they’re coming fast + furious these days, which i have to admit i don’t mind a bit. nice to satisfy the inner geek once in awhile. that past two weeks have seen major updates for apple, canon + onone (software manufacturer).

the biggie for the general public is the apple keynote earlier this week from the ongoing worldwide developers conference (WWDC) in sf which let loose new macbooks + safari as well as a new iphone + update. you can watch the keynote yourself here (as if you haven’t already). all in all great stuff, especially as the creative community is always hungry for speed. have to admit though that i was let down with the whopping upgrade in the iphone camera – from 2 mp to 3?!?! not that we need 45mp or something but at this stage one would think it would be a notch or two higher. the video, of course, will be grabbing all the attention anyway so i’m sure there’ll be more camera on the next go ’round. the mobile me upgrade is a damn good call + i’m sure it won’t be seeing much fanfare.

canon had the cojones to give us what we’ve been asking for last week and this is good stuff – full manual control in HD video. now i’ve been running this thru the paces + am much more at home with it than the auto controls. of course i shoot primarily manual with my cameras anyway so this is a natural progression for me. the freedom is well worth the wait. tech wise, i have a grasp on the iso changes + the physical aspects of aperture but what does the !??! does shutter do when working in video + why does it stop @ 1/30th???. you switch the dial up + sure enough get light adjustments but what’s causing that – you’re not changing frame rate or anything? anyone?

last on the upgrade list is onone software with their much trumpeted DSLR camera remote app for the iphone. now i may be an iphone kinda guy but i had trouble getting this to function where i needed it – mainly because it needs a computer connected directly to the camera. for me that doesn’t happen all that often, at least not where we’re dealing with a remote when you can work with pocket wizards or the canon TC-80N3 intervalometer sans computer (or if you’re a real geek). inside, however, this slick interfaced little app did studio work proud especially the live view feature, brilliant, but outside on an ad hoc network i was SOL.

trying to come up with a reason why i should buy the app the one thing i thought of was the possibility of using the intervalometer feature (check the video here) simultaneously with my canon intervalometer. working one camera wide + the other shallow i envisioned a time lapse that could run split screen with both big picture + detail. we’re putting the video together now but suffice it to say that despite setting up my macbook pro mere inches from the largest lake in glacier national park in order to run the iphone app via an ad hoc network i was allowed only a single image. the rest i ran on my own, which in the end wasn’t such a bad workaround.

so tying these three seemingly unrelated updates all together, what might be the best thing now that onone has to update the app for the new iphone 3GS anyway, is to simply drop the computer from the scenario + work with canon to get some type of bluetooth or similar set up in the camera so that the images can be downloaded directly to the phone. better now that apple had provided us 32gb versions as the norm.

The average pencil is seven inches long, with just a half-inch eraser – in case you thought optimism was dead.
Robert Brault

different mind sets play more than we may ever know but like they say, “if everything you’re doing is turning out right you’re not trying very hard.” this goes against the idea of the midas touch and what is called a fixed mind-set, the belief that you’re artistic intrinsically, via genetics, etc and thus don’t need to work at what you do as it just comes. the other side of the coin is a growth mind-set that is set against this ‘talent myth’. the current science view is that we are born with

the latest in his assault on our wits of reasoning, new yorker writer malcolm gladwell has put together a red hot (#1 on nyt business booklist) tome on the story of success. a real eye opener it’s chock full of examples + evidence of his theories on what makes individuals rise above. essentially he comes up with the argument that those of us, in any field, that want to be on top 1) work much, much harder than everyone else + 2) employ a developed sense of practical intelligence along with a bit of luck + a few good opportunities. what follows are some of my favorite lines.

in discussing a study done in the early 1990′s by psychologist k anders ericsson with two colleagues at berlin’s elite academy of music….

the striking thing about ericsson’s study is that he + his colleagues couldn’t find any ‘naturals‘, musicians who floated effortlessly to the top while practicing a fraction of the time their peers did. nor could they find any ‘grinds,’ people who worked harder than everyone else, yet just didn’t have what it takes to break the top ranks. their research suggests that once a musician has enough ability to get into a top music school, the thing that distinguishes one performer from another is how hard he or she works. that’s it. and what’s more, the people at the very top don’t work just harder or even much harder than everyone else. they work much, much harder.

if that doesn’t summarize just about everything about success then i’m a donkey’s arse. the next bit is good though too and just as applicable.

the particular skill that allows you to talk your way out of a murder rap, or convince your professor to move you from the morning to afternoon sections is what the psychologist robert sternberg calls “practical intelligence.” to sternberg, practical intelligence includes things like “knowing what to say to whom, knowing when to say it, and knowing how to say it for maximum effect.” it is procedural: it is about knowing how to do something without necessarily knowing why you know it or being about to explain it. it’s practical in nature: that is, it’s not knowledge for its own sake. it’s knowledge that helps you read situations correctly and get what you want.

this idea is so prevalent in most successful people that it should be a skill mandated in school or whatever path you take to get to be a busy photographer though i’m sure there’s little way to teach it. in this vein, i think it’s the intangible “turns” be they skills, abilities, opportunities or whatever, that shape anyone’s success. use every asset at your disposal + use it as wisely as possible. with a pinch of timing + gold fortune everything just might work out.

back to our first subject of hard work, gladwell continues on a path of illustrating that work for work’s sake is not an end that most desire. it must have something behind it. he demonstrates how it’s not entirely about money + concludes that work with “complexity, autonomy and a relationship between effort + reward in doing creative work…. is worth more to most of us than money”. in other words, + i find this spot on with running your own creative business regardless of the size,

“hard work is a prison sentence only if it does not have meaning. once it does, it becomes the kind of thing that makes you grab your wife around the waist and dance a jig.”

and lastly, not giving up our theme du jour of the sheer amount of work involved with success is the chinese quote that gladwell uses towards the end of the book.

“no one who can rise before dawn three hundred sixty days a year fails to make his family rich.”

now if you’ll excuse me, i gotta get back to work …

it’s true, inspiration strikes at the strangest time. we all know that. what’s refreshing, particularly in this day in age is to see it win out. which is just the case this past weekend with our collective psuedo national holiday + advertising battle royale known as the super bowl.

two unemployed bros from indiana landed a 30 second spot they put together for about $2k for doritos. titled free doritos it rated higher in viewer polls than anything else…. + won the pair a million cold ones to kickstart their filmmaking business.