Stuff You’ll Like

December 9th, 2009 by chuq

Recommendations Comments Off

A weekly compendium of stuff I found I thought you’d like. If you do, let me know, so I know to find more of it for you.

Moose Peterson: Or is it passion?
Pictory Magazine: From the former editor-in-chief of JPG magazine comes a new venture, Pictory. Which is sort of JPG re-imagined. I’m really interested in seeing her implement her vision, I really like the approach.
TUAW: building a bootable USB diagnostic and repair flash drive for Mac OS X. I am so going to do this….
Boston.com: 100 days in Glacier National Park. Oh, man. I would so love to do something like this some day. The photography is just stunning.
BBC Earth News: Clever Ravens Cooperatively Hunt. hint: birds are a lot smarter than most people think. Take it from someone who’s cohabitated with a cockatoo for 20 years.
Audublog: Owens Lake Solar project. I’m of mixed feelings here; I sympathize with the potential problems created with the project, but I still think solar is a better option than carbon-based energy generation, and you have to generate the energy somehow. Still, perhaps the best lesson taken from this is that “green” solutions are not problem free; they simply create different problems that need to be mitigated. Both Solar and wind energy generation can have significant complications for local ecological inhabitants (wind energy can create significant bird kills, especially raptors); it all comes down to choosing which set of problems is least painful — and not thinking they don’t exist.
Daily Shoot: From James Duncan Davidson and Mike Clark, a system designed to help give you structured goals for improving your photography. Check it out. If you like it, sign up and try it. Fascinating, if only to see how people are grabbing some of the online tools (Twitter, flickr) and using them in innovative ways.
Joe Decker: Working with Silhouettes.
10,000 birds: Birds of North America, Photographic Guides. Illustrative vs. photographic guides is one of the best ways to start a friendly argument among birders. Sort of like vi vs. emacs for geeks. (me? I carry a sibley, but I also have 3-4 other general guides and a few specialty guides I have at home, and especially with the specialty guides for things like gulls, photographic guides are a must)
Reuters Photographers: Polar Bear turns Cannibal. It’s something that won’t end up in the calendar under the tree this month, but one thing nature photographers know all to well is that nature isn’t always pretty and fluffy. Those teeth and claws are there for a reason, folks… (some of the comments on the reuters article notwithstanding, this behavior shouldn’t surprise anyone who knows bears; female bears don’t mate while raising cubs. Male bears want their genetic material propogated instead of some other male bear’s genetic material. Kill the cub and hang around the neighborhood, the female will end up going into heat so the male bear can mate with her. It’s not exactly Disneyland out there, folks…
Iain Williams: Photographing emotive situations – Polar Bears. A nice commentary on the previous photo. And yes, it is necessary to photograph that which makes us uncomfortable. Real life and real nature is not a Disney movie. And even Disney killed Bambi’s mom (and took a lot of crap for it, but it was both gutsy and an important piece of a powerful storyline).
Rick Sammon: manual mode is a must for Panos. (yes, it is…)