There’s a banner thingy up in the right hand corner of the blog. Click it to see why I’m against it and telling you about my opposition. Make sure you do the thingy on that site to email your Senator.Apparently, the House has decided to not take any action on the bill that was proposed, but still could. The Senate is taking up an even worse version of the bill.

I’m all about copyright and copyrights. The current system is broken. Copyrights were originally in place for 17 years after creation as a way to encourage authors to write, but not have stuff locked up forever. In the 70s or 80s (I’m not sure when exactly, but in the best Animal House tradition, I’m on a roll here) it got extended to 75 years, mostly to protect Disney from losing control of Mickey Mouse. Having copyrights 75 years after the death of the author is why they can’t sing Happy Birthday in restaurants without paying someone off. This for a song that’s been around since the late 1800s (at least I think it’s that long)

This time the Congress is trying to take away freedoms from all of us , in part for their corporate masters and in part to  give the government more powers to squash dissidence. Apparently, as written, if you publish a video on Youtube of your kid messing around, and the TV is on, you could be facing 5 years in jail, and the site can lose it’s internet access if all such videos aren’t removed immediately when the copyright holder says “Boo”.

It’s unbelievable what’s going on in the country. TSA is empowered to harass and Xray citizens and we stand for it. The BATF breaks laws in at best a stupid plan to catch Mexican Drug lords by allowing thousands of illegally obtained weapons to be sent down there, and at worst ultimately squash the 2nd Amendment. The President does recess appointments when there’s no recess of the Senate and it goes on and on. The Nanny state wants to tell us what food we can eat, and makes us produce ID to buy cold medicine. Congress recently passed a law saying the military can pick up US citizens and hold them indefinitely without charges. Really?? Come on people!

We need to have the net unfettered by misguided attempts to fix stuff that’s not horribly broken. Maybe Congress should focus it’s energy on, oh, I don’t know.. how about passing a budget. It hasn’t happened in three years! sheesh.

My left wing fellow protestors are probably not going to go with my right wing rants in support of the anti-SOPA movement, but, it should be a big tent!

I put a program on my blog to do some stuff on the blog to direct folks to the Anti Sopa websites on the 18th and 23rd of this month. Lets hope it works!

Click that banner top right and take some action sheeple!

I know so many of you are convinced I’m like a god of photography, capable of doing all sorts of magic with any camera, any process handed to me. I hate to dispel the myth, but here it is. Maybe you should sit down and take a few deep breaths.

I know it’s shocking to hear, but, sometimes I miss. I’m not always perfect as a photographer. There, I said it.

Case in point: Tintypes. I wanted to try out making some tintype photos using a kit from Rockland Colloid.  They sell a kit with the plates and some gelatin you put on the plates in a darkroom. Then you expose the plates and develop the plates in a darkroom again. Coating the plates was a lot messier than you might have thought. I was concerned I got too much gel on the plates, but stopped while I was ahead with trying to fix them.

I shot a photo of Tim using my Holga for about a second with one of the plates installed. I also did a shot of the water tower and factories on the west side of Dover, using a pinhole camera for the 4inx5in plate for a one minute exposure. Lets just say that developing the photos was much less exciting than coating the plates. I’m showing the scans I did of the plates, which I converted to black and white. I’d say both techniques “show potential”. I sent an email to Rockland tonight, asking for their expertise. I hope to have something to show in the next few weeks that looks a lot better!

Try to recover from the shock, and carry on as you were before this shocking admission! LOL