One of the best features of the space program has always been astronaut photography, and I will take this opportunity to share some of the best photographs of Earth's skies, taken from above - way above (over 200 miles to be more exact).

The Sky, From Above

Albuquerque only seems to get national attention when something bad happens. This time the local NBC affiliate KOB channel 4 had a cameraman who was arrested by a police. The “raw video” shows the cop gets into a scuffle with the cameraman while the cop tries to arrest the cameraman.

There’s something missing from this video, like what lead up to this indicent. KOB’s story only says:

The photographer says he was asked to leave the scene and go to a media staging area. However, he says officers did not tell him where that area was located.

I bet there’s more to it than that. The cops probably told the cameraman mutiple times what to do any he probably continued to mouth off to them and ignore their instruction. I’ve never heard of this sort of thing happening in Albuquerque before and I doubt the police officer just walked up to him decided to arrest him becasue he asked for his badge number.

My opinion of KOB is they like to sensationalize the news and this seems to be leading in this direction.

Update 6/12/08: Guess the cops did make a mistake.

The Chief of Police Ray Schultz has viewed a videotape of the confrontation and concluded that several mistakes were made during the confrontation.

This weeks Photo Friday is "What Is That?" I submit this photo I took at the Very Large Array near Socorro New Mexico.

I took a early morning trip to the Balloon Fiasco as we often call it. I would have probably had four times as photos if I didn't run out of battery power. You can view the flickr set or watch the slide show below.

There's been yet another story of someone's pictures taken from Flickr and used without permission. In this case, a picture of a girl was used in a Australian Virgin Mobil ad at a bus stop. Here is a picture of the ad on Flickr.

Every time I read of someone's photos being used without permissions from Flickr, I become concerned. I have and my photos marked with a Creative Commons Attribution, non commercial license for some time. The same as chewywong's photos. The problem with the Creative Commons licenses on Flickr is once you have set your photo to that, it automatically gives any user fully access to the full resolution image. Which allows large prints to be made. If Flick would allow a CC licenses and still give control over who has access to the high res versions, most thefts would probably be deterred.

I have no changed my the license to all of my photos to All Rights Reserved. I hope Flickr will address this issue.

The new Web Gallery iPhoto/.mac integration is a big step. It's still no flickr. Hopefully Apple doesn't wait several more years to innovate further.

Check out my first gallery here: http://gallery.mac.com/gregjsmith#100020

Picture from Flickr of Harrison Ford in the Indiana Jones 4 movie. It's being filmed in Deming, New Mexico. From the picture page:

FIrst glimpse of Indy since 1989.

Photo shot on set by Stephen Spielberg. uploaded to flicr for use in a danish langauge blog post :) More info about the shot here: indianajones.com/community/news/news20070621.html

While reading news on Reuters today i noticed they want the pubilic at large to share photos and videos of news events to them so they can use them in their news stories. However, they won't pay for them.

Their terms of use are as follows (emphasis mine):

By submitting material (including a picture, a video, other images, audio and/or text) to Reuters, you are agreeing to be bound by the Terms of Use for Submitted Materials which give Reuters a royalty-free, non-exclusive license to publish and use any material you submit and to a use of your personal data in accordance with Reuters Privacy / Data Protection Policy. You must own the copyright in the material you submit. Reuters is under no obligation to publish any material submitted. Material and any your personal data submitted to Reuters may be posted on and shared with any third party site that Reuters uses to receive your submission or to host and display such material.

Is Reuters hurting for cash, is that why they want free pictures? It doesn't look like they are doing so bad. Can I use their copyrighted material for commercial use for free? No, it appears not (I can use it for personal use for free).

A New York times article from 2006 says they will pay if they distribute the picture to a client. None of that is in the terms and I wonder how that whole process works. Do they give you an option? What kind of price to they offer to redistribute the photos?

This weeks Photo Friday is "Futuristic". This is a 1964 Chrysler Turbine car. In the 1960's, a few hundred lucky people were given the privilege of beta testing this vehicle. From what I can tell, the turbine turned a driveshaft, so it wasn't pushed along by a jet engine. Still I would drive one, I guess these cars were ahead of their time.

This picture was taken at the Henry Ford Museum in Detroit when I visited there in September of 2006.

This week's Photo Friday is "The Country". I took this picture in Livermore, California back in 2003. It's beautiful country out there with grass lands that seem to just go on forever.

After a spring winter storm, blue skies are back. This is the view from my front window. This week's Photo Friday, "The Blues".

Check out Canon's new Powershot camera, the TX1. It's the size of a deck of cards, does 7.1 megapixel images and shoots 720p HD movies in 16:9 at 30fps. At $500, it doesn't break the bank.

Although I use my Digital EOS for most of my pictures, It's always nice to have something smaller to carry around in my pocket. I lost my Digital Elph S500 skiing at Taos in January (dammit, I really liked that camera). I wont loose the TX1 however. I wouldn't be surprised if it took better video than my Canon Optura 200MC.

Everyone knew this was coming sooner or later, but it still is a pain.

From: mail@flickr.com
Subject: [Flickr] Update for Old Skool members
Date: January 30, 2007 5:24:26 PM MST
Reply-To: mail@flickr.com

Dear Old Skool Account-Holding Flickr Member,

On March 15th we'll be discontinuing the old email-based Flickr sign in system. From that point on, everyone will have to use a Yahoo! ID to sign in to Flickr.

We're making this change now to simplify the sign in process in advance of several large projects launching this year, but some Flickr features and tools already require Yahoo! IDs for sign in -- like the mobile site at m.flickr.com or the new Yahoo! Go program for mobiles, available at: http://go.yahoo.com.

95% of your fellow Flickrites already use this system and their experience is just the same as yours is now, except they sign in on a different page. It's easy to switch: it takes about a minute if you already have a Yahoo! ID and about five minutes if you don't.

You can make the switch at any time in the next few months, from today till the 15th. (After that day, you'll be required to merge before you continue using your account.) To switch, start at this page:

http://flickr.com/account/associate/

Nothing else on your account or experience of Flickr changes: you can continue to have your FlickrMail and notifications sent to any email address at any domain and your screenname will remain the same.

Complete details and answers to most common questions are available here:

http://flickr.com/help/signin/

Thanks for your patience and understanding - and even bigger thanks for your continued support of Flickr: if you're reading this, you've been around for a while and that means a lot to us!

Warmest regards,

- The Flickreenos

This week's Photo Friday is "Thin". This was taken near the Spruce Hole Yurt near Chama New Mexico. Check out the complete photo set up on Flickr.

Zooomer is a photo sharing site built off the same APIs as Flickr, but is being much more aggressive at adding features. They are now giving away free pro accounts to bloggers, all one has to do is post a picture from Zooomer (as I have below).

IMG_7230Hosted on Zooomr

I already paid for a 2 years of pro accounts on Flickr, should I switch?

[Update] Doesn't look like I will be switching, Zooomer only allows bloggers that own their own domain to sign up for a free account, when I put my blog in I get the message, "Uh-Oh! The blog url that you gave us belongs to another member on Zooomr!"

[Update] OK so I over reacted. I needed to post a pic from my account, not just any old pic. My bad, sorry Zooomer. SO Here's a picture I uploaded.

I have a Epson Stylus Photo R1800 that I specifically bought to make large prints of my photos. I need to replace the cartridges but want to get the cheapest price I can. I also want original Epson cartridges since they have the archival quality inks.

I only use this printer for the high quality prints, I use a Stylus Scan 2500 for normal printing in which I refill the cartridges. Generics would be OK, as long as they are archival and I would want to see the data on them.

Any suggestions?

I've never heard of Schmaps before, apparently they are a like a travel guide that can be played in a quicktime style player app. They have selected 2 of my photos from flickr to possibly be included in future editions.

They have selected this photo for their Nashville guide. It was taken at the Grand Ole Opry, dont ask me who that is singing.

They have selected this photo for their Phoenix & Scottsdale guide. This happens to be one of my favorites, although it was actually taken in Apache Junction.

Since I have creative commons licenses on both of these photos that allow for use in non commercial work these are essentially free for them to use as long as they give me credit. That's cool with me. It could be debated as to weather these guides are commercial or not. All though the guides and players are free they do have ads in them. They also don't have a Mac version of their player but plan to this year.

Updated 08/10/06

This photo from the Albuquerque Sunport was included their Albuquerque Guide.

Thanks to the suckage which is the snow fall this year, I've only gone skiing once. Thankfully we have had a end of the season snow fall that brought a pretty good amount of snow. It coincided with some $25 Durango lift tickets. Off we went!

Check out my photo set on Flickr.

Flicker added some new features recently. Besides better grouping of tags, it added a "Interestingness" feature, that tells how interesting a photo is. You can see which of your own photos are interesting and which of the photos from all of Flickr are most interesting.

Several comments on Metafilter suggested that photos they thought were most interesting were at the top of there personal most interesting list. My experience is different, my most interesting photos were not at the top of my most interesting list. So how the heck is Flickr determining what makes a photo interesting or not?

I think I've sort of figured out the general formula. Seems the major weight is put on who has marked a photo as a favorite, then the number of comments and finally number of views. But not just the number of views but the time between individual views, so the more views of a photo in a short amount of time has more impact than more views over a longer period of times. Thus, The only way one can show up on the main interesting page is to have lots of eyes looking at it. I also believe that somehow having tagged the photo with more popular tags has an impact as well.

To test this theory I started adding my photos to some pools. Most of them are low membership pools (Albuquerque, Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta, Duke City Fix, New Mexico, Arizona all have less than 200 members) then added my related photos to these pools. I then joined 1 high membership pool, JPG Magazine: 1 photo a day, no borders (greater than 3000 members), and added 1 photo. That photo has jumped from the middle of my personal interesting list to the number 2 position. There has been less than 10 views and 1 person marked it as a favorite. Proving that marking a picture as a favorite has a big impact on the "interestingness" of a photo.

This photo which has had more views and 1 comment is still low on the list. This means that unless you are actively displaying your photos, you don't have a chance of getting it in the interesting list on Flickr. I suspect there are quite a few interesting photos on Flickr that just don't have a chance because the users are not promoting them. The good news is, at least, the photos that are showing up on the list are pretty interesting.

mikehollingshead at Photo SIG has some incredible tornado photos take on the great plains. He has several other storm photos worth checking out.

This photo was take just last month, however it appears that popularity isn't alwasy a good thing. He offers this message about his photos.

I'm scared to post images on here as several of my storm images, taken from here, have not stopped circling the internet..since...ohhhh, around Christmas. Folks have been claiming they shot them from all sorts of countries now. So if you've gotten that e-mail, well those are actually mine and came from this site.

I absolutely love stuff like this that shows a historical perspective. In 1939 Berenice Abbott took a bunch of photos of New York. 60 years later Douglas Levere takes the identical photo at the same angel, same time of day, same time of year with the same camera. It's quite interesting to see how much things have changed in some pictures and how much they have not changed in others.

Link: New York Changing

Thanks to Mike Morpher for pointing to Camerapedia, which discribes itself as:

The intention of the camerapedia Wiki is to be a repository for information and links to information about all still camera brands and models. You know your camera equipment better than anyone. Please share that knowledge with everyone and contribute.

I attempted to take some photos of the fireworks on Monday. The results were so-so. Although I tried to follow the recommendations I came up short in several areas.

I had a good camera and a tripod. But I was missing the ability to remotely control the camera. Thus camera shake was a issue. I think my exposure and other camera settings were good, but we were far from the action. A zoom lens would have helped a lot. Even then I think I could have got better shots closer to the firing location.

I ended up with about 360 pictures of which there's maybe 10 good ones. Even those were too small. It was a good learning experience though!

This is the stupidest thing I ever heard. OK, I've probably heard things that are stupider, but it's up there. Thanks for ruining it for the rest of us, this is why I have my own equipment.

One of the benefits of digital photography - the fact that amateurs can take better-looking photos and doctor them using photo-editing software - is also becoming a bane. Photofinishing labs increasingly are refusing to print professional-looking photographs taken by amateurs. The reason: Photofinishers are afraid of infringing on professional photographers' copyrights.

169 photos from the 2005 Supernationals taken on 1/30/2005. I'm getting better with the camera, increased the exposure a bit too much so some of these are a little blurry. Overall I feel they came out better than the photos I took at the 2004 Supernationals. These photos are available at flickr (2005 Supernationals set) or watch the slideshow below.

The title of these photos are: Waiting to get into the 2005 supernationals, Hot Wheels Car, 1955 Chevy Pickup - Darrell & Tim Cimbanin, 1955 Chevy Pickup - Darrell & Tim Cimbanin, Motorcycles, 1964 Plymouth Road Runner, 1964 Plymouth Road Runner, 1955 Chevy - Jim & Barbara Canress, 1964 GTO, 1927 Ford Roadster - Ted & Betty Peirce, 1970 Chevy Truck, 1968 Chevy Camaro, 1957 Willys Jeep FC 180 - Troy & Michelle Fry, 1957 Willys Jeep FC 180 - Troy & Michelle Fry, 1957 Willys Jeep FC 180 - Troy & Michelle Fry, 1936 Chevrolet Standard Coach - Berry & Cheryl Lardsburg, 1936 Chevrolet Standard Coach - Berry & Cheryl Lardsburg, 1941 Willy's Coupe - Mark Manly, 1941 Willy's Coupe - Mark Manly, 1968 Chevy Camaro - Robert Martinez, 1913(?) Ford Hearse, 1913(?) Ford Hearse, 1913(?) Ford Hearse, 1932 Ford Roadster - Ron Ginn, 1932 Ford Roadster - Ron Ginn, 1955 Chevy Sedan Delivery - Jim & Ann Nelson, 1955 Chevy Sedan Delivery - Jim & Ann Nelson, 2002 Texas Chopper - Danny Hathaway, 1972 Chevyrolet Suburban - Porfie Maldanado, 1967 Camaro RS - George Bustamante, Ford new car booth, exciting stuff, Ford GT, Ford GT, 1972 Chevy Pickup, 1972 Chevy Pickup, 1972 Chevy Pickup, 1996 Toyota 4Runner, 1932 Ford frame & engine - Paul Blass, 1968 Chevy Camaro - Terry Card, 1968 Chevy Camaro - Terry Card, 1956 Chevy Hard Top - Richard Chavez, 1956 Chevy Hard Top - Richard Chavez, 1971 Chevy Nova - Vicky Marihugh, 1951 Mercury, 1951 Mercury, 1934 Chevrolet Phantom Sedan - Rich & Paige Hdell, 1934 Chevrolet Phantom Sedan - Rich & Paige Hdell, 1934 Chevrolet Phantom Sedan - Rich & Paige Hdell, Custom Motorcylce, 1957 Chevy Belair - Albert Benavides, 1957 Chevy Belair - Albert Benavides, 1964 Chevy Chevette - Albert Benavides, 1958 Chevy Truck - Bill Terrazas, 1958 Chevy Truck - Bill Terrazas, 2003 Campagne T-Rex - Bruce Loughridge, 2003 Campagne T-Rex - Bruce Loughridge, 1966 Chevy Nova "Johnny Rocket", I1966 Chevy Nova "Johnny Rocket", 1966 Chevy Nova "Johnny Rocket", 1966 Chevy Nova "Johnny Rocket", 1968 Chevy Truck - Eddie Aterio, 1968 Chevy Chevelle, 1972 Ford Mustang Mach1 - Jim Martinez, 1972 Ford Mustang Mach1 - Jim Martinez, 1955 Ford F100 - Lee Laner, IMG_4896.JPG, Mustang, Mustang, 1961 Chevy Wagon, 1961 Chevy Wagon, 1967 Ford F-100 1/2 Ton - Jim McCoy, 1967 Ford F-100 1/2 Ton - Jim McCoy, 1939 Ford Cabriolet, 1939 Ford Cabriolet, Tri-cycle, 1968 Chevy Camaro - Joseph Ortiz, 1959 Chevy Suburban, 1959 Chevy Suburban, 1969 Chevy Camaro - David & Jacob Graston, IMG_4881.JPG, 1969 Dodge Dart GTS - Bob Chavez, 1969 Dodge Dart GTS - Bob Chavez, 1929 Ford "A" - Wayne & Bonny Holly, 1957 Chevy Sport Coupe, 1976 Honda Civic 1500 - Bob O'Connell, 1976 Honda Civic 1500 - Bob O'Connell, 1976 Honda Civic 1500 - Bob O'Connell, 1954 Chevy - Amy Sanford, 1955 Pontiac Star Cheif - Richard & Debbie Figved, IMG_4865.JPG, GTX Hemi, GTX Hemi, 1970 Plymouth Barracuda, 1970 Plymouth Barracuda, IMG_4858.JPG, IMG_4857.JPG, IMG_4856.JPG, IMG_4855.JPG, IMG_4854.JPG, IMG_4853.JPG, IMG_4852.JPG, IMG_4851.JPG, IMG_4850.JPG, IMG_4849.JPG, IMG_4848.JPG, IMG_4847.JPG, IMG_4846.JPG, IMG_4845.JPG, IMG_4844.JPG, IMG_4843.JPG, IMG_4842.JPG, IMG_4841.JPG, IMG_4840.JPG, IMG_4839.JPG, IMG_4838.JPG, IMG_4837.JPG, IMG_4836.JPG, IMG_4835.JPG, IMG_4834.JPG, IMG_4833.JPG, IMG_4832.JPG, IMG_4831.JPG, IMG_4830.JPG, IMG_4829.JPG, IMG_4828.JPG, IMG_4827.JPG, IMG_4826.JPG, IMG_4825.JPG, IMG_4824.JPG, IMG_4823.JPG, IMG_4822.JPG, IMG_4821.JPG, IMG_4820.JPG, IMG_4819.JPG, IMG_4818.JPG, IMG_4817.JPG, IMG_4816.JPG, IMG_4815.JPG, IMG_4814.JPG, IMG_4813.JPG, IMG_4812.JPG, IMG_4811.JPG, IMG_4810.JPG, IMG_4809.JPG, IMG_4808.JPG, IMG_4807.JPG, IMG_4806.JPG, IMG_4805.JPG, IMG_4804.JPG, IMG_4803.JPG, IMG_4802.JPG, IMG_4801.JPG, IMG_4800.JPG, 3 buidlings worth of cars, IMG_4798.JPG, IMG_4797.JPG, IMG_4796.JPG, IMG_4795.JPG, IMG_4794.JPG, IMG_4793.JPG, 1932 Ford, 1932 Ford, 1971 Ford Ranchero, 1965 Chevy El Camino - Darrel Yottn, 1965 Chevy El Camino - Darrel Yottn, 1965 Chevy El Camino - Darrel Yottn, 1965 Chevy El Camino - Darrel Yottn, IMG_4781.JPG, IMG_4780.JPG

I found a whole bunch of photos from our trip to Tahiti in 2001, just setting in a folder on my hard drive. When I took them it was before the days of iPhoto but somehow I never managed to put them into iPhoto. Some of those pictures were these panoramas I made with the canon software. These were the best of the bunch.

Dam you Canon. I mean who would have thought that you would come out with an upgraded Digital Rebel? I figured the model of Rebel I bought would be the same one you made forever!

Anyways, hey at least it's black. It's "is more than 10% lighter and 25% smaller by volume than the Canon Rebel", has a new 8mp sensor and a bunch of other crap. And it's still under $1000. Whatever.

The "Winchester Mystery House" is the house built by the heiress of the Winchester Gun fortune. It was started in 1884 in northern california. She built the house continuously for 38 years with stair wells that go no where, windows with walls on the other side, all kids of weird stuff. Basically she did it so appease the ghosts of all the people that were killed by the gun.

I went there 3 times.

Winchester House

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Top of Winchester House

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NewMexiken made a post about the founding of the Muir Woods National Monument which inspired me to post these photos. They were taken in 2001 when I was there on a work related assignment. It's an incredible place, I can only imagine what all of Northern California looked like before us human scum cut it all down.

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Here's 3 photos from skiing in Santa Fe this last Monday. Why only 3? Because the batteries on my Powershot S100 apparently don't hold much of a charge any more.

Santa Fe Ski Basin Looking North

Santa Fe Ski Basin "Adventure Land"

Santa Fe Ski Basin Up Lift #1