A ladder is often essential
What a photographer needs to do the job is sometimes far from obvious.
The tools of a professional
small business
Business books
A different form of literature
Our consultants encounter a type of writing that seems terribly strange, until they realize what it’s for.
The artist and her tools
Our photographer accompanied a pair of artists on a picture-taking expedition this past weekend. As expected, he has observations to make about old and new technology. But he was also driven to more general musings about the relationship between artists, their visions and their tools.
The old fencer and the cheap watch
The unexpected usefulness of old and new things
Our navigator had the pleasure of attending a fencing match this past weekend as a spectator. The range in ages of the participants was unusually large, which highlights some important considerations about newer and older people and things.
It’s about time
Not about saving daylight
We’ve just gone through the annual ritual of Falling Back, shifting our clocks by an hour to conform to Standard Time. It’s the regular opportunity for scientists to point out, with either smugness or exasperation, that all summer we haven’t really been Saving Daylight; that there is exactly the same amount of daylight regardless of what our clocks read. Sometimes they wander off into explanations of Local Solar Time, Standard Time Zones and, if not quickly stopped, bring up atomic clocks.
Here we will avoid that sort of thing. In the interests of understanding other people, or at least building character, we’ll look at time from the standpoint of non-scientists. It’s not the same time as we understand, and translation is in order.
The webmaster builds character
A physical scientist encounters social media
We mentioned, some weeks ago, that our webmaster had been assigned to develop the Five Colors S&T social media presence. This wasn’t because he’s an expert already, but because he wasn’t; in fact his inclinations tend toward weekends reading eighteenth-century essays by the light of a kerosene lamp. We thought that, apart from the fact that he generally does a decent job of anything, it would be good for him to do something unfamiliar and especially to have contact with people not like him. As Calvin’s dad (from the comic strip Calvin and Hobbes) would say, he’d build character.
Your future as a street performer
Why passion is not a career
Our chief consultant writes:
At left is a busker, a singer who performs on and near Washington, DC Metro stations. He is very, very good. His voice is rich, powerful (he sings a cappella) and educated; his choice of material is largely classical. He should be subsidized by all the companies with offices near where he performs, because a couple of minutes’ pause to listen to him on the way to work will raise employee morale more than any possible corporate vision statement.
He may in fact have other gigs. Indeed, it would be a massive waste if he didn’t. But running into him reminds us of the many areas in which people can be passionate and skilled, as well as hard-working and dedicated, and still not make a living. You can do what you love, but the money will follow someone else.
“Calvin! Do something you hate!”
Our chief correspondent writes:
In the 1980s-1990s comic strip Calvin and Hobbes, the six-year-old boy Calvin at one point caricatures his father’s attempts at discipline by swiping his glasses, striking a pose and admonishing: “Calvin! Do something you hate! It will build character!” Well, certainly childhood is full of rules and duties whose purpose, it appears, is only to make us uncomfortable or unhappy. Some people (even some kids) may enjoy classic literature, some do find working with numbers fun, some are found every weekend at the pick-up game of basketball; but everyone, as a child, is dragged through Moby Dick (or some equivalent), has to pass algebra, is drafted onto a PE team.
Of course adult life has its unpleasant duties (many among them connected with raising children), and they’re much harder to avoid or postpone than writing a book report. But we have more choices—that’s what being an adult means—and we can spend more time and effort on things we’ve chosen to do, rather than things chosen for us. We hang out with people who like the same things we do, do the same things, think the same way. Modern technology (including websites and blogs) supports a sometimes worrying fragmentation: we may not often be confronted with people who are different.
Use that camera! . . . but why?
Our photography correspondent writes: We’ve just gone live with our Use that camera! service, showing people how to use their film cameras. But why would anyone want to do that?
Well, it’s not that film is better than digital. That’s been settled. With possible very tiny, specialized exceptions, digital photography can do everything film can do, and plenty that it can’t. Digital pictures are available immediately, can be sent from your phone, can be adjusted to match your imaging vision in amazing detail; you think up your own virtues.
I still shoot film, for reasons that aren’t relevant here. The question is why you would want to. I can think up a few possibilities:
- It’s different. You want to distinguish yourself from the crowd, or maybe just want some variety.
- It’s difficult. You like challenges. There’s also the fun of bragging about how you overcame them.
- Operating a fine old machine. There is a pleasure in using a well-crafted device, even apart from any results you get.
- It’s there, so it should be used. It’s a shame that any well-made machine should rust away uselessly.
- There’s a special connection. Your great-uncle used it to take those pictures in the old album, and when you look through the viewfinder you realize you’re doing just what he did. (Our working title for the service was Your Grandfather’s Camera.)
- You’re writing an historical novel. You’re aware that a 1940 Leica does not work like an iPhone, but you’re fuzzy on the details and it’s important to the plot.
The most important reason is the one that motivates you. It may not be possible to put it into words, and it doesn’t need to be noble and serious. Simple curiousity is a wonderful thing.
So: why would you use that camera?