Catching up on e-mail…

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Catching up on e-mail…

Image by Ed Yourdon
This woman was sitting at an outdoor table of a small restaurant/coffee-shop on the west side of Columbus Avenue at 73rd Street. It’s the first time that I’ve seen anyone in this particular area (which is near a gym that I usually visit 2-3 times a week) with a laptop, and I was delighted to see that she had a Mac…. and not just any old Mac, but a Mac Powerbook. (But not a MacBook Air 🙂 )

Note: this photo was published in a November 24, 2008 blog posting entitled "Mobile Tech Secrets for Getting Things Done On the Go." It was also published in a Dec 14, 2008 blog entitled "5 Fantastic Blogs To Improve Your Life." It was also published in a Jul 13, 2009 "Pimp Your Mac" blog titled "Pimp my Mail." And it was published in a Jul 24, 2009 blog titled "Step Away From the Computer." For some reason, it was also published as an illustration in an undated (Nov 2009) Mahalo blog titled "Macbook Air Battery" at www-dot-mahalo-dot-com-slash-macbook-air-battery. And it was published in a Nov 20, 2009 blog titled "Breng de klanten service naar de klant." It was also published in a Nov 23, 2009 blog titled "Customer Retention: How to Retain Existing Health Club Clients and Attract New Ones." And it was published in a Dec 4, 2009 blog titled "Every Mum Wrestles With Returning To Work."

More recently, it was published in a Jan 3, 2010 blog titled "Sunday Confessional: I Can’t Stop Facebook Stalking My Ex." And it was published in a Jan 22, 2010 blog titled "Best Places with Free Wi-Fi in Metro Detroit." It was also published in a Feb 11, 2010 blog titled "How Healthcare Organizations Can Benefit From Video Campaigns." And it was published in a Feb 14, 2010 blog titled "The Most Useful Bloggers on the Web." It was also published in a Feb 16, 2010 blog titled "Unresolved Obstacles to the Credibility of Online Degrees," as well as a Feb 25, 2010 blog titled Running your "Fitness Business: Online Software vs Desktop Software." It was also published in an undated (Mar 2010) blog titled "8 Ways to Discover New Music." And it was published, sometime in Apr 2010, as an illustration in the "About Me" page of Sarita Li Johnson’s blog. It was also published in an Apr 9, 2010 blog titled "Technology Vs. Human Eye: You Decide the Winner." And it was published in an Apr 17, 2010 blog titled "12 Hands-on tips to protect yourself online."

It was also published in an Apr 19, 2010 blog titled EMOBILEにUQ Flat、どれがいい？高速モバイルデータ通信サービスを比較 — which I’ve been told means "Ed Yourdon is really an amazing photographer," but I’m not sure I believe it. And it was published in an Apr 22, 2010 blog titled "Gift ideas for working mums," as well as an Apr 22, 2010 blog titled "La intimidad en Internet: el pánico de los padres de la Generación M" (the English-language version of which is Internet privacy: Generation M parents panic." It was also published in an Apr 27, 2010 blog about Facebook’s new privacy settings, titled "Facebook, cómo darse de baja," at www-dot-tuexperto-dot-com/2010/04/27/facebook-como-darse-de-baja/ . And on May 12, 2010 it showed up in a Web ad for the movie, "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo."

It was also published in an undated (May 2010) HeartsForU blog , with the same title as the caption that I used on this Flickr page. And it was published in a Jun 7, 2010 blog titled "5 Questions to Ask Before Starting a Small Business Blog," as well as a Jun 8, 2010 blog titled "Zmiana IP na 10 sposobów." It was also published in a Jun 21, 2010 blog titled Is "Blogging for Your Small Business Dead?" And it was published in a Jul 1, 2010 blog titled "2 Things All Content Creators Can Do." It was also published in a Jul 13, 2010 blog titled "Top 15 Countries Where Most Active Bloggers Are Located." And a cropped, horizontally flipped version of the photo was published in a Jul 27, 2010 blog titled "Welcome to the Gig Economy." It was also published in an Aug 12, 2010 blog titled "Women Spend More Time Online," and it was published in an undated (late August 2010) blog titled "Why you need to write in advance (and I do to!)." It was also published in a Sep 14, 2010 blog titled "Cool Top Blogging Subjects Images." And in one of the more bizarre publication examples I’ve seen on the Internet, the photo was published in a Sep 30, 2010 blog titled " Gillette Venus Original Razor, 1 Razor 2 Cartridges, 1-count Package Reviews." It was also published in an Oct 10, 2010 blog titled "17 laptop computers-17.3″ 17″ LAPTOP BAG NOTEBOOK CASE COMPUTER CARRYING." And it was published in a Nov 14, 2010 COMPARE LAPTOP PCS TABLETS & SMARTPHONES blog, with the same title as the caption that I used on this Flickr page. It was also published in two Nov 18, 2010 blogs, titled 3 Steps To Getting The Ultimate Article Marketing Guide" and "Investing On Internet Marketing Software." And it was published in a Nov 23, 2010 blog titled "The Online Business Opportunity for the New Entrepreneur," as well as a Nov 26, 2010 blog titled "Why Now Is The Right Time To Compare Online Trading." It was also published in a Nov 29, 2010 blog titled "The Truth About What Is Article Marketing." And it was published in a Dec 9, 2010 blog titled "Internet Schools- A Time for Choosing," as well as a Dec 18, 2010 Lifehacker blog titled "Step Away From Your Desk For A More Focused Environment." Also in late Dec 2010, I found that the photo had been published in the "about" page of a site called CafeWorkr.

Moving into 2011, the photo was published in a Jan 6, 2011 Desktopize blog/, with the same title and detailed notes that I had written on this Flickr page. It was also published in a Jan 8, 2011 blog titled "How to Build Your Own Profitable Small Internet Business." And it was published in a Jan 17, 2011 blog titled "How can i get my camera to take pictures like this?" It was also published in a Jan 25, 2011 blog titled "JUSTICE DEPT. WANTS PROVIDERS TO RETAIN INTERNET DATA." It was also published in a Jan 28, 2011 blog titled "7 Blogging Tips for Increased Traffic."

The photo was also published in a Feb 1, 2011 blog titled "Traveling With Your Laptop," as well as a Feb 17, 2011 blog titled "How You Can Make Changes To Your Business Website, Your Way." And it was published in a Feb 27, 2011 blog titled "Best Places with Free Wi-Fi in Metro Detroit." It was also published in a Mar 4, 2011 blog titled "Hi… What would be on your personal software wish list?? and what features wld you want in each? :)?" And it was published in a Mar 24, 2011 blog titled "11 Dos and Don’ts for Dating Online." It was also published in a May 13, 2011 blog titled "What Are Your Prospects Looking for Online?" And it was published in a May 24, 2011 blog titled "How To Achieve Success From Stone Cold Steve Austin." It was also published in an undated (late May 2011) Cafeworkr website "about" page titled "Purpose of Cafeworkr." And it was published in a Jun 1, 2011 blog titled "Blogging Tips: Top 6 WordPress Plugins." It was also published in a Jun 21, 2011 blog titled "Consumerization of IT Challenges Device-Centric ITAM." And it was published in an undated (late Jun 2011) blog titled "Internet privacy: Generation M parents panic." It was also published in a Jul 31, 2011 Compare-online blog, with the same caption and detailed notes that I had written on this Flickr page, as well as an Aug 3, 2011 bog titled "How To Search For A Repeatable & Scaleable Business Model." And it was published in an Aug 28, 2011 blog titled "Facebook vi rende più disinvolte negli approcci?"

Moving into the fall of 2011, the photo was published in a Sep 8, 2011 blog titled "Entidade da UE descontente com a auto-regulamentação de publicidade comportamental on-line." And it was published in a Sep 14, 2011 blog titled "New Rules for Business in the Social Media Age." It was also published in an Oct 5, 2011 Tolle Crazy Computer blog and a Nov 7, 2011 Active-Internet-dot-de blog, with the same caption and detailed notes that I had written here on this Flickr page.

Moving into 2012, the photo wa published in a Jan 12, 2012 Romanian blog titled "Mămici fără griji la service ." And it was published in a Jan 29, 2012 blog titled "Nice Online Dating Secrets of Success Photos." It was also published in an undated (early Feb 2012) blog titled "WIEDEN + KENNEDY TECH INCUBATOR PICKS ITS STARTUP CLASS OF 2011", as well as a Feb 17, 2012 blog titled "Internett og WiFi i Amsterdam." And it was published in a Mar 7, 2012 blog titled "Somebody’s Tracking You," as well as a Mar 3, 2012 blog titled "5 Things You Should Never Share on Social Networking Sites." It was also published in a Mar 15, 2012 blog titled "Elo7 faz parceria com editora Globo e lança portal de conteúdo." And it was published in a Mar 21, 2012 blog titled "Internet to rank as 6th-largest economy by 2016." It was also published in an Apr 19, 2012 blog titled "Facebook for eCommerce: It’s About Customer Retention, Not Acquisition." And it was published in an Apr 30, 2012 blog titled "Ask LH: Do I Really Need To Be That Worried About Security When I’m Using Public Wi-Fi?", as well as a May 1, 2012 blog titled "Be in the Office Without Being in the Office." It was also published in a May 3, 2012 I Music News Radio blog, with the same caption and detailed notes that I had written on this Flickr page. It was also published in a May 4, 2012 blog titled "Kaspersky Lab ha elaborado un pasaporte 3.0 para mamás en el que presentan cómo utilizar herramientas de control parental." And it was published in a May 23, 2012 blog titled "Less professor time doesn’t hurt: study." It was also published in a Jun 18, 2012 blog titled "Nikon COOLPIX AW100 16 MP CMOS Waterproof Digital Camera."

Moving into the 2nd half of 2012, the photo was published in a Jul 6, 2012 blog titled "Jobs for Shy People: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly," as well as a Jul 7, 2012 blog titled BUILD YOUR BUSINESS WITH QUALITY ARTICLE MARKETING." It was also published in a Jul 31, 2012 blog titled "22 Top Blogging Tools Loved by the Pros." And it was published in an Aug 28, 2012 blog titled El 51% de los argentinos utiliza Internet como su principal fuente de información." It was also published in a Sep 3, 2012 blog titled "Cool Best Ecommerce Websites images." And it was published in a Sep 21, 2012 blog titled "この先、生き残れるノウハウはこれだ," as well as a Sep 22, 2012 blog titled "Top 5 Blogs for Teachers, You Must Need To Know." It was also published in an Oct 1, 2012 blog titled "How to transfer computer files safely," as well as an undated (early Oct 2012) blog titled "11 Dos and Don’ts for Dating Online." And it was published in a Nov 2, 2012 blog titled "El fenómeno de las madres blogger y otras noticias en nuestro Flash Digital de octubre." And it was published in a Nov 9, 2012 blog titled "Sites de rencontres: La bonne rencontre en ligne, possible?" It was also published in a Nov 14, 2012 blog titled "The New Geography of Jobs." And it was published in a Nov 15, 2012 blog titled "MyGift 15 inch Fascinating Peacock Notebook Laptop Sleeve Bag Carrying Case for most of MacBook, Acer, ASUS, Dell, HP, Lenovo, Sony, Toshiba," with the same detailed notes and comments I had written on this Flickr page. It was also published in a Nov 20, 2012 blog titled "How to write a feature that connects." And it was published in a Dec 3, 2012 blog titled "Do I Really Need to Worry About Security When I’m Using Public Wi-Fi?" It was also published in a Dec 4, 2012 blog titled "Your Employees & Their Online Presence: How Will It Effect Your Brand in 2013?" And it was published in a Dec 14, 2012 blog titled "Nice Do It Yourself Calendar 2013 Photos," along with the same detailed notes I had written on this Flickr page.

Moving into 2013, the photo was published in a Jan 6, 2013 blog titled "Tips And Strategies On How To Be Successful In Article Promotion." And it was published in a Jan 9, 2013 blog titled "Take This Advice And Succeed With Article Advertising." It was also published in a Jan 15, 2013 blog titled "Capital Ideas Digest: 01.15.13." And it was published in a Jan 23, 2013 blog titled "Amazon Prime Is Worth the Price." It was also published in a Jan 28, 2013 blog titled "Nice Social Media Marketing Tips For Small Business photos," as well as a Feb 3, 2013 blog titled "Nice Online Trading Tips photos" and a Feb 3, 2013 blog titled "The Following Steps Can Help You To Market Any Article." And it was published in a Feb 20, 2013 blog titled "Guest Post via PostJoint: Write Drunk; Edit Sober." It was also published in a Feb 26, 2013 blog titled "퓨처워커에게 사업 멘토링 받는 방법#1." And it was published in a Mar 2, 2013 blog titled "Como manter um namoro online." It was also published in a Mar 6, 2013 blog titled "The Price of Nasty by Erica Brown," as well as a Mar 11, 2013 blog titled "Noise vs. Quiet: Which Is Better for Productivity?" I also found the photo in a Mar 11, 2013 blog titled "4 Steps to your Best Travel Insurance Purchase Every Time.," as well as a Mar 18, 2013 blog titled " Online College: Valuable Tool Or Waste Of Your time?", and a Mar 19, 2013 blog titled "Here’s Why Blogging is Not Your Cup of Tea, Wanna Leave? or Stick to it?" and a Mar 19, 2013 blog titled "Finally, Feds say cops’ access to your e-mail shouldn’t be time-dependent." It was also published in a Mar 23, 2013 blog titled "Dating Advice for PlentyOfFish-dot-com., as well as a Mar 27, 2013 blog titled "Online Dating: Yes or No?" And it was published in a Mar 31, 2013 Mashable blog titled "How Vizify Gives Recruiters Context for Your Digital Identity," as well as an Apr 4, 2013 blog titled "The most likely buyer of Nokia or BlackBerry now in talks to acquire NEC’s handset unit." And it was published in a May 1, 2013 blog titled "RESOURCES TO HELP FIND A TRAVEL COMPANION." It was also published in an undated (late May 2013) blog titled "Come trovare lavoro con i social network: cinque consigli utili per cambiare," as well as a May 21, 2013 blog titled "Consumers Can Now Upload Profile Photos for Unclaimed Place Pages." It was also published in a Jun 6, 2013 blog titled "El Consejo De Ministros Aprueba El Proyecto "Emprende En 3"," as well as an undated (mid-June 2013) blog titled "Sites de rencontres: La bonne rencontre en ligne, possible?" And it was published in a Jun 10, 2013 blog titled "10 Rules to Optimize Online Dating." It was also published in a Jun 19, 2013 blog titled "What Is ReMarketing?", as well as a Jul 1, 2013 blog titled "This is why you’re single. The top 3 reasons why your relationship fails." And it was published in a Jul 25, 2013 blog titled "The dangers of dating," as well as an Aug 1, 2013 blog titled "Higher Ed: 7 Things to Consider as You Prepare for the Year." It was also published in an undated (late Aug 2013) blog titled "Protecting Yourself From Identity Theft."

Moving into 2014, the photo was published in a Jan 13, 2014 blog titled "Be More Productive On Social Media With 10 Easy Tips." It was also published in a Feb 25, 2014 blog titled "Guía para el Periodista Freelance (I): Los primeros pasos legales, con Remo." And it was published in an undated (mid-September 2014) blog titled "12 MUST-HAVE BUSINESS APPS FOR THE MOBILE WORKER."

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This is part of an evolving photo-project, which will probably continue throughout the summer of 2008, and perhaps beyond: a random collection of "interesting" people in a broad stretch of the Upper West Side of Manhattan — between 72nd Street and 104th Street, especially along Broadway and Amsterdam Avenue.

I don’t like to intrude on people’s privacy, so I normally use a telephoto lens in order to photograph them while they’re still 50-100 feet away from me; but that means I have to continue focusing my attention on the people and activities half a block away, rather than on what’s right in front of me.

I’ve also learned that, in many cases, the opportunities for an interesting picture are very fleeting — literally a matter of a couple of seconds, before the person(s) in question move on, turn away, or stop doing whatever was interesting. So I’ve learned to keep the camera switched on (which contradicts my traditional urge to conserve battery power), and not worry so much about zooming in for a perfectly-framed picture … after all, once the digital image is uploaded to my computer, it’s pretty trivial to crop out the parts unrelated to the main subject.

For the most part, I’ve deliberately avoided photographing bums, drunks, drunks, and crazy people. There are a few of them around, and they would certainly create some dramatic pictures; but they generally don’t want to be photographed, and I don’t want to feel like I’m taking advantage of them. I’m still looking for opportunities to take some "sympathetic" pictures of such people, which might inspire others to reach out and help them. We’ll see how it goes …

The only other thing I’ve noticed, thus far, is that while there are lots of interesting people to photograph, there are far, far, *far* more people who are *not* so interesting. They’re probably fine people, and they might even be more interesting than the ones I’ve photographed … but there was just nothing memorable about them. It was also published in a Jun 19, 2013 blog titled What Is Re-Marketing?", as well as a Jun 25, 2013 blog titled "言明してしまうことで自分を規定してしまうこと."

If the best part of your day is taking a 20 minute break to throw birds at pigs, it might be time to find a new job…

Image by Ed Yourdon
That’s what a subway poster, up above the kids on this subway, was telling the adult passengers.

Truth in advertising: I actually saw that subway poster several days later, on a different train — but as soon as I saw it, I thought of this photo, which I had taken but not yet uploaded to Flickr. (Just keeping track of which photos I’ve taken, and on which camera, which ones I’ve edited, which ones I’ve decided to leave on my computer, which ones I’ve decided to upload to Flickr, and which ones I actually have uploaded to Flickr … you’d be amazed how much time and energy that all takes!).

Anyway, these two kids look like they might be alone on the subway, surrounded and overwhelmed by enormous adults all around them. But their parents were actually nearby, though the kids had obviously tuned them out completely as they played and squealed and compared notes with each other about how many dragons, ogres, and evil tyrants they had killed, maimed, or dismembered as they played.

According to my iPhones’s GPS system, this photo was taken when the train was at 79th Street — and the kids were still playing quite energetically when I got off the train at 96th street…

One small technical note: arguably, this photo is "soft," if not downright blurry; and that seems to be true of several of my iPhone photos. But there’s a simple explanation: I have turned off the flash mechanism (can you imagine a flash going off in the middle of a NYC subway ride?), so the camera decided to shoot this image at 1/15 second, at an ISO of 400 and an aperture of f/2.2 . If nothing else, it demonstrates the benefits of shooting a dozen or more separate images in "burst" mode, in the hopes that possibly one of the resulting images will be reasonably sharp and non-blurry…

Note: I chose this as my "photo of the day" for Jan 14, 2014.

Note: this photo was published on Feb 25, 2014 in a blog titled "小学生のケータイ・スマホ普及率は36.6%まで上昇。うちスマホ保有率は16.3%に。フィルタリング利用は減少。."

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Whether you’re an amateur or professional photographer, it’s hard to walk around with a modern smartphone in your pocket, and not be tempted to use the built-in camera from time-to-time. Veteran photographers typically sneer at such behavior, and most will tell you that they can instantly recognize an iPhone photo, which they mentally reject as being unworthy of any serious attention.

After using many earlier models of smartphones over the past several years, I was inclined to agree; after all, I always (well, almost always) had a “real” phone in my pocket (or backpack or camera-bag), and it was always capable of taking a much better photographic image than the mediocre, grainy images shot with a camera-phone.

But still … there were a few occasions when I desperately wanted to capture some photo-worthy event taking place right in front of me, and inevitably it turned out to be the times when I did not have the “real” camera with me. Or I did have it, but it was buried somewhere in a bag, and I knew that the “event” would have disappeared by the time I found the “real" camera and turned it on. By contrast, the smart-phone was always in my pocket (along with my keys and my wallet, it’s one of the three things I consciously grab every time I walk out the door). And I often found that I could turn it on, point it at the photographic scene, and take the picture much faster than I could do the same thing with a “traditional” camera.

Meanwhile, smartphone cameras have gotten substantially better in the past few years, from a mechanical/hardware perspective; and the software “intelligence” controlling the camera has become amazingly sophisticated. It’s still not on the same level as a “professional” DSLR camera, but for a large majority of the “average” photographic situations we’re likely to encounter in the unplanned moments of our lives, it’s more and more likely to be “good enough.” The old adage of “the best camera is the one you have with you” is more and more relevant these days. For me, 90% of the success in taking a good photo is simply being in the right place at the right time, being aware that the “photo opportunity” is there, and having a camera — any camera — to take advantage of that opportunity. Only 10% of the time does it matter which camera I’m using, or what technical features I’ve managed to use.

And now, with the recent advent of the iPhone5s, there is one more improvement — which, as far as I can tell, simply does not exist in any of the “professional” cameras. You can take an unlimited number of “burst-mode” shots with the new iPhone, simply by keeping your finger on the shutter button; instead of being limited to just six (as a few of the DSLR cameras currently offer), you can take 10, 20, or even a hundred shots. And then — almost magically — the iPhone will show you which one or two of the large burst of photos was optimally sharp and clear. With a couple of clicks, you can then delete everything else, and retain only the very best one or two from the entire burst.

With that in mind, I’ve begun using my iPhone5s for more and more “everyday” photo situations out on the street. Since I’m typically photographing ordinary, mundane events, even the one or two “optimal” shots that the camera-phone retains might not be worth showing anyone else … so there is still a lot of pruning and editing to be done, and I’m lucky if 10% of those “optimal” shots are good enough to justify uploading to Flickr and sharing with the rest of the world. Still, it’s an enormous benefit to know that my editing work can begin with photos that are more-or-less “technically” adequate, and that I don’t have to waste even a second reviewing dozens of technically-mediocre shots that are fuzzy, or blurred.

Oh, yeah, one other minor benefit of the iPhone5s (and presumably most other current brands of smartphone): it automatically geotags every photo and video, without any special effort on the photographer’s part. Only one of my other big, fat cameras (the Sony Alpha SLT A65) has that feature, and I’ve noticed that almost none of the “new” mirrorless cameras have got a built-in GPS thingy that will perform the geotagging…

I’ve had my iPhone5s for a couple of months now, but I’ve only been using the “burst-mode” photography feature aggressively for the past couple of weeks. As a result, the initial batch of photos that I’m uploading are all taken in the greater-NYC area. But as time goes on, and as my normal travel routine takes me to other parts of the world, I hope to add more and more “everyday” scenes in cities that I might not have the opportunity to photograph in a “serious” way.

Stay tuned….

Science Center Dragon Boats

Image by `James Wheeler
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