Recent books and commentary

I used to be a huge reader, and then it got away from me for whatever reason. Then I was spending lots of time writing my own world, and didn't want to be influenced by another writer's voice. I still did some reading, but mainly it was keeping up with my favourite authors, and periodically excising their turns of phrase from my own work.

Once I started carrying around a camera I started reading photography books. Natural enough, I suppose. At first it was all good, I was learning. Then I started to figure out my own interests (still a work in progress), and my own way of doing things.

Then I started noticing things I disagreed with, which is fine. There are typically lots of equally valid ways using a camera, and capturing a scene. Then some blogs and video-blogger that seemed distinctly troll-ish. There's a lot of people on the web who blog or video-blog and put out extreme opinions to capture viewers. One small example is trashing a new camera because it doesn't do something they think is important. Mostly I just looked over that and moved on.

And then there was a first the other day. This one was recommended to me, and since I love colour I got it from the library. An initial browse was all good; there's some great photos in it, and what looks like good composition suggestions.

However, there was a problem that I tripped over, and darned near didn't get back up again. It was this phrase on page 9 as he was getting closer and closer while shooting a car emblem. "...but now my light meter indicated a slower 1/100 sec shutter speed. Why? Because the lens was now extended further, so light needed more time to travel down the lens onto the sensor." OMG, as the kids say now.

Maybe I'm being pedantic, but if he has such a fundamental misunderstanding of basic physics and optics, how can he get any of the rest of it right? Light takes about 1/1,000,000,000 of a second to travel a foot. The fastest shutter speed for most of our cameras is 1/4,000 of a second. The length of the lens system has completely nothing to do with gathering light and the resulting shutter speed.

Anyway, I kept on, and I'm mostly glad I did. His thoughts around portrait backgrounds are awesome food for thought. A great addition to a new photographer's library, one phrase notwithstanding. Maybe we should blame the editor that let that sneak through.


Have you seen those videos of people climbing tower cranes and tall buildings? Even though I don't particularly have a fear of heights, there are certain portions of anatomy that clench when I watch those. This is a book of photos from such climbs, and they're better than the novelty value. Some of the shots are genuinely artistic.

They do go on a bit, in what I think of as artsy-fartsy art language about the beauty of these abandoned sites, and how they should be preserved, and the nobility of their pursuit but I mostly started skipping the big blocks of text and enjoyed the photos. There is info about each photo of what it's of, or where it's taken from.

I have a sneaking admiration for them. If I was climbing up such places, I'd be hanging on with both hands. Taking photos would be a distant second priority.


I've seen some black and white movies that have been "colourized" and they look horrible. The people shooting movies in black and white were mostly masters of lighting, shade, texture, and colour to have the movie turn out right. They should be enjoyed for what they are.

So I was a bit dubious about this book of colourized historical photos. Well, holy doodle. These are amazing! The photos are large and well presented, with some information about them and the process. They've usually repaired some of the damage to the original photo, so we see this amazing picture of a world long gone. The colours look natural. There's some great portraits, and ideas for composition. Loved it!

Back to movies for a bit of a rant. What is it with remakes, or ret-cons, or whatever they're calling it now? Have the people making movies really run out of ideas? Or are they so debased that the only thing that matters is repeating something else that worked because they think it will make money? I get that acquiring the rights might be difficult, which is why no Georgette Heyer books have been made into movies, and I can just imagine how delightful they would be if done right.

Many movies now (looking at you, comic book superhero movies) are barely the equivalent of a child's paint by numbers artistic effort. Lots of movies are what I think of as journeyman efforts; the people involved know how to make movies, there are characters and a story, and it's properly put together. I think of it them like an art student's painting; they know how to do it, and are working on the art part of it.

Then there are some movies that are art. Everything goes well and it's a delight to watch, even rewatch. And then there are a few magical movies where everything comes together and something amazing happens, we get Art with a capital A. They become part of our shared heritage and shouldn't be tampered with or sullied by remakes.

This is my current read. I'm a few chapters in and loving it so far.  I've had the author's name on my to be read list for a while. Then I saw the trailer for The Gentlemen, and was struck by the thought I'd seen that actress somewhere before. Which is why IMBD was invented. She is known for Downton Abbey, but she's also in a TV series, and this is the book that is the basis of that. We've got the TV series on hold from the library as well. It should be fun.

Getting on to the last call for AMA!

Deadwood of the Day

And in the serendipity department, we have this same file number from 2017 to cheer up a dull day where it's just starting to snow.