Planet #photogeeks

HiB

2008-08-28T08:24:18+00:00

Handshake

2008-08-27T21:15:01+00:00

Gorky park

2008-08-27T12:15:13+00:00

Soggy Afternoon

2008-08-26T19:34:19+00:00

Image # CG24 View in Gallery.

Oslo

2008-08-26T14:24:27+00:00

Contracts, Photo Releases and other Nonsense!!

2008-08-25T12:16:23+00:00

I shot a concert the the other night, unfortunately I was ambushed with a contract at the door, “no signature, no entry mate!” I was told. Having already travelled 90 minutes to get there I figured I’d sign it, and decide what to do with the images at a later date. The contract is less ominoous than others that I’ve seen but this had unusual seemingly random clauses that didn’t seem to make a whole lot of sense. There was no questioning of copyright for once, but other really odd stuff like “images may only appear on a website for a maximum of thirty consecutive days“… why?? who knows, but obviously not very portfolio friendly. Also the record company who’s contract it was, wanted a byline credit for the record company whenever any of the images were used, again, bizzarre.

I’ll not mention the artist or the record company because I’ve asked to get it recinded, luckily my magazine who commissioned the work is again standing behind me and has told the artists management that there will be no coverage of the artist or event until they drop the contract.

The really bizarre thing is that it hurts the artist and PR agency, because the contract is issued by the record company (not the artists management). Sometimes I share some shots with the PR/Management comapny as a good will gesture, however the contract I was made to sign disallows this, oops! I’ve asked at the very least that anyone applying for a photography pass for any of their future gigs should be sent the contract in advance to them to allow them to make the decision whether to attend or not before they travel, rather than getting ambushed on the door!

I’ll keep you updated, in the meantime, I’ve started a thread on Concert & Music Photographers Network to get the feedback from others experiences and thoughts about contracts and photo release forms.

Good shootin’ everyone!

Is the Pap Culture hurting (Music) Photography?

2008-08-25T12:04:50+00:00

I recently read either read an article or watched something on TV where an old hand in the photography business (it might have been Dennis Stone the Heathrow celebrity photographer), wherever and whatever it was, they were remenising about the kind of access you used to be able to get to stars and how it’s all changed. Another music photographer recently said that the difference between Paps and most other photographers is that Paps try to make their subject look as bad as possible, other ‘togs do their best to make their subject look as good as possible. So where did the line become so blurred? Even in the few short years I’ve been shooting at concerts there seems to be this general anti-photographer feeling, unless you’re hired by the studio/label/PR, at which point you’re introduced by one of the inner circle. I could have it all wrong, but that’s my feeling about the whole thing.

So my question is, how do we (the music photographer niche) go about winning that trust back and perhaps even going back to the times when proper access was easier to come-by, and when they didn’t have a constant contingent of bodyguards and lawyers automatically assuming everyone is out there to rip them off?

Apologies for the rant.

Oslo

2008-08-25T09:48:20+00:00

birthday hack week!

2008-08-24T21:53:14+00:00

This week is “Hack Week” @ SUSE / Novell… and Tuesday is my birthday, too!

Minsk

2008-08-24T12:40:40+00:00

Hemlock Falls

2008-08-23T16:30:47+00:00

The South Mountain Reservation covers about 2000 in central Essex County - between the first and second ridges of the Watchung Mountains. The reservation has changed only slightly through the years. Woodlands abound in a variety of hardwood trees, and tall hemlocks tower above streams, creeks and ponds. The west branch of the Rahway River flows through the valley. Not too far from one of the designated parking lots is this Hemlock Falls - a 25 feet drop of a stream that seems to be primarily rain-fed. Thanks to dear friend, Jim Davoust, for taking me along for ~2 mile hike in this reservation.

South Mountain Reservation, NJ.

Borisov

2008-08-22T21:15:46+00:00

Twelve Angry Men

2008-08-22T20:30:46+00:00

From a promo shoot last night for the KWLT production of Twelve Angry Men. In this shot, I set the actors on either side of a long table so I could shoot "down" the perspective lines, leading the eye into the image and into the scene. The actors' arms and hands, pointing and extended, lend a sense of the conflict taking place in the play. I did a couple other shots at a higher angle with more table space left open for text, i.e. for a poster.

View in Gallery.

Abdullah and a shisha shop

2008-08-22T03:37:15+00:00

We haven’t seen Abdullah since we left high school. He scooted of on a plane in no time, after the main graduation party. It was fun catching up with him, listening to all the great stories he had to tell us, about life, and how he’s touching hearts, even as a doctor in training. It is a pity he came by for a few days - at least he fit us into his schedule!

Anne and Serhan. Cute, aren’t they? Anne’s a really smart cookie, doing a biotech degree, and considering furthering her studies. She seems to always be stressed about weekly tests, but we’ve assured her they don’t last forever.

Don’t hesitate, to see the rest of the gang, attempting to inhale shisha (apparently, also known as hookah). Originated in India, but popular in the Arab world. Impressive. Oh, the rest of the gang - clicky clicky.

Northern Cardinal

2008-08-21T20:41:51+00:00

The Northern Cardinal (Cardinalis cardinalis), also known as the Cardinal or as the Redbird or as the Virginia nightingale, is a North American bird in the Cardinal family. It is found from southern Canada through the eastern United States from Maine to Texas and south through Mexico to northern Guatemala and Belize. It is found in woodlands, gardens, shrub lands, and swamps.

The Northern Cardinal is a territorial song bird. The male sings in a loud, clear whistle from the top of a tree or another high location to defend his territory. He will chase off other males entering his territory. The Northern Cardinal learns its songs, and as a result the songs vary regionally. It is able to easily distinguish the sex of another singing Northern Cardinal by its song alone. Mated pairs often travel together.

Not only did this bird miss my numerous previous photographic attempts, but its very name was missing from my memory until recently. While roaming around in Willowwood Arboretum - part of Morris County Parks - with dear friend Doug Schmidt, I just could not believe my luck as not only this bird showed up but just kept hopping towards me. Pleasantly surprising event left me with little time to change camera settings and/or set the camera up on a tripod and as such, I ended up shooting with relatively higher ISO setting for a Sunny afternoon.

Two brothers in 1908 - Henry and Robert Tubbs - spent weekends traveling from New York City by train to look for a country place. On an excursion to Gladstone (NJ), they discovered the vacant Kenneday family homestead (dated around 1790) and was known locally as the Paradise Farm. The two brothers purchased it with a small legacy they had inherited, and renamed the property Willowwood Farm for the large willows growing along the stream. Many of the gardens, created initially by Henry Tubbs and subsequently by Benjamin Blackburn who resided at Willowwood after World War II, have strong cultural themes.

Far Hills, NJ

October square

2008-08-21T19:34:24+00:00

Red Sails on a Steel Sea

2008-08-21T15:04:42+00:00

Image # CG13 View in Gallery.

Bundle of joy

2008-08-21T10:17:47+00:00

Before Aria, I was not really kid-friendly. I never carried them, I never played with them, I generally didn’t like them. I’m guessing I still don’t, but Aria is the exception :)

I’ve been getting closer and closer to her, and I can now say, that she really does light up my life!

I notice I drive really slowly when she’s in the car. I even turn the headlights on, in broad daylight. Playing with her, I truly get the meaning of a bundle of joy.

Today, she was on my lap, while I was reading a magazine, and attempting to proof-read it. It was serene.

P/S: More and more pictures to be uploaded in due time… My backlog from November 2007, is still around… iFail

Closeup

2008-08-20T13:11:20+00:00

Here's some 1:1 close-ups of the previous series' images.

Minsk

2008-08-20T10:57:51+00:00

Dark Matter

2008-08-19T14:04:02+00:00

Last of the Direct Image series, for now.

Image # CG03 View in Gallery.

Shyness

2008-08-19T11:43:44+00:00

Torgallmenningen

2008-08-19T08:49:25+00:00

Harvest

2008-08-18T13:33:17+00:00

Image # CG05 View in Gallery.

Babel Fish

2008-08-18T10:41:20+00:00

Smalgangen

2008-08-18T10:31:14+00:00

Lakewood BlueClaws - Swing

2008-08-18T00:40:31+00:00

Lakewood BlueClaws - Safe

2008-08-17T23:02:57+00:00

Lakewood BlueClaws - Souvenier

2008-08-17T21:46:26+00:00

Charleston RiverDogs (Class A affiliates of New York Yankees) came to play Lakewood BlueClaws (Class A affiliates of Philadelphia Phillies). Home team dug themselves into a deep 0-9 hole with three 3 run innings and late game heroics - scoring 5 in the bottom of 9th innings - wasn't sufficient.

Seen here is a happy fan (her face turned a lot more happier moments later) with a baseball waiting to get more autographs - one of the pleasant sights I get to see at these games. Young kids come out with pictures, cards, gloves, balls, ..., to have them autographed by the players and most players are usually kind enough to oblige and send these kids home with good souvenier :)

Lakewood, NJ.

Fjord

2008-08-17T21:12:53+00:00

Another cliché, the Norwegian fjord. This shot even has a lens flare as a bonus.

Torgallmenningen

2008-08-17T11:39:20+00:00

Core Sample

2008-08-16T15:52:12+00:00

Image # CG04 View in Gallery.

Ripples

2008-08-15T19:34:50+00:00

Another lensless image.

Image # CG02 View in Gallery.

Torgallmenningen

2008-08-15T12:29:55+00:00

The Fates Intervene

2008-08-14T14:03:31+00:00

Another lensless exposure.

Image # CG06 View in Gallery.

Sunset

2008-08-14T13:08:47+00:00

Yes, another cliché.

Busstasjonen

2008-08-14T12:01:17+00:00

Dandelions

2008-08-13T22:38:36+00:00

Another shot in my ongoing series of clichés. :)

Particles and Waves

2008-08-13T14:44:05+00:00

This is the first in a short experimental series exploring caustic imagery. No traditional lens was used; the sensor was exposed directly to light. The detail (not visible on the web) is stunning in its complexity and beauty.

Image # CG08 View in Gallery.

Warsaw Central

2008-08-13T12:44:52+00:00

Guide

2008-08-12T22:46:16+00:00

A guide at Undredal stave church.

Where Not Wanted

2008-08-12T11:57:49+00:00

Image # CF23 View in Gallery.

Torgallmenningen

2008-08-12T09:29:42+00:00

(Yes, the cat is stuffed)

Alll my blogs begin with long time no post.. hah!

2008-08-12T08:30:47+00:00

Well, look whose blogging! That’s right, it’s me. Let’s see if I remember how to do all this bloggy stuff…

Last time or was that episode? Episode then. I”m feeling peevish, I blogged I was defending vegetarianism and posted a picture. Sorry no picture this time. I have been eating good stuff though. ;-) Including a nice home made vegetarian pizza. Maybe I’ll post it. If y’all are nice to me and such.

Since then, I’ve been busy with school and not much time for GNOME other than to hang out. I guess I’m here for the beer this year. It was great meeting the lot of you at OSCON which seems to be the post destination after GUADEC. Sadly, none of you bought me a t-shirt. Shame on you. I thought I was the mascot, I guess it was all pillow talk.

I have approximately less than a year to graduate with a M.S. in C.S. at Portland State University. I can’t wait since it’s been a real pain doing work and school and people have noticed that my contributions have shrunk to a trickle.

Anyways, knowing this audience, y’all want to talk about GNOMEy stuff. Too bad. We’re talking about me. I’m taking over for Rich Burridge! But we’re going to talk bout furry felines, not kids. Which means we’re going to talk about David Schleef. Don’t worry, he loves when we talk about him. It makes Dirac development faster. Anyhoo, Every friday, I intend to post some cynical observation about *something*.

I do have some stuff to talk bout that isn’t about my boring life. That is that you may have noticed the GNOME Journal has been a bit stagnant due to its members being really busy with either their jobs or other projects that take up their time. Some of you are probably read Planet for fun, and sometimes think “what a great bunch of people, I wish I could help out. But I can’t because David Schleef won’t let me.” You DON’T need David Schleef’s permission. (remember, Dirac code is speeding up now, keep talking about him!) No, we are looking for a few good people, preferably human, but we have known to take on Vulcans; we aren’t racist, green blood not withstanding, to help out with writing articles. Maybe you think “I don’t know what to write”, or maybe you’re scared. If your’e scared, it’s obvious you haven’t been to GUADEC. There’s nothing to be scared of. These people are pushovers. if you get into a situation, remember “beer is GNOME kryptonite” keep a can with you always. If they are Australian, Fosters will actually repel them it’s like holy water on vampires! ANYWAYS.. We have plenty of ideas we think would make good articles. We need people. You are of course free to write your own as well. Write what you think might be interesting and we’ll do the rest. Hope you’ll sign up. Send me some email, or join us on irc in the #gnome-journal channel. Bring your dog, we like pets.

The other thing is that I’ve been actually doing some hacking. Yes, surprising as that might be. I have taken an open source class, so I essentially got to take 8 weeks and learn glib/goject/sqlite and write me up a new backend for Rhythmbox. It’s not quite finished but most of the major sutff is done and I’m trying to get into a useable state before sticking it in bugzilla. One might be tempted to think sqlite is a superior solution cuz well it’s sqlite and it’s the best thing evah! Keep in mind the current backend is pretty damn good and is a result of several years of tweaking. It’ll be a while before this backend has any chance of being supported. Huge thanks to teuf and moch for giving their time to help me and answer questions. But the project has been good for me as I’ve finally got time to learn all those dependencies that I always whined about that I couldn’t learn. Hopefully I get to participate more in the development process than I have.

Well, that’s it for me. I’ll post something mildly amusing on Friday.

Oh yeah, contact information.. mail me at sriram DOT ramkrishna DOT gmail DOT com if you are interested in helping writing articles. Free picture of me for the first person to respond!

Oslo

2008-08-11T09:59:43+00:00

Kitten

2008-08-10T18:02:57+00:00

I promised to post more clichés this year, right? Here you are.

Rally of the Swine

2008-08-10T17:55:24+00:00

Borisov

2008-08-10T10:32:47+00:00

*

2008-08-09T23:22:44+00:00

The Washington Monument

2008-08-09T19:11:09+00:00

Designed by Robert Mills, the Washington Monument is a large, tall, sand-colored obelisk near the west end of the National Mall. It is a U S Presidential Memorial constructed to commemorate George Washington. The monument is the world's tallest stone structure, and is the world's tallest obelisk, standing a little over 555 feet in height and made of marble, granite, and sandstone. The actual construction of the monument began in 1848 but was not completed until 1884, almost 30 years after the architect's death. This hiatus in construction was because of lack of funds and the intervention of the American Civil War. A difference in shading of the marble clearly delineates the initial construction from its resumption in 1876.

Its cornerstone was laid on July 4, 1848; the capstone was set on December 6, 1884, and the completed monument was dedicated on February 21, 1885. Upon completion, it became the world's tallest structure, a title it inherited from the Cologne Cathedral and held until 1889, when the Eiffel Tower was finished in Paris, France.

Washington, D.C.

Brown Pigeon

2008-08-09T18:24:31+00:00

Washington, D.C.

Rock Pigeon

2008-08-09T18:15:15+00:00

The Rock Pigeon (Columba livia), or Rock Dove, is a member of the bird family Columbidae (doves and pigeons). In common usage, this bird is often simply referred to as the pigeon. The species includes the domestic pigeon, and escaped domestic pigeons have given rise to the feral pigeon.

Habitats include various open and semi-open environments, including agricultural and urban areas. Cliffs and rock ledges are used for roosting and breeding in the wild. Originally found wild in Europe, North Africa, and western Asia, feral Rock Pigeons have become established in cities around the world. The species is abundant.

Washington, D.C.

Warsaw Central

2008-08-07T08:56:28+00:00

The Photographer III

2008-08-06T21:06:55+00:00

A photograph of my sister trying to take a photograph of me.

Minsk

2008-08-06T08:51:42+00:00

Ole Bulls plass

2008-08-05T23:31:29+00:00

The Gaze

2008-08-05T16:58:44+00:00

Cold Front / Warm Front

2008-08-04T22:39:11+00:00

Image # CG01 View in Gallery.

Lost visitors in Haghia Sophia, Istanbul

2008-08-04T21:46:21+00:00

The Sunday before GUADEC, I went to visit a few of the must-see places in Sultanahmet in Istanbul.

This was at Haghia Sophia, a cathedral from the 6th century, turned into a mosque in the 15th century. During the day it is crowded by a lot of visitors:

Shot at 50mm, 1/80, f/1.8, ISO 200.

For the little story, I think I got that shot because I saw that Czech photographer, with whom I was talking earlier, using a Leica M8, pointing into that direction.

These pictures brought to you by the idiots at the ISP techsupport that don't read infrastructure tickets and instead try to be the wizard.... and mess up^[1]. Yes I was offline, I didn't get distracted too much.

Notes

[1] this wording is very weak

Kong Oscars gt.

2008-08-04T07:31:27+00:00