That’s me in the ad hoc garden1 Ellie and I made, playing with DSLR Camera Remote, a really wonky, pain-in-the-ass hack of an app that uses iPhone plus WiFi to let you control a DSLR camera that’s connected to your Mac.
I know. Don’t get me started. The app’s got crazy Alzheimer’s regarding remembering settings, plus the developers make you post unnecessary personal crap just to download the (required) Mac app needed to open a port for the iOS app to access.2 Derp derp.
That said. Wow. There’s just so much promise in the idea of eventually getting this right. Eventually.
When somebody crafts a really polished app that lets you use your iPad3 as a still and video monitor? Jinkies, that’ll just be the best thing ever.
I’ll have to see if I can find contact info for that famous “lonely-sandwich” person so I can ask if he uses anything like this for his insanely great shoots.
Truly, I think I’d make a lot more videos with my 7D if I weren’t bound to holding the camera body at a level where I can see the Live Preview clearly enough to ride the motherscratching focus and exposure—perhaps to where I can actually participate in the action rather than becoming that Dad who’s always yelling at everyone to stand still, keep the light in front of them, and be fucking three feet taller.
Also? I really do look totally homeless. Which may not be the fault of the developers. I don’t know. I’m not a technologist.
Sure, I may be a hobo with entirely more camera than I can ever use. But, I do own a sweet-ass Abraham Lincoln head. So, suck on it, Whigs and Know-Nothings. We have cameras.
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Heavily influenced by Howard Finster, thank you very much. ↩
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Note to the devs: I’m “Nully McNullNull” of “Fingering Your Whore Mother, Arkansas.” Call any time. ↩
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According to a blog entry, oneonone’s promised iPad version of this app has been delayed by variations in how different cameras start and stop video. Understandable. ↩
Source: Flickr / merlin
Source: Flickr / merlin
Color, Photos, and One Fuzzy Little Boy in a Field
[view larger: 800 x 593 | 6090 x 4515]
Jack Delano - Chopping cotton on rented land near White Plains, Greene County, Ga. (Farm Security Administration, 1941)
A lot of the color photos I’ve seen from before the 1950s strike me as stiff, over-worked, or so experimental as to be a “Hello, World.” They’re cool from a technical standpoint, but they often don’t tell you any more about the subject than a well-produced monochrome image would.
Given the costliness of the film and the complexity of the process, it’s easy to understand why early color photographers had to be choosy about picking the subjects and conditions that their camera could capture well (rather than, as is ideally the case, working the other way around).
But, sometimes, an old color photo brings a distant image to life and produces something kind of special. The best ones make their subjects and their surroundings seem far more real and intimate.
