If you’ve been visiting the blog lately, you have noticed that I’ve been tinkering around with the look of the blog. While I recognize that content is the most important component of any blog, I feel strongly that the look and feel can affect a reader’s interest. What I particularly liked about this theme was that it was clean and each reader can adjust the text size to his or her liking.
Now, back to the real work of putting my thoughts into posts. I hope you will continue to stick around, and that I may author pieces that interest you and stimulates dialog.
Cheers!
Matthew
I bought a Seagate FreeAgent 1.5TB drive this summer (yes…just a few months ago) because my Western Digital 320g drive was full. I was so excited to pick up the drive because I made the commitment to shoot only in RAW, so file storage space is a paramount. After transferring all my images and music from my Western Digital drive, as well as transferring files residing on my laptop harddrive, and subsequent image files, I quickly filled up about 1/2 of the drive. No worries. I still have over 750GB of storage left on this one drive. Sweet!
Or, so I thought.
I suspect some of you may have experienced the horror that follows.
Last night, I went to pull some images from the external drive. I plugged the power adapter into the wall and immediately heard a dull “beep…beep…beep.” Hmmm, that doesn’t sound good. My anxiety level went up a few more notches when I noticed that the drive was not recognized on my computer. Now while I like to fancy myself as an advanced amateur IT guy, I had no clue what to do next other than unplug the power supply and plug it back in.
“beep…beep…beep “
Ah man…this is NOT good. Even though ALL my image files are saved on this drive, I decided not to panic. I will do some research, and solicit help from my friends. Sure enough, within moments, I had a couple of photography friends on Twitter as well as a workplace friend offer advice and recommendations. Before consulting some of the “third party” services for data recovery, I thought, “Why not contact Seagate? It’s their faulty hard drive that is the source of my angst.”
I will let the chat with the service support person speak for itself:
Michael Carter: Thank you for contacting i365, A Seagate Company – Professional Services , my name is Michael Carter. How may I help you today?
Communication with the RightNow Chat service has been lost. Please wait while attempts are made to restore the connection.
Maybe I’m wrong, but is it too much to think, let alone expect, that the company that produced the faulty drive would be willing to cover the cost of data recovery on one of its failed units — particularly one that is still under warranty? I took exception to the notion that the only way for this drive to fail was due to physical damage. Ask anyone who knows me, and the y will tell you that I treat my equipment with kid gloves. The flipping drive was working two days ago, now it doesn’t. Unless our cat secretly gave the drive the Office Space treatment, I just don’t get it.
[sigh]…on to researching other data recovery services. If you know of a good service, please share it in the comments. I already received a Tweet from DataSavers.com inviting me to check out there services. Gotta love social media.
Ok…I’m just sayin.’ Up to $2500 to recover data of your $149 [failed] product? That’s a pretty rhetorical question because I know that these companies know you are in a bind. Most people, particularly businesses would be willing to pay a pretty steep price to recover data. For me, I have to debate the pros and cons. I am at the nascent stage of my photography career. My business has just begun to make a ripple, in terms of client interest, and then BOOM! My entire stock if images from the last couple of years has potentially vanished. I have to determine how much those thousands of images are worth to me–not to mention my ability to even pay that much for recovery. (Do I sense a Help Save Matthew’s Image Files donation campaign coming on? Just kidding…sorta.)
Edited to add: Here is the text of an email I just received from Seagate, as a follow up to my chat with the service representative.
Please click on the following links to know more about the service levels offered -
1. Priority- fastest turn around time/ free return media
The cost for Priority Service will be $2300 which includes a free external drive with all your data on it. Furthermore, the drive will cover new two years of warranty.
[link removed]
The Promotion code : PRIO4
2. Economy – No evaluation fees/No data No charge
For Economy service it will cost you $1600 and your data will be returned to you on a trusted media of your choice like DVDs .
[link removed]
The Promotion code : ECON4
So let me get this straight. For an additional $700, Seagate will expedite recovery of my data and send it back to me on another one of their potentially faulty devices. Ummm…yeah, that sounds reasonable.
Again. Please share your opinions in the comments. I would really like to hear from you.
Ps. It took every ounce of restraint I have to keep this post family-language friendly.
I can’t believe that it’s been nearly a month since my last post. I don’t know if it’s fair to invoke the old adage, “time flies when you’re having fun,” or something a little less glamorous. Nevertheless, the urge to write has been stirring in my head, and I find that it’s better to just sit down and commit to letting words flow.
Sidebar: I understand that, for many people, writing isn’t always something that flows. My son asked me the other day, “How do you come up with stuff to write about?” It actually took me back to a time when I was a kid, and I would grab 5-10 pieces of paper, fold them in half, staple the edges, and write short stories—complete with illustrations. Most of the stories were about my dreams of traveling the country (the world, even) in a fancy conversion van. Of course today, conversion vans evoke thoughts of creepy guys, or, at best, a Chris Farley SNL skit.
Anyway…finding things to write about is seldom my problem. Finding time to write and narrowing my topic to something easily consumed by others is usually my issue. Refocusing this blog to my journey to becoming a full-time photographer has helped the cause; but I must admit that I still occasionally suffer from having too many posts milling about in my dome. Hence, today’s post is a bit of a hodgepodge of things; really an attempt to catch folks up on what I’ve been up to over the last few weeks.
look3 festival of the photograph
Last fall, a friend sent me some information about an annual photography festival that’s held in Charlottesville, Virginia. It’s called Look3. I was very excited to learn about the festival. One of the approaches I’ve taken to growing in skill and knowledge of the craft of photography is be in the company/presence of other photographers. It’s particularly enriching when you can spend time around, and view the work of, world-renown photographers. The festival ran from Thursday through Saturday, and I started to mentally plan to take two days off of work and immerse myself in the festival. I was hoping that my buddy and photography partner-in-crime Dotch could fly in from Chicago so we could hang out, go to lectures and discussions, view others’ work and talk shop. Unfortunately, neither of our schedules could accommodate getting together, but I was able to spend the better part of the last day of the festival in Charlottesville. My friend, who introduced me to the festival, came down with a friend, and we took it all in. I arrived just in time for the “Masters Talks.” The program began with David Allen Harvey displaying the work of 11 finalists for Burn Magazine’s Emerging Photographer Fund. The winner was Alejandro Chaskielberg. The presentation was followed by three very interesting and inspiring discussions by Simon Broty, Yolanda Cuomo and Kristi Norgaard of Yolanda Cuomo Design and Callie Shell. After walking around to visit the photography book store, and a couple exhibits, the day concluded with an “InSight Artists” discussion with Magnum photographer, Gilles Peress. I couldn’t stay for his entire talk, but it was interesting to hear the perspective of such a seasoned photographer. I love to listen to some of the older photographers, because they’ve truly seen it all—in terms of trends and technology. Perhaps a sign that I was leaving too early, the clouds opened up and poured buckets of rain over the festival as I dashed to the car to return to Washington.
A parting shot about Look3. I really enjoyed the discussions, and the exhibits. I just wish there would have been more exhibits. Perhaps it’s my naïveté about the event, but I expected to see more works on display. The festival takes a hiatus next year, so I look forward to taking in the entire festival in 2011. Maybe I’ll an exhibitor. You never know.
dc nighttime photowalk
I did scurry to leave Charlottesville because I wanted to make it back to DC in time for a photowalk along the mall at night. While the term may say it all, if you’re not familiar with the idea of photowalking, check out photowalklist.com.
Thanks to Twitter and Facebook, I’ve come into contact with a number of local photographers (professional and amateur). One of the things I’ve wanted to do is join some of the photowalks around the area. In fact, there was an interesting photowalk at an abandoned penitentiary in Philadelphia. Unfortunately, it was the same night so I had to pass. The call went out on Facebook to gather for a photowalk at night in DC. I love shooting the monuments at night, and thought it would be more interesting to do it in the company of other photographers. What I really enjoyed about this outing was meeting so many of the photographers I’ve met online, but never in person. It was nice to associate faces and personalities with screen names and avatars.
What’s particularly interesting, and rewarding, about participating in a photowalk is the incredible differences so many people can present when shooting the same thing. You can get a general sense of what people are shooting along the walk because you notice the subject and angles. However, you can’t always tell what the precise focus is or technique people are employing to take the shot. For instance, I love to shoot with a very narrow depth of field, so while I may have my zoom pulled back to its widest angle, my focus and depth of field may be very small. The confirmation comes when all of the participants in the photowalk, upload their images to a group page. Some photowalks end with the participants meeting up for lunch or dinner and showing each other some results on their cameras. I like the fellowship that can offer, but I must admit that I prefer to look at the images on a larger screen. (I seldom look at my own shots on my camera’s screen.) Here are the shots I selected to post to the photowalk group page on Flickr.
Please take a look at all the wonderful shots by the photographers who out that night for Night Photowalk DC.
If you haven’t done a photowalk, I encourage you visit photowalklist.com and find an outing near you. Irrespective your skill level, I think you will find a photowalk to be a fun way to spend an afternoon or evening. If nothing else, you’ll get out for a good walk and meet some new people.
a new arrow in my quiver
There’s a saying that I really like. “The best camera is the one you have with you.”
Ever since I bought my first digital SLR, I have been thinking about buying a high-quality point-and-shoot to complement and/or expand my equipment line-up. Initially, the desire was a bit selfish because my shoulder grew very weary from carrying a bag with two bodies, lenses, flash, and other gear. To know me, means you know that I will deliberate and analyze something to death. Accordingly, it was only after I returned from the Superbowl with a pinched nerve in my shoulder that I started to give serious thought to purchasing a back-up camera for the times that I don’t want to bring my larger SLRs (which is rare). This includes social outings and short trips. I also wanted a small camera for my day-to-day shooting. I love to take pictures or random things, it was becoming increasingly tough to lug my D80 and a decent zoom lens around in my backpack.
Again, if you know me, you could have guessed that deciding on a high-quality point-and-shoot camera was agony. I went to many of my favorite sites, including DPReview, cNet and Photo.net, to get reviews and opinions by ‘experts’, pros and casual users. I started with some loyalty or affinity for Nikon. I love my Nikon SLRs (film and digital), and thought I would stay in the family. I didn’t take much time to learn that most reviewers give Canon, Lumix, and Leica the nod over Nikon for point-and-shoot cameras. Once I got beyond feeling like a traitor for possibly introducing a non-Nikon camera into my bag, I moved onto looking what what best fit my needs.
A friend of mind recently bought at Lumix LX-3. I have another friend who owns the sister to the LX-3, the Leica D-Lux 4. Both are incredible cameras, and get high ratings for features and picture quality. I talked to someone at a Nikon Capture NX2 class who had a Nikon P6000. Based on all my reading, I kept coming around to the Canon G10. Now that I’ve finally taken on post-processing, I wanted a camera that capture images in the RAW format. The more I looked, handled, and played with various models, the more I was at a loss for what I wanted. Eventually, I went to my favorite camera shop. About 90 minutes later, I walked out of the store with a Canon SX200is. Aside from not having RAW image capability, the camera seemed to have all the features I waned in a point-and-shoot. I must add that I chose this model because the inner Frugal Fanny in me kept blushing at the $400+ price tags on the other models. However, shortly after getting home with the camera, I discovered that I body of the camera didn’t work for me. It was too slippery. Great camera, but fit and feel are important to me. (It’s, quite honestly, why I bought Nikon digital SLRs. They felt just the same in my hand and the controls were in the same place as my Nikon film SLRs.) I needed something a little more substantial. This eliminated just about every other camera, including the LX-3 and the D-Lux 4. I was left with a choice between the P6000 and the G10. In the end, it wasn’t a very difficult decision.
I must pause to acknowledge my wife, who encouraged me to get the camera I really want. I stopped on my way to the Look3 festival and picked this up. This not-so-little point-and-shoot is full of just about as many features as an SLR. That said, there are still some features I need to learn and/or master. Regardless, I’m loving this camera. To see the daily results of my work with this camera, check out my picture-of-the-day blog on my website.
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