Charles Mingus - StolenMoments

Canadian Student Makes Aviation History With Flapping-Wing Plane

: An earlier protoype….Image via Wikipedia http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:UTIAS_Ornithopter_Flight.jpg

Here’s a video of a plane you’ve never seen before — one that, like a bird, flaps its wings.

The 94-pound ornithopter flew on August 2, the invention of University of Toronto Phd Todd Reichert. (My alma mater!)

From the Montreal Gazette:

Todd Reichert, an engineering graduate student and PhD candidate at the University of Toronto, accomplished the feat when he flew the aircraft “Snowbird” for 19.3 seconds on Aug. 2 at the Great Lakes Gliding Club in Tottenham, Ont.

The 42-kg plane made from carbon fibre, balsa wood and foam, travelled 145 metres at an average speed of 25.6 km/h during the flight.

“Our original goal was to complete this sort of, original aeronautical dream, to fly like a bird,” said 28-year-old Reichert on Wednesday. “The idea was to fly under your own power by flapping your wings.”

The four-year project, a brainchild of Reichert and student Cameron Robertson, was worked on by 30 students, including some from France and the Netherlands.

The plane, with a wingspan of 32 metres, was powered by Reichert, who pedalled with his legs, pulling down the wings to flap. He had to endure a year-long exercise regime to bulk up on muscle and lose nearly 10-kg so he could fly the aircraft.

I live to travel, love aircraft and have visited
Kitty Hawk, N.C., the site of the Wright Brothers’ first short flights 107 years ago.
Wish I’d been there!

More details here.

http://www.ornithopter.org/

amateur photographers, business, business of photography, Digital camera, Digital photography, Getty Images, Holly Stuart Hughes, National Geographic Adventure, PDN, photography, photohgrapher, professional photographers, stock photography, Time Inc

Why Hire A Professional When Anyone Can Point
And Click? Photographers' Income Dropping

In business, photography on March 31, 2010 at 8:27 am

Times are getting tougher for professional photographers, reports The New York Times.

“There are very few professional photographers who, right now, are not hurting,” said Holly Stuart Hughes, editor of the magazine Photo District News.

That has left professional photographers with a bit of an identity crisis. Nine years ago, when Livia Corona was fresh out of art school, she got assignments from magazines like Travel and Leisure and Time. Then, she said, “three forces coincided.”

They were the advertising downturn, the popularity and accessibility of digital photography, and changes in the stock-photo market.

Magazines’ editorial pages tend to rise or fall depending on how many ad pages they have. In 2000, the magazines measured by Publishers Information Bureau, a trade group, had 286,932 ad pages. In 2009, there were 169,218 — a decline of 41 percent. That means less physical space in which to print photographs.

“Pages are at a premium, and there’s more competition to get anything into a magazine now, and the bar is just higher for excellent work,” said Bill Shapiro, the editor of Life.com, who ran the print revival of Life before Time Inc. shut it in 2007. And that is for the publications that survived — 428 magazines closed in 2009 alone, according to the publication database MediaFinder.com, including ones that regularly assigned original photography, like Gourmet, Portfolio and National Geographic Adventure.

And while magazines once sniffed at stock photographs, which are existing images, not original assignments, shrinking editorial budgets made them reconsider.

I’m writing a story this week for a national magazine — and the editor told me they will be using stock to illustrate it, because it’s cheaper than hiring someone. As amateurs pick up light, easy-to-use digital cameras, competition is increasing. In the old days, you had to have a good understanding, both journalistically and technically, of what makes a compelling image because, shooting film, especially far away on assignment, you had to be sure you had something usable — now, just look at your image and re-shoot, if you can.

The unresolved question, and it’s showing up even in work submitted by professionals, is the boundaries of what’s acceptable when it comes to manipulating digital images, easy to do in Photoshop and other programs — and therefore unusable, if so, by many news photo editors.

Ten Reasons Rejection Won’t Kill You

It’s interesting watching how people react to criticism of their work or their ideas.

Too often, they mistakenly conflate a rejection of these for some more general loathing of them as people, whose real and enduring value to the world extends far beyond their professional definitions or creative aspirations.

Here’s a wise take on it from a fellow blogger on WordPress.

We all, as Walt Whitman wrote, contain multitudes. When someone (other than an editor paying me for it), hates my writing, I laugh. It’s one opinion, even if shared by thousands.

I’m still a loving daughter, a generous friend, a loyal partner, a talented photographer/athlete/cook/artist,
world traveler, formerly nationally ranked
athlete. My words aren’t (only) who I am.

Hate my words? It happens. They’re one part of my identity, and as carefully chosen and edited as any
other of my public presentations.

If someone swoops in and flays you for yours, then what?

The same idea can be applied to virtually any creative endeavor, whether poetry or photography or cooking
or designing a room.

A creator or innovator expresses their vision. Theirs. But it’s easy to forget that:

You are not your ideas. If you can’t divorce the two, you’re putting too many eggs in one basket.
Your choice.
What will you do and how will you feel when people reject them/you out of hand and possibly very rudely?

People have no idea what to make of the truly original. If an idea is so new or radical or game-changing as to challenge the current paradigm, it will scare, theaten, piss off or annoy people currently deeply invested — emotionally, intellectually, financially or all three — in it. They will shred you. This “rejection” is quite possibly then, about them, not you.

Rejection of an idea may require re-tooling it. Just because this iteration isn’t working out, maybe the
next version will.
(See: The Wright Brothers.) That’s why artists working on paper have A/Ps — artist’s proofs — to see
how it actually looks. It might be lousy. Maybe you need to re-think or fix it.

Are they rejecting the idea or its execution? Many people now, unwisely, conflate effort with success. They did X so X must, simply because you made it, be amazing. No. Some Xs require training and practice
to be(come) truly excellent or appeal to a wide(r) audience.

What (hidden, unknown) obstacles lie in its path? I had a brilliant new idea, (I hoped), and ran it past
some people in that industry who know its specific obstacles. They liked the idea but explained why it might never fly — not because the idea is weak but because the execution of it is far more expensive that I realized. Now I know!

Feedback is merely information. Take it or leave it. Freaking out is a total waste of time. Take what will
help you achieve your goal most effectively and leave the rest. Don’t personalize feedback.

Define your goals clearly and with a timeline and a measure of progress. You want to show your
photos or art in a commercial gallery or local library? What steps have you taken on that path? Rejection
along the way stings far less if you have aimed for a specific few goals, can be a little flexible about
“success” and keep on plugging.

Timing matters. A lot. Many stunning works of fiction and non-fiction simply disappeared from public view, criticism and potential success because they were published on…Sept. 11, 2001. There’s no way anyone could have predicted that, but it hurt many people’s longed-for dreams as the world shifted focus.

You may be offering your work to the wrong audience. Every community has deeply held beliefs about what is valid, important, worth listening to and validating. If your ideas are consistently rejected and demeaned within a community you thought worth joining, find a better fit. Others exist. Make one!

You need the courage of your convictions. Allowing total strangers on-line who shout, shriek, curse —
and rally others to their cause to join the chorus — to intimidate you gives them way too much power. Unless they can cost you your livelihood, health, home and/or the safety of your loved ones, (which is when lawyers and law enforcement come in handy), why surrender your peace of mind to the bullying of a bunch of ghosts?

I was lucky. I grew up in a family of people who earned their living — and a good one — through writing, directing and producing material for print, television and film. No one has a pension. No one had a
“real job.” We all had agents, learned to negotiate, to live within or below our means because a steak
year — success!! – could easily be followed by a hamburger year.

We all know the marketplace is fickle and frightening and so we all developed thick skins, back-up
plans and f—k you funds so we can walk away from work and projects that are a time-suck and talent-killer.

Rejection? Hah!

StolenMoments

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MOSS TERRARIUMS

Canadian Student Makes Aviation History With Flapping-Wing Plane

Why Hire A Professional When Anyone Can Point
And Click? Photographers' Income Dropping

Finding, and Keeping,
A Literary Agent

Ten Reasons Rejection Won’t Kill You