Shawn Rocco’s Cell-Phone Photography

August 29, 2009 | Category: Photographers, Photography Tools | 1 Comment

The New York Times photography blog Lens, has a really interesting collection of cell phone photos by Shawn Rocco, providing further examples that it ain’t the camera, the lighting, or any other special equipment that makes a photo interesting… and in fact, using a simple stripped down camera can sometimes let you get back to pure photography.

His aim is not to win Canon-carrying professionals over to the Motorola E815, already an ancient relic in the constantly churning mobile landscape. Rather, it is to escape — however briefly — what he calls the “megapixelmania” of contemporary photography, in which every aspect can be rigorously and technically controlled.

“It’s a way of preserving my artistic sanity,” Mr. Rocco said.

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The Joy Of Blurry

August 21, 2009 | Category: Art | Comments Off

Not everything has to be sharp all the time. Sometimes it’s interesting just to focus (ha) on shapes and colors that are interesting to you.

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Facebook Will Eat Your Face And Steal Your Soul

August 18, 2009 | Category: Digital Slavery | 1 Comment

I keep reading disturbing things about Facebook lately… like their being sued for violation of privacy laws… that have made me skittish enough that I’ve decided against using the service to promote my photography… or even participate in it in any meaningful way.

I did some research and discovered the following information:

1. Facebook makes it difficult to completely delete your account. While it will allow you to disable your account… your information, photos, videos, etc is still stored on their servers and will only be deleted permanently by “special request“. This feature was added after user complaints and a story in the New York Times and really… what proof do you have that your request has actually been followed through on? None really.

2. Facebook can decide that you haven’t given them enough information about yourself. From their terms of service. “We may use information about you that we collect from other sources, including but not limited to newspapers and Internet sources such as blogs, instant messaging services and other users of Facebook, to supplement your profile.” Gosh. How creepy. A social network site that investigates you.

3. Facebook will disable your account without warning. If it does disable your account it won’t give you any reason for disabling your account. Reasons for deletion include adding too many friends too quickly, posting too much, browsing too much, or doing anything else that might make Facebook sad. This seems to be a feature of most social networking sites… they hate the idea of individual members becoming too influential or being able to use their popularity for anything useful… so they set up arbitrary limits and punish any sort of activity that deviates from the norm.

The thing that really caught my attention was Facebook’s decision (early this year) to change their terms of service so they own their users content. This change was done quietly and was stumbled upon by a blogger who happened to notice the change. There was a loud public outcry that caused Facebook to drop this policy… and while it’s wonderful that there was a change of heart, they could just as easily change their minds yet again.

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