DAM Easy

DAM, where did I put that shot of..............
Ever found yourself looking for a photo that you took, only to go searching through a mess of files with it still not showing up. You would have just done a search of your hard drive, but you can't remember the file name that you (or your camera) gave to it. DAM!

Yes, DAM is the answer, the solution, and the way you can ensure that you will be able to find your important images well into the future. "What do you mean DAM?" I hear you say. I guess I had better explain. DAM is an acronym for Digital Asset Management. Your image files are digital assets. As such, they deserve to be looked after.

I certainly hadn't been looking after my images the way I should. Consequently I found that I had an interesting situation last week when I decided to indulge in some DAM. I had my computer and two external hard drives. There all contained image files in various formats. I had some images saved on more than one drive, and even worse - some double ups on the same drive, often hidden within folders with names that certainly didn't suit the contents. I could go on forever describing this mess, but suffice to say that it was a nightmare. I still have a little way to go, but am now on the right track. I thought it might be helpful to share what I have learned, along with some examples of how things are looking now.


When you open one of the drives this is what you now see. Ignoring the drives autorun folder, you will see a folder for each image file type - Jpeg, RAW, and TIFF.


This is what you see when you open the RAW folder. A folder for each year You may notice that the 2009 folder is labeled 2009X - the X is just there temporarily, so that I know that I have not completed work on it yet. It will be taken off when the folder is up to date.


The list view inside the 2008 folder. Each folder is labeled with the date in the following format:
Year-Month-Day-Description
This ensures that they are listed in the order which they were taken, and the description is simply a few words to help you identify what is inside.


Inside the folders with dates and descriptions, you will find the original RAW Images. This particular example only contains 6 images, but some contain hundreds.

The original mess that I described above is probably quite a common scene on hard drives everywhere. People tend to take a lot of photos as there are no film processing costs like the good old days. Finding a particular image in the future isn't given a lot of thought by most people until they can't find it. A simple DAM solution like the one I have shown above (or specialist DAM software) is definitely the answer.

Archive Your Images
A mess is one thing, but what if your computer crashed and you lost all those pictures? Special family treasures, beautiful personal work - or even work you have produced for a client. Having them organised is one thing, having a good backup is another. As I am cleaning up my drives, I have been making two copies, When i finish, both of my external hard drives should contain exactly the same files. I then plan to burn another copy onto DVDs and keep them somewhere away from home. This ensures that even if our house was to burn down with the computer and hard drives, I will still have all my precious digital assets.

It's Worth the Effort
It is quite a time consuming process to go back through years worth of images. The problem is, the longer you leave it the more there is to go through. Once you decide on a DAM solution, all I can say is do it. It is then just a simple matter of putting all your new files in the right place immediately after they are imported onto your computer, and you should never lose a file in the great hard drive abyss again.

I hope this has been helpful, and if you don't have the chance to come back here until next week, I hope you have a great DAM weekend!

LOOPS 'N' LENSES Facebook page launch

LOOPS 'N' LENSES on Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/LOOPS-N-LENSES/92206596964
I have just launched a Facebook page to supplement this blog. If you are a member of the Facebook community, and find this blog interesting - become a fan! There is a discussion board for fans to talk about this blog. Please read the Wecome to L'N'L post.

Review - Fishing WIld

Journal of fishing travel

There are many fishing magazines available here in Australia, with only a fairly small number of them being dedicated to fly fishing. Many publications have the occasional article on, or at least mention fly fishing, but not enough to get the hard core fly fisher excited. Fishing Wild is somewhere in between. Almost every article has at least a small amount of fly fishing content, with it being a strong feature in most others. However this is not the only attraction of what the creator of Fishing Wild, Col Roberts, has called the journal of fishing travel. An apt description, as the majority of the articles are about both unusual and/or beautiful places. The photography is also of a very high standard which means the focus of this great publication has a lot in common with the journey that I am planning. I certainly hope to make my photographs different from the majority that you will see in Fishing Wild as I have my own style, but I do find it inspiring - the journeys, the places, the images.

A great feature found at the end of most of the articles are the fact files. They give a range of information on the destination which can include: getting there, accommodation, what fishing tackle you need, activities available for the non fishing partner, and a big variety of other essential information for those who may wish to go there.

Apart from the great articles, there is a department in each issue called Photo Clinic which gives some good tips to help readers learn how to take better photos. Another department, Travel Doc is an interesting read regarding health issues such as diseases and medications relating to travel, all of which I will be re-reading during my planning. The department I personally enjoy the most is Horror Travel Stories, it can be a real eye opener!

As mentioned at the bottom of the current editorial (No7, 2009) Fishing Wild now has its pages section sewn instead of being glued as in past issues. Being the kind of magazine that many will collect, this is great news. In fact, calling it a magazine is almost an insult to Fishing Wild. It is a great read and I highly reccommend it to all adventurous anglers.

Fishing Wild is publishe twice annually, in April and October. The cover price is A$10.95. If you want to subscribe you can do so directly from their website http://www.fishingwild.com.au/.

The Danger Zone

After looking into the danger of pirates last week, I have since turned most of my attention to areas on land that are of danger to travellers. I quickly learned that war and civil unrest were not the only dangers. Many places have very high rates of violent crime, others have kidnappers that want ransoms - just like some pirates, then there is the ever present risk of terrorist attacks. Unfortunately, with the amount of dangerous places it was impossible to make a comprehensive list of all of them, and then go on to look further into the specifics of each. Instead, I have found that there are a number of countries that come up immediately in most searches. Here are a couple of lists I have found.
http://www.travelersdigest.com/top_dangerous_locations.htm
http://listverse.com/travel/top-10-most-dangerous-places-on-earth/

This searching has made me realise that with the huge number of danger zones, I am better off choosing my locations, and then checking the danger before putting it on my shortlist of places to visit. Many times, a country may be mentioned as one of the most dangerous, yet there are certain areas that are safe. By discarding all the dangerous countries, I may well be throwing away some of the best locations. As far as health issues are concerned, I am going to do the same thing. Most health issues can be dealt with in some way if you are prepared for them.

One interesting website I have found about travelling in dangerous areas is http://www.comebackalive.com/ which is "The official website of Robert Young Pelton. The place where professionals, adventurers, travelers & those who work & travel in high-risk areas can keep abreast of the latest info & safety tips." Robert Young Pelton is the author of The World’s Most Dangerous Places which is virtually the bible for those travelling to dangerous places. To get an idea of the book http://www.flipkart.com/world-most-dangerous-places-robert/0060011602-mmw3f99m8i has a short description of what it's all about. I hope to get a copy and will certainly post a review of it.

Also, an interesting read on war zone safety can be found here http://wikitravel.org/en/War_zone_safety

Enough on danger for now - My next post will be my first review.

Free Photography and Fly Fishing Tips and Tricks Coming Soon

Natalie and I on our big day, May 24th, 2008

Photo David Anderson

Almost a Year!

Just a quick post today, and I am starting a bit off topic. On Sunday, Natalie and I will be celebrating our first wedding anniversary. It certainly doesn't seem that long!

I will be back next week with my continued findings on where I shouldn't go. I have started looking into war zones and areas of civil unrest. When you are looking into going somewhere out of the typical tourist areas, you discover very quickly just how many dangerous places exist.

Also, as a follow up on my last post I would like to share a blog that I have found which is full of up to date information on modern day piracy. It has been created by Daniel Sekulich, the author of "Terror on the Seas: True Tales of Modern Day Pirates" and "Ocean Titans: Journeys in Search of the Soul of a Ship" http://piratebook.blogspot.com/. There are a few posts about other forms of violence at sea, but it is almost all about piracy. A fascinating read!

I would also like to thank Daniel for answering my question about the safety of going to Socotra. Apparrently it should be safe, as long as you fly there.

As the title of this post suggests, I will also be adding some tips and tricks to some of my future posts, starting from next week. I may even add the odd product review in the future.

Piracy in (my) Paradise

A little Secret
Ok, time for me to let you in on a little secret. There is a place that inspired this whole idea, somewhere that I found a year or so ago while looking on a map. It was in my mind from day one to put it into the top three of one of the regions that I talked about in my last post. Where is it? Well, I am going to tell you. It is an island lying about half way between the coast of Somalia and Yemen, at the entrance to the Gulf of Aden. The island is called Socotra. More on this later in the post, first I will present what I found out earlier today..............

After a morning of looking into where pirates may be found, I became fascinated. I certainly am not saying that I like pirates, but I have developed an interest in them. It seems there are two types of pirates in the modern world: those that I will call "petty pirates" and those that I will call "professional pirates". Petty pirates, seem to be into sneaking on board a vessel and stealing whatever they can and then leaving. My understanding is that they are probably very poor and will take whatever they can get, and are not usually dangerous unless they feel threatened. The professional pirates are different. They are highly organized, and heavily armed groups. Their targets are usually large vessels such as cargo ships. They are typically armed with, and use automatic weapons and RPGs (rocket propelled grenades) to get what they want. Not only do they want the cargo, and the ship - but they often capture the ships crew and demand large ransoms for their release. Professional pirate groups seem to be made up of various types of people with one thing in common - making money. And making money they do, they are often wealthy. Rather than go on, I will put some links to interesting websites that I found had a lot of information and also some related videos, at the bottom of this post.


Socotra and the Gulf of Aden
While Socotra has captured my imagination for over a year, the waters surrounding it as you can see here http://www.icc-ccs.org/index.php?option=com_fabrik&view=visualization&controller=visualization.googlemap&Itemid=219 are home to the majority fo the worlds growing number of acts of piracy. As you can see from the latest piracy reports, which shows details of global incidents from the last 10 days; http://www.icc-ccs.org/index.php?option=com_fabrik&view=table&tableid=70&calculations=0&Itemid=82 this area is dangerous. Thankfully it seems that most pirates are not interested in small boats, and as it is possible to fly to the island, I hope to still include it on my list. If so, I will check into the safety aspects in more detail. Who knows, I may find three more appealing places when I look more closely at this region. I doubt it though!


Here are the links mentioned above:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piracy for general information about pirates, and the history of piracy
http://modernpirates.wordpress.com/ for information on modern day pirates - particularly interesting is the "the pirates" section
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7623329.stm all about the piracy "industry"
http://goafrica.about.com/od/africanews/a/pirates.htm all about somali piracy with some interesting links
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yj5f6ApIjUE Somalia pirate interview
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xM0jKpwRAXg a report on piracy, which tells the difference between "piracy" and "armed robbery at sea" among other things. Interesting viewing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ji3RiuFRZEA Pirates attack French warship by mistake
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4vgzZf8rbM images of modern piracy, I don't like the glorification of piracy, but the images are interesting.

The above links are most directly related to piracy around Somalia and the Gulf of Aden. Another particularly dangerous area is the Malacca Strait. The narrow stretch of water separating Malaysia and the Indonesian Island of Sumatra. Here is an interesting article on the Malacca Strait pirates: http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2007/10/malacca-strait-pirates/pirates-text
and some great photos: http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2007/10/malacca-strait-pirates/stanmeyer-photography

Pirates can also be found in central and south America: http://travelojos.com/?p=951 but it seems much less common today than in the areas I have already mentioned

Where to Begin?

Finding a Suitable Location

Until I make a firm decision on where to go, I cannot make any real plans. After a bit of random searching, I found a number of interesting islands. Some of them looked like the traditional tropical paradise, others looked more like the antarctic (and were indeed part of the antarctic region). There are also many remote areas worth looking at on the major land masses. I soon discovered that my haphazard approach also meant that each time I looked, I found yet another place which looked good. It was time to come up with a simple plan of attack. Here it is, step by step:

1. Where not to go
After a bit of thought, commonsense prevailed. There are a number of areas that can be discounted readily. Some exceptional looking areas are extremely dangerous. War zones, areas at high risk of terrorism, and areas where pirates are commonly to be found are out. I will be searching to find out what areas are dangerous in a variety of ways, including http://www.smartraveller.gov.au/ the Australian Government website detailing travel warnings based on all sorts of issues including the ones I have mentioned, as well as health warnings and a few other things to consider. Any highly populated areas, or popular tourist destintaions are also out, as well as remote areas commonly visited by anglers such as Christmas Island (Kiribati) and the Seychelles. This should remove a lot of areas, but there is still a lot of the world left to scan.

2. Break it down
The world is huge, and rather than simply going back to randomly searching all over, I have decided to divide it up into regions and look thoroughly through each one . Each continent will be a region, as will the big oceans.As I search each region, I will compile a list of all possible locations before moving onto the next.

3. Selection
I will next look in more detail at each of the possible locations on my regional lists and pick what look to be the best three of each region. These will be studied in even greater detail still, using the usual online search methods, as well as map searches and talking to locals and people that have been ther via email, and through discussion forums. The single best option from each region will then be selected, and I will gather every necessary bit of information I can on them. From there I will pick the one that looks to have the best opportunities for both fly fishing and photography. I will also select a second location as a backup, just in case.

Welcome

A loop of flyline moves through the air. Click. Looking at the back of my camera and the shot is just right. Download it to my computer and share it with the world. That same night, friends from around the world are viewing it and making a comment. No big deal........

Firstly, I would like to thank you for taking the time to look at my blog. My name is Adam Zappia, and I am a photographer, and a fly angler.

As I sit at the keyboard typing this first post, it seems like I live in a different world than the one in which I spent the early years of my childhood. Back then, anything that I needed to learn was either taught to me by someone I knew in person, read about in a book or magazine - or learned through trial and error. Today, like people in all major developed countries, I can find out most things almost instantly. As mentioned above I can also share my own experiences quickly too.

All the things I love came together to change my life one day - thanks to the internet.
Online forums are both a blessing and a curse. There is so much that can be learned from them, however there is unfortunately a lot of useless information and general stupidity to get through. Some people should not bother wasting everyones time, they simply want to have an opinion on everything, even if they don't know what they are talking about. Most forums, no matter the topic, have a small number of members who hold it all together - highly knowledgeable, and willing to share information and help people along in the right direction. One such person on my favourite fly fishing forum was also a photographer. For over a year or more, I had been in contact with him via both the forum and email. He had given me a lot of great information regarding photography. He had even kindly critiqued my work. This was great, as not only did this photographer produce some of the best fly fishing images in my favourite magazine, but his real job was photographing celebrities, among other things. Certainly someone whose advice was worth taking seriously. I decided with my fiancee at the time, (now wife) Natalie that this guy would shoot our wedding photos. As he lived in another state, we flew him over for the event. The rest as they say, is history.

Natalie and I moved from Adelaide to Sydney, and I now work that particular photographer as his assistant whenever required. As a result, my photographic skills and knowledge have grown immensely. I have had the good fortune to work at the ARIA's (Australian Recording Industry Awards), and with a number of celebrities, including actors Daniel Craig and Olga Kurylenko, and high profile Australian recording artists including Jimmy Barnes, David Campbell, and Delta Goodrem.

Now I am learning about the local fly fishing scene around Sydney.

So what is this blog all about?
I am planning on creating an interesting fly fishing and photography adventure that is a bit unique, maybe even unlocking a brand new destination for adventurous fly fishers the world over. I will be posting on my progress on the search for the location. I will also be filling you in on what I find out about the potential location from both a fly fishing and photographic point of view. It will be a long process to find the ideal location, find out when to go, and all the fine details, get some money together, and make it happen.

I will also keep you all up to date with camera equipment that interests me, and fly fishing equipment. As the planning progresses, I will focus more closely on specific equipment to suit the trip. I will also offer a few tips and bits of advice along the way.

Keep checking back to see how things are progressing, as I plan on updating this blog regularly

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