I’m a huge fan of Capture One software for processing RAW files. For sure, Aperture and Lightroom may have more ‘bling’ and Capture One doesn’t have image archiving without buying the additional Media Pro, but I love the files it produces, having used it since 2003 when I moved to digital with Canon DSLR’s.

This year, I plan to try out the Phase One camera system. I miss my Mamiya 645 film system and as the latest DSLR’s are going for higher and higher frame rates, that’s not what I need in my work. On location, I rarely need more than 5 frames per second, even when shooting aeiail photography or car to car, plus this post by David Hobby voiced what I had been privately thinking myself this past few months.

Take a look at this video showing photographer Eric Schmid shooting wakeboarding action, managing just fine with a Phase One 645 system.

There’s only one part of this video that makes me cringe. Helicopter pilots and aerial photographers may want to look away at around the 1:02 mark. A Robinson R22 at low altitude, low speed, over water is not my idea of fun at all. For that shot, I’d be a damn sight more confortable with a turbine for the extra reliability and power under the pilots left hand….

A Phase One camera system in an aerial photography environment should produce some stunning results, even without the latest IQ180 back, so I look forward to seeing what this might bring clients looking for very large files for advertising and display.

iPhone - Ferrari 358 Italia

I’m a great believer in Chase Jarvis’ mantra of The Best Camera is the one you have in your hand when you see the image, but sometimes, it’s best to just sit and take in the whole scene, instead of trying to frame it through a tiny LCD screen. And that goes for other things to. Over the Christmas period, I zoned out of my social media connections and deliberately resisted the temptation to swipe my screen every time there was a pause in a conversation, or the little device ‘bonged’ a push notification. I did the same with my email, only checking it once or twice a day and having Mail turned off in between. This removed the time thief temptation of breaking off what I was working on to read emails that could wait. And I felt better for it.

iPhone is a great personal device and I’ll be writing more shortly about some of the useful apps I use for my work and others that I find entertaining. But just like Nick, while I won’t be giving up my iPhone and other technology entirely, I will be setting it down in another room for much longer periods than before. Twitter can wait for an hour, can’t it?

This is a very simple, but strangely moving video. Taking clips we’ve all seen before and using that editing skill that the BBC seem to have a unique handle on, creating a compelling video. Watch this an enjoy the voice of Sir David and the camera work of some of the world’s finest.

Oh dear, it seems that UNISON fell for it. Just at the time of year when Clarkson has another POOWWEERR DVD that needs pushing, they get him on prime time TV and let him lose on his favourite target. And they bit. So today, the union are calling for Clarkson’s arrest for ‘hate crime’, they’re taking, no doubt expensive’ legal advice and manage to score a great PR own goal. If you missed it, Clarkson called for striking union members to be executed ion front of their families, which went down really well, as you can imagine.

Cue uproar, a UNISON press release demanding his summary dismissal and prosecution.

“Public sector workers and their families are utterly shocked by Jeremy Clarkson’s revolting comments. We know that many other licence fee payers share our concerns about his outrageous views. The One Show is broadcast at a time when children are watching — they could have been scared and upset by his aggressive statements. An apology is not enough — we are calling on the BBC to sack Jeremy Clarkson immediately. Such disgusting statements have no place on our TV screens.“

And, as The New Statesmen points out, there’s something rather ironic about a trade union calling for someone to be summarily sacked…

The Twitter hashtag of #clarksongate trended and The Daily Mash, as ever, hit the nail on the head. Sadly, what the union people failed to realise was that firstly, Amazon sales of Clarkson’s DVD, aptly named Powered Up, are now surging forwards.

Secondly, Clarkson is a caricature of a motoring journalist. His cartoon like reviews are entertaining, but in my view, he’s a far better TV presenter when not discussing cars. His programmes about Brunel, the St Nazaire raids of WW2 and his superb Victoria Cross documentary are far more worthy of the man.

But it’s so funny sometimes just to watch as someone wheels him in, lights the fuse and stands well back…

This video was originally produced by Penguin Books for internal use. It proved so popular that it was released publically. There’s an awful lot of really exciting things happening in publishing these days and I think the future is very bright for those that embrace the new technologies fully. Watch this all the way through, it’s very clever and I love it. Turns your day into a glass half full one!

Where are your Twitter photos going?

After all, most Twitter images are quick iPhone grabs, low resolution, spur of the moment stuff, mostly forgotten within a few moments of a Twitter timeline. That’s perfectly true, but don’t forget several important things. First off, image quality. If you’re standing right there when that UFO lands right in front of you and the door opens, who cares about quality? As Chase Jarvis so often says, the best camera is the one you have in your hand when you see the moment. So bear in mind that many newworthy events are broadcast and published off low resolution images because the alternative is no image at all.
Secondly, there are a great many uses for low resolution images today, with the abundance of personal gadgets, so even a screen resolution image will potentially have value.
Third, if you’re someone who creates content as his way of making a living, it’s important in my view that I retain the options and control over pretty much anything I shoot or write, even if it’s simply for my own promotion.

So I went out there and started looking at all of the photo uploading services and tried to find an image service that didn’t want to claim all of my copyright or a perpetual image licence for them to sell, sub-licence, repurpose and basically own everything I upload. There were some, and you’re welcome to comment below on what service you use for your social media images, but I’m going with Flickr right now. The reasons why are twofold.
First off, I can set a blanket condition on everything I upload as being ‘all rights reserved’ Secondly, I can display any images I happen to take on the very popular global platform that is Flickr. They’re not going to be stellar images for a portfolio, but by putting them into a Twitter / iPhone set, you can display them in the context they were taken. To me this is useful, as it means that me and other people can take alook t just what I’ve been shooting on an iPhone over the course of a week, which proved interesting. And secondly, my Twitter and iPhone shots don’t just get whipped along in a Twitter timeline and become forgotten within ten minutes, they actually have a place to live.
There are downsides. Normally, you would only upload your perfect, retouched images to a public place like Flickr, but my Flickr photostream will often show quick iPhone shots as the most recent uploads. Not perfect, but as part of this experiment, I’m not going to remove any images at all. Hopefully this will show me a historical timeline of my Twitter image activity and also make me think a little more about what I shoot on my iPhone.
If you have a favourite image uploading service that you use for your Twitter activity or other social media, please add your thoughts below. What’s your favourite?

A truly interesting Twitter exchange yesterday inspired me to write this post. It kind of started off at the weekend, with the anniversary of the tragic death of Ayrton Senna and I mentioned that I still had a copy of Cars and Car Conversions magazine’s “Ayrton Senna, Rally Driver” issue, written by Senna’s friend, the late Russell Bulgin.

Quite a few people of varying decades of motor industry experience chimed in and above all it showed the strong affection everyone still held for Russell. Indeed, copies of the compilation book released in his memory are trading for over £100 on Amazon. Twitter folk including @HarrisMonkey, @ToyotaPR, @NeilatSEAT_HQ, @TheTimHutton @Theseoldcars all had opinions on the subject of historically great car magazines and writers. It’s the sort of discussion we really should have had a few beers over.

We all had favourite covers and I’m pleased to declare I’m not the only car magazine geek out there and indeed, that Mrs W can now take comfort that the groaning attic beams have supported something of exceptional value all these years.

But today the question is, will we still retain our favourite copies for the future, buying annual binders to keep them crisp and sweet? Indeed, when was the last time you bought a copy of a magazine, not just a motoring issue and thought, ‘I’ll just hang on to that…”? In 15 year’s time, will people wheel out copies of Evo across whatever social media is in vogue and declare “They don’t write ‘em like that any more”?

The vibe generally was no. So that leads to the further question. Do people think that car magazine standards have declined in recent years? And if so, why? Indeed, if you think they’re still high, let’s hear you declare an example?

My starer for ten – the last copy of a motoring magazine I bought, read and then thought, that was great, I’ll keep it, was probably the copy of Motorsport Magazine that celebrated Sir Stirling’s Mille Miglia win, complete with full reprint of the report by Denis Jenkinson. And yet the reason why I was inspired to hold onto it was for a piece of motoring writing that’s more than 50 years old.

As my English Language teacher used to declare, “Discuss”.

I was alerted to this short movie about the making of True Grit over on Twitter by Steadicam operator Flelix Forrest and it reminded me of a comment by Sir Michael Caine when he was asked about film remakes, in particular The Italian Job II. “Why remake a film that was done very well the first time around? If it were me, I’d take a film done badly the first time and do it well” His view was that a great film has fond memories amongst the public and that creates resistance to a remake. Let’s face it, there’s really only one Italian Job, right?
I loved True Grit when I was a kid. “Fill Your Hand You Son of a Bitch!” made me laugh out loud and still makes me smile today, so I when I saw this brief video about the new movie, I breathed a sigh of relief. Roger Deakin’s cinematography looks stunning and having Jeff Bridges looks great as the main man. Looks like I need to get myself to the movies a lot more this year, if only to hear Jeff Bridges deliver that line

I’ve been talking to myself for some time now about how traditional print media really shot themselves in the foot more than a decade ago by bundling web advertising in with traditional print FOR FREE. I could never get my head around it, as photographers often discussed it on various email lists such as EPUK as long as five years ago when publishers asked for rights to use content online while complaining that the website made no money. Well, now the website HAS to make money, see my post earlier this year about that.

Then a few months ago, we hear talk of Apple’s Tablet device as being a bigger iPhone style device and I start thinking, as I’m sure you will have been, about what a REALLY BIG deal this can be. Just look at how the iPhone is just soooo much more than just a phone, thanks to the power of iTunes and the App Store. Now take that sheer power of distribution and imagine this:

1. Imagine being able to download and buy your favourite car magazine onto your tablet, just like you do songs in iTunes
2. Imagine having your traditional car magazine, but with embedded videos alongside the photo shoots – now can you see where these HD DSLR’s by Canon come in?
3. Imagine you’re an advertiser being able to sponsor the videos and being able to not just put your website’s URL out there, but to have a clickable link within the content?
4. Imagine you’re a publisher who suddenly doesn’t have to think about the huge percentage the big news distribution warehouses take, you just need to get it listed on iTunes or indeed offer a download through your existing website with a pay portal
5. Imagine being a traditional newsagent or indeed any part of that distribution chain? I know I’d be worried.

This blog post by Vincent Laforet is a good read and echoes my thoughts on how 2010 will be the year of the tablet and indeed just might be the medicine that puts the publishing and news industry back to health. With a global audience for your publication avaiable as an iTunes download, the advertisers would be crazy not to be involved. Perhaps then, they’ll be charging for online advertising and throwing in the print version for free….

So that brings me to the creators viewpoint and what this means to photographers? It means getting involved in the whole convergence thing and getting to grips with some of the brillient new products that are arriving, not just from people like Canon, but from the mass of independent companies such as Zacuto, GlideTrack, Miller and other small enterprises.
All these products and technologies are changing the way we create content for our clients, both editorial and commercial and events like Convergence One by The Flash Centre are an important step along the way and if you thought that 2009 had been stuffed full of product announcements, I’m sure there are even more things in prototype form right now as more momentum is created. The benefits for photographers / film makers and our customers will be thrilling and I can’t wait to be part of it!

05/01/10 – A quick note to add a link to this post by The Recovering Journalist and his comments on where the Apple Tablet might just be taking us all. Well worth a read.

There’s been a lot of talk about EPaper disposable LCD’s recently and how they might be the saviour of the magazine industry. Some say that being able to enmbed video into a magazine will be revolutionary, others comment that the ‘disposability’ factor and apparent wastefulness in this age is unacceptable.

What both sides have yet to comment upon is the new wave of ebooks about to hit us. Asus are getting ready to hit us with their Eee Book Reader, a genuine, double page with a spine, LCD panelled book in full colour. Now think about this…. If these things take off and there’s a viable distribution method for content such as iTunes for purchasing ebooks, emagazines and other reading & viewing material, suddenly, you don’t need ePaper LCD’s. In fact, you don’t need paper. And the Asus is predicted to have a price of around £100 GB Pounds, cheaper than a laptop or Sony’s book reader.

So if you have a double page, LCD panel with the ability to let you read your favourite car magazine on the toilet (the biggest comment against online reading), plus the ability to view video, listen to music and make Skype calls though it’s WiFi or SIM card, you have to say that buying shared in newsagents would be a Bad Thing.

Personally, I think disposable LCD’s will make great business cards, far better than those CD business cards of a couple of years back. They required too much effort for the recipient and all too often were blocked from launching on corporate PC’s.

And so to the content, the most important bit. As Rosh Sillars at New Media Photographer says, content creators will survive if they move and adapt. In fact, the ability to create striking still photography and motion content will become more important than ever.

As the new video DSLR’s like the Canon 5D and 7D arrive, so the distribution method is arriving too. It’s never been a move exciting time to be involved in photography & film making, I can’t wait for the next five years!