Syphon brewing coffe pots were very frequent in french families before the electric pot thing ! First design was german but the first patent was held by a french woman (quite unusual in 1825)! While the resulting brew doesn't seems as black as in the expresso system (steam), the ideal temperature of the syphon system (mostly Cona around here), under boiling point, brings out much more caffeine as the acidic light flavors... It is slow... But the results are worth it, it's the exact opposite of the expresso, in time, as in flavor (for the same blend), it's the coffee counterpart of the tea ceremony ! The big drawback is in cleaning those big pyrex tulips that breaks easily !!!

Wow... A great set of pictures. 101 has a Norman Rockwell look to it that I like (Naturalism maybe!!!). 112 is striking... Really ! Sort of an iconic picture of the XXth century. 117 is timeless, sort of "dawn of the world" (or end)... I guess voting will be real hard... !

Mmmm.... There might be some confusion here, between the tool, "photography", and the end that might be art (as in artist), news coverage (as in photojournalism), documentary data (as in an NG article), memory recording (as in "Kilroy was here" ) and the pet portraiture (as in pet portraiture)...! Man Ray was using photography as a media that his friends of Montparnasse hadn't explored (yet), while Kertesz, Brassaï and others will document the way they lived and created their work. SInce it's origin, photography has been used in many ways (just as videos nowadays), and from collages to extreme manipulations (I tend to prefer this word as it covers time from Daguerre to Cindy Sherman) the use of the photographical tool as a brush or as a palette in some form of contemporary art, existed. That prizes would be awarded to such works by photography associations, is simply recognizing that photography is a media and not an end by itself (even if countless forums on the web tend to hint to that). While many of us use the photographical media to pin-point and frame a so-called "reality", we often try by using numerous lenses, filters, formats, etc. to modify it in our very own perception, taking the picture a bit further then the "reproduction" of the given reality (that might just be some sort of photocopying)!!! Even H.C-B used the reality he had under his eyes to "paint" his own "story"! As in all awards, the winner isn't always in everybody's taste (as in Picasso vs Dali), but I believe those awards should still be awarded if photography was somewhere in the process... My two cents viewpoint... :-)

I remember... Years ago, at the first Apple Show in Paris la Villette (1986) we were shown a short movie of a man opening a flat notebook he had on him, the device once opened was seamless and looked like a bigger iPad. While the man took a shower (out of frame) his voice guided the computer to gather elements for his presentation to be (influence of Amazonian deforestation on the desertification of Africa) and we could follow what was going on the screen. At the end, after having asked the device to download the images at the conference room, the man closed the notebook and quitted the room... There hadn't been any socket plugging, modem, or whatever cable dandling anywhere! At the time it was for us, early members of user groups, a complete science-fiction scenario... Today the only detail of that story I can't have is the seamless folding screen ! Years after years, and because of this very precise short movie, I felt that each new keynotes, each new product presented by Steve jobs, was a step toward this visionary short movie (I never could find it anywhere after that presentation). Voice control, flat touchable screen, wifi, as an OS in which software were just mere plug-ins, even the "cloud" notion were already there. A tribute to a man who never left aside his dream and with forbearance gave us his future.

Hi Mike, I agree with that voice recognition software dumping. Though I'm more of an oral culture guy, to speak aloud and alone in the midst of night was too creepy for me.... On the Flickr part, there is something special about that sheer quantity of images collected, quite fascinating! Once a photographer friend asked me what our society did with all of those artifacts of our image culture ? Maybe Flickr's the answer :-)

Ah... Some wisdom from the "big shots" ! When much younger I discovered that f/5.6 was an excellent compromise (for me) between D.o.F., speed, and hand held focusing (when you don't have time to focus on the white of eyes...). In those times we were still playing with hyper-focal to catch that nice lady at the café terrace and we thought we had to be quick and discreet, following H-C.B's advices on the Japanese archer riding his horse... Since the FTb QL time and some long gone films, the latest digital tools hasn't really changed that viewpoint (even with a D3x). Subject and composition still dominates whatever the technical tidbits from then to now... And many thanks to Ctein for trying to be the great peacemaker in the everlasting media war !

I wish him the best ! Though I'm addicted to his daily strips, I guess I'll survive... By buying his books !

Thank you Ctein for this great reminder from an expert (I prefer the french wording: "l'homme de l'art" !). This is exactly what made me step into the digital world. I still have some 1918 Lumière color print from my grandfather (well I can see they used to be in color), just as glass plates from my other grandmother (alas, storage in the small cardboard boxes after two world wars and exotic places had the gelatin divorcing from the glass support), a pretty collection of 3000 slides from my father (Kodachrome) that I try to salvage one at the time... I won't even mention my own films, either B&W, hastily processed with various chemicals or the C41 from the next door shop and will hide with shame from experiments with slides of various origins ! I have the deposit of the family hoard, starting circa 1870 (looks like) up to now, among all those pictures (negatives or positives) following several generations of worldwide tribulations... Yet so few of them are "usable", meaning that are worth the time (or the price) to restore them to an almost proper state ! Some portraits, some exotic views, around one hundred maybe on a stock of several thousands! I'm now a firm believer in digital "immortality"...! Jacques

Congratulations ! Behind all those posts and replies there are so many more readers from all over the world who manage to find interesting all those rumblings and mumblings about photography (but jazz too, as cars, weather, bicycles, and many other weird subjects) ! I just hope for our selfish pleasure that this is just the first cycle of T.O.P. and that you'll manage to bring to the masses more high level content in this perfunctory media...

Ah... Spot on! I've even seen people using a density filter to shoot in stark daylight with a f/1.0, for DoF's sake..! I must be some sort of dinosaur getting f/1.8 lenses to shoot mostly between f/2.8 to f/5.6 (and some days I even reach f/8)! We live in a blurred world !

About organizational skills... I would counsel reading (or re-read in our digital age), "Lila" by Robert M. Pirsig ! I'm quite sure that M.O.Q. (Metaphysics of Quality) would blend well with T.O.P. Jacques

Seems the main bunch is a wee bit younger then I am (darn, I just changed the number yesterday !!!). I'm surprised France does show in the breakdown, but then, T.O.P. is written in bona fide language, allowing for our graduate school frog eaters to stay on the level !!! Keep the good work Mike, the world is watching you... Jacques

I must say I'm not really a zoom guy... I honestly tried, bought some, and then gave them to my children (grown up)! It's a relief to see in those numerous replies that I'm more in normality then I thought... I use almost exclusively a 35/2 and a 85/1.8 with the latter being almost welded to my full frame camera ! I'll digress a bit, too, as I discovered that my sight, or my likings, has shifted on the longer side through years and age. I started when young with the 35mm as a main lens, then in ripe age to 50mm, and now at 85mm... As I'm looking forward to a 105 macro VR, would that mean I'm near retirement ? Of course I could have bought a Velocette as Ross (nasty kick back) but have always dreamt of a Vincent 1000cc... However I'm still perfectly happy with a clunky Diversion after years of flat twins engines :-)

Thank you Mike, this is just the sort of digressing post that makes me love T.O.P. Jumping between prime lenses, embroidered straps (I remember those) and manual gear cars is just perfect ! I must be evolving backwards, as after the zoom era, I just stick to the three basic "slow" primes (f/1.8 or f/2)... And I'm quite happy with manual transmission on cars though as I usually ride a motorbike, it's more a foot gear change thing!

Happy Birthday Mike, I don't post often, but do read daily TOP ! Living in Paris, I don't use Amazon or others related sites as I have the luck to have everything at my doorstep, but I promise I'll find a way to subscribe for this fourth year... As, after the "potty training", I suspect the toddler will start exploring the world... !