Fall—walking within the 1200m circle. X-Pro3, ISO 160 1/420s f/2.4 60mm

A few newsletters ago I wrote about the iPhone 12’s impact on photography. Well, as a Mac user it's hard not to mention this week’s other watershed Apple event: the M1 introduction. The company is now—for the very first time in its history—fully in charge of its entire destiny.

We all knew Apple Silicon machines were coming, but few expected a desktop to be part of this initial launch—the Mac Mini was a surprise. But it begs the question: is it worth it for any of us here?

I’ve used an iMac since the G4 “sunflower” model (1) and I’m still running a late-2015 quad-core i5 iMac 5K. It’s a great machine that still works surprisingly well (minus that Big Sur beta debacle). But the screen now shows very obvious yellowing/purpling on its edges, and signs of burn-in as well, which is a bit disappointing (as a photographer, it’s an increasingly problematic situation as well). So this has made me question the concept of an all-in-one, for the first time in fifteen years.

Enter the Mac Mini. The performance of the M1 chip—at least on paper—makes it a very real possibility all of a sudden. The unknown, however, is RAM: it tops off at only 16 GB. I was extremely surprised when I saw this. Now, is it because the new Unified Memory architecture changes the way RAM performs? Is 16 GB suddenly equivalent in terms of performance to, say, 32 GB (2) ? Because of bottlenecks being removed etc? Or is it a limitation of the M1 that will bite us in the you-know-what once we start running pro apps? Optimization is fine but the need for physical space remains right?

During the presentation, we saw creatives working in Logic Pro X and FCPX, claiming insane performance results. I use both of those—very intensive—apps: was that realistic? Were the apps each being used in a silo, with nothing else running in the background? Did the artists actually work for a prolonged period of time? I know from the iPad Pro how impressive Apple’s chips are. There’s no doubt in my mind about that. But I also know the Mac is a multitasking device at its core—and this is where RAM comes in.

At least, traditionally.

Maybe we’re suddenly living in a Brave New World.
Maybe we really have reached the future.

I guess we’ll know next week, once real folk start using the machines. I’ll certainly be watching.

Now, for this week’s links.

1. My ex-business partner kept it when I moved to the screen-only G5 version. That was such a mistake on my part. I loved that computer. 

2. I’m using 24 GB in the iMac.

LINKS

Giants: A New Book Documents the Magnificent Experience of Swimming with Humpback Whales

The ultimate escape: gorgeous images of a surreal realm.

Architect Carlo Mollino’s Secret Stash of Erotic Polaroids (NSFW)

I’m not sure how I feel about these: is the medium the interest? Some of the pictures are well done but I can’t deny the importance of the Polaroid look in all of this. Without it, some are downright pedestrian.

And there’s a reason I used that particular portrait as the banner: not because it’s the only image without nudity(it is) but because it’s by far the one I find most interesting.

BLACK SUN: Amorphous Flocks of Starlings Swell Above the Danish Marshlands

There are apparently starlings in Canada in “the southern regions of all Canadian provinces”, according to quick web search. But I’ve never seen murmurations.

This project from Danish photographer Søren Solkær is incredibly beautiful. He’s intensified the graphical aspect of the phenomenon and the results are breathtaking.

Of course you all know by now that Sean Connery passed away. And yes, he was by far my favourite Bond. But You Only Live Twice (1) also happens to be my favourite Bond movie (ok, along with Diamonds Are Forever). So I was surprised to read this account of the production and how fraught with problems the entire enterprise turned out to be at the time. I saw this as a kid on local French television, multiple times…and it just spurred my imagination, for some reason.

Fun fact: many years later I stayed at the New Otani, in Tokyo, where part of the movie was filmed (it’s the Osato Chemicals headquarters and the gardens were used in the ninja training scenes).

I so should’ve ordered a Martini while I was there…

1. My all time favourite Bond theme song too—both the original Nancy Sinatra version and Bjork’s remake.

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Talk soon,
Patrick

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