I'm leaving deviantART forever, to work elsewhere. Here's why, from my website, Brilliant Photography by Richard X. Thripp:

Yesterday I was contemplating what's been holding me back in my photography and online publishing of my photography, and I've decided it's maintaining my deviantart.com gallery. Since I started my own website at richardxthripp.thripp.com in December, I've continued to post photos to deviantART, because of my many followers there. Unfortunately, this kind of multi-casting derails too much of my time. I post each photo as prints for sale at deviantART, such as Bubble in the Sea, and that takes fifteen minutes because of their tedious interface for cropping and presentation (no one buys them). The other inconvenience is making keyword lists and linking between photos on each site (which I do manually). While I could continue to post photos to deviantART without these frills, the root of the issue is having to go to two places when I should be putting all my efforts here, my home on the Internet forever.

So, I'm breaking it off. I'm never going back to deviantART again. This is a huge step forward. I won't be hassling myself to publicate my photos, and I'll be focusing my efforts in one direction instead of splitting them in two. I've been at deviantART for two and a half years, and have had 116,000 views for my artwork. But if I'm every going to become solvent here, that won't cut it. My last photo at deviantART was Night Meets Day. The end.

It's been nice knowing everyone, and I thank you for all the support. You can comment (on this entry or my art), but I won't read nor respond. Join me here if you want to comment or see what I'm photographing.

The Profit Police and How They Kill Everyone at my website.

The profit police are as old as eternity, but insidious as the devil. They threaten to steal our happiness, to sour us with envy, hatred, and guilt. Their orthodoxy is codified in institutional policies all over the world. They kill everyone. They are us.

Profit is not just money. Profit is also prestige, notoriety, and mere exposure. The profit police take keeping up with the Joneses to the extreme. They tell us that promoting our names or starting a business is selfish, greedy, and wrong. They are responsible for the professionalization of jobs that have no business being bureaucratized. They create sad terms like vanity press, as though not having a book approved by a committee makes the author an egotistical lunatic. Their influence starts with us, at the micro level.

The Junior Anti-Profit League is alive and well on the forums of the Internet. Well-meaning adults persist with policies of "no advertising, no self-promotion, no links to your website, no 'commercialism.'" They cry foul at affiliate links, for no reason further than to stifle the success of their users (my photography articles are proudly littered with them). Brilliant computer-programmers publish free software with the clause, "no commercial use," as if every dollar earned with the help of their applications comes straight from their wallets. As if profit is bad. As if the very act of seeking prosperity—called the American Dream by many—is the bane of humanity. Run the phrase, "free for non-commercial use" through Google, and you get 264,000 web pages, all of people afraid of something.

What are they afraid of? The success of others. Why are they afraid of it? Because they perceive that it diminishes themselves. We all do this. Charles Wheelan, financial blogger, elaborates:

"There's a very interesting strain of economic research showing that our sense of well-being is determined more by our relative wealth than by our absolute wealth.

In other words, we care less about how much money we have than we do about how much money we have relative to everyone else. In a fascinating survey, Cornell economist Robert Frank found that a majority of Americans would prefer to earn $100,000 while everyone else earns $85,000, rather than earning $110,000 while everyone else earns $200,000.

Think about it: People would prefer to have less stuff, as long as they have more stuff than the neighbors."

This scales down to the minute level. I am guilty of it myself. When I opened my website, I set my Google AdSense advertising up to filter ads for other photographers. I stopped doing this after a week, realizing how silly it is. But the fact is that fear of the success of others is a subconscious human response. It's also irrational. Another's persons success is not my loss, no matter how it may seem.

I've had my own encounter with The Profit Police as of yesterday. If you've read The Thievery of richardxthripp, you know of my rush to secure my name on the popular blogging, photography, and social networking websites after richardxthripp.blogspot.com was claimed by spammers. One of the sites I registered for was 43 Things, a destination for sharing your life's goals with the world. I've admired their community for a while, so I added to the discussion to help others with two things I've done, and to drive visitors to my website:

I added to the goal, have a blog:

"I’ve done this now. Set up my blog for my photography: Brilliant Photography by Richard X. Thripp. Started three months ago, but it’s an ongoing project. I’m using WordPress as my blogging software; it’s worth it to have your own domain name so you aren’t tied to any third party."

And, sharing my knowledge on playing the piano:

"Playing the piano is a great hobby for reflection, mental and finger dexterity, appreciating music, and enjoying with others. I’ve been playing since ten; here’s a performance from January.

What I don’t buy, is that you have to start when you’re young. Plenty of adults learn to type quickly (with our newfound reliance on computers), yet that takes dexterity, skill, and practice, like piano. And also—you can look at your fingers while playing. You may come to memorize a song just from working on it a lot, and then begin watching your fingers so you don’t miss the keys; don’t fight it."

Don't bother looking for my entries; they've been vaporized now, along with my page. I'm alive in the Google cache for now: have a blog, play the piano. Little did I read that they have a policy against my kind of writing:

"43 Things is for personal use only. If you sell or promote products, services or yourself through your 43 Things page, we will suspend your account."

So promoting yourself is not personal use? Sure, if you own a social network you can enact whatever rules they want, but that doesn't mean you should. This is the cowardly, suicidal behavior that profit policing drives us to. It is cowardly because it sweeps under the rug the work of others, as if the publisher deserves no credit for his insights. It is suicidal because it destroys discussions and useful information at the fear of others' gain, reducing morale and alienating users.

I used to release my stock photographs with a license that said "no commercial use." It took me months to finally give it up. The question: What if someone gets rich from using the resources I provide? They'd be earning money off my hard work! The answer: So what? This is not a Reversi game, where every acquisition by your opponent is an equal blow to you. 200 A's do not necessitate 200 F's. Life is not a zero-sum game. It's time we stopped playing it as one.

Recommended reading:
How Jealousy and Envy Destroy Happiness by Steve Olson
Life ain't a zero-sum game.
Why Income Inequality Matters by Charles Wheelan

I tried to register my name at blogger.com but got this error message. Turns out someone's swiped the name: [link] is just a parked spam blog, set up just over a month ago (2008-02-20). It's about two thousand spam link ads.

One thing that I've always counted with my name (Richard X. Thripp a.k.a. richardxthripp), is that it is so unique that I can go to any website and register as richardxthripp with no fear of my identity already being taken. Apparently, I'm picking up a bit of notoriety and that is changing. The only thing to do next is to launch a pre-emptive strike against the thieves.

[link]
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How do you like them apples? Twenty-six websites where I've claimed my identity. Some are old, but there are sixteen ones I registered in the past few hours. Obviously, I won't update any of these, but at least no one else will be carrying on their evil plans in my name.

These are two great articles on stopping the new-fangled cyber-squatters:

SearchRank: Securing Your Brand on Social Networking Sites
ProBlogger: When Seth Godin isn’t Seth Godin

I ran across these before, but wasn't motivated enough to take action, unfortunately.

So tell me, is there any killer social networking, blogging, photography, or art network that's missing from my list?

2008-03-29 Update: Added Animal Crossing Community and YouTube; forgot about those.

The Thievery of richardxthripp at my website, Brilliant Photography by Richard X. Thripp.

I caught a screen cap as my hit counter broke four digits: click here. I've been here 2.5 years, so that's eleven per day, but persistence pays off. Here are my gallery stats as of now; I've broken 125 views per day (an average, for the photos themselves, not my user page). I've also made over 8000 comments now (counting forum posts ).

Since starting my own website three months ago, I've gotten 4233 views, or 50 per day. I'm going to keep posting my photos here too, because there's a community for feedback and commenting, and I've established an audience.

Thanks everyone!

I wrote this on high dynamic-range photography for this poll, and wanted to share it with my readers here:

I've seen good uses of HDR (which is actually compressed dynamic range, just not called that). But I don't like when the sky looks darker than the land--it's unnatural; not even what our eyes see.

I had a shot recently (RAW of course) which I turned into this; no HDR needed. You can do plenty a polarizing filter (though I lacked one), curves, dodging, and burning, and it's easier. What I'd like our budding photographers to think of, is that if you want to make a dark patch of ground bright like the sky, it's going to look fake and shoddy. There's a reason your subject is dark. If the scene is so contrasty that your subject goes pitch-black when the sky is a moderate blue, your shooting in the wrong light. Instead of trying HDR, try coming back in the evening.

Though cluttered (scroll down), this is a good article on HDR photography. You take several photos of the same (static) scene at different exposures, then blend them together afterwards. You can save them including the full range of luminance values in some editing software, but only expensive monitors can display the high dynamic range (distance between light and dark). So HDR photography we see is just compressing the range to be displayed on our monitors.

This post at my blog, Brilliant Photography by Richard X. Thripp.

I'm coming back. I mentioned way back on the 7th that I had a sore throat, but was recovering. That turned into a cold; I'd recovered by the 11th, but on Wednesday, March 12, I woke up with an awful sore throat, headache, and fever. Two days later, I noticed the white patch at the back of my throat, so Dad took me to the doctor (it's expensive without health insurance), who proscribed one gram of amoxicillin (a sister of penicillin), twice per day. He assumed it to be strep throat, skipping the test. My Grandma notes how large the dose is; it's interesting to read that doctors now proscribe super-doses to everyone because the bacteria has mutated, developing antibiotic resistance from decades of being slaughtered. Obviously, this can't be a long-term solution, as just like with the Borg, the enemy's adaptability requires an ever-changing attack strategy.

I've been on antibiotics since Friday; I wasn't well enough to go to school today (Monday), though. The white patch is down to specks, and it hurts less to swallow, so I'm targeting Wednesday to return (no classes on Tuesday, though I'll miss work). No school missed last week, because it was spring break. But plenty of lost money and grades. Instead of studying, I spent five days suffering on a couch, watching the shameful wart that is network television, sipping from a bottle of dry ginger ale when the pain of dehydration would surpass the pain of swallowing.

I'm thinking I'll get a B in photography class (there's no formal feedback, though). I need Monday to develop film and print, but missed today, and my teacher said I was below the standard last week because I developed one roll of film instead of two. Apparently it doesn't matter that the roll is 36 exposures instead of 20 or 24, or that I put time and/or creativity into each image instead of shooting three dozen images of a tree. I'm so glad I'm not going into photography as a career. Not in the neo-traditional, professionalized sense. Or perhaps, I should trudge through the program, commanding worship and respect for graduating from a community college. Then, I can open a studio, get a little plaque saying I'm a Certified Professional Photographer to hang on the wall, and then print up plain-white business cards saying that I'm a qualified professional photographer and imaging specialist. There will be no images on the cards, of course. That would be unprofessional. There will only be promises of terribly professional conduct.

What I do hate most, is being told that film unlocks my creativity. It's a lie. It LIMITS my creativity. If you use it, you're being held back, too. It's terribly expensive, dust-prone, time-consuming, et cetera. Non-zooming (prime) lenses limit your creativity too. Not doctoring your photos in Photoshop limits your creativity. But we're fed the same rubbish argument from higher math: "it teaches you how to think." Would we put up with four years of classes of brain-teasers? If any subject does anything, "teaching you how to think" needs to be secondary, lest the whole thing be a diversion. When Jefferson proscribed reading, writing, and arithmetic, he didn't mean algebraic theory and calculus.

So how do they say film teaches us to think? First, we're forced to learn the basics of metering, aperture, shutter speed, etc. Then, we put more time and thought into our compositions, because of the terrible expense of film. This logic is putting the cart before the horse. It's like trying to first learn the alphabet backwards so you'll be more prepared to learn it forwards. What we need to do, is to take a ton of photos on a digital camera (even a cheap one), without reading dozens of technical pages from textbooks. If we're making our photos horribly blurry, or overexposed, or off center, or there's a trash can in the background, we see it right away and correct it, and from practical experience comes expertise. What could be better for teaching us to think? The professionalized model for "learning" photography is like learning how to drive a car from a year-long technical course. It's hard to believe that standardized education can make fascinating subjects so boring.

One note on the site: I out-sourced to FeedBurner for my email newsletter, instead of running software on my server. I'm on shared hosting, so this will be more reliable, and free up computing resources for visitors. Sign up today; it's the same stuff that's in the RSS feed, which is the same stuff that's on my website.

The Return + Film is Pointless at my blog, Brilliant Photography by Richard X. Thripp.

I've updated the Leafy Droplets series. The first has a nice border and title, 2 and 3 are newly edited, and 6 is the latest addition. Check it out; it's finally something respectable.

I've written a review of Energizer's AA/AAA Chargers (click to read it). It has a lot of images, and deviantART won't let me post them in my journal.

I came across this simple but useful script by Aaron Boodman; using it, you can see thumbnails of your friends' submissions even if you don't subscribe.

You can only use it Mozilla Firefox, after installing the Greasemonkey extension which provides for such client-side modifications. It's loads slower than what subscribers see, but will make browsing a lot faster for me. Since it's all on your end; the script just fetches the thumbnails and displays them as if you'd clicked each deviation yourself, it's fine to use.

If I watch you, expect more comments from me, as before I didn't write much due to how tedious it is to go through each submission. I'll be commenting on about 10 out of every 100 you submit; whatever catches my eye.

If you've seen the recent re-release of Ketchup and the later Ketchup 2, I want to let you know that Ketchup 3 is in the works! It will be darker and more evil than the first two. Stay tuned at the end of the week.

I've received 6000+ comments now and am nearing 10,000 pageviews; thanks for all the support.

The Death of CompactFlash? at my website, Brilliant Photography by Richard X. Thripp, with images.

Canon has announced the Canon Rebel XSi (EOS 450D outside the U.S.A.); the sequel to my beloved Rebel XTi (EOS 400D). While there are many revisions, the one that sticks out the most is the switch from CompactFlash to Secure Digital memory cards.

CompactFlash is 14 years old; it is the oldest and largest memory card format still in use. It owes its longevity to having the controller in the card instead of the camera, so that the technology can evolve with old devices still working with the new memory cards (for the most part). Other formats have gone through revisions that sacrifice a lot of backward-compatibility, such as the Sony Memory Stick PRO (2003, overcame 128MB limit), xD Type M (2005, overcame 512MB limit), and SDHC (2006, overcame 2GB limit). CF cards are also sturdier because there are no exposed contacts, and they're bigger and harder to lose. The interface is pin-based like parallel ATA (used for hard drives), as you can see in this photo of the Canon Rebel XTi's slot. If you break or bend the pins, you're in trouble, which is one thing that's worse than SD.

The Rebel XSi will take SD and SDHC cards; a 4GB card is not unreasonable as the RAW files are 12MB each. Back in the day, CompactFlash cards were common in consumer-level cameras, such as the Canon PowerShot A95 (2004-09), but now they've disappeared in even entry-level DSLRs, such as the Nikon D80, Pentax K10D, and now the Canon Rebel XSi. How much longer before SD takes over entirely?

One thing I can say for sure: CF cards do not make good flash drives.

"Use as a USB Flash Drive by inserting Memory Card"

Look mom, I have the biggest flash drive ever. Now I can block four ports at once!

For years, I've been hearing this wonderful argument: don't put all your eggs in one basket; it's better to have several smaller memory cards than one large one, so that if one fails, you've only lost a portion of your prized photographs, instead of all of them.

Seems to make sense, no? Distribution and redundancy are the core of safe computing, so we take this argument without question, spending extra to get four 512MB cards, even if the best bang for our collective buck is at 2GB. Yet do we ever stop to think that the entire concept is flawed?

The multi-card proponents convince us that all things equal (reliability and failure rates), four 512MB cards is the safer option.

But hold on a second there. Are the extra cards going for live, RAID-style backups? Are we afforded the advantage that while we sacrifice the space of one card, if any one card fails, no data is lost (RAID 5)? No. We have nothing. Until you get your pictures copied to your computer, there is only one copy in existence, and your work is in danger, either way. Your camera isn't going to mirror your data for you. Maybe your fancy $3000 Canon EOS-1D Mark II does, but for us mortals, such extravagance cannot be afforded.

Remember that everything is equal, and we've just reached the beautiful realm of digital permanence by splitting our eggs into four baskets? Billy's 8th birthday will not be lost, because you had to spread the shots across four cards. If one fails, all is well, because you still have great shots on three other cards, right?

But it is that if that is important. Have you noticed that when you have multiples of something, you're more likely to have one fail? In a family with three computers, one is constantly on the fritz. With five school-aged children, one is always sick. And with four memory cards, you're four times as likely to have one short-circuit. The question is, do you want to lose a day of photos every two years, or an evening of photos every six months?

Our friend Murphy says that you will be losing the photos of Billy blowing out the candles, rather than the guests or the clean-up party. You're going to lose digital photos occasionally, and the multi-card philosophy does nothing to prevent nor reduce this.

Someone is going to protest: "Richard, all memory cards are not the same. Some are more reliable than others; you cannot pretend they are all equal. Plus, you are more likely to have one memory card fail under intensive use, than to have one of four fail under intermittent use." For them, I want to take this out of the realm of theory, and into the realm of practice.

How often does a door spontaneously fall of its hinges? It doesn't; it fails when you open it. I have a Canon Rebel XTi, and it relies on a flimsy plastic hinge to stay attached to the camera. When the door is open, the camera magically does not work at all. This is one part I don't want breaking in the middle of my adventure at the Grand Canyon (no, I'm not going to the Grand Canyon, this is an example). And when is it going to fail? When I open it in the dry, sweltering sun to swap cards, of course!

Memory cards and readers are usually rated for 10,000 insertion/removal cycles. We cannot assume that they'll last this long; every time you swap, it's wear and tear on the camera and cards, and with something as important as our photos, we want to avoid as much risk as possible.

Technicalities aside, trading out tiny, expensive, static-sensitive, photo-filled memory cards in the field is just bad practice. No matter how careful I am, I'm ten times more likely to drop my postage-stamp SD card in the grass at the park, or trip and have it fly into the river, than it is to fail on its own accord. Plus, you'll miss great photos by having to switch memory cards. It doesn't matter how well you schedule it—you'll be clicking away, and the Kodak moment will pop up just as your camera flashes "card full." It happens to me; I don't even keep half the photos, but there isn't time to delete on the spot. You can't be ready for anything if you have no space.

You should have two memory cards, so that when one fails, you can order a cheap one online (with caution, of course), without your camera being completely useless for a week. Beyond two, there are no advantages.


No Safety in Multiple Memory Cards at my blog, Brilliant Photography by Richard X. Thripp.

If you've read last week's article, $1500 Daytona Beach College Scholarship Revoked, you know what recently happened to me. I've decided to do nothing about it.

I went to Charlene Solomon's office and apologized for my rudeness on the phone ("What? You can't take my scholarship. You already sent the letter. Who do you think you are?"), the opposite of what many of my friends suggested, which was to escalate to the higher nodes of the Daytona Beach College bureaucracy. I will apply again in the fall of 2008, and perhaps I will win an award for keeps. Fighting a battle would not produce changes but instead make enemies and cost time, which is not what I'm in college for.


A Postscript on the Scholarship at my blog, Brilliant Photography by Richard X. Thripp.

I lost a $1500 scholarship today.

I won a $1500 scholarship from the Daytona Beach College Foundation (of Daytona Beach, FL, USA) in the Fall of 2007. It is split into two semesters. There is a rule: "You can only receive one DBCC [sic, DBC used to be Daytona Beach Community College] Foundation Donor scholarship per semester." Many of the scholarships are spread out over two or even three semesters. So, in my strategic cunning, I interpreted the rule in the manner that is most beneficial to me: you may only be awarded one scholarship per semester, but you may be profiting from the sacred funds of multiple donors in simultaneity.

I'm not one to ask questions. Ten times the yeses come from decisive action rather than cautious inquiry. I went ahead and entered for the scholarship. Surely if I interpreted that rule erroneously, I would receive no award, right? I finished my application online on 2007-10-25, with a glowing recommendation from Dr. Casey Blanton, my humanities professor in the QUANTA learning community, and author of Travel Writing: The Self and the World. No error messages or notifications of my ineligibility. It must be fine, right?

December 10 rolls around, and I receive this delightful news from the postman:

Dear Richard:

Congratulations! On behalf of Daytona Beach Community College, I am pleased to advise you that you have been awarded a $1,500 scholarship from the Elizabeth Barr Studio Arts Scholarship Fund. Your scholarship will be awarded over two semesters for the spring 2008 ($750) and fall 2008 ($750) semesters at DBCC [sic]. This scholarship is not transferable to any other semesters.

Compare this to the first award:

Dear Richard:

Congratulations! On behalf of Daytona Beach Community College, I am pleased to advise you that you have been awarded a $1,500 scholarship from the James Fentress Scholarship Fund. Your scholarship will be awarded over two semesters: fall 2007 ($750) and spring 2008 ($750) semester at DBCC [sic]. This scholarship is not transferable to any other semester.

Yes! I've pulled it off. There were plenty of measly $500 scholarships, but I'd won the big enchilada, twice in a row. Or so I thought.

January 14, the first day of classes. I take my letter of sincere thanks in to send off to the donors for the Elizabeth Barr award. I get the financial aid office mixed up with the bursar's office, but the kind clerk offers to forward my letter on. You just don't hear words the caliber of bursar nowadays.

It is on February 1st that I finally get the monies to fund the textbooks I am habitually buying as of late. Yet my beautiful Elizabeth Barr award, which I've bragged about to dozens of friends and strangers alike, is ominously absent. Where could it be, I ponder?

As any good coper, I reason that it is just taking longer than normal. "The money will come, soon. There are just processing delays. The gears of the bureaucracy are not well-oiled today." On February 4, I finally crack and call in.

Charlene Solomon, head of the DBC scholarship foundation, gives me the dreadful news herself: I will not be receiving my capstone prize. It is all a mistake. Up to this point, I am so convinced of the infallibility of the scholarship department, that the word mistake is no more than an Egyptian hieroglyph to me.

The mistake is, that I am receiving the second half of the $1500 James Fentress scholarship this semester, so the rule, "You can only receive one DBCC [sic] Foundation Donor scholarship per semester," cripples my entire application, as I shuddered to suspect. Because of the $750 I am receiving from the James Fentress scholarship this semester, I lose all the $1500 of the Elizabeth Barr award.

But it gets worse: my precious money was awarded to another student.

Perhaps this would be enough to console a charitable person. But not me. Because I'm just so much better at putting coinage to use, it should obviously be mine, no?

The epic continues: my file indicates that I was attempted to be called several times to be informed of the dreadful thing. Yet I received no such calls. I have devised an ingenious theorem that the messenger chickened out, but marked me as called. I wouldn't want to be the one to tell a student that his wonderful scholarship, the culmination of years of academic toils, has been rescinded.

It's not like this is going to ruin my education. Everything is already paid for by our state's excellent BrightFutures reward program (which I got $75 less of this year), the Pell grant, and the icing on the cake is my previous $1500 scholarship. Suffice to say, there are students much more deserving of the award (if not for academic merit, for financial neediness). I would've just saved this $1500 for my postgraduate education, slated for 2011. I'd love to boast that I'm the first person to ever win two consecutive scholarships like this, and that this is the first time the rule has been enforced. But honestly, I have no idea.

Please do not misconstrue this as bashing of the DBC foundation. I know it's hard to manage so many students and applications, and mistakes happen. But do they have to happen to me, and of such an irritating sort? I'd certainly prefer it that the award was legitimate, yet forgotten to be sent, so long as I'd never found out about it.

$1500 may be a small amount to you, but my family is lower-class so it would've helped us greatly. Who'd have thunk it in 1969 that Americans would be paying upwards of a dollar a bottle for water? And how do we profess to respect mother nature when we pile our landfills with such wasteful containers?

I encourage the administration to update their rules. Replace:

You can only receive one DBCC [sic] Foundation Donor scholarship per semester.

with:

You can only receive one DBC Foundation Donor scholarship per semester. If you are receiving a scholarship spread over multiple semesters, you may not apply again until that scholarship has concluded.

And on the scholarships page, replace:

Students may apply for as many scholarships as they are eligible, however, students may only receive one DBC Foundation scholarship per semester.

with:

Students may apply for as many scholarships as they are eligible, however, students may only receive one DBC Foundation scholarship per semester. If you are receiving a scholarship spread over multiple semesters, you may not apply again until payment of that scholarship has concluded.

The current rules are too vague, if the staffers themselves misread them. Don't let someone else go through the same disheartening rigmarole. If it takes away the faith of one student in our university, then it has hurt my community as a whole.

Scratch the opening. It should be "I lost nothing today," because I never actually had anything.

2008-02-05 Update: I corrected grammar, clarified parts, elaborated on the proposed rule changes, and revised an overly negative paragraph.

$1500 Daytona Beach College Scholarship Revoked at my blog, Brilliant Photography by Richard X. Thripp.

I was commenting on this poll by Sortvind at deviantART about web browser usage, and want to share my wonderful insight with my readers. :grin:

I use Mozilla Firefox because of the great tab control, automation, nice bookmarks toolbar, no text aliasing, other add-ons, and general speediness. But it slows down a lot as I leave one window open for days (using Windows' hibernation function at night); it'll even lock up and make everything else slow as molasses, as it steals all the CPU cycles and RAM. I did re-install recently, switching from the portable version to the regular Windows installer, but to no avail. It surely doesn't help that I like to keep 20 tabs open.

Firefox was originally supposed to be simple and fast, replacing the slow Mozilla suite, but with spell-checking, RSS support, history caching, etc. in the core instead of being relegated to add-ons, it's becoming increasingly heavy-weight. Inefficiencies in the code don't help either, though changes will mess up the plugins people love, I hear.

Incidentally, there is the same problem of slowness with Wordpress; I and many other users have to use caching to stay running during traffic spikes. Though most database-driven websites use caching, it's particularly necessary due to Wordpress' inefficiencies. And they won't be going away or else plugins will break. At least we get lots of cool features out of it. :smile:

Slow Firefox at my blog, Brilliant Photography by Richard X. Thripp.

Read "School So Far" at my website, Brilliant Photography by Richard X. Thripp.

I was just telling my friend Marianne, over at her deviantART journal, about what I'm up to at school, so I'm posting it here too:

I'm doing great, though it's a lot of work this semester. Here are the courses I'm taking (6 this time!). I'm in a learning community that covers three courses, continuing from last semester, which is fun despite the high demands. I'm doing Trigonometry and Internet Research (an easy online course), plus my favorite, Photography. I got my film camera today and had it for the class; they let out early though so I'm writing this from the school computers. I know most of the concepts from digital work, except everything relating to film.  

Trigonometry is the hardest because math takes the most effort for me... need to study this weekend.

Speaking of the photography class: I got my camera, a Canon EOS Elan IIe, just today, and was ready in time with 72 exposures of black-and-white film (Kodak Tri-X 400) and the special battery. Today's weekly class covered a lot of the basics of shutter speed, aperture, focal length, film speed, etc. which I already know, though everything about film was new to me. We learned how to put the film on a spool, and an overview of using developer, stopping, fixing, and washing (we'll get to do it ourselves next week). I took a photo of two dandelion clocks against the bright sun, like Two of Us Against the World, but with a lot more contrast. Then I took it with my digital camera, and found that I had to go quite below what the light meter indicated, so I likely over-exposed three pieces of film... I was dumb and forgot about the danger of the sun, but stopped immediately when my eye hurt a bit... didn't damage my vision, fortunately. Let this be a lesson to all of you! If you're going to have the bright sun in the viewfinder, do it quickly and without looking, or if you must look, get a point-and-shoot and use the LCD screen, so that you don't hurt your eyes. If the sun is below the horizon, there is little danger, but otherwise, take caution as normal. I got a really great photo though; will be adding it tomorrow. It's title will be Two of Us Against the Sun Spores of the Sun.

That's all for now! Glad to see I've gotten fifty visitors at my website in the past day; people must be liking my photos and finding my writings informative. I'm catching up with my deviantART gallery.

Keywords: danger, education, film photography, school, sun

Read Simple Advice on AA Chargers & Batteries at my website, Brilliant Photography by Richard X. Thripp.

Rechargeable AA batteries and chargers — Photo by Richard X. Thripp

Normal alkaline AAs are fine for the casual shooter, but in the long run, you'll save money with rechargeables. Duracell and Energizer are good, but my favorite is Tenergy (sold at all-battery.com), which are cheaper and have worked well for me. Get a charger that is "smart," in that it doesn't stop just on a timer. I like the Duracell CEF90NC 30 Minute Charger, though I have an older version. Mine doesn't take long (one hour), has built-in cooling, stops based on some sort of charging detection system that works well, and has worked without fail for 2+ years. The new model should do the same, unless they've messed things up. Then, you won't have to change batteries often, unless your camera is particularly power-hungry. The charger runs $30 and comes with 4 Duracell batteries. Avoid 15 minute or faster chargers, as they stress your batteries more, are prone to overheating, and cost more.

When I got my first digital camera, I bought a charger with four AA batteries for $10. The charger took 16 hours, and would not stop automatically. It was inevitable; I charged the batteries for 24 hours once, but fortunately there was no apparent damage, likely because the charger is less apt to damage batteries for being so under-powered. One month later, one of the batteries leaked acid. If it had been in the camera, it would have corroded the contacts and perhaps render it unusable. I bought new batteries, but continued using the original three for my CD player. Another month later, I opened the player to find that the battery had leaked, and the acid had burned through the compartment, onto the CD, corroding it so that it was unusable. It was a CD I burned, but if it had been a commercial release it may have been a loss of up to $20. I stopped using those batteries, filed down the corroded part in the player so that the CD wouldn't touch it while spinning, and used aluminum foil to fit the battery against the corroded spring. After several months, it became such a hassle to keep the aluminum foil in place that I stopped using the player; the batteries would frequently fall out of place despite my efforts. I paid $33 for that CD player; this was three years ago, and it was one of those fancy models that would play MP3 files from CDs (flash memory was expensive back then), so it was quite disappointing to lose.

That is my cautionary tale: be careful of the batteries you choose; the cheesiest option isn't the best. Digital photography is expensive, but this is no place to skimp, as your camera is useless without working batteries.

In this photo, the chargers, from left to right: Tenergy V-2833, Duracell CEF80N, Energizer CHDC, Digital Concepts CH-1800. The Duracell CEF80N is the one I'm saying good things about above; the Digital Concepts CH-1800 is the one I'm saying bad things about. The Energizer one uses an 8-hour timer, so I don't like it. I haven't opened the Tenergy one, but it says it takes 18 hours, which is too long. The batteries on the left are Rayovac Hybrid brand, which are low self-discharge batteries. I've kept them for a year without charging and they still work, but I only recommend them if you use your camera infrequently, as they're pricier. The middle ones are Tenergy brand, which I like. The Energizer brand batteries on the right are good too.

1. Wear that "Canon EOS Digital" neck-strap proudly so the whole world can see what expensive equipment you have.
2. Take the camera on a plane; no need to keep it in your carry-on bag because you won't be using it. If it doesn't magically disappear, I hope you like broken glass.
3. Keep all your gear in your fancy new Lowepro bag, then leave it at a restaurant table to go the the bathroom. Don't worry, it'll only take a minute!
4. Use a lens with a big red ring around it.
5. Leave your big red ring and "EOS 5D" logo open for the world to admire. Some black tape and a Sharpie marker just doesn't fit in your budget.
6. Stash your camera and pricey lenses in your hotel room. What could be more secure than a hotel room?
7. Leave it on a beach towel; you have to go surfing after all. Or, for extra safety, walk back to the car and put it in the trunk, then wonder how someone knew it was in your trunk.
8. Have a friend hold your bag. Oops, I forgot about your stuff! It wasn't anything important, right?
9. Oh no, your brand-new DSLR has dust spots! No matter; just send it back in a big box labeled "Camera Repair Dept." for warranty service.
10. Family portrait, no one to snap the photo? Just get one of the local bums to assist. Oh wait, he's backing away slowly... must be to get the most compositionally pleasing shot.

Read 10 Ways to Get Your Camera Stolen at my website, Brilliant Photography by Richard X. Thripp

Adventures in Film at my website. (Or read the text below.)

Started my photography class two days ago (2008-01-18). First thing I see entering the class room is a large-format camera mounted on the most impressive tripod I've seen; very nice. Shockingly, we're expected to buy our own cameras and black-and-white film. I did a quick, thorough search online, and settled on the Canon EOS Elan IIe, a 35mm SLR film camera with no lens. It was $70 used, including shipping (paid $5 extra for expedited shipping, so it ought to be here before next Friday's class). The MSRP was $720 when it was released in 1995, but we can see that has fallen drastically. I imagine my beloved Canon Rebel XTi will be $70 in 2019, if not less.

My main reason for picking a Canon SLR with an EF mount is so I can use my Canon EF 50mm F1.4 lens (photos). I do use it as my primary on my Canon Rebel XTi, though with the crop factor it is like an 80mm lens, but on a full frame camera; in this case, a film SLR with a 36x24mm film, it's just peachy. The zoom lenses that come standard are more versatile for their variable focal lengths, but falter in low-light and low depth-of-field photography—if I want to take a photo at 50mm with my XTi's kit lens, I can't go below F5.0, but with the non-zooming (prime) 50mm lens, I can open the aperture up all the way to F1.4 (though below F2.2, the depth-of-field is generally too shallow). Plus, prime lenses are lighter, cheaper, have better image quality, and, according to some, cutting your zooming potential forces you to be more creative.

Speaking of creativity, we are in an age where it is harder to be creative than ever, with the tools available to most digital photographers. Too many consumer cameras omit manual mode or give too few controls. I started out working with one where I had no control over aperture, shutter speed, ISO speed (!), only auto-focusing, no manual white balance, and while I did produce many of my best images with it, I could've done far more far earlier otherwise; even 5-second exposures, focusing closer than three inches, RAW mode, etc., were not options. While I keep my DSLR in shutter-priority mode with auto-focusing for quick shooting, it falls short often; all auto-exposing systems want to make everything look gray, including snow, a bright sky, or scenes dark with shadows. Cameras do not know where to focus; if I place my subject in anywhere but the center, my friends become a blurry blob while beautiful trees get razor-sharp clarity. Switching to a different focus point is quick and easy, but in digital compacts it is painfully hard, or entirely omitted; then you have to put the subject in the middle, half-click, recompose, and shoot, which takes too long. Don't even try it on a cell phone camera. It's good to take a film class cuz they'll force you to learn all that stuff, and you'll be using a camera where it's all available. I'm in it more for film and film processing, as I know nothing about that (good stuff to know so I can sound like an expert, ha ha).

In twenty years, 35 millimeter film will be a relic of the past for still photography. Medium and large format film will stick around much longer, as they will continue to outstrip digital cameras in clarity and resolution. Perhaps the megapixel war will be over (it ain't yet), and we'll be junking our silly rasterized cameras for infinitely scalable, automated vector photography. We'll have flying cars too.

*** The rest is about my website at richardxthripp.thripp.com. ***

Speaking on my website: if you haven't been here in a week, you'll notice that the author line below each post has spiffy formatting. It's now a dynamically-compiled sentence with the author (I'm richardxthripp), time of posting, categories, and tags. Had to change my Wordpress theme to use ISO 8601 date formatting. Get used to it; we'll all be writing our dates like this, soon as we switch over to metric and start using Oxford spelling. All the times are UTC, which is five hours ahead of local time (North American Eastern Time), and four hours ahead during that pesky Daylight time. I do show the local time that each of my photos was taken at; look for the data line below the sales pitch.

The same fancy line appears on the printable view of each page (which has been moved to a gray-text link at the bottom of each entry). I use WP-Print for those pages; I could use a special style-sheet for print, but it's more work, and I wouldn't get that pretty list of links at the bottom. By default, it likes to append a trailing slash to every link: "/print" is instead "/print/". I don't understand everyone's love for trailing slashes on every URI ("URL" is obsolete); I know they're supposed to represent directories, but all pages are not directories. So, to get it to do what I wanted, I had to edit the source code (there is no option in the user interface). Unfortunate, but not hard to do through trial-and-error.

If you like to read this blog on the LiveJournal or Xanga mirror, all the "add to your shopping cart" links now work from there! I hard-coded my blog's URI into the YAK source code (the Wordpress plugin I use), because before, it was relative, so the buttons would try to take you to the add to cart page at livejournal.com or xanga.com, which obviously won't work. Other bugs have also been squished. The Printable, ShareThis, similar, next, and last entries links have all been moved to the footer of entries instead of being displayed inline with the text; this makes them clearly separated, gives focus to the content, and saves a lot of space.

There is also a brilliantly simple hit counter on the sidebar, below the ads; it says "You are visitor # 1,190 at richardxthripp.com" right now. You are two visitors if you browser for over an hour, or come back later. This is all thanks to StatCounter; I'm not putting the load on my server. Dedicated Wordpress plugins write stats to the database for every visitor; this is awful if you get really popular.

That's all! I hope everyone is looking forward to the Martin Luther King holiday, which we're celebrating six days after his birthday, for some reason.

An article from my website: Low-Light Photography on your Digital Compact: 7 Ways to Skip the Flash

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Peter01 from Animal Crossing Community has an interesting question for me:

"When you're doing action photos, do you use the viewfinder, or an LCD display that you can look at from a distance? What are the advantages/disadvantages for each?

I ask because I've been *attempting to* take school basketball pictures lately, which I find extremely difficult. Much more difficult than football or wrestling photos, because basketball is much faster-paced. The ball typically switches players within 1-2 seconds, and by the time I find a good photo, they're on the opposite side of the court. If you could think of any advice that might be helpful, I'd really appreciate it."

I use the viewfinder, but I have a digital SLR, where you can't use the LCD screen anyway. On my smaller Canon PowerShot A620, I have both, but I generally use the LCD, to avoid the parallax error, which is quite bad on my camera, even at far distances. If you notice the LCD screen lagging in low light, the viewfinder is better.

Of course, there is then the issue that point-and-shoot cameras don't operate well without a flash indoors (even if it's fairly bright). Have you ever noticed at the basketball game, or any indoor performances, that people from 40 feet away have their flashes flashing away? The flash will do no good at that distance, and they'll get grainy, under-exposed shots and be disappointed. This is due to two problems: one, they have their cameras set to an automatic mode, and the camera does what it thinks is best, which is in this case, horribly wrong (no flash is the only way to go beyond about ten feet). Two: compact cameras have small sensors that do a poor job at gathering light compared to SLRs. I struggled with this problem for two years before getting a Canon Rebel XTi last August, and found the following options:

1. Use the largest aperture setting (lowest F number), though this won't be enough alone.
2. Increase your camera's light sensitivity (ISO speed), though this produces grainier photos (digital noise).
3. Use a tripod, hold really still, or brace the camera against a hard surface such as a chair, table, or wall. Get your subjects to hold still too, though this is not an option at a basketball game, of course.
4. If you can't do 3, use image stabilization, though you're out of luck if your camera lacks the feature.
5. Go into manual mode and use a faster shutter speed, deliberately under-exposing your photos, and then brightening them on the computer afterwards. This is a bad option, as it lowers the quality your photos' quality on many levels: shadow detail is lost; posterization and JPEG compression artifacts become noticeable. It won't be so bad if you use RAW mode, but if your camera offers RAW mode, it's probably high-end anyway, and you won't need this kludge.
6. Take three or four photos where you normally would've taken one. You're likely to get one sharp photo, even with a 1/20 shutter speed.
7. Zoom out all the way, because zooming in magnifies camera shake resulting in photos that are more blurry.

Use 1, 2, 3, 6, and 4 (image stabilization) if you have it (but not on a tripod), and you'll have a winning combination. 7 works if you have to balance the camera yourself, but you'll include a lot of clutter and barrel distortion may become noticeable.

For the technical details, use "Sports" mode, or if you have an Aperture Priority mode on your camera, switch to it, raise the ISO speed up to 400, and change the F number to the lowest setting (2.8 on my Canon PowerShot). If the photos are still blurry, raise the ISO speed to 800 (if available), or use a tripod or equivalent.

Even after doing all this, you'll still have the problem of shutter lag. You press the button, and then 2 seconds later, after automagically choosing focus, aperture, shutter speed, white balance, and the flash to use, the camera takes a photo of the empty side of the court. The biggest thing you can do to combat this is to have the camera make these settings in advance, and this is accomplished in almost every camera by pressing the shutter button down half-way, holding it, and then finally pressing it down all the way at the right moment. Keep in mind that your locking in the settings with the half-click, so if you do it on the dimly lit edges of the court and then move to the bright center, you'll get a photo that's too bright, and moving close-to-far or vice-versa will merit an out-of-focus image.

If you're looking for a camera for ambient-light photography, but don't want to invest in a good digital SLR ($460 for the Canon Rebel XT on Amazon.com), the Panasonic Lumix DMC-LZ6S ($120) and Fujifilm FinePix F40fd ($184) are getting good reviews.

If you are going to be using the flash, 7 Strategies for Avoiding Flash Blow Out at Digital Photography School compliments this article.


Keywords: low light, ambient light, lighting, dark, indoors, basketball court, flashless photography on the cheap, sensors, iso speed, shutter lag, how-to, suggestions, digital compacts, digital point-and-shoot cameras, p&s, a beginner's guide

I was reading 5 Reasons to Take Your Camera Everywhere in 2008 over at the Digital Photography School Blog, and it really resonated. You need a camera with you to take any sort of photos—this is a point that is not stressed enough in photography guides and classes. I've produced my best work on outings not intended for photography: Sky of Fire, Two of Us Against the World, and Sky's Camouflage, for example. The article is good, but I want to add eight tips so that once you have your camera with you, you're ready to use it:

1. Leave the SLR at home. Get a small point-and-shoot (P&S) camera so you aren't loaded down. Make sure shutter lag is slim to nil; the venerable Canon PowerShot A620 (photos) has been in my pocket since 2006, though it's harder to come by as its gone out of production.

2. Keep one, versatile lens. While this contradicts the above tip, there are some situations where you'll need an SLR. P&S's aren't typically suited for low-light, so if you're out in the evening or anywhere indoors, where P&S's can't work with the ambient light, take an SLR and a fast lens. My choice for such situations is the Canon EF 50mm f1.4 (photos); open the aperture and crank up the ISO speed, and you'll be able to hand-hold without a flash even for night-time street photography. Then there is bright mid-day, where a slower, zoom lens will be your best bet. I still use the Canon Rebel XTi kit lens (photos); it's a good start for wide-angle photography and produces sharp photos at f/8.

3. Drop the camera bag. While a bag for your lenses is acceptable (though picking one lens will save weight), your camera needs to be at the ready for baby Lucy to skip through those mud puddles. I'd never be quick enough to get this shot with my camera cooped up in a cozy bag. If you have a P&S, stow it in your pocket, or sling an SLR around your neck.

4. Freshly charged batteries are a must. Murphy's law states that your batteries will fail just when you need them the most.

5. Have space for 100 photos on your memory card. While you may not capture that many brilliant photos, you won't have time to swab the decks when that seagull grabs the fish, or those clouds form your Aunt Mary's face. With the burst modes on modern cameras producing three photos a second, you'll want plenty of temporary space for crazed snapping.

6. Set your camera. That 15-second exposure with tungsten white balance won't cut it for a spontaneous afternoon portrait. Set your ISO speed, white balance, and flash preferences, then choose your aperture or shutter speed in the priority modes, and have the camera take care of the rest. If you've forgotten to do this, dial in Auto mode real quick for that fleeting Kodak moment; sub-optimal results are better than an over-exposed, blue mess. Use RAW mode for editing leeway, though note that the larger file sizes will slow you down from shot-to-shot.

7. Brace yourself. Blurry photos of your precious moments are no fun. Turn up the shutter speed as much as you can; the same as your lens' focal length at minimum (i. e. 1/50 second for the EF 50mm f1.4, or 1/80 on the XTi because of the crop factor). Hold still, keep the viewfinder glued to your face, and support the lens barrel with your other hand while you click three shots, then delete all but the sharpest. If you have a P&S, don't keep it at arm's length as you'll shake the camera more.

8. Turn off auto-focus. Even on SLRs, auto-focus causes the biggest delays from click-to-shoot. If your subjects will be consistently far from your camera, lock in the focus and switch to manual mode, then enjoy the lightning-fast shutter lag.

Photography is as much about skill as it is being in the right place at the right time. When those picture-perfect moments pop up, be sure to have your camera at the ready.


This article at my blog: Brilliant Photography by Richard X. Thripp.


Keywords: cameras, ideas, photography, prepared, quick, spontaneous, tips