Thomas Hawk Digital Connection

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.

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: 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.

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!