Thomas is a professional fine art photographer and writer specialising in photography related instructional books as well as travel writing and street photography.
All in Editorial
While Nikon may have had the big photographic announcements at CES this year, in my opinion, the more exciting news came from Kodak. Yes, Kodak, remember them? Kodak announced that they’re creating a new super 8 film camera. The new camera and service will blend digital and film technologies, and seeks to capitalise on the analogue resurgence. As someone’s who’s shot Super 8 in the past, I for one am very excited about this.
I knew something wasn't right. My computer, a 2012 Mac Pro, had suddenly decided to go slow. Not just slow, but slow in a very specific way. It was like it was stopping to think every few seconds. It was something that was eerily familiar. I'd seen this before, and I hoped the cause wasn't the same, but I knew in my heart what was happening. My hard drive was failing. Worse, it was my system drive.
This past year has been kind of a weird one for me. I achieved a lot of what I had planned for this site, and for my photography career, but I also had some setbacks, both personally and work wise. In this post I'll take a look back at 2015, and talk about some plans and goals for the year ahead.
I read some sad, but not entirely surprising news during the week. It seems that the company that makes Holga cameras is shutting down. I’m not hugely surprised by this. The Holga craze of a few years ago was pretty much killed by Instagram and the iPhone. I only noticed recently how many of the places that used to sell Holga cameras had stopped selling them (in lieu of Fuji Instax cameras).
I’ve been going back and forward about whether or not to write this post. I wanted to say something about the recent horrific events in Paris and yet, I didn’t want it to feel like I was making it about me. But, as Stephen Colbert pointed out on the Late Show, it’s ok to try and find a connection with the city, to show solidarity in whatever form you can. So this is my tribute to Paris. It is what it it. It’s only tenuously about photography, but it’s a subject that I hold dear, as it’s a city I hold dear.
I’m totally blown away by the response to my X-Trans lightroom guide that I published earlier in the week. the response has been amazing, and some of you have sent some lovely kind words of support. It’s the highest volume of traffic my store has seen and it’s been hard just to keep up. So, a sincere thank you to everyone. I really am blown away by the response.
I must confess to being an unashamed Apple fan. I’ve been buying Apple products and following the company’s developments since my first Mac, a PowerPC 7100 (remember them?) It was using a Mac that first got me into using Photoshop and graphics, and without it, probably wouldn’t be doing what I’m doing today. Needless to say then, I’m always interested Apple’s new announcements, and in particular how they relate to my fields of Photography and Design. Last week’s keynotehad lots of exciting potential for Photographers, so I’ll share my thoughts (in a somewhat random order) on these developments and how I feel they may impact photography.
Something occurred to me recently while thinking about photography. You often hear photographers trot out the old trope of “it’s not about the camera, it’s about the photographer” but in many ways that’s not really the whole story either. Another way of looking at it is: “It’s not about the Photographer, it’s about the Image”. Last week, there was a very powerful image in the media, showing once again the importance of photography. The disturbing yet moving photograph of the child’s body washed ashore on the Turkish coastline shocked the world into action, and yet how many people know who the photographer was? Outside of the photographic community, I doubt anyone who is not into photography can name the photographer of that striking image.
One of the interesting things that I've noticed after years of Photography, is that certain types of light act as a sense memory to me. In much the same way that a smell can trigger a memory for many people, I find that seeing a certain quality of light often triggers memories and feelings of nostalgia.
As much as I love mirrorless cameras, there's one thing about the current designs that unfortunately is a bit of a problem for me. The issue is the viewfinder. My problem is not the electronic display itself, but rather the physical design of the viewfinder. Most of the mirrorless cameras that I've used are a real pain to use in bright light if you're a glasses wearer.
A lot of the time when I'm out photographing, I take pictures that, while not exactly the most fascinating subjects, I still like to take. Sometimes, there's something about an otherwise bland scene that I really like, and it's usually to do with the way the light is falling in the scene. Sometimes people don't get what I see in a scene, and that's ok. Not every photo has to be a masterpiece, and not every photo has to be art gallery worthy. Photography is, of course, all about light, and sometimes I love an image because of the way the light interacts with whatever is in the scene.
At the “Spring Forward” event held today in San Francisco which was mainly about the Apple Watch, Apple also announced the new 12" MacBook. The new laptop is a departure from the previous generation of Apple notebooks, and represents the first major departure from the existing designs in quite some time. The new MacBook is not replacing either the MacBook air or the MacBook pro but comes with a Retina Display and is incredibly thin. If you’re a photographer looking for a new laptop the sleek design and retina display of this new model might be tempting. It’s evening here in Dublin and I’ve been mulling over a cup of tea, so I thought I’d share some of the mostly random thoughts I’ve been having about the new notebook.
Recently I had an opportunity to try out a friends Nikon D800 and I’ve been wanting to write about the experience ever since. I realise that the D800 is a few years old now and has been superseded by the D810, but as the camera is selling for quite a reasonable rate second hand now, I thought some people may still be interested. This isn’t going to be a review as such, but rather a personal take on what it was like to use it.
Until this January, if you wanted to sell digital image downloads from your own photography website, and you were based in the EU, it was a relatively simple process. You could host your images on one of the services which offer simple ways to sell downloads to your clients, such as Photoshelter, SmugMug or Zenfolio. However, since the new EU Vat rules came in to effect in January, if you use any of these services to sell images to a customer in the EU, you may be breaking the law. The simple reason is that none of these services support the necessary vat rules.
I want to take a little break from the normal photographic topics for today and relay a personal story. This only has a tenuous link to photography, so please excuse the indulgence, but it's worth a read in my opinion. Last week my wife and I had to move from our home of many years.
On Friday Canon announced the company’s newest DSLR offerings, the much rumoured Eos 5DS and 5DS R cameras. The new versions of Canon’s long running 5D line have been making waves in the photography community for their headline feature, their new 50mp sensor. I won’t go into all the specifications and technical details on the cameras, as that’s been covered in great detail by photography news sites...
It's that time of the year again, when the excitement of the new year is still fresh and I decide to make lots of resolutions for myself that I invariably won't actually keep. Ok, I'm kidding.... well, sort of. I did actually keep some of my resolutions last year, but this time, instead of resolutions as such, I'm setting myself some photography related goals to achieve throughout the year. Most of these are just ideas, that I've jotted down. Even if they never actually happen, it can be helpful to think out loud like this, even if it's just to give yourself some direction.
If there are two longly held axioms in the photography community, at least on the internet, it's that Megapixels don't matter, and Pixel Peeping is something to be frowned upon. I personally disagree with these two ideals to an extent, but in the near future, those who are absolute in their condemnation of of pixel peeping or the merits of more megapixels are going to have to re-think their objections. Soon there will be a very real reason why megapixels matter, and soon, we're all going to be pixel peeping.
