Will You Look At Me? Yeah

I've got to admit that my "lynx" link on this page doesn't have very many links yet. Hey, I was sick for a while, remember? That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it.

In the meantime, here are a few links to one thing and another, some sent to me by helpful readers—maybe you'll like one or two.

Eolake Stobblehouse and Stephen Gillette
Our friend Eolake (he of the "tasteful nudes" ad), has just published on his blog site an interesting mini-interview with Stephen Gillette, who wrote the piece about the Fuji F50fd we published on Saturday. I found it interesting, so maybe you will too.

Those Draconian Anti-Photographer Measures in NYC
Gerry O'Brien writes to remind us that that nutty idea for required photography permits in New York City is still alive, and that public comments are being accepted on the City's Film, Theatre and Broadcasting website until August 3rd.

kammagamma.com
If you liked Mike Davis's masterfully mathematical-minded little mini-essay on sensor size and diffraction in the comments to the Fuji F50fd post, you'll probably also appreciate Max Penson's Kammagamma website for the technically inclined digiphile. For instance, check out the lab plot of Canon's standard color palette vs. that of the Leica M8 in the Color Transformation Database.

Totally Creepy
How about this totally creepy news item about live animé models for photographers. Only one comment: ew!

Rebel Against Conformity: Miroslav Tichy
Paul Norheim found (on the 5b4 photo-book website, also worth knowing about) this excellent little article  about Miroslav Tichy, now in his eighties, unknown until recently, who made his own very primitive cameras and took pictures, year after year, despite some very harsh conditions.

The Country Gardener
It hasn't much to do with photography, but if you're interested in gardening, you'll probably be glad to know of our Canadian friend Yvonne Cunnington's Country Gardener website. (I can't grow grass in a pot, myself, but I love the delightful bastardized word "yardener" that Yvonne recently introduced to me—it means people who work on growing their yards, of course.) Saturday's post is about a bride and groom who requested to use the garden for their wedding photos. Yvonne documented it.

Type the Sky
Student Lisa Rienermann's free-term work on the subject of typology at the University of Duisberg-Essen is truly creative use of a camera (see illustration, above right). Thanks to Dave Sailer for this one.

_______________

Finally, hearty congratulations to two friends who have recently quit their jobs. First, my friend and longtime editor Ailsa McWhinnie is leaving her post as Editor-in-Chief of the English Black & White Photography magazine for the life of a freelancer. She's enabled by her husband Roland, who is apparently mucking things up by making a success of himself, darn it. I will truly miss Ailsa's hand on the tiller of the magazine nearly as much as her witty e-repartee, and am determined to keep in touch despite the lack of an excuse—I only hope the new editor will be as indulgent of my ideas and (ahem) occasional lateness. Her last day is this coming Friday. Best wishes to Ailsa and Ro in their newly restructured life.

And my counterpart at Strobist, David Hobby (seen above doing the Dew), has recently made a leap that is the opposite of what every amateur dreams of doing—he's gone un-pro. David decided to leave his position as a full-time staff photographer at the Baltimore Sun to be a blogger full-time (and spend more time with his family). He's has forgotten more than I've ever known about lighting with flash, the on-camera variety especially (which he often uses off), and Strobist is one of the best shooter's classrooms on the entire Web—if you want to learn about lighting I recommend you make it a regular stop. We wish him every success.

_______________

Mike

Comments

[Eolake]

"Lynx"... o dear. That was too subtle for me. :)

[Jeff Greer]

Regarding the NYC photography permit rules, there is an online petition you can sign. See http://www.pictureny.org/petition/index.php.

[Matt]

Live anime models? Yikes. I thought it was going to just be about costumes, but after seeing those creepy masks... brrrr. That definitely falls into the disturbing category. (And this is coming from a confessed nerd who actually enjoys a few anime shows from time to time.)

I'm totally unsurprised that this is in Akihabara. I can't imagine it happening anywhere else.

[Roy]

Re: Black & White Photography Mag: Although I don't know Ailsa personally, as a long-time reader of the magazine I've been impressed by the way she has moved it forward over the years, particularly in a transatlantic direction.

Whether this is because it's becoming harder to find material about traditional photographic (film-based) practice in the UK or not I'm not sure, but the balance she maintains between US/UK, silver/digital is just right in my view. Not too scary for novice first-time readers but still interesting enough to engage old-timers like me.
It's also where I first encountered your writings Mike, so that can't be bad.

I just wish that more people were aware of the journal though - and that they had a web site that showed highlights from current and past issues. I often want to link to it but at the moment there is nothing to link to. See what you can do about that eh?

[charlie d]

Type the Sky.......super idea.

[stevierose]

I got to admit it. I did not "get" the "lynx" link on the right side of your page until you smacked me in the head with this post. When I finally got the joke I nearly fell off of my chair laughing. Thanks for making my day!

Steve

[Chris Y]

I guess we've moved on from this topic, but I have to say that I find the story about and the whole concept of “Miroslav Tichy” very hard to swallow. I love hermit-genius photographers, and I find the work of Josef Sudek (Czech 1896-1976) and Mike Disfarmer (American 1884-1959) to be absolutely mind blowing. But these Miroslav Tichy pictures look suspiciously like something an art student would post on flickr. And “Using handcrafted cameras that were an assemblage of cigarette boxes and paper tubes with lenses from eyeglasses?” Please. Does anyone else find it a bit much?

[Howard Cornelsen]

Amazing amount of work went into KammaGamma's database, but of course these color spaces apply only to JPG. I wonder how many owners of 1DMkIII or M8 will be shooting primarily JPG.

Also, I know that when it came out, the M8 had a RAW color space larger than that of any other camera then on the market. Any idea whether the 1DMkIII has equalled or exceeded that RAW color space?