UK is Photographing the Watchers
Posted by latoga | Filed under News & Current Events
Photo by qwghim
Early last year I commented on some notion running around the United Kingdom that photographers would need to carry ID cards. With the U.K. being one of the most CCTV happy countries out there, most of my British friends are very comfortable with being photographed in public and didn’t think much of a silly rule like ID cards.
Yesterday I ran across an interesting project being coordinated by the Open Rights Group to document the UK’s surveillance society. They have an open call out to UK’s photographers to take pictures of all the mechanisms of the surveillance state. Photo are to be submitted to the FNFBigPicture Flickr Group and will be used on October 11th to:
make a live collage of the images you’ve taken in a prominent location in London (to be confirmed), to celebrate Freedom Not Fear Day 2008.
Freedom not Fear is an international day of action for democracy, free speech, human rights and civil liberties, and events to celebrate these central tenets of a just society will be taking place all over the world.
There are already a good number of photos on the Flickr Group that are both humours and concerning.
Photo by BinaryApe
Is the above what Canon was talking about in their 5D MII press release?
Canon has equipped the EOS 5D Mark II with two Silent Shooting modes in Live View which will prove particularly helpful to law enforcement officials…
Tags: Freedom Not Fear, Surveillance, United Kingdom
2008 Q3 Links of Thanks
Posted by latoga | Filed under Thank You
Another quarter past and time for my regular thanks to those who have referred traffic my way. Some major changes occurred during this quarter. First, I move my blog from Blogger to a self-hosted WordPress blog (for the record, the top refer to latogaphoto.com was my old blog from my cut over). I am in the process of consolidating all of my photography work under the latogaphoto.com domain. Based upon the speed of this consolidation, the latoga.com domain will drop off this regular thanks listing in the future.
(Rankings from last quarter, if any, appear in parentheses after each site.)
latogaphoto.com Referring Sites
- photographyvoter.com (1)
- blogger.com (7)
- blog.vincentlaforet.com
- yyapp.com (4)
- twitter.com (6)
- blogs.smugmug.com
- bloglines.com
- themelab.com
- grafphoto.com (8)
- stoneangelarts.blogspot.com (15)
- latoga.com (9)
- fieldreport.wordpress.com
- recapturephoto.com (18)
- photomusings.wordpress.com
- rwongphoto.com (12)
- seethedetails.wordpress.com
- jmg-galleries.com (5)
- blog.epicedits.com
- friendfeed.com
- georgebarr.blogspot.com (16)
latoga.com Referring Sites
- latogaphoto.blogspot.com (1)
- latogaphoto.com
- smugmug.com (2)
- raoulpop.com (7)
- community.shoottheday.com (now mostly defunct I believe)
- twitter.com (4)
- everythingisok.com
- vmweb.vmware.com (employee portal from my day job)
- blogs.smugmug.com
- facebook.com (13)
- friendfeed.com (6)
- goodsearch.com
- google.com
- guide.opendns.com
- hahlo.com
- linkedin.com (5)
- photo.meetup.com (9)
- photo.net (19)
- snapdragonphotography.smugmug.com
- wetpp.org
Note: These stats were collected by Google Analytics for my two sites. Any referral sites that are obvious web based email services or IP addresses were removed.
Tags: Referring Sites
Photo: Old Salior Memorial Series
Posted by latoga | Filed under Photos, Travel
This memorial statue to the local fishermen of Eureka, CA caught my attention during my sunrise photo shoot a few weeks back. As the sun just peaked over the horizon and light up the statue, there was something about the texture of the statue and then the symbolism with it’s surrounding. Even with the power plant appearing out of the morning fog, the juxtaposition of the old industry and new industry was very striking.
Tags: Eureka, Memorial, Photos, Salior, Sunrise
Photo: Catching The Sunrise
Posted by latoga | Filed under Photos, Wildlife
Unfortunately, I couldn’t tell at the time of taking this photo what bird this was. So I’m not sure if it was an Egret or Heron. Not that it makes a difference for the photo, under these conditions both birds are from the same family and have similar silhouettes.
Tags: Egret, Heron, Sunrise, Wildlife
Tahoe Fall Colors Starting
Posted by latoga | Filed under Musings
This past weekend I spent in the Lake Tahoe area. The downside of the trip was that I was working for most of the weekend helping my wife out with flowers for a Tahoe style wedding (more on this later). The good news is that we were able to get out and go for a hike this afternoon to check in on the status of the fall colors. Fall in the Sierra’s, specifically the Eastern Sierra’s, is filled with spots of beautiful Aspen turning yellow and orange. The tricky part of heading up to the Sierra’s in search of this color is timing (see Resources page). Some years peak color can last only a few days. Some years you don’t get much color due to environmental conditions. I have a gut feeling that this year will be the later.
Today we were able to head up to a high alpine meadow and found some great Aspen groves. Some of them were already turning brilliant Orange. Most were still just starting to turn. I think the Tahoe area will be seeing peak color in about 2 weeks. The downside is I feel that this year might be a short peak. There were small groves of Aspen that I spotted that were well advanced in color. But they seemed to be going from yellow or orange very quickly to brown, I think because of the drought conditions.
I’m hoping to head up to the Sierra’s for one more trip this fall. And what better reason to get yourself out of the house and out in nature than to see it in the splendid color of fall!
Travel Tips: On this trip, we discovered a few new interesting eateries. When traveling to Tahoe from the Bay Area on Highway 80, you will pass through Auburn, CA just as you start your climb up the Sierras. Auburn is at about 2800 feet elevation and about 45 miles west of Truckee, CA. If you’re passing by and need to grab something to eat, here are three recommendations (in no particular order):
- Old Town Pizza, Old Town Auburn (exit Lincoln Way): Amazing pizza; located in the basement of one of the remaining oldtime hotel buildings in Auburn.
- Auburn Alehouse, Old Town Auburn (exit Lincoln Way): Great Pub with variety of beer and food; located in renovated historic building, the interior has rustic charm with a modern feel.
- Ikeda’s Tasty Burgers (exit Bowman Road); “Looks like dive on the outside, gourmet on the inside.” Some of the best burgers you will ever have. They also have fresh pies that are absolutely amazing!
Tags: Aspen, Fall, Lake Tahoe, Sierra Nevadas
