APhotoContributor

time friggin' flies...

i mean ... i know my own perspective of time is rather skewed compared to other people.  i'm sure there's at least one who will attest to this.

it's not just time i think ... blogging on this platform is so much more of a pain in the ass than uber.com used to be. 

fucking uber.

i never really said much about what i thought about the demise of uber.  i didn't really want to until the street contest ended and the prize ended up in the correct hands.  honestly, i don't really get why people would bitch, moan and fucking complain about something that was free to the winner.  what made me laugh hardest, of course, was that the people who were identified to me as the biggest bitchers had ABSOLUTELY no chance of anything close to contention.  odd. 

and now ... a perfectly deserving photographer ... ironically living on one of my favourite streets in amsterdam ... has a new camera.  so stoked that i could use my contacts to make that happen for someone.

will i do it again?  dunno.

i'm a working photographer ... not some wannabe art school grad who couldn't make it as a "real photographer" nor am i someone who hates the fact he wasn't "good enough to go pro" and would rather be a househusband.

much much much different being a working photographer.

ya' know i found that my new 2tb drive and mac wouldn't format the win fat32 discs as mac discs until i first partitioned them as two 1tb drives.  very odd.

wish i didn't have to know that kind of bullshit.

i just want to make photos.

and now i have 7 tb of drives to worry about.  it's amazing to me.  7-fucking-tb.

worked out all of my aperture issues, too!  that took some time.  and now i get to re-think the way i index all of that stuff.

oh, yeah, uber.  seriously, when i saw some people i greatly care about lose their jobs ... yes ... i was fucking pissed.  not necesarily at the management of uber but the whole financial mess the us/world got itself into.  besides the idiots who got into mortgages they knew they couldn't afford and u.s. carmakers who are so clearly fucking out-of-touch with reality i guess i blame the international bankers.

ever since uber took a nose-fucking-dive ... dunno if i've really had blogging in me as of late.

i haven't stopped making photos.  i have lots.

in fact, going to the lab today to pick up more processed film and scans.

yes, i do plan on sharing some of the work ... but ... typepad's way of doing things is a bit clunky.

i know.  i could use a bunch of different free services.

honestly, fuck free services.  i'd rather pay.

i don't see how anything "free" unless it's owned by google will survive. 

i've also been on an archiving-fucking-mission of late.  crazy archiving. 

on the archving front ... j did an amazing job editing and laying out "the dog book."  i'm done with the e.u. book.  j's just got to put some finishing touches on it.  then on to usa 01, usa 02 and usa 03.

my eyes would go bleary from seeing so many goddamned photos.

and ... notice that i haven't called any of them street.  i'm tired of the term street photography because so many dumbasses and "others" think of street photography as literally photographs of streets.  i get it.  i get why someone may think that.  for sure.  not only ... but when you say "yeah, i shoot street" you get the craziest blank expression from "laypeople."  then again, street also includes material not made on a street per se.  then why call it street?

it's not that the onlinephotodudewhocan'tshoot came up with "street" ...

when i look at successful photos in this genre they all depict humans within their respective environments.  they depict "the human condition."

"the human condition" exists on the metro, on the bus, on the street, of course, inside restaurants, hospitals, bars ... everywhere.  that's why calling it street ... just don't feel it anymore.

fyi ... i like printing photos within aperture so much more than i do in ps.

just so you know.

what else? 

it's almost that silly-fucking-season again.  cannot believe how fast 2008 went.  jesus.

*watches the final bit of this latest terabyte copy from one drive to another*

yes, i'm a backup fanatic.

what else?

oh, yeah, the 5d mark 2.  yes, it's pretty damn amazing.  funny that my photographer-friends (the ones who do this for a living and don't just postulate on the fucking internet) ... are most intrigued with the video capabilities.

*waits for the returned phone call about the use of someone's gyro*

what sucks about the video capabilities is that you can't force the aperture.  you'll notice that reverie was shot at night.  also ... the af is not only noisy -- as you can hear every little movement of the lens -- but it's slow as shit.  you're way better off manually focusing.

i see it as very useful as a b-roll camera during interviews.

we're still trying to find out if it's 24 fps or 30.  there's some arguments about this.

handling in the still-photo-world ... um ... this is amazing.  it's so fast.  almost as fast as my venerable monster.  i like it because it's lighter, too.

and, no, i won't be buying the grip.  i wasted us$400 on the one for the last 5d.

bastards changed batteries again.

i don't really notice any autofocusing differences between the old 5d and the new one.  the 85/1.2L is still slow as shit.  so is the mark 2 version.  the 50's much quicker.

the general feel of it is way better than the last version.

21 mp!

amazing.

and nikon comes out with an $8K d3x.  canon should further reduce the price of the 1dsm3. ;)

yeah, i know ... i got one and paid full pop ... but ... unlike most on the web ... mine's already paid for itself.

in multiples. ;)

i think i have to get in the shower and get the day going.

thank you all for being so patient in terms of waiting for some photographs.

there ARE photographs.

i just haven't had the time to do anything but work-related stuff and archiving.

seriously, i believe blurb.com is the way of the future.  i showed some of my friends blurb and they were amazed.  i was amazed they'd never heard about it.  then again, working photographers don't have as much time to see everything that's out there.

my working-photographer-friends usually wait for me to tell them about it.

so ... hope you're all very well ...

cheers from the now-feeling-like-late-fall l.a.!

-chris

quite amazing...

that one day of burning folders from an aging fw400 drive so that it can be "sanitized" ... and donated or whatever ...

and i didn''t see that digital railroad is ... gone the way so many other services have gone...

investors are scared and pull their money.

the big syndicators don't like services like drr or photoshelter.  i'm not going to name-names.  nope.  they really don't like people who self-syndicate.  who are the they?  well ... you can figure it out.  in fact, i'm not really talking to the hobbyists but perhaps the people who make photos for a living.

i actually know quite a few people who use (used) drr.  i feel bad for them.

not only but these c*nts gave their customers only 24 hours to archive their stuff?  um ... i wonder how the ceo and other officers at drr did?  wonder if they got their paychecks?  probably so.  wonder if they could have forgone the paychecks and kept the service up for at least another week?  i mean ... i wasn't a customer but i really liked their model.

seems like anything on the web can appear overnight ... and disappear just as fast.

i mean ... how fucking hard can it be to figure out a good site?  honestly, i don't think flickr does "viewing" your work correctly.  nor do i think dA does it right.  even more honestly, i don't even think uber did it right.

i think it's time to say fuck you to corporations which really don't give a fuck about the individual and start some other photo site.  i think it could only work if it were started by a collective group of like-minded people ... and funded by subscriptions. 

kind of like dA but not quite.

perhaps with admins (photographically-speaking, of course) who actually are respected photographers among their peers ... not just ... well ... whatever they currently are.

i think certain people owe it to certain other people to really look at something like this.

-a place to post photos.
-a place to comment.
-a place where photos are rated.
-a place not fucking owned by yahoo or google or whatever.

as much as i like certain people at dA ... i can't ever go back to the level of participation i had back in the day.

i kinda think invitation-only would be cool ... so that wanks don't overpopulate with their stellar landscape work. ;)

dunno.

seems that even the web has gone the way of main street:  it's mom-and-pop business have gone the way of best buy and big box businesses.

who .. don't give fuck-one about customer service.

ever try to return something at fry's or best buy? 

and much like the photo industry ... especially that of the behemoth syndicators ... customer service has gone out the fucking window.  i know.  i hear the stories from the very loyal clients. 

the bigger the business ... customer service just ...

sucks.

anyway ... just thought i'd say that.

hopefully, at least one person this was aimed at ... got what i was talking about.

forgot i had to work tonight. :(

so ... it changes the way i was going to spend my day.

hope you're all well and not in jeopardy of losing your job or your house or your archive to corporate-c*nts.

cheers from the stil-warm-l.a.!

-chris

Life as it happens ...

Maybe you didn't know, but we're a group of homeless Uber-friends collecting thoughts, ideas, rants and all here. Here's a short story I did for the local paper last week. I was in the Queen Marrgrethe of Denmark II's garden (year, thats a mighty long name) the other day, doing archive shots of the place, when the local kindergarten came by.

"I'm going to steal apples from the queens garden," this young fellow said, "I got permission!" And in fact he does. Story is that back in February they went into the garden and stole some apples, but when back home they felt so guilty they wrote the queen to confess their sins.

So the kids got a nice letter from the Queen, stating. "It's okay, you are free to take as many apples in my garden as you wish."

Now, that was a real fairy tale from the little Kingdom of Denmark. Hope you are all well, and we'll be speaking soon. Let me know if you have subjects of special interest I can entertain you with.

/Thorsten Overgaard

Class of September of 2008...

is what our little m is part of ...

yes, this would be the first time i've ever photographed a dog in a "cap and gown."  he's done so well.  j works with him much more than i do but ... he can sit, stay (for an extended period of time), speak, play dead and play with the clicker-wand-thing.

our trainer steve is amazing.

yep, the first real post ... even though i'm still a bit melancholy about uber's demise.  it really had it's own personality ... the community members are/were great ... the people behind uber are/were amazing ...

and it's weird to start over again.

hopefully, my little friend will help with some css. ;)  she's happy about some news today. ;)

*gotta go to a swimming lesson with b*

back shortly! :)

okay ... doesn't look like typepad likes photobucket photos.  f*ckers.

can i say f*ck here?  dunno.

i know i said f*ck when i saw this asshole on t.v. last night ...

amazing that it was the best one i could come up with when i had a 5d next to me. ;)

so ... yeah ... i have some new photos ... gotta get a hang of this shit on typepad.  it's different.

fyi ... there's a distinct possibility that something my "rise from the ashes" of uber.  i'll keep you guys posted.

suits f*ck everything up.

some suits are nice.

some suits are alright.

but they fuck it all up. ;)

kinda like the suit that's in that video-cap-via-5d-and-processed-in-photoshop.

don't have my external drive with me right now so i couldn't use aperture. :(

so ... again ... thank you all for sending the emails with your information ... you all live in a very nice little contact list.  it was cool, actually, putting that list together because, well, you guys fucking rock.

also, i've joined flickr. i even have a pro-account so now, as darren says, "i shoot for money." ;)

i think i'm going to review flickr. ;)

i think it's time for dinner.

hope you're all very well!