Arthur Chang

James was my very first best friend I've ever had.  From the days of going to his home to play with legos, which was really a decoy to go do word problems with his dad, to running around Cornell elementary, all the way through high school, we always were good friends and I've literally grew up with him.

It was an honor to be able to witness this amazing event of his, and a bigger privilege to photograph his wedding with the wedding photographer Timothy Mak!

What a great wedding.  It was a lot of fun!

See all photos here: http://flickr.com/gp/kinetic/ScNY52

Teasers below:

In my wanderings in Oahu, I came upon a few abandoned buildings right off the highway of the north shore.  There's a place called the Crawford's Convalescent Home.  At the west entrance to the parking lot is a ruined building.  I don't know the history of it, but here's what it looks like on the inside:

The easiest way in is to walk around to the backdoor, which is wide open.  The front door is cemented shut.  Here's the backdoor:

There are a few warnings about not going in, but they don't seem very official to me:

Street View and exact location here: Abandoned Crawford's Convalescent Home Building.

Across the street, behind the bus stop, there's another abandoned building.  This one also doesn't have a roof anymore.  Last I saw, there was a paddle boat in the corner of it and some cool graffiti murals.

Street view and exact location of this building here: Bus Stop Building 

I bet if you venture around even further you'll see more cool spots.  These are just super easy to get to.  I haven't really looked too much around that area, but maybe next time I will throw on something more than just flip flops and board shorts for this excursion.

Everyone seems to be jumping ship and leaving Flickr to go over to Google+ for sharing photos.  I won't deny that Flickr may be dying, but it's not dead yet.

There's been a lot of talk about the death or inevitable death of Flickr for the photography community, more notably the blog post by Thomas Hawk and Google+ post by Ingo Meckmann.  But there is one big reason why Flickr won't die immediately and why there are plenty of photographers who can't just yet give up on the legendary photo sharing community: not all of us are popular hot shot photographers.

Aside from the innovation Flickr is lacking in terms of presenting photos, a lot of the other features are still incredibly important and still absent from the newer sharing platforms.  Thomas Hawk says he interacts with the community way more on Google+ now, in fact he doesn't have any interaction on Flickr anymore.  This works because hundreds, if not thousands by now, have added him into their Google+ photography circles.  This doesn't work for the majority of Flickr users out there who don't have his level of popularity.

New and upcoming photographers, or those who aren't the type to really market their personal brand, don't get the same influx of photo fiends giving them good constructive criticism on their photography on Google+.  It's also impossible for them to grow a photography centric network on Google+ alone.  Instead they just get the same old Facebook effect where all their friends exclaim how awesome the camera is, and asking them for help with their choice between a Nikon Coolpix vs. Canon Powershot.

Flickr is (currently) the only service putting lesser known, and perhaps equally as skilled, photographers into a constructive arena that nobody else has duplicated yet.  Flickr allows photographers new to the world of online photo communities a way to grow and expand.  It's also a good playing ground for those who are fine with just moderate interaction with a few photography friends.

New services now are sharing with your more general network of friends.  Instagram is sharing with your usual network that may be partly built off of your Twitter followers, Google+ from your email contacts, Facebook is really everyone you've ever talked to in person.  What Flickr did and does different is, put you in a community of a photography-centered community.  Yes, there is overlap with your general friend networks, but there are plenty more that would never make it to your Facebook friend list.

More popular photographers will be able to grow their network utilizing their personal brand to grow their new Google+ network until they hit a nice critical mass, where they do no extra work to keep getting more people to add them into photography circles.  Everyone else, which I believe represents a much larger number of photographers, will not have the same ability.  In fact, it would be so hard to get to the level of what Flickr already offers, that it's just not worth the effort.

That is why Flickr is still alive for many.  That is why I can't see the path to Google+ as clearly as some.

That being said, I want to see Google+ pull something off that will totally negate the need for the Flickr community for all photographers.  So far the only contender that has something to offer right now is much more modern Flickr clone, 500px.com.  What do you have up your sleeve Google+ team?

I don't see cloning Flickr communities straight off being the right thing to do with Google+.  Google+ Circles can't allow for people to add themselves, request invites to, etc.  All you can do is comment and beg people to add you, to deem you worthy.  It is currently impossible to be discovered through Google+ alone.  Recruiting is a huge undertaking.

Hopefully I can make it to the next photoshoot that is organized where G+ members show up so I can express the frustration of leaving the lesser-known photographers behind.  Or maybe they can be convinced to go on some photoshoots with the SFBAS group.

Thomas Hawk: any thoughts on how Google+ might improve discovery of photographers not on the A-list?

By the way, if you guys have it in your heart, add me to your Google+ Photographers Circle so I can start getting some of the same benefits as Thomas Hawk on my photos, and I will return the favor as well!  Here's my profile: http://gplus.to/arthurchang

Flickr had it, Instgram has part of it, Facebook is close, 500px almost has it, but listen, there's a lot more to photos than simply "popularity."  The most widely used algorithm, as far as anyone can tell, is based on a few simple properties:

• Quantity of views
• Quantity of actions taken
• Quality of person who viewed or acted (based on their own accumulated algorithm results)
• Time (recency)

This works great in the early stages of photography communities, where not one group has a huge lead over newcomers.  When everyone has just about the same amount of followers, and almost all the same actual followers, any algorithm crunching the data above will surface some amazing photographs from everyone.  As soon as you start seeing discrepencies that will easily leave newcomers in the dust, you start having a problem.

Photo discovery isn't about popularity.  It's far from it.  Photo discovery should be about surfacing photos based on how absolutely awesome it is.  Composition, emotion, story, and reach.  It's lazy and incorrect to just chalk up popularity on quantity and influence.

If Ansel Adams, who we should assume hypothetically isn't famous yet, joins Flickr today, he will not make it to the Explore page.  Here's a few reasons: he's not in the group of Thai middle school kids who are incredibly influential now on Flickr, he's not taking pictures of hot chicks, and he doesn't post pictures of cute puppies... and most of all, he isn't posting unrealistic colorful HDR photos.  The only way to have your photos discovered when first joining Flickr is to stand out as a thumbnail in a Flickr Group you've posted to.  Best chance is he can post his photo in the B+W landscape only Flickr group.  Actually I take that back, he should post a full color photo of a hot chick holding a puppy in the B+W landscape only Flickr group, tagging all the Thai middleschoolers in the photo.

On Instagram if you're a celebrity on Twitter, you're good to go.  Otherwise you'll be buried and never make it to the popular page unless you have the qualities of a girl who does a ton of self portraits, or have a funky designer mutt that is named after household appliances (to be fair, kevin rose's labradoodle is pretty freakin cute).  I know plenty of amazing photographers who never get on popular, yet I see iPhone note screenshots make it up there.  Usually these notes are from girls or influential tech founders leaving tidbits of knowledge.  yah, these are interesting, fine, but you're still not discovering the greatest photos.  What Instagram does have right, is being able to see what photos people you're following are also liking and commenting on.  I think exploring this route as something more primary than simply popular photos would really be beneficial.  Probably not perfect and interesting as it is today, but what your friends have discovered and passing it on would be a step in the right direction.

500px has an editorial section that worked great early on to surface some otherwise unknown photographers into the limelight.  Unfortunately, they just can't keep up with the scale of photographers now using the site.  I've seen people who are influential on Flickr ask their Flickr communities to help them bump up their numbers in 500px.  They need to fix this otherwise they will fall to the same demise of Flickr Interestingness woes.

Instead of going on and on about this, you can clearly see a pattern.  Photography discovery has a long way to go, yet there hasn't been a lot of innovation on this front.  You can't simply take simple stats to surface the best photos people will care about.  There needs to be a level of heuristics involved.  The problem is that there's no clear logic to figure this out just yet, and you can't just go 80% and expect it to work well, you need to hit at least 95% accuracy or higher, which is hard.  People who work on natural language processing live in a similar world.  If the NLP is only 80%, it can be impressive, but won't work enough for people to keep coming back.  The last 20% is exponentially harder and seemingly even more time consuming.

Some good things to look out for: image recognition, meta information tied with current issues, crunching interests with photographs, and putting more emphasis on photo referrals from friends.

Image recognition can go far.  It's similar to natural language processing, and I guess you can even call this image processing.  If you can programatically come up with a way to know how awesome a photo is based on composition, quality, etc., then you can easily come up with a bunch of meta information to crunch into an algorithm based on interests and so on.  This is a hard problem, Face.com is closing in on facial recognition, and Facebook has already implemented a easy way to suggest tagging faces in your photos.  If you can take a few photo properties, like color depth, image size (if an image size is larger within the same dimentions as some other photo, you can probably accurately assume there's more detail and higher quality, which isn't always better but useful), see if it uses the Rule of Thirds and Golden Ratios, has boobs, has cute fluffy ears, you can really revolutionize photo discovery.

But until someone builds some robust image proccessing library, there's plenty of things to be done with suggestions from friends, newcomers who are influential in other networks, editorially picked photos (on a massive scale, like mechanical turk), and pulling out more meta information that's available.  I haven't seen anyone do this just yet.  Dedicate a team to photo discovery as well as the usual photo sharing/virality team.  It is a huge factor in long term success and not just a passing feature you poke at once in awhile.

Do you remember this couple? It was already quite the honor to attend their wedding, and I had the honor today of photographing their maternity shoot. (Wedding photos: flickr.com/gp/kinetic/A0596g/). Nic and Critty are great friends of mine that are just an incredible couple. They are always happy, smiling, and laughing.

Nic and Critty got me out of a recent photo slump. These two have reminded me what photography is all about. I can't express how much I enjoyed shooting these two and processing the photos. It's been so long since I've laughed out loud while processing the photos, and my smile muscles have had quite the work out.

This is why I do photography, so I can be with amazing people, and capture the emotion and lives of the people I love. I can't thank them enough for making photography awesome for me. Their friendship is priceless. Here's a link you should check out with all the photos: flickr.com/gp/kinetic/o94N57

Teasers below:

Let's think of all the weddings we have been to recently while I tell you about a few things I've noticed.  I'm at that age where all my siblings (blood related and not) are all getting married, and I've started noticing different roles photographers play.  Here are the two extreme characteristics of a modern day wedding photographer: ninja and dictator.

The dictator defines a wedding.  It might not be entirely their fault, but they are put into the position of defining what happens at a wedding and when.  They say when and where to have an engagement photo session, and how to feel during the session.  "Look like you two love each other and are having fun in this place that I think looks good."  Then they tell you when to get ready for your wedding, where to take your limo for photographs, who to bring into the photos, and when to have the reception.  Everything needs to be scheduled around the photographer's preference.  I've even seen photographers want the groom to see the bride in her dress for the first time in a photo session before the actual ceremony.

The couple might put the photographer in this situation of dictating.  If the plan isn't totally finalized, and the couple are still looking to plan their wedding fully, they will take whatever expert guidance they can get.  Sometimes they find this security blanket in a photographer.  The photographer then steps out of his element of photographer, and feels an awesome pride in the experience and know-how for weddings.  They give input on engagement sessions, then ceremony locations, and boom, before they know it they're snowballing into a full on wedding dictator.

There are a lot of good things about them though.  They are pretty much sure to get great photos.  They won't miss anything, the ring exchange, the kiss, nothing.  They'll also get all the photos the groom and bride want, leaving the couple confident and happy to enjoy the wedding.  And remember, this is just an extreme, no photographer is ever totally like this.

Now let's quickly talk about the ninja style wedding photographer.

OK so that was the ninja style.  What?  You didn't see anything written there?  Well that's the nature of ninja style anything.  You don't see it.  You don't notice it.  These photographers are either really freaking good at photography, or lazy and have missed out every important moment ever.  Kind of scary.  If they're never seen, they're probably all boozed up at the open bar and have dropped their cameras into the lake.  OK, but what about the freaking good ones?

Real ninjas are really freaking good at stuff.  Best of all, they let the moments happen as they are.  They catch people doing what they should be doing.  In a way, the ninja style guys don't get in your way but still get the pictures you want.  These guys are so damn good and confident that they just say: "look, I'll show up to your next outing at the park and take some test shots, then I'll come to look at all the venues you're looking at for the wedding and just be in touch with your planning.  I'll be there to scope out the final venue location, and even for the tasting of the food.  Maybe after you taste the food we can go around the grounds and hang out.  Then at the wedding, I'll be there whenever you're awake and leave as the last man standing.  I'll send you all your photos and you'll have a great wedding."

Little does the couple know, all this hanging out before the wedding is them accomplishing a million things.  A few I will name that are important in the following paragraphs.  

First they are really getting to know the couple.  How that helps is they know the most beautiful and handsome sides of the people.  Inside and out.  They notice what angles they look great in, and what angles to REALLY avoid.  When they are at their finest, and ugliest.  Along the way they've just taken the engagement photos from the couple's usual routines of hanging out together, and then they become now accustom and comfortable with a photographer being around taking photos.  

Scoping out the venue locations is great too, because he now knows all the spots, angles, and more.  The day of the wedding, he knows where to go, gets pretty awesome shots, doesn't get in the way, and most importantly lets everyone enjoy the wedding and save their own memories.  

The scary part is the couple doesn't know if the pictures are coming out well or not.  If the couple is worried and concerned, this would probably be crazy.  The photographer might also miss a lot of pictures, people, and moments that just can't be taken without some kind of direction.

Regardless of the type of photographer, just remember that photographs should come second, memories always comes first.  

What good is it if the photographer got to see and take photos of that magical moment the groom first sees the bride in her dress if NOBODY ELSE DOES?  Yes, you get great photos of that moment because you couldn't pose them correctly in the first place so you rely on stealing this magical moment away from all the other friends and family.  That's selfish in my opinion.  Making sure the family pays to see that magical moment is lame.  I want the family to experience it.  Photos will always tell a story, but you will never be able to relive it fully if you didn't even see it.  There's so much more than just an image.

Signs of a dictating photographer:

1. Groom sees bride in dress for the first time before the ceremony for photoshoot
2. Awkward and prolonged photoshoot at any time during the wedding day
3. Rushed preparation times because of scheduled photoshoots
4. And simply telling you how to plan any part of your wedding day for his photos
5. Helps set up good shots when there is no direction
6. Gets a photo of everyone important, family, friends, wedding party, and doesn't miss anyone
7. Helps the couple plan if they need the help

Signs of a ninja style photographer:

1. Asks a lot of questions
2. Allows you to plan everything, but would like to know about the schedules
3. Asks about favorite places to go with significant other, daily activities
4. Hangs out at favorite places for an engagement photoshoot, doesn't tell you what to do, gives suggestions when needed
5. Works his way through your wedding, at the preparations because they're happening, at the wedding ceremony when it happens, at the reception when it happens, grabbing photos of everyone while everyone is congratulating, hugging, and enjoying the wedding
6. Becoming friends with everyone at the wedding.  Like genuinely friends, not just for show.

You can see my agenda here, my own thoughts about a photographer's wedding.  But all this being said, no matter what happens with the photographer, the wedding will be beautiful and you will be happy.  Plan it and enjoy it as you will, but remember to enjoy and live the moments. 

ps. The photograph posted at the top was one I took at An and Brian's wedding (Issa's cousin).  Their hired photographer was great.  I was there as a guest and took a few photos and posted some on my Flickr stream.  You can find them here: http://flickr.com/gp/kinetic/820959  (teasers below)

It's been a few years since I've actually done real portrait photography. Closest I came to that was a wedding in the swiss alps 2 years ago, and an engagement shoot a year ago.

In December 2007 I was wandering back to my car in Golden Gate Park, when I bumped into an awesome couple. We ended up talking for awhile, and eventually I took a few pictures of them.

Fast forward 3+ years, and I find myself shooting Kathyln again in San Francisco. I was really glad to hear from her after so long, and once our schedules both freed up, we headed to my favorite spots in San Francisco. I tried my best to capture her bubbly and inspirational personality, but the photos are just the beginning of who she really is. I haven't done portraits in a long time, and I'm glad she gave me the extra push to get back into it.

My style has changed a lot since I last did this, but it's a reminder of how much fun it is to get out to SF with your camera, a model, and have a great time.

Here are some of the photos:

And a few for fun:

We got hops:

Saturday early morning, Win texted me that there were super cheap flights out to Oahu.  I replied with: "let's go, I'm serious".  But I had to goto a good friend's birthday party that night.  After I got back home, I called up Win and we booked our flights for the next day.

Around the end of the year, there are fewer in person meetings that need to happen.  Everyone's getting ready for the holidays, especially between Thanksgiving and Christmas.  This is the time when everyone's catching up from Thanksgiving, but needs to get everything done before Christmas.  This also results in fewer travelers and better prices, I think.

With a confidence in self discipline and as a founder of a company, I rationalized that I was really hating the cold wet weather in the SF Bay Area and the only reasonable thing to do was to goto a warm place.

I've always been a huge advocate in working remotely, taking a company somewhere for a few weeks, to enjoy life and to work hard.  It takes a certain person to be able to work while in a place where most people go to vacation.  But if you think about it, people in those places also work.  San Francisco, for instance, is a huge tourist attraction, but we work there every day.

Oahu, Hawaii is no different.  It's beautiful, and has great weather.  Last week was 80's every day, no rain.  I had just gotten better from being sick, and I could think of no better environment to work in a rainy december, than Hawaii.

I didn't even pay for my flight, used some miles I had accumulated which were going to expire anyway.  The hotel was super cheap, split it with Win (also a founder of a different company than mie), so it came out to $70 a night.

And I got a lot of questions, which all drills down to: "Are you REALLY working?"

What does the average American think of as work?  9-5 job, in an office.  Sometimes in an uncomfortable outfit, the commute kind of long and dreary, and usually laughter opportunities are low.

What do I think of as work?  Well let's clear something up first.  I believe in my product, and I believe in my company.  There's very little that motivates me and excites me as much as the success of my company.  When going to Hawaii, all I could think about was where to go to work.  I wanted to be on the beach, in the sun, warm, and well fed while working.  I wanted to crank out tons of code for Fanvibe while enjoying the weather.  No need to stuff yourself into a cube or a small box to work, instead motivate with your environment.

I think of work as a place where you're happy to goto.  Being happy is the first step to being productive.  Of course, you can't be so picky that unless you're 100% comfortable and happy you can't work.  But getting yourself in a good situation is fantastic.

Another thing is self discipline.  You can't go wild once you get to the place (as ironic as this sounds as I type a description under a photo of me flying towards the water) where you want to work.  Instead, find a good place to work, and be sure to take a break at lunch or later in the day.  Nobody needs to work solid from 9am to 9pm.  Every day I was in Hawaii, I worked.  It wasn't in a chunk of 8 hours though.

I usually wake up at 6am, just so I can work a good chunk of the morning with my colleagues in California.  At lunch, I would go discover a great new Saimin noodle house, or grab a nice feast of seafood at a food truck on the beach.  Afterwards I'd goto a nearby beach and relax for awhile.  This would probably be a 1 to 3 hour break.  Once that was done, back to work.  Dinner is usually a quick eat, and then back to work the rest of the night.  One of the days I worked for four hours in the morning, then drove around until sunset.  Worked another 6 hours after dinner.  Got everything I needed done, and was super happy.  I did get a slight sunburn on my feet (weirdly enough).

A few more caveats: this is my third time to Oahu, which means I've seen all the sights.  The area was familiar so I wasn't dying to get out to see things.  I also went with an equally motivated founder of another company, who is even more laser focused than I am.  We balance each other out, and kept each other going.  I'm also more productive when there's a lot of ambient noise around me.  I'm a fan of coffee shops, waves crashing on the shore, and bustling university hubs for places to work.

The only regret is I wish I could convince the rest of the Fanvibe crew and everyone else out there that going to Hawaii to work isn't a joke.  Companies need to realize that happiness is success.  Get happy, you'll be successful.

More photos below:

I've been waiting for this lens for a long time now.  If I had an all time wishlist, this would have been the #1 item on the list.  Yes, it would be above the Aston Martin One 77!

I've been looking for a replacement for my current AF Nikkor 85mm f/1.4D, which is nice but painfully slow to auto-focus and inaccurate in really crazy situations that my D700 camera body excels in.  I'm finding myself in awesome low light situations, but hindered by the 1.4D's inability to focus that quickly and accurately in the same conditions.  With AF-S lenses, like a 50 1.4G, it's magnitudes faster.  I love the D700 + 85mm matchup, this just makes it an even better tool.

The key differences between the two lenses at first glance are:

AF-S vs. AF
Way faster auto focus is key here.  I'm totally excited about this.  Low light shooting will be revolutionized! 

Weight, 1.4G is 23.3 oz, the 1.4D is 19.4oz
Gosh, the 1.4D was already heavy enough, but with better technology in lenses, usually means heavier.  I'll have to hit the gym even more. 

Size, 1.4G is smaller in length by two whole inches
Even though the lens is heavier, it's smaller by more than 2 whole inches! Going from 5.7" down to 3.3".  That's great. Much easier to pack and much more subtle.

1.4G has a longer minimum focal length, 3ft vs. 2.8ft
Which is fine, not that big of a difference here

Cute lens nano crystal and silent wave things
Whatever these are, who cares.  If the picture quality was at least as good as before, then this won't make them any cooler!

I'm already deciding which kidney to sell in order to fund this purchase.  I'm already really poor due to starting Fanvibe.com, so hopefully kidneys still go for at least the going rate of these lenses of $1700, slotted to be available this September 2010.  I bet the backordering will be painful.  I'm guessing I won't get a copy of this lens until January. 

We'll just have to see if this lens can hold up to my hope for glory and enlightenment.

There are three main kinds of photographers: Film, Digital, and Did not answer.

Film photographers are usually hardcore film people.  Almost all of them do not have any form of Digital SLR, nor do they have any plans for ever owning digital.  These Film photographers pride themselves in processing film, and using super old tools to show that they are far superior to digital photographers, since it's more difficult.  They also believe that photography as an art, is still just being able to process film.  Most take their film to Costco unfortunately, or have those "mom and pop shops" process them because that's way more hip.  If any processing is done by themselves, it's usually in black and white.  They generally don't do Flickr, but hitup forums talking about how old their equipment is, and what cool camera body they found at a garage sale.  The older and more plastic the camera is, the cooler they are.  They try to find digital photographers in order to show off a superior skill.

Digital photographers love their gadgets.  They always ignore and try to avoid talking and mingling with film photographers, mostly because they don't want to realize that their photography skills might just be because of their awesome digital tools, and not their actual ability to take photos.  Thus they avoid film photographers if they can help it, and flock together in packs, usually picking fun at those who have a different brand of camera than them (Nikon vs Canon is a usual argument starter).  Digital guys usually have a Nikon or Canon strap that they uncomfortably use, but must wear to show off their gear brand.  Digital photographers also almost always use Flickr, and brag about the exif information and like to tag their photos with their equipment information.  You're a good digital photographer if you know how two use all sorts of equipment, including flash, strobes, white balance techniques, etc.  Conversations you will hear include: "crop and full frame sensors," "Nikon is so slow to provide updated lenses, hence my photos are being hindered," "Canon's quality control has gone down, I might have to switch if it wasn't for their awesome 1080p," "read the manual, it tells you how to set your white balance".  In order for some digital photographers not to feel like they totally depend on technology, they claim to only shoot in JPG and not RAW because they're hardcore and a pretty big hypocrite (analogous to film photographers resistance towards digital film in the form of RAW).

Then there are the photographers who didn't answer if they were film or digital, mostly because they're actually out taking good photos that everyone else is missing.

So don't be like me, sitting around writing blog posts and reading about gear, get out there and take good photographs.

(photo taken of issa when we were at Sterling Vineyards in Napa)