technical stuff

Print it or lose it

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As you might know, the most archival storage medium is paper. It’s also the most common and the cheapest. (Yes, rock is more archival but paper is easier to carry around.)

Yet we still digitize almost everything in the belief that this will preserve that information. But as file formats, storage formats, software and hardware become obsolete, this information may be lost.

Vinton “Vint” Cerf, recognized as a founder of the Internet and currently vice-president of Google, this week stated:

In our zeal to get excited about digitizing, we digitize photographs thinking it’s going to make them last longer, and we might turn out to be wrong.
(…)
We are nonchalantly throwing all of our data into what could become an information black hole without realizing it. We digitize things because we think we will preserve them, but what we don’t understand is that unless we take other steps, those digital versions may not be any better, and may even be worse, than the artifacts that we digitized. If there are photos you really care about, print them out.

In 2013, the Photo Marketing Association launched its Print it or Lose it campaign to encourage consumers to print their valuable photos rather than risk accidental loss of those digital images.

 

Industrial Workwear for Photographers

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Most corporate photographers and editorial photographers will, sooner or later, have to shoot in a factory or on a construction site. This means you have to wear safety gear.

I’ve photographed in factories and construction sites for many years. I did two jobs today, one at an aerospace manufacturer and the other at a hospital construction site. Here are a few suggestions to photographers who will be shooting in similar situations.

Safety Boots

They may look fashionable but do not buy safety shoes. Get 6″ or 8″ safety *boots*. Safety shoes may be allowed in some factories and warehouses but they’re not permitted on construction sites.

Safety boots must have the CSA green triangle patch which confirms that the footwear has a Grade 1 protective toe and a puncture-proof sole. It helps to also have electrical shock resistance.
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A Matter of Inches

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The more you use Photoshop, the more you find little issues with the software. For example, Photoshop lets you set the default unit of measurement for almost everything:

Almost everything.
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The not so deep freeze

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Today in Toronto, it was about -8˚C. A normal winter day. My cameras worked just fine outdoors. My flashes worked as normal. After less than an hour outside, I reached into an inside coat pocket to retrieve my cell phone and my iPhone 5 said:

Of course, it probably meant to say that it needed to warm up. The phone was completely useless. Thank goodness it wasn’t an emergency.

It turns out that an iPhone doesn’t like to work below 0˚C. Not even this will help.

I know that cold weather affects all batteries and can freeze LCDs. But I don’t recall having any previous cell phone freeze on me. My digital cameras have never failed even at -20˚C. The iPhone seems to be my only electronic device that fails when the temperature is less than ideal.

Perhaps today’s smartphones are wimps or maybe they’re just turning us into wimps.

 

In The Bag

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When shopping for a decent light stand bag, you might find that most stand bags are too small, don’t have wheels or are very expensive.

If you carry just a couple of stands and umbrellas, this may not be an issue for you. But if you need to carry a trunkful of stands, an armful of softboxes or umbrellas, a few rolls of 52″ background paper and more, there is a solution.

Go to a golf store or sporting goods store and check out golf travel bags. These bags are designed to transport a golf bag full of clubs and, in some cases, even a small golf cart. They often have big outside pockets to hold various golf accessories.
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Memory Lane

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Remember the old days when soft drinks came in glass bottles? After the drink was gone, you could return the bottle to the store and get a few cents back. When you were young, you might have collected a handful of bottles and returned them to a store to get your “reward”: three bottles returned = one free Popsicle; five bottles returned = one free chocolate bar.

What do you do with old compact flash memory cards – 256MB, 512MB, 1GB, etc?
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A Bit of Noise

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It’s common to shoot business portraits against a seamless background. Photographers will often add a tonal gradient instead of using this flat-toned background. This gradient helps create depth, making the subject stand out more distinctly from the background.

But when the final image is saved as a JPEG, the file compression can cause the gradient to posterize, especially if the gradient was steep. Posterization occurs when the smooth transition of tones is replaced by abrupt colour shifts or banding. A small amount of posterization won’t be noticeable to the customer and won’t be visible in print or online images.

Low JPEG settings (high compression) make posterization more apparent, while the highest JPEG settings can minimize it. But if a customer needs a small file size, using a high-quality JPEG setting may not be feasible.
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