John Thawley's Photography Blog

So You Think You're a Photographer?

2010-08-25T04:13:11Z

Please forgive the silence of late. Summer means racing and that means I'm in full slam with the 2010 American Le Mans Series tour of North America. But in between things, as in my previous post, I've been working on a project involving instant film cameras… specifically old Polaroids and PackFilm.

Red obsession... what's not to like?My first venture into shooting with instant film involved using a Polaroid 250 Automatic. Certainly one of the better vintage Polaroids. But, if you follow the timeline of Polaroid cameras, by the mid 60's the company had become very motivated to get the camera and instant photography into the hands of the general public. Whereas the older models, or RollFilm cameras had required fairly advanced photographic skills. In other words, you'd better know your f/stops and shutter speeds, and you'd better own a meter. The 'sunny sixteen' rule was a start, but you'd be burning up a lot of film while getting up to speed.

Poolside Polaroids

2010-07-27T18:53:58Z

Click for sample galleryYep… Polaroids. A fun mindless endeavor that might just provide enough challenge to shake up your creative thinking. Think of it like doodling on a napkin… no pressure… nobody cares…

But creatively speaking, shooting Polaroids is a real challenge. If you're a digital snapper, you're in for a rude awaking. And, if you like to "spray and pray" taking full advantage of your kjillion megapixel X9000, 30 frame per second, face recognizing, image stabilizing, espresso making super DSLR, you're going to need to remortgage your house or think twice about sinking another $50K in chrome fittings for your Honda Civic's undercarriage. (does anyone really do that?) Clicking the shutter on a vintage Polaroid camera is going to cost you anywhere from a $1.00 - $2.00.. maybe more. But, hey… it's fun and maybe the $1.00 penalty will make you stop and think.

Perhaps A Performance Improvement in Aperture 3

2010-06-19T16:34:06Z

OK… if you've been following along, and if you yourself are having issues (seems not everyone is), here is my latest "fix" for Aperture 3. It seems to have made a significant performance difference. And Lord knows, I've tried it all.

First, the obvious turn off the Faces feature by removing the check from Aperture > Preferences > General – Enable Faces

While that stops while that will stop Aperture from searching through your entire photo collection for faces, it still doesn't address the poor overall system performance.

After working with Apple Tech Support, having my case escalated to the development engineers and ultimately exhausting the ideas put forth by the Aperture development team, I "think" I've finally got Aperture working reasonably well on my Macbook Pro.

So… here you go:

This One's Personal - Ernie Harwell

2010-05-05T14:02:09Z

When summer vaction lasted forever.... Ernie Harwell delivered the play-by-play of more than 8,500 major league baseball games over 55 years. Harwell belonged to a generation of announcers who started calling baseball on radio before television was the big thing. He was as familiar as the Detroit Tiger players to fans listening through the speakers of transistor radios or car radio speakers. From 1960 to 2002, Ernie Harwell was the voice of the Detroit Tigers. More than that, he was part of your lives and part of your family.

Ernie Harwell died Tuesday, May 4 2010, at his home in Novi, Mich. He was 92.

My family moved to Detroit when I was eight-years old. A kid, fresh of the boat ( a plane actually), from England, it wasn't long before I learned about baseball. From then on, it was Al Kaline, Harvey Kuene, Charlie Maxwell, Red Wilson and Chico Fernandez. And from a transistor radio tucked under my pillow, it was George Kell and Ernie Harwell.

Summers back then were all about baseball. You listened to it, you played in the street, and when you weren't doing that you swapped baseball cards. It was what we did.

iPad… therefore I am.

2010-04-27T18:11:04Z

Before I get into discussing my early views of Apple's new iPad, I want to pass on a couple of updates to my last post regarding Aperture 3 and my statement that it is broken.

First, you should know, I have been contacted by people within Apple and they are actively working at finding a solution. It is still undetermined if it is an isolated situation with an odd ball combination of things within my system.

I have also been receiving help from David Schloss at Maccreate and the Aperture Group.

Between Apple, David and me, we are attempting to run controlled tests trying to pinpoint the breakdown. The test images are producing varying results on assorted systems. And while they're admittedly slow, they're not as slow as the results I'm getting. We are currently testing comparisons with Aperture 2. So, the work continues.

Here is what is important to me. I run all Apple equipment. I run the latest OS and always install updates as they are released. To have Apple personnel escalate their involvement in an attempt to pinpoint the problem speaks volumes about the company. So for that, my hat is off to Apple.

Lastly, to comment on David's blog "One Man's Broken is Another Man's Fine," I see what he's saying, but I still feel my assessment is fair. It matters not that his system works fine, it matters that others don't. If my camera's autofocus doesn't work, the camera is broken. Sure, I could work around it and manually focus, but the fact remains, my camera is broken. So, in a compromise to David's position, let me restate the title as My Aperture 3 is Broken.

And by the way, if you aren't participating in David's Aperture Group at Maccreate.com, you should. There's a wealth of information on the site and plenty of shared knowledge from people who are not only well connected, but who also know what they're talking about.

OK… so, while the Aperture 3 saga continues, my iPad finally arrived. Having received my tracking number, I sat anxiously at the front door panting like a puppy waiting the arrival of the FedEx guy. Tracking indicated 10:30AM… I had to wait until 1PM. It was worth it.

Aperture 3 is Broken

2010-04-24T16:14:14Z

This is a blog post I've never wanted to write.

I made a promise to myself that I would always use my blog to share ideas and positive thoughts. And that I'd never use the space to attack or beat somebody up. What I'm about to write, I feel, stays true those philosophies.

I've often been accused of being an Apple fan boy. That's ok… I use Apple products. I enjoy Apple products. I like the company's design philosophies and aesthetics… I like the way they think.

A few years back, Apple announced a product called Aperture. It was billed as a Pro application geared toward the professional photographer. It offered an all encompassing workflow solution providing asset management, photo adjustment, organization and output all within a single application and fantastic user interface. Most important, the program was non destructive to your original files. To the photographer, this could be likened to your old negatives. No matter how much you altered your image, you always had your negative.

Though it had its foibles early on, it was an ambitious and brilliant solution.

2010 Grand Prix at Long Beach

2010-04-19T22:31:18Z

Click to view slide showPatrón Highcroft Racing's Simon Pagenaud pulled off an incredible final lap victory on the streets of Long Beach in today's Tequila Patrón American Le Mans Series event - completing an amazing comeback over the Aston Martin of Adrian Fernandez.

Pagenaud was handed the race lead by teammate David Brabham with 39 minutes remaining and opened up a race lead of up to eight seconds.

Long Beach has been a happy hunting ground for the Danbury, CT-based team. Patrón Highcroft Racing took it's first ALMS class win here in 2008 with a dramatic late race pass by Brabham. They also looked set to win last year before incurring a pit lane penalty.

Satruday's victory was Brabham's 20th American Le Mans Series victory and his fifth overall victory for Patrón Highcroft Racing. Pagenaud scored his first victory in Patron Highcroft colors and his sixth ALMS win. It is also his second consecutive win on the streets of Long Beach.

Chelsea

2010-04-11T23:24:43Z

Since we have a little downtime before heading out to the Long Beach Grand Prix, I thought you might enjoy taking a look at the results of a shoot with Naples' local model, Chelsea Wagner. Shot at Barefoot Beach in Bonita Springs, April 10th, 2010. Click on the image below and enjoy the show.

Aperture 3 Flag Tool

2010-03-24T22:33:25Z

Earlier today I posted to Twitter that I'd share something I discovered using Aperture 3's Flag feature. Maybe not everyone can work this into their workflow, but perhaps my example will spur some ideas of your own. So, here you go.

If you read my Keyword blog post some month's back, you may recall my rant about the importance of using Keywords and the importance of managing your Keyword List.

To refresh; as most of you know, my primary shooting is in the field of motorsports. This requires me to tag images based on team, car, car number, driver(s), sponsors etc. I have my Keywords grouped and readily accessible.

58th Mobil 1 12 Hours of Sebring

2010-03-23T12:35:31Z

Click on image to view multi-media slideshow presentationHere's a look back at this year's 12 Hours of Sebring. The shooting opportunities this year were literally endless. While we experienced cool weather in the early and later hours of the day, the sky remained clear and the light was fantastic.

From a personal viewpoint, what I like about endurance events like Sebring is they provide the opportunity to shoot at times of the day we don't typically get throughout the year. Most events are run in the early afternoon. Not the best lighting conditions for photography. Sebring, on the other hand, not only provides 12 hours of racing action, we have an early morning warm-up on race-day and a mandatory night practice earlier in the week. This year, the light and the weather cooperated tremendously.