tim merritt [dot] net

Shorpy posts vintage photos, with good quality and detail. Make sure to click through and look closely at the full-sized image. This is wonderful. My maternal grandmother, whom I am so happy to say I came to know pretty well, was about 2 years old in 1902—though living in Paris at the time. Having known her gives me a less remote feeling of connection to historical scenes like this; a person I spoke with regularly, as an adult, was alive in this world of horses, hats, Victorian dresses, and nascent automobiles.

Via

Here are inks to several photo albums I posted from the first part of our trip to California.

At the Wagner’s

July 1st

Party on July 3rd

July 4th

Descanso Gardens

The Getty Museum

Update – I’m changing these links gradually. The first albums I linked to used Flash, and I prefer a different method. I hope to have all of the links to the new type of galleries finished soon. Right now the only updates are for the 3rd of July album and the Getty album.

I’ve spent most of the morning photographing flowers and other plants here in Descanso Gardens in La Cañada Flintridge west of Pasadena. Lovely; I’m grateful for this beauty, for the opportunity to see it and make photographs of it. A small snap below, with the promise of a gallery of more to come:

Just shot some photos of a small coyote in Descanso Gardens. Will post the best (!?) one soonest.

Twice a day for nearly twelve years, Ive seen this view looking north walking between work and the train station. I like this view… though I still dont think the Coke sign adds anything worth seeing. For one thing, the clock has been wrong since the rest of us sprang forward about two months ago.

In concert at St. Bartholomew Episcopal Church. Renaissance and modern choral works, sung with beauty and real appreciation. A lovely concert.

Outside the Montag freshman dorm on the campus of Georgia Tech, 11:03 this morning.

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Peachtree Street at Upper Wall Street, 11:36 a.m.

The Beauty Of Street Photography | Inspiration | Smashing Magazine

Though some are too obviously staged for my taste, many are wonderful and inspiring.

Jott is pretty cool, I am calling my iPhone right now and if everything works on you will be _ on my blog. well, I am impressed if it works. listen

Powered by Jott

Update: This was posted within about a minute after I called it in. The missing words should read “you will be reading this on my blog.” Overall, this is very impressive, and the service is free. Now to set it up and test it on DV for Teachers.

Things you never thought you could do with your camera | MetaFilter

Yow – apparently amazing things can be done with a hacked Canon point and shoot.

This slide show at the New York Times shows the immediacy of Capa’s work, and explains why this is a huge find in the world of photography. I’ve always been drawn to photojournalism and street photography, less to the more obviously contrived fashion and fine art. Capa’s work is important, and not among my favorites, but deserves its high esteem. It will be interesting to see if the negatives resolve the questions about The Falling Soldier.

Via PopUrls.com, 60 Advanced Photoshop Tutorials – Top Web Resources. I love Photoshop tutorials. The more I learn about Photoshop the more I love it.

Eric posts a photo a day of Paris. We’ll have to meet him when we go back!

It’s shortly before the post-lunch session on day 3 of the conference. I have learned a lot, have a book of workshop handouts as bigg as a phone book, and there’s much more to come. Among the important things I’ve learned here: shoot a lot; shoot RAW if possible, thought JPEG isn’t filthy awful rotten if that’s all you have; there are several subtle techniques for sharpening detail and correcting exposure; there several others for processing to black and white; carry your camera all the time (note that I haven’t shot a single frame here, though I have experimented on several from Grand Canyon and Avignon, which I may upload tonight rather than attend evening sessions); print print print; and much more.

My principal conclusion from this is to think like an artist as much as possible rather than thinking like a technician, and to foster that I need to practice technically with the camera rather than at the computer. By that I mean I need to use the computer for evaluating the work rather than endless noodling with Photoshop.

To that end, I’m trying to spend most of my remaining time here listening to photographers as they discuss their work rather than cramming in more adjustment layer tips that are recorded in the handout tome. This session is by Rick Sammon.

Ellen and I are in the Air France arrivals lounge after a remarkably good flight. Business class is all it’s cracked up to be. The French keyboard on this iMac is quite different from the American layout. Odd. I hve to use the shift key to type a period, the a and q keys are switched, and other peculiarities.

Updates will be rare, as internet access is not assured for the rest of the trip. Count on many photos, however, when we get home, and exhaustive reports about food and wine (and hangovers, probably).

A bientot.