The painful truth of the internet age
Every time that you come up with some sort of idea that you think is really unique, the internet is right there to tell you that there are thousands of other people doing it, they've already come up with their own name for it, and that their work is much, much better than yours.

I've been taking streaked-light long-exposure photos since 2003 at this point, having initially experimented with my digital camera, and liked my results. Since then, I've found the technique better suited to film, since long exposures quickly kill digital camera batteries, there's no 16-second maximum length on my Nikon, and hey, color on film just looks better than digital, what can I say?

A couple of years ago, I'd come upon this guy Rick Doble's website, but that was about the extent of similar work I found online. As of the last year or so, there now seems to be a giant community on Flickr and particularly on this blog engaging in "camera tossing." Now, I've always thought that holding onto the camera for control in moving it in these long exposure shots is sort of the point, but these people are actually throwing their cameras in the air, and the results are often stunning. The blog has apparently been getting a good deal of press, while I'm just left wondering how they could risk ruining expensive photo equipment. With the results that people have been getting, I could kind of see throwing my camera around myself, but if I was never any good at catching baseballs growing up, what logic is there in trying to catch a Nikon F-series? For now, I'll stick to waving, shaking, and twisting my camera around by hand and looking like a complete idiot, thanks.

On the plus side, the internet has also made whining about it that much easier.
- posted by Eric @ 6:28 PM