Strange Fish

Hi everyone

Afraid I've been scaling down a bit here as other demands have taken over photo time.However I've really enjoyed meeting and getting to know you all, and sharing your visions, even if my visits have been a little intermittent of late.

So i wanted to wish you and all our Ipernauts a Merry Christmas, and a wonderful year to follow.

It's been great so far!

"The people advocating pole dancing say it is good exercise, but so is being chased by lions. It doesn't mean it's a good idea,"

Kaz Cooke, "Girl Stuff"

Hi there.

Something just occurred to me.I will usually leave comments when viewing docs, but i enjoy looking again at favourite shots or showing them to friends. So if you do see my icon popping up without a word, don't mind me, i'm just revisiting

^ - ^

Speaking of doing things differently,

check out this blog post by Mart-n at www.ipernity.com/blog/mart-n/20975

it's pretty cool ;oD

Rob Young is experimenting with a different use for the blog, as an avenue of critique.

In his own words,

" In this series I plan to link to one of my images, explain what I was trying to achieve with it, then invite you, the good and true ipernity member to comment. There is only one rule; please play nice"

Why not check out his post at

www.ipernity.com/blog/robertyoung/27122

I think this is a great idea. It's ideal for photosharing as it provides viewers with a view of the motivation behind the images. Allowing feedback creates an interactive,positive experience, rather than a passive one. It also encourages viewers to think about the image and their reactions to it. By keeping the discussions in the blog, you end up with a rich resource for viewers and insight for the photographer as to the response generated.

One recent Sunday i drove home along the freeway.It's the middle of spring and we were enjoying one of those golden evenings you occasionally get. As i drove, the sun crept towards the horizon, bathing the skyline and the clouds in red and gold.The Eagles were singing about that peaceful, easy feelin', there wasn't much traffic, body and mind unwound as i relaxed into the seat. You get a big sky view on that freeway, and i could see birds wheeling as darkness descended. Sometimes llife can be purely idyllic.

Of course, next thing i wanted was to immortalise the moment, but strangely it didn't seem like a good idea to drive with one eye in the viewfinder and a hand clutching the camera.Especially since Oscar is a stick-shift. ^ - ^

By the time i got into the city, Witchy Woman was on the airwaves and night had fallen. Time to start a new week.

*whew* I realised I have to get serious about uploading the old albums, otherwise I'll never get round to it. Especially when there's so much new stuff i want to try.

So my friends, I do apologise for jamming up your "latest posts" pages for the near future. Please bear with me

^ - ^

A babel fish is " small, yellow and leechlike" , and I've always wanted one, but never more so than since becoming an ipernaut.

According to Douglas Adams,

"..It feeds on brainwave energy received not from its own carrier but from those around it. It absorbs all unconscious mental frequencies from this brainwave energy to nourish itself with. It then excretes into the mind of its carrier a telepathic matrix formed by combining the conscious thought frequencies with nerve signals picked up from the speech centres of the brain which has supplied them. The practical upshot of all this is that if you stick a Babel fish in your ear you can instantly understand anything said to you in any form of language."

(See The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy for further details- worth reading if only to discover the true value of a towel and the answer to life, the universe and everything)

How cool is that? I've envied Arthur Dent ever since Ford Prefect stuck one in his ear canal on the Vogon spaceship.

In my  babel fish-deprived state, I have been using

www.freetranslation.com

for relatively understandable translations.

I've just realised Google has a pretty good translating tool on

translate.google.com/translate_t

I've been wondering what everyone else does- is there a better option out there?

Inspired by Bigoode in the Clouds' blogpost, Guido Waldenmeier has set up the Unofficial Ipernity Ideas and Wish Group at

www.ipernity.com/group/unofficialgroup

to allow ipernites to share ideas to improve and promote Ipernity, and to express their wishlist for the site.

I think it's a great idea, and it would be terrific if we all join in.

^ - ^

I was very disturbed to realise there's another dimension to the issue of image theft.

Sarah Smile was outraged to discover that photographs of her children had been stolen from her flickr site and used to set up fake profiles on Orkut, a social networking site.In her words "~Right now there are hundreds of "fake" profiles on Orkut using stolen images of children found on flickr. " She's leading a campaign against the abuse, from her site at

www.flickr.com/photos/sarahsmile1/

She is also seeking signatures for a petition to shut down Orkut at

www.petitiononline.com/jmelhado/petition.html

Please, have a look.

Hmm- a friend just forwarded me these links- about Virgin Mobile using a flickr photo of a minor in an Australian ad campaign.Seems that neither the photographer nor the child were informed, nor consent sought. If you are using creative commons licences, you should be aware of the issues (Hopefully, will get broad media coverage, since the child's family just filed suit. Will also be interesting due to transatlantic nature of the matter -photo taken in US, ad in Oz). I've noted that people and companies have been fishing photosharing sites for images- seems a pretty sucky practice, and maybe the best way to discourage this is to reserve all rights-after all, i don't see the hardship for anyone wanting to use images to seek the photographer's permission- at the very least it's common courtesy.

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2007/09/21/1189881735928.html

Discussion here:

*sigh* there's just not enough time!

i like to : look at the images, think about them - composition, colour, light, meaning, technique (ok, and I'm a slow thinker); get to know the photographer, sometimes the subject and intent, others the technique involved; learn a new way of seeing the world; make some friends.

Groups introduce the work of photographers I haven't seen before, too. It's brilliant! But sudden data overload, system crash!

Like kid in candy store i want to be everywhere, see everything, and think about it too (ref para 1) Not to mention participating in group life, checking out my networks' new work (back to para 1 again), just chatting. This in addition to leading realtime life with attendant needs and demands, and engaging offline social network before they think I've turned into a zombie. But worst of all, it cuts into time to go out, take the shots and think about my own stuff- not to mention the editing (*Groan*).

So, apologies if i seem to come and go. Am working out a balance.

But, it's great to be a kid in a candy store

wow, explosion of groups in a short couple of days! It's great to be able to see others' work on similar themes and to engage their thoughts. Communicating here, without *bling* and phony awards, has been great. I feel like i'm actuallly connecting, and would hate to lose that to the "Diamond, Platinum, Cannot-die-before-you -see-this-ULTIMATE-photograph" lot. On the one hand prohibition constitutes censorship constitutes anathema;on the other i wonder about successful outcome of a request to the community to refrain from the nonsense. It would be very nice...

I'd originally posted here a link to the first set of shots from the trek on flickr, but I've now decided to delete most of my stuff from flickr altogether.

So, I'll slowly post to the K2 Trek album here instead.

New world

brave new

small

exploring tendrils

find hidden currents

bright water

***************************8