WEAR YOUR ARSE WITH PRIDE

  

 This content was previously posted on FROT, August 20, 2021

CAMERA GEAR

My take on cameras: 

Some of my all time best photos were taken with my first digital camera, an old Canon Ixus 330 1.9 megapixel camera that I bought back in 2002. It fitted in my pocket and was built like a small metal brick. I just wanted to mention that, because too much talk of overkill camera gear gives me the droop.

Something that seems to be seldom discussed online is that most images on web pages are only 300 – 500px wide. Or that most photos are viewed on platforms like Facebook, and the maximum image size on Facebook is only 720px wide. 

But most people don’t even click on the images on their FB timeline anyway, they just view the thumbnail – which is only 470px wide. And beyond that, most people are now viewing the entire internet on their squinty little phones. So the vast majority of photos are viewed online at less than 470 px wide, and in that size, just about any resolution would do the job.

On this blog my photos are mostly web copies saved at either 750px or 1000px wide, but if you would like a really big copy of anything, just ask me nice and send some nekid pichers ov yerself in exchange.

After five years and over 10 000 photos taken with the Ixus 330, I did eventually get around to getting something more bling – a Canon Ixus 960 Titanium, which I used to take thousands more photos for another five years.

It eventually met an unfortunate and wet demise, so I bought an Ixus 500HS in a styling blue colour. Smaller, with better specs in theory, it was an OK camera for a surprisingly cheap price, but the image quality wasn’t as good as the Ixus 960, and I didn’t stick with it for long.

Still having a soft spot for the 960 Titanium (A classic IMHO), I bought a replacement one in mint condition on Trade Me for a bargain $100, including a waterproof case. (The original retail on this combination would have been around $1200, but cameras are not appreciating investments)

In 2015 I upgraded to a Canon SX600, which was a dirt cheap NZ$200 on sale. And it was a good camera. It fitted in my pocket, even with an 18x zoom, and with 16 megapixels and a 3 inch hi-res screens it seemed pretty awesome for a pocket camera. At that point it was both the cheapest and the best camera I’d ever owned. 

Then in 2018 I upgraded to a Canon SX720 with an awesome 40x zoom lens, and 20 megapixels. To this day it’s still the best camera I’ve ever owned and it blows me away how far these little cameras have developed. I actually prefer it to the newer models and later bought a back up one second hand.

I'm still using my seven year old SX270 daily in 2025 and have no real desire to replace it. If it ever stops working I'll probably just switch to my backup one and continue on.

My take on cameras is that for what I want to use my photos for – mainly posting on websites and often edited with art filters, what matters is not high resolution but always having one in my pocket ready for action, and to be able to use it rapidly without having to look at it.

Taking shit loads of photos also helps me to get some I like. Each picture is raw material for the almost unlimited enhancements available in my favorite programs. 

Over the years I’ve downloaded copies of lots of image editing programs and tried them out, starting with Photoshop 4 in 1998, and my all time favourite version of Photoshop was Photoshop CS6 from 2012. That was the one I stuck with for 12 years, because hell could freeze over before I would ever pay Adobe a monthly subscription.
 

But Photoshop doesn't run on Linux, so since switching full-time to using Linux at the start of 2025, I've also switched over to using GIMP, starting out with Gimp 2 at first, and then upgrading to Gimp 3 when it was released in March 2025.

I'm slowly learning to use GIMP 3 and it's a very good program, but after using Photoshop for the past 27 years I had become stuck in my ways, and I still have lots to learn. 

On Android I mostly use Snapseed, Cartoon Pro, Mirror Lab, and Chroma Lab for doing my photo edits. Despite hating Google I really like Snapseed and find it the fastest and easiest to use image editor for all basic stuff.

 This is a photo I took on my Canon SX270 that has been lightly edited in Snapseed. It's not high res enough for serious photographers, but I took it from inside a bus anyway, and I like it, as it captures chemtrails, a gay building, a masktard, and a phone zombie, all at once, in Manners St Wellington NZ:
 

DRIVING IN AMERICA

The golden age of American motoring

  

From the Laurel and Hardy school of motoring: Fascinating photos capture the thrills… and spills of the golden age of American motoring

 Wrapped around a tree, nose down in a ditch and dangling precariously over water.

Fascinating photos from the 1920s and 30s show the dramatic and tragic side effect of the golden age of American motoring.

The pictures were taken in and around Boston, Massachusetts by Leslie Jones, who was staff photographer at the Boston-Herald Traveler newspaper from 1917 to 1956.

Mr Jones captured everything that happened in the city for five decades and when he died in 1967, his family donated a vast collection of 34,000 prints to the Boston Public Library.

They included these fascinating photos of vintage car wrecks from the great motoring boom.

Motor cars became affordable to the masses for the first time in the 1920s. By the end of the decade a Model T Ford cost $298, just a fraction of the $1,200 it cost in 1909.

The introduction of hire purchase also made it much easier for members of the public to buy cars, and by 1929, 20 per cent of Americans were on the road.

Ford, Chrysler and General Motors were all competing for the boom in business and by the time the depression hit in 1929, Ford was producing more than one car every minute.

Technology meant these early cars were capable of achieving speeds of up to 50 miles per hour – but safety measures were nowhere near as advanced as they are today.

Add in the fact drivers didn’t need to pass a test before they got behind the wheel, and it’s easy to see why accidents were frequent and often spectacular.

Officers examine a car that has wrapped itself around a tree, spilling its interiors onto the street in Boston in 1933

Passersby try to figure out how this car ended up nose-down in a trench in Boston’s West End. A glance at the rough, dirt-covered road provides a clue

The scene of an accident in 1935. Information with the photo reveals a car stolen by joyriding children crashed into a lawyer’s car, killing him

Giving a rare glimpse of the day’s fashion, a group of men look over a crumpled car that sits by the side of a residential Boston street

Crowds pose for photographer Leslie Jones alongside a mangled and burnt out wreck in Boston in 1933

A police officer poses next to a car that flipped over manoevring around corner in Roxbury, Massachusetts in 1935.

 

This truck stood no chance when it came into contact with a tree on a rural Mass. road, disintegrating on impact – leaving just the steering wheel intact.

A fireboat struggles to haul a car out of the Fore River in Quincy, Massachusetts in 1933. They succeeded, but couldn’t save the three passengers, who drowned

This car came out loser in a battle of wills with a trolley bus on Boston’s South End in 1932

Children peer out of the undergrowth as photographer Leslie Jones captures a nasty wreck smoulding by the side of the road in Hingham

Crowds watch in awe as a car is winched out of the Charles River in Cambridge, Mass in 1933. close to the Harvard University campus

Taken in 1934, this photograph shows a truck balancing on a bridge in Dorchester by just one wheel. Workers from the Walter Baker & Co chocolate factory rushed out of the building in the background to watch

Another angle from the same accident shows how close the truck is from toppling into the water

This car remarkably survived a collision with a utility pole in Cambridge, Mass – with just a mangled bumper to show for the crash

The driver of this car was unlikely to have survived this collision. The wreck is wrapped entirely around a tree, which sits in the driver’s position

The shell of a truck is pulled from the Charles River after it careered off the Harvard Bridge

Photographer Leslie Jones had to part crowds of onlookers to capture this accident in downtown Boston. An out of control car collided with a shopfront, smashing windows and ending up on its side

Local businessman Byron Harwood and Byron Grover were hurt when their car collided with a bus in Waltham, Mass. in 1921. They were lucky to survive this nasty looking wreck. Their car certainly didn’t

Taken in 1934, this photo shows a car that skidded out of control on ice-covered roads and wrapped around a tree in Auburndale, Mass.

A truck collideded with a bus and flipped over in south Boston, stopping just before it smashed into a cafeteria storefront

Another view of the same accident shows eager children posing with the upturned truck. it also demonstrates how close the vehicles came to nearby buildings

A Cudahy Packing Co. truck is hauled out of Fort Point Channel, which separates South Boston and downtown Boston

Even public servants weren’t immune to accidents. An early mail truck came out loser in this battle with a tree on the tree-lined Commercial Avenue, Boston

Sitting in a Boston wrecking yard, this cross section of a wreck shows how basic car interiors were in the early days of motoring

 http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2154369/Crash-bang-wallop-Fascinating-photos-capture-thrills–spills-golden-age-American-motoring.html

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THIS IS A COPY AND PASTE POST, BUT LET’S ALL TRY TO KEEP SPREADING GOOD CONTENT FAR AND WIDE

It’s the dark ages now and shit is different. After using the internet for over 25 years, these days I keep finding bookmarks I go back to seem to have disappeared – it’s not just Fakebook and Twatter that are censoring everything – the whole internet is being purged of real information, and flooded with propaganda.

One shift in mindset that I think we all need to do, is to let go of ideas like “copyright” and all that outdated shit. We are all on the internet, anyone can copy and paste anything in seconds. I have over 1000 web pages of original content online that anyone can copy and repost. Good! – I hope they do. (a link back to https://www.frot.co.nz is always appreciated)

If you are the author of something I have reposted here and would like me to remove it, feel free to email me. I’ll happily take it down. If you are some lawyer threatening to sue me for copyright infringement on the other hand – your reply is in the mail…

 This content was previously posted on FROT, August 15, 2021