The Canon Tax
I see that Adobe have just started letting folks who have ordered Photoshop CS5 start downloading it. And here, just today, I installed PS CS4 on my newly upgraded to Snow Leopard Mac Pro. I am clearly behind the times. I suppose I’ll have to budget for paying the Adobe tax in the not so distant future, unless I can figure some way out of the Photoshop trap.
A more urgent need, though, is my need to pay the Canon Tax.
Once again, those evil bastards at Canon have used their remote mind examination ray and peered into the recesses of my brain. The result, alas, is that they’ve introduced (some while ago, actually) the Canon EF 24mm TS-E II and the Canon EF 17mm TS-E. I’ve mentioned both of those lenses before. Just recently, though, I had a chance to use a rented 17mm TS-E.
It was, in a word, awesome. Somehow or other, I need to make sure that from now on, when I go into theatres, this lens is in my bag (or in Bill’s bag). It’s an amazing lens. It’s an incredible optical performer.
This throw the harsh light on my current 24mm TS-E, which is the old model. Compared to the new model, it’s a slouch. I suspect that in the not very distant future I’ll sell the old one and buy the new one.
Canon tax. I would hate it, but they just keep offering stuff that’s better and better. I can sometimes resist the siren call to upgrade, but both of these are enough of a leap that I’m probably past the point of no return already.
upgrade
Well, it might not be wise, but I’m in the process of upgrading all our computers to Snow Leopard. First up is the Mac Pro, on which I do all photo work. I have just a few more things to do to get it all done, although I’ve not yet tackled getting printing working. That may be the big hurdle, I don’t know.
To my amazement, getting Photoshop and InDesign activated went without a hitch.
Untitled
We’ve had these plastic chairs for a long time, now – I’m pretty sure they’re at least 20 years old. They’re sort of ratty but part of the reason I don’t throw them out is that I love the way they look in diffuse light. I have no idea of how many photographs of them I’ve made – hundreds, I’m sure.
And I’m a complete sucker for these green hoses. They’re common as dirt; I see them everywhere, and I’m powerless to resist the siren call of the strange green color contrasted against whatever the hose is on.
Feeling the SoFoBoMo love
I’ve got a number of emails asking about why I’m not constantly posting about SoFoBoMo as it approaches, as I did in 2008 and 2009. Short answer: I want my blog to be my stuff, and I want all the SoFoBoMo stuff to move over to www.sofobomo.org.
A number of folks have mentioned that they’re not feeling the SoFoBoMo love this year the way they did last year. And, of course, last year a number of folks mentioned that they didn’t feel the love the way they did the first year.
Well, I have good news on both fronts. That good news is the new SoFoBoMo website. Beyond the functionality of what we had last year, we actually *listened* to what people said they wanted, and this year there’s a discussion forum where you can both receive the SoFoBoMo love that you’re missing, and you can share the SoFoBoMo love you’re harboring that everyone else is missing.
To top it off, we’ve got another new feature – a section of the website where we’re planning to have lots of helpful info on software, page layout, good books to look at, PDF creation, PDF size control – all the stuff you need to know about to be successful and complete a book for this year’s SoFoBoMo. What’s that? You say you already know that stuff? Well, navigate over there, take a look at what we’re doing, and figure out a way to share your knowledge by contributing what you know, both in the forum and as a volunteer building the wiki.
In other words, if you’re here hoping to catch some SoFoBoMo buzz, you’re in the wrong place. Navigate over to www.sofobomo.org, and help make SoFoBoMo 2010 a big success for folks all around the world. SoFoBoMo continues to be an all volunteer operation, and we want to make it as good as we can, and that means we need your support.
An awful lot of photographs
I very much enjoy About Last Night, a blog written by (among others) Terry Teachout. One of the recent entries consisted of the following quote, which I like quite a lot:
“The way to determine whether you have talent is to rummage through your files and see if you have written anything; if you have, and quite a lot, then the chances are you have the talent to write more. If you haven’t written anything, you do not have the talent because you don’t want to write. Those who do can’t help themselves.”
George V. Higgins, On Writing
I don’t much care for the word talent, for reasons I’ve covered here before. But if we take this usage to mean “you are likely to be successful”, I think that the quotation seems pretty much on the mark. What’s more, I think it generalizes well. Look at your files. If they include quite a lot of photographs, then you’ll probably meet with success as a photographer.
All this reminds me of a wonderful ad that delighted me many years ago. Data General, a smallish company that built minicomputers, ran an ad that announced their plan to sell a lot of their minicomputers, and went on to say “Because if you’re going to make a small inexpensive computer you have to sell a lot of them to make a lot of money. And we intend to make a lot of money.”
I bought the M9 because I’m hoping that having a camera close at hand pretty much all the time will mean I’ll take an awful lot of photographs, because if you want to reap the rewards of photography, you have to make an awful lot of photographs. And I intend to reap the rewards of photography, even if my rewards might not look much like the rewards everyone else seems to want.
We are such stuff as dreams are made on
Prospero’s words, from Act 4 scene 1 of Shakespeare’s The Tempest, one of my most favorite plays:
Our revels now are ended. These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits and
Are melted into air, into thin air:
And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capp’d towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.
update: just in case it isn’t clear on some displays, the camera-left plaque reads “We are such stuff as dreams are made on.” Jeanne, Kathy, Annie, Patti, Josie. I have no idea who these people are, but I’m immensely grateful for their support for theatre.
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