25 June 2003 23:19 [link]
stormy weather
Mild worry this evening when I turned on the news to hear that there were severe storms and tornados in Minnesota.
When storms are bad enough that they get mentioned over here, and you've got family living in the area, you're allowed to worry. I called Sara's sister, and she said they'd lost power for a while, and the dog was in a state of abject and voluble terror, but they were otherwise OK. I called her parents and got their answerphone (since they were still at work); I suppose if the answerphone works then the house must be intact.
Channel 4000's report includes the paragraph
In South Dakota, a spokesman for the governor used similar words ["virtually levelled"] to describe the storm-ravaged eastern town of Manchester, where homes and buildings were destroyed and streets were torn up. But no injuries are reported. It's not clear if a tornado caused the damage.
"It's not clear if a tornado caused the damage"? They have storms that aren't even tornados which tear up streets? They do have a better class of severe weather over there.
(Some of the worst damage was in Buffalo Lake, MN, where the Zion Lutheran Church was badly damaged. I have no idea if they're insured against acts of God.)
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25 June 2003 18:22 [link]
street photo examples
Rummaging in the few photos I've scanned and put online, I've found a few examples I think of as "street photos".
People in transit in airports, people in shopping centres. But they're all back-of-the-head shots. No faces.
Some are rather obviously shot from the hip, others less so.
I did find one example where I've got faces in shot, but I think my finger features more strongly in that one.
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25 June 2003 17:06 [link]
street photography
I'm not actually much of a street photographer. Candid isn't something I can quite get to grips with. I can't get over the embarrassment of taking someone's photo without their permission.
The sort of "general street scene" type photography is OK, it's just the shots of people. I feel like I'm intruding. And I always expect them to see me and get annoyed. Take umbrage. Destroy my camera.
I would feel stupid using the device suggested in one book I read: a dummy lens, containing a real lens and a mirror so that you could take photos at right angles to the direction you're facing in.
Shooting from the hip helps, but you're just guessing composition really. Fine for lomographs but it's not really going to give you classically good results, except through luck. Digital cameras can help with this, of course, since relying on luck has no significant financial impact.
I don't own a digital camera.
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25 June 2003 11:38 [link]
candid?
Matt's Kentish Town photos made me think of the BBC News article detailing some of the camera-phone-induced panic in other countries.
Italy is notable:
In mid-March the Italian information commissioner, which oversees the ways that companies and individuals use data they collect about other people, issued regulations setting out what people can do with camera phones.
The rules only allow images of people to be snapped for personal use, demand that the images be kept safe and require users to tell people if the image they have taken of them will appear online.
(The article also refers to the wonderfully named, but rather Orwellian-sounding, "Commission for Promoting Virtue and Preventing Vice" in Saudi Arabia.)
Although I appreciate the sentiment behind all this, it seems to be the thin end of the wedge. Because what's the difference between a camera phone and an unobtrusively-wielded digital camera? Or a regular camera?
The art of street photography would be crippled. I can't go running down the street to tell the man I've just photographed that I'll be scanning the image and posting it on the internet, nor would I wish to stand up and announce to a crowd "I have taken your photographs, and I have a web site".
Perhaps I'm over-reacting. I hope I am.
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