I recently bought one of those computer tablet thingies for a knock-down price (thanks to my employer dipping their toe in what’s known as “the tablet market” and then pulling it out again toot sweet, then reducing prices on all their stock by 75%). Now, while I’m disappointed by that state of affairs at a macro level, I would never have been able to shell out £400 for the tablet that I eventually paid £109 for. So on a micro level, Ize a happy bunny.
Now, once you have a tablet (iPad, Touchpad, Playbook, Galaxy Tab, Kindle Fire et al) the big question is what on earth you do with them? Well, other than buying stuff (which is what the cynic in me firmly believes is the whole point behind these devices), installing the Kindle app and doing other stuff that would do on a computer (except more slowly, with more swearing and increased use of your index finger and thumb)…one of the things they’re really good at is displaying photos.
I found a nice little app which pulls in photos from custom RSS feeds and displays them in a tasteful slideshow on the tablet when it’s docked. We have ours in the kitchen where we spend most of our time. I love looking over when I’m at home and seeing a succession of the latest photo uploads to the Filmwasters group on Flickr, or any of the other FW-related output on your Tumblr blogs etc. Every 25 seconds I get a new image on the screen anwhile I'm cooking, washing up, making bread, feeding the kids (i.e. breaking up fights and dodging food), wiping ketchup off the floor, drinking beer (well, to be fair, I’m pretty much always drinking beer at home anyway)…anyway, you get the picture. It’s on the whole time in the background and it's awesome.
Now I mention this why exactly?
Well, 2 reasons:
1. I find myself with time to kill in the office at lunchtime (although saying that, the boss has just come back from trying to buy his wife a Christmas present at M&S….he doesn’t look that happy so I’m guessing he struck out).
2. In this day and age, you never can tell where, when and on which device your work will be seen by your audience.
Considering our commitment to traditional photography and its roots in the past (I know, I can't believe I said that either...hmmm), it's pretty cool that we can tie that in with the new, connected world. So, next time some of you upload a picture to Tumblr/Flickr it’s safe to assume it’ll be on display in my kitchen 15 minutes later.
