The Online Photographer

And Now, Hebrew!

You might remember (well, if you've been around here a while) my post "Great Photographers on the Internet," the first post that went viral and helped establish TOP. It's been translated into a number of different languages over the years, mostly with my permission.

Now, Ronen Frieman has published it (again with my permission) in Hebrew!

Mike
(Thanks to Ronen)

Original contents copyright 2013 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

TOP's links!

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Featured Comments from:

Dennis: "That post is all the more brilliant because of the comments made in reply to it. The people who don't get it just reinforce the humor. I love the next-to-last (as of right now) comment that ends: 'You have made yourself look like a fool, in my opinion, with just one post.' How perfect!"

Judith Wallerius: "Not only do I remember, but that was also the post that initially brought me to this lovely place. Has it been seven years already? Time flies when you're having fun :-) "

Bloviation Alert

...The "Which Lenses" post is now complete. It does go on a bit. But then, today is Saturday, so maybe you have the time.

Mike

Original contents copyright 2013 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

TOP's links!

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G'day

TOP is off on Saturday, for regular housekeeping...as in, you know, the cleaning of the actual physical house. I hate doing it but I like having it done.

We will do much more about this business of the post-1995 photographers. I'm working on a samplings post. Thanks for all the responses.

It's always fun to research photographers I haven't heard of. And what do you know, look what I came across—a "Random Excellence" photographer from way back in 2008, Hin Chua, has a lot of new pictures in the set called "After the Fall." (I thought it was a new project at first.) It's a type of photography you probably know well, but unusually well done. None of the pictures taken alone does a whole lot for me, but somehow taken altogether the set becomes meaningful. Take a relaxed, extended look.

See you Sunday.

—Mike, Organizing Apprentice and Journeyman Housekeeper Ordinaire

UPDATE from Hin Chua, Monday a.m.:

Dear Mike (and everyone),

Thanks for posting my series again! Hopefully two posts in six years doesn't consist of TOP overexposure! Mike, when I started getting into photography in 2005, your columns on photo.net were a regular reference for me; I've always valued them.

Embarrassingly enough, the current 'After the Fall' work on my website dates to about early 2010, which means I have about three years of work yet to show the general world. As William notes, yes there are hundreds of images involving thousands of miles of travel that quite rightly didn't make the cut. Whatever they say about keeping your website updated as a best reflection of oneself is true, and I've been too guilty of that. I have to admit in public the current sequence looks a little long in the tooth and will be better for the new photographs.

But the site will be updated this year, and the long-term goal is a book. I'm clearly working at a slow, deliberate pace here. And hopefully in a year or two I'll get my act together and kick it up a gear ;-)

Best,
Hin

Original contents copyright 2013 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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Featured Comments from:

William Barnett-Lewis: "Thank you for the link to the Hin Chua 'After the Fall' series. I've done a fair bit of that style of work, though rarely at his level. There are a number of delightful 'surprise' images there that tickled my personal photographic aesthetics. The best thing about it, though, is that it's a carefully edited and presented series—there were, doubtless, many more images taken than presented. To look at even an extended series such as his is a relief in a world where most people seem to think uploading everything on their SD card is all they need to do. This is, at least for me, why it works even better as a whole than even the individual well done images do. There is as much care in the crafting of the series as in the crafting of the images themselves."

Mike replies: Agreed.

Softie: "'None of the pictures taken alone does a whole lot for me...' I beg to differ. Some of those pics in 'After the Fall' are among the finest compositions I've seen in years: particularly the stack of concrete pillars with the graffiti heart."

Tiny Update

First, Ctein's regular Wednesday column will appear tomorrow—late for obvious reasons. This week he'll talk about printing "Castle Eilean Donan" from yesterday's Print Offer.

Speaking of which, Ctein tells me that all the order confirmations have been sent. If you emailed an order during the sale period yesterday but haven't gotten a confirmation from him yet, he asks you to contact him immediately at ctein@pobox.com.

Thanks again to everyone who participated. Yesterday was an exciting day!

(Oh, and remember my promise: the next sale—of three of my own pics, all by popular demand from TOP posts and camera reviews [including the mysteriously popular scarecrow], printed by Ctein—will be a two-digit sale, with no print over $99. That will be including shipping. I ain't forgot you, my brothers and sisters with the skinnier wallets*.)

Mike

*This might be TOP's first Notorious B.I.G. reference. Cf. the lyrics to "The Ten Crack Commandments."

Original contents copyright 2013 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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Featured Comments from:

Jeff Glass: "Shouldn't that be 'Ctein-y Update'?"

TOP Comment Policy Change

I'm really extremely sorry about this, but henceforth I need to make people fill out a CAPTCHA box when commenting. I've held off as long as I thought I could. [See new Update below.]

I'm painfully aware that this is not ideal. "We apologize for the inconvenience" is such a stock phrase that it's almost white noise now, but...I'm sorry. I apologize. For your inconvenience. I know it's inconvenient.

The reason is that the spam filters are just not working well enough any more. I don't know what happened, but for a number of weeks now I've been getting large numbers of "real" comments mixed in with the spam, which means I have to laboriously comb through all the spam (and there are tremendous amounts of it) to save the actual reader comments buried therein. In addition to the regular comment moderation, it's just an onerous amount of labor. I figure people come here to read the posts, and this is just stealing too much time from productive work.

If this doesn't solve the problem, I'll have to make you register in order to comment. I really, really hope we do not have to go that far.

Sorry... (<—sincere apology).

—Mike, TOP Comment Moderator and Keeper of the Peace

P.S. May I just add that I loathe spammers with an unspeakable passion. They should all have their gonads cut off with machetes, and I say that as an avowed nonviolent pacifist.

UPDATE 2:30 p.m. Monday: Great news! (I hope.) I just heard from TypePad, and they are in the process of retiring TypePad Anti-Spam and switching to a premium outside spam-fighting service called Impermium. This is the Anti-Spam programming used by Engadget, Major League Baseball, CNN, ESPN, Wired, The Washington Post, and tumblr., among many others. I'm told the new system should be implemented "very soon."

So, hopefully, the CAPTCHA inconvenience will prove to be very temporary for all our commenters. And thanks to everyone for all your input, kind comments, and continued support. —Mike

Original contents copyright 2013 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

TOP links

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Featured Comments from:

nige: "Blunt machetes...."

Jeff Grant: "Will this really help? I have been inundated with spam of late. The amount has increased from maybe 40 to up to 1000 daily.I hope that it settles down soon.

"And while I'm at it, that Captcha box is one of the almost illegible ones. I have seen some lately that are eminently more readable. Any chance of a change?"

Mike replies: Yes, the latest wave of spam appears to be giving the programmers fits. I've been patiently waiting for this particular wave to pass but it just keeps getting worse.

And no, I don't have lots of options as to what I can do about it. I'm limited by the TypePad template I use.

Greg: "I'd be curious for a poll on this because for me, I'd much rather register than having to go through CAPTCHA. I would suspect that most commenters here are people who are long-time commenters who are basically registered already. And this isn't to say one can't register through a nom de plum if they need some relative sense of anonymity."

Ken Ford: "Mike, I am a part of the moderation team for a very large music forum. We've found the majority of the spam problem comes from human shills— CAPTCHAs really only help at registration and can pose real problems with legitimate posters when overused. Don't be surprised if you see a formidable drop-off in comments; I'd personally rather see a registration scheme, it's less intrusive on the comment process."

Mike replies: Well, not so far—I woke up late today (worked till 4 a.m. yesterday) to find 61 new comments.

Rest assured, though, that I am watching carefully, listening to peoples' opinions, and working toward a solution. I'm waiting to hear back from TypePad with their recommendations, too.

Johan Grahn: "As an avid reader I admit to having no idea whatsoever how much work it is to moderate comments. Probably a lot more than I can imagine. And I really like the fact that 99.9% of the comments are good. I might not agree but they are very reasonable. And I don't have to filter them myself. I don't see silly nerd battles. So do whatever you have to do to keep the civil tone that is the signum of this site. It's a major factor that makes this site the number one site on photography. At least on this planet's internet. I want to continue to visit your friendly 'living room' and listen to all your intelligent, wise and beautiful guests! I second the motion to use a simple math question. It is easier to read than the other way. Maybe try that to begin with and see if it works."

Mike replies: The amount of work varies. It can go from quite light to pretty amazingly time-consuming (like it is today). I, too, enjoy the comments—I obviously don't get much from reading the posts, since I write them, but I almost always learn from, and am entertained by, many of the comments.

Another downside for me is that all the nastiness you don't see, I do see. But these days that mainly comes from newcomers who aren't familiar with TOP or our "tone." And there aren't all that many of those. They take a lot of time, cumulatively, because I need to be courteous to them in case they are actually nice people temporarily disguising themselves as a-holes. Sometimes, unfortunately, they are, indeed, just a-holes. :-)

I was going to give you a recent example, but why expose you to it? Goes against the grain.

Peter Filtness: "Mike, Whatever it takes to read and comment on TOP...it just hit me how often I read TOP and how many magazines I no longer buy. I now only subscribe to TOP (as of today) View Camera magazine and Birds Australia, so you're in good company...keep it coming...."

Mike replies: Thanks Peter, I'm trying!

Robert P: "Hello my name is Mbeke Ombwonyke, I have recently been given your details from a mutual colleague. It has come into my possession $60,000,000 which I am having in a bank account here in Nigeria but am unable to leave the country. If you could esteemed colleague send me your bank details I will assure you 50% of this transaction which will be converted into vintage Leica M cameras and then smuggled out of the country by camel mule. When arriving at your house, you only have to untake the cameras from the camel mule and place them on ebay and our mutual wealth will be assured. I look forward to helping us in this matter. Your ever present camel friend Mbeke."

Mike replies: [Homer Simpson voice]: Mmmmm, Leicas....

A Followup: Office Space

The other day I went on at some length (too much?) in this post about my office space problem, and the interesting way in which it thoroughly resists every potential solution. My enthusiasm at the time was for adding a second story to the garage, even if it would be expensive.

Well. I had a builder here yesterday (I'm getting two old windows replaced), and since he was here anyway I spoke to him about it. He said there's no way the city would issue a building permit for a two-story garage next to a one-story house. Not a question...no way. His rough estimate for the project as I outlined it to him was fifty to a hundred thousand dollars anyway. The estimate I got for adding a second story to the house was eighty. These are numbers way out in the wispy realm of the theoretical for Yr. Hmbl. Ed., even for TOP World Headquarters.

But maybe that's for the best. Think of what happens to many other mighty enterprises when they build vast gleaming headquarters buildings. A few years pass, and Chrysler is no longer headquartered in the Chrysler Building, the Sears Tower is no longer the Sears Tower, and Hasselblad has to vamoose from its ultramodern HQ. And come to think of it, my mentor at the publishing company I used to work for got let go not long after she bought herself a proper set of office furniture. So maybe a larger office would be a signal of hubris that would bode ill for the fortunes of the Internet juggernaut that is TOP, which, let's face it, does not actually yet have a very robust history of stability and prosperity.

In other words, looks like I am going to have to muddle along with what I have. Well, it's been workin' so far.

Mike

CODA: I do thank everyone for all the suggestions, but, honestly, I really have considered and rejected every alternative. I have no room for an outdoor shed, cannot afford to waterproof the basement (I've gotten estimates), know myself well enough to know I just wouldn't visit an offsite office often enough, absolutely cannot reconfigure the room arrangement of the house, cannot use the garage, etc., etc. I'm stuck with my 11x11" space, and that's that. Lucky to have that much I guess.

Fortunately, new cabinets, tables, and shelving should help a lot, and I can write off the cost.

Original contents copyright 2013 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

TOP links

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Featured Comments from:

JackS: "I have always found it cheaper to buy an existing house with the configuration you want rather than altering the house you are in—even after including the cost of moving. The cost of most home alterations is very difficult to recover when reselling, unless you do all the work and place very little value on your time. Of course, variables such as loving your location, not caring about resale values, and having piles and piles of picayunes can alter the home-alteration decision-making process. (YMMV)."

Marshall: "For what it's worth, that switch to new furniture and significant rearrangement can create enough change to be truly reinvigorating. I hope that is the experience you have with the project."

Brief Updates

1. I got an email from Maude Schuyler Clay, who confirmed that the Eggleston portrait is hers. She's traveling, though, so her note was brief.

2. I hope to write the NEX-6 wrapup on Wednesday. It might have flaws, but it won't be fiction.

3. So here's what I'm jazzed up about at the moment. I mentioned in the "Ask Mike" post my difficulties with the size of my home office. It's as near as makes no difference to 11 feet square, making a grand total of 121 square feet of floor space. I'm so jammed in I literally can't buy a flatbed scanner because I have no place to put it. It really has been a problem, although I understand completely if nobody cares but me. :-)

In the Comments, reader Thomas Turnbull suggested adding a second story to the house. I've actually already looked in to that, and the bottom line is that any way I slice it, it would cost about twice the value it would add to the house. No can do.

But then I got a related bright idea...I have a detached two-car garage. I wonder how much it would cost to add a second story to that?

I was just out there in the dark with the measuring tape. The garage is 20.5 by 22.5 feet, making about 440 square feet after subtracting the thickness of the walls. That would be more than twice as much floor space*! If I'm careful with the design, I could have a scanner and a little studio space, and I wouldn't have to site the printer in the living room. Woo-hoo. Luxury. It would require no plumbing, and the stairs could be outdoor, patio-style stairs leading up to a door. If I did some of the work myself and don't get too carried away with details, it might even be possible.

It'll probably still be too expensive, but I'm going to look into this. Hope!

Mike

*Innumeracy joke. It's ~3.6 times as much.

UPDATE by the cold light of dawn: I don't think this would work. Now that I look at it more carefully, the garage is just sticks on a slab.  And the roof structure, which I was thinking could simply be raised, doesn't allow for any clearance at all, so the second story would have to a be a full seven or eight feet. Actually, to get a usable second story, the whole shebang would probably need to be rebuilt from the foundation, all new. I'd probably be into the project $50k if I was into it a dime. Too rich for the likes o' me.

Plus, the resulting hulk would blot out of the sky, and would overpower the scale of the house and the lot, which is adequate but modest. And the next occupant of the house would be left wondering what in the world to do with the space...they'd probably find themselves with one very fancy attic.

We translate it to "The best-laid plans of mice and men / often go awry," but don't forget that the original Scots is "The best laid schemes o' Mikes an' Men, / Gang aft agley."

Well, maybe that's not quite right!

Original contents copyright 2013 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

TOP links!

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Featured Comments from:

dwross: "As the saying goes: I feel your pain. That was my situation for years, except the dedicated small bedroom was an improvement! Before that, I had a corner of every room in the house staked out. Then...I don't know how much of a lot you have, or your setback requirements, but I was able to remodel my detached garage into a studio/darkroom and attach it to the house with a pretty foyer, and then build a new detached garage. Heaven (except the long walk with the groceries!)"

Mike replies: Good for you. Glad it worked out.

As I've replied to various commenters, the situation really is a puzzle. Here's the lowdown:

• Can't move. I can barely afford this place, don't have time to do all the work of moving house, and besides, if I were going to move anyway, would I really want to live in Waukesha?
• Can't add a second floor to the house. It's the best solution physically, but it would cost $80k and add only $40k to the value of the property.
  
• Can't use the garage itself. It's not winterizable because it's on a slab (and in Wisconsin, you don't get away with partial winterization). Plus it would leave the house with no garage, affecting resale adversely, plus there then wouldn't be enough room for the cars.
• Can't build on top of the garage for the reasons listed above.
• Can't use the basement. It floods.
• Can't apportion additional space inside the house because of the layout. It would require major remodeling and still not be ideal.
• Can't expand into the yard because of setback laws and lack of room. It's a very small lot.
• Can't rent office space elsewhere because then I'd never get the work done. It's not only convenient but necessary to work from home.

I've thought and thought about this, but there really does appear to be no possible solution except the current one: deal with the 11x11-foot office!

Lynn: "Have you looked at creative ways to maximise the small space—for example, look at the way boat cabins, camper vans, and even some clever kitchens are fitted out. Lots of innovative ideas. Maybe the scanner can be on a spring-loaded high shelf that comes out and down on cantilevered arms by just pulling on a handle...or modify the idea of a slide-out pantry so the stuff you need is neatly tucked away until you need it. Can you use parts of the wall cavity to increase the depth of cupboards?"

Mike replies: You know, that really might be the most sensible idea of all. Just resign myself to the fact that this space is all I get, and make the best of it. I could have cabinets and shelving built in on three walls and parts of a fourth, and then just commit to staying neat and organized. It would be the cheapest option—I could probably get it all done for six or eight thousand dollars—it would negatively impact the value of the house the least (for the next owner, it would just be the home office, plain and simple), and you're right, if I'm smart and plan carefully I could probably give myself all the space I need.

Well, not enough space for a tabletop to take illustration pictures. But most of what I need.

Rick: "Mike here is an ides of sorts to give you some ideas maybe."

Mike replies: Wow. That is really cool stuff.

Happy Easter!

TOP will be off tomorrow in honor of the holiday. With warm wishes to you and your family, whether you're celebrating or not, wherever in the world you are. And as always, thanks for reading!

All best,

Mike

Patience

I lost about two-thirds of today's post because I forgot to save it. (I could swear TypePad used to auto-save.) Don't ya hate it when that happens? Laborious reconstruction in progress. Patience.

Reminds me of a story. When I taught high school we had a film-loading closet where the kids put their film on to reels and into the developing tanks. Naturally I didn't go in there with them—I'd have them practice a few times out in the light and then when they went in to load real exposed film they were on their own. Sometimes when things didn't go right I'd have to stand at the door and talk them through it. Try again, back up, start over. Stick with it. Some of you remember how it was.

Anyway, one time, one student's frustration spiraled* out of control. She came out of the film loading room as mad as a cat out of the bath. First I got a torrent of complaints, and then she said, "And I kept looking at those letters on the wall. WHAT is that word?!? PATT-EYE-ENCE. PATT-EE-ENCE. What the hell does that mean? WHAT is that word?!?"

I had spelled out the word "PATIENCE" on the wall in glow-in-the-dark tape.

I tried to break it to her gently....

Mike, TOP APES (all-purpose editorial slave)

*You see what I did there.

Original contents copyright 2013 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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Featured Comments from:

psu paranoid: "The first time I ran a roll of B&W film it took me forever to get the thing on the reels. The dark closet was in the art room of the high school and they had a record player there that was playing a single side of a Doors album on repeat. I believe I heard 'Light My Fire' play five or six times before I got done. In retrospect I can't believe I stuck with it.

"Oh, also, I write blog posts in a text editor on my Mac and paste them to the website as I go so I always have a local save. Call me paranoid."

Mark Sampson: "Never did this myself, but at least two of the people I trained over the years managed to load the paper backing of a 120 roll onto the reel, leaving the film on the darkroom floor. But each of them only did that once."

Blog Notice

Very interesting 24 hours here. I've been offline most of that time, not by choice. I've spent maybe 7 hours total on the phone with Apple Tech Support. It started with some email problems, and led to a discovery of some completely unrelated problems—discoveries which may well have staved off later catastrophe. The big problems are apparently all solved now, knock on wood, but the email irregularities continue.

Two tiny morsels of cheap advice, even though I realize a great many of my regular readers are far more computer savvy than I am: never buy anything from Apple without AppleCare (those guys are really great) and always, always, always back up!!! (Note that I do not splatter a page with exclamation points lightly.) My backup drive saved my bacon big time today! OS 10.8 allows you to switch between two separate backup drives, which I'll be implementing soon.

I hope to have TOP up and running again tomorrow sometime, with Ctein's overdue Wednesday column. Be aware that I am not receiving all of my email yet. The email problems will persist for at least another day and possibly through the weekend. If you've been trying to get in touch with me or have been expecting a reply—or just wondering about the radio silence—my apologies! We're a-workin' on it.

—Mike, learning IT crumb by crumb

Original contents copyright 2013 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.
A book of interest today:

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Featured Comments from:

albert w erickson: "Mike, for those of us who live and die with our Macs, we would appreciate understanding your computer issues so as to avoid them in the future. Please write about the issues as well as the solutions. Thanks."

Mike replies: Pretty simple really, Albert, just scary...Disk Utility showed a corrupted system and couldn't repair it. So I had to erase my hard drive, download a new copy of the latest operating system, and reinstall my data from the backup drive. It's called a "clean install." Happens to lots of people, at least occasionally. At least I'm told it's not uncommon, whether with PCs or Macs.

It all went smoothly, but, understandably, I went from being very blasé about my backup protocols to being completely dependent on them for all of my data, including my 20,000-file digital music collection and all of my digital photographs.

That's an interesting experience. Remember that Time Machine is essentially unverifiable...you set it up, keep an eye on it to see that it's not complaining, and then essentially trust that it's doing its job. I do take certain precautions...for instance, I buy a new backup hard drive about every two years and put the old one on the shelf. My local tech tells me that hard drives need to be turned on once or twice a year to prevent freezing, so the old ones literally have a "limited shelf life." But I do it not for the sake of the shelved drive but mainly to insure that I have a new, late model drive keeping my backups. And I don't use the backup drive for anything else at all...just backups. My current one—the one that saved me yesterday—is a 2 TB OWC Mercury Elite Pro.

If you want to see what's up (assuming you're on a Mac, I know even less about PCs), just run Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility > Verify disk. (I am very much not an expert, but I have a slight advantage in that if I say anything dumb, a more knowledgable TOP reader will no doubt quickly step in and correct me.)

My local tech tells me that OS 10.8 (Mountain Lion) will allow you to swap out one hard drive for another and keep two physically separate sets of backup data. For maximum security you swap the two every so often and keep the off-duty one in another location. I doubt I'll go that far, but he told me he's seen several instances of a client's data being completely destroyed by a single fire. (This makes sense when you consider the photographers, Carleton Watkins and Jacques Lowe chief among them, whose archives have been lost to disaster—Carleton in the San Francisco Fire and Jacques in 9/11.) I've bought a second hard drive and plan to make a second backup in the future.

We discovered the problem during the process of troubleshooting the mail problems, which everyone agrees are on Apple's end, not mine. As we were waiting for something to happen, I was questioning the tech support supervisor about when I should buy a new computer, and I described some of the problems I've experienced with my computer lately. He said, "That shouldn't be happening. Let's just run Disk Utility so I can see what error messages you're getting." That's when one thing led to another.

The email problem still isn't fixed, but we're still working on it.

John Whitley: "Speaking as someone with years of experience avoiding disasters due to good backup policy, I'll offer this advice: Always keep at least three copies of any critical data. One is your 'working copy' on your computer, along with two other copies. Your backup process must be tested—can you access the backup when needed? Without this verification, you don't yet know whether you have a working backup.

"As the costs of disks have dropped, I tend to prefer full-disk bootable backups on small 2.5" bus-powered USB or Firewire drives. These work well and make it trivial to store one backup copy safely off-site. On OS X, software like SuperDuper! and Carbon Copy Cloner allow for great ease of use with this sort of process. The downtime in the event of a disk crash or other data loss is minimal with this setup. The last time I had a crash, I booted from the most recent backup, ordered a replacement drive and was working again in minutes.

"It's important to note that a 'cloud' or online service such as Dropbox, Google Drive, etc. only ever counts as one copy. Even if the provider nominally keeps backups, you have no visibility into what single points of failure ('SPOFs' in industry lingo) may exist in their processes. That also includes events such as catastrophic business failure, not just technological events. Use online storage wisely, but don't consider it to be magic."

HD: "One is none, as my colleagues mock me for saying perhaps one time too often. And two backups in one location is also none. One backup stays offsite, so short of an earthquake.... On Macs, Time Machine is a good tool, and SuperDuper has gotten me back up and running with only minutes of downtime on a number of occasions. Bootable backups are wonderful. Then there's the question of making sure that the backups work regularly, and are not corrupted (and that you're not silently losing pix). Drobos and the like start looking inexpensive."

Mike replies: What's a Drobo?

Murray Davidson: "The first time you lose serious data should be your last. May I direct all you grasshoppers to an entertaining and supremely educational site on the subject of backups? Read, embrace and achieve enlightenment."

Links

There's always something new about this blogging business. Another first, the other day: I was contacted by a photographer who complained that TOP had used his photograph—of a 1937 Jaguar—without his permission.

I try to take rights issues seriously, so I went looking for it. I did do a few posts recently about cars, but I couldn't remember posting a picture of an old Jaguar.

I couldn't find it anywhere.

I have a poor memory in some ways. I suffer from what I jokingly call "proper noun aphasia," for one thing—an inability to remember names. It's not that the names aren't in there, it's just that they take a little while to percolate to the surface when I want them to. But I have a very good visual memory. If I'm trying to remember a person, what pops unbidden into my mind is an image—the name takes some effort, and a bit more time, to recall. I often do research for my posts visually, using Google image searches; I often surf the web visually too, going from one image search to another.

So I tried that. I just Googled "1937 Jaguar" and did an image search, thinking that, if I'd seen one of the pictures recently, I'd recognize it. Sure enough, there it was—one picture jumped out at me as one I'd seen before:

So once I knew what I was looking for, then I could go chase it down on the site.

Guess what? It turned out to be a hyperlink in a comment.

That got my dander up a bit. Here's what I wrote back to the fellow who complained:

That image isn't posted on my site. It's a hyperlink. The hyperlink takes readers to your page, where you have made the picture viewable by the public. The picture is not viewable or visible on my site, only on yours.

There is no infringement with hyperlinks; anyone may link to whatever they want to on the Web. With certain rare exceptions (for instance, if the page that is linked to is illegal), hyperlinks are permissible without restriction. This is perfectly in accordance with standard, widespread World Wide Web custom and also with the law—the right to hyperlink freely has been upheld by the courts on several occasions.

Thus, there has been no infringement on your rights and there was no need or requirement for us to secure your permission—neither common courtesy nor legality requires it.

I will remove the link to your picture because you have requested it, purely as a courtesy to you, but I suggest you familiarize yourself with the way the Web works; you really have no right whatsoever (nor any reasonable cause) to make such requests.

But it turned out that the fellow wasn't being obnoxious. He was quite polite in response, thanking me for the explanation. He's just new to the Web and still learning what's what, that's all.

I do tend to forget—there are always beginners out there. Not everybody already knows everything.

Trends
So, in the spirit of not assuming that everybody already knows everything, a few words about links on TOP:

What we mostly do in our posts are informational links, and affliliate links. An informational link can be anything—a link to an illustration of what's being talked about, to a citation that supports a premise or a claim, or simply to a site where more information is given.

An affiliate link is quite different. That's a link to one of the site's affiliates—usually, to a product you can buy. And which, if you buy it, pays me a small spiff. When you see a line like "I have two Micro 4/3 lenses so far and I'm thinking about getting a third," that's what that link is all about. (In that case the link also informs you as to which lens I'm talking about, so it's sort of a tease as well.)

Posts about new equipment might have a lot of affiliate links, but I generally don't hit those too hard. I just try to imagine what would annoy me if I were reading another site, and try to avoid annoying you.

Recently, however, a new trend has revved up. I now get offers almost every day to do "sponsored links" or "paid links" on TOP. That is, someone will pay me to write a post about their product or to put a link to their product or site in the text of one of my posts.

Well, I never do that. There has never been a sponsored or paid link on TOP. Affiliate links, yes, but I make all the decisions as to what those will be. Sometimes a link might look sponsored, but that's usually just because I'm doing somebody a favor, not because they're paying me.

Judging by my mail, though, there must be an awful lot of posts and links out there in the far-flung wilds of the Web that are only there because someone bought them. This is probably only going to get worse as time goes on, and as more people learn that there is money to be made in the trenches of e-commerce.

Mike

[UPDATE: The original version of this article contained a fake link that I thought would be a good way to make a point—it was a link that I fell for prior to Christmas, and I thought it would be interesting to see if other people would fall for it too. A bit later, however, I had a "what were you thinking" moment and decided I was not being half as clever as I thought I was. So I 86'd it. Sorry to those whose comments were thereby "orphaned."

Sometimes, the editor needs an editor. —Mike the Ed.]

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Outage

5:45 a.m.: We're having intermittent but persistent phone-line problems here at TOP World Headquarters—the line keeps going dead, causing a cascade of Internet outages. An AT&T technician is supposed to be arriving between 8:00 and noon.

And I might finally be getting close to relaxing the clenched tightwad muscle sufficiently to spring for cable Internet. We just signed up for AT&T UVerse a couple of months ago, providing a searing 5 mbps connection speed. Which is better than the .25–2.5 mbps we'd been limping along with before. But only if it works.

I might be able to get Ctein's column posted in between outages, but maybe not. I compose in the TypePad interface, and when the 'Net goes down, so does the interface...frequently taking bits of unsaved work with it. Combined with the hinky Bluetooth of my new (and soon to be old) wireless keyboard, which has regular seizures, it's like trying to work with hypermanic monkeys in the room. Who knows when I'll even be able to get this posted.

The meantime might find me actually doing something positively antediluvian: working on the computer offline! Wow. Take me back to the '80s and '90s.

—Mike, TOP Head of Housekeeping and
All-Purpose Radar O'Reilly

UPDATE 9:45 a.m.: Well, I have to give AT&T props for punctuality. They were out here by 9:00—two trucks, no less—and in 45 minutes had replaced all the phone lines in the house with new cabling. Everything seems fine again, but I'll keep my fingers crossed. Can't wait till the new keyboard gets here (note to self: never throw old keyboard away until you're sure the new one works).

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Suggestions?

I need a small-sensor digicam (i.e., no larger than 2/3") with a good lens, excellent closeup capability, and either a PC flash sync connector or a hot shoe that will take a Nikon AS-15. Doesn't matter what pixel size, but higher is unnecessary as this will just be for the Web.

Anybody who does small-object macro photography have any suggestions? (Please, no suggestions just from specs; I can do that myself.)

Thanks in advance!

Mike

UPDATE: Not really sure I need to pursue this. Look at the product shots in the post just above this one—"Panasonic GX1 Impressions"—do they look adequate to you? Those were done with the D800 and 85mm ƒ/1.8G. To get adequate d.o.f. and flatten the perspective I just backed way up and then cropped way in. Not an elegant way to work but it seems serviceable and the results seem okay to me, plain but not bad.

I was just thinking that a small-sensor camera would make a lot more sense for product-type shots for the blog. But I use off-camera flash and I need a sync connection. Of course the D800 has one.

(I use a bog-simple lighting setup: a monolight and umbrella on the right, and a white reflector on the left. The background is a Dove Gray Foba TT Plast plastic background sheet. The monolight is a cheap Sunpak that has served me well. Zander was using the monolight a few weeks ago and managed to knock it over, so there's now a big panel missing from the side, showing the innards to the world, and the power socket got stove in. But the darn thing didn't have the decency to stop working, depriving me of the rationalization for replacing it. You know what they say: oh well.

I keep thinking anxiously of selling the Dragoon while I can still get all that money back out of it, then trying to tell myself to calm down until summertime when I can actually use it a little. Maybe if I can do some TOP illos with it, it will help me to justify keeping it for a while. 

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Are You In France?

Is there a reader from France who could please give me a little help? I need to ask a favor—something that will probably take 10 or 15 minutes of your time.

If you're willing, please contact me by email—you can find my email address in the right-hand sidebar.

Merci à l'avance,

Mike

[UPDATE: Problem solved, thanks to Jean Louis S. I wanted to order a book by a French photographer and was having problems doing it from here. Thanks to all of you who offered to help! —Mike]

Ctein is Off

I've given Ctein the week off this week. His column will appear again next week, on Wednesday.

Mike, TOP Directeur of Schedulement

Merry Christmas!

A few items.

1. So as not to bury the lede, TOP is hereby dimming the lights for a few days in honor of Christmas etc., as per our usual, and will be back after Boxing Day (although when exactly, I know better than to promise).

Speaking of promises, last weekend I mentioned that I'd be making a call for work on Sunday and showing the pictures on Monday. When I wrote that, I was of course being completely oblivious of the calendar. (I do that a lot. I fear that only gets worse from here on in.) Anyway, it being the Christmas break, I will not be doing that this week. And yes, I'm an idiot.

2. If the 2012'ers were right and the world ended yesterday, I am pleased to report that it has been replaced by a nearly identical one that is if anything even nicer—at least from where I sit. We got a beautiful snow here after all, and the bright Midwestern sunlight is creating a thousand pinpoints of light on the icy branches of the huge old elm across the street. A natural Christmas tree.

By the bye, Jesus, whose birthday we celebrate around this time of year, was an end-timer himself. The evidence of all the gospels (canonical, apocryphal, gnostic—you know, things like Marcion of Sinope) make it very evident that Jesus firmly believed the "Kingdom of Heaven" was due any day, and would certainly happen within his lifetime. Inconveniently, that clock's still ticking too.

Predicting that end-time predictions won't come true is picking low-hanging fruit, too easy.

Eschew eschatology!

3. I didn't mean to create great glutinous gobs of angst on the Internet with yesterday's post (traffic spiked upward). The Leica S is one of the few clean-sheet rethinks of what a top-level camera should be, and I think whoever was responsible did an outstanding job. Another clean-sheet rethink is the Lytro, so there are others, but I can't think of many...the Pentax 645D has a long lineage stretching back to 1984; the Leica M9's goes back all the way to 1953; the Canon 5D Mark III traces its roots at least to the pioneering D30, and before that back to the original EOS-1, and before that back to the seminal black-blob T-90 of 1986 (which however looks '80s-sharp by today's standards). Heritage isn't a bad thing, and in many cases has the advantage of encouraging refinement. But the high costs involved—not only the high cost of trying but the high cost of being wrong—have tended to slap down attempts at original thinking in the design of cameras. The Leica S2, one notable exception, has been a success (thanks largely to the Chinese), and we should be glad of that.

4. Re the D800, I have only two problems with it so far. First there's the predictable onslaught of buyer's remorse—common for me. I feel it almost whenever I spend what I feel is "too much"—for anything, not just cameras. The urge to turn around and sell the D800 before time washes away large chunks of the equity I have sunk into it is almost making me feel physically antsy.

Second, I'm not entirely convinced that it's capable of better results for my uses than the OM-D. The D800 has good highlight rendition, but so does the OM-D; the D800 has better high-ISO flexibility, but the OM-D's stabilization offsets that; and I just find the OM-D's picture files to be exceedingly pretty—the D800's too. The one area in which the D800 clearly body-slams the OM-D is that it's so much more comfortable to use—the viewfinding, the handling, and the control knobs'n'buttons'n'menus are all so much clearer and easier to me. And yet the OM-D counters by one-two punching the D800 in terms of easy portability and greater stealth.

This David and Goliath match is not over yet by any means, and probably won't be till spring (I'm not much of a winter shooter).

5. If plans go right, we have three print sales coming up before the summer of 2013. Michael and Paula will be offering some gorgeous large- and ultra-large format contact prints in January. Then late in the spring will come Ctein's Last Gasp dye transfer sale—in one grand, glorious last blowout, Ctein will use up all of his remaining dye transfer supplies prior to closing his darkroom permanently. This time, however, the prints will be full-sized ~16x20s. The number of prints will naturally be limited to however many he has the supplies to make—he anticipates between 100 and 200, depending on how the materials inspect and on the reject rate as the printing goes along. I have the honor of picking the four pictures we'll offer, and I'm halfway there. You are absolutely going to love these prints, I guarantee it.

Both of the above sales will be great bargains, with prices far less than you'd have to spend to get equivalent prints through other channels. But in both cases the prices are expensive in terms of our historical norms. So, in between them, I'm planning a sale of modestly-sized inkjet prints of pictures that have appeared on TOP in the past that have drawn widespread approval. For that sale, we'll work to shave the costs down to something exceedingly reasonable, so that participation can be as painless as possible for the greatest number of people. I don't want to leave anybody out.

6. Christmas, like the lottery, fascinates me. It's a pure folk holiday with elements that are 5,000 years old (solstice rituals) to as recent as a a few years ago (the whole "Black Friday" thing). Its customs and iconography derive from a huge variety of sources—did you know, for example, that Washington Irving, who wrote Rip Van Winkle and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, was the guy who came up with the idea of the flying sleigh pulled by reindeer?

In any event, please accept the following as encompassing in its broad embrace not just Christmas, but any end-of-year holiday you and your family celebrate—with best wishes and cheer from me to you and yours:

Mike

Original contents copyright 2012 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.
A book of interest today:

There's a nice video about this project, as well.

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Andrea B.: "The D800 vs. the Oly OM-D: You don't have to make a choice. Let yourself enjoy both of them! It's never been the case that one camera fills all needs although I have frequently tried to make it so. Currently I admit to Goldilocksian camera ownership: One little digicam (the Pentax Q) for fun and carrying in my purse or pocket. Sometimes my phone cam serves in this capacity too. One small-to-medium-sized digicam for serious shooting without excess weight (currently the Nikon D5100, but wish I had that Oly OM-D). One Big Dragoon, which currently is being decided between my old D3S and my new D600. How this is going to work out, I don't know. I love them both, but I do not really need two BDs."

Kirk Tuck's Visual Science Lab Blog

Regular readers of Kirk's have doubtless noticed that his popular blog "The Visual Science Lab" in inaccessible today. This is no doubt very temporary; Kirk asked me to tell you that he's working on the situation and hopes it will be resolved soon.

[UPDATE 6 p.m. Central Time: VSL is up again, none the worse for wear.]

It's no fault of his. Longtime TOP loyalists might recall that the same thing happened to me at Blogger. Blogger is apparently entirely automated, so when some algorithm or whatever pegs you as a possible offender in some way, there's no way to do anything about it—in June of 2007, at least, there was no way for me to get in touch with a human at Google about it, short of getting on a plane to Mountain View and throwing a pebble at someone's window. The vagaries of using a free service.

I was panicked about it at the time—unnecessarily, it turned out. But it did initiate our move to TypePad, which has been our home ever since. TypePad isn't free, but it provides customer service. (Good customer service, too.) Worth it to me. At the time, Michael Reichmann at L-L kindly passed the word along to my readers, so I'm happy to pay the favor forward and do the same for Kirk.

I'll pass along any further news from Kirk, and I'll post a notice when VSL is back up and running. You can do Kirk a favor by passing the word along to any other photo communities you frequent: it wasn't something he did, and, he'll be back soon.

Mike

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MJFerron: "Kirk announced yesterday that he would be taking some time off for the holidays and would not be adding new posts until after Jan 1. If there is such a thing as good time for a blog to perform a technical meltdown this would be it."

Mike Hunter: "'At the time, Michael Reichmann at L-L kindly passed the word along to my readers'...which by the way is how I discovered your site. Now I've got to check out Kirk's...."

kirk tuck: "Thanks Mike. I really appreciated the notices. So did my readers. I am amazed it was resolved so quickly. I'm now looking at TypePad...."

Only Five Days Left!

It's December 16th, which means there are only five days left until the end of the world. The pre-Columbian Mesoamericans (principally the Mayans) stopped their calendar on December 21st, 2012—proving that they knew they wouldn't need it past that date, proving that there would be no more days after that.

As further proof (as if any more were needed!), I saw the weather report on TV last night, and they were only forecasting the weather until Friday. The 21st. For the 22nd? —Nothing. They didn't even mention next Saturday. This proves that they, too, know what the Mesoamericans knew. (Others have historically had a hard time predicting the future. Weather forecasters, though, are always right, as we all know. Because they predict the future for a living.)

But there's very good news. With five days left, there is still time to order something nifty for yourself or a loved one from B&H or Amazon, and have it arrive in time to enjoy it!! And do your bit to support TOP all the way until the end of time! That's right—order a present for someone else or for yourself through our links today, and you will get it before the world ends. What could be better?

Well, I guess having the world not end at all would be better. But go to our links page now! You'll be glad you did.

Mike, TOP Financial Inducement Delegation

Disclaimer: TOP has no ability to predict the future. Lack of Saturday not guaranteed. TOP may benefit from your generosity and kindness into 2013. For Bears fans, world may end today. 

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Richard Tugwell: "I guess most people saw this, but just in case...."

Unfortunately...

...The staff is still significantly under the weather, so we're going to give the slacker the weekend off. But we'll be back first thing Monday morning. See you then, and hope you have a great weekend.

TOP Dept. of Mostly Human Resources

Blog Note (Again)

Hey, sorry for being a substandard host the past couple of days. I've been feeling quite poorly lately. Tonight I'm feeling better but still very tired. (I see the doc again tomorrow.)

This is the problem when the whole office staff gets sick at once! Hopefully we'll be back up to full power in a day or three.

Mike, TOP default Director of Personnel

UPDATE: Hmm, well, that's interesting. Doctor's verdict: "classic anxiety attack." Times two.

(P.S. John Camp called this, by the way. Good call.)