Megalopolis

"Filming" a video? Call it what it is!

2012-01-01T21:27:00.005-05:00

How is it people say they are making a "film" or they saw a crew or a person "filming" something, but when you check it out its really video, i.e. television equipment being used?

There's a huge difference. Film is a long roll, put into a camera, exposed one frame at a time, usually 24 times or so a second, developed into a negative, then scanned or printed into positive form. Its a highly technical, unforgiving process that yields exemplary results that are incomparable.
You really have to know what you are doing to get it right, its bigtime expensive, usually reserved for Hollywood-scale major motion picture budgets or top-end advertising.

Thats why when I hear about a "film" being made nearby, I still naively assume that thats what's going on and I go check it out, expecting a major production.
But I guess producers just say "film", because it sounds cool, and high end.
Usually its just somebody with a camcorder, a television camera. And when the production
is done, its going to look no better than a television picture. A high quality television picture maybe, but still a television picture.
That's okay, there's plenty of imaginative, compelling, and important productions that are photographed primarily on video, and its certainly the way of the future, Hollywood knows it.
Panavision stopped manufacturing film cameras last year.
I think its time to get the terminology right. Say "making a video" or "videoing", not "making a film". Thats for filmmakers

Still photography and video are one and the same

2011-10-29T14:31:00.005-04:00

Photographic equipment manufacturers showed their latest work at PhotoEast, the annual show at the Javits convention center in New York. Most cameras take still photos and video. The convergence has happened. The "decisive moment", a mark of a successful photo, is now a freeze frame

Marcellus shale in Pennsylvania,The New Steel

2011-09-01T09:25:00.004-04:00

Right now in Pennsylvania there are over 1600 working gas wells. The key word here is "working" which really means people working. The gas industry has created thousands of jobs. It has been a huge windfall for many communities. The economic growth has really just begun, opportunities abound for the ambitious. Simply put, it is poised to become the biggest economic driver in the state since the steel industry was sent packing decades ago. Pennsylvania is well on its way back.

Climate Change: Top 5 Advantages to Global Warming

2011-07-18T09:52:00.005-04:00

Well, its pretty hot outside this week, feels like another heat wave, something we'll probably experience more of as the atmospheric carbon dioxide continues its climb from everybody burning all those fossil fuels.
Its not necessarily a negative though, I mean, consider the following..

1) Increased sales of water ice..
Who doesn't like to cool off with a flavorful, slushy sweet treat on hot day? It could turn out to be a year-round thing, certainly a boon to vendors.

2) Longer growing season in northern latitudes..
A good thing for the organic farmer trying to make ends meet up in Manitoba, we'll have Canadian strawberries in April.

3) Northwest sea passage open due to melting of Arctic ice..
Mariners have sought this route since the 1500's, its a HUGE advantage for international trade. Look for lower prices on imported goods.

4) Rising seas creating valuable waterfront property in formerly landlocked areas...
Just the thing for a distressed real estate market

5) Next ice age is postponed..
A good thing for future generations who don't like the cold, and they won't have to worry about mile-thick glaciers scraping off Toronto and dropping it off in Tennessee.

So, not to worry, all the so-called negatives could just be a case of hype from the unenlightened.

Photography as art at Phillips Mill

2011-06-06T08:46:00.003-04:00

The 19th Annual Phillips Mill Photographic Exposition has opened at the old mill just north of New Hope. There's 137 pieces in the show, including this black and white image of an old schooner, taken by Robert Fisher of Croyden and deemed 'Best of Show', one of nine winners chosen by the three judge panel. The show opened this past Saturday, and runs Wednesday-Sunday until June 26. As an attendee, you are encouraged to choose your own 'Best of Show'

Imitation and Flattery

2011-04-22T17:27:00.009-04:00

When I took a picture recently of workers installing new light poles next to Towamencin Avenue near Kulpsville, there was something about it that just seemed somehow familiar, although I couldn't quite think of what it was at the time.
Later it hit me. Its reminiscent of the famous photo taken in 1945 by Associated Press photographer Joe Rosenthal of US Marines raising the flag on Iwo Jima. It won a Pulitzer prize that year, and its probably the most memorable photograph made during the war.
It was decades ago, before my time, but it still is to me one of the most powerful images ever made. At the time it was taken and widely published, it was a tremendous morale booster for Americans experiencing the horrors of World War II. I remember seeing it as a child, and I was moved then. It must have stayed in my memory, so when I felt a tinge of deja vu as I clicked the shutter, that's what it must have been.
Americans are once again experiencing the horrors of war, and the US Marines are still in the thick of it.
Semper Fi

A permanent trend

2011-02-12T13:42:00.002-05:00

In a promotion for the recent tattoo convention in Philadelphia, the writer was quoting one of the participating tattoo artists who spoke about the latest and past trends in the industry.
How can something as permanent as a tattoo be described as something as ephemeral as a trend?
Trends come and go, in fact by the time they go mainstream, they're basically done.
So if you get a example of the latest design, aren't you setting yourself up for being forever stuck in the past?
Maybe that's the idea.

Ww-way too many w's

2011-01-23T17:58:00.003-05:00

Why does everybody waste everybody's time saying out loud the letters "w-w-w" when talking about some website they have, saw, recommend, hate, or love? The www part of a website is designed to be typed into a keyboard, not orally repeated like some kind of speech therapy exercise!
It takes more than a second to say it, 60 people saying it will have wasted over minute, multiply by another group of 60, and there's an hour gone, 24 of those, and the day is shot, all wasted. Its particularly noticeable when said by radio announcers.
Many people just shorten it, regressing to the infantile "dubbya, dubbya, dubbya", others, (usually the radio announcers) meticulously pronounce every meaningless syllable, filling the air with more needless dribble.
Let it go, the world wide web is fully mature now, its one of us, a force of nature, no need to reintroduce it every time you talk.
If you have an urgent need though, just say "three w's" , at least its shorter.

A Noble Vision

2010-12-16T15:33:00.006-05:00

Futuristic visions from the past can be really fascinating, and really off the mark.
There was a public relations pamphlet published by the Reading Railroad in the spring of 1958, when the railroad industry was still more or less robust in the USA, although the writing was on the wall as construction of the interstate highway system was well underway.
The pamphlet has photos and drawings of the Reading's extensive infrastructure, its busy employees, prosperous passengers, and industrial customers shown in their day to day life during the booming postwar economy.
The Reading Railroad's visionary illustration, shown here, shows a pair of operators far removed from the rail yard, looking at television monitors, electronic controllers and gauges, overseeing the whole vast network from a space age work station.
Its quite a picture, but a creative construct that proved to be all wrong.
We are living in the artist's future alright, but there is no Reading Railroad.

Further into the Future

2010-10-31T19:35:00.004-04:00

A famous artist once said "In the future, everyone will be world famous for 15 minutes". It may be that further in the future people will pay dearly for anonymity.

And it ain't what it ain't.

2010-09-08T15:19:00.003-04:00

Why is it when some people who don't have the ability or the willingness to explain or describe something they just repeat the phrase "It is what it is"?
Are they just lazy? Maybe they have a problem with concentration and are
unable to think deeply enough to articulate what it is they want to say.
Or maybe they are geniuses describing some sort of profound philosophical revelation about the nature of reality.
Is anything not what it is?
Maybe a blank stare would suffice.

What Kind of Gun?

2010-06-24T17:47:00.002-04:00

A firearms manufacturer has come out with a revolver that shoots both shotgun shells or regular 45 caliber pistol ammo. Designed as a close quarters handgun, it probably performs well for close range response to an attack situation. Okay, I get that. I don't get the advertising, where its touted as an ideal "trail gun". What is a "trail gun"? What trail? The Appalachian Trail? Is that a dangerous place? Could be the Perkiomen Trail, there have been some issues there, but I don't think so. It might be the walking trail in Lower Salford, there has been a successful legal challenge to an open carry restriction the township tried to enact, but is the trail really dangerous? I don't think so. If you know what trail the advertisers are talking about, please let me know. I want to know what a "trail gun" is.

Digital Photgraphy

2010-06-09T19:14:00.002-04:00

It official. Photography using film, like the daguerreotype from the nineteenth century, is now a historic process.
What cinched it for me was the realization that the annual photo show at at Phillips Mill, near New Hope in Bucks County this year had, for the first time, more digital entries than film entries.
Photographers working in the fine-art realm were the last holdout for the old way, until now.
There was some hybrid work, photos shot on film, scanned, manipulated electronically, then printed on an inkjet. There was some film photography, the "historic" way, but the show is now wholly part of the digital world. And it looks better.

Fake is the New Real

2010-04-29T18:35:00.005-04:00

There is a material made for construction of outdoor decks that resists stains and wears better than any wood. Available in a choice of colors, its some type of synthetic material, but it has a molded-in wood grain. So it looks like wood, sort of. Why do they make it look like wood when it obviously isn't?

The cash register at the convenience store is all electronic, yet when the drawer opens it plays a recording of what a mechanical cash register sounds like when its opened.
Many otherwise silent digital cameras produce an electronically generated "click" when you press the shutter release meant to replicate the sound of a mechanical shutter on an old film camera.

Plastic hubcaps have a shiny coat to look like chrome, like old steel hubcaps had.

There was a U.S Marine in full dress uniform playing taps at a military funeral, but when you looked closely, he wasn't even playing, the bugle had a little electronic device that played taps, or any one of a number of selections. The soldier could just turn a knob to make his choice.

These are obvious examples of the new real, I wonder what others are lurking just out of view?

Time Again for Torture

2010-03-28T18:18:00.005-04:00

I've spoken about this before, but with the opening of fishing season next week I just want to ask one more time. Why? Why do "sportsmen" continue the sanctioned torture of animals through the barbaric practice called "catch and release"? They hook a fish, keep it on the line until its nearly dead from exhaustion, and then throw it back, where it possibly succumbs anyway due to trauma. They inflict a cruel pain and suffering, just for the perverted pleasure of it.
Why? Would they go to the blue mountain in the fall and hook a passing golden eagle using a rabbit as bait, reel it in after it was too weak to fly, and then abandon it, maybe to die? Why do they just do this to fish? The state actually encourages it. Why?
It seems some people can't experience nature without antagonizing the animals.
I understand catching fish to eat, although its not recommended to eat fresh water fish caught in any of the lower 48 states because of contamination from PCB's and certain heavy metals. I also understand throwing a fish back because it doesn't meet size legal size requirements.
I don't understand going fishing with the knowledge that everything you hook that day or night will be tortured just for your delight. Why?

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2010-03-27T10:54:00.001-04:00

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Photography

2010-03-03T17:41:00.002-05:00

Is there time enough to even begin to look at all the pictures that are being made?
Some cameras are designed to make nearly 10 pictures every second, that's practically a movie.
Its as if everything is being photographed all the time. Who will look at them, and when?
Is it for posterity? History?
There are probably about two dozen or less photos of president Abraham Lincoln. Our mental picture of him is based on the serious, thoughtful personality portrayed in those vintage black and white images.
There are several hundred pictures made every day of president Obama. Sometimes a few hundred or more a minute at major events. How will people of the future see him? It will be however they choose, since there is probably a picture to suit every personality, emotion, or mood.
Around the world, in the time it has taken to read this, hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of pictures have been taken in the process of creating a separate ongoing photographic reality, a parallel universe based on how and what people choose to see, instead of what actually is.

Hug a Tree, Strike a Pedestrian.

2009-12-14T16:36:00.002-05:00

In Chalfont it looks like at least one person thinks that pedestrians should walk right along the side of busy two-lane Route 202 instead of a sidewalk. That could be a challenge for a special needs individual in a wheelchair or walker. "Roadkill" need not be limited to four legged creatures according to this resident. You'd think if a person wants a home with trees, they would live away from the highway.

What is an "Invasive Species"?

2009-10-24T14:11:00.003-04:00

I'm mixed up. What exactly is an invasive species? What difference does it make what plants grow or what insects or animals live in which areas of the "wild", or how they got there? Why do some people think they are in charge where plants and/or animals can or can't be? Who decides the borders? Its just natural evolution, people (invaders?) have populated the entire planet now, and so has everything else. Take honeybees for instance. They are not "native" to the USA, people brought them from Europe. Without bees to pollinate, some areas of the agriculture industry would collapse. Sometimes we depend on the "invasives", so maybe we should let things take their natural course and spend less time "weeding" entire mountainsides.

Harley Davidsons of the Future (Shhhhh!)

2009-10-08T18:54:00.002-04:00

The most distinctive characteristic of that most hallowed of American symbols, the Harley Davidson motorcycle, is the unmistakable, throaty roar of the exhaust. Its music to riders of those beautiful machines, and a noisy nuisance to the unenlightened. Some communities have even tried to ban the bikes, or at least try to muzzle them by trying, sometimes successfully, to enact ordinances against noise.
IN THE FUTURE, when gasoline is all gone and the Harleys are all silently powered by electricity, their unique sound will be a recording played through a speaker made to look like an exhaust pipe, so the bikers will be happy. But everybody will be happy because on the handlebar, right next to the throttle, will be something new, a mute button.

What / Where is Megalopolis?

2009-09-24T19:52:00.000-04:00

The term "Megalopolis" was a tag given in 1961 to the roughly 500 mile densely populated corridor on the eastern seaboard of the United States which runs from Boston to Washington. Comprised of cities and commuter communities, booming population and resulting sprawl created a massive continuous suburban landscape. Towns and once-isolated farming communities became part of the metropolis, creating the massive Megalopolis, a single "place". Its very much a new place, made of many new things, and some very old and mysterious things. Its where I live, and I am fascinated by its ecological and environmental detail, its history, its people, and its future. Its what this blog is about.