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History

I've been interested in photography since I was a teenager. When I graduated from college I read "The Camera" in the Life Library of Photography. I internalized those fundamentals of focal length, exposure, f-stops and film speed, and remember them still. Although I never got much beyond the stage of competent snap-shooter, I always had a decent camera, and took pictures steadily over the years. After a trip to Peru in 1998, my old Rollei 35 began to give up the ghost, and I purchased a Nikon Pronea S APS camera for a trip to Switzerland. The new gear rekindled my photographic interests, and in late 1999 I upgraded my camera to a Nikon Pronea 6i, a very competent APS SLR.

My interest continued to grow, and somewhere in my meanderings around the web I stumbled on Qiang Li's Photocritique.net. I purchased a flat-bed scanner, and on March 8 or 9, 2000, I made my first two posts, one of them Air, which Gary Jean, JJ and Jim Hamilton commented on. Garry Schaefer commented on the other ( "To Fly"). They were kind, and thus emboldened, I posted actively on the site for several years.

I looked up the Boston Camera Club, which just happened to meet a few blocks from my home. After attending a few sessions to observe, I joined the club in November 2000, and in December, I entered a black/white photo Doorknob that took a first, and eventually was awarded "Print of the Year 2001". I've stayed active in the club, and have a page devoted to entries that have received awards (just bragging rights, no money) at the monthly "Latimer Print Group" competition. The club has an invited speaker and pro, who also critiques our photos. As time passed, I became interested in street photography. Street photography is not everyone's cup of tea, and so I've drifted away from the BCC, to participate more in a local group of Street Photographers.

In July 2003 I bought a digital SLR, a Nikon D100. It could be quieter and smaller but coupled with a small 24mm f2.8 nikkor, it works passably well as a street camera. Prior to that I shot mostly film on a Nikon N80, with a trusty Nikkor 50mmf1.8, a Nikkor 28-105, a Nikkor 18-35, and a venerable Nikkor 70-210mmf4. I recently bought a Nikon Coolscan 4000, thereby deciding to stick with film for a while longer. I taught myself to develop B/W film, which I scan. All my stuff goes through photoshop. I spend the time in photoshop that earlier photographers spent in the darkroom. I'm very comfortable with it, including some of it's dark corners. I also purchased a used Konica Hexar AF, a small, quiet, unobtrusive camera with a very nice lens. This camera works very well for "street photography".

Purchase

Although I'm in this primarily for the fun of it, I have on occasion sold images and rights to my photos. If you are interested in purchasing any images you see here, please contact me for a quotation (I accept paypal). Most of these images are available as 8x10 to 12x18, some larger, in limited editions, and at "emerging artist" prices. These images are also available for purchase in electronic form. I own exclusive copyright for all the material you see here.

Technology

This web site is pretty rudimentary. I do this at my day job, and in addition to the preparation of a web site representing something of a "busman's" holiday, my orientation is to straightforward presentation. This is about my photographs, not a tour-de-force of bouncing logos.

At the same time, I'm interested in ease of maintenance, and the ability to enhance or change the appearance of the site with little effort. All my images are recorded in XML (eXtensible Markup Language). I have a file containing entries that look similar to this: 

  <image or="h">
    <name>air.jpg</name>
    <year>2000</year>
    <month>3</month>
    <title>Air</title>
    <comment>Pronea 6i, Nexia 400, Nikkor 28-105</comment>
    <class>color</class>
    <class>Boston Camera Club</class>
  </image>
I have developed several "style sheets" in XSL, a transformation language for XML. I use James Clark's xt processor to transform the file with the description of my images into various layouts, and subsets, that you see links for on http://www.johnsidlo.com. I add a new image and thumbnail, then include it's description in the xml file, then run a short script that regenerates the html files automatically, which I then upload to my site at www.dreamhost.com.

I'll be happy to send a copy of my XSL stylesheets (no support - sorry) to anyone who asks. XSL is definitely not for non-programmers, nor even faint-of-heart programmers. It is well suited to this particular task, but one of the more obtuse of the dozens of programming systems I've encountered over dozens of years programming. Assembly required...

Dreamhost.com hosts my site, and they run on the Linux operating system. I use the php system, because it is similar to ASP under Windows Internet Information Server (IIS), which I use at my day job, and because it is available on various operating systems, including my Windows 2000 system. I test my site on my locally running IIS before uploading it to dreamhost.

Other Resources



Announcements

I add images to this site on a regular basis, and periodically (once or twice a month) send out a notice when new material is available. Enter your name and email address if you would like to receive them. After you enter your name, you will receive an email at the address you provided. You must respond to that email message to complete your registration. (This prevents others from submitting your email address.)

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