Black and White Photography Blog, Vol. I

A lot of walkin’. A lot of sweatin’. First down to B&H and although their site says that HIE is “in stock” it’s not “in stock in the store.” So that was a waste. Note: every time I go to B&H - the film counter shrinks. I expect that soon it will be buried somewhere in the basement next to their supply of buggy whips.

Then over to Adorama where I picked up a couple of rolls.

Then changing bag (the new one should arrive tomorrow) and more bits of thread coming off, this time getting caught in the back door of the M6. So I had to go back into the bag and reload. PITA.

Down to the Brooklyn Bridge. Broiling on the bridge. Hazy. And since I’m not comfortable I was just shooting without doing much thinking - and this usually ends up with wasted film.

To the park in Brooklyn. One promising shot there.

Then all around that factory park. Nothing much doing.

And finally - back home - where I’m rehydrating and getting ready to take a nap.

If I get one halfway decent shot from my five hour excursion I’ll be thrilled.

However - I was asked to take pictures by about a dozen tourists - and those - from what I could see on the back of their cameras in bright sun looked okay - probably better than anything I got on film.  Though with IR - until you see the results - hope springs semi-eternal.

The steampipe was two feet in diameter and 90 years old. When it blew up, the people in nearby buildings had no idea what was happening. Cellphones are often useless in urban emergencies when everyone tries to find out what’s happening at the same time. Same thing when the blackout hit the upper east side a few weeks ago.

Text messaging generally continues to function though. So - here’s the idea. Have a service run by the city’s office of emergency services or command central where you can subscribe to receive text message alerts when something serious happens. Period.

The idea is not to inform everyone in the office building - but that enough people would sign up for the service so that when the electricity is out, or the voice cellphone is out - they will instantly get an alert and be able to spread the info.

The alert might say: Steam pipe explosion on… This is not a terrorist attack… etc.

It’s also a perfect idea for a technocrat like Bloomberg to implement.  He made his money devising similar systems.

In other words - figure out some modern way to notify New Yorkers with official information during an emergency.

The city has extended the period during which the public can comment on proposed photography rules that have been criticized by civil libertarians, officials said yesterday.

The proposed rules would require a permit and proof of $1 million in insurance for any group of two or more people filming in one location for 30 minutes, or five or more people using a tripod camera for more than 10 minutes. The city planned to stop receiving public comments on the rules on June 27, but it has agreed to extend the period to Aug. 3, city officials said. Christopher Dunn, of the New York Civil Liberties Union, said yesterday that the rules would unreasonably burden photographers and “open the door to selective and discriminatory enforcement.” NY Times

Some other related links:

Mayors Office of Film Television Broadcasting Statement

PDF File, NYCLU Reply to Ms. Julianne Cho, Assistant Commissioner, Mayors Office of Film & Television

It is one of those fairly insane rules, and I’m not sure that it could ever be enforced.  Nonetheless, it’s one of those things that will get in the way of New York photographers.  I can’t imagine that if I’m on a public street with a tripod and a friend, that police will a) time how long I’m there and b) be able to prove that.  And what if my friend leaves after ten minutes and then returns.  At any rate - it’s worth complaining about.

You can leave feedback for Katherine Oliver, Commissioner of Mayor’s Office of Film, Theatre & Broadcast. 

Here’s what I wrote this morning to her:

You only have 150 characters on their form.

has been turned against me lately. She’s been very good to me, and very bad.

I happened to look at the blog in IE 7 and the last version which I liked so much - looked fine in Firefox but was completely and totally kaput in IE7. So I’ve just gone back to previous blog version.

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One of my Maxtor One Touch drives FAILED. Yup. Well I can’t get any data off the thing with firewire or with USB - so I guess that’s failed. If it’s plugged in to the pc - the pc won’t startup. If I turn it on after the pc’s been properly booted, then I’m in hangville.

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And to just finish me off — whenever I go to the internet via a shortcut, i.e. to a particular internet site rather than starting with a blank url and typing it in - I get a MODAL popup saying that windows can’t FIND THAT SITE, although at the same time the site loads properly. The MODAL box suggests that I use the windows search box on the left - but that is now frozen…

Oh, whatever… Frankly, I have too much printing to do (business is hopping) to try and figure this junk out. Live by the sword - die by same. Something like that.

Oh - the maxtor one-touch that died: nothing important - just my backups. So now I’m living on the edge. Ah - what a view.

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I haven’t tried it with a mac yet, but I will. In the meantime, I just placed an order for a Western Digital 1 terabyte Book Drive… version II.  [ WESTERN DIG MY BOOK PREMIUM ED 1TB ]

I did not do a lot of research. It can be setup as a mirrored raid, or use all the space without duping. Comes with USB and two firewire flavors. The point being I was lucky that the OneTouch that went out was backups and not original stuff - so as long as I can do a backup before something else fails, I’m in good shape.

So basically my backup system depends on no two drives going at the same time. True, even then (except for the digital stuff - but I don’t have that much of that) - I still have the original negatives. The idea of scanning and reworking them for final production - that is a nightmare though.