Photography

The camera never lies.

odds and ends, new and old

Bob PageLeave a comment

So, the Strata conference was good, and my talk was pretty well received.  Work got in the way of me hanging out at the conference for the whole three days, but I did spend about a day and some change meeting lots of smart people (including a lot of ex-Yahooers) and taking in some talks.  It’s a very different vibe from eMetrics – that’s not a judgment, just an observation.  Much more technical and “hands-on” in nature – a lot of it reminded me of eMetrics 2006, with a focus on tools and technologies.  If you missed it, or want to relive it, you can find Strata 2011 Speaker Slides & Videos.

One personal highlight was chatting with Duncan Davidson, who is doing a lot of photography for O’Reilly events (and many others .. check out his site).  The kick was that he and I were in a Palo Alto community photography class with about a dozen other people back in … oh, 2002ish maybe?  And now look at him: a pro photographer, living the dream…

Tonight I did something both humbling and inspiring at the same time.  I read my own blog.  Like, all of it.  There’s not a lot to read, really, until you reach back to 2005.  There’s now lots of missing images and busted links. Such is the web, I guess.  But the experience was inspiring because I found myself on several occasions thinking “wow!  that was well said!  Did I really say that?” and then followed by “Hmm, I don’t think I’m that smart any more.”   Perhaps blogging is like exercising – if you don’t use the muscle, it atrophies?

Speaking of busted links.  Back when the web was black and white with blue links, I had some content on my old neato.org site, wherein I poked at a few sound and video devices to reveal their secrets.  Various nooks and crannies of the web still have pointers to that material, and still get the occasional email asking if I have the content around somewhere and can I please put it back up?  So over the weekend, I did.

odds and ends, new and old

Palm, Apple and the language of imagery

Bob Page5 Comments

D1A3B2D7-372F-46DD-AEBD-D03D2A729DB8.jpg
Dear Sprint –

Congrats on the launch of the Palm Pre. I was previously a Sprint customer and have used various Palm devices, but I stopped being a customer of both quite some time ago. Maybe the Palm Pre is an amazing device, I dunno. I hope it is.

But when I saw this ad in the newspaper, I thought — what’s the imagery trying to communicate here? Why does the Palm Pre need Apple to support it? Like the Pre needs a crutch of some kind. Is it not possible for the Pre to stand on its own?

And hey — using the product-on-white-background-with-reflection image that Apple has made so au courant? I think that’s pure marketing genius but I’m not sure.

But really, the chewed up apple is still standing, holding up the Pre. What are we supposed to be thinking here?

Respectfully,

Bob

Palm, Apple and the language of imagery

Competition and Responsiveness

Bob Page3 Comments

When Apple’s Aperture arrived, it was the first tool especially aimed at photographers with extensive photo management needs. While praised for its vision, photographers were frustrated that support for new cameras took such a long time, seemingly requiring updates to Mac OS itself. In the meantime, Adobe’s Photoshop Lightroom offered quick support for new camera models, and it was one of the reasons many photographers switched over to Lightroom.

Now with the release of Mac OS X 10.5.2, and perhaps due to updates to iPhoto and Aperture, Apple is able to push new camera support much quicker than before:
Software Update

Would we be seeing this kind of turnaround on new cameras without competition from Adobe? Hard to say — but it’s clear that Apple heard the cries of its market and responded.

Competition and Responsiveness