Nikon D200 + Nikkor 17-55mm f/2.8 @ 30 mm — ¹/60 sec, f/7.1, ISO 500 — map & image data — nearby photos
Colorful Hexagons — What am I?

Looking at the Exif data may well provide a clue.... or maybe not.

Nikon D200 + Nikkor 17-55mm f/2.8 @ 35 mm — ¹/160 sec, f/5, ISO 320 — map & image data — nearby photos
Wall, Burnt to a Crisp
on purpose

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The last time I posted a picture of a burnt wall, it was due to an unfortunate fire that destroyed a nearby restaurant. This time is a bit different.

The quietly famous Murin'an Garden (無鄰菴) near my house in Kyoto has outside walls that are quite varied and interesting. Some of them, such as those shown above, are wood whose top surface has been burnt to charcoal. Looking at a view showing the wall in situ you can see that the burning is clearly purposeful..

Nikon D200 + Nikkor 17-55mm f/2.8 @ 17 mm — ¹/160 sec, f/5.6, ISO 320 — map & image data — nearby photos
North-Facing Wall of Murin'an
across the street from the Kyoto Zoo

While it's clear that the wood has been burnt intentionally, the reason is not clear. My first thought – and still my best guess – is that it was done to provide an inhospitable surface for wood-boring insects. If anyone actually knows, please leave a comment, because I'd love to know the actual reason.

Here's a closeup...

Nikon D200 + Nikkor 17-55mm f/2.8 @ 55 mm — ¹/125 sec, f/5, ISO 320 — map & image data — nearby photos

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Kyoto is filled with so much stuff that it's easy to pass by something every day and never notice it. I've been living a third of a mile from here for years and didn't notice the burnt nature of the wall until I happened to have while on a bike ride with Anthony this past June (the same outing that produced Life Stages of a Dandelion).

So, last week (five months later), I'm going by the same small gardens, this time passing their western wall just 20 meters from where I took the charcoal-wall shots, and notice that the wood is completely different...

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 56 mm — ¹/320 sec, f/7.1, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
Wood Grain in High Relief

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I was walking with Paul Barr to the Nanzen Temple (some shots of which appeared in last week's Recovering Photos from a Corrupt Memory Card post) and had just showed him the charcoal wall when we noticed the completely different (and completely odd) western wall.

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 32 mm — ¹/640 sec, f/3.5, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
Checking Out the Weird Wood
on the western wall of murin'an

I took a bazillion pictures trying to show the amazing relief – sometimes almost a quarter inch – that made the surface of the wood more like a cheese grater than a wall....

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 56 mm — ¹/2000 sec, f/3.5, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
Fail
trying to show the relief

I finally hit on the idea of using a shadow, so threw up my arm to cast one, and achieved at least a level of success...

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 58 mm — ¹/1000 sec, f/3.5, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
Relief
from the urge to try to show the wood's relief

You can also see that some parts are burnt, and that some burnt parts have clearly been shed, but also clear is that this is a completely different process than was done to the wood on the other wall.

The parts of the board sticking up are the knots and the wood's rings, so I'm guessing that the other softer parts of the wood were burnt more (and so more shed), or shrunk away over time, or.... er.... something. I dunno.

I think it's pretty, so here are two more views....

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 45 mm — ¹/1600 sec, f/3.5, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
Knotty

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Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 70 mm — ¹/400 sec, f/7.1, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos

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The wall wraps around, and continues east toward Nanzenji. Through the magic of my Proximity-Search plugin for Lightroom, I found this shot showing the wall wrapping around, in the background....

Nikon D200 + Nikkor 17-55mm f/2.8 @ 17 mm — ¹/80 sec, f/5.6, ISO 320 — map & image data — nearby photos
Anthony Riding Toward Murin'an

The blue “one way” arrow points right at where Paul was standing in the shot above. Anyway, from inspecting the wear on the wall all the way along, and from noticing that there are occasionally sections of two or three slats that are of the charcoal variety, it's my guess that this “relief wood” is the original wall, and that the charcoal type is some later-date replacement / repair.

Murin'an (無鄰菴) is a small Japanese garden that dates from the late 1890s. It's small – less than an acre – surrounded by city, but well hidden. I lived nearby and passed by for years without even noticing it was there. But when you're inside, the city just melts away and you feel as if you're a million miles from civilization.

Here are a couple of shots from 2007 when I visited with some recently-married friends, Kuan Fu and Verena...

Nikon D200 + Nikkor 17-55mm f/2.8 @ 17 mm — ¹/30 sec, f/7.1, ISO 160 — map & image data — nearby photos
Just Inside Murin'an

Nikon D200 + Nikkor 17-55mm f/2.8 @ 40 mm — ¹/800 sec, f/7.1, ISO 400 — map & image data — nearby photos
Arborist At Work
Murin'an Garden, Kyoto Japan

More shots from that outing are on my KFC and Verena in Kyoto..

I don't know whether anyone will actually find them useful, but I've provided desktop-background versions of four of the shots above... see the links under their respective photos.

Here's a bit of insight that should not be too surprising...

“If your business model relies on charging for services that others are willing and able to do for free, it's probably time to find a new line of work.”

It's not uncommon for professional photographers to have a policy, on principle, to never work for free, so a recent post by Strobist's David Hobby suggesting that occasionally working for free has benefits has stirred things up. The one-sentence summary of David's post is:

Use some of the down time this economy has created in your photography business to seek opportunities to do the kind of photography you actually want to do, dangling the “I'll do it for free” stick to create a learning/experience opportunity for yourself that otherwise would not have knocked on your door.

David knew that this would create a firestorm because the word “free” makes the hair stand up on the back of a pro photographer's neck, although the kind of “free” he's talking about is different than the “free” that commonly vexes pros. The latter is that friends/relatives/“enthusiasts” increasingly take pictures for free, just because they like it. For example, a pro sports photographer bellyaches about his business disappearing because hobby photographers are providing the pictures that he used to be paid for. The funny thing is that he blames the hobbyists as if they are unmoral thieves, rather than blaming his own inability to adapt his business, or even to recognize the need.

The tide of technological advance brings many game changers: Henry Ford decimated the carriage industry. Refrigerators put milk deliverymen out of business. “Video killed the radio star.” The Internet is making printed newspapers irrelevant. I guess you can add to this list the business model of a lot of photographers.

In this digital age, it's easier than ever for non-professionals to create “okay” pictures, and so those whose needs are satisfied by “okay” are opting for the abundant free / low-cost choices offered by friends or hobbyists. Those choices weren't available even 5 years ago, so 5 years ago the market for a pro photographer serving those needs was much bigger than it is now. Now the market is smaller, and those not realizing the situation and adapting are hurting. And blaming.

I can understand being disappointed that a business model that has been profitable in the past is no longer so, but bellyaching and finger-pointing are as silly in this case as trying to hold back the tide. Deal with it and move on.

What David suggested in the post I paraphrased above is a different “free” than this, but it seems that some lump them all together and have the same deer-in-the-headlights reaction. For example, Vincent Laforet, a great photojournalist that I've mentioned before, wrote a scathing reply to David, including:

IF YOU ARE WORKING FOR FREE - simply to get “a” job - you risk destroying the entire business for everyone. In fact - your dream job - that you do for free - will be a job that some qualified person will no longer be getting paid for. And you'll hurt that person's chance of feeding their family in accepting to do that job for free. It's quite that simple.

Come on, Vincent... destroying the entire business for everyone... that's pathetic. Does this mean that you will go back to shooting film so that those who manufacture and develop film can feed their families? I could insert a thousand similar analogies here, but the point is that technology has already changed the entire business. The only “destroy” part is what those who refuse to recognize and adapt end up doing to themselves.

I'm not a professional photographer; I'm a professional computer programmer. I started at a time when computers and programmers were rare, but now both are wildly plentiful, and there are millions of low-cost programmers available all around the world, instantly at your fingertips via the Internet. Yet, I'm still doing well; I never seek work, and turn down 20 jobs for every one that I take. How on earth can I be so successful in the face of such a glut? Because I'm a really, really good programmer.

Photographers that bemoan the plague of “free” should spend their energy being a better photographer. Often, that doesn't mean “taking better pictures”, but rather, convincing potential clients how much better than “okay” the pro can do, and that the client actually needs better than “okay”. This is probably most clear in the wedding business, where a lot of couples shopping for a photographer simply have no concept of what a good job actually is, and how much skill it requires. It takes work to combat the “Wow, Nice Picture! You must have a great camera!” attitude.

I brought a camera to the last wedding I went to, and I got some nice photos.

But you'd be crazy to risk someone like me shooting a wedding for real. Yes, it won't be just luck that I get a few good shots — I'm sort of handy with a camera — but it will be luck if I get more than a few. Unless you plan on getting married often, I suggest putting your wedding-photography eggs in a basket that has a proven track record of getting great shots consistently time and time again. It'll be expensive, but so worth it.

A wedding/event photographer like Ryan Brenizer isn't in demand because others refrain from shooting their friends' weddings, he's in demand because he's good. In the same way, I suspect that Vincent Laforet will always be in demand, no matter how many people do what for free. But those who used to make a living providing snapshot-like pictures for family Christmas cards will find that people like me (who can shoot an okay picture for their friends' cards) are making their business evaporate.

If changing technology and the resulting business shift scares you, then either up your game, or get out. Just please, stop bellyaching about it.

Here are some more shots from the outing up to Shogunzuka that I posted about last weekend....

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 24 mm — ¹/200 sec, f/5.6, ISO 3600 — map & image data — nearby photos
Temple-Grounds Entrance
Shogunzuka, Kyoto, Japan

Inside, a plaque describing the area...

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 31 mm — ¹/200 sec, f/5.6, ISO 4500 — map & image data — nearby photos
Info

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 70 mm — ¹/200 sec, f/5.6, ISO 2800 — map & image data — nearby photos
English Info
( Most of it is just mumbo-jumbo to me )

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 62 mm — ¹/80 sec, f/5.6, ISO 6400 — map & image data — nearby photos
Trees were Pretty
in the darkening dusk

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 32 mm — ¹/200 sec, f/4, ISO 2500 — map & image data — nearby photos
Way to the Toilet

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 50 mm — ¹/200 sec, f/4, ISO 3200 — map & image data — nearby photos
The Real Overlook
as explained last time

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 @ 120 mm — ¹/200 sec, f/2.8, ISO 3600 — map & image data — nearby photos

Looking a bit toward the left...

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 @ 140 mm — ¹/200 sec, f/2.8, ISO 5000 — map & image data — nearby photos
You Can See My Place

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 @ 70 mm — ¹/13 sec, f/2.8, ISO 6400 — map & image data — nearby photos
Waymarker in the Mountains
I'd love to know how old it is...

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 @ 200 mm — ¹/160 sec, f/2.8, ISO 6400 — map & image data — nearby photos
“Lightup” Getting Started

While back at the park overlook....

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 @ 200 mm — ¹/200 sec, f/2.8, ISO 3600 — map & image data — nearby photos
10 Minutes After Sunset
dusky...

But...

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 32 mm — ¹/25 sec, f/5.6, ISO 6400 — map & image data — nearby photos
15 Minutes Later
City Lighting Up

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 @ 200 mm — ¹/60 sec, f/4, ISO 6400 — map & image data — nearby photos
One More Peek at the Lightup

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 85mm f/1.4 — ¹/6400 sec, f/2.2, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
Almost Lost
Brilliant Orange at the Nanzenji Temple, Kyoto Japan

I accepted an invite the other day from my friend Shimada-san to visit the Nanzen'in temple/gardens located in a sequestered back corner of the large Nanzenji temple complex. It was my first visit to that sub-temple, and I'll post more about it later, but suffice to say that it was spectacular. I took a bazillion pictures, which I found totally missing when I got home and tried to load them onto my PC. The card was corrupt and Windows hung trying to read it. Yikes!

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 55 mm — ¹/200 sec, f/6.3, ISO 2500 — map & image data — nearby photos
Enjoying the Nanzen'in Gardens
at the Nanzenji Temple, Kyoto Japan

It's the first time I've had a problem like this in the 10+ years I've been shooting digital, so I finally had to pay attention to the image-recovery talk that often comes up in online photography forums.

I recovered all the photos... the pictures on this post are from among them.

In the hope that it might prove useful to someone, I'll recount how I did it. Having run into the problem on my Windows XP box, I decided to try the recovery on my Mac.

I used the most-excellent PhotoRec software to recover the files. It's a command-line program that can run on many different operating systems (DOS, Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, FreeBSD...), so I did the recovery within a Mac Terminal window.

First, I mounted the damaged card, and used the df command to see its raw device name:

% df
Filesystem              512-blocks      Used   Avail Capacity  Mounted on
/dev/disk0s2             155367520 148986336 5869184    96%    /
devfs                          208       208       0   100%    /dev
<volfs>                       1024      1024       0   100%    /.vol
/dev/disk1s1               7536512       704 7535808     0%    /Volumes/NIKON D700

The details of what you see would be different on your system, but the important thing here is to be able to identify the line with the memory card (in my example, the last line), and to then identify the “raw device name” at the start of that line. The raw device name will always start with “/dev/” and in my example, it's “/dev/disk1s1”.

(If there's a way to connect a memory card without OSX mounting it, I'd like to know, because that would be safer.)

You then need to tell OS X to pretend that the memory card is no longer mounted while actually leaving it physically connected to the computer. Thus, without disconnecting it, run the following (using the raw device name you find in the first step):

% sudo umount /dev/disk1s1

You'll have to be an administrator, and will have to enter your password.

Now, run photorec. The Mac version is in the “darwin” subfolder of the download folder, so after changing directories to the download folder, here's what I ran (again, you'll want to change the raw device name to whatever you found):

% darwin/photorec /dev/disk1s1
PhotoRec 6.10, Data Recovery Utility, July 2008
Christophe GRENIER <grenier@cgsecurity.org>
http://www.cgsecurity.org

PhotoRec is free software, and comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY.

Select a media (use Arrow keys, then press Enter):
Disk /dev/disk1s1 - 8152 MB / 7775 MiB (RO)

[Proceed ]  [  Quit  ]

Note: Some disks won't appear unless you're root user.
Disk capacity must be correctly detected for a successful recovery.
If a disk listed above has incorrect size, check HD jumper settings, BIOS
detection, and install the latest OS patches and disk drivers.

I made sure that the raw device name was highlighted, then pressed enter. It'll progress through a few more screens where you tell it that the card has an Intel/PC partition-table type, that you want to do the “whole disk”, that the filesystem is “Other”, and where you want to save whatever files it can recover. (I had just created a “found” folder on my Desktop, and used that.)

Make sure, of course, that you have at least enough free space on the disk as the size of the card.

PhotoRec took about two hours to process My Transcend 8GB “300×” compact-flash card, and recovered all the pictures from the day, and hundreds of random other shots going back more than a month. I reformat the card each time I go out, but that just marks the disk's table of contents as empty, without actually clearing out any data, so the data for random old pictures remained on the card for PhotoRec to find.

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 70 mm — ¹/200 sec, f/6.3, ISO 220 — map & image data — nearby photos

PhotoRec does not recover the original filename with a recovered file, so whatever images it finds have names filled with apparently random numbers, like “f1535616.jpg”. If your digital-photo workflow involves renaming images based on, say, the image-capture date and time, you don't care what the in-camera filename was, but my workflow keeps the in-camera filename, so i wanted to rename the files to what they would have been.

I used this magic incantation, which requires exiftool:

exiftool -q -p 'mv ${filename} JF7_00${filenumber}.NEF;'  *.nef  | sh

I don't know about other kinds of cameras, but Nikon SLRs include in the image file a “FileNumber” bit of metadata that tells what number was used in the in-camera filename. I use exiftool to reference that number, insert it into the pattern for the kind of filename I want, then combine that with a file-rename command.

Spiffy.

It's probably overkill, but I then used the built-in Mac “Disk Utility” to zero-fill the entire memory card, then re-formatted it in my camera. Good as new.

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 70 mm — ¹/250 sec, f/6.3, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos

The pictures I recovered are nice, but it's not like I couldn't have just walked down there again today to take most of them. I'm happy to have recovered them, but I'm most happy about having this experience under my belt, so that these techniques will be at my disposal should I ever be faced with the loss of important pictures.

In thanks for making this experience possible, I sent €25 to the guy who wrote PhotoRec, Christophe Grenier. Thanks, Christophe!