Recently, I was turned on to a pretty keen app for the mac by Jason. It will let you download all of you flickr photos. Pretty keen, right? Not only will it let you download them all, it will let you download only those photos not in sets. Brilliant!
From what I can tell, I started my Flickr account way back in 2005. I didn’t even own a digital camera at the time, but was using it to share photos that I took with my Motorola Razr and LG Env. Here comes the magic. Click any of the collages for a larger version.
I’ve always been fascinated with stop motion animation (remember Gumby?) and time lapse photography. Since I do not have the time to make clay bits move about, photography is more my speed.
It’s really simple. Find what you want to shoot, set the focus, set the invalometer to the desired time and walk away. Come back to a either a dead battery or full CF card (yes, my camera is old. Let it go) and transfer them in. The video above was created from over 500 shots taken every 3 seconds.
I have a photoshop action that I use to resize the images to 720p, bring them into Google Picasa (yes, on the Mac), set the frame rate and turn ‘er loose! Once I have a completed movie, I can edit again in iMovie (to add sound or mix it with something else), which I have done here.
As a bonus, this one is short enough that I was able to post it to my Flickr stream, something I haven’t updated in months!
If I had a dollar (US$1.00) for every time I forgot the battery for my ‘good’ camera, I would have exactly 2 dollars (US$2.00). Really not that big of a deal, but I also did not have my old and busted and trusty Panasonic DMC-TZ3. What did I have?
My Droid Incredible.
Again, not that big of a deal, but this was for work. And the Canon takes really good photos, especially since I think I might have figured out how to actually get it to take good photos. And the photos get used to create documents that our sales staff then uses to help sell our products.
But I only had the Droid Incredible. And my only battery was a hour away and an hour back.
I kept remembering everyone that has ever told me it’s the photographer, not the camera. This week I put that to the test and, if I’m honest, everyone was right. The photos below all came directly out of my phone. Ok, maybe not directly in the strictest sense, but if directly-via-photoshop counts, then yes, directly from my phone.
Sure I could have used an app like Vignette to process them, but in my experience with this phone, the photos that it produces aren’t suitable for my needs. Photos apps on the Droid introduce a lot of noise, do weird things with color and only make a photos that fans of Instagram seem to like.
While I had the right tool for the job, I had the wrong tool. So, I made due with a little trickery. And I think they turned out pretty ok.
Maybe it’s just me, but lately I’m noticing a lot of laziness around me. Laziness and, if I’m honest, half-assed work. Details going unnoticed, pieces missing and work not complete.
This might not be making any sense to you, so here are some pretty pictures that might help. Taken from the roof of a very swank hotel in a very swank city in Arizona. Look at the first pic closely and I’ll continue to tell you what I’m on about.
Nice right? Colors match, the fire gives that feeling of warmth and comfort and the flowers help to soften the hard edges. At first glance it looks amazing. Until you notice the details.
The yellow circles show off some very not-blending-in chrome table legs that look like they came from a desk chair about the same time this particular hotel was built. Top left is a cable that is coming from the fire pit, presumably to light it, running someplace. We’ll ignore that one for now since it’s not as glaring as shiny chrome.
I’ve been told not to sweat the details in the past, but I always ignored it. I’m going to tell you why.
The details make a difference.
You see in our example above, if the table cloths were bright red, or if the fireplace wasn’t lit, then seeing the table legs would probably be perfectly a-ok. It would appear, however, that a great deal of work went into the planning and decoration of this particular space for this event. Allowing the table legs, at least to me, while a minor detail, is one that takes this otherwise great looking scene down a notch or 5.
It’s just half-assed.
If you are going to do something half-assed, don’t be half-assed about it. Be consistent. Rip a table cloth, break some glass, forget to sweep. Consistency is key.
If you are going to spend the time, effort and money on making something truly kick ass, then make sure it is, in fact, truly kick ass. Mind the details. Cover those crappy looking table legs. Give the glass a final polish to make sure there aren’t any spots. Sweep the floor.
When the details are missed is usually when it is the most noticeable. Go for perfection or go for half-assed, just don’t do them both at the same time. It makes you look bad.
Recently I’m reminded that many of you have digital cameras. I also know from previous experience that, once you have taken the photos, you have no idea what to do with them.
Just like our good friend John says above, your camera is not the best place to store your photos. I mean, why look at those old pictures on that tiny screen of your camera when you can upload them to your computer and view them on the screen or easily get them printed? Let’s jump right in!
This is going to be geared toward you Windows users among us. But many of things we are going to discuss, like getting prints made, will work for anyone.
The first thing you need to do is find a way to suck your photos off of your camera to your computer, keep them organized and be able to do some light processing on them (cropping, red eye removal, color adjustments). If you have anything installed on your PC now that contains the words Sony, Adobe, Kodak or Roxio along with the word(s) photo, picture or image, go into the control panel and uninstall them. While some people may like them, I find they are too complicated, move your photos to odd places on your hard drive and usually not terribly stable.
Done? Good! Now, go over to google.com/picasa and click the download button. Once downloaded, click run and let it install. VERY IMPORTANT. You will see 2 screens once Picasa is installed. One of them is to let it handle all of your images. Leave that one alone. The other will be asking you where you want Picasa to look for images. Unless you want to see every image on your computer (including those from your internet cache), I highly recommend selecting the Desktop and Documents option. Once that is done, Picasa will start building a database that contains all of the photos on your desktop and in your photo folder.
Easy right?
As soon as the database build is complete, plug your camera into your computer either by the supplied USB cable or by inserting the memory card into a slot on the front/side. Picasa should open automatically and ask to import those photos to your computer. Go ahead. Heck, you can even let it delete the photos when you are done. No, really, it’s ok.
Now that your photos are organized and easily accessible in Picasa, spend more than a few minutes poking around to see what it can do. Don’t worry about making changes to anything because Picasa, much like iPhoto on the Mac, does non-destructive edits. That means no matter what you do to a photo, you can always revert back to the original.
How about some prints to show those photos off to friends and family? This one is equally easy and there are more than a few ways to do it.
You can burn the photos you want prints of to a CD and take them to your local CostCo and they will happily print them for you. Good quality, fast turn around and not too expensive. You can also go to Walgreens.com, upload the photos you want printed and pick them up at your local Walgreens Drug Store. Again, good quality, fast turn around and not to expensive. Not to mention super duper easy!
The only thing left is backing those photos up! I’m gonna hammer on you about this until the end of time, you know that, right? I don’t care if you email yourself the most important documents and photos, get an external drive or sign-up for an account at Carbonite, just make it happen, ok?
Comments are open if you have any questions! Myself and the rest of the donburnside.com readers would love to help!
Happy 4th of July! Be safe and sane out there. If you can’t manage that, at least blow something up with enough explosives to leave a good sized divot in the backyard.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
Feel free to use my stuff, just Be sure to let me know.
