I write this blog for my pleasure and to share my limited knowledge with anyone who cares to read it. In the back of my brain I assume that if people like what I write it might also motivate them to try one of the books I've written. Also, if you click on one of the Amazon links to buy something, I get a small percentage of that sale but it costs you nothing more. Not a cent. (not too pleased that my wife recently bought the Adobe Creative Suite for her business without linking through......). If I write a review about something I either bought it myself or I acknowledge upfront that I'm reviewing a product that is on loan from a manufacturer. I'm squeaky clean on all this stuff.
From the outset I've made it clear that I reserve the right to a.) Change my mind. I may really like a product but in the following months some other company may come out with a product I like better. Owning camera gear is not like marriage there is no promise of, "till death do we part." And frankly, I like finding out about new gear, coming to grips with it and then moving on to the next thing. Chances are you are the same or you wouldn't find this blog very entertaining. b.) Go into as much depth, over time, about any subject that I want to, including Olympus cameras, 50mm lenses, the "evil" of technology (please note satiric intent, cued by use of parentheses: for the nuance impaired), the redundancy of assistants and anything else that I want to write about. c.) Diverge from common opinion. d.) Disagree. With anything.
I do have some credentials. I've taught. I'm published widely as a photographer (and as a writer). I've actually touched and used everything I talk about. If I write something about the photo business it's probably because the situation being discussed just came up. Or is ongoing in my own business. I've also worked in the ad business.
One of the things I really like about writing a blog is that I can get good feedback from smart, opinionated people. And when it runs counter to my beliefs or ideas it makes me really sit back and think. It challenges me to not be lazy in the thought process and to be open to other points of view. If the comments didn't exist I probably wouldn't pursue this whole thing.
But (and it would be nice if everyone paid attention here for my short but important rant) if you're just an unpleasant person (edited) and you want to call me names and infer that I'm lying or have something to hide or some hidden agenda, if you have something nasty to say about someone I've written about or linked to, in short, if you're just here make trouble, I'll use my trusty moderating skills and reject your comments. If you are not happy with that you could make it easy on both of us and just stop reading the column. This blog doesn't exist as a vehicle for you to use to rip my day.
One or two readers (and one rude person) have commented on the fact that the images posted recently have no exif info. Not sure why. Must be a setting in LR3 that I've mistakenly ticked. This has led to a conspiracy theory (on the part of one reader) that my recent addition of Canon gear has filled me with overwhelming remorse for having once bought and happily used Olympus cameras and lenses and speaking glowingly about them. Last I looked there are a number of Olympus bodies and lenses scattered about the studio though I will admit that I've come to like the EP, m4:3rds cameras best...... I think I make the provence of the gear most evident when it's the focus of the post. If I'm talking about the collapse of western civilization I don't really think anyone should care about whether the display photo was taken with a 1995 vintage Mamiya 6. ( having a hard time getting the exif info out of that camera as well.). I'll fix the exif info if I can figure it out. I am not a software geek and have never pretended to be one.
So to recap: 1.) Smart and polite people are always welcome to post comments and have a 99% chance of seeing them appear. 2.) Rude, vindictive people will no longer stand any chance of having their comments survive the ruthless moderator process. 3.) I will continue to write about just what I want to write about until such a time as the subscriber base falls to near zero, the hits to the blog sag to under a thousand per day, or so, or until I get carpal tunnel syndrome.
The exif stuff will return as soon as I figure out where it went. If you left a bitchy, anonymous post this morning, thanks for helping me get started on this housekeeping post. You'll probably be much happier over in the forums at DPReivew. You're welcome to stay and read and post interesting comments.
That's about it.
