The Never-Ceases-to-Amaze Internet

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The contentious election brought into focus again the tremendous power of the internet for connecting people to ideas – good or bad, right or wrong.  The information available is both amazing and overwhelming at the same time, though unfortunately largely unfiltered and truly the “drinking from the fire hose” metaphor applies.  The internet can only deliver, it can’t help one gauge whether the information is right or wrong, up or down, helping or hurting — that remains left to each of us.

I have to hope that the good in this ever-growing information flood outweighs the evil:: the good in enabling researchers to quickly share research and ideas, old acquaintances to reconnect and maybe become old friends, a student to stumble on an inspiration for a career, helpiong struggling entrepreneurs to spread their clever and useful ideas and on and on in countless examples.

I know I shouldn’t but I still keep letting myself get caught by surprise at the scope of use of this information flood.  Several years ago a put together a short “video” about scanner photography and posted it to YouTube:

I haven’t promoted it in the slightest, and haven’t put out any updates with recent works.  So I was surprised to find that this little infinitesimal corner of the internet has garnered over 12,000 views.  OK, so it has a way to go to catch the latest Adele or OK-Go video, but still was way more than I would have guessed.

I recently purchased a “traditional” camera — traditional as compared to using a scanner, but not film — and have been dipping my toe back into the picture world after having pretty much been out of it for 20+ years, likely about the last time I had a film SLR camera.  Since then has been a couple of point-and-shoot consumer digital cameras, so getting back into the world of shutter speeds and ISO and apertures has been a bit of a learning curve.  Another layer higher on that curve is that it includes video capabilities so it got me to thinking about adding another video or two to my extensive (one) YouTube channel, diving a bit deeper into the techniques and inspirations behind how I approach any new scans.

No promises: having anything materialize in the video department will depending on how many pounds the camera adds to me!  But who knows, maybe something crazy will happen while capturing a scan and it will “go viral”!

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