The Job of a Photo Journalist

Mark Hancock, as a photo journalist, is exposed to situations that many of us never see. A police warrant roundup is one such occurance and he describes it well.
He has several things to say in his accompanying post about what PJs do:

Before I continue, PJs mostly cover tax dollars at work. When we cover wrecks, fires and such, we focus on what the police and firefighters are doing. This is why we are there. We also cover the people affected by the event to get them help from the community. Lastly, we cover the people who may have caused the commotion in the first place (hostage takers, etc…).

The beauty of Winter Photography

One day last week on my way to work, the local area was shrouded in a deep mist. The sun tried to shine through but all that could be seen was a glowing ball in the eastern sky. I was late so I couldn’t stop, but this essay on winter photography brings back some of those memories.

So be brave, dress warmly, get out there and shoot, the world of winter photography awaits you!

Google "nofollow"

Well, Google’s nofollow attribute is one way of putting off comment-spammers but it won’t stop them. They’ll continue to spam in case they come across a site that doesn’t support the new attribute.
I may look at adding rel=”nofollow” to links here, but it’d be handy to have a list of “safe” URLs that are safe to link to. Perhaps a WP plugin, backend interface and db table?
In other news, the number of spams getting through to the moderation queue has dwindled down to zero (besides the edgesaver one of course!) so it’s not a problem here right now.

Gimp, Wine and Photoshop Plugins

I’ve known for a while that it’s possible to run FFI Photoshop plugins but there are problems getting 8bf plugins working. pspi.exe can be used to run them if you’re running Windows GIMP but not in Linux unfortunately. This discussion on the Wine list suggests that a mini-wine loader such as is used by Mplayer might go some way to achieving this goal but such a loader doesn’t exist yet.
That’s a pity as this virtual photographer plugin looks nice. All the effects can be done manually in the GIMP too but why not take a shortcut if it’s there?

EdgeSaver – Longer Lasting Razor Blades

Someone left a comment here asking if I’d used EdgeSaver and if it worked. I don’t know, but Google does and review after review after review have been positive so I guess there’s something to this product. ‘Course, it could well have been a comment spam but this actually looks useful if it works. Does it?
Update… I asked a chemist friend and his opinion is, “don’t waste your money” as it’s just, “a fancy WD40 – an oil that expels water and essentially air contact (necessary for corrosion of metal) from the surface of the metal so that it cannot corrode through oxidative chemical reaction.”
Any sort of oil-based lubricant can be used but of course it has to be safe, don’t go spreading 3-in-1 or WD40 on your face! It’ll seriously hurt you!
A “food grade oil” is ok, and the ones that immediately spring to mind is sunflower or olive oil. Still not quite comfortable with those either. They’re fine in the frying pan, but in the bathroom?
I must look into essential oils, why not use lavender, rose, or another fragrant oil instead? Lavender oil will relax you too!
Thanks Justin for the above!
Later still… Someone left a comment on the previously commented post saying they, “have been using edgesaver for about a year now and have no regrets of the purchase.” Unfortunately it comes from a very similar IP and the same ISP as the comment that sparked all this off so it’s likely to be a spam attempt. Stick with the olive oil folks!
Ah ha! I’ve confirmed in my own head that this is comment spam, although clever and manual – Follow the links from this search to find the same comments on this post and here too.
Still an interesting idea that the lifetime of blades can be extended by immersing them in oil.
Much later.. Edge Saver have rebranded as RazorMax. I only mention this in case someone doesn’t find this blog entry when they look for the new name!