Walking on the dark side

For the past three years I’ve been devoting almost all of my free time not to photography but to building a motorhome out of an old school bus. The concept was that since I only seem to get the rubbish jobs in South Carolina, I’d be better off moving to a different state. Thus the project began and it has taken an absolute age.

In the last 18 months after deciding I wasn’t that good at driving my own bus, I took a job with a school district with the aim of learning to drive a school bus. That turned into a quite acceptable job with more money than I was getting from what I was doing previously.

While photography with a real camera has taken a bit of a back seat for the moment that doesn’t mean my interest in photography has dwindled any. In fact I still enjoy going out and taking photos. I’m saving every penny to complete my motorhome though so I don’t get to go out to fun places very often.

My big photo project of the last couple of years has been my bus conversion. Most of that has been documented with a cellphone purely because the quality of cellphones today is little short of excellent. While dedicated cameras do produce work that is a little better, the difference is pretty minimal to be honest.

Perhaps the most interesting photograph I’ve taken lately is of a bullet hole in a school bus. Yes - somebody fired what looks like a .45 bullet at a school bus while it was on the interstate. It penetrated the outer skin and was arrested by a nut attached to the inner skin. It just dented one corner of the nut and dropped to the floor of the bus. This demonstrates how ineffective pistols are against vehicles and their occupants.

After years of people saying “you can’t charge a camera battery from a USB source” it now appears that it’s possible. I just bought a USB powered charger for my Olympus e-pm1. That’s very welcome!  I won’t be getting one for my Canon though as I just don’t find I use my Canon, these days. It’s just big and bulky as well as heavy. I much prefer my small, light Olympus. It’s not as if I’m ever actually going to sell any photographic works. They’re purely for my own enjoyment.

Those with memories like elephants will recall that somebody managed to pull the wool over my eyes and convinced me photography in the USA was lucrative whereas in the UK had somebody tried to convince me of the same I’d have probably smacked them in the head. Sadly I had several people when I first arrived in the USA trying to and often succeeding to convince me with falsehoods. Anyway the upshot was I ended up with an excess of Canon camera gear - most of which I sold, virtually unused, at a massive loss several years later.  The reason I keep one camera is because it’s something my late mother bought me as a gift. That, I’ll always cherish. Otherwise I use my Olympus.

So, since my bus has only USB power installed, I had to hunt for a USB camera battery charger. I have no idea how well it’ll work but for $9 and being shipped from California (instead of China), it’s worth a shot. If it works that means I’ll be able to charge my camera battery from my solar-powered USB charger. That means if I went for a couple of weeks camping in the Arizona desert that I’d be able to keep my camera battery charged.

I had a look back at some model photos I took some years ago using my Canon and the expensive flash setup I had (that I subsequently sold) and the photos are excellent. Definitely professional quality. In terms of professional photography - don’t make me laugh. Nobody that claims to be a professional photographer is anything more than a bum with a camera. They could live far better by getting a real job and forgetting about photography as an income. Every time I hear the description professional photography, I am reminded of the tale of one of the British photographers who would regularly run to and from from the pawn shop, pawning equipment until he got a paying client.

When I think of a professional photographer, I think of a seedy character who’s not entirely to be trusted. Indeed one or two “professional” photographers come frequently to make paid presentations at camera club meetings. Invariably there’s something seedy and down-at-heel about them. The threadbare clothes or the dirty fingernails. Nothing that says “I make money” or “I am successful” or “this is a good job”.

Would I allow a “professional” photographer into my house? No - I most certainly would not. If one ever came near my property I’d be out counting the geraniums to make sure he hadn’t pinched any.

The Stupid British Photographer

No, I’m not talking about the kind of oaf that wields a smartphone camera in the botanical gardens and tramples over the rare and endangered plants carefully cultivated by skilled horticulturists in order to take a photograph of a piece of chewing gum on the back of a bench because it’s “artistic”. I’m not even talking about the kind of buffoon that climbs tall buildings from the outside while endangering life and limb while causing consternation to the general public, police, ambulancemen, firemen etc and risking hefty fines just to get that “perfect” photograph that just about every maintainance worker up there has already taken. Nor am I talking about those that wander into long closed facilities in order to take photographs of ruin while concrete blocks sail gaily from on high, landing with a thud on the ground next to them.

What I am talking about is the kind of fool that actually believes Britain will be better outside the European Union. Well, I suspect the Europeans would be a lot happier if Britain was outside since it’s universally agreed that the British moan, whine, grumble and complain an awful lot. In fact, on my last trip to Britain I found an awful lot of pessimistic, negative people whose mouths were as foul as their body odor. (And you wonder why I choose to live in the USA).

For some inexplicable reason, the British population has allowed itself to be hoodwinked into voting in a non-legally-binding refurendum (opinion poll) to leave the European Union. Sure - the EU can come out with heavy-handed legislation but then on the other hand so does the British Parliament. That’s not a reason to leave. There’s money and power at foot here and it’s not money and power flowing into Britain if it leaves the EU. The usual vocal expresses of poison and bilge (The Daily Express and the Daily Mail) are staunchly advocating leaving the EU while painting a rose-tinted version of how Britain will be better afterwards. These newspapers are actually not independent. Follow the links and you’ll find Russian connections.

Who would benefit from upheaval and instability in Europe? The Russians, of course. With enough upheaval and instability they could easily march back into Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Poland, Czechoslovakia etc but that’s not their goal. Individual nation states run as puppet countries from the safety of Moscow is the ultimate goal. Everybody will think they’re still independent but it’s just an illusion. Look at the furor over the US elections with allegations of meddling by the Russians with their “Internet Research Foundation”.

So while we’re all quietly ignoring the potential future of Britain annexed into Soviet Union 2 with Vladimir Putin’s face on the Poundski and where the Lord’s Prayer recited daily in school assemblies throughout the country now says “Oh Benevolant Vladimir, give us our daily bread that we may serve you”, let’s look at what will definitely happen if Britain doesn’t get annexed by the new Soviet Union. It’s really quite a lot and quite involved.

• Emergency trade agreements will have to apply leaving Britain at a massive competitive disadvantage. 
• More staff will be required to manage borders. 
• British exports will plunge expanding the budget deficit
• Millions will be laid off or forced into early retirement
• Pensions will be cut
• Unemployment pay will cease to exist
• Sickness pay will cease to exist
• Everything that can be sold by the government will be sold
• Millions will be evicted from their homes due to inability to pay rent or to get anybody to pay their rent for them.
• Vast slum encampments will spring up wherever there’s a vacant space. 
• Public health programs will be cut back
• Cholera, Typhus and Dysentry will return
• Leprosy will return and leper colonies will be established
• The lights will go out as they did in the 70s but for different but similar reasons.
• The EU will start sending aid packages
• Boatloads of refugees from Britain will start arriving in Ireland, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Germany, Holland, Italy, Spain and France.

And as for photography? Nobody will be able to afford the electricity to charge their camera. Nobody will be able to afford fuel for their car to go anywhere nice. The animals in the zoos will have been long since eaten by the starving population. That is, of course, if the photographer hasn’t already pawned his camera to buy a stale loaf of bread.

How stupid can the British be?

Which way is the right way?

Thinking about whether to buy a camera or to stick with a phone is alaways a tough choice. This is something I was thinking about yesterday. I already have cameras and phones and have no intention of being exclusive to one or the other. Having said that I went out the other day specifically to take some autumn photos.

That’s one I took with an Olympus PM1 with a 14-42 standard lens (I don’t own any other lenses for my Olympus). I’m sure you’ll agree it’s really quite a pleasant photo. I don’t think I could have improved on this by using a Canon DSLR.

This photo was taken with my $29 cheapo ZTE cellphone. Both photos show you clearly what you’re looking at. The cellphone image is a bit softer (which could be fixed with post processing). Neither images have had an after photo twiddling - they’re both straight from camera JPEGS.

Years ago when people actually wasted money on printing photos to put in physical albums and to hang on walls while the prints faded it actually made sense to go for a higher-end camera. These days though almost all booboos can be fixed with automatic software tools. The kicker is most photographs will only ever be displayed digitally which is pretty low resolution.

Do you really want to see my quick lunch from the other day printed to 16”x20” and hung on a wall somewhere? Of course not! Posted on social media though that would be fine and dandy. The point is that the only place 99.99% of images will ever be displayed is via social media. Aside from wedding photos (forget the “albums” nobody cares about those. They’re sold by “photographers” who’re more into a quick buck that anything else), nobody much cares about prints. In fact, most couples would rather have the digital images and simply press delete when their partnership breaks up.

The trade off is simple - a camera will provide an excessively high quality images while a phone will allow you to share an adequate quality image easily. There’s your choice. You can be anal and go for high quality - in which case you go for a Leica or practical and go for a cellphone. Anything between those two is just a distraction.

Most digital cameras (my PM1 included) can take excellent movies. Now the movie above was taken with a cellphone (my ZTE). The movie taken with my PM1 was obviously of higher quality but uploading a large file would have burned up too much bandwidth and taken up too much storage space. Having said that, the only difference was a slight increase in clarity. That was probably more due to my having a polarizer permanently mounted on the lens.

So, how important is uploadability to you? For me, it’s important. This is why 90% of my blog images these days are taken with a cellphone. This is why this blog gets so little attention these days. I like it to be mostly camera based. With a cellphone of limited speed and bandwidth as my sole internet connection, I can’t afford to waste the data. My cellphone uploads automatically without my having to press buttons. The images are instantly ready to share. The killer is - they’re good enough to use in publications. I’ve published several cellphone images in books I’ve written. A real camera makes the photos a bit better and a bit easier to take BUT is the convenience tradeoff worthwhile.

I’ll leave you with a question... If you’re walking down the street and suddenly Lady Gaga walks by naked aside from a leather collar and being lead on by an equally naked Bruce Willis who’s holding a leash attached to that collar, are you going to take a photo with your cellphone or with your camera? Will you even have your camera with you?