These are some of my favorite things

What a day for culture bloggers, 3 of my daily stops had articles that touch on my favorite pet subjects. Usually when browsing these blogs, I find myself skimming lengthy discourses on Wagner, Ballet, Frank Lloyd Wright, or dare I say Poetry. But today was a day that rang my proverbial bell.

Terry Teachout touches on archival quality of color photographs at his Arts Journal. Quoting a story from The Art Newspaper, "The Cesar Foundation is proposing a two-part solution. First, photographs should be stored in digital form, so that a new copy can be printed when the original fades. Second, the foundation’s scientists have invented a software programme and device that scans non-digital, "normal" colour photographs which have aged, and then prints off a version which restores the original colour." This is an excellent point that I would add to that when storing the images digitally, it is very important that a file format be chosen that is not compressed. Compression is a form of encoding that requires a key. Assuming that archeolgists might be digging up our digital media, you don't want to have them requiring some kind of Rosseto Stone to decrypt the data. Of course Teachout manages to morph the posting to a discussion of Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater, but I have grown accustomed to this sort of thing. Read the whole thing here.

Brian's culture blog waxes poetic over his new Canon Powershot A70. For a 3 megapixel point and shoot I give Brian kudos for his choice. If I was looking for a camera that I could fit in my pocket for those on the go, photo blogging days, I'd go with the A70 as well. Personally, I am more interested in higher resolution cameras that shoot in the Raw format with more optical zoom than the A70 offers. Under the $1000 price mark I would recommend the Canon G5 and the Digital Rebel, also from Canon, but these tend to be bulkier and in the case of the Rebel require an investment in lenses. Good on you Brian!

And returning to the debate over digital vs. film moviemaking, guest poster Adrian Hyland scores some excellent points at the Two Blowhards. Using David Lynch's Mullholland Drive as an example of artistic film making using HD, he concludes, "Is film dead? It seems it’s too early to say. Perhaps artists such as David Lynch will eventually provide us with the answer. Meanwhile the global marketing war continues. As I write this there are probably Kodak executives in Hollywood, gathered around a desk in a boardroom not unlike the one in “Mulholland Drive”, plotting a way to ensure Lynch never gets his hands on Digital cameras again."