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Guest Post at AnscaMobile.com: If I Were a Rich Man

Monday, June 4, 2012

Here’s my guest blog post at Ansca Mobile’s Corona SDK blog:

I am a reluctant member of the app-making business, a recovering programmer/designer who has fallen off the wagon. This matters, because when I chose to base my ebook platform on Corona SDK, I chose it to minimize the programming involved.

See, if I were a rich man, I’d be in the jungles of Borneo reporting on the environmental and social destruction, gathering the sounds and photography and video and stories to make a book app. That’s where my passion is — shooting great pictures and telling important stories that have the chance to move people and change the world. Nice work if you can get it!

After a life of programming and design, I switched to photojournalism. I moved to Istanbul, Turkey, in 2001 and spent twelve years photographing in the mass graves of Kosovo, the wars in Macedonia and Iraq, the tsunami in Thailand, and the insurgency in eastern Turkey. I came back to the US in 2007 and photographed stories about wrongfully convicted people (see “Innocence Project”) and wildfires. Frankly, it’s been a lot of fun.

Here’s what I’m talking about: DavidGrossPhoto.com

So, if were a rich man, I’d hire a team of programmers and designers, some fancy San Francisco shop with an in-house pogo stick parking lot and a stuffed cow on the scrubbed, red-brick wall.

However, when you’re not rich, you just have to do things yourself. So, I built that ebook app myself. It’s been a long journey, but the platform is up and running. The latest apps built on the platform are “GG Bridge” (out now!) and “Ed Kashi” (out as soon as Apple finishes review). Even my book on Borneo is in progress because I was able to demonstrate to potential funders a working prototype.

It’s been a long slog.

About two years ago I started looking for a tool to build ebook apps. It took quite a while to find a system that worked for me. Adobe InDesign had some beta tools that looked promising — when they didn’t crash — but Adobe had prohibitively high publication fees. Apple’s Xcode looked great for an objective-C programmer, but years of PHP and CSS and Javascript work, I really didn’t want to learn another language and library, along with whatever huge set of quirks and bugs that would entail. Appcelerator and the other Javascript-based tools looked promising, but they turned out to be too slow (and often buggy) for the smooth user interaction a good ebook’s needs. I even tried the Baker Framework; in its early days, I successfully programmed sliding, cached pages in Javascript, inside of HTML 5, which was put into web-views. It almost worked, but was simply too unstable.

Many believe Corona is just a game platform, but I don’t agree. It turns out that if you want a smooth, fast, realistic user experience, you need a platform designed for speed. If you want clean graphics and animations, smooth and subtle, the kind that allow an ebook reader to NOT notice that she’s using a computer, then you need a platform which focuses on graphics and sound functionality.

I ended up reprogramming my Javascript ebook into Corona, and I had a working prototype in a week.

Lua is a bit of a joke on the other languages — compared even to PHP, it’s so easy to work with that you just want to laugh at the other guys. I can work PHP and Javascript and Perl, so I didn’t need to “learn” Lua. I just did it.

A year later, here’s what I’ve built: an ebook platform that lets you create an interactive ebook using XML code. I can export pictures and captions from Adobe Lightroom (using LR/Transporter) and create a photo ebook, with slide-up captions, in under 15 minutes.

My demo book is called “3 Stories,” built using InDesign for the layout, Lightroom for exporting, and the Corona platform for the app (free in the iTunes App Store).

For Ed Kashi, one of the world’s great photographers, I’ve built a book with text and zooming images, audio commentary, zooming contact sheets, and an interactive map (out soon, see “Ed Kashi” in the iTunes App Store).

For the California Historical Society, I used Corona to build “GG Bridge,” a visual history of the Golden Gate Bridge, just in time for the 75th Anniversary (this one is free on iTunes).

Now, I’m a step closer to spending less time programming, and more time making great ebooks. I’ve even turned apps into a side-business, making ebooks for other people.

Not bad for a platform commonly mistaken for a “game” system, right?

-David Gross

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Scanning Contact Sheets from Negatives

Friday, November 18, 2011

Finally! I’ve been wishing I could scan my sheets of negatives into high-quality contact sheets. Sure, with a $1000+ scanner you can do it…but that never seemed worth it.

Well, I now have a $170 Epson V600, and “The Light Panel” by Porta-Trace. Lay one on the other, and you can make a fantastic — and I mean, incredible — high-quality contact sheet in a minute.

Believe me, a 1200 dpi contact sheet is amazing. Yowza!

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The iPad Book Market

Friday, September 2, 2011

Wondering whether there is a market for iPad books? Well, there sure are a lot of iPads out there, bought by people with extra money to spend, who are always looking for another $5 treat.

Rik Myslewski in San Francisco just wrote an article about predicted iPad sales, which I found here. With almost 30 million sold by June, he predicts another 20 million sales to come. That’s a lot of potential customers to buy your book.

 

“As of Apple’s last fiscal quarter, which ended in June, 28.7 million iPads had flown off the shelves in the year and a quarter that they had been on sale. And if history is any guide, we’re going to see another iPad sales surge: during the holiday quarter of 2010, Apple sold 7.3 million iPads, a nearly 75 per cent bump up from 2010′s third calendar quarter sales of 4.2 million.

“Now, we’re not saying that this holiday quarter will see an equally ludicrous leap – after all, in 2010 the iPad was rampaging through early adopters like a voracious virus – but just for giggles, let’s say that those 20 million Foxconn iPads get sold this quarter, and that the 2010 holiday-buying bump-up repeats itself: that’d mean that 35 million iPads would be found under Christmas trees, Hanukkah bushes, and Kwanzaa candles this year.

“Ain’t gonna happen, of course – but 21.9 million? Sounds doable.”

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/09/01/20_million_ipads/

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Kadir van Lohuizen

Saturday, May 28, 2011

If you haven’t seen Dutch photographer Kadir van Lohuizen’s new project, “ViaPanam”, you should. It is the beginning of new style of photojournalism, documentary photography, and the first experiment I’m aware of that exploits the abilities of the iPad as the new medium for photojournalism.

In brief, he has a self-updating iPad app that follows his trip, a kind of growing book. It is rough around the edges, the future is clear. I bought it for $3.99, and at that price, who could resist? I only 10,000 people (across the globe) buy one, he has paid for a large piece of his trip.

http://www.viapanam.org/viapanam/

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Frustrations with the Olympus E-P2

Thursday, December 30, 2010

On the one hand, I’m enjoying the Olympus E-P2. The image quality is beautiful; it is like using a grainer film than my EOS 5D. Just as one can choose Tri-X over TMAX, I sometimes want to use the E-P2 instead of the 5D to get that grain.

However, I’m feeling more and more frustrated with the questionable user interface of the camera! The biggest problem is that when I use a Leica lens, it is hard to switch to the “zoomed” focus. They could simply have allowed the function key to be a quick “zoom” key, but they didn’t. Instead, you have to set the viewing mode to the “zoom” mode, then press a hard-to-feel center button on the back. If, by any chance, you want to see any information on the screen — aperture, for example! — you have to switch out of the zoom mode! It’s ridiculous!

I still can’t justify the cost of a Leica M9, however. So, until Olympus fixes the designs, I’m stuck.

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Extra Grain with Leica Lenses on an Olympus E-P2

Wednesday, September 29, 2010
I’m using my Leica M lenses on my new Olympus E-P2, and I’ve discovered they are generating a lot more “grain” than the m-Zukio 17mm lens that came with the camera. I’ve seen it in all conditions, with different lenses (Leica and Hexanon).
While the image is nice and sharp, with some good detail, you can see “grain” in the sky and flat areas.

Image shot with Leica 28mm lens.

Now, look at an image show with the same camera but using the m-Zukio 17mm lens that came with the camera.
This is the center of an image shot with the m-Zukio lens.
Notice the sky, in particular. It’s quite smooth, especially in comparison to the Leica lens image.
Now, I have also shot side-by-side comparisons, and I can tell you the same effect is happening there, so this isn’t about differing conditions. Also, I only shoot RAW files, so this isn’t a post-processing issue. It could be related to something the camera is doing when it creates the RAW file — I think the E-P2 compensates for lens distortions — but my real suspicion is that the light is hitting the sensor at steeper angles in the Leica lenses. Really, that’s all I can think of.
Ideas, anyone?
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Scoop

Tuesday, August 10, 2010

After spending two nights with the young men at the Pine Grove Conservation Camp, a training and rehabilitation institution of the California Department of Juvenile Justice (DJJ), I received this message from the press liaison: “The main guy who approved your stay at Pine Grove told me that in his 34 years in the agency, no one has EVER done that before.  In the past, the choices would have been 1) no, 2) hell no and 3) what is it about no that you don’t understand.”

While the approval was unusual, what is stranger is that no other journalists have sought to stay there. Frankly, I’m baffled — the young men were very nice, understanding, and open. I never felt threatened, even though the guard suggested I avoid getting boxed in. Speaking realistically, there are not many fights there. Gang affiliation exists but is kept down (compared to “the institution”, the main lockdown facilities).

I recorded interviews with a number of the men. Some of the stories are brutal — beatings, shootings, stabbings — but I’ve heard the same from soldiers and cops. Context is everything, and the context of the camp is not conducive to violence toward a visitor. Besides, a visiting journalist is a source of amusement, an entertainment, a novelty. As long as I’m not threatening, and I remain a novelty, I think that not only will I not be attacked, I’ll be defended in case I were attacked.

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Rules, rules, rules?

Monday, October 5, 2009

The Station Fire was very, very frustrating. The public information officers (PIOs) were nice, helpful, all-around good people. They let me stay at the fire camp, they geared me up, and then they made sure I wouldn’t get near anything exciting. Especially after I, and an Aussie camera team, managed to shadow a Hotshot crew during a night burn while our PIO scrambled through the dark, thinking his journos were being burned alive in the flames.

It turns out that the incident team I was working with believes that once a journalist gets their help, he is now their charge. More importantly, he’s now their legal liability, and it isn’t worth their while to let him get hurt. They were afraid of being sued. Therefore, they did not want me, nor any other journalist they took in, anywhere near anything that might get him or her hurt.

090906-DG-0308

So, while I got some great stuff from the night fire, the rest of the trip was a wash. Sure, there are some good images, but I never saw action again.

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More Fire?

Tuesday, September 1, 2009

I trying to get to the Station Fire, near Los Angeles. My tummy says I should be there, but I know it’s not a great idea to show up completely unannounced. It’s best to stay at fire camp, to be able to work freely with the team at the camp. I don’t want to be a random journalist on the scene — it’s too well covered for that to be useful.

So, I’m waiting for the PIO to reach the Incident Team 3 folks, to confirm I’m OK. If I get the go ahead, well, it’s a long drive to LA from here.

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Shooting Fire

Saturday, August 22, 2009

I’ve learned a few lessons about photographing fire by now. This is the second time I’ve followed a big fire — the first was the Basin Complex Fire — and I’m starting to get the hang of the rhythms of wildfire and firefighting. This time, I spent a week on the La Brea Fire in the Las Padres National Forest. Here’s what I learned:

  • Wildland firefighters work during the heat of the day, for the most part. That is, they get up before dawn, eat, then show up on the line after the morning golden light. Often, they’ll return before the evening golden light. So, you’re stuck shooting with bright, flat light that sucks. However, if you can get below the plume, the smoke will filter the sun into a soft, reddish light that works great.
  • You have to work with Hotshot crews for a few hours, at least, before they’ll let you shoot portraits. The problem is, they are super-tough, so you’d better be ready to carry a lot of water over rough terrain, and bear with bad light, to get anything from them. Nice guys, however.
  • You can shoot the fire fast, or slow — it’s a different animal either way. Fast gives fantastic shapes, slow gives painting. Something not to forget when you’re there.
  • Consider a split filter. I wish I’d had one.
  • Work through the PIOs. They have the power to get rid of you as a danger to their people, and they will. I didn’t feel limited by them, and the more I learn about fire, the happier I am to have people watching out for me.

Engine Crew

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