Author: Thomas Hawk

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Another Photographer FBI Encounter

From a Digital Photography Review Forum:

“Well…my D300 and I were encountered by the FBI, a little earlier this morning.

I had taken my wife downtown to handle some business, and was parked on the street in wait for her. I almost always have my camera with me, and just started snapping away at a building construction going up (I was just playing around with different exposure settings). I also shot a few ‘straight ahead’ shots of the street that I was on, because there was an interesting perspective of the building lineup on the respective sides of the street. I had then put the camera away, and began perusing a magazine, when three gentlemen approached the curb side of my vehicle. One of them introduced himself, as he stuck his ID through the passenger window, and asked what my business was. He explained that I had been captured, on camera, taking pictures of their buildings. I explained that I wasn’t aware of that, and told them that I was just a serious amateur photographer who was only trying to get a better handle on exposures. They pointed out that one of the buildings I was shooting in the direction of, was their main building. It was only after he mentioned this that I was able to see – on better inspection – their FBI logo on said building. Now, this building was better than a half-block away, and their logo was almost totally obstructed by some trees….”

continue reading here.

Thanks, p0tempkin!

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Why Do Flickr and Firefox Hate Each Other So Much?

Why Do Flickr and Firefox Hate Each Other So Much?

For the past two years Firefox has had repeated trouble in loading Flickr images for me. I’m not sure why and I’d love to figure it out. Here are some clues.

1. I can load every flickr image in Safari, but not Firefox. What I get (especially when loading image intensive pages are random image loads like the screenshot above).

2. I only have this problem when browsing Flickr on DSL or broadband wifi. When I use my fiber uVerse connection at home all images load 100% of the time in Firefox.

3. It seems that once this behavior starts happening it progressively gets worse and worse. Sometimes if I close a page with images that are not loading, other pages that won’t load images suddenly populate the images.

4. If images are not loading in Firefox, Flickr thumbnails in FriendFeed also load sporadically.

5. I’m using Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X 10.4; en-US; rv:1.9.0.7) Gecko/2009021906 Firefox/3.0.7

I’m not blocking flickr in any way. (update edit: I don’t use adblock).

When I use Flickr’s test page, it has a red x for Global Farm 4 images. When I right click on both the images that are loading and not loading and check the image properties they appear to be coming from Global Farm 4.

Appreciate any help or feedback.

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What is Visualization? Rare Unreleased Ansel Adams Footage


The Key to a Photograph from Ansel Adams from SilberStudios.Tv on Vimeo.

Mark Silber, over at Silber Studios Blog, was able to obtain the rare Ansel Adams footage above. In the short clip Ansel Adams talks about visualization. The process whereby a photographer sees a photograph in their mind’s eye before and during the making of photograph.

Experiencing visualization is a powerful thing. Most of the time when I’m shooting I do not experience visualization. I shoot many, many shots every day and many of these shots are meant to be more part of a documentary river than anything for me. With many of these shots in fact I don’t really see the shot from the subject until later in post processing.

But every so often I see a photograph ahead of the actual shot. I do see it in my mind’s eyes. And these I feel are among the best photographs I’ve personally made. Every so often you see a scene or a person or an opportunity for a shot and you take it instantly recognizing that it is special and seeing the finished photograph as you view it through the viewfinder before you’ve even pushed the shutter.

I need to challenge myself to look for more of these moments and photographs. They are all around us every day. And it’s amazing when you get them. That feeling of knowing deep down inside that you really got the shot. That you’ve really created something meaningful in the seconds that surround the birth of a photo is one of the best feelings a photographer can know.

Thanks to Marc and the Ansel Adams Gallery as well for sharing with us this rare footage by Ansel Adams himself directly on the visualization process as he viewed it even so many years ago.

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Microsoft Future Pro Photograher Contest

Microsoft Future Pro Photographer Contest

The Microsoft Future Pro Photographer contest is a great contest put on for student photographers. If you are presently a student at a two or four year advanced degree institution and are over 18 years of age you are eligible to submit photos. If you are a college student this is an excellent contest to participate in and possibly win up to $20,000.

Submissions are being accepted from March 1, 2009 to April 30, 2009 and the winner will be announced at the Microsoft Pro Photo Summit this July. The Grand Prize winner will receive $20,000 in addition to three of First Place winners in categories of Nature and Landscape; People and Portraits; and Sports and Photojournalism who also receive a cash prize of $3,000; all winners will receive a digital workflow prize package as well.

All entrants can submit up to three original images in the following categories: nature & landscape; people and portraits; or sports & photojournalism. The image must be a JPEG that is no larger than 1024 pixels and 2MB. Each image will be treated as one entry. These images must not be published, released or distributed for commercial use and must be created and owned exclusively by the entrant submitting the image. Each image will be judged on its originality, technical execution (focus, exposure), visual impact (composition, impact, lighting) and relevance to it’s category (nature, portrait, sport). All rights remain with the photographer. Microsoft will only use winning images, with photographer credit, for the sole purpose of promoting the contest.

You can learn more about the competition here. A video of last year’s winners is here.