TimeLine Media Blog

I am gearing up to photograph another ballroom dance event tomorrow. In looking at my gadgets and workspace, I see a lot of influence from my father. I shoot Nikon cameras. My first SLR photos were taken with his Nikon F2 and Nikkor lenses. I recently found two silver (strange since they are usually gold-colored) boxes with some fast glass. Amazingly, they work with the newest digital cameras from Nikon, so I use them for personal shoots – just for fun.

Photography Influence

For video these manual focus lenses have especially solid focusing rings for using with moving images. Today, I was looking around my old photos, and saw a snap shot I took of my dad’s work space some time ago. He was an architect that worked at home much of the time I was growing up. He looked after me while doing his projects for clients. There are some stark differences with my work area now – no computer, printer, actually no major technological electronic appliance to be seen in the photo! He has many source books of construction codes and supplies. Additionally he has an old hard hat he used when visiting construction sites.

Architect Work Area

Of course, he has the tools of the trade he used to design buildings out of blank sheets of paper. Pencils, pens, rulers, green templates for shapes – from these he designed the house that I lived in since high school before leaving for college.   I definitely did not appreciate what these designers like him do, I just admired the way that he could see perspectives, and put them on paper. He could have an idea in his head, and put them to paper. As an exercise he would quiz me on differentiating between models of planes as they came in for landings. He would point out differences between 737’s, MD-80’s, or Fokker-100’s.

If not at the airport, he would examine shoes at a store and tell me why he thought one design was better than the next (he was Filipino after all). And if he was dancing, he would show me and my mom why the Cha Cha was the best dance – the best songs on an album had a Cha Cha beat, and there are lots of opportunities for moves to do on the floor. Geez, I am my father’s son.

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Continuing the post from last week’s Tech Thursday, I want to post about the reason against switching to the Creative Cloud subscription-based software model from Adobe. There has not been more negative posts on a photography project in a long time! Change can be difficult for businesses especially if drastic change affects the software that is at the core of so many studios.

Adobe Review

Will you still be able to access your *.PSD and *.AI files that you created in Photoshop and Illustrator even though you no longer pay monthly for Creative Suite? What happens if you get out of the business – will you have a way to access these proprietary files? Adobe has stated that they will update the last “boxed” version of the suite, CS6, with updates for new cameras and file types, but will not add new features. I question, though, how long that will last. Even Microsoft cannot Windows operating systems forever no matter how popular, or how many computers still run versions that are 3 or 4 generations old.

Another view is that the subscription model means that you are just renting software. For the time that you are paying, you will be getting all the updates, and features that you expect from licensing software. After the subscription is ended, no matter how long you have been paying, you will have nothing to show for it. With boxed versions of software, studios would have flexibility on when they will invest in their core software. Plus, Adobe would give you incentives to upgrade when you are ready, with discounted pricing for returning customers, and different pricing models to suit studios. For example, Web Designers could get a suite with different products for them, while photographers would buy a package more suited for them. The new model gives only 2 options – $20 a month for 1 application, or $50 a month for all applications.

Software Subscription

After the initial reveal of the Creative Cloud, and the uproar from the Internet forums, it looks like there is still discussion at Adobe whether this is the final setup of the Creative Cloud. There are discussions of having photographer specific versions of the cloud, and I’m sure there are others also being explored. So for now, I will be sticking with my CS5 suite, and waiting to see how this will fall out. This is definitely the wave of the future – subscriptions models make sense for software companies, so it is only a matter of time where all software will be done this way. This is just part of the growing pains of change.

In any case, I will not be worrying about this until I can’t open a file or edit a photo, so not to worry! I’ll still be shooting and putting out the best images I can no matter what software will be on my workstation. Stay tuned to the blog to see more-

TimeLine Media – www.timelinedc.com
703-864-8208

Reston, Virginia

It seems like a long time since the last Showcase! November 2012 was the last Arthur Murray Showcase held at the Hyatt Regency in Reston, VA. We will be making new photos of Smooth and Rhythm routines this weekend. On this occasion we will be at the Hilton McLean in Tysons Corner. Going through the last event, there were some really nice photos from both the choreographed routines and the All-Around competition.

The photographers love to make images here since there are usually some special moves outside of the textbook school figures that are taught out of the syllabus. It is fun for the dancers too as they are anxious to show off for the judges and the audiences too! If you have any special moves and want to have them on camera, spot our photographer, and make sure that the line faces us. We try not to move around too much during the routines, so we will be stationed at one side of the dance floor for the session. If you have any questions on this, please ask! See you on Saturday!

Showcase Dance Routines

TimeLine Media – www.timelinedc.com
703-864-8208