On a high shelf at our new Murray Street shop is a row of Lexar boxes that fooled the heck out of me. But now that I have researched what they are, I am mightily impressed.Firstly, the mistake I made; I thought that they were a set of multiple RAID-drive boxes like a Drobo array. AS I have a Drobo that has been working flawlessly, I was not interested, but i took a picture anyway...
Last year I was black-balled from entry into a Facebook group of artists - condemned for being an "events photographer". I suspect it was also because I was unable to speak Artish and would not get a tattoo or a man-bun.Whatever, it set me out on a quest to become an artist in spite of the critics. I thought long and hard about what art I would pursue. Making miniature scenes was all very well, and taking pictures of weddings and hot rods and pretty girls might be a good training ground, but something more was needed. Something that would say Art loud enough and in a condescending enough manner to allow me to sit in a coffee shop and fill out Centrelink forms...
A recent column that dealt with stolen cameras seems to have garnered a great deal of interest - so I've decided to add some thoughts on the matter of further security for photography.The original column mentioned stolen cameras and suggested increased security measures for equipment inside cars. Now it is the turn for the same security inside the home.A. Equipment safety. You may have anywhere from $ 400 to $ 40,000 invested in cameras and lenses. If you put them into camera bags and cases and then put those cases inside the wardrobe your security level is that of the MDF board on that wardrobe. About 3mm of pressed wood pulp. Perfectly adequate to protect your 1980 safari suit against moths but no help if a burglar with a habit breaks in and looks for saleable items.Look up locksmiths and safes. If you have space in your home for the wardrobe, you have room in the wardrobe for a safe or storage cabinet. It doesn't need to be Fort Knox - it just needs to deter the casual criminal. I've...
Everything.Save it on your computer drive, back it up to your Time Machine hard drive, then back this up to your Drobo, then burn CD's of the files, then print them out on an Epson printer, then rephotograph the prints with a 35mm copy camera and archivally process the film. Then store it in acid-free sleeves in a fireproof contaner.Then take the discs and the film and the prints and any spare pixels that have fallen out of the back of the machine and put them in a safe deposit box down at the Bank of New South Wales.You may want to ask the bank to sandbag the St. George's Terrace entrance and post guards armed with Stirling SMG's there - better safe than sorry.After you have done this, go back and look at the images you started with. Are they really all that good? Is your student portfolio of 365 daily images of a banana on a plate really the stuff of your dreams? Have you advanced? Would it be a good idea to keep one picture of the...
Do you suppose that whenever someone browses onto the Arnott's, Unibic, or General Foods websites they get cookies? Something to chew over...
Images - paintings, photographs, drawings - have always presented a challenge for the preservationist. They are subject to fire, flood, mould, rodent and insect attack, as well as theft. Sometimes the best pictures only last a short period of time.Witness these poor relics that were found in a shoebox yesterday. Coffee cups, physical damage. fading, fugitive colour dyes...
I love advertising. I can't pass a billboard offering worm powders for budgies without experiencing a thrill - and the desire to spend money on worm powder. I don't have a budgie but wouldn't it be great to be prepared for one - just in case...
Statement of Interest: I own a Drobo storage unit. I paid for it with my own money. I installed it into my digital system myself. It has worked flawlessly since. It is likely to be all I need to safeguard my digital images.Now that we have that out of the way, here is the latest cute-as-a-bug idea from Drobo. They have made a mini version of the big Drobo FS unit I use for people who want security in a smaller space.The unit operates very much like mine - Up to 4 SATA hard disk drives are slotted into the unit at the font and configured with the software. They then receive the data and parcel it out amongst themselves so that no one unit has the entire key to the liquor cabinet. Should any one of the hard disk drives look like it is going to fail, the Drobo alerts the user to replace the dodgy disk before it is dead and the data marches merrily on. No loss, no risk.Mine uses big disks, this one uses small disks...
Have you seen the prices that printed ephemera of the 1950's commands on eBay? It's fantastic! I'll bet it is even better at Christie's or Sotheby's. Why, there must be fortunes to be made with old magazines out in the back shed - and who knows what men's magazine gold has been tucked between the mattresses of teenage boys since then. Provided their mothers did not find them, they might still be there.Mind you, so might the bedbugs. So to avoid that sort of trouble I decided to make my own vintage retro magazines - I'll be sending them in for auction as soon as the Epson printer gets through the stack of files.Of course it s not all just profit - there is a fair amount of work involved in getting the girls into the corsets and girdles and the props needed are never cheap. IKEA always seems to have something that is nearly right but not quite so, and the antique stores are run by descendants of Henry Morgan. Fortunately many old people have period furniture in the...
There can be few more heart-stopping moments for a digital photographer than seeing nothing on the screen of your monitor - even when it is just the disappearance of a small icon.I worked away for a small time this morning on my iMac before I thought that I needed a file from deep storage - I use a Drobo storage system. I looked to the space that normally has the little black icon and it was blank. So I opened the desk drawer that contains the Drobo - and the characteristic green and blue lights on the front were not alight. Cold and dead.I did not panic. I moved the plug of the 12V 7.5A power supply box to a different socket behind the desk. Cold and dead.I did not panic. I tried that same socket with a desk lamp. Light.I did not panic. I unplugged the Drobo and the power supply and brought them into Ernest here in the shop. He applied the voltmeter probe to the end of the cable from the power supply. Cold and dead. High...