Old Photographs Don't Lie

I spent about 10 minutes this afternoon looking through old photographs and they scared me. I ran across old pictures of girlfriends, people I hung out with, and me skiing in my youth. While I don't claim to have the best memory, I remember being a much better skier than those pictures would indicate. I also confess thinking that my old girlfriends looked significantly better in my memory than those pictures would indicate. Perhaps my wife is just that much better looking.

The other thing I remember wrongly is the quality of film photographs. I have been using a digital camera for so long and they have continued to evolve from rather poor results to now when they are significantly better than the film photographs I remember. Now one important thing to remember is that not all cameras are created equal. That is true for film cameras as much as it is for digital ones. I'm sure I used a lot of those crummy disposable cameras as they easily fit in a pocket and could be pulled out to take very blurry pictures. Then you didn't know what you got until you spent money developing the film. With a digital camera, if you don't like the photograph, you can delete it and try again. While I have some poor film photographs, I also have some really nice ones taken with a top-of-the-line Nikon from that time. While they look amazing, I still prefer my high-end digital camera.

In going through my old photographs, one of the first thing to note is that I used to have hair. I found a great picture from my teenage years and I look much better with hair. I wish I still had it. Unfortunately my genes conspired against me and I'll have to be satisfied with being bald. It is a good thing I got married before I lost my hair.

I have also decided to hide all of my old ski pictures from my kids. I ski much better now than I did back then. Part of it could be that I ski over 100 days every season now and I was lucky to get 20 back then. The important thing is that if my kids see those old photographs I will be ridiculed and made fun of the rest of my life. I should probably burn those pictures.

A Camera For the Blind

One of the advantages about working for Sony is that we can attend product presentations about some of our very unique product offerings. Yesterday I spent about 30 minutes learning about a camera we are making for blind photographers. That sounds a bit strange and so I made sure to listen intently.

The person giving the presentation is a Sony employee working on the product who is also legally blind. He has macular degeneration that has slowly progressed to where he is now. Fortunately he has been able to work on this product that uses a retina projection system allowing him to effectively see as it bypasses the parts of his eye that are no longer working. Instead an eye-safe laser projects the image seen through the viewfinder directly onto his retina. I found the technology and product utterly amazing.

One of the first questions a colleague asked is if we can use the technology to make glasses, effectively giving blind people the ability to see. Someone else provided a link to an existing product and so the short answer is, yes. I'm sure that a number of those with similar macular degeneration would appreciate knowing there is hope to see again. I know I value my eyesight tremendously and would love to know this technology exists should I need it in the future.

One of the first things pointed out about the Sony DSC-HX99 RNV product is that it will not work for everyone. That is why there is a try-before-you-buy program with 2 options before making the purchase. The first is to ask for a demo unit that Sony will ship to you for a 2-week trial. The second is to visit a handful of retail outlets where you can try the device. I imagine everyone will have different results based on individual levels of sight. After all, it would be a very poor product experience to make the purchase only to discover it doesn't work. I like that Sony is providing a 2-week trial for those not located near one of the retail stores as there isn't one near me, should I be interested.

There are a lot of amazing technologies that are improving life for those with special needs, such as blindness. If someone told me that Sony is making a camera for this demographic, I would probably have laughed not thinking it was serious. Fortunately they are and providing hope to others. This is one of those products that make me glad to work for Sony.

Smartphone Photos

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving when people will sit down at the dinner table and eat an incredible amount of food all in the name of giving thanks for our many blessings. In order to prepare for the festivities, my youngest son and I went for a rather lengthy hike today. We covered about 10.2 miles and wore my son's dog out. The dog is sleeping soundly on the couch and snoring loudly.

I had hoped to pick up a trail map from the visitor's center of the state park where we hiked today but found it closed because of the coming holiday. Instead I opted to take a photo of the map with my smartphone so I always had it with us even if we lost phone service on the hike, which we did. While I prefer to have a piece of paper for a map, the photo served us well.

This is not the first time I have used a picture on my phone to replace a map. It won't be the last either. As I think about it, a phone picture is a lot better for the environment as paper maps often turn into litter require a lot more resources to create.

A few years ago I took my kids and their spouses to Moab for a family vacation. One of the activities for the trip included rock climbing. We had a guidebook for the area we planned to climb. As we scoped out the area, a couple of other climbers not familiar with the area came and took a smartphone picture from the guidebook of another climbing area next to ours. It worked out well for all. They went to an area away from us so we didn't have to compete for climbing routes and the photo provided important information needed for the climbs.

Taking a picture of a map at the beginning of your hike or of pages out of a guidebook allow you to carry important information in the palm of your hand. All it takes is a little practice on using the photo and a phone with a charged battery. After all, the phone won't do you any good if it won't turn on.

Remembering Film Cameras

I think we take the ubiquity of digital cameras for granted. Sometimes we forget about the technology that existed before this new one. Yesterday I started reading a non-fiction book about mountain climbing. An up and coming climber had the chance to meet another famous climber. Someone pulled out a camera to capture the meeting. Only later did they discover the camera didn't have any film in it. Reading that reminded me of how much easier digital cameras have made our lives.

This morning I read an article about how archeologists are using declassified cold-war satellite photos of the Middle East to find ancient Roman forts and outposts. These finds are changing the way we view the Roman empire. The article went on to discuss how the pictures taken by the satellites made it back to earth. I just assumed pictures were taken using using early digital technology. Nope, they used film and would drop canisters that landed in the Pacific ocean. The US Air Force would then locate the film and pick it up for developing. A lot of the pictures were never found but most made it to analysts looking for something other than traces of ancient civilizations. Now we have satellites that can take a high-resolution photo and transmit the digital image to analysts in a matter of minutes.

Sometimes we look back into the past and reminisce about old technology like vinyl records and long for days of old. When it comes to photography, I prefer the new way. Our lives are greatly enhanced by charge-coupled devices (CCD) which make capturing digital images possible. We can take pictures in very little light without having to slow down shutter speeds to the point of endlessly blurry images. We are no longer relegated to a handful of pictures before having to change film canisters. Most importantly we have technology that makes what used to be mediocre photos look downright amazing. Yes, I like my digital camera. I'd say the only problem is that cameras are everywhere making it easy to get caught when you do something wrong. 

Photo Editing with GIMP

Yesterday my youngest son and daughter-in-law dropped my granddaughter off so they could drive to Ohio in preparation for a move. I have always told my kids that they are welcome to leave their kids with us but to not be surprised if we take the kids to Disneyland. With COVID-19 that is impossible right now as the park is closed. I still wanted to send them a picture of us in Disneyland.

I searched through my phone and found a picture of the Millennium Falcon in Galaxy's Edge from our most recent trip back in September. Then I had my wife take a picture of me and my granddaughter at my work desk. The rest should be easy. Everyone always talks about Photoshop'ing people into pictures, so how hard can it be.

 My first idea was to use Microsoft Teams. I have been using it for a lot of my conference calls and rather than use my own office background, I have added a picture of the Snowbird tram to my Teams picture library. I figure I could add one of Disneyland, start up MS Teams, and take a screenshot. After playing for a bit, I decided that I didn't like my picture with my hands out reaching for the keyboard. Interestingly enough, my oldest daughter thought that I had used a Zoom background for the finished picture.

Instead I decided to try GIMP. I actually use GIMP quite frequently as it is a great little tool for editing photos and other computer graphics. Lately I have created a bunch of icons for a project at work with it. Unfortunately I have never used it to take a person (or two in this case) from one photo and add them to another. My first stop was YouTube. I watched the process where you add an alpha-channel to the photo with your people and then use the free-hand tool to trace them. Once you have them traced, you cut out the background. That looked really tough and so I searched for another video in case there is a trick to use. The second video showed multiple tricks. First, make the picture really large so you can see the fine edges. You can then drag the free-hand lines to fit the outline of the people better. The second video also suggested going in sections so you are pulling off a bit at a time.

I didn't really care that I did a great job creating the fake photo. In fact I wanted it to be fairly obvious that I had created the picture. Then I stumbled upon some more tricks that make my fake actually look pretty good. One is that I cut out my granddaughter and myself from a fairly large picture. Then I shrunk us down before pasting us into the Disneyland background. Shrinking the photo removed a lot of the imperfections from my cutting out the background. Then I only used a section of the picture above my waist so you couldn't tell I was sitting in my office chair. The finished photo actually turned out pretty good even though I didn't mean it to.

Once I finished the picture, I Air Dropped it to my phone and then texted it out to the family. My oldest daughter replied almost instantly with her suggestion on how I pulled off the faked picture. I got a few laughs from everyone.

Now that I know how to Photoshop someone into a picture, it is not that difficult. I'm sure there are a ton of tricks to make the photo turn out even much better than I did and I encourage you to do some Internet searching. I don't know how to make hair look more natural but figure it is just a matter of patience and choosing a picture with a well-combed head. Today my wife and I will be taking my granddaughter to Paris. Wanna come?

My New Favorite Tool: Raw Therapee

I am putting together another adventure video after almost a year of not making one. I have gone back and looked at my previous 3 videos and tried to figure out how to make them better. One way is to improve the quality of the photos and so I looked into doing some photo editing.

My daughter-in-law is a professional photographer and uses Adobe Lightroom to edit her photos. I wanted to find a free alternative and my son turned me onto Raw Therapee. I loaded it up onto my computer and started playing around with it. First I watched a tutorial on YouTube to see what the tool can do. Next I tried some of the things of I saw in the tutorial on a photo of my wife. I liked the outcome and so I edited a sunset photo from my most recent adventure trip. I didn't see much of a difference between my edits and the original and so I asked my wife and daughter to come see them. I put both images on the screen next to each other and asked which one they liked best. Both could see a huge difference between the photos. That convinced me to run all of my photos through Raw Therapee. Furthermore, my daughter pointed out what I had done and what made one image better than the other. It impressed me that she knew what I had done and proved to me that little adjustments do make a huge difference.

My only complaint with Raw Therapee is that I thought I was closer to getting the video created. Now I have to run 35 photos through the tool and see how I can make each one better. My hope is that I will be able to get quick enough with the program that I only need to spend a minute or two on each picture. Yes the first couple will take more time than that, but spending an extra hour on this project will be worth it.

If you take a lot of pictures that you want to share with others, I highly recommend downloading Raw Therapee and playing with it. Be sure to go through a quick tutorial as it is a powerful tool and you might not understand everything it can do for you. The tutorial I have linked above is only about 10-minutes long and goes through a lot very quickly. Now I hope my next adventure video shows some improvement over my previous ones.

Beauty Every Day

During the Holiday break I made an extra effort to look for beautiful pictures every day. When I found a scene I liked, I pulled out my phone and took a picture of it. Sometimes the shots worked out and sometimes they didn't. The important thing is that I looked daily.

I have noticed several things in my pursuit of daily beauty. The first is that not all smartphone cameras are created equal. Some take better shots than others. I have one phone with a really good camera and when I know I am headed into the mountains, I make sure to bring it along. The pictures it produces are exceptional. If you are into photography, splurge a little and get a phone with a good camera. There are plenty to choose from.

The second thing I have noticed by taking pictures every day is that there is a lot of beauty all around us. One morning I woke up and marveled at the spectacular colors of the morning sunrise. I grabbed my smartphone and took several pictures only to have the sun come up just enough for the spectacle to disappear completely. On another occasion, I noticed the sunset casting a magnificent light on the mountains to the East. I grabbed a picture at the perfect moment. Professional photographers will tell you that sunrise and sunset produce some of the best light for pictures but don't let your guard down the rest of the day. One of my favorite pictures of the break is in a complete whiteout where you can barely see the chair in front of me on the chairlift I am riding. It looks cold and miserable but those are the skiing conditions I like most.

When cameras first started appearing in phones, I didn't see the point. Then I started using it as a way of capturing whiteboard notes at the end of meetings. Now I am using the camera on my phone frequently. If I don't like the picture, I delete it. Otherwise I have a nice photo documentary of my daily scenery and have taken some beautiful pictures.

Taking the Best Outdoor Pictures

Last month I took my youngest daughter on an adventure vacation to Zion National Park. I had so much fun that Saturday I decided to sneak another quick trip down there before the snow arrives and I occupy my leisure time with skiing. I announced my idea on the Sunday before to get a count of who would be able to go with me to hike Pine Creek Canyon. I then checked with the National Park Service (NPS) to see if I could get a hiking permit for the group. Once I got it, I made hotel and equipment reservations. Friday night we drove down, spent the night, and then began the adventure the next morning.

One mistake I made with the trip a month ago is that I didn't take enough pictures. I have a really high-end waterproof camera and so I made sure to bring it on this trip and keep it in a place where I could easily get it for pictures. This time I brought my wife, youngest son, and his wife. We had a great time doing the various rappels (technically, there are 7 of them). There are 2 very spectacular drops: the first one into the Great Cathedral and the second one being a 100-foot free rappel (meaning it is just you and the rope with nothing around you but air). I took a lot of pictures and think they look great.

At the end of the hike, I hitched a ride back to the car and then came back for my crew. As we drove out of the park, a large group of people assembled on a bridge with cameras to catch the magnificent red rock perfectly lit at sundown. The picture everyone was trying to get has been recorded thousands of times in other photographs and can be purchased inexpensively in the form of calendars and post cards.

We got home and I passed around my camera so everyone could select the photos they wanted me to send them. Interestingly enough, nobody cared about the various landscapes that I worked hard to frame. Instead they wanted the pictures with people in them. My wife wanted the ones with my son and his wife while my son wanted the pictures of his wife hanging from a 10 mm rope 100-feet off the ground. In the end, it is the people that make the surroundings special not just the scenery. So when you go someplace exciting and new, don't worry about the setting. Make sure you include the people in your group. It will make your pictures that much better.