American success

I wrote this about two weeks ago but didn't publish it then because it didn't feel very personal, today I'm pulling the lever anyway.

Sunset over Kodak III

By almost any standard Kodak has been hugely successful even if its present status is painful for current employees, like me, and investors. Kodak (for at least its first 115 years) grew from a small business into one the US's pre-eminent corporations. It is probably fair to say that George Eastman and his company built the modern city of Rochester. For the citizens of that city and the surrounding communities it provided good jobs for tens (hundreds?) of thousands of people. Mr. Eastman believed in research and development and for decades Kodak spent a lot of money on research, some of it commercially motivated, some "pure."

This is not to imply that there weren't problems; probably the largest that lingers is pollution from the first half of the twentieth century. Also for a long time there was discrimination against anyone that was not a white male, the only defense being that it probably was not unique to Kodak.

That said this is about successes. Kodak has been in existence since 1880. Studies analyzing the longevity of major modern corporations indicate that most last for a few decades before failing or being absorbed into another business. For most of Kodak's lifetime its stock was a solid investment paying generous and consistent dividends. It manufactured high-quality products used by discerning professionals in a variety of photographic fields. For much of the twentieth century any famous photograph or motion picture was probably made using Kodak products from film to paper to chemistry. The research labs consistently produced innovations in chemistry that helped Kodak create new products. If you wanted to do research in chemistry a job at Kodak meant access to first-rate labs without the need to deal with academic administration. Lately the story of Steve Sasson inventing the digital camera has gotten a lot of media attention and probably deservedly so, but Kodak's expertise in creating crystals and laying down lots of super-thin layers onto a substrate are probably its most important contributions to industry (and surprisingly relevant to manufacturing all kinds of films and flexible materials).

Philanthropically Kodak and its people have been a huge force in Rochester and around the US: George Eastman was an anonymous donor (until recently revealed) to MIT and other academic institutions. Without Mr. Eastman the University of Rochester, its dental school, The Eastman School of Music, the Rochester Institute of Technology, and the Eastman Theater either wouldn't exist or would be much smaller than they are today. Kodak's employees donated time and money to Rochester's United Way and many other local charities.

For those of us that work at Kodak and for prior employees the last ten to fifteen years have been very difficult. A lot of time has been spent inside and out of Kodak discussing who to blame for the decisions that have led to today's low stock price. But I have come to the conclusion that to a large degree Kodak's problems are photography's problems. In the early 1990s you would have needed amazing prescience to foresee how rapidly film would decline. The only popular digital media at the time was CD and those were for distribution of a heavily produced musical product, not a capture medium. Even as digital camera sales grew, changing to be a camera manufacturer would have been extremely difficult. Kodak only made cameras to sell film, and companies that made cameras often produced superior products. Kodak had imaging knowledge, but its R&D and manufacturing was oriented towards chemistry, not electronics (though it had some very smart people working on electronic imaging and amassed valuable intellectual property, e.g. the Bayer Pattern).

As of today the business and art of photography has undergone a very rapid and dramatic change. Photographers have a harder time attracting business and make less money from what they do get, often selling all the rights to the images, which would have been unthinkable 10 years ago. Some photographic manufacturers like Minolta have disappeared, put out of business by low-cost manufacturers in China and other parts of Asia. Even those manufacturers that still exist are under extereme pressure. Canon and Nikon make most of their moneu on low-end consumer cameras and those sales have been reduced because of mobile phone cameras. Probably the only businesses seeing growth in production are the manufacturers of phone camera assemblies, and I expect their profits per assembly are small.

So amidst all the bad news about Kodak it's worth remembering that Kodak did very well for a lot of people for a long time. I suppose that eventually businesses like human beings slow down and die, but we don't think of people as failures because they weren't immortal. We remember their vitality, and maybe even try to emulate their better traits. So I'd propose that despite the last ten years or so we remember that Kodak has been a phenomenal success.

P.S. This is not a eulogy for Kodak. I don't expect the company to disappear, but I do expect that the next Kodak will be very different from the one I grew up with and work for today.

Shooting the Moon

"I'm in the wrong place!" I thought angrily. How could it be that after hours of preparation my photo of the "super moon" was probably not going to happen as planned? The modern technology I had employed to try to capture the best shot had failed me.

I started the day with a list of locations in Rochester that I thought might be good for shooting the moon. Each one was previewed and mapped out with Google Earth. The KML file with the locations was transferred to my phone and Dan O. and I went to each site in turn assessing it for a suitable foreground with the proper orientation. The first sign of trouble happened early when the phone's compass and sky map applications failed to calibrate properly. In the morning I had determined that the moon would rise at about ten degrees south of east but since the compass wasn't working it was difficult to visualize exactly where that was.

After visiting all the locations only one seemed to hold any promise, and we weren't really happy with it. In the end we decided to scrap the urban concept and photograph in Mendon Ponds Park. That afternoon I spent another two hours with Google Earth trying to find the most likely locations that fit our criteria: some sort of vegetation or other detail in the immediate foreground, water in the middle ground (but not a vast expanse) and hillside trees in the distance. Several places along the south west edge of Hundred Acre Pond seemed our best bet.

Dan and Sarah at the edge of Hundred Acre Pond in Mendon Ponds Park.

Dan, Sarah and I got to the park about an hour before moonrise and geared up to scout out locations. Along the way we were distracted by four deer running just uphill of us across the West Esker and a beaver swimming along the edge of the pond. After surveying the area I decided to set up my tripod at the narrow channel that divides Hundred Acre Pond and Deep Pond. Dan decided to try his luck further back along the edge of the pond.

Here I was waiting and wondering when the moon would finally rise above the small hill in the east when I realized that there was a definite glow about 20 degrees to the right from where, based on my jittery phone compass, I had expected the moon to rise. The view in that direction was blocked by dense tree growth. I grabbed up my tripod, Sarah got the pack and we hustled back to where I thought I could get a better shot, but it was too late. The moon was already off the horizon there and I had no foreground detail at all, I might as well have taken pictures of the moon from just outside my front door.

I worked my way over to Dan who had managed to find a location with cattails, water, and distant trees. As I muttered about my poor photographic skills I started to look around (always a good idea for a photographer) and I had a sudden revelation: with the bright light I could make some landscape photographs illuminated by the moonlight and with stars overhead.

Constellation Orion over Mendon Ponds Park lit by "super moon" light.

After a few experimental exposures I began photographing the pond with the Big Dipper hanging directly above. Right away I felt that I had something good here, maybe even better than a photo of the moon itself. After an hour or so of shooting with one final stop for a photo of Orion striding above the pond as though in pursuit of the deer we saw earlier, we piled our gear into the car and headed off to dinner. By the end it turned out to be a very satisfying evening of photography, nature, and friends. Next time though I'm bringing some ancient technology - a compass and a map.

Backyard Autumn Reading and Bird Report

Having exhausted my tolerance for electronic distractions and finding that the air was warm and the sunlight had a golden quality that only happens when it is filtered through autumn leaves I decided to spend late afternoon outside with a book. I completed the scene with a fire, but since it had rained the night before I built a damp steaming blaze then got down to reading.

At a quarter to five a flock of Robins suddenly arrived in the yard; they worked their way from one side to the other in a rough line. Making a loud rustling noise all out of proportion to their diminutive size they turned leaves over and charged one another in their search for dinner.

A second avian wave commenced about fifteen minutes later. Chickadees, White Breasted Nuthatches and a pair of Cardinals arrived at the back feeder. For a short time the female cardinal defended the feeder against all interlopers until she had eaten her fill and flew off. Then the chickadees and nuthatches, with the sound of fluttering wings and quiet chirps, made repeated trips, each time taking a single seed in their beaks then flying to a nearby tree. All of this activity was interesting in itself but I became part of the act when one chickadee flew from the feeder to the roof of the house, then the table next to me, then the top of the baseball hat I was wearing. I imagined that I would be an amusing sight to any neighbor that looked out and saw me reading my book with a bird perched on my head. After a few moments it flew off.

For ten minutes or so the backyard's airspace was busier than a major international airport with departures and arrivals. Eventually the birds' appetites were sated with only a few latecomers appearing sporadically. I waited a little while to let the fire burn down then decided it was time to forage for my own dinner.

Evening Dispatch from the Lion of the Genesee

It is a popular activity in this part of New York to complain about living here. If you ask a local to describe how they feel about residing here you will most likely first hear about "high taxes." It seems that a flood of ink has been spilled over taxes in Upstate New York, enough to drown all other considerations of the region's overwhelmingly exceptional benefits.

Fortunately those of us that live here and are paying attention know the truth; if you don't spend your time grubbing in the till you will discover yourself in one of the the most idyllic places on Earth.

While our current home is no Walden, either in size or quiet solitude it often has a transcendental beauty in the evening. Long shadows thrown across the yard by the low sun; Gold Finches chirupping quietly to each other in the trees while Baltimore Orioles cackle.

In the vegetable garden beans and corn have sprouted, breaking out of the earth. With simple tending they will turn sunlight, air, water, and soil into food. We are partners with them - we provide them sustenance and they will sustain us. Fortunately in the Realm of the Genesee there is usually just the right amount of rainfall and sunlight. If there is ever a growing season without enough rain, the largest freshwater lake ecosystem on the planet is nearby.

A Blue Jay visits the nearby cherry tree inspecting the crop. The Jay hops from branch to branch turning the clusters of green cherries over to see if any are ripe. The cherries aren't near ready yet, but a variety of species remain vigilant. If the Jays don't take all of them before they are ready a small flock of Cedar Waxwings will make a rare visit, to gorge on what is probably more than their fair share.

Spring flowers are now several weeks past, but early summer flowers are at their peak. The petals of Red and Pink Peonies are translucent in the ruddy evening light. The sun's last rays are caught in the top branches of the Poplar trees, leaves turning gold; with the lengthening days come long evenings. Night doesn't fall, rather twilight steals in on cool air. The stars appear stealthily as the indigo sky darkens. Now the Poplar leaves twist and flicker in the slight breeze.

There may be more beautiful places than here, but not this evening. It's a shame that so many of the region's inhabitants won't see the beauty around them; their blindness imposes a tax on their lives far greater than any monetary value.