I’ve made my living as a pro photographer for over 30 years. These days I consider most cameras to be disposable. I also keep any older bodies as hazardous duty remote cameras. Once you get into the mindset it opens a certain amount of creativity.
1,027 karma · joined May 13, 2020
This kid had to know what a camera was, which end was filming (some early film cameras appeared to be simple boxes), and wanted to make his mark on the final product.
A while back on this forum I explained how I have my truck camper fully fueled, stocked with water, foo, and propane. Its electrical system is solar charged but it also has a built-in generator. It’s in this “ready mode” as an emergency shelter for my family. We don’t get much warning with an earthquake.
I was ridiculed by a few folks who seemed to suggest I was a paranoid prepper. But this article and its message have never left my mind.
I do love optical media and have a considerable CD, DVD, minidisc, and blu-ray collection. Like a Luddite, I still enjoy burning my own.
I especially like my Superscope disc copier. It completely disregards copy protection and I frequently make a backup of my favorite CDs which I store. Although much of my stock are older blanks (like those listed in this article)I’ll be sad if CD-R disappears from the market.
My preparation of a truck camper as an emergency shelter makes perfect sense to me. It is mobile, has a built-in generator but is mostly run by solar charging, provides enough space to sleep and live with heat and AC. Few people prep their RV's as an emergency shelter. I'm not sure why. Naturally, I hope my community does not have to face a major earthquake, but I do find it interesting when I get criticism for preparing. Am I coming across as paranoid, or prepared?
The transfer switch has multiple switches that allows me to power different sections of the house. I tested everything running the generator - the furnace, the fridges, select lights - it works like a charm. The generator runs off propane and I have 8 bottles of extra in the shed in addition to the large tanks in the camper. Propane is very stable in long-term storage so it is my ideal fuel.
My point being that I don't know where the cost of a home generator is between 7k and 15k. Even if I purchased a separate generator dedicated to house back-up this would be around 2k. The transfer switch would be around 1k for the average consumer. That is 3k. What am I missing about these estimates?
I've been a pro photographer since 1990 and the Kodachrome setting embedded within the Nikon scanner is fantastic for capturing the color and detail of this exceptionally sharp film.
The writing has been on the wall for decades. Images are losing value because millions upon millions are created every hour of every day. However, some of those images are remarkable and unique. People can make a lot of money if you happen to be the copyright holder of these images.
An example I like to give is the photographs Gary Rosenquist captured of Mt. St. Helens exploding and the side of the mountain sliding away. Nobody else captured this sequence. Not even close. These images make substantial licensing fees to this day.
I've long been fascinated by the fact that a camera can capture subjects the human eye cannot properly perceive. It just so happens that this obsession has led me to create images that are hard to imitate. I feel no guilt in charging fees for my images. I feel no guilt about pursuing people who have stolen my images for their own projects.
If you are photographing bald eagles with an American flag in the background or frosty fall leaves artfully arranged on the ground - I agree with the gist of this thread - these images are worth practically nothing. But this not universally true for all images.
You make a good point about the lack of durability and instability of many types of chemical photo processes (especially color negative and print processing). I do think many digital formats will be lost to time when a color transparency or b&w negative will still be viewable without much aid into the future.
One of my favorite photo books is the re-photographic survey project by Mark Klett. He went around re-capturing the exact locations (and camera position) of notable images of the American West from the early days of the US geological survey when they had a plate photographer on the team. We are talking about a time period just after the US Civil War. So we see a landscape captured in time 10 decades or more after the original.
I've been a pro photographer for over 30 years. All my earliest digital work is archived in RAW so I have the original shooting data. It all triple backed up and I have a friend that allows me store one of my backups at his home. I've been amazed at how many photographers lost track of or throw away their older work. I'm still licensing my work hundreds of times a year and some of this older material is becoming even more valuable simply due to scarcity. The redundancy of digital is great of you take archiving seriously.
Yet, I still have drawers of original film from the late 80's - to early 2000's I'm scanning a few but will probably let many be disposed of . . .
Whenever I read a story like this, I wonder if more people should be vaccinated for rabies. When I spoke to the Oregon state veterinarian a few years ago he told me about a terrible case of rabies infection that happened with a child. The general scenario is - domestic cat catches rabid bat - cat becomes rabid - child in the household is bitten. As mentioned, by the time symptoms are detected it is too late. The doctor also told me a man who got bit by a rabid dog in Mexico and died in Oregon. It took some sleuthing to figure out how/when the infection occurred since the Mexico trip had been months before.
Rabies is a terrible way to die.
*My wife's family salts everything to hell and back. I think this is because their sense of taste is declining. So perhaps I've been gifted a sensitive palette that has not lost much with age. Its worth mentioning that my in-laws struggle with obesity, diabetes, and high-blood pressure. I'm thankfully afflicted with none of these things.
I think I paid around $350 eight years ago and get regular updates for free. I also have Adobe’s Premiere on my machine but I gravitate toward FCPX and wonder why I still pay Adobe monthly for that app. I might add syncing multiple cameras in FCPX is pretty easy in post production.
I’m wandering if this is a precursor for the future. Apple charging monthly for desktop apps.
I wish you great success.
For those wondering why I can't use a GoPro for this project - I have several reasons. Power consumption is one. This is in a breeding facility, and although I can turn off the beep in GoPro menu settings, I've had the beep spontaneously reset after a power outage (which are frequent). Also - Gopros don't turn back on after losing power and must be manually powered back on - something I can't do when chicks and parents are present.
One brother seemed to need weed to function daily. He struggled at school, never got a real job, and smoked weed every waking hour. He was hitting the bong first thing in the morning. I think he eventually got bored with weed and started using other drugs including prescription pain killers. He became paranoid and psychotic and eventually started pointing guns at police officers. He is now dead sadly, and I wonder every day if I could have intervened in a meaningful way to prevent this.
The other brother is smart. Engineer smart. He designs his own motorcycle racing mods, built an e-commerce site for a Harley Davidson dealership which eventually took over as the principal money earner for the business (until Harley cracked down on 3rd party sellers). When he smoked weed it seemed to quiet his mind and even inspire him - he could work for an inhuman number hours once properly loaded with THC. His boss new he was a regular user and tipped him whenever a random drug test was in the works. Then one day, my brother deliberately failed the test. At that point he seemed to have a mental breakdown and his life has been in a downward spiral ever since. He lives in a school bus with all the seats removed (no other mods). He struggles with poverty.
My general attitude is that THC should be legal, but it is not as harmless as advertised. Occasional recreational use seems fine, but some people who use it to self-medicate may eventually have a reckoning. I still say THC is less harmful than alcohol.
For a general "do everything" camera - Sony's RX-10 is also remarkable. It has a built-in 24mm-600mm optic in a small, portable package. This camera can do photo and video with ease. It has a far larger sensor than Panasonic or Nikon's equivalent versions. My complaints with this camera are the poor manual focusing options and the low dynamic range of video which requires careful exposure to not blow out highlights.
I have not used the 28-400 in this article. But I do know that the shortcomings of these wide-to-telephoto lenses (not sharp throughout the range, poor construction) seem to have disappeared.
I really didn't consider the philosophy of deeper meaning contained within, so the contradictions this article points out never bothered me. They still don't. Yet I agree that the discussions around this movie that have taken place for 40 years, and its revival after box office failure continue to amaze. I do love Ridley's "Final Cut" version and the sequel as well which cements Deckard's replicant status.
I already avoid sugar and bread. I work out nearly every day. I'm very active and my BMI is on point. My blood sugar was fine. It was another metric that I can't recall at the moment - but it seemed weird. Regardless, a very obese nurse sat me down and gave me tips for changing my diet.
Yet this is an example of something that required foresight and planning- and just a bit of serendipity. It’s a great image.
I’ve had some trouble illustrating the difference between these two concepts for people not in the profession. Yet my professional success has been entirely based upon the latter. However even with all the planning and preproduction work, most of my success has relied on serendipity to a degree. Sometimes this results in failure because this last little ingredient never happened.
My mother was nurturing and supportive. She realized my potential and encouraged me the entire time. I help support her these days and I'm proud she lives well. We talk on the phone frequently about philosophy, religion, politics and more. She is lively and engaged. Yet my half brother and sister complain endlessly how their lives were ruined by our mother. They have very detailed stories of privation and emotional abuse. They are older yet we lived together growing up. I don't recognize any of the things they claim. Its like they lived a completely different life. My mother takes their criticism to heart and it hurts when they loudly make these claims.
Yet, I must consider that my siblings seem emotionally stunted. I think this is genetic. At various times they both have demanded their "inheritance" early which is non-existent. My siblings fail the marshmallow test over and over again as adults. Any financial windfall is drained away immediately on frivolous items. I just found out my brother got a PPP loan somehow (he has zero employees) and spent the funds on a large van and a bunch of expensive guns. I'm guessing this will be eventually discovered and once again he will face dire consequences. (he just got his felony record expunged - hence the guns).
I don't know what to make of this. I feel like an alien being whenever I see my siblings or cousins. I live in a house and still have my teeth. I don't smoke meth or fent. Their life decisions are a mystery to me.
10 years in jail awaiting charges certainly means you waved off a speedy trial. Yet still, I believe you are leaving out a significant detail or two.