The Secret Life of Technology
View allAll Photos Tagged Technology,
Something is going wrong when the camera with its impressive algorithms and countless AF options forces itself into the centre and, hence, between photographer and object. Ideally, I would think, we photographers ought to use the camera as if it was not there. Just focussing on the composition and the 'essence' of the object and having the settings run in the background. I am not advocating 'point and shoot', I am saying that a camera should be built in such a way that we can 'forget' about it and focus on taking the picture. I think my older cameras do that. My newer ones are much more sophisticated and what they are increasingly trying to do is take over decisions I could make myself. What is my reaction? Number one, I prefer using my older cameras. And two, when using my sophisticated ones, I turn off a lot of their computer-powered procedures. I wonder what you think.
Something that most of us will have stuck a finger in. Well, us vintage folk have.
Crazy Tuesday theme 'Vintage Technology'.
Telephone dial.
Cheddar Gorge
Driving home from Wales on Sunday I stopped at Cheddar Gorge to meet up with my friend Scott for sunset.
This is a bit of a long one so settle down for a. nice cuppa...
We met in the car park at the pack of the gorge and took the slog up the hill to the top. Everything was going well until we got to the spot where we needed to set up and Scott had realised he'd lost his phone on the way up. So, off he went looking for it while I carried on watching the sunset.
I got a few shots off and finally, Scott came back, albeit empty handed and pissed off about losing his phone. We decided to call it a day, but ladies and gentlemen, there is a twist...
As we walked back in the fading light Scott stopped randomly at various places and called to his Google assistant on his phone, and thankfully near to the spot where he thought he'd lost it he shouted OK GOOGLE and low and behold, his phone heard him and lit up like a Christmas tree!! It was hidden near a tree and probably wasn't very visible during the daylight, but the wonders of modern technology and the darker light helped us find it with no bother.
So, in the end, it was a bit of a wasted journey for Scott but at least he'd found his phone and the evening wasn't a complete disaster.
Here's the first of two shots I took, I hope you like it.
Two brass fasteners. These were once common place and used to hold together sheets of hole-punched paper.
Focus stack (25 images) Shot with two off-camera strobes (Leica SF 60/Leica SF C1 trigger) . Flash A modified with MagMod MagGrid, camera right 30 degrees above subject. Flash B mounted on boom, positioned above and in front of subject, angled at 45 degrees, modified with 32 inch white umbrella.
Europe, The Netherlands, Noord Brabant, Eindhoven, Evoluon, Next nature museum, Deity/Locker (uncut)
Back to the Evoluon/Next Nature museum. As I said in the previous posts, it’s all about letting people interact with new technologies. To enable this, temporarily preventing distraction by cell phones can be vital. The museum enlisted the help of a deity for this, offering little lockers to store them in.
This is number 19 of the Eindhoven abum.
...and on the horizon lignite power
THE WORLD OF TECHNOLOGY is the topic for 1th - 7th February 2025., Group Our Daily Challenge
The biggest security risk in any system is the user.
"Hundreds of Westminster insiders were added to - and then deleted from - a WhatsApp group set up by shadow justice secretary Robert Jenrick to promote his London Marathon run".
In this day and age there should be minimum level of competence with technology to gain access to any position of power or trust, (especially after the U.S "signal app" fiasco).
(As we old techies used to say the problem is "BTKAC" between the keyboard and chair).
The BBC has been told Jenrick is not referring himself to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), which investigates data breaches. (What a surprise!).
Minolta X-700 Minolta 50mm 1:3.5 MC Macro Celtic 1:1 Extension Adox HR-50 LegacyPro EcoPro 1:1 05/04/2024
Sitting on the window-sill and enjoying the low afternoon sun. Illuminated and in sharp focus is the "good" eye, the one I use for photography. The other one plays second fiddle. However, none of them was really involved in taking this self-portrait. It was the artificial eye of the camera in connection with a clever algorithm (automatic eye recognition) that kicked in when I pressed the shutter release (via a long cable). This is one of the situations where camera technology enables me to do things with ease that, if done manually, would have been quite difficult to achieve.
Crazy Tuesday - Vintage Technology
A set of heavy metal scales (I borrowed) and imperial weights ranging from 2lb down to 1/4oz !!
The spokes of a wheel cast their shadow on the wall behind.
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Die Speichen eines Rades werfen ihren Schatten auf die Wand dahinter.
Explore - #18
The Riverside Drive Viaduct, built in 1900 by the US City of New York, was constructed to connect an important system of drives in Upper Manhattan by creating a high-level boulevard extension of Riverside Drive over the barrier of Manhattanville Valley to the former Boulevard Lafayette in Washington Heights.
F. Stuart Williamson was the chief engineer for the municipal project, which constituted a feat of engineering technology. Despite the viaduct's important utilitarian role as a highway, the structure was also a strong symbol of civic pride, inspired by America’s late 19th-century City Beautiful movement. The viaduct’s original roadway, wide pedestrian walks and overall design were sumptuously ornamented, creating a prime example of public works that married form and function. An issue of the Scientific American magazine in 1900 remarked that the Riverside Drive Viaduct's completion afforded New Yorkers “a continuous drive of ten miles along the picturesque banks of the Hudson and Harlem Rivers.”[1]
The elevated steel highway of the viaduct extends above Twelfth Avenue from 127th Street (now Tiemann Place) to 135th Street and is shouldered by masonry approaches. The viaduct proper was made of open hearth medium steel, comprising twenty-six spans, or bays, whose hypnotic repetition is much appreciated from underneath at street level. The south and north approaches are of rock-faced Mohawk Valley, N.Y., limestone with Maine granite trimmings, the face work being of coursed ashlar. The girders over Manhattan Explore - #40
Street (now 125th Street) were the largest ever built at the time. The broad plaza effect of the south approach was designed to impart deliberate grandeur to the natural terminus of much of Riverside Drive’s traffic as well as to give full advantage to the vista overlooking the Hudson River and New Jersey Palisades to the west.
The viaduct underwent a two-year long reconstruction in 1961 and another in 1987. (source: Wikipedia)
Absolutely love the way this turned out. It's inspired by this concept art from Elysium. Something I've wanted to do for quite a while now. Not quite done yet as I need to add to the interior cargo area and make some actual cargo for it, but I wanted to get this photo before the decals aged or something happened to them. This is also the first time I've been able to get a white background to look good in a long time! XD
Katherine Brown talking about her use of the Moodle Lesson tool in teaching.
WCELfest08, University of Waikato, December 11, 2008
Un véritable cimetière de voitures anciennes, toutes décomposées par le temps en communion avec la nature.
Ce parc original est l’oeuvre de Michael Fröhlich, Mode- puis Autodesigner et désormais propriétaire d’une concession de voitures de collection. Michael Fröhlich a eu l’idée un jour, il y a 20 ans, d’acquérir pour son 50ème anniversaire 50 voitures anciennes du monde entier, toutes datant des années 1950 pour les installer dans le grand jardin boisé entourant sa maison à flanc de colline, tel un parcours artistique exposant sa passion pour les voitures anciennes mais surtout témoignant de la supériorité des éléments naturels sur la technologie, d’une nature qui finit toujours par reprendre ses droits.
Parmi les nombreuses voitures en décomposition, vous pourrez admirer une Jaguar et une Porsche côte à côte, une voiture de l’armée de Berlin-Est faisant face à sa contemporaine de Berlin-Ouest, une limousine 11 CV de gangster ayant appartenu à un policier français, une Mosqvitch à moitié enterrée, une 2CV remplie de bouteilles de champagne vides, une Rolls Royce transportant la reine et le prince Charles mais aussi une Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Opel, Ford, Volkswagen, Buick, Citroën, Fiat, Austin, Morris, Lloyd, Renault, Tatra… chaque véhicule a son histoire !
Et on ne trouve pas que des voitures anciennes dans l’Auto-Skulpturen-Park. Vous croiserez également un avion et son parachutiste suspendu à un arbre , des motos, des scooters, une calèche… une cabine téléphonique, des pneus, des nains de jardin…
A veritable graveyard of old cars, all decomposed by time in communion with nature.
This original park is the work of Michael Fröhlich, Fashion- then Autodesigner and now owner of a collector car dealership. Michael Fröhlich had the idea one day, 20 years ago, to acquire for his 50th birthday 50 vintage cars from all over the world, all dating from the 1950s to install them in the large wooded garden surrounding his house on the hillside , like an artistic journey exposing his passion for old cars but above all testifying to the superiority of natural elements over technology, of a nature that always ends up reclaiming its rights.
Among the many decaying cars, you can admire a Jaguar and a Porsche side by side, an East Berlin army car facing its West Berlin contemporary, a gangster 11 HP limousine that once belonged to a policeman French, a half-buried Mosqvitch, a 2CV filled with empty champagne bottles, a Rolls Royce carrying the Queen and Prince Charles but also a Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Opel, Ford, Volkswagen, Buick, Citroën, Fiat, Austin, Morris, Lloyd, Renault, Tatra… each vehicle has its story!
And you don't just find vintage cars in the Auto-Skulpturen-Park. You will also come across an airplane and its parachutist suspended from a tree, motorcycles, scooters, a horse-drawn carriage… a telephone booth, tires, garden gnomes…
Piping Technology and Products, Inc. custom designed eight sets of riser clamp assemblies for an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico. These riser clamp assemblies were fabricated from API 2H GR. 50 carbon steel. They were designed to support vertical pipe lines on an offshore platform. Each set equipped with a neoprene lining consists of two clamps and a clamp stand. Several coats of marine paint finish were applied to the assemblies to prevent corrosion due to high salt water content and open air exposure.