Big Brother

62 years ago, a book was written that, even if you haven't read it, you've certainly heard of it, or at least you've heard the phrases that became common in our everyday language since the publishing of the book. Does 'Big Brother' ring any bells with you?

Written in 1948, George Orwell's "1984" has become a classic read, still mandatory in many classrooms. In the book, we learn of the horrifying consequences of losing our freedom to the need for a safe and peaceful society. The people are convinced that their loss of freedom is a small price to pay for the greater good.

Today, I thought of this book and it's message, when I heard on the news that the FBI is once again pushing for the ISPs to keep logs of their users 'origin and destination information for non-content data' for at least two years. Presumably to be used in aprehending child pornographers, terrorists and other persons involved in illegal activities.

In other words, for our own good.

While at first glance, this and other policies such as: 

wire tapping landlines and cell phones, video surveillance and cameras almost everywhere we go, airport body scanners, gun control, the 2005 FCC requirement that all cell phone carriers are required to provide the ability to trace cell phone calls to within 300 feet, etc.,

all sound like reasonable precautions,

I can't help but wonder at how these things could conceivably be put to use at some later date.

Not to mention the fact that the government, as well as private entities, haven't always been effective in protecting our private data, and that storing and maintaining this data will be expensive for the ISPs. I wonder who will have to pick up that tab? The FBI? Uh huh. Right.

Much of what Orwell wrote about in 1948 as fiction, is the reality of our world today.

Where do we draw the line between ensuring our collective safety,

and preserving our right to privacy?

I don't have the answers, I'm just asking questions.

We should all be asking questions.

Shouldn't we?

In "1984", George Orwell wrote, 

“The past was erased, the erasure was forgotten, the lie became truth.” 

Do You Print Your Photos? Something You Should Know About Aspect Ratio

Have you ever printed a digital photo to frame, only to find it didn't fit the frame properly? This is why.

Traditional 35mm cameras have an aspect ratio of 3:2. This is the the ratio between the width and height of the photograph. Photo frames are sized, 4X6, 5X7, 8X10, according to this ratio.

Digital cameras, however, have an aspect ratio of 4:3, so if you wanted a 4X6 sized photo for a frame, the digital will print at 4X5.3, and that means, when you try to print a digital photo, it will not fit correctly in the frame you purchased. So, what do you do to fix this problem?

To fix the problem you will have to crop your photo to the right size before printing. Most labs will center and crop the photo for you, but that may not be the best solution. Unless your photo has plenty of 'extra' room around it, and the subject is centered, an important part of your photo may be cropped out.

Most photo editing programs have a crop tool. I use Photoshop, so this tutorial is how to properly crop a photo to a frame size using Photoshop. The idea is the same no matter what program you use.

Photoshop allows you to choose the frame size you want your image to fit. This is how to do it.

Let's use this photo of Siamangs at the San Diego Zoo.

This is the original image size:

If you try to resize the image using the 'Image Size' command, you will run into problems. Look what happens when I try to change the size here:

If I put in the 10, it defaults to the 4:3 aspect ratio, and I'm not getting what I want.

So, to make this work, I have to use the cropping tool.

Then, go to the options bar, and tell Photoshop I want the image to be 10 in wide, and 8 in high.

Now I can grab the crop tool and pull out. It will stop at the 8X10 size. It is here that I decide where I want the crop. What stays, and what goes. I can move the cropped area around until I decide what works best. 

This is where I've decided I want my crop. Now, I'll right click, and choose 'crop'.

This is the result.

Now go to the 'Image Size' dialogue box, and check to see if your dimensions are what you wanted:

Yep! You're good to go print!

The endangered Siamang, (in the ape family), can live up to 30+ years in captivity.

While the illegal pet trade takes a toll on wild populations, the principal threat to the Siamang is habitat loss in both Malaysia and Sumatra. Palm oil production is clearing large swathes of forest, reducing the habitat of the Siamang.

"You could fit all the surviving members of the 25 species in a single football stadium; that's how few of them remain on earth today."
Russell A. Mittermeier, president of Conservation International

Don't Pick Your Nose In Public -

Someone Is Probably Watching

Like some fool with a camera....

This is a Western Lowland Gorilla and her baby that I photographed at the San Diego Zoo in December 2009. She was a bit preoccupied...

The zoo's first two gorillas arrived in 1931. The first gorilla to be born at the zoo, was Alvila, a female, born in 1965.  She is still there, and this is probably one of her daughters.

In 1915, San Diego celebrated the opening of the Panama Canal by hosting the Panama California Exposition. Many species of animals were brought in as exhibits, and were scattered around Balboa Park. The animals were abandoned when the exposition ended, and Dr. Harry M. Wegeforth stepped in and founded the Zoological Society of San Diego.  In 1921 one hundred+ acres within the park were set aside for the zoo.

The San Diego Zoo now houses over 4,000 animals of over 800 species, and more than 700,000 exotic plants.

20th Annual International Snow Sculpture Competition - Breckenridge, Colorado

The 20th Annual Snow Sculpture Competition was judged in Breckenridge, Colorado this weekend. Twelve teams from six countries came to Breckenridge to enter the competition, and the talent was phenomenal! The teams have one week to carve their sculptures from 20 ton blocks of ice, and no power tools or supports are allowed.

Thirty thousand people from all over the world attended the competition, and the town was PACKED with visitors and skiers.

Winning the Gold was Team Lithuania, with 'Milite Est Vita' - an intricately carved gloved hand representing Peace.

Winning the Silver was Team Canada, Ontario, with 'Memories From My Youth' a Japanese princess.

Winning the Bronze was Team Mexico, with 'The Altar of Quetzalcoatl', the God of life and death.

Winning People's Choice was my favorite, Team Alaska's 'The Last Supper', a statement about global warming that depicts a polar bear hunting on the last glacier left in the North Pole.

Some of the other incredible entries

'Moonset' Behind Breckenridge, Colorado

A friend of mine has a townhouse in Breckenridge, Colorado, and on Friday, we went up there for another girl's weekend. It was the 20th Annual Ice Sculpture competition, and the town was packed with people.

We left late afternoon, and headed out Hwy 24 through South Park, then out Hwy 9 through Fairplay and Alma, up over Hoosier Pass, and down into Breckenridge. The scenery along the way is breathtaking!

Remember the TV show "South Park"? One of the guys that wrote the show grew up here, in South Park, Colorado. In this portion of the 1,000 square mile valley of South Park it is wide open, the wind howls through the valley, and only a brave few actually live here. South park is the geographical center of Colorado. Buffalo and pronghorn are a common sight along the highway.

The Collegiate Peaks, named for famous American colleges, such as Yale and Harvard. Eight peaks exceeding 14,000 feet are found here on the Front Range of Colorado.

This time of year in Breckenridge, the light isn't that great for making photographs of the mountains, the sun is too low, and they always turn out hazy. So, if you want good photos of the mountains there in the winter - you have to get up early! If you know me, you know that is NOT my favorite thing to do :) But darn it! I wanted the shots, so on Sunday morning, we were up at 6 AM and headed up to Boreas Pass to wait for the sunrise. If I'd had any sense, I would have had my tripod with me, it would have improved the quality of the photos. But who has any sense at 6 AM?

What we didn't expect, was to see the full moon setting behind the mountains as it raced the rising sun.

Sunrise over the ski runs.

Sunrise over the town of Breckenridge.

The House With Nobody In It - The Inside

Written by Joyce Kilmer, Published in 1914

Another excerpt:

This is the second post about this old homestead near Wetmore, Colorado, and a second excerpt from the poem by Joyce Kilmer, 1886-1918. To see the first post, click here. To read the entire poem, click here. 

( For Sharon Tara , who asked to see the inside :)

These are shots of another angle of the outside, and the interior.

The window above looks into the kitchen, accessed through the front porch on the right.

The door below leads into the living room, or perhaps a dining room. Interestingly, there are 3 doors on that side of the house. A shot of that side, showing the three doors, is in the original post.

The kitchen. You can see where wiring had been brought in at some point for electricity.

I was surprised to find there was still furniture in the house. I wonder when it last held a family...

This door leads from the kitchen to the living room.

The photo below shows where the floor of the second story bedroom has fallen, and the old bedsprings that had rested on the floor, went down with it. That bedroom was accessed from the upstairs hallway, and a second bedroom is behind the opposite door.

Looking through a second story window at the sky.

A corner of the living room shows where the room had been painted at least twice.

And here you can see where the home had originally been insulated with paper.

It seemed to me that this old place had been loved for a very long time. There was evidence of many changes over the years to make it more comfortable. 'Upgrades', if you will. How excited the family must have been at each improvement....

All of these photos were taken from windows or doorways. I did not go inside. First it may not have been safe, and secondly it seemed somehow 'wrong', (I can't really explain it), aside from the fact that it is not my property, and I had no right to do so. I just wanted to document it, not 'invade' it.

The House With Nobody In It

Written by Joyce Kilmer, Published in 1914

An excerpt:

Whenever I walk to Suffern along the Erie track
I go by a poor old farmhouse with its shingles broken and black.
I suppose I've passed it a hundred times, but I always stop for 
a minute
And look at the house, the tragic house, the house with nobody in 
it.
I never have seen a haunted house, but I hear there 
are such things;
That they hold the talk of spirits, their mirth and sorrowings.
I know this house isn't haunted, and I wish it were, I do;
For it wouldn't be so lonely if it had a ghost or two.

I am intrigued when I see an abandoned old homestead such as this. It calls to me in many ways - one as a photographer who has found an interesting subject, and also because I want to know it's story, the history. I want to know about the family that built it, what were their dreams? Why did they come here? What was their struggle like out here in the wilderness? What of their children, their day to day lives?

I tried to find some history on this old homestead near Wetmore, Colorado, but it is guarding it's secrets....

If only walls could talk. I would listen.

FontPage - Font Viewer - Cool Tool!

Now and then I run across something online that looks and sounds like something that might be useful. I create alot of slideshows, and use different fonts in them. If you're like me, you are probably spending more time than you like trying to figure out which one to use. I just came across this FREE software program from the folks that make the resizing tool I use, PixResizer.

It's called FontPage.
It lets you view all the fonts installed on your computer on a cool little screen. You can see what the font will look like in bold, italic, and even 3D.

You can also compare two different fonts to help you choose.

If you like, you can print a sample page of the font you are considering, or print a list of all your fonts.

It will even run a slideshow of selected fonts, or all the fonts, which makes browsing them really easy.

                                              Check it out!

                               I use a licensed version of Snagit for my screenshots.

 Our Love Affair With Flowers

The subject of poems, paintings, mythology, religion, music, and photography, the beauty of flowers have held humans in thrall for centuries.There are nearly 300,000 documented species of flowers, and flowering plant fossils have been found that date back as far as 146 million years.

Throughout history, flowers have been used to heal, as an expression of feelings, to enhance one's surroundings, and as a part of rituals.

Evidence of flowers used as part of a burial ritual was discovered by archaeologists in a cave in Iraq, where the skeletons dated to the Paleolithic Age, 2.5 million years ago. Prior to the use of embalming, it is believed flowers were used in funerals to mask unpleasant odors.

Because it is likely that the first humans recognized flowers gave way to edible fruit, the origin of their popularity could be traced to our hunter-gatherer ancestors.

Flowers as subjects are certainly a favorite of many photographers, just as they have been for artists in centuries past.

These are some of my favorite flower photographs taken last year.

The Emperor Of China owned over 600 books about roses

There are nearly 25,000 varieties of orchids

Passion flower is known to have been cultivated in the

gardens of Aztec priests and kings

Pictures of lilies were discovered in a villa in Crete

dating to about 1580 BC

They're even beautiful when they're past their prime

Photography In a Public Place - What is the Law?

Comments in a recent post got me curious about this question. So I did what I always do when I want to know something - I went online to research it.

Interestingly, there is a ton of information online on the subject. It is hard to wade through what might be law, and what might be someones opinion. But this is what I filtered out.

A photographers' right to take photographs, and publish them is protected by the First Amendment as freedom of expression, and as part of freedom of speech.

A public place is defined as a place in which the general public has access. Private property can be a public place, such as a museum, a mall, or a park. You can be denied in a public place if it is on private property.

Anything, or anyone that can be seen in a public place can be photographed. Including children. There are no laws restricting the right of a photographer to take photos of anything in public view.  There is no assumption of privacy in public. Anyone can be photographed without giving permission, unless they are in a place where there is a reasonable expectation of privacy, such as restrooms and medical facilities.

I did not know this. When I was in Mexico, I took this photo of a little girl. I asked, and got permission from her mother to photograph her.  I've always loved this photo, especially the ketchup on her chin and the sand in her hair. But I never knew until now what the laws were regarding posting it.

Releases or any other form of permission are not required to photograph subjects in public view.

Photography of a person for a commercial use is defined as 'advertising', where one is using the photo to sell something else. Commercial use does require a release for publication.

You can photograph someone on the street, and sell the photograph in a studio or gallery, or anywhere else without a release. Editorial use, publishing as part of a written work, is also permitted without a release, as in magazines, and on the internet.

When is it not Legal?

When you are trespassing on private property. You may however, stand in a public place, and photograph a private one.
In a public restroom or dressing room.
Of a person through the windows of their own home.
Where there are "No Photography" signs, taking photos is not illegal, but may be considered 'tresspassing'.
Where National Security may be at stake, and photography is forbidden by law.
Where your images are used to libel, defame, or slander another.
Where your image is of a copyrighted image, design, or logo, and used for monetary gain.

And according to the American Law Institute:
"One who gives publicity to a matter concerning the private life of
another is subject to liability to the other for invasion of his
privacy, if the matter publicized is of a kind that A) would be highly
offensive to a reasonable person, and B) is not of legitimate concern
to the public."

What are your rights as a Photographer?

If confronted, know that you may not be detained, harassed, be forced to delete images, or have your equipment taken from you without it being a violation of your civil liberties. Anyone doing so may be subject to criminal and civil prosecution.

Law enforcement is not allowed to force you to delete your images, or confiscate your equipment without a court order or warrant, (unless you are being arrested).

Private citizens may not harass you, or touch you or your equipment without the risk of being charged with assault.

So, why is this important to know?

Because we live in a democratic society, where our rights are protected by law. Because in many other countries in the world, even democratic ones, the rights of photographers and journalists are routinely being denied and coming under abuse.

And because you don't want to find yourself in an expensive and unnecessary lawsuit.

Disclaimer: This does not constitute legal advice. I am NOT an attorney! Anyone seeking legal advice should consult an attorney.

Sources:
http://quazen.com/arts/photography/the-war-on-photography/
http://photography.suite101.com/article.cfm/taking_photographs_and_the_law
http://www.krages.com/ThePhotographersRight.pdf
http://ambientlight.ca/laws.php#You_are_guaranteed_the_right_to_take_photographs
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/columnist/andrewkantor/2005-12-29-camera-laws_x.htm
http://photography.suite101.com/article.cfm/using_photographs_and_the_law