Downtown Gallery Updated (and… Updated)

As mentioned yesterday, Gerald purchased a Voigtlander Ultron 21mm f1.8 — a very nice, German-owned (Japanese-made), manual-focus lens — last month, and he was kind enough to loan it to me for a couple of days.

We — that is, the lens and I — went for a short photostroll in downtown Macon this afternoon. Check the results in the updated gallery.

Edit, 6 March, 2021: I’ve rejigged the Macon galleries, and the featured photograph from this post is now in the Macon – Miscellaneous gallery (as the Catholic church is up the hill from downtown).

Rose Hill Gallery Updated (Again)

My good friend Prof. Gerald Lucas has been collecting lenses again, and since we both shoot with Leica L-mount cameras, we’re able to share — and he was kind enough to do precisely that. (Thank you, sir!). He’s added classics like the Asahi Super-Takumar 50mm f/1.8, Olympus Zuiko 28mm f/2.8, and Юпитер-8 (Jupiter-8) 2/50. (He’s added a brand-new Voightlander Ultron 21mm f1.8, as well — nice.)

Rose Hill and Riverside serve as familiar ground for us, meaning that when new photographic tools are available, we go there to see how well we work together; the gallery is twelve years old. See the update here. Enjoy.

The United Kingdom, Revisited

In 2011, my good friend Gerald Lucas gave me an irresistible opportunity: almost a week in England. He was teaching there that summer, and there was University housing available — which meant a visit for the price of a plane ticket, food, and a rental car. One word: absolutely.

Needless to say, I went with camera in-hand — Nikon back then, specifically a D3 with 24-70 and 70-200 lenses — and made it into one large photostroll.

Today, thanks to migrating my Aperture libraries to Lightroom, I had the excuse to revisit some of these images, re-edit some, and repost — a new total of 357 photographs. Take a trip to London, Cambridge, Winchester, Salisbury, and Bath with me. Enjoy!

R.I.P., Aperture

Apple’s Aperture photography software debuted in 2005, as a sort of hi-end iPhoto; it combined sorting and editing into one application, using libraries to keep large collections. It was almost immediately followed by Adobe’s Lightroom, which performed basically the exact same functions — and came with better integration with Adobe’s own Photoshop, as well.

Aperture was developed through several versions, but a change in Apple’s strategy led to a end to development in 2015; however, it’s still been useable in every new version of the MacOS since. Until now — with the debut of MacOS Catalina in September of this year, Aperture will cease to work.

That’s led me — and likely many others — to migrate our Aperture libraries into Lightroom. Now let’s be clear: I’ve been using Lightroom for several years now (I pay the $53 per month Adobe subscription, which offers all applications Adobe currently makes, including Photoshop, InDesign, and Illustrator in addition to Lightroom) and have gotten quite used to the workflow. So when the announcement was made that Aperture was going to stop working, I went into Aperture and . . . was lost. Migrating was necessary.

In the long run, though, it’s been a good thing. Since Lightroom doesn’t import all of the changes and corrections that Aperture makes into Lightroom, I’ve had cause to revisit some of the libraries with a fresh eye.

The first of these is the England library from 2011. Check it out soon.

If you had Aperture, here’s the info from Apple on what to do with your libraries, and the info from Adobe about how to import Aperture libraries into Lightroom (Classic version only).

The New Website and Foreword Blog

Back in the ’90s and Aughts, my ex-wife and I ran a popular book design blog called Foreword. For a variety of reasons, from divorce to moving to Georgia and then deciding to do photography full-time, I got away from it. I even let the company name, ospreydesign, get away from me.

I’ve been seriously regretting losing Foreword for a while now — and its return one of the driving reasons for the new web site. Part of that has to do with a return to book design, and wanting to comment on the same, but also because I don’t do social media and have wanted a space to talk about — and get feedback on — items to do with book design, photography, and so much more. There’s no place better than your own web site. Thus, Foreword is back, this time as part of my personal site: gileshoover.com.

Memory Lane

Here’s what ospreydesign looked like way back when:

ospreydesign as of February, 2001

The site evolved, but only to a point — those were the days of having to pay attention to screen width. Remember: 15-17-inch screens were the new hotness; 13-inch was more normal. (Hence the small layout.) There was something comforting about it, though, and this look preserved for years. Here’s another screenshot:

ospreydesign’s home page, as of January, 2007

Foreword, a relatively new item called a weblog, or blog, was both a vehicle of discussion and publicity. And it worked — this little blog grew and gained followers, basically riding the early “wave” of blogs.

Here it is from 2005:

Foreword in March, 2005

The “look” changed shortly after, while the popularity continued to grow. Here’s another, from fourteen months later:

Foreword‘s new, wider-columned look, from June, ’06

At this point, Foreword was at its utmost; thousands of readers, #1 in a Google search for “book design,” pretty much everything — and I, quite frankly, decided to throw it all away.

The Photography Era

Changing my priority to photography full-time was both awesome and a completely mixed bag. I absolutely loved the instant results of digital photography, and enjoyed the possibilities of editing them; filters, textures, black and white, and more. The creativity was more immediate, as well, in that I was my own “editor,” for lack of a better term, not answering to as many people as designing books can be.

Making money was more difficult than with book design, but somehow more exciting; in many ways, it’s a performance art — I had to get it right at the time (there are no redos — events move on!), then make it better in the edit. But, I quickly found that weddings and events were not my strong suit. Like many making a profession out of a passion, I too often clashed with the “vision” thing; what I wanted to do — architecture, landscapes, “things” more than people — wasn’t what you made money on.

Maine Schooners, 2009

Worse, I was ahead of an extremely powerful wave: photography as something ubiquitous. With the rise of everything from a flood of new folks doing photography full-time to practically everyone “being” a photographer with just their cell phone, there was absolutely no way I could make the success out of it that I could have had I just stayed with book design first and photography second. Sure, I still did book design — I was early in the photography book genre — but photography as a career proved unsustainable.

Lesson learned.

New Memories

So, book design is again what I describe my profession as, with photography back to being a passion instead of a full-time job, and Foreword has returned. I’m better for it, frankly; so, hopefully, will my readers, as we can again share my love book design — along with why I’ve returned to it full-time.

Having a blog again also gives me a chance to talk about design, book production, photography and how they’ve changed in the intervening years, and recommit myself to regular posting; something I’ve missed and hope others have, too.

Welcome back.