I’ve been looking at a ton of photos and reading the corresponding “critiques” lately, trying to figure out what makes a good photograph. It’s apparent that most people wouldn’t know a worthwhile shot if it bit them in the ass. I know that I certainly don’t.

It occurs to me that comments like “I wouldn’t have cropped that elbow” or “nice use of depth of field” or “damn that’s tack sharp!” are completely useless as critical comments. Reading most photography-related forums would lead the casual observer to conclude that the only thing that’s important in a photo is sharpness, which is of course complete crap.

I’m finding that what I like most about photography is that I get to decide what’s good. Selfish, but satisfying!

I want a Leica. Do I have to have a reason? Okay, so far the best one I can come up with is the Philadelphia Leica User Group’s The Ten Commandments of Leica Photography

1. Thy children are ugly. Do not make us look upon them.

2. Thou shalt not have a photograph entitled “Pop-Pop” in your Leica portfolio.

3. Thou shalt not photograph thy dog ,nor thy cat, nor thy ass.

4. Photographing in exotic locals does not makeith thou a great photographer. (it makest thou a tourist)

5. Thou shalt not photograph buildings.

6. Thou shalt not photograph statues.

7. Thou shalt not photograph homeless people. (Leave them alone or buy them food. This pleaseth the Lord.)

8. Thou shalt not photograph people from behind and call it street photography. (This maketh thou a coward.)

9. Thou shalt not own stupid Leica gadgets.

10. Thou shalt not brag about the sharpness of thy lens, nor the number of Summicron’s thou hast acquired, nor the freshness of thy rear-cap, nor the dinglessness of thy bottom plate.

Incidentally, Kyle Cassidy (a PLUG member) wrote a nifty piece about the Canonet that’s helping me get through Leica Lust.

Melvin Goes to Dinner (2003), like 1981’s My Dinner With Andre, is nothing more than a couple hours of people talking during dinner. Couldn’t stop watching it. Sex, drugs, ghosts, infidelity - just a few of the lighter topics covered.

T.M. writes:

“Y’know Bry, there’s no ‘I’ in ‘TEAM’ … but let’s not forget that it starts and ends with ‘TM’”

And to think you rode me for my bad pun earlier today. Sheesh.

Some of this body art is very good. And I’m not just saying that because they’re naked.

One of the things I forgot to pull off my laptop while sending it for repair was my RSS feed lists from FeedDemon. Now I’ve gotta spend so much time finding things that I’ve no time left to post anything.

Apparently, a lot of people were waiting for the opening of Apple Store Japan

So what happened was…I just bought another camera.

This one is almost the exact opposite of the Digital Rebel I bought a couple months ago. This one is a 1972 Canon Canonet QL17 G-III. About $50 on eBay. It’s a film camera (obviously), it’s a rangefinder, it’s manually focused and it’s really, really cool. No histogram, no LCD preview, no zoom, no multiple auto-focus zones. Just my eye and the shutter release and not much more.

I’ve got a long story about how and why I ended up with it, but the short of it is that I wanted to try photography without the technology. So now I’m walking around with a 30 year old camera around my neck and 2 rolls of Tri-X 400 in my pocket.

You Arent Gonna Need It is a great way of avoiding feature creep.

“Always implement things when you actually need them, never when you just foresee that you need them.”

Worksheet server isn’t cheap, but imagine being able to create an excel spreadsheet and do a “Save As…” to a PHP enabled server. Blam! You’ve got a web application with all the features of your spreadsheet, but globally accessible for data entry and analysis.