Over the past few months we have been working extremely hard on a major update to PhotoArk, dubbed ‘3.0’. This is the third major update we have done to the site, and by far the largest since its launch back in 2012. Like most things, web technology moves forward pretty quickly and we want to make sure we are on the cutting edge offering the best experience we possibly can. So back in February we began work on a new theme centred around improved mobile device compatibility. At first, the project was quite small with just a handful of things we wanted to update; within a month we found ourselves overhauling pretty much everything!
Recently, I came across some poorly executed scans of photographs taken when on holiday in Santorini, Greece, during the summer of 1986. They were taken at the height of my enthusiastic use of effects filters, when starburst, fog, centre spot and lurid colours stamped an undeniable 1980’s hallmark on each.
March 2nd saw us attending the annual Photography Show, housed at Birmingham’s NEC. Up until 2013 it was known as Focus on Imaging but Mary Walker Exhibitions announced that the 2013 event would be the last. As this left a huge hole in UK photographic events it was not long before Future Publishing stepped in to announce that ‘The Photography Show’ was born and scheduled to run from March 1-4th 2014.
Sometimes it is good to reflect on past photo equipment as it reminds me of where I was in my photographic journey as well as what the technology was like at the time. Several years ago I ran a website called Visionage and have just unearthed a long forgotten backup of the site. Similar to PhotoArk, it contained camera reviews of what we were using back then. I thought it would be fun to reproduce one of the old articles here as I am sure there will still be GR10 aficionado’s out there, or people who are interested in a little bit of camera nostalgia.
Our photo editing has long been taken care of by Apple products, the current machine being a Mac Mini plugged into a 27inch Thunderbolt display. This combination provides us with an incredibly fast image throughput with beautifully accurate colours. Recently we felt the need to add portable devices that retained this level of accuracy and speed, so began a long evaluation process of the myriad of tablet and laptop devices currently on the market.
There was a time before the internet existed, that photographers relied heavily on the ‘for sale’ columns of camera magazines or the shelves of their local camera shop for good condition used camera gear. I have spent many hours browsing stock and occasionally unearthed a real treasure that usually resulted in me taking it home. But with the rise of the internet things began to change as more and more dealers used this as a mechanism for advertising. As the public’s acceptance of the web gained in popularity, so did the services offered and it was not too long before the first of the internet auction sites appeared.
Continuing my life long search for the perfect camera bag resulted in a great Christmas present this year. My ‘go-to’ bag for the last five years or so has been a Vanguard Arlen 59 (also reviewed on PhotoArk) backpack that has served me well but has a couple of niggles that, whilst not insurmountable, led me to search for something new. The Arlen is a beautifully made pack and has many years of service left in it, but I needed to address the following points;