Participants of Diwali celebrations in Trafalgar Square. London. UK. 2004.

A very quick post to wish all my friends a very happy Diwali, should you be celebrating this amazing ‘festival of lights’ where you are in the world.

The above image was taken in Trafalgar Square, London, during celebrations in 2004. I am sure London will be awash with colours again, as will all those places throughout the world that are marking this very special occasion. Get your cameras out. It’s a great festival to photograph!

Canon T-shirt (black)

With summer almost upon us, I know many photographers are wondering what on earth their wardrobe contains that will ensure they stand out from the crowds of other photographers this season. Forget scarves. In case something goes wrong with your camera, why not have a t-shirt which doubles as a mini schematic of how your camera works?! The above t-shirt can be purchased in UniQlo in Beijing for the bargain price of 100rmb (US$15).

If schematics are not your thing, then you might want to head for the slightly more understated white t-shirt with simplified Canon EOS motif. Two, surely ‘must have’ items for this year’s summer wardrobe

Canon T-Shirt (white)

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If you do, don’t. Here is one reason why…

“During his trip, Robert Frank shot 767 rolls of film yielding about 27,000 images. He edited that down to about 1,000 work prints, spread them across the floor of his studio and tacked them to the walls for a final edit. Out of a year and a half of work, Frank chose just 83 images for his book The Americans.” – NPR Article

So, is good photography just a numbers game? Well, of course not. It is often said that photographers ‘sketch’ a situation, like an artist. Moving, watching, experimenting, waiting…until the moment is just right. You really have to know what you are looking for. That comes with time and practice. The hidden power of photography lies in the editing. The ability to select the right image(s) from a situation and then put together the ones that work best together, to eventually create a compelling story, or narrative.

It’s always good to get a second opinion on your work from a trusted editor, friend and/or colleague. Find a small group of people who know what they’re talking about. Ones who aren’t afraid to give you completely honest feedback. This is key to helping you move forward.

If You Pay Peanuts, You Get Monkeys

Apparently this is a genuine image used by Canon in a campaign to advertise the  Focus-on-Imaging photographic trade show which is being held in Birmingham, UK at the moment. Canon decided to pull out of the trade show but I think their advert deserves to live on a little longer, hence the post.

Love the f8 at 98.5% tagline.

Hope it brought a smile to your face today.

Thanks to Olivier Laurent over at BJP for originally posting this on their blog.

[Now, I know that technically, chimpanzees are not monkeys. They are great apes. Both are primates, but alas are different. Maybe the headline should be, 'If you pay peanuts, you get primates' ...doesn't quite have the same ring to it though. Please forgive the slight discrepancy. I hope no Zoologists are reading this!]

National Geographic have just released a series of very interesting articles in their latest issue, on the status of humanity’s population. As part of their interactive features, they released the video above titled ‘the face of 7 billion’, depicting what is the most common face on the planet. Do you have it?

It seems that there have been a few of these kinds of graphic’s coming out recently, most notably one which was going around the internet a few weeks ago of composite images of women from different countries in the world. It’s quite an interesting technique.

The National Geographic series of articles on population are up to the very high standards you would expect from them. They have some fascinating graphics which break down the current statistics surrounding our global population. It’s well worth taking time to explore.

Quick post today. As Beijing is my Chinese adopted hometown, I couldn’t resist posting this video when I came across it.

‘Live the Language’ seems to be a new series of advertisements for English First, a language training school. I like the feel to these videos and suspect that they have been shot on a DSLR. Many shots throughout the video have that very shallow depth-of-field feel to them that typifies video shot with a DSLR.

Watching this video is also a test of your Chinese knowledge! How many characters can you recognize?

NGC 2841 Galaxy - NASA - http://www.spacetelescope.org/

I thought I’d start the week with something spectacular. I wish I could claim that this is my picture, but alas, it belongs to NASA shot with the famous Hubble telescope. What you are seeing is NGC 2841, a spiral galaxy that is located some 45 million light years away. I’m captivated by astrophotography sometimes and like to peruse astronomy blogs and dip into the Hubble-archives to peruse some of the amazing images out there. This one caught my eye and I thought it would be a great image to start the week with.

As an added extra, I thought I’d throw in a little Carl Sagan for futher inspiration too. Have a great week.

Continuing along the aerial viewpoint theme from yesterday, I thought this video was a fitting follow-up to the somewhat depressing image of pollution hanging over Beijing, taken from one of NASA’s satellites. It also connects nicely in the NASA theme, as this video is of Thursday’s Discovery Shuttle Launch. This is not just any video of a launch but one taken from the window of a passing commercial airliner!

Now the video isn’t the most amazing quality in the world but the quick-thinking passenger who shot it, pulled out their video camera just in time to get a very unique viewpoint indeed.

I am fascinated by astronomy, so am thrilled to see this new vantage point. Shame it will be Dicovery’s last launch. It also seems to mark the beginning of the end for the US space shuttle program. What will the future hold for manned missions from the US? I have a feeling China will have something to say on this matter soon. Stay tuned…

NASA/GSFC, MODIS Rapid Response - http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/

This is quite a depressing picture. The main reason (for me) why it is so depressing, is because I live underneath that grey cloud. This is an image captured by NASA on February 20th 2011, showing very clearly the blanket of pollution that sat over Beijing throughout the beginning of this week. Click here for the HighRes.

According to NASA

The featureless gray-brown haze is so thick that the ground is not visible in parts of this photo-like image taken at 11:35 a.m. by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer on NASA’s Terra satellite. At that time, a weather station at Beijing’s airport reported visibility of 1.9 miles (3.1 kilometers). Visibility dropped as low as 1.1 miles (1.8 km) later in the afternoon.

To be fair, it has appeared that there has been a significant rise in the number of ‘blue sky days’ since the new year. However, the smog still occasionally descends and smothers the city in a soot/black carbon haze. This week, it was present for a solid three days with Air Quality Indices off the charts most of that time.

This is not a new phenomenon for Beijing and a couple of years ago I was asked by the Asia Society and Mediastorm to contribute to a feature titled ‘Clearing the Air‘. It’s a really nice piece introducing the fundamental reasons behind air quality in China. It’s well worth a look.

[youtube width="580" height="344"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ayArp6cRv8A[/youtube]

I saw this nice little video today titled “HD Twilight Landing at LAX (Cockpit View)” on YouTube. I thought I’d share it with you as it reminded me of this video that I made a couple of months ago during a flight from the US to China. I like this one because it is actually taken from the cockpit of the plane and shows the descent into Los Angeles Airport at dusk. It’s a beautiful view for the few minutes it runs.

I remember when I was a child being taken into the cockpit one time to have a look around during a flight. Obviously those days of being able to do that are long gone now but this video reminded me of that memory.

On a technical note, I wonder how this video was set up. I assume the camera was on the inside. Did they use a DSLR? Regular video camera? It probably doesn’t matter. Also, I wonder what kind of plane this was? I’m too curious! This is what happens when I see videos I like. I start to break them down and figure out how they were done. A force of habit! Enjoy the vid…

(Thanks to Beverly Spicer for linking to this on Facebook)