The Dying Breed

With this country cracking down more and more on tobacco smokers and the undeniable evidence of tobacco being a cause of cancer and other major health issues, more and more people will continue to quite smoking.  Though it will most definitely not happen within my lifetime, eventually, smokers will diminish as will tobacco companies.

The premise of this photography project is, simple: to capture portraits of people in the act of smoking.  I will simply approach any individual I come across smoking and ask if they mind participating in my the project.  I have already been rejected 50% of the time, but I am hoping I will be able to get enough people to agree to put together 100 unique portraits.  If I reach 100 easily, I’ll consider increasing this number.

Let the project begin…

Description:  Alcatraz is another one of those landmarks that constantly amazes me.  The amazement stems from not only the site of this old prison, sitting alone on an island 1.5 miles off the coast of San Francisco, but also, the fact that people flock to see this prison day-in and day-out.  The view of the city from Alcatraz is spectacular, but the view of the once used toilet bowl of  several inmates, not so much.

This particular capture of Alcatraz was taken while walking along the streets of Russian Hill.  It was a beautiful day and Alcatraz was smiling at me just waiting for me to capture its picture.

Location:  San Francisco, California
Date Taken: February 27, 2010
Camera:  Canon 20D
Lens:  Canon 18.0-200.0 mm
Exposure: 1/400 second
Aperture: f/9.0
Focal Length: 200 mm
ISO: 200

Description:  I recently read that the Canon 18.0-200.0 mm lens, when shooting at 200mm, works very well as a macro lens.  So, I put it to the test here.  I found it doesn’t exactly do “macro” exactly, but does allow you to get up close and personal with your subject while providing an awesome depth of field (DOF).

You probably can’t tell by looking, but the white part of the background is the Transamerica Pyramid.  It provided for a great backdrop and increased the “power” captured in the final image.

Location:  San Francisco, California
Date Taken: February 25, 2010
Camera:  Canon 20D
Lens:  Canon 18.0-200.0 mm
Exposure: 1/400 second
Aperture: f/5.6
Focal Length: 200 mm
ISO: 100

Description:  It is amazing the things you see while walking around with your camera.  I can’t say I would not have seen this fire hydrant had I not had my camera with me, but I’m certain I would not have cared as much about the “I Love You” graffiti on it.

If you are photo enthusiast and want to get better, my best advice for you is:

1. Look at what others are doing and how they capture the images they are capturing, and
2. Carry your camera EVERYWHERE.

Location:  San Francisco, California
Date Taken: February 27, 2010
Camera:  Canon 20D
Lens:  Canon 18.0-200.0 mm
Exposure: 1/200 second
Aperture: f/7.1
Focal Length: 110 mm
ISO: 200

Upon migrating over, I wanted to be sure to take advantage of the shared SSL BlueHost provides in order to keep my WordPress login and admin area more secure. Little did I know, it was a bit more daunting to figure out then I expected it to be. Since it took me nearly 2 days to figure out the solution, I wanted to share it the “interwebs.”

First of all, the Admin SSL plugin that pops-up everywhere on Google when searching for using WordPress with shared SSL doesn’t work and the author seems to have stopped supporting the shared SSL functionality of it. So, that was a bust.

So, after playing around a bit, I added the following to my wp-config file, replacing USERNAME with my BlueHost user name and BLOG_DIRECTORY with the path to where I installed WordPress (note: this is specific to BlueHost):

define('WP_SITEURL', 'https://secure.bluehost.com/~USERNANAME/BLOG_DIRECTORY');

From there, I needed to insure my ‘wp-content’ folder stayed intact, so I also added the following to the wp-config file (this can be altered in the “Miscellaneous Settings” section as well):

define('WP_CONTENT_URL', 'http://blog.justinkorn.com/wp-content');

These two changes seemed to make everything work properly. When I attempt to login via wp-login.php, I am redirected to the shared SSL url and when I upload new content, everything goes to the proper place with in the wp-content directory.

The only caveat that I have seen so far is after clicking around within the admin area a few times, I receive the following message:

Too many requests received. Please wait a few minutes and try again.

Eventually the message goes away and I’m able to work again, so it’s not the end of the world, but it is a bit annoying.

In the end, however, I have a secure WordPress Admin area and I’m not shelling out the $30/yr for the dedicated IP or however much it is for the private SSL certificate. Hopefully this setup will prove to last; only time will tell.

Till next time…

Description:  I took a stroll with my camera during lunch yesterday, as I try to do as often as possible.  When I came to the Transamerica Pyramid, I stopped and stared for awhile.  It’s amazing how many times you can walk by a building and still be in awe when seeing it.

Before capturing the image above, I had captured quite a few other angles of the building.  I kept moving around from Montgomery St. to Washington St.  Finally, I caught a glimpse of the reflections in the windows and knew, THAT was the image I was looking to create.

Location: San Francisco, California
Date Taken: February 25, 2010
Camera: Canon 20D
Lens: Canon 18.0-200.0 mm
Exposure: 1/60 second
Aperture: f/10
Focal Length: 18 mm
ISO: 100

Typically, they tend to use stock photography that fits their vision, but decided to take a different route this time, get a bit more personal, and visit a client.  The shoot went very smoothly and I had a great time working with IOA.  A few of the  images from the shoot can be viewed on Flickr.

Till next time…

So, are you using Google Buzz yet?  Are you looking to get your fix of images and interact with some photographers rather than get the typical tech mumbo jumbo?

After Thomas Hawk announced that he would start sharing his favorite photographers on Buzz, I wondered how many photographers were already on AND active on Buzz.

So, I posted that exact question and since, have wasted a good few hours compiling this list in a readable format for everyone to enjoy.  I do apologize if I missed anyone, the thread got a bit out-of-control.  Of coarse, as Google Buzz continues to grow, this list will NEVER be complete, so feel free to leave a comment with a link to your Google profile if you consider yourself an ACTIVE Google Buzz photographer (I will filter the links posted in the comments).

Okay, on to the list!  Names with a * denotes the person either mentions “Photographer” or “Photography” under their name on their Google profile, their Google profile picture is of them taking a picture/holding a camera, or their Google Buzz stream consists of mostly photography or photography related topics at the time I checked it.

Enjoy…

1. Justin Korn *
2. Thomas Hawk *
3. Scott Kivowitz *
4. Brian Sullivan
5. Chris Luckhardt *
6. David Thomas *
7. Calvin Heinly
8. Jeremy Hall *
9. Kol Tregaskes
10. Benjamin Heath *
11. Dan Figueroa *
12. Sam Scott *
13. Tyler Wainright *
14. Anne Petersen *
15. Ignacio Pulido
16. Alexander Couey *
17. Aaron Hockley *
18. Daniel Kreger *
19. Mike Connell *
20. Keshav Khera
21. William Burrard-Lucas *
22. Daniel Peckham *
23. Cliff Johnson *
24. Nathan Smith
25. Ingo Meckmann *
26. nixter retxin
27. Colt Seavers
28. Russ Scheid *
29. Victoria Klum *
30. Squid Vicious *
31. Griffon Walker
32. Glenn Euloth *
33. Heather S
34. Steven Rose
35. Michael Wimmer
36. Gordon Reece
37. Karsten Behrens
38. Bruno Raymond *
39. Brian Auer *
40. Alan McBride
41. Robert Kenney *
42. Mike Baker *
43. Matthew Field *
44. Mark Forman *
45. Christopher Boffoli *
46. Edward Barnieh
47. Sean Davis *
48. Nate Lanier *
49. Jim Kirkpatrick
50. Mike Hellers
51. raf sanchez *
52. Mark Krynsky
53. ghill tochon *
54. Michael Hocter *
55. resiros M
56. Stephen Miller *
57. Ben Staley
58. Vincent Gearhart *
59. Gary Denness *
60. Michael Leggett
61. Paul Segal
62. Matt Penning *
63. Damien Franco *
64. Chris Martino
65. Nan Anastasia
66. Nick Fisher *
67. Pedro José
68. Dane Deasy *
69. Arianys Wilson *
70. Cathy McArthur *
71. Karthick Ramachandran *
72. Tom Harrison *
73. Kim Martin
74. Kenton Smith
75. Vicki Kadow *
76. Sameer Kumbhare
77. Jeff Henderson *
78. Morris Maciver *
79. Todd Heckert *
80. Dave Cohen
81. Stephen Dickson *
82. Mahdi Abdulrazak
83. Damien Pattrick *
84. Daniel Lashua *
85. Vando Nascimento *
86. Gary Thom *
87. Nir Alon *
88. Kevin Trotman *
89. Kim Thibodeaux *
90. Chris Nixon *
91. Henrik Johansson *
92. Jason Castillo
93. Carlos Ayala
94. Håkan Dahlström *
95. Lourens Rolograaf *
96. Jason Kravitz
97. Eric Booth *
98. Randal L. Schwartz
99. José Betancur *
100. Jeremy Brooks

And the list continues to grow HERE.

Till next time…

After doing a little investigation last night, I finally figured out how to get this blog automatically posting to Google Buzz.  For all those that might be struggling with the process, I thought I’d post a little how-to tip.

The first and most important thing you need to do is have a link somewhere on your blog to your Google profile with a relationship attribute (“rel”) equal to “me”.  For example, you can add a link to your Google Profile page like:

<a href="http://www.google.com/profiles/your.username" rel="me">My Google Profile</a>

or, like so within the head:

<link rel="me" type="text/html" href="http://www.google.com/profiles/your.username"/>

Once you have this relationship between your Google Profile and your blog, you are ready to add your blog to your Google Profile.  If you don’t already have your blog associated with your Google Profile, now is a good time to do that:

1. Go to your Google profile page:  http://www.google.com/profiles/USERNAME  replacing USERNAME with your Google ID.  Mine is: http://www.google.com/profiles/justin.korn If you are not logged into Google, log in with the “Sign In” link in the upper right corner
2. Once logged in and viewing your profile, click on the link in the upper right corner titled “Edit Profile”
3. Scroll down to the section titled “Links”
4. If your blog is not listed already in the “Add Links” section, right below it you can add it manually with the URL and name.  Click the “Add” button and your blog should now be listed on the right side under “My Links”
5. Once added, make sure the “This is a profile page about me.” check box is checked.  You can double check by clicking on the “Edit” link next to your new link.
6. Don’t forget to scroll to the bottom of the page and click the “Save Changes” button.  If you don’t, these changes will not be saved.

Alright, with your Google Profile now all linked up to your blog, all you need to do is get Google Buzz to recognize it.  You have two choices, wait for Google to re-crawl your site, or force Google to re-crawl your site.  Did you even consider option one?  I didn’t think so.  So, to force it:

1. Check out the Social Graph API
2. Once logged in, you should see all of the links you’ve designated as “profile pages” in your Google Profile
3. Find the link to your blog and click the associated “Recrawl” button

Finally, it’s time to hook up your blog to Google Buzz:

1. Bring up Google Buzz (within Gmail)
2. On the main page, at the top, next to your name, you should see “X connected sites” where X is the number of sites you have connected to Buzz.  Click on that link.
3. You should now see your blog as an available site to connect.  Go ahead, click the “Add” button and then the “Save” button at the bottom.

That should do it!  Good luck!

Till next time…

[UPDATE] Just discovered the Google “How-To” page that explains this MUCH better than me.

Description:  Taken during a lunch photowalk with Thomas Hawk awhile back.  Not much to add to this one.

Location: San Francisco, California
Date Taken: September 4, 2008
Camera: Canon 20D
Exposure: 1/30 second
Aperture: f/6.3
Focal Length: 55 mm
ISO: 100