Ride Like the Wind

Indication

The Mechanics Institute Library, located at 57 Post Street in San Francisco, is the oldest library on the West Coast. It was started in 1854. Inside this spectacular library is a stunning spiral staircase definitely worth exploring.

My Initial Thoughts on the Canon 5D Mark II After 24 Hours

I spent yesterday afternoon out shooting with my new Canon 5D Mark II and these are my earliest thoughts. I'll probably do a series of short posts like this on the camera from time to time rather than any sort of formal review. I haven't even processed any photos from the new camera yet or played with it's video functionality so certainly more to come later.

The first thing I noticed about the new 5D is that it feels quieter to me. The sound of the shutter is very different than the old 5D, it sounds less mechanical and more muted. I like that.

The large LCD screen on the back of the camera is pretty cool. The photos feel really large as they display for the 2 seconds after you take a shot.

It is sooooooooo nice not to have to keep resetting my date/time over and over and over and over again. The internal battery on my old 5D died a while back and so every time I'd change batteries I'd have to reset the date and time. I tried taking the camera to a camera battery store but they didn't seem to have a battery that would work with my old 5D and I was too lazy to do the research to find the actual replacement.

I find that I'm taking less shots when I'm out shooting. I think it's more mental at this point but something about seeing only 250 or so shots on an 8 gig card makes me pause more when I decide whether or not to take a shot or how many to take. It's not just about the room on the card, in the back of my mind I'm also thinking about the fact that larger file sizes will just be all around more difficult to work with. They'll take longer to transfer to my Mac. They'll take up more space on my Mac's hard drive. Eventually they'll consume more space on my Drobo. Bigger files are likely going to be slower to work with in Lightroom, etc. I think that this is still mostly just an early mental thing going on in my head that should resolve itself in time. I did notice yesterday though that I took less photographs in four hours than I usually do and I seemed to think more about my shots. Who knows, maybe this is a good thing too.

I like the new menu on the Mark II better than the old 5D. It seems more intuitive and you scroll through the screens easier.

A few times while working with the camera I accidentally pushed the delete button when I meant to push the play button. The play and delete buttons are pretty close to each other. I'm not too worried about this because you have to confirm photo deletion but it seemed like maybe these two buttons should be further away from each other.

That's all for now. No real opinion on the image quality yet because I haven't processed any images from it. I'm heading out to shoot a bit more this afternoon with it and will continue to post thoughts on the camera as I think about them.

Flickr, Smugmug And Others Bidding To Buy JPG Magazine Says TechCrunch

Flickr, Smugmug And Others Bidding To Buy JPG Magazine

TechCrunch is reporting that Flickr, Smugmug, Alexander Muse, WordPress and apparently others (TechCrunch says 20 potential buyerys) have all been involved in a bidding war over JPG Magazine and reports that it looks like a transaction will close shortly.

Matt Mullenweg denies that WordPress has ever had any conversations about anything like this in the comments of the post.

Don MacAskill seems to suggest on Twitter that SmugMug was at least interested but that they're now unlikely to bid:

From Don:

"JPG Magazine may be saved! The other bidders have much deeper pockets, so we're unlikely to bid afterall, but if something happens.

We were going to turn JPG Magazine back over the community, try to run it at a small loss, and mostly do our best to keep it from extinction."

For what it's worth, I doubt that you'll see anyone acquire JPG Magazine for any serious money at all. JPG was a money losing proposition (unfortunately) and not very many people are going to be interested in a money losing magazine at this juncture in a recession.

Although JPG had an online presence, the online part of the business was pretty weak to start with. It really was the idea that you'd get published in a very polished magazine and get $100 that interested contributors more than the online side of the site.

Mike Arrington suggests that fans are going to want to see JPG go to Flickr. But I seriously doubt Flickr would buy JPG. First off, why would Yahoo want to part with cash?

Secondly, even if Flickr ran the print magazine JPG at a loss in order to enhance the cachet of Flickr, it could very seriously backfire on them. You can only print so many photographs in a magazine a month and everyone who submitted photos that got rejected would feel bad. There's enough bitching already around Flickr about who gets photos in "Explore" and who doesn't that I can't imagine an even more exclusive magazine distinction would do much for the competitive esprit de corps at the site.

Finally, if Flickr really wanted to do a magazine, well, they'd probably just do one and call it something like, well, Flickr. It's a better brand name and it's not like the JPG name carries some sort of magical cachet with photographers that a Flickr title wouldn't.

I just don't see it happening with Flickr.

Speaking of Halsey Minor, JPG's major investor, JPG employee Jason Defilippo didn't have very kind words for him according to one commenter Jack McGuire in the comments of the TechCrunch article. McGuire quotes Defilippo as twittering: "I loathe Halsey Minor. Billionaire douchebag. He killed 8020 along with Ron Palmeri. Brothers in douche."

Update #1: Alexander Muse adds a blog post about his offer to buy JPG here.

Update #2: In the comments section to this post JPG investor Ron Palmeri responds to Alexander Muse's offer as well as the comments made on Twitter by Jason Defilippo. He also reprints portions from an email where he says that JPG has 20 interested parties in the venture.

Update #3: Heather Champ (who works for Flickr/Yahoo) writes that "we (Flickr) are not and never have been interested in bidding on JPG. One shouldn't believe everything one reads on the internets."

Amtrak Photo Contestant Arrested by Amtrak Police in NYC's Penn Station

Amtrak photo contestant arrested by Amtrak police in NYC’s Penn Station

More absurdity from the anti-photography brigade via Carlos Miller. This time reportedly photographer Duane Kerzic was shooting in Penn Station and ended up getting arrested by Amtrak Police, handcuffed in a holding cell and accused of criminal trespassing... in a public train station?

Apparently Kerzic was trying to take photos specifically to win Amtrak's annual photo contest this week:

"“The only reason they arrested me was because I refused to delete my images,” Kerzic said in a phone interview with Photography is Not a Crime on Friday.

“They never asked me to leave, they never mentioned anything about trespassing until after I was handcuffed in the holding cell.”

In fact, he said, the only thing they told him before handcuffing him was that “it was illegal to take photos of the trains.”"

Another example of more rogue cops who think that photography is some sort of crime.

Kerzic has photographs he took of his wrists after being handcuffed here. Personally I'm not sure why cops should be allowed to handcuff photographers or any other law abiding citizen at all.

Thanks, Brad!

Thank You Helen Oster and Adorama, My Canon 5D, Mark II Arrives

I just spent a few minutes unboxing my new Canon 5D Mark II digital SLR that I bought from the good folks at Adorama.

I'm charging the battery on the puppy and will take it out this afternoon to play with it a bit.

I had a heck of a time getting my hands on one of these hot new cameras and while it's probably too late for any serious review, I'm sure I'll be posting my thoughts and reflections on the camera over the next few months here and various other places.

I wanted to especially say thanks to Adorama who was finally able to get me a camera after Wolf Camera pretty seriously botched my pre-order in my opinion. I initially wrote sort of a mean post about Adorama when I thought my camera wasn't going to come through, but they really stepped up and got the camera for me as advertised. Wolf not only didn't handle my pre-order well in my opinion, but they also botched up other pre-orders pretty badly as well. I'm not going to get into the details here yet, but I've heard from other people that their experience in getting Mark II's from Wolf were problematic as well.

More than just getting the camera for me though, once Adorama was aware that I thought I had a problem with my order, within hours they contacted me and gave it immediate attention. This sort of customer support is refreshing and shows that Adorama takes social media and their brand very seriously. Specifically, Helen Oster does a great job for Adorama in monitoring their brand reputation on the internet. Helen contacted me personally on my order both by phone and email. Helen also has a good reputation of focusing on various online forums and other places online looking for ways to offer customer service for Adorama. Other companies would do well to have a Helen Oster on their staff who so carefully looks after Adorama's reputation.

I'm excited to finally have the Canon 5D Mark II in my hands and am looking forward to what it can do -- especially given that my old 5D is completely dead at this point. I'm going to be sending my old 5D into Mackcam.com who I bought a 3-year warranty from on the camera in the next few days and then once it is repaired I'm planning on using it as a back up camera for my new 5D Mark II.

Angel and Jessica

Recently I blogged about a new project that I am starting called $2 portraits. The idea is that I will offer $2 to anyone who asks me for money from now on in exchange for their portrait.

On Friday while shooting up in the Haight I ran into Angel. As I walked by Angel he saw me with my camera and said to me, "$2 for portraits." I asked him if he'd heard of my $2 portrait project and he said no that this was just what he charged for portraits. I explained my $2 portrait project to Angel and he agreed to pose for it.

Angel was an interesting guy. He had a beer tucked inside his jacket that he'd been drinking while we talked. He told me that a guy took a photo of him and sold it in an art gallery down in Santa Cruz for a lot of money. He said it was printed up really large with his corn rows in. He said lots of people like to take his photo.

Angel was an animated and talkative guy and told me that Sly Stone was a cousin of his but that he never had a chance to meet him before he died. He told me that he was originally from Los Angeles and that his mom owned a house in Compton down there -- but he said that he hadn't seen his mom in years.

Angel said he came from a big family. He said he had three siblings from his mom and another four from his dad.

Angel and I talked for a bit about my own photography. He asked me if I had a card so I gave him one of my cards. I told him that if he wanted to see his portrait or some of my other photographs that he could use the internet address on my card. He said he wasn't sure how he'd ever do that because he didn't have a computer. I suggested that he might want to check out the internet at the library.

After our conversation I gave Angel his $2 and put my 50mm lens on to take another photo of him. He stopped me though and said, "another photograph's going to be another $2." I told him that it was o.k. that I got a good one from before and headed my way back down Haight continuing on my shoot.



Just before I met Angel on Friday while shooting in the Haight I also ran into Jessica. Jessica was pan handling and asked me for money. I told her about my $2 portrait project and she agreed to pose as well.

Jessica said that she's been in San Francisco for about 10 years now but that she first came to the City back in 1991. She said that she was originally from New York but that she came out to San Francisco to study art.

I asked Jessica if she had family and she said that she did but that she did not get along with them.

Jessica and I talked for a little while about her art. She said she's mostly focusing on acting right now but that she also does music and paints. She said she also does henna. She said that normally she does not have to be out on the street but that right now she had to be. She said that she definitely was going to make it as an actress and I wished her luck with that.

After talking for a bit more, Jessica asked if I had a card and I said I did and gave her one. Then I headed back down Haight Street for more shooting.

JPG Magazine Shuts Down

JPG Magazine: Blog: JPG Magazine Says Goodbye

It's always a sad say when you see a great photography magazine shut down. Unfortunately though printed media is just getting harder and harder to effectively monetize in a new digital world. JPG tried to combine both the digital and the print worlds in order to come up with a truly kick ass magazine -- and that they did.

I was continuously impressed by both the quality of photos inside as well as the actual print quality of the JPG publication.

The magazine's editor Laura Brunow Miner has a good-bye post here.

A couple of threads discussing the closure on Flickr here and here.

The New York Times reports on the shutdown here.

The Digital Picture Photo Forum Deleting "Anti Canon" Posts

Karel Donk � Blog Archive � The-Digital-Picture.com deletes “anti-Canon” post about the EOS 5D Mark II

Karel Donk, who recently wrote up a post detailing some of the quality control problems with the new Canon 5D Mark II, found that when he posted on his post at a new photo forum called the-digital-picture.com that his post was deleted by Bryan Carnathan, the guy who apparently runs the forum, saying that he'd rather not have "anti-Canon" posts in his forums.

As I really hate censorship, it looks like this won't be a forum that I'll be checking out.

Apparently Donk's been banned from the forums at DPReview as well after questioning Canon there in the past.

I've been following my own Canon 5D Mark II tracking information with UPS and it looks like it arrived in Oakland last night and is scheduled for delivery on Monday. Maybe I'll get lucky and it will show up tomorrow for the weekend. Thank much to the good folks at Adorama for getting me one!

What Are Your Photography Goals for 2009?

Photo Gallery - Marc Silber

I thinks setting goals with regards to your photography and then breaking those goals down into more manageable sub goals makes a tremendous amount of success.

My own long-term goal is to publish at least 1,000,000 photographs before I die.

Photographer Marc Silber has a post out where he asks people what their goals are for 2009. I elaborated on my more specific photographic goals for 2009 in the comments section of Marc's post.

From Marc:

"Let me ask you, when was the last time you thought about your goals as a photographer? Lots of us keep going out and shooting the same pictures over and over—you know the ones I’m talking about. Nice shot the first few times you got it, but after a few hundred, even you’re tired of seeing it! How does that happen? You get good at a certain type of photography and keep on going out and finding that shot again."

Update: Marc has a 2nd part update to his post on photography goals here.

A Month Down the Line

Relatively Normal

Flickr and Getty Images Begin Inviting Select Flickr Photographers Into Their Joint Stock Photography Business

Recently I've been getting reports that Flickr has begun inviting select Flickr photographers into the new joint Flickr/Getty stock photography business that Getty and Yahoo announced earlier this year in July.

I contacted both Getty and Yahoo for confirmation that invitations have been sent out and received confirmation from Kryssa Guntrum, Senior PR Manager at Yahoo, that this is indeed happening.

From Guntrum:

"The editors at Getty Images have recently sent a preliminary set of invitations to be part of the collection to a small group of Flickr members. The photos are being chosen based on Getty Images’ expertise in licensing digital content and insight into customers’ needs. As always, Flickr is committed to offering its members full control over their content and they are free to accept or decline the invitation as they so choose. We will keep you posted as more information on the invitation process and other partnership milestones are announced."

The invitation being sent to select photographers reads like this:

"Flickr has partnered with the fabulous Getty Images to
offer an invitation-only service for Flickr members to sell
their photos for commercial use.

The Getty Images team has noticed your work on Flickr, and
is pleased to offer you an invitation to enroll with them.
They have selected XX of your photos for possible inclusion
in the program. Here are a few of them:

If you're interested, find out how to get started at the
Flickr page below. Congratulations! And, good luck!"

I'm not sure how many photographers have been invited at this point but personally don't feel entirely good about how this program is going so far.

Earlier this year, back in July, I blogged about this program after iStockphoto VP for Content Development, Joseph Jean Rolland Dube, made comments about how the program would work in Seattle at the Microsoft Pro Photography Summit.

Originally Dube stated that Getty would start this program with around 2,500 images. This seemed unusually small to me given the magnitude of images that Getty offers for sale. Bridgett Russell, Getty's Senior Director of Communications, later told me that Dube had provided an erroneous number and said that the program would launch in the "coming months" with "tens of thousands" of photographs for sale.

I'm not sure how many photographs have been selected by Getty here some five months later, but I'd guess that the number is a heck of a lot closer to the 2,500 (at best) number Dube originally provided than the clarification offered by Russell of "tens of thousands."

Personally I've long believed in the opportunity that stock photography represents through Flickr. There are some things that concern me about this initiative so far though.

All along I've worried that this Flickr/Getty deal was not a serious attempt at selling stock photography through Flickr. I've worried that it was more a lip service attempt by Getty to lock in a relationship with Flickr before Corbis (Getty's largest competitor) could. Especially in light of the Microsoft offer to buy out Yahoo last summer, I wondered if Getty might try to create a contractually binding agreement with Yahoo ahead of any possible Microsoft ownership of Flickr. Although Corbis is an independent company from Microsoft, Corbis is 100% owned by Microsoft Founder Bill Gates and I wondered if a Microsoft owned Flickr might not make a deal with Corbis more likely.

Given that there has been virtually no communication about this initiative since it's announcement by either Getty or Flickr, I'm worried that the program is not really moving along. Especially given that Flickr in their FAQ on this program states that the program would "debut later this year" (one day left, guys) and Russell told me that the service would be launched in the "coming months" with tens of thousands of photos back in July, I just don't see "a preliminary set of invitations to be part of the collection to a small group of Flickr members," as being very serious in nature. Especially when there has been no formal update to the Flickr FAQ on the partnership since it was announced.

What bothers me more though is the complete lack of transparency on the part of Flickr over how this program will work. More than just a bunch of random nameless faceless photographers, Flickr is a community. And an opportunity to allow Flickr users to sell their work if they want through the site is a huge deal. And yet there is no way that Flickr members can apply for consideration for this program. There is no information about the types of photos that Getty wants. There simply is no communication going on about this new service by Flickr, Yahoo or Getty. There is no reasoning given for the delays in the launch. Will, I, Thomas Hawk be able to sell stock photographs through Getty? Who knows. Will you be able to? Other than a select few photographers who received invitations on very small numbers of their photos not much else is being offered that I can tell.

Have you been approached to sell photos through Getty yet? If so feel free to post a comment and discuss your opinion of this program.

Port of Long Beach Responds to Incident of Photographer Harassment

I received an email this morning from Art Wong, the Assistant Director of Communications/PIO for the Port of Long Beach with regards to the recent case of photographer harassment by the Long Beach Harbor Patrol that I blogged about yesterday. I will print his email response to my request for clarification from their department as to what authority myself and photographer David Sommars were told we were not allowed to shoot from a public sidewalk in the Long Beach Harbor last Friday night and then respond to his email.

Here is his email response in full:

"Generally, we've asked our Harbor Patrol officers to tell photographers that for safety and security reasons they should come to our Admin Building, and present identification. When they come to our offices, usually I or someone in our Communications Division talks to the photographer about where they may safely shoot from the public right of ways. Our concern is for the safety of the photographers, so that they're not run over by trucks. Also the security of the Port, especially in the years since 9/11, we tell photographers that they are only allowed in public areas. We need identification of the individuals and vehicles so we can keep track of who we've advised, and so we can communicate that info to our Harbor Patrol officers and the officers watching on our surveillance cameras. Commercial photographers, however, need a permit so our Harbor Patrol officers can secure the area in which they're working, so that traffic can be re-routed. In the Sunday night it seems that the officer thought you were trying to enter a private area and you were a commercial photographer. You, and other photographers, have a right a take pictures from public right-aways. But for your own safety, and for the security of the Port, we have asked our officers to be as vigilant as possible. If they were too zealous, please accept our apologies and contact me to arrange another visit."

My response:

This response from the Port of Long Beach is complete and utter BS.

David and I were nowhere near any private property whatsoever in fact when we were told to stop shooting by the Long Beach Harbor Patrol. The photo above is a clearer photo of the location we were at when we were confronted. We were clearly on a public sidewalk on an overpass -- nowhere even remotely close to any private property entrance. We were more than 100 yards away from accessing any private areas whatsoever. The photography I published of their Officer clearly shows both the officer and his patrol car on the same overpass from where we were shooting. Here is a link to the overpass where we were shooting from on a Google Map to get a better perspective that we were nowhere remotely close to a private area when this confrontation took place.

The fact that the Officer would suggest that he forced us to stop shooting because he "thought we were trying to enter a private area," is a bald faced lie. This Officer is a liar who is trying to justify his act of harassment in some way after the fact. I would encourage staff at the Port of Long Beach to examine the photograph of the Officer, the bridge above and the Google Map link. They should know the location where we were shooting and should also know that we were nowhere near any private areas whatsoever when this incident took place.

Secondly, the incident in question took place last Friday night, not Sunday night.

Finally, I think it is a huge stretch for the the Port of Long Beach to claim that the Officer who ejected us from the Port thought that we were "commercial" photographers. We were simply two guys with cameras who clearly explained to the officers that we were doing "art" photography. We were not impeding traffic in any way. We were not a professional film production crew. We were never told that we were being ejected because we were "commercial" photographers. We were no threat to ours or anyone elses personal safety. We were told we had to leave because we were not allowed to shoot the plant that we were shooting from a public sidewalk. This response is just even more CYA BS from the Port of Long Beach.

It is unfortunate that rather than take responsibility for their actions, apologize for violating our Constitutional rights, and offering to change how they enforce their anti-photography campaign, that they'd rather try to justify our eviction from public land that our taxes pay for and chalk it up to a "misunderstanding," on the part of their officers.

The response of course wouldn't be complete without at least one reference to 9/11 in it. This response from the Port of Long Beach is very, very disappointing.

If you think that this sort of response is unacceptable, please take a second and digg this story here.

Anti Censorship Initiative Against Facebook's Ban on Photos of Breastfeeding

Photos of breastfeeding banned by Facebook

Photo Page 6 is a site dedicated to photos depicting breastfeeding that have been banned from Facebook. It's getting a lot of attention today and is the top story up on Techmeme.

A lot of people have asked me in the past why I don't post more of my photos up on Facebook. There are a number of reasons why I don't like publishing photos to Facebook, but one of the biggest for me is that I've long abhorred Facebook's position on photo censorship.

The breastfeeding issue is a perfect example. Breastfeeding is a perfectly natural thing for two human beings to do. It's a wonderful expression of love and a biological part of life. It's not obscene or pornographic. The fact that Facebook would employ censors to look for photos of breastfeeding in order to delete them from the site is bad practice and undermines freedom of art and expression. As an artist, I'm not interested in sharing my own photographs with a company or a site that would take censorship to those lengths.

The above photo is of a woman breastfeeding in Berkeley from the "How Berkeley Can You Be Parade." I took that photo. I titled the photo "Ode to Facebook." This photo is currently available for view on Flickr and anyone can see it. In fact there are 8,213 photos that I can see right now on Flickr tagged "breastfeeding." Even though Flickr has some stupid censorship policies of their own (like you can't post photos of children with cigarettes in their mouth) banning breastfeeding photos isn't one their banned categories as far as I know. I just uploaded the photo to Facebook as well in order to see what happens. We'll see how long it takes from them to delete it.

Breastfeeding should not be censored on Facebook. Facebook should publicly reverse this decision and agree not to ban photographs of breastfeeding.

More from Real Tech News, VentureBeat, News.com, the Washington Post.

Censorship sucks.

Long Beach Harbor Patrol Says Photography "Not Allowed" From Public Sidewalk

I just got back from shooting for a week in Los Angeles and have to say that the highlight of my trip was shooting industrial stuff down in Long Beach Harbor with Photographer David Sommars. David is an amazing photographer who regularly shoots industrial stuff around L.A. and he shared with me some of the most fantastic vantage points to shoot this sort of photography in Long Beach. David also maintains a photography related blog here.

Unfortunately our photowalk around the Port of Long Beach was not without incident. Three times we were blinted while photographing. I've been stopped plenty of times while legally shooting in the past. Most of the times I've been able to be respectful but insistent on my legal rights to shoot wherever I'm shooting. Every so often though an incident turns into a more serious altercation.

The first two times Sommars and I were stopped we were stopped by private security agents working for Securitas on behalf of BP's Carson Refinery. They asked us not to shoot the refinery and suggested that it was a "double standard" that we'd insist on our constitutional rights to shoot in public while not honoring BP's request that we not shoot their facility from a public sidewalk. I couldn't quite get my arms around the "double standard" argument coming from BP. Ironically one of the shots that I took of their refinery was probably the largest United States flag I've ever shot. Let's hear it for Patriotism.

The hassle from BP's agents though didn't really bother me all that much. We were insistent on our rights to shoot the facility and they seemed to understand that in the end there was nothing that they could do about it. Their security guard snapped photos of both of us with his camera phone (and I returned the favor of course) and then they followed us when we left in my car in order to get my license plate, but they seemed to pretty clearly understand that while they were free to ask us not to shoot the plant, it was clearly within our rights to do so.

The more disturbing incident came later when we were atop a bridge, again on a public sidewalk, shooting another plant and long exposure bridge shots. Here we were stopped by real cops this time, rather than security guards. The cops in question were from the Long Beach Harbor Patrol. Their officer explained to us that it was his job to monitor the side of the bridge that we were on while L.A.P.D. had jurisdiction over the other side of the bridge.

Basically the conversation went something like this.

Long Beach Harbor Patrol Officer: "I'm going to have to ask you guys to leave."

Us: "But, why, were simply taking art photographs."

Long Beach Harbor Patrol Officer: "You're not allowed to photograph these plants."

Us: "But we're on a public sidewalk. What law doesn't allow us to photograph here?"

Long Beach Harbor Patrol Officer: "You'll need to come back tomorrow and get a permit if you want to shoot in the Harbor."

Me: "I'm only down in Long Beach for tonight and won't be able to do that."

2nd Long Beach Harbor Patrol Officer (shrugging her shoulders): Oh, well, you're just going to have to leave. Photography is not allowed here without a permit."

During this altercation both David and I were asked to present identification to the police. They used our IDs to run background checks on both of us.

Now personally I have no problem with the cops stopping to talk to us and check out what we were doing. I also had no problem with Securitas photographing me earlier or following me to get my license plate number. But I think that it went too far when the Long Beach Harbor Patrol ran background checks on us and I think it also went too far when they required us to leave our shoot location. As far as I'm aware there is no law which requires permits in order to shoot the Long Beach Harbor from a public sidewalk. And to kick us off of the bridge that we were legally on was not justified and violated our constitutional rights.

We repeatedly tried to argue for our right to shoot at this location for about a half an hour. The entire time the cops were insistent that we were not allowed to shoot there without a permit. David showed the cops in question photos of his on his iPhone in order to share the type of photography that we were after, but none of this seemed to matter. We were on their turf and they weren't going to stand for that. He just kept repeatedly bringing up 911 over and over telling us that we were going to need to leave.

What bothers me even more is that this is not the first time that David (who shoots in Long Beach Harbor more regularly than I do) has been harassed by the cops there. David has had lots of previous run ins there. David told me that he's been stopped about 10 times in the last six months while shooting in Long Beach Harbor. About half of those stops involved actual police in addition to security guards. On one occasion the cops actually handcuffed him and in another incident 4 police cars and a black SUV converged on him. He's also had FBI agents call on him over his photography. Personally I think it's wrong to handcuff peaceful photographers for the "crime" of photography while questioning and detaining.



I've contacted the media relations department at Long Beach Harbor regarding this incident but have yet to hear back from them. I'll post more from them once/if I do hear back.

What I am tired of though is the harassment that photographers face on a regular basis while out documenting our world. Photography is not a crime. 911 didn't suddenly magically turn photographers into criminals. And as long as photography is not a crime, I think that cops, security guards and other authority figures should be required to live within the legal system as it now stands. Maybe some day they will pass a law that shooting Long Beach Harbor is in fact a crime. Or maybe they'll actually pass a law that permits *are* actually required to shoot there. But until that day happens (and I'd be one vocally opposing any such rule like that) this sort of harassment ought not take place. And it's unfortunate when it does.

Update: Art Wong from the Port of Long Beach's Media Relations Department has contacted me and told me that he's asking their officers for information on this incident. I will post any update from the Port of Long Beach as it becomes available.

Update 2: On Digg here: http://digg.com/travel_places/Thomas_Hawk_s_Digital_Connection_Long_Beach_Harbor_Patrol_S

Update 3: The Port of Long Beach's Assistant Director of Communications Art Wong, responds to this incident here.

Updated: Ok, So Maybe Adorama Doesn't Suck After All

Update: I just received a phone call from Helen Oster of Adorama who had read this blog post. According to Helen, this email that I received this a.m. was sort of an error. Helen informed me that Adorama *is* actually shipping Canon 5D Mark IIs and that mine will be on a truck out for delivery today. Helen said that the message that I received was an automated message that was sent when the system didn't see the camera in inventory but that Adorama is in fact shipping them as they receive them same day.

I updated the blog title of this post from Adorama sucks to "Ok, So Maybe Adorama Doesn't Suck After All" as I'm certainly willing to accept this explanation and give them the benefit of the doubt that they actually did/do have 5D, Mark IIs in stock.

I'm also bumping the comment that Helen just made on this blog post to the post itself.

From Helen:

"I apologize that you received the email that suggested that this item is out of stock. It has in fact been invoiced and packed and is on it's way to you.

The problem is that until an item actually appears on our shelves, the automated system doesn't always register that we have it in stock - particularly with a high demand item like this.

If I can ever help with any order from Adorama in the future, you are always welcome to contact me directly."

Thank you Helen and Adorama for helping me with this camera and sorry for saying that you guys sucked.

I just got the following email from Adorama this morning:

"Thank you for placing an order with Adorama.

We regret to inform you that the following item(s) is currently on
backorder

from the manufacturer, and we are unable to ship immediately.

Item Number: ICA5DM2 - CANON EOS-5D MARK II DIGITAL SLR CAMERA

Our experience has shown that most backorders are shipped out within
10-14 days.
We will update you immediately should there be a change.
Please note, your credit card will not get charged until we ship.

Please accept our apology for this.

We hope to continue to serve you with all your photography needs.

Thank you.

Adorama Customer Service
service@adorama.com
The Photography People
42 West 18th Street
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Tel# (212) 741-0401
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www.adorama.com "

What sucks about this is that I canceled my preorder with Wolf Camera on Saturday after assuming that Adorama actually had the camera in stock. I wish that Adorama had disclosed on the product page that this camera is actually on back order. I also wish that at some point in the order process this information had been conveyed to me. Had I been told that Adorama would not be able to ship me this camera I never would have ordered it from them and I never would have canceled my pre-order with Wolf.

If you go to Adorama's product page on this camera right now, nowhere does it indicate that this camera is on back-order. B&H photo, by contrast, clearly shows the 5D as being back-ordered on their website.

I think this is a misleading sales practice by Adorama and unfortunately it looks like it will still be several weeks before I actually get my hands on a 5D Mark II.

In the meantime my crappy Canon 5D is completely dead. The only way to get power to the camera is to remove the battery and reinsert it about 40 times in a row which might give you 5 or 6 photos before requiring the same process all over again.

I'm very disappointed in the fact that Canon claimed that they would be shipping these cameras at the end of November and even when I pre-ordered one that I've still yet been able to obtain one.

Karel Donk: "Canon 5D Mark II: Barely Worth It"

Karel Donk - Blog Archive -- Canon EOS 5D Mark II: Barely worth it!:

"Canon has really lost it. It wasn’t so long that I wrote why they have lost it, and it seems that they continue to take hit after hit, not only from the competition, but from their own mistakes as well. It’s one thing to be given a hard time by the competition, but it’s completely different to be screwing up your own products. It appears that Canon simply do not learn from their mistakes."

Karl Donk is not impressed with the new Canon 5D Mark II or with the direction that Canon is going. The Fake Chuck Westfall provides an officially unofficial update on some of the early problems with the new camera, adding that the 50D is f***ed.

Personally I don't have much of an opinion on the new 5D Mark II camera other than I'm sort of pissed that when Canon said that this camera would ship at the end of November, here it is at Christmas and mine is still backordered when I preordered it in the first place.

Canon does at least in this regard seems to have screwed up from a business perspective. Manufacturing a hot new camera and then timing it to ship in November ahead of the Christmas Holiday seems smart. But then not having any of the cameras available for actual purchase by Christmas seems, well, sort of stupid.

Hanging Out In Los Angeles For a Week

Friday afternoon I loaded up four kids, two dogs and one wife into the old Buick, headed down I5, up and over the icy Grapevine, dropping down into the City of Angels, where my parents live, for Christmas.

I always like visiting Los Angeles at this time of year. It's where I grew up and as much as a lot of people seem to hate L.A., there's something about the sprawling metropolis that I've always found extremely photogenic. I also find driving around L.A. sort of randomly to be a great time to contemplate on life and really think -- especially at night.

I'm going to have a lot of time to drive around L.A. this trip because I'm staying down here for nine days. A lot longer than I usually spend time visiting any place.

Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, visiting L.A. also means being off the grid a lot -- at least for me. My parents live out in Angeles National Forest and so I'm limited to dial up only access which works sporadically at best. The rest of the time I'm operating from an iPhone or an ocassional stop in to a Starbucks for a quick connect up. Most of the time though I'm trying to focus on my photography while I'm here and not the internet.

Yesterday I spent most of the day driving/walking around Downtown L.A. with my two boys. We shot a lot of the old theater neon signs on Broadway, visited the Grand Central Market. Walked around the Toy District and Warehouse District. Had a late lunch at Norms (which never closes). I dropped the kids off with their mom and grandmother to see a movie while I spent the rest of the night driving randomly around L.A. -- Hollywood, Echo Park, Downtown, South Central, the West Side, the East Side. Mostly looking for liquor stores, hamburger joints, Jewish delis and the occasional neon diver on a pool supplies store sign. Night photography has always been my favorite.

Gas is cheap in L.A. right now -- and driving around with my old high school favorite KROQ on loud (I'm amazed at how well all the old punk rock has weathered with time and how listenable much of the new stuff is), the windows rolled down and the heater on on a 40 degree night make for good car shooting. Night shooting abandoned streets in Los Angeles' Warehouse District, rolling through Tommy's for a double cheeseburger at midnight. Running up and down the streets of Burbank remembering all the places that I used to visit back in high school when my high school girlfriend used to live there.

My goal this trip is to take at least 10,000 frames which ought to translate into 1,500 or so finished photographs. I have a lot mapped out to shoot and am going to work hard to make this trip as productive as I can. Posting here, Flickr, Zooomr, FriendFeed, etc. will be light for this week so that I can use my time here for as much shooting as possible.

I'm still using my old beat up piece of crap Canon 5D to shoot with down here. I never did get my preorder for my new Mark II for this trip unfortunately. Thanks Canon!

My old 5D is so broken. I can't shoot faster than 1/400th of a second with it and so everything must be done 100% on manual mode. The internal battery died a long time ago and I haven't found a place that carries a replacement. The camera sporadically freezes up and the only way to get it going again is to remove and reinsert the battery (which results in the clock resetting because my internal battery is dead and thus my metadata is consistently screwed up). The sensor is like a dust magnet. Shooting at high apertures (which I must do a lot because I can't shoot faster than 1/400th of a second on it or I get totally black frames) means that my photos are full of ugly dust spots that I must clean in post production -- even though I'm cleaning my sensor at least once a week. The screws in the bottom of the camera are gone. The LCD goes in and out when I review photos. It's a wreck. An old friend for sure, but much like an old dog that should have been dead years ago. But it does the job for now of capturing light still and it's what I've got to work with.

Tonight I'm going to go shoot the neon at MCA Citiwalk and then I'll probably head over to Beverly Hills to shoot around Rodeo Drive with my wife. Beverly Hills has the best mannequins.

Photos to follow much later.

Calculate

"You can't take pictures in this room."

"But I'm just taking a photo of my daughter. Isn't it nice how the floor reflects her silhouette?"

"I'm sorry, you can't take pictures in this room."

"But I took photos in this room last week with the security guard right there."

"I'm sorry you can't take photos in this room."

"Hold on I'm just going to take a few more and then I'll leave."

The Static Whisper in My Ear...

Thanks, Davis.

Former Flickr Designer George Oates on Getting Fired by Yahoo!

kewlchops: Not quite what I had in mind.: "I stayed up until about 2:30am that night, chain smoking and talking to friends who saw my tweet and had responded - THANK YOU. I sent a formal request for time to transition The Commons program to whoever is to take it over: 'A week should do it,' I said. It was denied.

(It would be unfair to give anyone affected by the lay-offs special treatment.) It's not just my treatment I worry about here. Such a sudden movement makes it especially hard to continue the program effectively, at least for a while. So silly. I sent a few tersely helpful emails before my email account was closed. Couldn't resist. Don't let The Commons die, you buggers! Can't you see how wonderful it is?!?!?"

Pretty stupid move on Yahoo's part in my opinion. The "Commons" actually is one of the more important things that Flickr is working on right now.

I've been personally shooting museums for a while now. In my own small way I think that treasures that make up our public museums belong online for the entire world to explore and enjoy. I think physical walls coming down in a way with the art moving online is a positive thing. George was looking to do something far larger. She was looking to work *with* the museums to get them to voluntarily release their images to the world on a much larger scale -- and she was having success with this program.

Good luck in whatever you do next George.

More commentary here. (Note you have to be logged into Flickr and have your settings set to allow adult content to read this thread).