One of the highlights of my trip to Malawi, besides all the official stuff we did, was the opportunity to visit the school where my grandfather, Robert Dale, taught biology from 1965-67. He was sent to Blantyre Secondary School (BSS) as part of an aid program funded by the Canadian government through the External Affairs department. The rest of the family, including my mother at 13 years old, went with him and they all lived on the BSS compound.

As I arrived in Malawi, I wasn’t sure I would get to see the school at all. We had a very full itinerary and the school was just far enough away from where we were staying that squeezing in a visit would be difficult. Even if we got to the gate, I never expected to be allowed inside.

As it happened, the Monday after we arrived was a holiday due to the state funeral being held for the late President Bingu wa Mathurika. This unexpected holiday broke open just enough of a hole in our schedule for me, my wife and our new friend Conrad (from the group) to walk the 1.5 kilometres to BSS.

When we arrived, I admit that I was a little nervous. Here I was halfway around the world standing at the place that has been such a huge part of our family history. There was an older gentleman, presumably a guard, standing by the gate. Using what Chichewa I learned in the 48 hours I had been in the country, I walked up and said “Muli Bwanje” and introduced myself. I began explaining that my grandfather used to teach here but before I could finish, the man swung the gate open and said “Go, walk around!”

I was a little dumbstruck. Three azungu show up unannounced at a state-run boarding school and they just open the gate for us? Welcome to Malawi. Actually, “welcome” doesn’t even begin to cover the openness with which the Malawian people embrace visitors. As I walked through the gate, things got a little surreal – the noise of Blantyre seem to fade and it felt like we’d been transported right back to 1965. Even though I had never been here – I had this sense that nothing had changed. So, without further ado, here are my photos from the thirty minutes or so we spent wandering around Blantyre Secondary School.

Related posts:

1. Malawi: Getting there
2. Malawi: Day Three
3. Malawi: Day Five

I have had such a great time learning the ins and outs of photography these last few months that I’m kicking myself for not getting started sooner. It wasn’t until our department acquired the camera I’ve been using (a Nikon D5100) in December that I was inspired to TRY to learn how to shoot properly. Now I can’t stop.

Unfortunately, I’ll be changing jobs at the end of the month which means I have to give back my beloved D5100 – and I’ll be left without a proper camera just in time for summer. Bummer.

With all of the extra, and unexpected, expenses related to my trip to Africa there just isn’t room in the budget to go out and get my own camera right away. What’s a shutter-addict to do? Sell stuff!!

I’ve been asked before about selling prints of my photos and have always brushed them off with feigned humility. However, the prospect of being camera-less in less than a month has pushed me to suppress my humility and sell my soul (or photo) to support my habit.

Starting later this month, I will begin selling prints of my photos in various sizes and styles from this website. I thank you in advance for supported my photography habit and enabling its continuation.

P.S. If you have a particular fave photo that you’d be interested in purchasing, let me know in the comments by leaving a URL to the photo you like. You can see all my available photos on my Flickr page here: http://flickr.com/carmichaels

IMPORTANT UPDATE, I have been informed by The PCC that I cannot sell prints of photos I took in Malawi so these photos are excluded from any offer to sell prints.

No related posts.

photo credti: Lee Haywood

Just a month into my journey as a “serious photographer” and I’ve developed my very first “trick of the trade” – how exciting! I haven’t actually looked to see if anyone has already included this in a tutorial of some kind, so it’s possible that this isn’t completely original.

The Scenario:
I spent the morning taking “staff portraits” at the office. In the past, we’ve always had to scramble to get a decent photo of someone when we needed it – either for the website or a workshop bio, etc.  We decided to take semi-formal portraits of all staff just to have on file.

The Problem:
It was, of course, the final subject of the day that caused the “problem.” She was a blinker – a bad one! A few of the earlier subject had one or two shots out of four or five where their eyes were closed, but this subject was something else. She knew it too – she told me that she always either has her eyes closed, or she looks like she’s on opiates. I couldn’t disagree with her. Twenty-five shots later, experimenting with various flash settings and delays, etc, we STILL didn’t have a shot with her eyes open.

The Solution:
The answer was hers, actually. She was telling me that she’d run into the same problem at the optometrist’s office – they could not get a clear image of her retina because she kept blinking. “The only thing that finally worked,” she said, “was for me to click the remote.”  I hesitated. “You want to try?”

She took the remote, closed her eyes, and then opened them as she pressed the remote (in her lap, out of frame). Bingo. The first shot was a keeper. Eyes nice and clear – naturally open. In fact, her entire posture improved and it might be the best portrait of the day. Interesting.

Conclusion:
If you’re taking portraits, I wouldn’t recommend handing off your remote to every subject. If you run into a stubborn blinker, however, it might just save your shoot.

What to YOU do for blinkers?

Related posts:

1. Photography as Art

Michigan Central Station - Marchand and Meffre Photography

I have no idea why I’m subscribed to the RSS feed io9.com… I’m sure I had a reason. But when these photos popped into Google Reader this morning, I was awestruck. Dumbfounded. Speechless.

As a guy with strong ties to Michigan, I have a soft spot for Detroit. I think it may be one of the most interesting cities I’ve experienced – but folks rarely get past the “Motor City” moniker to see the beauty of Detroit.

This collection of photos by Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre capture an unusual beauty – the beauty of decay. It is not really beautiful, of course, but heart-breaking to see these architectural masterpieces crumbling. Michigan Central Station has always intrigued me as it is plainly visible from the interstate feeding the Ambassador Bridge and I have stared at its broken windows many times over the years wondering what would become of it.

Marchand and Meffre’s photographs make me a little sad – but I’m glad that they’ve been able to create some beautiful art from such miserable circumstances.

Related posts:

1. Metro Detroit Tweetup – May 1st
2. Detroit Tweetup II

Yes, I said it. The words “WordPress” and “sucks” in the same breath. It’s a rare thing for a WP fanboy like me to do, but today, the Automattic folks deserve it.

This week’s release of WP 2.9 brought some awesome image editing tools to WordPress users – but the entire image handling system is still broken. It’s a kludge.

When you upload an image to WP, it “crunches” it – creating up to 4 versions of the image at various sizes (thumbnail, medium, large and original) on the server. These are now the ONLY sizes available to you in your posts. In addition, with the exception of gallery-generated pages, references to these images inserted into posts are specific to the pixel size (150, 300, etc.) rather than the relative size (thumbnail, medium, large, etc). Yes, you can change the pixel sizes of the relative sizes – but once an image is uploaded, you’re stuck with the settings of the day.

This wouldn’t bother me so much if I didn’t know that there was an alternative. Why can’t WP resize images on-the-fly at the server?

Example:

This image is located at http://colincarmichael.ca/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/SDC11443-300×199.jpg. See those pixel references in there? This image physically exists on the server. Very limiting.

In contrast, look at these: (from a Drupal site I run, the tech isn’t Drupal-specific)

URL: http://www.presbyterian.ca/photoresize/4398/600


URL: http://www.presbyterian.ca/photoresize/4398/300


URL: http://www.presbyterian.ca/photoresize/4398/150


URL: http://www.presbyterian.ca/photoresize/4398/news

See those pixel references in the URLs? There are no images on the server in those specific sizes – the server resizes the original image on the fly as required. See that last one with a relative size of “news”? The server resizes that to a size specified in the settings, in this case 250px.

There’s no reason that WordPress’ image handling could work the same way. You’d only need to store the original of the image on the server, and you could insert images of any size in your posts. Additionally, if you had “virtual” sizes defined such as full=600px, half=300px, thumb=150, etc, you could have images that would resize gracefully if your theme changes and you now need full to be 400px and half to be 200px.

So, Automattic, how ’bout it? Now that you’ve given us image-editing tools in 2.9, can you address the broken image-handling problem?

Related posts:

1. SalvationArmy.ca – a great WordPress example (WP Wednesday)
2. AddThis.com WordPress Plugin
3. Your Fave WordPress Theme?

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