I have tried to go for a walk every day, to enjoy the spring which is advancing despite the cool weather. There are new wonders to be found all the time.
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
Wonder of spring
Monday, May 2, 2011
The affordability of cameras
I'm writing of two kinds of affordability here. And as I'm trying to learn to use my Nokia E7, I'm quoting the dictionary there: "afford: 1) to be able to spend money, time etc. on something; 2) to be able to do something without causing oneself trouble, difficulty etc."
As an example of the first kind of affordability, Markus found a really good price for the Panasonic LX3: 254 euro including postage. That is quite a deal. Here in Finland the best I have seen is 336 euro. Markus bought a really good camera for that price!
Of the second kind of affordability (which is related to the term "usability" but not quite the same) I had today an interesting experience.
I was taking a photograph of some flowers (see the last photograph above), and I had an intensive feeling that it was not me but the camera which was taking the photograph. Or rather, it seemed as if I and the camera were one being, and the camera part of that being was taking a photograph.
This fits nicely to the discussion about abstract vs. real found in the book Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art by Scott McCloud, which I mentioned yesterday. Namely, human beings use very simple models of themselves and the devices they use. For example, when we ride a bicycle, we don't use a model including all the hundreds of little details - instead, we rely on a cartoon-like model of the bicycle, which is enough for us to control it.
As a sidenote, this brought to mind Andreas and his excellent photographs of bicycles - and a specific posting on the character of bicycles: "Yes, bicycles may be sad, they may be lonely, but most of the time they are very cool toon characters showing off the Roger Rabbit way." - Bicycles and comics really go together!
McCloud also mentions our own faces as an example of a simple model (or high abstraction). When we see other people smile, we see lots of details, all kinds of wrinkles etc. But how do we know that we ourselves smile when we don't see our own face? Here also an abstraction applies - we use a very simple (cartoon-like) model of our face to know what emotions we are showing.
In addition to making simple models (abstraction), we also identify with the tools we use. For example, if we are driving a car and someone hits us from behind with they car, we may think "He hit me!" instead of "His car hit my car."
Coming back to photography, being able to make a simple model of the camera - that is, to abstract it - and to identify oneself with the camera may be something every photographer needs to do. At least this is what I'm doing.
And this is also why the affordability of a camera (second meaning above) is important: the camera must allow the abstraction to occur and also not break (at least too easily) our identification with the device.
As an example, for me the automatic preview of a photograph on the LCD breaks the identification immediately - I guess this is because that is a thing which never happens with our eyes. And this is also why I want to be in control when taking photographs: aperture priority and none of that fancy "intelligent automation" for me, please.
Sunday, May 1, 2011
Garbage, snow, orienteering, comics
We had active weather also today, in an even drastic form: in addition to sushine and rain, we got a little bit of snow as well. And hard wind.
Yesterday I wrote about people throwing garbage on the roadside, but it seems that there are also opposing forces: the Green Earth society will organize a campaign on May 6th to clean up Finland. This sounds good!
I have continued learning the Nokia E7 phone. One of the good points is the map service, which so far has mostly worked all right, although right at the beginning I was quite confused by the user interface. But it works, and it is in fact quite nice to be able to look at where you are when you are out in the forests on a walk.
But even though the satellite map shows some indication where you are, a real orienteering map would be much better in a forest. However, it seems that those are not easily available, at least not in a systematic way.
Coming back to photography, or at least the visual arts, I'm currently reading Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art by Scott McCloud. This is a comic book about comic books as an art form, and McCloud explains the details of how comics work - clearly, deeply, humorously.
And this book also provides something to think about for a photographer, for example the topic of abstract vs. realistic. It is fascinating that as human beings we know ourselves in the abstract whereas we see other people in plenty of realistic detail.
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