Desultory Thoughts

A friend at work passed an email along to me with these pictures. He said it happened at the top of Hurricane Hill on the way to Kanab, Utah.

Look at the first picture below and you can see where this guy broke through the guard rail and left the road, traveling from right to left. He flipped across the end of the culvert and landed on the left side of it.

Look at the second picture and you can see how lucky he was.

Click on the pics to see larger versions.

Ever since I read about Microsoft’s Photosynth in July, I’ve been chompin’ at the bit to get a look at it myself and try it out. The time has come and it’s now available to touch and feel and SEE for yourself. If you like to cruise the world in Google Earth then you’re going to love Photosynth which takes pictures, analyzes them for similarities and then puts them in a virtual 3D viewing place in relation to the rest of the pictures. It doesn’t matter what angle the pictures are taken from, Photosynth puts them together to make viewing areas (currently there are four collections) seamless as if you were actually there.

At the moment you’ll need to fire up IE6 or IE7 in order for the software to work properly (doesn’t work in Firefox, although they’re working on it) and you’ll also need XP with Service Pack 2 or Vista.

Some tips as you move around in the pictures; don’t forget to make use of the zooming features. You can zoom by clicking the plus and the minus symbols, or use the scroll wheel on you mouse. It’s fun to see some of the detail in the high resolution pictures (especially in the art gallery collection) and it helps to get your bearings by zooming out and seeing all the tiny dots that make up the points of reference. Another fun thing to do is to see where the camera was when the photo was taken. This can be toggled on and off by clicking the camera icon. Little red triangles appear and when you mouse over one it projects the angle and crops the area of the virtual scene that makes up the photo from that angle.  Lastly, don’t forget that you can close the informational column on the left by clicking on the divider line in the middle.  This will maxmize your 3D model world and make cruising around experience even better.
Give it a try. Can you imagine when they give us the ability to upload are own collections? It’s coming soon, but for now we’ll have to pacify ourselves with the collections they’ve given us.

Click image for full-size view.

In what looks to be some possible competition (or at least an alternative) to Flickr, Google has released a tool that is used in conjunction with the lastest build of Picasa 2.  According to Google:

It’s available by invitation, along with the latest downloadable version of Picasa, and offers:

• One-click web upload using Picasa’s new “Web Album” button
• Free storage space to post and share approximately 1000 photos, with the option to upgrade to more space
• High-quality photos, automatically resized and optimized to fill available screen space
• Pre-loaded images enable quick scrolling using arrow keys, and mimic a desktop experience of “flipping” through photos, even on the web
• End-to-end photo management that makes it easy to download uploaded photos back to your computer

Take a look at this public gallery to see what it’s like to share photos using Picasa Web Albums.

The new version of Picasa includes a ‘Web Album” button that when selected will upload pictures to your own Picasaweb page. This requires an account on Picasaweb.google.com using your Gmail address.

Here is my first album located at http://picasaweb.google.com/tslack

Flickr enthusiasts won’t give a dang about Google’s attempt to further spread their foothold on all things web and will likely ridicule it. I’m so new to both services that I won’t be as biased. As I use both services, I’ll report back and let you know what I think of each.

At first glance, however, it’s obvious that Flickr has a lot more feautures. But for simple uploading and sharing of pictures located on your computer, Google has them beat hands down. Of course, Flickr doesn’t require a program be installed on your computer, which is part of what makes it so easy with Google.

For those of you who are trying this service (it’s only available on an invitation basis), let me know what you think. I think it’s interesting that Google is trying to get away from the “Beta” label on this one. Calling it “Test” instead of “Beta” may be the first time that I’ve seen any company release something that’s in Beta and calling it anything different. We’ll see how their test goes.

I used my new macro skills that John clued me in on and took some pictures at Grandma’s house. Here is one of seven that I really thought turned out well.

View the others here and let me know which one is your favorite. (Hint: you can view the photos in full size and see the detail of the picture. Just click on “All Sizes” at the top left corner above the picture.)
I’m really loving the fact that I can take what seem to me to be awesome pictures just because of a simple camera setting. I’m in the market for a good digital camera now. The one I’m using doesn’t take pictures that I can print any bigger than 3×5. It would be so cool to print these out at 5×7 or 8×10 and frame them in our living room!

I took some pictures of the kids, too. I’ll upload that set of pictures when I feel like I’ve completed the set. My sister-in-law, Heather, has always taken great pictures of my kids. In fact, I have a couple of pictures that she took of Sami and her daughter Jaylee that I’m going to frame for my office. She’s another inspiration for me; she has a really good eye.

My friend John showed me some pictures that he took in his backyard of flowers and nature and I was amazed that he was the photographer responsible! The photos were stunning, up-close pictures of beautiful, detailed flowers and plants. When I asked what his secret was, he pointed out the “macro” setting on his camera which is indicated on most digital cameras by the flower icon. Suddenly I remembered seeing that icon on my cameras, but had never thought to use it. A whole new world was opened up to me.

I’m by no means a photographer, although I think still photography has a way of invoking thought and inspiration in a way that video can’t. For that reason, I have always wanted to be a photographer and capture inspiring moments in time. I took a photography class in ninth grade and entered a photo in a contest that won a prize. I think that’s the last time I ever tried to take a photograph that was stunning or impressive. In light of my new found macro setting that was always there but never used, I’m inspired to try and capture some of those moments in time.