Printed from a 6x9 negative on Fomaspeed 312 paper. I don't use the step chart a lot but it's very useful with big prints. It works by putting it on the part of the print you want to evaluate then exposing it for a minute. Each slice shows you what the equivalent exposure would look like in seconds.

In this case I chose 48 seconds then did a quick test on the sky and ridgeline to see how that was looking then exposed the whole print.

(This was supposed to be the introduction to another post, but it got large and general enough to be its own standalone thing.)

If you've followed me for any amount of time, you probably know that I hate the phrase "the algorithm." Not the words themselves -- article then noun, can describe anything from weapons targeting to cookie baking -- but the phrase, the gestalt: The Algorithm. I am not being hyperbolic when I say I believe the widespread, uncritical use of the phrase "the algorithm" has done measurable damage to society.

First, and most obviously: Whenever you hear something like "our company uses an algorithm," or even "multiple algorithms," the proper response is "no shit, bro." Any technology of enough complexity to be called "the algorithm" -- the classic example being a recommendations feed -- consists of dozens, hundreds, thousands of algorithms, implemented and reused by dozens, hundreds, thousands of people. You are reading this right now because of layers upon layers of algorithms -- from the Cohost site, your browser, your network, your physical device and its various hardware components, and the thicket of sub-algorithms that comprise them all. (massive oversimplification, don't @ me) By moving your eyes in a specific winding path to understand these words, you yourself, your very body, is enacting an algorithm. The word means something!

More importantly: Whenever you see the phrase "the algorithm" (hereafter referred to as THE ALGORITHM) it is almost always shorthand for "decisions people made and structures people built that do things we won't discuss further." It's useful shorthand: sticky, because it flatters listeners' idealism (whether "technology always magic, you always mortal" or "people always good, technology always bad"), and safe, because it's too vague to run the risk of anything actually being done in response.[1]

Specifically, the phrase is vague about three things:

I feel like 9 months on T Justin Bieber