What a perfect combination - my MacBook Pro 15" and Western Digital MyBook external USB drives. I love 'em both! I now have four 500GB/1TB MyBook drives lined up at the back edge of my desk, holding all my most recent photographic work. They're neat, reliable (so far) and extremely good value for money. The most recent one (a 1TB "Essential") was bought for just €99 including 20% tax! Amazing! Staggering!
About 300 years ago (in computer terms) I built a spiffy, all-balls PC workstation for my photographic work and blogged about it here.
About one year ago I bought an HTC Touch (Windows Mobile) phone and hated it instantly. So I took it back to Fnac and got my money back. Instead I purchased an Apple iPhone and instantly succumbed to Apple's cunningly-laid trap, becoming a full-on Apple addict from one day to the next. Yep, I went out and bought a Mac!
I've spent years of my life struggling with PCs, and especially with Micro$oft Windows. How refreshing it was to take my lovely new MacBook Pro out of the box and fire it up. I was "in business" within minutes. No fuss, no problems, no hiccups, no hidden obstacles.
Of course, there's no pain-in-the-ass like a converted pain-in-the-ass! Now I evangelise Apple's products and philosophy to anyone who'll listen.
Well... it's been more than a year since my last confession post! How time flies when you're not having fun!
The last year has been painful for many people, myself included. My world was shaken up (badly) by this "self-inflicted wound" that they have conveniently termed a "recession" (as if it was entirely natural, like a receding hairline - but I'll try to stay off the subject of politics here).
I've resolved to start posting again on a regular basis, if only for the cathartic value of being able to address an imagined audience with my woes and worries.
Several months after its launch, DxO Optics Pro v5 continues to be a right royal pain in the ass! This is beta software inflicted on the public, a trick normally practiced by Microsoft. Which is a pity because a) the previous version of DxO is a fabulous tool and b) I really want to be able to use some of the new feature in v5.
The software is criminally unstable: I can't process a batch of RAW images (usually 500-600 from a real estate shoot) without it crashing multiple times. For the sake of my sanity, I'm now in the habit of saving the project after every minor adjustment to an image, which just makes the whole process even slower. And once it has crashed once, it seems to need a reboot to come back to a state of tolerable stability.
What bugs me the most here is that DxO appears to have burned up resources on making the new version pretty: it slavishly imitates the now de rigueur LightRoom interface. And in the process the workflow model took a giant step backwards. If, instead, they had kept or (just updated) the previous UI and concentrated instead on the clever stuff behind the scenes...
Ah, well! They've promised a new release in February, so I'll just have to be patient while I soldier on with the previous version.
I'm going to be ordering my Nikon D3 any day now. Great machine, great features, crippling price, etc. But there's one feature that really perplexes me:
They've built an electronic spirit level into the body. Great idea for levelling the camera without squinting at the bubbles in the cheapo plastic spirit level I use. But how come you only get left/right levelling? There's no front/back levelling! So the landscape photogs will be happy, but what about us poor architectural types? The left/right levelling is irrelevant without front/back feedback. So I've got to mount the pesky little plastic bubble on the hot-shoe, which means I needn't bother with the fancy built-in left/right leveller.
Silly Mr Nikon - an epic piece of professional camera engineering with just one (as far as I can see) half-baked, not-properly-thought-through gimmick feature.
Any professional photographer will have his or her own horror stories about the business of being a photographer. Unless you're a major name in advertising photography, or whatever, getting the work can be difficult. But there's another aspect which may be less obvious to the outsider: getting paid a reasonable fee for your work.
I get many approaches from magazines for editorial shoots. The exchange usually goes something like this:
Hi, I'm from XYZ Magazine. We're planning a feature on [insert subject]. We need a photographer for a whole day.
I duly confirm that I can do the job and that I'm available, then I ask how much they are paying. This elicits one of two possible responses.
Either: Well, our budget is really limited, so we're hoping that you'll do it for free. The exposure will be really good for you.
Or: Well, our budget is really limited. We can pay X. [where X is an absurdly low number that wouldn't even cover my gasoline for the day]
Two things about this nonsense irritate me. Firstly, the fact that these magazines set unrealistically low budgets for photography (and presumably for every other professional service they'll need). Secondly, the fact that this happens repeatedly indicates that there are (so-called) professional photographers out there who are accepting these offensively low rates, or working for free.
If you're one of those photographers: shame on you!
If you're one of those magazines: shame on you!
What is it about parking in Portugal? Portuguese drivers seem to think they can double-park wherever they want, blocking other people in.
My apartment is in a backstreet of Loulé. On the ground floor is a popular café and several solicitors' offices. On my side of the street cars park along the kerb. On the far side, there is a parking bay for cars to park perpendicular to the street. All day long cars arrive to visit the café or one of the offices and, if no parking place immediately outside their intended destination is available, they simply double-park, blocking in two or three legitimately parked cars. Naturally, when the owner of one of the blocked cars wants to leave, they lean on their horn to attract the attention of the offending driver. This means that, sitting here in my office, I have to listen to the insistent blasting of car horns all day long. And frequently, when I want to go out, I find myself blocked in by one of these arrogant idiots.
Furthermore, often when I arrive home in the middle of the day and wish to park, I find an empty parking slot blocked by a double-parked car - yes! they are even too lazy to turn into a vacant spot, preferring to block it and two other cars! I've even seen an offending driver come out from the café to let someone out, then reverse back into his original position, thereby blocking the now-empty spot from being used by anyone else!
When the offenders do eventually emerge to move their car they rarely, if ever, show any sign of remorse or guilt, or even haste. On the occassions when I have challenged them for their arrogance and rudeness, they bristle with offence at my anger, claiming variously that they "were only five minutes" or "this is how it's done in Portugal".
Well, enough is enough! I'm going to start a one-man campaign against these rude, arrogant morons. If the police won't help (which I strongly doubt they will), I'm going to print up some multi-lingual notices and spend a day or two gluing them to the windshields of offending parkers.
Does any other country suffer from this kind of pig-headed, self-centred rudeness by drivers?
 
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