A Journey of a Thousand Miles

I have been out of the game for a long time. A new job has kept me from things I would much rather be doing. Knowing that I have decided not to sign the contract and continue for the year. Instead I will be photography, maintaining a number of websites, and teaching part time at the University of Chiang Mai. The last week has brought about a lot of changes and I have found that my general quality of life has gone up now that I have found the time to do the things that I really want to be doing.

Canon has released two new lenses at PMA this year. I am very excited about the 17mm f.4 tilt shift lens. 17mm has long been a staple lens for landscape photographers and tilt shift lenses have found their way into many great photographers kits. They are wonderful lenses and have a range of uses from making kitchy “miniature” looking photos by manipulating the depth of field, to bringing just the right amout of focus to a landscape and allowing you to correct abberations created by not having your lens level to your subject. You know those building that always seem like they are pointed at the top and the lines of the building are not strait, tilt shif just might be for you.
This is also one lens that if it proves to be sharp, may end Canon’s long held repuation for having lenses that are soft at the wide end. Though we will have to wait and see if this lens can stand up to scrutiny, I am exctied about having a tiltshif lens that is at the wider end of things. Currently Canon offers a newly released 24mm as well as their 45mm and 90mm tiltshift lenes. The TS-E17mm f/4L will also be canons second L series lens. So I am doubly excited about the possibilities of this lens as I know the repuation for quality that the L series carries with it.

The Boston Globe’s Big Picture has a photo series about the Dokdo/Takeshima debate that is currently raging between South Korea and Japan. The debate is over a small group of islands between Japan and Korea. The islands have only two full time residents and a small handfull of visitors and other people that work on the island off and on. There is really not much in the way of resources to speak of yet the claim as to who “owns” the island rages on. It is currently under Korean jusisdiction but Japan claims that they had control of the island before Korea did, Korea makes the counter claim that it was stolen by the Japanese during the second World War.

This is a matter of national contention in Korea, during my time there it was common to see my students wearing “Dokdo is ours’ T-shirts and getting noticeably upset when talking about the issue. These are Primary school children mind you, getting upset over the ownership status of a small island with next to no economic value. (There are claims that there is oil in the seas around Dokdo but to the best of my knowledge I know of no substantiatation of these claims. More likely it is just a way to justify what to the outside world would seem like a pissing contest between Korea and Japan.) There have also been major protests with a mother and son going so far as cutting off a finger each in protest to Japan’s claims of ownership.

Frankly I think it is a bit silly to get so upset about such a small piece of land that has two residents and next to no value outside being part of the national pride. It only serves to widen a gap between Korea and Japan that is wide enough already. Korea is there now, they have no itention of giving up the island, it has no real value so why not just leave it be? Better yet, why not put aside silly squabbles that have been raging since Japan’s occupation of Korea which ended more than 50 years ago and make Dokdo/Takeshima into an island that bridges that gap between the two countries who traditionally have been at odds.

I am not a huge fan of flickr. It is simply to easy to post photos there and it makes it so you have to sort through a huge amount of crap to find anything good. However, when you come across something like the Japan Set that Derek Winchester has shot recently it makes it seem worth while. The set is visually stunning and the colours have so much impact that they seem to be telling a story of their own. It is the kind of set you would expect someone who has been living in Japan full time for years to have up but Derek is based out of Japan. I have had the luck to meet him and go shooting with him a couple of times with the Seoul Photo Club and I have been watching his work for quite some time. The Japan is just one more set of fantastic photos by a great photographer and one who warrents a careful watch.

I’m not really one for rumours. Ok so that is a bit of a lie. I don’t follow rumours but when they become very plausible and don’t seem to outrageous, I tend to pay attention. The latest rumour floating around is that Nikon will be releasing a D400 shortly. With what Nikon has been putting out lately, this will be another camera that is worth watching and if Nikon is able to get the price down to really compete with the 40/50D from Canon, it could be a a camera that a lot of other people are interested in as well.
The one feature that particularly caught my attention was the mention of a touch screen. While I am not so sure this is a good idea, touch screens are harder to navigate, and nearly impossible to navigate when your eyes are not glued to the screen, it is not a feature that is unexpected. Both my phone and mp3 player are touch screen now and I can only imagine it is a matter of time before cameras go touch screen as well, What we lose in tactile function, we will however gain in screen size and resolution.

Posting has been very slow this week. I have been offered a teaching position at a new school that is to open in Chiang Mai in May of this year. I will be teaching P.E. which admittedly is a far cry from photography and will interfere with my photography in ways that I can not imagine. Included in that, is the ability to maintain this blog.
I am going to keep the blog going, but posting could and most likely will slow down and become sporadic from this point on. I do have a reason for this however and in the long term, it will allow me to become a better photographer. First of all, it will allow me more money, money for travel, for gear and with this simply to take more photographs. Secondly the job comes with six weeks of paid holiday time in the summer. While I won’t see many days off until sometime in 2010, it will give me the opportunity to travel long term each year. And being situated in Thailand there is a lot of travel and thus a lot of photography that I can do with six weeks paid holiday.
It will also allow me to free myself of my student loan, which has been hanging over my head for the last five years and seriously inhibiting my ability to excel as a photographer simply because I don’t have the ability to travel as much as I would like to. If I can stick to my budget, I will be able to rid myself of this burden within two years. And from that point on I will be very free to travel.

I apologize in advance for the changes that will bring to this site and to my main site, www.ryanchappell.com but I will try to keep as much new material coming as I am able.

Ok I know this is a bit off topic but it is really interesting to see what has become a national icon, the Obama pictures being recreated into something completely different while still using the same slogan. It really speaks for itself so I don’t think I need to say that much about it. Other than pointing out how powerful an image can really be.

It is also availible as a shirt and all proceeds will be in support of charity.

www.dpreview.com has a comprehensive review of the Canon 5D Mark II posted. This is the site to go to for comprehensive testing of cameras and frankly I would not buy a camera without reading the www.dpreview.com review first. The 5D Mark II unsurprisingly gets a highly recomended status, the best status that a camera can acchive. If you have been looking for the go ahead to buy this camera (that is if you can find it with the constant suply shortages) this might just be the ticket you have been looking for.