Who are you?

It seems that there are two kinds of people in the world - doers and talkers. It's very reminiscent of a conversation with an old friend, Paul Portway, when in university. The conclusion was that those that were virgins talked incessantly about the number of partners they had and the number of times they spent time with their partners while those that were not virgins never mentioned anything, keeping their affairs behind closed doors. It follows that those that talk about something never actually do anything.

Look at all the camera forums online and watch the conversations. Hardly any conversations occur on how to do something. Most conversations are about what equipment is best, whether brand X is better than brand Y etc. Perhaps the most ridiculous are the conversations about what *might* happen in the future. There's nothing that's based in reality or on actual photography.

So, who are you?

The Gadegeteer - This specimen likes to collect shiny new camera gear yet rarely brings it out for use other than for testing purposes. Gadgeteers never produce worthwhile images and seldom show their work.

The Forum Pundit - This specimen hangs around internet forums, posting other people's work as their own, often pretends to be a professional photographer (little realising that professionals work and don't want to be bothered on their downtime). This specimen also likes to participate in inane debates about pointless technical ideas.

The Photographer - This specimen goes out, takes photos, occasionally showing them to friends or family or online. They're generally reluctant to show online for fear of a barrage of negativity from Forum Pundits.

The casual photographer - This specimen uses a camera - whatever camera they can find and takes pictures to depict what they see.

So who are you? Are you one of the above or somebody totally different? Use the comment form below to let everybody know.

Camera manufacturers are missing the point

How short sighted are camera manufacturers? They're all trying to rehash the same, tired old concepts year after year. Cameras have become like mobile phones - everybody makes one and nobody makes one that's any different from all the others. I can go and buy a Pentax SLR and it looks and works just like a Nikon SLR and that too works and looks just like a Canon SLR. There's no difference in their capabilities at all. How boring! There's absolutely nothing to make me want to buy one over another.

The new mirrorless cameras are at the moment just an interesting gimmick. None are sufficiently smaller than an SLR to make buying them particularly worthwhile not to mention they are extraordinarily expensive. Not only are they mechanically simpler but they cost at least 10% more than a comparable digital SLR.

Given that Fuji had a digital SLR capable of photographing in the visible, UV and IR and all three spectrums simultaneously, it is amazing that this feature has not been employed on any of the new mirrorless cameras. It is further astounding that night vision which is found on all security cameras has not been employed either on mirrorless digital cameras.

The more one looks at the new mirrorless cameras, the more one wonders just how much of a milking expedition this new genre will be. It would not be surprising to find megapixels dripping out 1 at a time then features appearing on one model and vanishing off another. It's the usual game manufacturers play. Interesting things like infra-red, night vision and ultra-violet imaging are probably not going to be included on mainstream cameras, sadly. It's not a case of vested interests but rather a case of manufacturers being collectively too yellow to try anything interesting.

A photographic challenge

For years we have heard the propaganda laid out by the big world powers - America, Russia, Britain etc that the world is round. This is plain nonsense because if it was, when we walked around the curve, we'd fall off. How many times have you walked to the end of the street and found yourself slipping around the curvature of the earth before falling into the abyss? Not many times, I'll bet!

The world is FLAT and not round. The round illusion was set up by world powers in order to gain money for space exploration - all of which comes from studios in Hollywood, Moscow or Ealing. There really aren't any rockets and man never did land on the moon.

As has been recorded since time immemorial, the world is flat and supported on the backs of 4 giant turtles, each of which in turn is supported on the backs of 4 giant elephants. Ships, planes etc that disappear merely go too far beyond the boundaries of the known world and slip over into the abyss - never to be seen or heard from again.

Your photographic challenge is to get as close as possible to the edge of the world and take a photograph of the edge and also of the giant turtle supporting one of the corners of the world. The winning photograph will be published on this very website.

Entertaining idiocy

Posting things onto online forums can be absolutely fascinating. The reactions are generally very extreme with name-calling and personal attacks. The capability of the respondents for misunderstanding the spirit of any post and indulging in nit-picking attacks based on complete misinterpretations is not really astounding. It's more disheartening that people can be collectively so asinine. Often times one wonders whether the poster's shoe size is greater than their IQ.

The other day, in order to see what would happen, a synopsis of trying to gain a face painter in order to do face painting and photography was posted, referring to this article. Of the posts (on two separate forums), 99% totally missed the point of the article. The point was that people just don't seem to want to work. People just don't seem to want to earn their living. People just prefer to be spoon fed. It's possible (even though it is painful to say this) to agree with what Margaret Thatcher was on about.

Yes, I can give you examples of companies where employees have struck themselves out of jobs. And I have to say to them, don't blame your unemployment on me. It's your fault. Margaret Thatcher 05/05/1981

This was about people who went on strike and ended up making the company go bust because of unreasonable demands that management could not fulfill. This is pretty much what happens when people turn their pretty little noses up at jobs. It's the same attitude. It's a job they could do but they refuse to do it so they end up not being paid for doing a job they could do. They'd rather suffer than have something to do and earn a little money.

There is nothing inevitable about rising unemployment.
Margaret Thatcher 19/04/1979

Again... Absolutely right. People just don't try to work or get work. They expect a cushy job just to be handed to them and then expect to be paid as though they are royalty.

I couldn't live without work. That's what makes me so sympathetic towards those people who are unemployed. I don't know how they live without working.Margaret Thatcher 04/05/1980

Yet it seems that people do manage to talk themselves out of work. Looking at the forums, the one thing that comes over loud and clear is that people are looking at the work that was on offer and instead of saying "Hey, I wouldn't be working that day. Maybe I could make some extra cash", they're grinding on about whether taxes would be paid, how much the hourly rate would be, whether there would be enough pay. Now my estimate was that $100 would have been taken in a single day. Offset the cost of the day which wouldn't have been more than $30 and both parties could have walked away with $35 each for 4 - 6 hours, most of which would have been sitting there, being seen to be working which would have been great advertising for both a face painter and a photographer.

Sure - if you look at it with blinkers and say "it's a job" then you're absolutely not cut out for business and should remain either on welfare or go and work for Walmart for minimum wage. If on the other hand you look on it as an opportunity to showcase your skills then the world is your oyster. Just one flea market day could open a whole world of opportunities.

Foursquare

A few days ago, I looked into using Foursquare again for a bit of fun. What a seismic change! It's now split into two apps - the Foursquare app and the Swarm app. Neither seem to have remotely the functionality that the old app used to and they wouldn't link in to an auto-update nor would they auto-post to Twitter. Foursquare has pretty much wrecked an app that had limited use anyway.

It was good to see that the silly things had gone from Foursquare. In the past, being the person with the most checkins at a site earned the "Mayorship" of the site. That was about as silly as the number of "badges" earned by visiting a variety of different venues. It's good to see that nonsense had vanished.

The question is now whether Foursquare actually serves a function. For me, as it now seems to be totally broken, it serves no function whatsoever. There was a very specific use I had for it but it seems better now just to use Twitter while Twitter still functions.

So the question is - is there a geolocation app that will do the kind of things I want now? Answers on the back of a postcard if you can find an app that I can link into a website that:

• Auto-Logs me into certain locations. For example if I set it to log me in when I visit the bakery then every time I visit the bakery, it records it and publishes it on my website.
• Logs me in as required at various locations when commanded to do so.
• Does not record my position when it's not required.

Simple stuff that Foursquare and and auto-checkin app all used to do just fine.

Taleo sells your personal information

Everyone these days is applying for positions. It seems that most of the alleged general recruitment sites have major issues providing genuine positions. In months of investigating positions on CareerBuilder, only one out of hundreds appeared to be genuine. The same pretty much goes for all of the jobs websites.

Today it was startling to find that Taleo has apparently been selling email addresses in some kind of spam campaign. The following email in all its dubious glory was received from a Taleo server. Case closed on Taleo.

Dear -removed-, my name is Rosa Neal and I am the Senior Manager of Talent Acquisition for Kool Smiles.  Kool Smiles General Dentistry is a growing group practice dedicated to providing access to quality dentistry for kids and adults across the country. 

We are currently seeking full-time and part-time Associate Dentists for our SC clinics. 

Please note that we will pay a referral fee up to $2500 for a Dentist that you refer who is subsequently hired.  So, even if you are not interested, but know of someone who might be I would love to speak with you! 

We currently have openings in the following offices:   

*Columbia

*Anderson

*Sumter

*Greenville

*Orangeburg

*Rock Hill

*Charleston

At Kool Smiles we offer: 

•    Sign-on bonus up to $20k and relocation benefits 

•    Competitive guaranteed daily rate

•    401K Plan with company match

•      Health, dental and vision insurance 

•      100% coverage of malpractice insurance 

•    Paid vacation days

•    Visa and permanent residency sponsorship with covered legal fees 

•    No buy-in required, no lab fees

If you are interested in hearing about this opportunity or know of someone who might be interested in this opportunity please feel free to contact me directly.  

I look forward to hearing back from you.

Best Regards,

Rosa Neal-Prillerman

Manager, Dental Staffing

NCDR, LLC/Kool Smiles, PC

1090 Northchase Parkway, SE

Suite 150

Atlanta, GA 30067

Phone: (404) 844-9816

Fax: (678) 247-7918

Email: rnealprillerman@ncdrllc.com

Website: www.koolsmilespc.com

-------------------------------

Powered by Taleo

www.taleo.com

 In other similar news I've been on the mailing list for SCWorks for a long time. A few days ago, an interesting position was listed and the question was raised as to whether i was interested. A long farce then ensued.

SCWorks - Are you interested in this vacancy?
Me - Yes.
SCWorks - You must apply online via the link.
Me - The link leads off to a 3rd party website that says the job has gone.
SCWorks - Do a search on the SCWorks website.
Me - Sorry but I have just tried that and the search does not seem to work.
SCWorks - Here's a link to the job on the company website.
Me - That's a link to the splash page. There are several jobs listed with the same description. Which one was it.
SCWorks - Try this, tjis, tjis and this.

It just seems that all these general jobs websites and that includes government sites feed off each other and with each iteration lose accuracy.

update your bookmarks by October 12th

Today a notice arrived from the domain registrar. Britphoto.us will expire in October unless $10.95 is handed over. $10.95 is not going to be paid for a domain name that last year was $3.99 so please update your bookmarks.

The new address to bookmark: www.tehisp.blogspot.com

In other news, it is apparently influenza that has held up authoring new articles. This should be clear by the weekend.

postings will soon recommence

I'm currently imprisoned in my sickbed due to some nice person kindly donating a free dose of influenza to me. Wasn't that nice, kind and generous of them? If South Carolina was funding Obamacare then I could have visited the doctor and had some Tamiflu. As it is and since my current role has no health coverage, I just have to wait it out, losing money as I wait. Such is the joy of part time work.

I'm sorry - you're a tetrachromat and there's no cure.

The doctor looked over her horn-rimmed glasses and pursed her lips. "I'm so sorry Miss Robinson but the diagnosis is tetrachromacy. There is no cure and nobody is researching a cure either. You'll just have to live with it and realise that everybody will think you're a complete madwoman for your entire life". The doctor paused as Miss Robinson sank back into the chair to digest the news while noticing that the doctor's suit that was supposed to be a uniform pale pink was putrid yellow on one piece and very red on another. She sighed at people's poor taste as she realised that there was no cure for either people's bad taste nor her affliction. Slowly she stood up and left.

Tetrachromacy is a real problem that affects many hundreds of thousands of people worldwide. Due to a genetic abnormality their eyes have four sets of cones as opposed to the three of standard mortals.

Tetrachromats see more colors than ordinary people. Their vision has more color gradation than ordinary people and extends further into the infra-red and ultra-violet than normal. This  can be quite confusing for both them and standard people when colors are discussed.

Generally women are more affected by tetrachromacy then men but both genders can be affected. Next time a woman spends time trying to match the colors on her outfit to the precise shade of vermillion, she could be picky or she could be a tetrachromat.

One of the family friends in the past clearly had tetrachromatic abilities. As an art teacher, her paintings exhibited the colors she saw which clearly extended beyond the range of standard vision. With such an ability it is a crying shame that tetrachromats are made to feel abnormal or stupid and have to suffer the lack of chromatic vision of the rest of the human race.

Next time you meet somebody with abnormal color vision, remember they have an ability that you just do not and that ytou are the defective member of the human race while they are the future.

Headshot!

Some while ago, there was a photography competition entitled "Headshot" with interpretation apparently open. It could have been a photo of somebody's head, a photo of the head stamp on a cartridge. It could have been just about anything. Lacking suitable victims, Yorick was pressed into action. Yorrick never has much say in these matters. He never gets much of an opportunity - mind, if Yorick were to speak up then it would be pretty startling! As in Shakespeare's Hamlet, Yorick is devoid of life.

Yorick is a polystyrene head - not specifically of anybody. He's just a generic polystyrene head that was purchased on eBay some ten years ago. Originally he was purchased to be a model for photography practice with lighting. That was back when there was a photography business running.

The aforementioned competition was not centred around using Yorick as Yorick was in a storage unit at the time. Somewhere in the files, the competition entry still exists though where is unknown at the moment. That was a recreation of the famous execution of a Viet Cong Captain but done with a couple of GI Joes in silhouette. 

At the moment, GI Joes are unavailable as there is no ready source from which to borrow GI Joes. Thus Yorick stepped in to save the day. Today's project is a headshot done with a single light source from the side. It took a couple of attempts to nail the exposure as the trick is to expose for the lighter side and not for the darker side. Most camera meters average out the exposure which means that the whole image is visible when only a portion of it really needs to be. This is the beginning of how to make light work for you.

The first image was woefully underexposed but does show that about 3 stops of underexposure seems to be about right. It's quite possible that the above image was up to 7 stops underexposed.

The next image was lit from one side. At the point in time memory has faded so it could have been an off camera flash or it was more likely to be a Walmart desk lamp with a 40W incandescent bulb. Although I've had top of the range expensive camera flashes that cost $500 and more, the simple Walmart desk lamp costing a mere $7 with a bulb that cost a mere 90 cents produces a more pleasing image.

The color image was quite interesting but converted to B&W the 3D glasses which were blue and red become grey and look much better. The head begins to slide into darkness which is what it was all really about. I'm quite a fan of half-lighting and shadows but that's my B&W roots from when I used nothing but Ilford HP5 and Konica 3200 B&W films.

Photography and politics 2

Over the past few weeks, one of the things assigned to me was the photography for the South Carolina Gubernatorial election for one of the candidates. The fun thing has been designing and putting together all the online advertisements. Thus far there have been three completed and there's another under development.

All of the advertisements are supposed to give a man of the people image. The first video has a voter reading off a card. This was styled after Margaret Thatcher's election campaign video of 1978 just before she swept into power. The presentation is still valid today.

Direct video link

After that, there were two more videos, from which the style was taken from an old-school master of propaganda. Neither have sound on the basis that many people just turn the sound off on videos. Why waste sound as it's something that's just not getting heard.

Direct Video Link

Direct Video Link

Well, having shown the videos, I suppose I'd better show you his Twitter and Facebook pages. The Twitter is @GovSage. The Facebook is here for the account and here for the page. His campaign does need funding in order to produce more videos, attend conventions etc so his indigogo funding account is here.

Normal service will resume tomorrow

The news last night was somewhat appalling.

Five children have been missing from where I work (I work with children) since September 2nd.

It seems that the father took them away with him. Police were alerted on September 2nd when the children were not returned to their mother (The mother and father are divorced).

It transpired that last night the bodies of the five were found in an advanced state of decomposition due to the heat of the Southern US and the father admitted their murder. Hence, I really don't feel like writing a witty, informative blog entry on photography/business/internet

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/09/10/sc-5-children-dead-found-alabama/15385969/

Shooting fireworks

Many moons ago, my buddy from way back when, Wayne Clarke, who was at the time working for a newspaper called "The Swansea Gazette". This was one of the free newspapers which pretty much went downhill after a long period of decline then ended up being sold to another newspaper which promptly closed it.

The phone rang with Wayne enquiring whether a fireworks session would be acceptable. Thus, we headed off to the fireworks display one fine November 5th. For those that don't know, November 5th or more commonly "Fireworks Day" is officially called "Guy Fawkes Day". In a nutshell, it commemorates the execution in 1605 of Guido Fawkes for his involvement in a plot to blow up the British Houses of Parliament. His execution was rather gruesome as he was sentenced to be hung, drawn and quartered. Following this it became law that everybody should celebrate his execution day and thus Guy Fawkes Day was born. There is considerable debate as to the degree of involvement that Guido Fawkes had with the affair with some claiming he was a fall guy set up by the main gang.

Having said that, the advice given by my old buddy remains good to this day. For fireworks:

• Wait until after dark or near dark before beginning to photograph them. 
• Set the lens aperture to the smallest aperture - normally 22 or 32.
• Set the camera on a tripod.
• Set the shutter to B or T.
• Watch to see where the main bursts are exploding and aim the camera at those bursts. Other bursts will usually appear in the same area.
• Don't use a long lens or a wide lens. Stick with something about 35mm - 50mm in 35mm format or 18 - 35 in digital 1.5/1.6 crop format.

Open the shutter for long enough to capture one or two bursts then close it. The following are samples done using this technique.

This one even has the National Parks warden enthralled. This was taken at Dreher Island, South Carolina on July 4th one year.

This was the parade of boats. The boats are moving. The camera is not. Thus the boats have made streaks of light across the frame.

Above all, have fun and don't be afraid to experiment. That's what photography is all about - having fun and experimenting. Nobody ever makes money from photography on a consistent basis so don't worry about taking salable images. Take images that you will enjoy.

The importance of good quality filters

Some while ago, on a photo expedition to Blackville, unwisely I did not look at the filter on my camera lens. I'd expected like all the others, it was Hoya. It was only later when I saw the images that it became apparent that what was on there was cheap trash. It was some other brand and it was awful.

Lots of halation, lack of definition and loss of color in the image and all because of a cheap-ass ProMaster polarising filter. It didn't help also that the lens hood on the lens was pretty ineffective. As a general rule, wide-angle lens hoods are almost useless. Far better to hold up a hat between the sun and the lens when shooting into the light.

Clearly such an awful image had to be rescued somehow. This was the first attempt - enhancing the color and sharpness. This almost worked but the haze at the top still ruined the image.

Finally, in an act of sheer desperation, the entire image was converted to sepia. This, oddly enough, does work since sepia images and softness do pretty much go together.

The moral of the story - toss out all the low-end filters in your collection. They're utter trash and the only person that's not deluded into believing they actually work is the person that bought them. The best of the cheaper brands is Hoya. Hoya is not perfect but it's a darned sight better than ProMaster.

Work and leisure

Work is a four letter word said a friend called John back in the 1980s when we were all students in West Glamorgan Institute of Higher Education which subsequently renamed itself "Swansea Institute of Higher Education" before becoming Swansea Metropolitan University. Confused yet? If not then clearly West Gla - Swansea Inst - Swansea Metropolitan University hasn't tried hard enough yet. It's almost as bad as British Airways which kept inventing new logos and new names for itself for enough years to be frustrating. Finally they realised nobody cared what the airline was called - people just want cheap tickets.

For me, work is something that has to be done. John's opinion differed there. John had left the Royal Air Force with big credit card debts due to a gambling addiction. The credit card companies had apparently been convinced that by completing the course we were both on, he would go into a lucrative field and make loads of money in order to pay off the debts. This of course was just a fantasy to buy more time for more drinking and gambling before being brought to account by the credit card companies. Needless to say, the drinking, smoking and gambling lifestyle continued and by the final year of the course John's attendance was negligible, submitted coursework was non-existent and a fail was assured. Meanwhile, after passing, the bottom fell out of the computer industry and hence neither of us would have been able to find computer work anyway.

Oddly enough, the work that comes to me is multi-location with long sessions in each location. For example, part of the week on one location and part in another location. All of these locations are far enough from the house that is rented to make continuing to live in a static location somewhat infuriating due to travel time, gas and mileage. There's also the little matter that I'm hardly ever home these days so I'm paying for a house that I'm not living in.

Thus, the idea of a mobile residence has appeared. Thereby hang several issues. First that a simple travel trailer (caravan to the UK folk) is simply too heavy for my daily transport to pull (even if it had a tow hook).  A mid-sized motorhome is not powerful enough to pull a trailer carrying my normal daily transport nor is it really big enough for sustained living.

This was an interesting looking motorhome that would be excellent for weekend getaways. Sadly, it's too small for anything more prolonged. There have been others advertised but so far they have all been either too small, too expensive or too fishy.

Craigslist has been an endless source of entertainment. One suitable-looking motorhome was advertised that had a tarp draped over the front of the roof and clearly bent panelling. It was probably on a salvage title and the price wanted for $4,000. Well, good luck on that! With that kind of damage, it was probably worth $50 from the scrap merchant (wrecker's yard). The motorhome above is probably worth $500 on a good day but the price desired was way in excess of that.

There's no great rush so it's possible to sit back and relax, looking for suitable vehicles. Indeed, it has been suggested that the best route to take would be to buy a bus or a truck and to convert it. Given that it's not hard and a composting toilet could be substituted for the expensive flush toilet, there is nothing there beyond some minor electrics, plumbing and woodwork.

The advantages of a motor home for the independent man have long been proclaimed. Perhaps it's time to indulge before becoming too old and farty.

Re-imagine your love for Craigslist

Ignore the news stories about the Craigslist killer. Ignore the stories about rapists, murderers, muggers and bandits of all kinds using Craigslist. These are the stuff of news stories and fantasy horror reports from all around the internet. Simply disregard them and live life without worrying about what might or could happen.

A few weeks ago, there was a camper that had been converted from a bus advertised on Craigslist. Suspiciously the fellow wanted only to be texted - did not want to be phoned nor emailed. Out of curiosity a text exchange was commenced. It transpired that the camper was located in the North East of the city. Interestingly, Google maps satellite view showed a much smaller camper than was advertised on the driveway of the given address. Clearly something fishy was afoot. With this in mind, the day that the camper was to be viewed, a profitable time cleaning out the fridge was substituted.

Roll forward a week or two and the same camper with the same background appears on Facebook but in a totally different location. This time it was in the South West of the city. So, which one was genuine or not genuine or were they both fakes? This will never be known as big purchases should always be done with more care than viewing simply from an online advert.

15 years ago, the Russian Mafia paid Russian women for portraits of them. They were invited to portrait sessions and paid handsomely and given complete sets of photographs. The use for those portraits - they were used on dating sites created by the Russian mafia. The sites were geared particularly to lonely, elderly American men. The scam went as follows - the victim was conned into sending the scammer small amounts of money for telephone and internet expenses. This would continue for a long time. All the scammer had to do was to send emails and pictures to and fro. Then the scammer would ask for money for a visa, visa lawyer and plane ticket. After that there would be some problem that meant the lady could not come to the US. If the victim announced they were coming to Russia then the lady would immediately find and marry some other guy. Given the low regard for international law by the Russian government, this was just viewed as a way of getting income for Mother Russia.

So, Craigslist - a scammers paradise and a victim's Hell or a wonderful place to do business? I'll leave that decision up to you. Keep your powder dry and trust in Craigslist for an exciting time.

How to ensure you're not going to succeed in business

There are so many successful people out there that perhaps you want to break the mold and be unsuccessful. Join the culture of abysmal failure. Bring failure to the pinnacle of perfection and demonstrate even to Great Britain how failure can be achieved with even more panache, style and confidence.

Basically, the way to fail with success is to rely upon the internet for almost everything. Keep that chair warm at all times. Keep those fingers glues to the keyboard. Keep posting online. Somebody's going to read it - eventually. Let's go through the various major online services.

• Twitter - whenever possible, do rely upon Twitter. There are 271 million Twitter users worldwide and a few bots too. Doing the maths, that's 271 million Twitter users out of 3 billion internet users or roughly 9% of internet users will use Twitter. Yahey - you're contacting 9% of the market. But hold up - that's 9% of the total market worldwide. Most likely your business is local. This means that if your locality has 500,000 people then you're likely Twittering to 9% of those 500,000 or about 45,000 people. That sounds good. It sounds even better when you realise that most of those Twitter users are teenagers or unemployed people with no money.
• Facebook - whenever possible, pay Mark Zuckerburg money to advertise on his website. He'll go broke if you don't and he'll be living on the streets out of a cardboard box. Facebook advertising is sure to get you website visits and the more you spend, the more visits you'll get,
• Foursquare - There are Foursquare users out there, even though most people have never ever heard of Foursquare. Might as well set up a Foursquare account and set up some magic discounts on Foursquare. It's bound to do something.
• Youtube - set up a youtube video. Do a selfie of yourself proclaiming how good you are, how good your products are and get some aunties, uncles, nieces and nephews involved to pretend to be happy customers. It will look so convincing. Film it on your mobile phone for that extra style.
• Blogging - choose a blog site and blog about your business. Somebody's bound to follow your blog and find what you say is interesting. They might even be local people.

Now, having set up all these online services and found out what a massive time soak they are, you need to hire somebody to manage all your online services. Don't worry that your online presence is getting less attention from local people than local people would care about a fart in a spacesuit on the International Space Station. The point is it's there and internet marketing is very powerful. Ignore the fact that internet marketing is so powerful that advertising revenue is dropping year after year and that people have become increasingly immune to all forms of advertising.

Now let's have a look at some other ways you can fail too. Just to make a nice, well-rounded failure. 

• Rely upon online sources for all your business advice. Because it's online, it must be true. What your competitors claim works must work because a competitor wouldn't possibly lie to you, would they?
• Mail shots - people love to receive advertising in the mail. I know all of mine goes unopened and unread into the trash but I'm the oddball.
• Marketing emails - don't you just love to read them? Don't you immediately rush out and buy everything that is advertised in the emails from breast enhancers to manhood enhancers?
• Newspaper advertising - it's always worth listening to newspaper advertising salesmen that tell you a months worth of advertising is $5,000 and after 6 months you will be swamped with customers. This will genuinely happen if you can put out just $30,000 in advertising.
• Vehicle signs - everybody reads vehicle signs. Remember how busy you are, calling all those people that advertise on the sides of their vehicles?
• Flyers - very useful and handy to distribute. Ignore the fact malls and businesses throw people out for passing out flyers. Ignore the fact that posting anything on walls and mailboxes is illegal. Ignore the fact that anybody finding your flyers will know immediately who has been littering the place.
• Business cards - very useful advertising tools. These should be as stunning as possible. Hire a designer to design a unique business card. People will keep the fancy ones for a few seconds longer than the boring cards. Press them into people's hands, two at a time. Here's one - give one to a friend.
• Chamber of Commerce. This is an excellent place to listen to the sound of people patting themselves on the back. Nobody has ever done any business resulting from a Chamber membership but you're going to be so different, aren't you?

Notice what's missing? People - we've blown all our budget to reach people but we've not actually connected to any people. Advertising online is like screaming into the Grand Canyon. All of this online stuff is a massive time soak. It's not free. It costs money. Here are the things that cost money:

• Staff time - to have staff tapping away on the keyboard (or your time even).
• Office space - to cater for staff dedicated to wasting time online.
• Electricity/Internet/Equipment - all tied up providing for this online nonsense.
• Insurance - to cover yourself and your employee.

Far better not to throw money, time and effort into the mythical world of internet lies. Better to spend time connecting to people that will buy your product. 

Rumblings from the deep cavernous bowels of retail.

Warren Buffet and all the big investors all pulled out of retail a year or two back. They sold all their retail shares and went over to other things. When Warren Buffet sees trouble, trouble usually arrives in spadeloads. Retail is definitely facing a real hammering at the moment.

In the past few weeks, two stores that I've shopped in have closed. Today news came through the grapevine that Walmart is now going to start making their staff buy their own uniforms from Walmart. The reasons are unclear, however, it does scream that Walmart could be facing a tough time and that making their staff buy clothes sold by Walmart could increase sales at a critical time.

Bookstores are closing all over the country if not the world due to competition from the big gorilla, Amazon. Now the strange thing about Amazon is that it has never ever made a meaningful profit. It is, however, driving many stores to the verge of bankruptcy.

A classic example - from when I worked in a bookstore. People would come in to buy a book and find it was $25 in the store but $16 online with Amazon. Instead of supporting the local store and local staff, they would go away and buy on Amazon. Needless to say, the store closed.

All around, retail stores are closing. They're not all "dead wood" like Circuit City, Ritz or Office Depot. Those weren't really dead wood anyway. They were less able to hold on than the survivors. The problem was that people stopped spending money so freely when the recession arrived.

The recession has never left. It has changed form and mutated but the recession that started officially in 2005 is still going strong. Don't belive it? Then how many stores have closed in the last 12 months near your location? More than 1, more than 5, more than 10? All I have to do is to look at www.columbiaclosings.com to see the whole sad affair.

The recession did not start in 2005. Its roots were way before that. The roots of the recession started ten years before, in 1995 when subprime loans were offered to people that had no hope of paying them back. Of course they all defaulted when it worked out cheaper to default than to pay off the loans and quite understandably so. The Russian mafia has another way of dealing with debt - if they owe money and don't feel like repaying the debt they send a hit man around to the creditor.

Recent figures showed camera sales have been dropping. This is 100% because nobody has any money. The recession (in fact a fully fledged depression) is still rumbling onward. Nobody has any money. People don't have any money. Governments don't have any money. In many ways, this is a similar situation to 1930s Germany. We know what happened in 1936 in Germany and what happened subsequently.

If this economic depression leads to war then it will not be a war of the 1940s. It will be a slower, longer drawn out more insidious type of war. It will be a war of insurgents where neighbor will be unable to trust neighbor. Nobody will know who is on whose side. Friends to ones face and a dagger in ones back. This is the future to which this depression is leading. Warren Buffet has shown us the light.

The problem with Youtube

Think of online video and immediately the thought is of Youtube. Youtube has been around since time immemorial in technological terms. It's almost been around since technological dinosaurs such as IBM AS400s were popular.

Youtube has issues though - many, deep-rooted issues. The following video is a classic example of one of those issues. Uploading to Youtube has degraded the quality somewhat but that's not the major issue. The major issue is that the captions (which youtube calls "annotations") don't appear on mobile devices nor on some other devices. Given that most views of this blog are from people using mobile devices and hazarding a guess that most people these days use a mobile device rather than a laptop or a desktop, this is a problem that youtube needs to resolve. Try watching the video on a mobile device and a PC/Mac and see the difference!

Don't get me wrong - youtube is useful and highly entertaining. It's possible to watch both educational and entertaining things on youtube. It's just that the frilly niceties don't really work quite like they should or perhaps quite as the end user expects.

The above video was a quick video shot for the South Carolina Gubernatorial campaign of 2014. The budget was non-existent for the campaign so it has all been done with no glitz. Only time will tell whether this works or not. It's quite likely that only big money wins elections and thus it's possible to say that only the biggest wallet can buy a seat in office.

Fake checks.

Oh no! That Great Uncle Dengue that you never knew you had has just died. Glory be, he has bequeathed to you his vast fortune amassed in his days running the slave markets of Abuja. As the evil treasury is going to confiscate this vast fortune, a corrupt official promises to send you the money if only you can cash a check for him. This is where the fun begins.

A friend regularly gets sent fake checks without ever having sent out any information. The check below is a fake check. The bank is real, the company is real but the check is bogus. The company was contacted but did not sound at all interested in the fake check nor in the fact the check was sent by recorded post issued at the company as the place of origin and using the company franking machine. Clearly not a healthy attitude toward criminality that leads to questions about the company itself.

There are so many red flags about that check - the lack of a signature is one. The fact it's for a ludicrous amount of money is another. 

 This check was sent entirely unannounced. Now my friend is getting harrassing emails as to whether the check arrived. It is quite amusing to see the text "void if not cashed within 30 days" on the check which is entirely fake anyway. I'm sure Hartford Municipal would love to get their hands on the people responsible for posting the fake checks.

This, of course, leads on to one of the biggest problems with all transactions - checking to see if it's actually genuine. For as long as the human race has been conducting business, some members have been seeking to get something supposedly for nothing. Oddly enough, the effort and expense put into their attempts to get something for nothing would usually have been sufficient for them to do well at an honest career.

Whatever attempt is made to ensure money is genuine is only a step ahead of the forgers who're willing to go to any expense to make fake money. Today a new banknote is introduced, tomorrow the forgery is introduced. It's cat and mouse the whole way.

Electronic payments - as soon as somebody works out how to fake an electronic payment, the system needs to be rejigged. This happens regularly.

So - what method of payment is infallibly genuine?

• Bitcoin? Hardly - it's not even a real currency.
• Paypal? About as bogus as it gets with more loopholes than most Presidential impeachments.
• Check? Easy to print a fake check and the inertia in the banking system makes it look like a real check.
• Money? Man has been forging money for as long as there has been money, from the medieval coin sweating to printing fake currency.
• Plastic cards? Easy to fake and easy to copy somebody else's.
• Barter? How do you know that something with a Gucci label was actually made by Gucci?
• Gold? How do you know it's not gold plated over lead?

Nothing is guaranteed in the world save for death and taxes. Even the money deposited in the bank is not guaranteed to depreciate to nothing if government policies change. Nothing is guaranteed.

Sin now, pay later

All around are the signs. "Buy NOW, pay later", "mega sale", "Buy two get the 3rd free". Borrow now, pay back later. Hang on - isn't this exactly how those feckless bankers got us into the economic depression in the first place? Borrowing and not paying back became a way of life for about 10 years before the crash that started in 2005 and rumbled onwards.

Economists speak with forked tongues, claiming that the depression is really a mini recession and how everything is fine now. Tell that to the people that lost their jobs and are still losing their jobs. South Carolina, for example, has had increasing unemployment, year after year in 45 of 46 counties.

You could start a photography business but you won't get any clients. Photography is a dodo these days. Unless you have a niche that is unexploited then better do something else. As an example, I have two books out on high-speed imaging. It's a niche area but there aren't that many people into that particular niche.

Camera gear is constantly depreciating. What was $1000 last year will be $500 at most, secondhand, this year. Next year it will be worth $250. Don't rush out and buy that new camera or lens. Buy something secondhand instead. Let the suckers take the hit on buying new. Then, when you buy, buy secondhand. That way, you lose a load less.

Certainly the adverts are all proclaiming the latest and greatest equipment but a quick check on Flickr revealed that Canon D-60 of 2002 which retailed for $2199 is now a ludicrously pricey $50 on eBay. It is, however, still in use according to Flickr. The image size is no slouch either. 6 megapixels is more than adequate for most people. 6 megapixels will yield a 150dpi print of (3072x2048 pixels) 20 inches by 13 inches. That's way bigger than most desktop printers can print and way bigger than is needed to hang on a wall.

Certainly cameras have changed a little bit since the D60 but honestly, those changes are blown out of all proportion by manufacturers and enthusiasts. This is pretty much why it's absolutely not worth joining a camera group - they're so full of hot air! Changes in image quality since the D60 have been minimal which is why it's still a good camera choice.

So, sin now and pay later or be smart about it and spend less. I could go out and spend $20,000 on a camera system without batting an eyelid. Or I could be smart and assess my needs. I'm very much in favor of the Nikon 1 system though I would never buy a Nikon 1 new. Out of curiosity, today I checked on prices and found that for $150 it's possible to get a Nikon 1 J1 with a 10-30mm lens. That's pretty much all most people actually need. In 35mm format that's 28mm to 84mm which is a perfectly respectable range, good enough for wide-angle, portraits and some telephoto work. The choice is yours - spend $20,000 on something or $150.

Another thunderstorm

Thunder crash and lightning flash. Dark skies forming and rain falling. Winds ahowlin' and storms warnin. Tonight not be comfortable for saved nor sinner.

This afternoon just as the blog entry was about to be commenced, a major storm blew up from the East. Given that there is no protection here against lightning surges, the electronics all had to be unplugged.

This blog entry is short and sweet. Normal service will be resumed probably tomorrow. Writing on a mobile phone cramps the style somewhat.

Guess y'all will have to come back tomorrow possibly for photos of storm damage. The power went out an hour ago so only mobile equipment with charged batteries is functioning.