathed mostly because she doesn't actually write the online columns, just signs her name to them and pretends they are her words.

And of course we all know about Jayson Blair, Stephen Glass, Brian Walski and the Lebanon smoke pictures.

I guess as long as jobs are scare and the pressure to rise to the top is great, some people will give in to the temptation and begin their very public fall from grace.

Virginia Tech student press presses on

With the news of what happened, why it happened, who to blame and my own circle of friends wondering why the media has latched onto the shooters immigrant status (is this relevant in anyway? That's like saying he liked hats.), it's easy to see how some angles of the story have been overlooked.

Thanks to Ryan for bringing my attention to this story on the Virginia Tech student paper and the editors, writers and photographers that put aside their grief and stepped up like professionals to do the job they set out to do.

It reminds me of my own experience as Executive Editor of my college paper in 2001. We had only been in school 2 weeks and our first issue was to come out soon when we woke up to the news that two planes had crashed into the World Trade Center.

We scrapped our finalized paper and scrambled our staff about the campus to get the story out and overnight came up with the completely reworked edition. When the issue was in the boxes around campus a funny thing happened. Many of us started to feel the pain and hurt that everyone else was already feeling. It was as if we had all put it aside and became focused on our task. I imagine the students at Virginia Tech's student paper are experiencing much of the same.

Bravo to The Roanoke Times for digging up an angle on the story that no one else is seeing (and if you are reading this Roanoke Times, take a look at Not Just a Number and The Crossing and make it happen on your website). And I applaud these student journalists for having the fortitude, commitment and willpower to keep going.

My favorite MC is Escher!

I've been a little too serious as of late around here, it's time for some comedy relief.

Animation and MC Escher... I love this kinda stuff.

The fellow shaving his head has unwittingly created something that every multimedia photographer is striving for: short, sweet, tightly edited, has a perfectly accentuated musical aspect and it holds our attention.



MC Escher is just plain cool, and this video picks up on the line draw craze and uplifts it to an art form.

At the tone the time will be... an arm and a leg

For thousands of years man has been waking up and going to sleep and in between he has always asked the same question, a question that has pluaged every society, destroyed nations and united strangers, a question that will never die and had no birth.

It is the question that defines us: "when do we eat?"

And in the pursuit of that elusive answer lunchtime was created, and in order to keep track of lunchtime man invented the fourth dimension and 'time' was born. But time can rampant and started talking about 'early birds' and 'magic hour' and 'brunch' and man could not keep track of it all. Fearing that time may leave man for 'space' and 'relativity,' man decided to fashion a cage for time.

At first it was a crude device that depended on the orb in the sky and a pterodactyl that never complained much, only saying "hey it's a living" every now and then. But it was refined and over the years it evolved into a compact space that's often incorporated into microwaves and cell phones.

The clock has served humanity well, but the internet, as it often does, has decided that's boring and I'm inclined to agree.

Humanclock merges photography, community and technology into a fun applet for your computer desktop. The idea is simple, anybody can submit a picture of a minute of a 24 hour day and the Humanclock rotates through them in sequential order to display the correct time.

It's a creative project and a fun way of using old technology with new.

And if you prefer you can forgo Digital:

and go old skool with analog: