Shankbone retires his camera Options

[carbuncle]

I certainly hope the pic of Jim Carroll is a very, very bad photo. At least no one (for now) has put that pic in his BLP.

Yes, that photo makes Jim Carroll look like some sort of decrepit junkie.

[tarantino]

I certainly hope the pic of Jim Carroll is a very, very bad photo. At least no one (for now) has put that pic in his BLP.

Yes, that photo makes Jim Carroll look like some sort of decrepit junkie.

The photo in Woody Allen's bio is no better. In addition to his death warmed over appearance, the thumb at the bottom almost looks like someone photoshopped a penis into it.

[EricBarbour]

I certainly hope the pic of Jim Carroll is a very, very bad photo. At least no one (for now) has put that pic in his BLP.

Yes, that photo makes Jim Carroll look like some sort of decrepit junkie.

?? He is a decrepit junkie.....at least, an ex-junkie.
Started on the shit when he was 13.

[Milton Roe]

I certainly hope the pic of Jim Carroll is a very, very bad photo. At least no one (for now) has put that pic in his BLP.

Yes, that photo makes Jim Carroll look like some sort of decrepit junkie.

?? He is a decrepit junkie.....at least, an ex-junkie.
Started on the shit when he was 13.

Look at #5 definition of "geezer"

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=geezer

[Cla68]

What seems clear is that he likes to be around celebrities, whom he probably sees as "power people" or a kind of authority surrogate - this is a common narcissistic trait. What strikes me is that the life of a papparazzi photographer is simply not suited to him - those people are always having to debase themselves, lurking outside of people's homes and hiding in trash cans and the like, following people into tunnels while riding on motorcycles, etc., etc. What he needs is a way to maintain access and proximity to the famous and fabulous folks of the world without requiring an excuse or an ID badge of dubious legitimacy.

He might like it in Japan where visiting Western celebrities often go out at night in Roppongi without their entourage or security teams and are usually very approachable. It's so common that some of my friends who hung out in Roppongi a lot got to the point where they didn't even pay much attention to it if some band like U2 or actor like Robert DeNiro was sitting at the other end of the bar.

I guess, though, if I were younger I would have been interested in using a Wikinews press pass to attend some of those celebrity events just to see what it was like. Anyway, Milton's advice on using a "softer" flash is something I might look into, because I'm always interested myself in improving the quality of the pictures I take.

[Somey]

I guess, though, if I were younger I would have been interested in using a Wikinews press pass to attend some of those celebrity events just to see what it was like.

It's basically a gauntlet of photographers, isn't it? There's actually a movie called [i]Jiminy Glick in Lalawood[/url] that might give you a decent idea of what such events are like, though of course it's kind of a silly parody, and not particularly worth seeing for any other reason.

Standing in the gauntlet may or may not have been a pleasant experience for him, but IMO the real achievement from Shanky's perspective was getting the Wikinews "press pass" validated in the first place. Few people would have gone to that much trouble, and many would have felt like they risked embarrassment to even try it. I suspect that's the real reason he feels unrecognized (and is therefore upset) now.

I'd be surprised if the Tribeca Film Festival allows just anybody to stand in the gauntlet (hard to say though, since their Press Credentials page doesn't give any detail on it). However, I think we can at least safely assume that if anyone asked, he most likely told them he represented "Wikipedia," and either didn't mention Wikinews at all, or just mentioned it as an "offshoot."

[carbuncle]

I certainly hope the pic of Jim Carroll is a very, very bad photo. At least no one (for now) has put that pic in his BLP.

Yes, that photo makes Jim Carroll look like some sort of decrepit junkie.

?? He is a decrepit junkie.....at least, an ex-junkie.
Started on the shit when he was 13.

I guess it really is necessary for me to include smileys when I'm making a joke...

[Kelly Martin]

I have seen a few people who have "the eye" and can be taught in less than an hour. They automatically frame, pay attention to foreground, medium and background, composition, overcontrast, and so on. Some of this is hard to teach somebody who doesn't have the "eye." It's like teaching painting.

I am a mediocre photographer (some of my work, for good or bad, is on flickr, and you can ask me for the link if you're interested; there's also some in Commons), and yet most of it is both better than virtually all of Shanker's crap, as well as better than most of the crap on Wikipedia.

Getting good photographs of subjects who aren't actively trying to be photographed is hard.

[taiwopanfob]

Standing in the gauntlet may or may not have been a pleasant experience for him, but IMO the real achievement from Shanky's perspective was getting the Wikinews "press pass" validated in the first place. Few people would have gone to that much trouble, and many would have felt like they risked embarrassment to even try it. I suspect that's the real reason he feels unrecognized (and is therefore upset) now.

Ding! Whatever the quality of his work, he got off his ass and tried. The rest of them just want to sit at their terminals and maintain their Experience Points at their favorite MMORPG.

A lot of that could be solved by burning-in some of those over-exposed areas.

I'm sorry, but You Don't Know What You Are Talking About™. I suggest you try to take a few photographs yourself before passing on 'advice'...

[A Horse With No Name]

Ding! Whatever the quality of his work, he got off his ass and tried. The rest of them just want to sit at their terminals and maintain their Experience Points at their favorite MMORPG.

I agree -- it is better to rush out and create third-rate works of endless mediocrity instead of taking the time to correctly learn your trade and doing the job in a professional manner. Or something like that.

[Milton Roe]

A lot of that could be solved by burning-in some of those over-exposed areas.

I'm sorry, but You Don't Know What You Are Talking About™. I suggest you try to take a few photographs yourself before passing on 'advice'...

He means "dodging in" overexposed areas (you burn in underexposed areas). But that was back in the days of the dinosaurs when people actually made prints on a projector and table (not easy for color, but I once did it for B&W prints taken through a red filter, ala Ansel Adams).

For color, Dah Compuuuter and digital image processing has made all that obsolete. Not that you can entirely compensate for bad exposure even so....

[taiwopanfob]

Cheap trick: You can buy battery-powered slave flashes that are both radio and photocell controlled. The second type, which are pocket-sized, work with any type flash camera (even a cheap one), and so long as you're the only one taking flash photos, can turn a mediocre flash shot into a professional-looking one (depending on where you place them). They can provide indirect lighting, bounce-lighting, extra diffuse stuff, etc. You just place them about your subject out of frame, turn down the zorch on your primary flash, and away you go. I've got cheap slave-flash shots that look like they were done with a whole umbrella setup and studio.

In the the environment in which Shakers was working the above isn't really feasible. Even if the organizers permitted it, no one is going to lay out an array of flashes, radio triggers, and such.

The man mainly needs longer, faster lenses and a camera with larger pixels. But that is truly serious money.

This post has been edited by taiwopanfob: Thu 23rd July 2009, 3:10pm

[Kelly Martin]

It's true that you'll never learn to become a good photographer if you don't get out there and take pictures. However, it's not enough to go out there and take pictures; you also have to look at them afterward critically, and learn from your successes and your failures.

The Wikipedia environment does not provide useful feedback toward this: the Featured Picture cabal has idiotic standards for quality that are difficult to meet and have very little to do with actual photographic quality; outside of that particular land of stupid the evaluatory metric is weighted so heavily on the licensing question (which is completely irrelevant from a quality standpoint) that an aspiring photographer who uploads content to Wikipedia is actually more likely to receive damaging feedback than helpful feedback, in the sense of using that feedback to improve their skill.

[Kelly Martin]

In the the environment in which Shakers was working the above isn't really feasible. Even if the organizers permitted it, no one is going to lay out an array of flashes, radio triggers, and such.

Even holding a flash in your off hand over your head and off to the side will improve the quality of many shots by providing some off-axis lighting. (The problem with integral camera flashes is that they only provide on-axis lighting.) I've done with with one of my flashes, which has a photoelectric slaving option.

The man mainly needs longer, faster lenses and a camera with larger pixels. But that is truly serious money.

Nah, he needs to learn how to compose shots, and how to discard crap. That's got nothing to do with the camera. No quantity, or quality, of equipment can substitute for the skill of the photographer.

[taiwopanfob]

In the the environment in which Shakers was working the above isn't really feasible. Even if the organizers permitted it, no one is going to lay out an array of flashes, radio triggers, and such.

Even holding a flash in your off hand over your head and off to the side will improve the quality of many shots by providing some off-axis lighting. (The problem with integral camera flashes is that they only provide on-axis lighting.) I've done with with one of my flashes, which has a photoelectric slaving option.

Yes. However, I prefer using flash brackets.

The man mainly needs longer, faster lenses and a camera with larger pixels. But that is truly serious money.

Nah, he needs to learn how to compose shots, and how to discard crap. That's got nothing to do with the camera. No quantity, or quality, of equipment can substitute for the skill of the photographer.

Well, I tried to separate his earnestness from his quality. The man clearly has the balls for the job of a photojournalist. But it is also true, as you say, he needs a lesson in how to use the delete button on the camera and general editorial restraint. But then again, Wikipedia/Commons arguably needs to learn to delete crap on sight. What does hoarding it forever accomplish?

But the equipment I recommended would make the output far better -- once the delete-button starts to get used! The long, fast, lenses blur out the background (which emphasizes the subject), and you don't need to hammer poor target with as much flash. Timing and basic composition is something that will come with practice.

This post has been edited by taiwopanfob: Thu 23rd July 2009, 4:11pm

[sbrown]

a camera with larger pixels.

Do you mean more pixels?

[Kevin]

a camera with larger pixels.

Do you mean more pixels?

Larger pixels collect more light, have higher dynamic range and have lower noise in poor light. More pixels is mostly marketing crap.

[grievous]

A lot of that could be solved by burning-in some of those over-exposed areas.

I'm sorry, but You Don't Know What You Are Talking About™. I suggest you try to take a few photographs yourself before passing on 'advice'...

He means "dodging in" overexposed areas (you burn in underexposed areas). But that was back in the days of the dinosaurs when people actually made prints on a projector and table (not easy for color, but I once did it for B&W prints taken through a red filter, ala Ansel Adams).

For color, Dah Compuuuter and digital image processing has made all that obsolete. Not that you can entirely compensate for bad exposure even so....

I assure you I'm using my terms correctly. "Burning in" comes from old-school dark room techniques where you expose parts of the paper for a longer period of time to darken parts of the picture that were over-exposed on the negative. I understand how in this day of digital photography this can be confusing, but Photoshop has a brush that does this and happens to be called "Burn in."

Shankers has expressed disdain about having to "Photoshop" pictures to improve their quality. This only exposes how much of an amateur he is. Any photographer worth their salt, professional or otherwise, knows that framing the shot and snapping the shutter button is the easy part. The art is done in post-processing.

[anthony]

Shankers has expressed disdain about having to "Photoshop" pictures to improve their quality. This only exposes how much of an amateur he is. Any photographer worth their salt, professional or otherwise, knows that framing the shot and snapping the shutter button is the easy part. The art is done in post-processing.

I can't completely agree with this in all situations, but anyone who takes a posed shot on a red carpet using the auto-flash and then gets a stick up his ass about cleaning up the glare from that flash can't be taken seriously.

Start out with contradictory goals and you're guaranteed to fail.

[Kelly Martin]

Start out with contradictory goals and you're guaranteed to fail.

And yet Wikipedia is still here.