Wednesday, December 31, 2014

Give it Everything - Cameron Wurf (Thu 25 Dec 2014)

PD's Open - Five Islands OC6 Regatta / Lake Illawarra (Sun 19 Oct 2014)

Cameron Wurf (*) writes on Giving it Everything (*):
give it everything you have to get the best possible result you can achieve. That way when you cross the line you have no regrets because you've given it all you have and you can now relax and enjoy what you've just done, win or lose.
via Socal ing with Cal! (*) by Cameron Wurf (*).

Happy New Year.

On Riding a Bicycle - Ernest Hemingway / Garry Loughlin (Wed 23 Oct 2014)

Untitled - Quai de la Seine / Paris (Mon 15 Sep 2014)

Ernest Hemingway (*) writes on bicycles (*):
It is by riding a bicycle that you learn the contours of a country best, since you have to sweat up the hills and coast down them. Thus you remember them as they actually are...
via California (part 2) (*) by Garry Loughlin (*).

Tuesday, December 30, 2014

I'm Nobody! Who are you? - Emily Dickinson (1891)

Self Portrait - near Henri Cartier-Bresson Foundation / Paris (Thu 18 Sep 2014)

Emily Dickinson (*) Poem (*):
I'm nobody! Who are you?
Are you nobody, too?
Then there's a pair of us — don't tell!
They'd banish us, you know.

How dreary to be somebody!
How public, like a frog
To tell your name the livelong day
To an admiring bog!
Seen in Eye to Eye: Photographs by Vivian Maier (*)

On Instagram - Stephen Shore / ASX (Tue 30 Dec 2014)

Nibbles - Ealing / London (Sat 13 Sep 2014)

Stephen Shore (*) writes on Instagram (*):
One thing is it’s fun. I like the quality of conversation that goes on, where there’s a group of people who I know are looking at my posts every day, or whenever I do it, and I in turn am looking at theirs, eagerly, waiting to see what they post. And it’s a very different kind of communication than what goes on in a book or a gallery, where you just put the work out there and there’s no sense of dialogue.
via Stephen Shore ‘Likes’ Instagram (*) by Stephen Shore (*).

Happy with my little nook here on the Internet. No need for regular viewers or constant feedback. I had that opportunity on photo.net (*) a long time ago - well before Flickr (*) and Instagram. I learnt a lot, but mainly watched. Not really my thing. It's too hard to be engaging in critiquing and providing insightful feedback. Might be lazy or untalented (*), it's just who I am. I don't expecting to be signing up to Instagram in the near future.

Monday, December 29, 2014

On Recognition - artlyst (Sat 27 Dec 2014)

Untitled - The Met / New York (Mon 15 Aug 2011)

artlyst (*) writes on Recognition (*) and Vivian Maier (*):
After a lifetime in domestic servitude, secretly documenting the streets of America through 100,000 photographs, Maier had died in great old-age, and in poverty - just on the edge of global recognition - never to know that her work would even receive a glimmer of praise, or understanding.
via Vivian Maier: The Secret Photographer Gets A Retrospective In Amsterdam (*) by artlyst (*).

On Legacy - Tim Grierson (Tue16 Dec 2014)

Sunset - MÄ¡arr ix-Xini / Gozo / Malta (Tue 23 Sep 2014)

Tim Grierson (*) writes on Legacy (*):
What we do in this world will perhaps outlive us, but once we’re gone we’ll have no way of knowing.
via Mr Turner (*) by Tim Grierson (*).

Saturday, December 27, 2014

On Henri Cartier-Bresson and the Less Decisive Moment - Gaby Wood / Sean O'Hagan (Wed 24 Dec 2014)

Street Portrait - Paris (Thu 18 Sep 2014)

Gaby Wood (*) writes on Henri Cartier-Bresson (*) and the Decisive Moment (*):
The reason his photographs often feel numbly impersonal now is not just that they are familiar. It’s that they’re so coolly composed, so infernally correct that there’s nothing raw about them, and you find yourself thinking: would it not be more interesting if his moments were a little less decisive?
via Cartier-Bresson's classic is back – but his Decisive Moment has passed (*) by Sean O'Hagan (*).

Wednesday, December 24, 2014

On The Future - be aggressively open-minded - Paul Graham (Sun 21 Dec 2014)

The Juggler - Barcelona (Tue 06 Aug 2013)

Paul Graham (*) writes on the Future (*):
It seems to me that beliefs about the future are so rarely correct that they usually aren't worth the extra rigidity they impose, and that the best strategy is simply to be aggressively open-minded.
via How to be an Expert in a Changing World (*) by Paul Graham (*).

Sunday, December 21, 2014

On Strength - Vernon Gambetta (Fri 19 Dec 2014)

Flower Detail - Monet's Garden / Girverny (Wed 17 Sep 2014)

Vernon Gambetta (*) asks a question on Strength (*):
How much strength is enough?
via Evolution of Strength Training – A Personal Perspective - 51 Years of Experiences (Part Three) (*) by Vernon Gambetta (*).

Saturday, December 20, 2014

On Taking Photographs - Trent Parke / The Eye of Photography (Thu 18 Dec 2014)

Street Portrait - London (Fri 12 Sep 2014)

Trent Parke (*) writes on taking Photographs (*):
Most of the time I’m in another world.
via Special Books : Minutes to Midnight, par Trent Parke (*) by The Eye of Photography (*).

Friday, December 19, 2014

On Error Messages - Venkat / Ribbonfarm (Fri 19 Dec 2014)

Flower Detail - Monet's Garden / Giverny (Wed 17 Sep 2014)

Venkat (*) writes on Failure (*):
Even an unhelpful error message is better than nothing.
via Learning from Crashes (*) by Venkat (*).

I have seen this error message a few times recently:
Error: Unknown Error.
Probably the most unhelpful error message I have seen in all my time coding Python to an external third party API. At least you know you have an error, even if it is as far away from the root as it just about can be.

On Failure - Venkat / Ribbonfarm (Fri 19 Dec 2014)

Flower Detail - Monet's Garden / Giverny (Wed 17 Sep 2014)

Venkat (*) writes on Failure (*):
You just have to have failed at a given level enough times to have become well-calibrated to the severity of your own responses, and effective at managing those responses. You are adapted to a domain at an advanced beginner level when you can keep trying indefinitely despite failing. You are at an intermediate level when you can look at failure data to learn, instead of being so traumatized you look away in aversion. You’re advanced when you begin failing in ways nobody has failed before.
via Learning from Crashes (*) by Venkat (*).

Wednesday, December 17, 2014

Downwind Session - Whosus - Port Kembla to Shellharbour (Sat 29 Nov 2014)

Downwind Session - Whosus - Port Kembla to Shellharbour (Sat 29 Nov 2014)

An amazing session. A bit of a sample of what it was like here (a long past post from Oct 2009. That video I have on my PC since 2008 before we even had Whosus). Thanks Michelle for the great photos, and Annett and Michelle for making it happen.

Resuming normal transmission, hopefully, following a technical glitch and a bit of a break.

Monday, December 1, 2014

A photograph of a person will always.. - Looking for Snapshots (Mon 16 Sep 2013)

Darcel (*) - Cafe Sofia (*) / Erskineville (Fri 08 Feb 2013)

Looking for Snapshots (*) writes on Portrait Photography (*):
a photograph of a person will always tell us something about the relationship between the photographer and the subject—that is, it will show the relationship as well as the subject. In most kinds of photos the relationship is so attenuated that the subject is really all that’s left. But in a snapshot the relationship is a real and enduring one, not a merely professional one that exists only for the purpose of the shoot. We can see it clearly in the photo along with the subject, and we can also see that the photo occasion itself is tangled up in it.
via Relationships (*) by Looking for Snapshots (*).

Getting Started - Bernadette / The Story of Telling (Mon 01 Dec 2014)

Eiffel Tower #3 - Paris (Tue 16 Sep 2014)

Bernadette (*) writes on Getting Started (*):
The best way to do anything is to begin, then to adjust your course based on what happens next.
via What’s The Best Way? (*) by The Story of Telling (*).

I did this when I started out (*) on this blog (*) almost 6 years ago. And I am still doing it 1750 posts (this post being it) later.