New interview about photography

The site DearSusan (the title refers to Susan Sontag, who wrote a classic book about photography) has interviewed me about photography.

[Pascal] What’s your point of view on gear ? Does it matter to you or are you not interested ?
[Eolake] I love gear.
Many artists of any medium have often been very interested in tools and how they get, and use, the best, to best express themselves.
On the other hand, one can also buy a simple, but good camera, and only work with that for years with everything set to automatic, and possibly do excellent work. (Though it greatly helps to know well the limitations of that particular camera, and the limitations of automation!)

12 Quiet Rituals of Enormously Successful Humans

"12 Quiet Rituals of Enormously Successful Humans", article.

This is some of the best advice I have ever seen collected in one article.

There is an important hole in the ereader market

Here is an article on my e-reader blog containing a petition to Amazon for making a compact e-reader.

This, to me, this is about right sized, 5.5-6 inch screen and thin bezel.  There is a hole in the market between normal phones, which have too-small screens, and e-readers, almost all of which are too large to hold comfortably for long with one hand.

This is a Nokia Lumia 1520. I got it for the screen size, but to my delightful surprise the camera is at least as good as the famous Lumia 1020!

The Power of Quiet

The Free Slackers

Is this really street legal?...

Lawnmower racing

I watched a funny episode of King of the Hill, where Hank entered a lawnmower race. Good show. And of course they made fun of the the slow speed which lawnmowers supposedly can get up to.
But I looked it up, and I would say maybe they hadn't done their research, for these suckers get up to a good clip! I pity anybody who'd get in the way of one driving at full speed.

I would have bet that this originated in the US, but it seems it's a British invention.

"Dreamwalking Barcelona"

Dreamwalking Barcelona from Brandon Li on Vimeo.

An avian engineer?

[Thanks to Bert]

I've never heard of anything like this. I've heard that apes will sometimes "use tools", like using a fallen branch to reach a fallen fruit, but a bird carefully making feathers from paper to extend her tail!!?
I wonder if the reasons are cosmetic or aerodynamic.


 Kent sez:
"Actually, that's just how love birds collect nesting material to take back to their nest hollow."

Haha, brilliant. Thanks.

Winners of Person with a Bag photo contest

Winners of Person with a Bag photo contest
The prizes are on the way to the winners.

First prize, a Muzetto bag from Waterfield:

By TC[Girl]

Shared 2nd prize: Roger B

Shared second price: Russ

Runner-up: Merle

Runner-up: Pavel

Runner-up: Alan-D

Urgent: last day for photo contest entry

Today Monday is the last day for photo contest entry.

Entries are fewer than the earlier contests, so your chances are better, enter now!
(You can still enter so long as it's still Monday anywhere on the planet.)

Jon Barry; egrets (herons) mating dance

[Note, don't forget the photo contest, deadline is Monday!]

Photo by my colleague and pal Jon Barry.

OK Go optical tricks video

[Thanks to Bert]

Funny enough, if they did this perfectly, it would be less convincing, because it would look like it was digitally made...



(As usual you can click on the YouTube logo or the Full Screen symbol on lower right to see it larger.)