Making me angry...

A few months ago, I was on my bicycle cycling alongside the Thames on Cheyenne Walk in Chelsea, when an attractive young lady walking with her boyfriend, loudly pointed out to me that I should not have been cycling on the pavement. I chose to ignore her, but she maybe had a point: I had indeed narrowly missed ramming my bicycle into her and her beloved by the narrowest of skimpy margins (about 5 or 6 metres -that's thrity feet to the imperialists) and considering the lightning-fast pace I was cycling at (a neck-breaking 12 kilometres an hour - I was ogling Dutch Barges) she surely had escaped a bloody and violent death by a gnat's whisker.

A few hundred yards further on I stopped to more comprehensively ogle the Dutch barge and she and her gentleman friend caught up. She then proceded to remonstrate with me about cycling on the pavement. I listened. She lectured me most thoroughly and seemed sure that she had savaged me enough with her verbal thrashing but I had a reply. It was as follows: "Lady. It is a nice sunny day and you are having a lovely walk. Enjoy it! There is no need to be officious. If you care to look at that sign, it most clearly states that I am on one of London's many cycle routes. Now get off my bloody cycle track!"

And therein lies the nub of what I want to bitch about today: Officiousness. I am a public minded person. Indeed, I'd be a "have-a-go-hero" if the chance arose. I don't like seeing the law deliberately broken and I hate yobbishness. People who know me, know that it was I who put the Serial Spitter of Ascot Station in his place (a yob with a spitting habit). But I cannot abide people who feel it is their duty to correct me or others when we are going about our perfectly legal business.

What makes me even more angry, is when those who should know better get in on the act. People like policemen. I saw an item on this blog which made my blood boil. Properly. It had a YouTube clip of policemen harassing a photographer for the crime of taking photographs. Its well worth a look.

Now lets get this in perspective: Yes, there is a terror threat. Yes, it is likely that terror plotters will want to take pictures of their targets, and yes, it is possible to look suspicious when taking photographs. I get that and understand that the policeman's use of discretion is flexible and that he has a right to ask what is going on...

BUT: If a policeman were to ask me whether I had a licence or a permit to take photographs, I would then make it my sworn duty to get the half-witted, ignorant hobbledehoy dismissed from his job. Because surely a policeman should at least have a basic grasp of the law? Of what is and isn't illegal? Do these cretins (and I do not mean the majority of police, who I love and wish to buy presents and sing to, I mean the minority of officious uniformed no-hopers amongst their numbers) not have the capacity to compute that there are camera shops? They are legal? There are camera buyers who are also legal? And there are camera users who are in the main, legal too? Clearly not.

It is as stupid, yes STUPID, as the Zimbabwean soldiers and policemen who several years ago caught a "spy" taking photographs of the Mazowe Satellite Station from the side of a main road. It was only when it was pointed out by the "spy's" lawyers that a photograph from the same angle of the satellite station was on the cover of every telephone directory that the case was dropped. Idiots. But clearly not confined only to Zimbabwe, where they have taken idiocy to new and impressive heights.

(This also reminds me of when those UK plane spotters were arrested in Greece for taking pics of Greek Air Force jets. It was a serious situation and people were genuinely worried for the annoraks. The Greeks were outraged that their aeroplanes were being photographed. They were classified aircraft! Top secret! Bollox. Jeremey Clarkson was so outraged that he published a full list of the Greek Air force's Fleet which he'd obtained from the internet.)

Now, if I were a terrorist and I wanted to take sneaky shots, I'd use a small discrete camera. Ditto, if I was a pervert and wanted to take pics up skirts (it happens). In fact, you know what? I'd use my camera phone! Damn I'm sneaky! Hell, I might even take photos of my friends right there in my targeted building, capturing at the same time, whatever it is that terrorists want to see in photos (70 naked virgins apparently). And if a policeman were to question me, I'd tell him to stop infringing my legal rights. But humour aside, you'd have to be a very unlucky little terrorist to be arrested for using your camera phone. If you were using a big DSLR however, you're almost as good as busted. No more 70 virgins for you!

Here in the UK its almost becoming socially unacceptable to carry a camera. Parents see a someone carrying a DSLR and recoil in horror at the "pervert" sharing the same tube carriage as them and their snotty little children. What they don't notice as they keep an eye on the dirty, dirty bastard photographer is the nice dude in the sunglasses sitting opposite their daughter, looking up her skirt, happily snapping picture after picture as he 'texts' his buddy.

So what to do? I sympathise with the police and understand the need for the public to be vigilant. But I also sympathise with myself and my fellow photographers. I'd say its pretty much 100% certain that if you can see the camera, the photographer poses no threat. So look for people without cameras and arrest them all.

A Good Workman Blames His Tools

Today (now yesterday) has been a long day. Up at 05.30 to prepare for a trip to Warwick to do a shoot of trainees being trained by trainers. Got there no problem but was already tired - the M40 was fast-running but very busy, so big eyes!

I shot pictures. Indeed, I shot about 200 frames from which probably only 4 or 5 will ever be used. I had to shoot the trainees being trained by the trainers whilst the trainers were actually training the trainees which presents its own unique problems. Two of the trainees who were being trained...etc didn't want their pictures to be taken - fair enough, but please ladies, bugger off to the side so you don't appear in every bloody shot.

Copyright 2008 Paul Davey Creative

So yes, it was difficult - Me trying to be unobtrusive. Me trying to shoot shots in the same style as I've always shot for this particular client - i.e. crawling around, getting cramp, pushing my wide angle lens up against people's hands etc. Me trying to be unobtrusive as I bang off shot after shot with my flashgun flashing, my tripod clattering and huffing and puffing like the fat middle-aged man that I am, crouched in peculiar pants-splitting positions. Net result? I failed to be unobtrusive and probably ruined the morning session of the course. Sorry.

Copyright 2008 Paul Davey Creative

But I got my shots. Well, sort of. I had my usual white balance issues as I shot under a mixture of daylight, florescent and fecking low voltage bastard eco lights that turn everything greeny-yellow. Nothing that Adobe Lightroom cannot put right though. (I LOVE lightroom). I have also learned the hard way to radically underexpose on my very elderly Canon 10 D so that I will get at least some detail in the highlights. Which is great, except that I then have to put up with noisy shadow tones (yes, even at ISO 200 its noisy). Add to that my very old, slow, noisy lenses (no image stabilisation here!) and you'll understand why I have to do a fair amount of rescue work in Lightroom and photoshop.

Copyright 2008 Paul Davey Creative

Its beginning to really grind me down. Make no mistake, my ancient Canon 10D is still a very, very good camera. But its very hard to be happy with something when you know its way, way behind what is available.

I have long grown jaded with the whole "Great Megapixel Race". Yes, more pixels are theoretically better, but 6 million good pixels will trounce 10 million bad pixels. Many of the world's most respected camera reviewers will pick out Nikon's 12Mpx D700 as having the best in class image quality - yet its up against Canon's superb 21Mpx 1D MkIII. But yes, I want some more megapixels because I need them. Need as opposed to want. I want to be able to crop images and still have some resolution left. But: There's no point in putting old lenses in front of a clever, big, sexy 21 Mpx sensor. They cannot resolve detail as minutely as the sensors can these days. So I need to get new glass too. Lots of it. The expensive kind!

My work is now suffering. Work, mind you, not the results. I am still very pleased with what I can get out of my workflow. But It takes so long.

Back to today: Where was I? Oh yes. I was shooting the trainees being trained by the trainers. Well, I finished that and packed up my gear, set the GPS for "Home" and began the most convoluted journey in the history of modern motoring. Now, I'm not stupid. I know that Warwick is near the M40. How do I know this? Simple: I got there via the M40. But Mr TomTom Had other ideas - I only wanted the GPS to help me navigate the Warwick one-way system, but I got sent off to Mogadishu. I'm sure I saw the turn-off for Vladivostock just after I'd traversed much of Siberia. I tell you, I saw a bunch of pole and dagga mud huts as I bypassed Johannesburg. I know what an Afrian elephant looks like and I swear I saw one! A whole herd, actually. Breathe, Paul, Breathe! Pure, undiluted idiocy from the makers of my satnav.

I eventually got home.

And then, much to my horror I discovered that the CF card with all of today's work on it had decided to have a post-halloween tantrum. Miss Lightroom (who I love and trust) told me there was nothing to import. And I believed her. I am quite sure that my beloved mummy reads this blog, so I will not write the words that I uttered. Suffice to say, they were "workshop" words.

After a little bit of a calming down session I fired up Photorecovery and to my enormous relief, all files were recovered in absolutely perfect condition. But it took a long time...

Copyright 2008 Paul Davey Creative

So where does that leave us? In the space of just 2 weeks I have had two moans about my gear. Here is the previous one. So why don't I stop whingeing and get some new gear? Cost. Yes, I have underinvested in equipment and now I'm really feeling the bite. But on the upside, I can get significantly more bang for my buck when I do re-equip. There is no way I can afford a new rig but that hasn't been too much of an obstacle in the past. I will make a way of affording it. Oh, and a new Mac.

One more thing for the Design Police: USB wireless dongles. Why, oh why are they not on a short length of cable So that they flop and don't SNAP OFF WHEN SOMEONE IS USING THEIR LAPTOP AS A LAPTOP???????