More on Commercial Photo Magazine

Thanks to Alert Reader EssPea, who posted a link in the comments section for Google's on-the-fly translation of the Commercial Photo website, we can all read the nuances of Far Eastern lighting in plain old English.

Sort of.

The bots are decent, but they won't win this year's Booker Prize. Here's a typical line of English generated by the translator:

"... Recently, the occasion where the work is photographed, three keywords, “sizzle” “eros” “grotesque” float in the head. The person seeks [eroteishizumu], scratches the desire to tastiness in the sizzle impression and is built. And the desire, although being grotesque, is fascinate. ..."

I dunno about you, but I've always wanted to scratch the desire to tastiness in the sizzle impression.

So, if you'd like to "scratch your own desire to tastiness," by all means, scratch away.

Pssst. Wanna Buy a Used SB?

Lord knows where he finds this stuff, but MPEX has come across a big pile of used Nikon SB speedlights. Did I tell you this guy knows what we like, or what?

I counted 18 as of Wednesday night. If you are looking for one, they range from $65 for SB-24's to $169 for the SB-28's as of this writing. To get to them, just click through to the Strobist section and scroll down.

(Oh, and if you happen to be burdened by too many Nikon SB's hanging around, they'll be glad to make you an offer. Heh, heh.)

A Japanese Strobist Magazine?

Alert Reader "Bjorke" writes the following in the comments section of DIY Lighting Diagrams:

Have you ever seen the Japanese magazine COMMERCIAL PHOTO from Genkosha? Every issue covers the local advertising scene along with TV commercials and had detailed coverage of ad and other lighting setups, complete with such drawings (and snaps of the set).

I admit it's hard to get here in the states, I always pick up a copy whenever I'm over there. Sometimes Kinokuniya and other J-vendors have it in the U.S.

Well folks, you know I had to check this one out.

I mean, a magazine about lighting setups? That pushes the definition of niche almost to the point of fetish. Honestly, who in the world would devote an entire publication to droning on and on about lighti...

Oh, yeah. Right. Sorry.

So I looked into it.

Sure enough, there it is on Amazon. Only $300 a year. Amazon says they are printing it in dual Japanese/English, but others say only Japanese. Wish I knew for sure. That'd be a bummer if the only mag in the world that featured lighting setups was only in Japanese.

Not ready to spend $300 on a foreign lighting mag, you skinflint? Well, you can check out the website, gratis, here.

Or, the Google translator bot will serve the whole thing up for you in stunted english. But where's the challenge in that?

If any of you guys are familiar with this publication, I would love to hear more about it.

Should I spring for the $300?

Dealing With Haters

Imagine this: you worked on your video for weeks, months, maybe years. You're incredibly proud of your work, and you want as many people as possible to see it. You post it to YouTube, maybe it gets featured, and the comments start flowing in. And in. You get some genuine praise and possibly some constructive criticism. And then you get some comments of another kind – we'll just call them unconstructive criticism. The haters descend, making you wonder (hopefully just for a nanosecond) if you'll ever post to YouTube again.



It's not easy dealing with pointless negativity, but a user named Duke Rightious alerted me to an acronym YouTubers are using in the fight against haters and I thought it was worthwhile sharing with the larger community. It was originally outlined by Pipistrello in this video and it's called R.I.D.:



R - Recognize. Recognize that a "hate" comment is different from constructive criticism or a WTF total lack of comprehension.



I - Ignore. Do not dignify the hater with a reply making your case or pleading for understanding. And don't bother blasting them, either. Your energy is really best spent elsewhere, like on your next video.



D - Delete. Remember, you always have the option of deleting deliberately hateful and mean comments. After all, these are your videos.



R.I.D. activate!



Mia

The YouTube Team

News: Midwest Photo Exchange to Partner With Strobist.com

Strobist.com is very pleased to announce a brand new partnership with Midwest Photo Exchange (MPEX), the Columbus, Ohio photo retailer.

What does this mean for you guys? Lots, actually.

First of all, MPEX has come through for us again and again when other retailers were not able to stock items such as the double-fold umbrellas and compact, 5-section stands. Why? Because MPEX is big enough to make it happen and small enough to care about a rag-tag, far-flung group of small-flash enthusiasts like us.

When everyone else was out of stock, Moishe Appelbaum, (who runs MPEX - that's him above) was able to work magic worthy of Max Klinger from M.A.S.H. to keep the hard-to-find goodies in stock.

In the last few months, he has been quietly scouring the globe to find the cool little pieces of gear that let us do things for a fraction of the price (and weight) of the Big Studio Light donkeys out there. Moishe has made it his business to learn about the gear we need and collect it under one roof.

MPEX's website may not have the sophistication of the big New York shops, but he offers what they can't - personal service and a commitment to building long-term, personal relationships with photographers. Clicking on the MPEX ads will automatically land you onto an MPEX search that shows several pages of Strobist-related gear.

Wanna know how to make your flash adapt to take a PC cord? email 'em and ask. (Be sure to add their e-mail address to your address book, so their answer will not be diverted to your spam folder.)

As for pricing, Moishe works very hard to match the largest NYC photo houses, but with a couple of bonuses. First, the service is more akin to your neighborhood photo hangout. And second, MPEX is very reasonable on shipping - especially to the international folks when compared to the NYC international shipping rates.

I have listened hard to the international readers who are not able to find many of the items that we frequently discuss on the site, and so has MPEX. The further you live from the center of the photo universe, the more you are gonna appreciate these guys.

A few months ago I had a wonderful phone conversation with an AP shooter from Columbus that gave me a full description of Midwest Photo Exchange's Columbus store. It's exactly the kind of place I spent countless hours hanging out in when I was a greenhorn. It smells like a photo store. It has bargain bins. It has wooden floors worn by the countless shufflings photographers' feet over the years.

Says the local shooter:

It's the kind of place where you walk in and they know your name. You ask for something and they say, "You know where that is - get a ladder and grab it off the shelf."

These guys know photo. Their mission is to build strong, lifelong relationships with photogs while they are sill in school.

Which is exactly what they want to do with us.

No, there's not a ton of money to be made with $20 double-fold umbrellas. But many of you guys are getting to be good shooters. Really good, actually. There are many current and future pro's among you, and MPEX would love a chance to earn your business. And, besides, not everyone lives within shouting distance of a great, person-to-person photo store.

Well, now you do.

These guys are straight shooters. They are fair. They are reasonable, And we matter to them. More than we matter to anyone else, I dare say.

If you value the information you get from the site, all I ask is that you give them the opportunity to earn your business.

You support them, they support me and I support you. Simple as that.

You get a great photo resource and they keep Strobist free for every serial flasher on the planet.

Questions? Comments? Rants?

Read what others are saying and/or talk about it here.


Main Site: Midwest Photo Exchange
Strobist at MPEX: Click Here
Via E-mail: E-mail MPEX
Phone: (614) 261-1264

Staff Pick of the Week: theresidents

It's always to neat to find bands using YouTube in creative ways. As you would expect from a group that's been anonymous for 35 years, whose members usually appear as giant eyeballs with top hats and who never grant interviews, San Francisco's the Residents have posted a series of short clips that are just a bit strange and twisted. The films evoke a kind of 1950s Leave It to Beaver-esque suburban utopia, complete with gee-whiz-style narration from nine-year-old Timmy, son of a barber. I just love the earnestness with which Timmy chirps about car accidents, menstrual blood, dead dogs, and learning about sex from a creepy lawyer. Here are two of my favorites:













Tracking Timmy,

Mia

The YouTube Team

For U.S. Readers: Free Coroplast Grids!

It's Election Day, when the whole world gets a look inside the sausage factory that is the United States democratic process. If you are reading this from somewhere the USA, please remember to vote.

But more important, don't forget to help clean up any coroplast campaign signs that are still standing in your area tomorrow.

They are nothing but landfill fodder after the polls close, and they make great DIY gridspot raw material. Black is best (no internal reflections) but white is doable, too. Avoid colors - they give you a color cast.

In fact, Strobist reader Leann has a neat little tutorial for making coroplast gridspots that make my little cardboard jobbies look like crap.

The advantage to my version was that they were free. But it's practically raining free coroplast tomorrow morning, and you certainly don't wanna miss out on that.