I gathered a few photos from our archives for a little tour of Elyria. It’s not all that comprehensive but I thought some of the readers who have moved away might like to take a look at how some things have changed and in some cases stayed pretty much the same.

If people like this I will expand on it and post some new photos, so let me know.

Dear George Bush,

I’m really sick of your presidency.

OK, so I know the whole Wall Street mess isn’t entirely your fault. But like everyone else, I’m going to blame you. And I know this whole Iraq thing…well, maybe that is entirely your fault, and I’m pretty convinced my grandchildren will still be paying for it, if not fighting there. And, as a result, you’ve almost single-handedly been responsible for turning Congress over to the Democratic Party.

But now, here we are with less than two months to go until we are rid of you, and you are creating a nightmare for us in our little newsroom.

We ran the photo above just like newspapers all over the country. The President is in a shadow and the new shining knight is in the sun. The photographer from The Associated Press obviously was trying to make a picture that was creative and reflected the change in government.

The problem we face today is the angry phone calls from readers who are taking us to task for making the president look black. That in and of itself is frustrating as it shows that readers truly don’t know the rules of photojournalism, which mandate we don’t stage or manipulate photos. What we saw through the lens is what you see in the paper.

So that leads me to believe that McCain’s loss to Obama is so painful to some that they are hypersensitive – they think we’d actually manipulate a photo to somehow embarrass the president.

But to me, their hypersensitivity to skin color in this photograph says more about what lives inside of them than it does about us. We, like many other newspapers (including our competitor up north, The Morning Journal) ran the picture with respect to the photographer’s creativity, not with a bigoted eye.

Signed,

Bruce Bishop

I had my Blackberry Curve for about one week before I decided to give it a little flare. I was reading berryreview.com and there was a review about a site called Unique Skins.

The company has a Web site that helps you design a skin for your various electronic devices. A skin is basically a vinyl decal that you put on to protect the outer surface of your phone. The great part is that the skins are designed to go on without ugly bubbles and when you are tired of the skin, you just peel it off and throw it away. The decals stick tight, but don’t have any sticky residue when you take them off.

I went to uniqueskins.com site, worked out the design I wanted from their clipart files and created my own skin in about 20 minutes. You also have the option of uploading a photo of your own and using that in the design program. The fee for my Blackberry was $6.99 and I had the envelope sitting in the mailbox a few days after I ordered it. Putting it on was a little delicate for two reasons. First, I didn’t read the instructions so I was worried about messing it up, and I was worried that it would fold over and stick to itself.

You can design skins for a host of products. Laptops are $20, A fully skinned x-box 360 is $25.00, you can even put a new skin on your 360 controller, and there are a ton of phones listed on the site.

If you carry it or play it, odds are you can find a skin for it.

I’m writing another post about Flickr because I just can’t get enough of this site.

In the short time that I have been using the site, I have answered one of the questions that has been in the back of my mind for awhile: Are there any local people serious about photography?

Sure, I see a lot of people snapping away with their digital point-and-shoots cameras, and there is nothing wrong with that. But what I was wondering about is whether this area still had the kind of dedicated (some might say crazy) people who would brave weather that would make a mailman weep just to get the right kind of shot.

And guess what? What Flickr has shown me is that not only are those dedicated souls still out there, they are down right good, too.

Don’t believe me? Well, if you want to see some of best photographs you’ll ever see from around Lorain County, go to Flickr and take a look at what these people are doing.
p.csizmadia
teacherholly
Scott M Duncan
usawayne
ronnie44052
yutz with a camera
vw4ross
foto1212
El_Rebelde
jonfobes
rabies27
tsechel
rabesphoto
the coroner
I’m sure I’ve missed somebody. Please let me know if there is sombody doing local work that should be listed here.

First there was Myspace. It was all right, just a little too young for my 40ish self. Then I tried Facebook. Better, but still missing something.

Finally, I think I may have found a site that gives me the community aspect I am seeking along with offering the fun of sharing my passion for photography.

Flickr is hardly a new site, and I have been to it a few times in the past looking at photos from all over the world. I never really gave it a chance until I bumped into Flickr member Paul Csizmadia while shooting a feature photo of a freighter in Lorain. He got me interested by telling me about the local community of photographers who post literally thousands of images on the site.

I used my free membership to try it out, but quickly upgraded to a Pro membership level because it offers a stats package. (Why, you may ask? Well, there’s just something fun about knowing what people are looking at, and that’s what the stats package offers.)

Aside from the stats package, there are a few other really cool features Flickr offers. One of them is safe viewing. Depending on the viewing level you select, images that might be considered offensive are blocked out. If you choose to view them, you have to click on the image and choose to look at it.

There are also varying levels of copyright protection. You can put pictures out there for people to take and use as they see fit, or you can completely lock them down and protest your copyright.

Finally, the upload process is drag and drop. You don’t have to have a degree in computer science to put the photos online.

Give it a shot, and add me to your contact list so I can see what you are doing, too.