Frugal Traveler, Looking Back

Was a little too busy to post the Frugal Traveler: Looking Back episode when it went online. There's a new episode on the way...

Or, Learn To Hurdle

So here's how I read this: first, there was flooding, then the track sank, then they built a fence around it, then they realized they couldn't trim the weeds near the fence with the riding lawnmower.

So the important thing is to draw lane 8 at the track meet, because otherwise it's tough going.

Antimatter 2008

My short film Notebook on Santas & Elves will be screening Tuesday, September 23 at Antimatter Underground Film Festival in a program called "Creative Violation."

I like that title, and I also like the fact that there's a Jem Cohen video in the program. Sounds like a fun night. Wish I could go....

Cut Off

After a lot of slowing down and dropping out, my cable modem bit it last Monday. Right at a time when I had to do online grading, post files for review, write stuff, and communicate on several projects. When classes were starting, also.

The service from my cable company was terrible. It could have been resolved in a day. It took until Sunday at 4 p.m. and would still be going on if I listened to their advice. It cost me money, time, at least one gig, and a weekend that could have been a lot of fun.

I tried Plan B, too -- visit Starbucks and other places with wireless access. It worked, but it was problematic. Starbucks was just like always -- tough to log on, expensive, and it included a screaming child at 10:30 p.m. Guess he'd had a lot of coffee.

I'll also no longer visit the local coffee house that charges extra if you plug in the wall. They have a smug note about not stealing their electricity from them. They can turn off their lights, for all I care -- I won't be back because of that note.

Now I have a new cable modem -- went to Queens to get it -- and things are running. But I'm about a week behind.

Above: we dropped into the Met on Sunday, to celebrate Mrs. New York Portraits passing the Second Exam. This seemed like the most appropriate work to photograph.

And How Was Your Week?

Mine, let's say, was mixed.

And Then It Was Fall

Hoping to get a day for street photography in the upcoming weeks. The weather has been great, and New York is shifting into fall nicely....

And Then There's Golf

While I've been posting the Frugal Traveler episodes here, I've been posting the "On Par" series over on my other blog, Actualities. It's a series about golf.

I wouldn't call it documentary in style. On the other hand, I've been learning a lot that applies to documentary production while working on it: it's a two camera shoot in natural light, done fairly quickly (have to get out of the way to the other golfers, after all) and with just a few takes possible. You have to establish a setting, a situation and a problem to solve, solve that (and lead into a lesson) and do it all in (usually) 2 minutes and 30 seconds.

In any case, there are about 16 episodes now (I've been involved in about 3/4 of those, approximately), so check out the playlist. They're made in a fun style, so you might like them even if you aren't a golfer.....

And By Wednesday I Mean Not Wednesday

When I said the Frugal Traveler series was wrapping up on Wednesday, it was because I thought the "looking back" episode was running then. Which is why I was frantically editing it on Tuesday. About 10 p.m. I found out it wasn't running yet.

Which is fine, and sometimes that's how editing goes. There's a very strange relationship between deadlines, non-deadlines, and the decision-making process in any work. It's particularly a keenly felt thing in those pieces with a tight (or nearly-impossible) deadline.

Walter Murch, in talking about the editing process on "Apocalypse Now" calculated that all the work and hand-wringing and thinking resulted in an average of one edit per day. That won't fly in most types of work, and there's a fast collapse of the infinite possibilities that exist at the beginning of the process. Sometimes there's a keen awareness that decisions need to be made, they can't endlessly be reversed, and the piece has to move toward completion somehow.

I once had a professor who had been a classical music composer. He told the story of how he felt every piece he had composed had started as a masterpiece, and with one decision somewhere in the process it had changed and missed that mark. That's probably true.

Frugal Grand Tour, Episode 13

Wednesday marked the end of this summer's Frugal Traveler series, so I'm posting the series in order.

Frugal Grand Tour, Episode 12

Frugal Grand Tour, Episode 11

Frugal Grand Tour, Episode 10

Today marks the end of this summer's Frugal Traveler series, so I'm posting the series in order.

Frugal Grand Tour, Episode 9

Frugal Grand Tour, Episode 8

This Wednesday will mark the end of this summer's Frugal Traveler series, so I'm posting the series in order.

Two Years

First, happy birthday to Photography. Today marks the 169th anniversary of the announcement of the invention of Photography. (Of course, I prefer to think of the creation of the first photograph in 1826 as the beginning, but the 1839 announcement really marks the date when the world noticed.)

Second, two years ago I started this blog with a post on Beginnings and Endings. I'm now thinking of ways to improve it, ending the old model and moving toward a new one.

Third, I'm increasingly aware that the term "blog" is actually 'blog -- as in short for Web Log -- and has in fact not really matured from that role. Initially the idea was to post a record of your "interesting" journey to Web sites -- what you read and what you thought of it -- and now the unfortunate state is that there's little unique content being posted. It's mostly links to large news sources -- the same ones people call "dinosaurs" in favor of blogs -- and at best a comment. That's kind of pointless. Blournals -- 'bjournals or Web Journals -- are increasingly pointless as well. I follow a few, mostly of authors or photographers I like. 9 out of 10 posts are trivia, so I wait for that 10th and hope the content is worth it.

So what model is worth following? Magazine? Channel? Daily Photo?

Frugal Grand Tour, Episode 7

Frugal Grand Tour, Episode 6

This Wednesday will mark the end of this summer's Frugal Traveler series, so I'm posting the series in order.

Frugal Grand Tour, Episode 5

What's With The YouTube Stuff?

My latest edit -- an episode of the "On Par" series called Child's Play -- is currently on the front page of The New York Times.

You may have noticed I've been posting YouTube versions of some of the edits I've worked on for NYT. (I've been posting Frugal Traveler episodes here, and On Par episodes on my other blog, Actualities.) Well, why is that?

The NYT now has a YouTube Channel. Which I think is great, since there were bootleg versions of the pieces going there previously in any case -- even some recorded off the computer screen. It seems better to have authentic versions, with ways for the folks who watch them to find more.

There's also an article on how other media companies are addressing the YouTube User issue:

Some Media Companies Choose to Profit From Pirated YouTube Clips

"After years of regarding pirated video on YouTube as a threat, some major media companies are having a change of heart, treating it instead as an advertising opportunity.

In the last few months, CBS, Universal Music, Lionsgate, Electronic Arts and other companies have stopped prodding YouTube to remove unauthorized clips of their movies, music videos and other content and started selling advertising against them."

Frugal Grand Tour, Episode 4