Once upon a time, in the days of old, when photographers still used those light sensitive plastic strips in the back of their large black cameras — cameras with funny names like Hasselblad and Mamiya — there were photography workshops. They are not a new invention. They’ve been around for a very long time. But, back in the days of film and cameras with odd names, these workshops were a little different.
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“Do you like selling?”

I saw this question in a recent video for a Photo Cloud system and thought it was a brilliantly clever line. The company asking the question uses a communal Woodstock approach in the hopes of obtaining new clients. (And by Woodstock, I mean the 1969 Free Love Fest in Max Yasgur’s farm in Bethel, NY, filled with sex, drugs and rock and roll, not the little yellow best friend of Snoopy. Although that could probably work, too.)
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I came into still photography by way of video. Throughout my younger years I was always playing with video cameras, and when I graduated college I set out to buy one of my own.

Like so many others, I turned to the Internet for guidance. I got lost in a whirlwind of blogs, forums and tutorials. As a recovering technophobe, it was overwhelming and scary. This was to be my first major post college purchase, and I wanted to research the subject diligently.
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…there’s no such thing as Flickr Pro, because today, with cameras as pervasive as they are, there is no such thing really as professional photographers, when there’s everything is professional photographers. Certainly there is varying levels of skills, but we didn’t want to have a Flickr Pro anymore, we wanted everyone to have professional quality photos, space, and sharing.” – Marissa Mayer, Yahoo Event, May 2013

Woah, there, Yahoo cowgirl…let’s hold on just a second!
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(Note: This is not an article about whom I feel is the better captain (Kirk). I mean, that would be ridiculous, because we all have our favorites (Kirk) and to bring up who I feel is the best (Kirk) really has no bearing on this photography column (Kirk). Just wanted to be clear.)

I grew up with Star Trek. By the time I was old enough to realize what it was, the show was well into syndication, but I watched every episode, sitting on the couch with my brother and eating Doritos. To this day, I can’t bite into a Dorito without hearing, “Space, the final frontier…”
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Yesterday, Flickr announced new changes that included a free, ad-supported terabyte of storage for all Flickr users. When I heard the news, I believed that Flickr Pro account users would be given an opportunity to stay Pro going forward. I thought this because this, in fact, was my understanding of what was told to me by a Flickr Senior Manager in a briefing earlier in the morning before the announcement.

Unfortunately, I found out the hard way yesterday that this is not the case.
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After two years of testing, renting, buying and selling just about every level of Nikon and Canon lenses and cameras, I have learned quite a bit about what works and what doesn’t. Pretty much you can’t go wrong with Canon or Nikon, and just about everything they make is top notch.
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I have been shooting photographs regularly for over 7 years now. I spent the first year shooting with a 2-megapixel phone camera. Since then, however, I’ve almost always had RAW capable cameras and shot RAW compulsively. And why not? I get 16x or 64x more colour depth than JPEGs. I don’t have to bother about setting the right white balance, contrast or sharpness. I don’t have to choose between monochrome and colour at the time of shooting. I can figure all of that out on the computer during RAW conversion and even try out different settings for the same picture at my leisure. Why would I give up all this and shoot JPEG?
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Professional photographers using their smartphones is just a fad, I thought, but it all came to me sooner than I expected. Some 3 weeks ago I was diagnosed with central serous retinopathy in my left eye and was hospitalised for 3 days. In the process, I finally discovered smartphone photography!
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Pictures like this drive me nuts. I call it Meanwhile, Back at the Supreme Court. It captures the boisterous scene outside that building as right and left wing demonstrators clashed after the contested election of 2000. While all this was happening, President George W. Bush was delivering his first inaugural address in the background over loudspeakers. It was an exciting and historic experience to witness and document, but until now, I’ve never shown this image to anyone. As a matter of fact, it didn’t even exist until last night.

The reason? It’s fake. The moment it depicts never happened.
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