Well, obviously, this is going to make my trip a great deal harder. I was planning on carrying all my camera equipment as hand luggage so I’ll have to make alternative arrangements. I don’t like the idea of all that gear slopping around in the hold (and being bounced around in the bowels of an airport) but I don’t think I have much choice.
I’m a very lucky boy. On Friday I will be leaving for an extended trip to the USA to take in the delights of Ohio, Yellowstone, Wyoming and Florida. Much of the trip will be spent on horseback, living the life of a cowboy. I hear that Wyoming is big on mountains and I have a log cabin lined up a little distance from some of them. My shutter release finger is twitching.
I have managed to get quite a bit of equipment into one Lowepro Slingshot bag. Camera, lenses, cleaning equipment, hoods, filters, cards, batteries, flash and a PhotoSmart portable disk drive. I’ve had to attach some sliplock accessories to the body of the bag to get it all in. The tripod will have to go in with the main luggage.
Oddly, with all the promise of the open range, mountains and all that good stuff I’m especially looking forward to the first part of the trip where I will be spending a few days with some friends in their Ohio home. I’ve never really taken in much of the US suburban scene and am intrigued as to how it might differ from the semi-rural suburban life I lead out here.
The trip will involve quite a bit of travelling given the distances involved. Multiple car rentals and multiple internal flights, the latter being a bit of an issue given my fear of flying (odd juxtaposed with the shots of flying machines on this site I suppose).
Lots to do before I leave.
In other news I’ve just finished another shoot at an elderly care home in Hertfordshire. I understand that the marketing people who are putting the brochure together are taken with one shot in particular so that’s good news. This time we started the day knowing exactly the kind of image that we were looking for and the general theme that we wanted it to portray. This was very clearly defined shoot where the idea was to come out of it with a single usable image and I think we were quite successful in that.
The conditions were a little challenging as we were shooting in very bright midday sunlight with the background interest (playing children and a pagoda) exposed to the full brightness of the day and the foreground interest (main subject and bench) positioned under a large shady tree. Diffused fill flash was the order of the day.
Anyhow, toodle-pip for now. This is likely the last post here for a while unless, of course, they have internet cafes in the wild west.
Well, it made me laugh.
The BBC reports that about one-third of digital camera users in the UK are not backing up their photographs, according to research commissioned by Symantec. They also report that the way people are viewing their ‘snaps’ is changing:
The traditional photo album may be in demise; about seven out of 10 are printing less than a quarter of their images, while 30% said that they did not print out any hard-copies.
That’s a particular shame because the printed photo album fulfils a roll that is hard to replicate with purely digital/electronic means.
I’ve lost count of the number of times one or more of our albums has come out on the spur of the moment during a period of reminiscing with friends over a drink or two (ok, usually more than two).
“Wow, look how thin you were.”
“You look funny with hair.”
Clearly not references to photographs of myself.
The logistics of being able to do this in an impromptu manner with the usual equipment available are a great deal more complicated than with a book of photos. It just doesn’t happen, not in my household anyway.
John Long, from the Digital Imaging Group of the Royal Photographic Society, said the digital camera and the internet had changed the face of photography.“People don’t print their pictures any more – they put them on their computer or on a CD. Technology has moved on and lots of people would now prefer to look at their pictures one at a time on a TV or computer screen.”
I’m not sure it’s entirely down to preference. Frankly I think it’s just easier, or rather the fact that it’s easier is a large part of the reason for the preference. That and the fact that storing large photo albums is often a problem.
Perhaps I’m just starting to fall off the crest of the technology wave. It’s been a long ride.
As for backups my own strategy involves backing up to separate networked hard drives and also to Delkin gold disk CD’s stored in Secol archive polyester based sleeves filed into their own brand archive box. I could, and should, probably do more.