Category: Photography

…is me getting into the new toys at Flickr. Now you can print, have a book made, stamps, or burn a DVD of your photos. This, now, is a very, very good business model–something extremely tangible AND something made with Web 2.0 technologies. I feel so with it and ubber cool. Or is that über, cool.

I’ve set the settings so that others can print any of the photos. Now you can have stamps made from Burningbird photos. You, too, can be über cool.

I am curious though how good the prints will be. I, of course, have to try this new technology. Being a geek. And all.

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

I’m not usually driven to ‘want’ when reading about this gadget or that. I don’t have an iPod, and don’t have one on my wishlist. I have enough camera for my needs (D70) and a very nice printer and several lenses so I’m fine there. My smallish TV/DVD combo works , as does my portable stereo; oh, and my Kitchenaide Mixer, which will live longer than me.

But I have to admit to a wistful wanting when I read this Guardian article about the new Power Mac and especially the Aperture software, to work with RAW images.

It’s not that I can’t process photos on my TiBook; it’s that it’s becoming increasingly difficult to manage. I have 512MB of RAM, and a line down the monitor, a cracked shell, and a battery that easily disconnects. The screen is getting marked and fuzzy, and I only have 18GB of hard drive. When you take 1GB of photos at a time, 18GB becomes very small, very quickly.

I could use my PC more, and am contemplating it, but I like the Mac. I like the Unix underneath the glam.

It would be nice to have a really good machine again — top of the line with loads of space and memory and the most recent software. But I can make do with what I have. I have Neo and OpenOffice on my Mac, and OpenOffice on my PC (dual boot with Ubuntu and Windows 2000). I also have Gimp on my PC and Photoshop CS on my Mac. I have CD burners for both, and CDs are cheap now. My scanner is excellent, and I have two good film cameras. I haven’t exhausted all the possibilities of all the software I do have, to add more. I haven’t exhausted my capabilities on both machines.

Come to think on it, how we use our machines is somewhat like how we use our brains: we don’t use either to their fullest capacity. Increasing the use of one could extend and increase the use of the other.

Still, it is fun to indulge in a little wishful wanting now and again. I wonder if Aperture can work on my machine?

I wanted to thank Daniel Mosquin for his kind words about my photographs, and also take this opportunity to point to his Botany Photo of the Day site. It’s really a terrific site to explore. In fact, I was exploring it, via Tim Bray when I had a note from Daniel, asking if I minded if he linked my Botanical Garden photo set.

It is a small, small world. With lots of pretty plants.