Data Data and more data.

I came across an interesting link today.  A Trillion Trilion megabytes. 

This got me thinking about the data I create.

I am currently sitting on about 2Tb of data this all the images I have created since the year 2000 it currently is backed up onto two desktop drives. these are about 3 years old and are due to be upgraded. Not having looked at the hardware in a few years I found this.

Brand	Samsung
Item Weight	168 g
Product Dimensions	11.2 x 8.2 x 1.8 cm
Item model number	HX-M201TCB/G
Series	HX-M201TCB/G M3
Color	Black
Hard Drive Size	2 TB

This means I my entire digital life will sit on a 168g drive. That is about the weight of a 5 pack of 120 roll film that I shot unto about 2003. 

So to put things in perspective. 

All my photography from my birth until 2003 consists of a shelf about 6' long full of negatives in folders plus 3 draws of a filing cabinet full of first choice transparencies plus 5 archive boxes of 2nd choice transparencies and this after shredding 2 large bin bags of reject transparencies a few years ago.

All my digital photographs from 2000 until now on a 168 gram hard drive!

Now that would have looked like magic when I started in the business in 1976.

As Arthur C Clarke said. 

Clarke's three laws

stopstealingphotos.com

Before the internet is was not easy to set up a fradulant photography business. Most serious enquires from prospective clients meant, that the print portfolio was dusted of, an appointment made and a face to face presentation given.
I have no doubt that some people showed clients some finished brochures or magazines that they had not shot but the prints in portfolios were hard to steal. To get good prints you needed to work from original negs or transparencies and it was almost impossible to get access to these if you were not the original shooter.

Now with the web, images can be stolen and offered as examples of a person work very easily. Also with the boom of digital cameras anyone can set themselves up as a photographer and have no real idea what they are doing.

It is obviously illegal to steal images as all images are copyright the moment they are created, but this fact will not stop some people from stealing images and claiming them as their own work to market their business.

Stopping this is not easy. Yes it is illegal but law enforcement is not going to get involved especially if the crime crosses borders. Employing a lawyer is expensive and the chances of reclaiming any costs are slim, as few of the fraudulent businesses have much in the way of assets, for the simple reason they are a fraudulent business.

A more effective way is name and shame and the power of SEO.

stopstealingphotos.com is the highest profile site outing photographic thieves today.

Originaly run as a blog but now with a URL and website it has been outing thieves for nearly two years.

The site and its owner have be successful in disrupting the businesses of fraudulent photographers by creating a web presence that becomes, by the powers of SEO, the number one listing on Google, if any potential client is searching for that company by name, the first result will be the first entry they find.

It would always be better if stealing did not happen, bit it will, and stopstealingphotos.com will be needed to out thieves.

7 Miles Stratford to London Bridge.

Double rainbow

Ropes and Houses

A trip to Whitstable for some sun and fresh air.

Cars

I seem to have got a theme running of cars or roads.

These images were taken on the Scottish trip. The red car was my hire car and the misty shot was taken from the top deck of an Edinburgh bus.

Rain, Rain, Rain!

It seems to be have been rainy forever. Each day is wet and we seem to have weather warning, after weather warning.
The statistics say it's the wettest January since records began.

Missed from last year.

It's been a long time since I managed to post any images, so I am putting up a few images.

These were shot at the Eden Project last September.

and one other shot!

and another!

Edinburgh.

Late evening at Mousehole.

Late one evening we found ourselves in Mousehole. What caught my eye was the line of coloured lights along the pier. It looked interesting but the sky was too dark to get an image. 

I then moved back a bit to look at the rest of the harbour. With only the slightest glow of light on the horizon and the harbour only lit by the street lights of the village, I had little idea expectation of getting a reasonable image. 

I did a few images and the results were a bit of a surprise. The green glow of the navigation light at the entrance to the harbour  gives an indication of how dark the rest of the scene was. 

The exposure was 30 seconds and during this time the boats moved around a bit. 

With a bit of post production on the image I think it works well.

Cornwall and the Hunt for the Milky Way

After our trip to Leicester we had the offer of some time with friends down in Cornwall.

It has been many years since we managed to spent some time in Cornwall, so we jumped at the offer.

Strangely enough my first thoughts were not about great beaches, cream teas or sun, but, yeah! dark skies.

Ever since I tried some star photographs when I was up in Scotland in the early part of the year. I have been wishing for dark skies, and by dark skies I mean really dark skies. The darkness that you only get away from large towns and villages.

I was hopeful, as we were staying only about 3 miles from Lands End and about 6 miles from Penzance which was the nearest town of any size but the weather forecast was not looking hopeful for clear skies in the evenings, except for the first night.

The drive down was slightly damp in places but we made good time. The sunset was spectacular

I then had to wait and hope that the clouds stayed away. By 10 o'clock it was dark enough to start shooting. My original idea, was to plan some possible shots during the day for a return at night. As I had not had time to look for locations I decided to just walk down the lane from the cottage, wait for all the security lights to go out and see what happens. 

The results were wonderful. The Milky Way was barely visible to the naked eye but looked spectacular in the pictures. A slight splash of torch light illuminated the foreground to give some interest on some shots. 

What was surprising though was how much Light pollution there was in the night sky, even at the tip of Cornwall. The orange glow of the lights from Penzance and nearby farms was enough to overwhelm the darkness on shots taken in most directions and although I was pleased with the images. It looks as though I am going to have to look elsewhere for really dark skies.

Victory Show final images.

Back at work now after a two week holiday and I have lots of images to work on. At the moment here are the last of the images from the Victory Show at Leicester. A bit of HDR processing and and a couple of images that I like.