Category: Media

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Flickr a Day 165: ‘Let Me Ride–West Village’

As an artform, iPhonography is more than just about the camera or the shooter. Post-processing matters, too. That my friends is justification for picking the fifth subway pic featured in this series (see Days 2445, 72, and 155 for the others). Ryan Vaarsi captured  self-titled “Let Me Ride—West Village” one week ago using iPhone 6 Plus. Vitals: f/2.2, ISO 100, 1/15 sec, 4.2mm.

The photo takes the Day for composition, color, and contrast that looks more like film than digital. Ryan got the classic look in part by applying the VSCO Cam app‘s A1 “analog” preset. The app is free, but most presets cost something. A1 is among a collection of 12 for $2.99. iPhone users can shoot straight from the app or edit existing pics. 

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Responsible Reporting Section 2 ‘The New Journalisms’: Chapter IV

Today’s excerpt from Responsible Reporting: Field Guide for Bloggers, Journalists, and Other Online News Gatherers spotlights the fourth type of journalism. The other three: Contextual, process, and conversational. Advocacy journalism is the most provocative of the five that the ebook identifies. Many people working in traditional news media outlets would scoff at the idea.

They would be wrong. Advocacy journalism has a long history—centuries old—but the Internet magnifies its reach and the soapbox upon which its proponents stand. 

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WWDC 2015: My Story in Tweets

As the week closes, I reflect on Apple’s World Wide Developer Conference, which commenced on June 8, 2015. I watched the keynote on Apple TV and live-tweeted from my comfy couch. Fittingly from Chromebook Pixel LS.

I find iOS 9 interesting enough to test. Today, I signed up for an Apple Developer account; my old one expired years ago. The process took a phone call, because Apple claimed my bank declined to pay. How strange. So I tried another card. Then a third. Hey, my accounts are good! I called the bitten-fruit for assistance, and someone senior in developer support manually processed the $99 fee, because of the glitch. How fraked is that? 

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Flickr a Day 160: ‘Every Little Piece of My Heart’

I came across the photostream of Lotus Carroll about a month ago. There was never a doubt that she would be featured but more question: “Which piece of art?” For weeks, I kept her Flickr open in a browser tab as reminder. Had intellect triumphed over intuition—post immediately rather than wait—I would have missed delightful self-titled “Every Little Piece of My Heart”, which she shot on May 18, 2015.

Lotus used Canon EOS 5D Mark III and EF 24-105mm f/4L IS USM lens (gotta love Canon L) to capture today’s selection. Vitals: f/4, ISO 640, 1/200 sec, 88 mm. You might think she performed some Photoshop montage magic, but this is a clever natural shot—a backdoor selfie with focus on her eight year-old. The self-title punctuates meaning. Visual storytelling is rarely this good…unless it’s another pic from her fabulous Flickr. 

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Tidal fixes Android App Bug

On June 3rd, music streaming service Tidal updated its Android aop, which in my extensive testing over the weekend resolves a catastrophic bug that skips songs. The previous version jumped tracks before they finished playing on my Nexus 6 or 9. Last week, the lossless listening provider acknowledged the problem. The fix is in, and I am satisfied.

Tidal delivers HiFi streaming—1411kbps Free Lossless Audio Codec—at the premium price of $19.99 per month. For a music streaming charging more, about double other paid service competitors, the glitch was inexcusable. I first reported the erratic behavior nearly a month ago. 

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Flickr a Day 159: ‘Fruit Stand around Gulou’

Although self-titled “Tiger the Dog” appealed to be selected, cuteness could not prevail over composition and color. “Fruit Stand around Gulou” takes the Day, also for lighting and being interestingJens Schott Knudsen captured the moment on Nov. 8, 2014, using the Sony Alpha ILCE-7R, a magnificent full-frame mirrorless compact that is primped for street photography. Vitals: ISO 1600, 1/160 sec. He may have used a manual lens, which would explain why f-stop and focal length were not measured.

Jens lives Beijing, China, which is where he captured today’s selection, but he is from Haderslev, Denmark. For a real treat, and to get some insight about his photographic heritage, click through to his November 2013 blog post “50 years Ago“. 

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Responsible Reporting Section 2 ‘The New Journalisms’: Chapter III

It must be Sunday, because here I write another introduction to a chapter from my ebook  Responsible Reporting: Field Guide for Bloggers, Journalists, and Other Online News Gatherers. Section 2 introduces five journalisms—contextual and process were presented the previous two weeks. Next up, conversational journalism applies community concepts from local newspapers to the expansive Internet audience, which is actively engaged wherever and on whatever device it may be.

Please also read the other excerpts: Foreward and from Section 1, Chapters, I and II, III and IV, V and VI to grasp the logical flow. Reminder: The book releases into the public domain soon after the serialization completes.