Hip to go square…

Most artists I know, especially the ones hitting the show circuit, have at some point considered POS solutions built around cell phone technology. The main stumbling block being 1 the cost of the equipment, and 2 the requirement that it be attached to a merchant account.
Enter Square.
From the people who brought us Google, square is free (equipment-wise), runs on iPhones and Android phones, and can be attached to non-commercial accounts (I’ve attached mine to my PayPal account). They charge 2.75% of transactions, which being high, will probably do until you’re doing such gangbuster business the extra equipment fees vs. lower transaction fees ratio makes sense.
Still, for those of is who want the ability to accept credit card payments from time to time this is a great way to get started. Check them out at www.squareup.com.

Time to jump off of the bus…

Well, after the last couple of weeks, and really cumulatively over the last few years, I’ve decided it’s time to abandon the Microsoft operating system family in favor of a more standards-based OS…namely Mac OS in whatever it’s latest flavor. Honestly, I’m not looking forward to my first trip to the Apple store which is probably inevitable regardless wherever I buy my system. Oh well. Here’s a little background:
Most of you know that I used to be a highly sought after technology instructor. I was paid to achieve expert knowledge of system architecture, programming, networking and web development among other related topics. During this time it was very easy for me to spec my own system to ensure the any system I bought would remain viable for the longest amount of time. Easy, because I spent considerable time keeping myself abreast the latest technologies.
Fast foreword ten years.
I am now the assistant golf superintendent at a municipal course, and the most critical use for my desktop system is editing and otherwise processing my photographs. I really haven’t had the time, or interest in keeping up with the technology advances since I procured my dual-processor Alienware system a number of years ago.
Well, a couple of weeks ago it died, its motherboard fried as the first symptom of what would be a week of funky power dips, spikes and eventually an exploding transformer on the next block.
Not wanting to miss a beat with regards to a real estate transaction we were in the middle of, I grabbed the Acer netbook I bought last year, but it turned out to have picked up a virus that seems to have trashed the boot sector and 30% of the hard drive. The netbook came pre-loaded with Windows 7, which scanned and fixed about 40% of the problems it found, but then told me I needed to upgrade my version of Windows to fix the remaining problems. Really? Seriously?
Over the last few years, when people have asked me whether or not they should buy a Mac, I would point out that they are now standards-based, based on a stable and strictly controlled system architecture, and that the only factor keeping me from adopting the platform was price.
Well, it’s my opinion that with their new business model, Microsoft have pushed their new OS on me, only to demand more money from me to fix my hosed system. Like the heroin pusher of the seventies, it’s cheap at first…until the hooks are in. Then it turns into a beast demanding more money to fix your drive, more money for security subscriptions. Feature bloat abounds, with the most useful bits of a given feature only a paid upgrade away. Buying hardware…especially higher-end video hardware is a crap shoot…but somehow goes smoother on one of the fully upgraded flavors of Windows. I could go on for days.
I have resolved to not spend another dime in supporting Microsoft’s need to keep me hooked on their pay-as-you-go operating system. While I have a great deal of experience with Linux, I do not feel the gimp is a suitable replacement for Photoshop, at least not for my purposes, and Adobe have absolutely no plans for releasing any of their product for Linux.
At the moment, I am writing this blog on the most powerful system I have at my disposal at the moment…my iPhone. Without it I would have been screwed, as I have used it to review PDF documents, take pictures of vandalism on my course, search Angie’s List for contractors, search real estate listings, and electronically sign critical documents in addition to viewing current RADAR, and responding quickly to emails.
The fact is for the last fortnight i’ve successfully replaced my desktop with an iPhone for roughly 85% of my normal usage! If Adobe had a full version of PS for the iPhone, I’d be set!
Suffice it to say that I’ve determined it’s not much of a hardship to save up a while for a Mac. It makes more sense than continuing to throw good money after bad trying to use an OS I no longer believe is worth my time and effort…let alone my money.
I am, as always it seems, a slave to the tools I am using…Photoshop, Dreamweaver, QTR at the moment, but I am hoping my decision will largely liberate me from being a slave to my OS.
As it stands, I’m no help with any version of windows after XP. Pretty soon, if it doesn’t involve a sad Mac, you’ll be on your own.
Resistance is futile…

It’s been a long time…

Wow!  It’s been a year since I posted to this blog…I’ll have to do better going forward.

I just wanted to put down some of my thoughts as I begin to change my tack, artistically.

First with regards to printmaking:  I’ve been casting for a more expressive way to present my work over the last few years, experimenting with canvas, back-lit film and other “cutting edge” techniques, generally to no avail.  While I am able to produce fine (in my opinion, call me out on this if I’m wrong, friends) works of art, I fear they do not inspire, as in inspire the patron to their pocketbook.  A family member and exhibiting artist even inquired as to whether I’d considered painting, to which I had no reply.  I’m a photographer, I thought…trained by painters, yes; but a photographer.  My confidence in my artistic vision is strong (perhaps too strong, but that’s another article), but my presentation is weak, in a number of ways.

So I am shifting my focus (no pun intended) a bit in both my photography and printmaking, and use this opportunity to push myself artistically to produce more sublime and expressive output.  I’ve been trending toward film ever since seeking camera movements to fix convergence issues shooting architecture.  I fell in love with the level of detail you get out of a good 16 bit drum scan of a 4×5 (in) or 6×9 (cm) hunk of film.  I will continue to shoot more medium and large format film, in addition to my D90 which my boss, an avid nature photographer, is already getting ready to upgrade out of.  My planned next film camera is a wide angle, fixed-lens 6×9 all mechanical rangefinder whose design hasn’t changed substantially since it was introduced in 1972 (look up Texas Leica).

As to my printmaking, I’ve just received the Platinum starter kit from Bostic and Sullivan, along with some paper, developing trays and a leftover HID lamp setup from previous basement tomato growing experiments , will begin to work on producing handmade contact prints from digital negatives.  I settled on platinum process for a number of reasons:

• The compounds are fairly benign in the concentrations used, both to the artist, and the environment, especially when compared to silver gelatin processing.  Simple safe handling practices and availability of product in suspension virtually eliminates the chance of exposure to the potentially dangerous forms of the compounds.
• Platinum and Palladium are extremely stable, meaning the prints will last as long as the paper beneath it holds up.  They also produce a greater dynamic range than silver gelatin, producing in the highlights a more luminous appearance.
• The main issue with Pt process when it was originally in use was controlling contrast was difficult without paying a price in quality, short of going back and shooting the negative again (not!).  Today I can tailor an output curve to produce a proper negative for the print.  If I need to tweak anything, I can do it in Photoshop instead of fiddling with the chemistry, giving me more control of the process.

This is an ambitious move for me, stepping away from the safety of giclee printing, or for that matter announcing I’m giving it a try before I’ve produced my first print.  Pt/Pd printing is not widely seen as one of the easier mediums to master.  I very well may not find that I feel fully expressive in the medium, but I’m giving it a shot, and I’ll be posting my results in this blog as I go.

It won’t be another year ’till my next entry.  Thank you for your interest,

- trace

Underexpose your Digital Pics for Better Results

Digital cameras continue to get better, faster and easier to use.  But understanding the difference in light sensitivity between film and digital cameras can help you get better results.  This article is meant for photographers and artists, and it is presumed  that the reader has a basic knowledge of photography concepts.

Metering Madness

Through-the-lens, or TTL metering has come a long way since my first Minolta’s “needle and hoop” meter.  Today’s digital cameras have a host of metering options from spot metering, to average metering and preset scenes.  As a photographer it is your job to get comfortable with your camera’s metering system in the conditions under which you shoot.  RTFM is a term that carries over nicely from my old IT days…it stands for Read The Frickin’ Manual, and since each camera model meters in different ways, it’s something you’ll want to do every time you get a new camera.  The word photography literally means “painting with light”, and since TTL metering has made simple what used to require a great deal of thought, putting in a little thought every now and then can often mean the difference between a decent snapshot, and a quality photographic image.

Using Firefox Personas to Promote Your Artwork

I hate cold weather.  So when the temp drops, and the snow starts to fall I tend to direct my attention to promoting my artwork, something I should likely be doing year-round, but rarely have time for while the grass is growing.

By now, you’ve hopefully read my piece on why you need to upgrade to the Firefox browser, today, I’d like to rant about a new tool that allows for us artists to promote ourselves by placing our artwork directly on people’s desktop.  For free, no less.

A Firefox persona is very much like a “skin” in that it allows the user to select a background for the menu/tool bar (Header) and the strip along the bottom of the browser window (footer).  It is not nearly as complex to construct as a theme, which generally requires custom graphics for buttons and a good deal more work and technical expertise.  Simply put from an artist’s perspective, a theme is merely a header image, footer image, the text color, and background color for the window.   Once you get used to making them they are simple, fast and fun to create and share.  And any free way I can find to grow my brand is something I’m going to have to try out: