FBI's Security Risk List and Photographers

Somehow I never thought that my friend E, a wonderful photographer, could ever be on any FBI list but now she is. Here is her story:

Today D and I drove to Galveston--just to get out of the city and also I wanted to photograph the shrimp fleet. Photographing the shrimp boats was cut short because we were threatened with a group of men who wanted to know "the time", but my guess is that they had their eye on my camera and anything else we might have they could take. We got in the car and left, to go drive up the Texas city dyke--a long road jutting out into Galveston Bay. We left there at sunset and as I drove through the Texas City area towards the highway back to Houston, we passed the Texas City Chemical refineries....the setting sun turned all the the smoke golden and all the metal from the tanks and other stuff, reflected in the low sun---kind of an eerie but interesting scene....so naturally I thought....why not take some photos of all this, which I did, stopping the car and leaning out my window taking high res snap after snap. Then out of nowhere, security appeared. (this is a huge refinery area)... They held us until Texas City Police arrived.....they ran all the usual checks on us. Then they held us until the FBI got there...our car sat amidst flashing lights from security/police, etc. We must have sat there at least an hour. Finally FBI arrived and looked at all my digital files, having me magnify them so he could see how much detail there was. He was very friendly and very nice, but made me erase them all, explaining that if these got into the wrong hands, there are people who could enhance the detail and learn how to get by all the security fences, etc. that are in place to protect the refinery. While he explained that D and I are veeeryyy low risk folks, we still will be in the FBI "data base" and if I go around taking questionable photographs of questionable places, the FBI can do a check on me and find me in their records. First thing I thought of was, what about stuff like my downtown Houston Series? some would consider a security breach too if I continued with that project. I pulled up my website on my iPhone and showed the police and FBI the kind of things I photograph---including the downtown series. the FBI man just said not go go around photographing stuff that would be suspicious. not a good afternoon.

Go take a look at E's work. Does this look like a terrorist? And now every time she takes her camera out she will wonder if this is going to trigger another interrogation.

I'm seeing more and more of these situations pop up on Blogs. Just a few weeks ago Howard Grill wrote about his encounters with Security in Pittsburgh. See here and here.

I guess it is true, if we publish this type of pictures on the web, they could be viewed and downloaded by someone else with intentions of doing harm to the USA but it sure is shrinking our world photographically. Censorship is a terrible thing for artists. What is next for my friends D and E? Another encounter and then they move up to medium risk.....maybe the no fly list. I find this whole episode very troubling for all of us.

Questions About The Restaurant Scene in Houston

I don't understand it. Why do restaurants seem to think that keeping the noise levels at a deafening roar is the way to go?

We have been out to eat several times while we are NOB and in all but one of them it was impossible to hear anyone but the person sitting immediately next to you. There couldn't be a conversation across the table and certainly not one that included the whole table. At Beaver's six of us were sitting in a tight booth and there wasn't any possibility of having a six-way conversation. I had to shout at the person sitting across from me. My theory is that so many of the adults in the 20-50 age range have already damaged their hearing with things like rock concerts and earphones at maxi levels, so I guess the sound level doesn't bother them.

The other thing I don't understand is why they serve such huge portions. This wasn't something I noticed while we lived here, nor did I think that the restaurants in San Miguel de Allende served smaller portions when we moved there. But now that we are accustomed to the portions in San Miguel de Allende, the ones here seem like way too much food. Or maybe the serving size has increased even more in Houston. At any rate, I can't belong to the "Clean Plate Club" in Houston.

Even with my complaints about the noise and the size of the portions of food, I have to tell you that the restaurant scene in Houston is alive. There are so many restaurants with excellent food. Variety, vibrant flavors, beautiful presentations.

But my last question about the restaurant scene is how do so, so many people afford to eat out in some of these nice places. Every restaurant was full and had people waiting in line. On our budget "back in the old days of raising children" eating out was a treat and something that we didn't do very often. However around the Christmas season the whole family would go out to a nice restaurant. The "boys" had to dress up in their Sunday best and practice their manners. I remember one year we were at a restaurant where they cooked some items at the table. Two sons ordered the Steak Dianne. They carefully watched the cooking and then when they tasted it they decided it tasted a little bit like the goulash in the school cafeteria....only better.

We have one more restaurant to make before we leave here.....Fleming's Steakhouse. But that restaurant visit will be just the two of us....celebrating our 51st anniversary.

What A Christmas!

Whew, I can't believe that I haven't blogged since December 19. I guess that is the longest I've ever gone without writing something. But we have been too busy to sit down and write.

It has been a marvelous week. All of the usual Christmas things. Shopping. Cooking. Friends and Family. But yesterday was so special. The weather was beautiful. The Grandboys in Houston waited until 8 AM to tear into their Santa stash and they loved everything they got.

I thought that maybe this year I would get out of making the Christmas Jalapeno Quiche on Christmas morning but no such luck. Chef son kept insisting that I make it. Actually it was not an "it" singular. It is "it" in plural. I made three and we had to restrain outselves to leave some for the Chef son until he could get there. This year the tradition of having Jalapeno Quiche may have been cemented for the next generation. Up until this year, the Grandboys haven't wanted any but this year their Dad talked them into giving it a try. They both decided it was "good." "Mimi, this is good" is really quite a compliment coming from boys. I don't mind making it but it does take a chunk of time on Christmas morning.

We have a dinner on Christmas Day. This year my dear daughter-in-law had to seat 23 people. We have always done a real sitdown dinner with the best china and crystal and this wonderful daughter-in-law is keeping up that tradition. She set up three tables plus a children's table....linens, crystal, flowers the whole thing. It was beautiful. But this year was special because we had Ned's 87 year old aunt who is still an amazing woman although she has slowed down a bit but not much. We had a new baby in the family. A little girl who was passed from person to person. We have so many boys in the family, this little girl was really a precious bundle to hold. We had a new engagement to celebrate. We had friends who are getting ready to move to Singapore and a friend from Mexico. And we talked about and remembered Tom who passed away this year.

We are so blessed that Christmas is also celebrated with our extended family. Daughter-in-law's Mom, Dad and brother were also with us and they have adopted our family as we have adopted them.

Somehow old photographs were pulled out and we laughed and talked about how we "looked" back when......

We are blessed! I've heard of families where people feel like it is an obligation to show up for holidays. There are no family squabbles, everyone not only speaks to each other but looks forward to being together.

I have taken some pictures but I don't have time to work them up to put on the blog. So you'll just have to take my word that this was really quite a Christmas.....and we aren't through yet. Still some more parties in Houston and then on to Austin to celebrate with Son #3 and his family.

I hope your Christmas was filled with family and friends and love.

NOB

Yes, we are North of the Border....in Houston. No problems driving North and crossing the border took about 30 minutes. Except, the US Border Agent spoke to us in rapid fire Spanish. Why? We have USA Passports, a Texas License Plate. We don't look very Mexican. This is the second time that this has happened when we re-enter the USA. Is this some kind of test?

We spent the night in Laredo and then drove on in to Houston. Son and family are deep in all the Christmas activities. Betsy's parents are here with them and I know it is a relief to have help with all the regular cooking and such. We stayed with them last night but now we are in a friend's house.

Today we started shopping. Ace Mart for some of the kitchen stuff on the list. The Galleria, Bed, Bath and Beyond, and the grocery store for breakfast and sandwich stuff. Shopping is just overwhelming. So many things that soon you are looking at stuff and thinking,

Gee, this is a great gadget. I could probably use it.

No, no, no! Stop! Only the things that are on THE list! Remember when you had that estate sale and you sold stuff and more stuff. You promised yourself that you were going to live simply and make a smaller footprint on the earth.

But NOB that seems to be difficult to do.

Dolphy is Missing

Dolphy wasn't a very good swimmer. The other two goldfish have always hung out together and they can swim with just a little flick of fin or tail. Not Dolphy. When he swam he wriggled his whole body and he was a loner, preferring to stay down in a little hollow of the rocks or lately at night when the lights in the pond were on, he had taken to coming up to lay on a ledge just a few inches under the surface. You know how you worry about your children when they are loners and just different. That is what we did about Dolphy. We worried. Was he sick? Why didn't he swim with the other two goldfish? Did they kick him out of the school? What was wrong?

Now Dolphy is missing. When we went to bed two nights ago he was on his ledge. Now we can't find him at all. It makes me sad to think of what might have happened to him but I keep having bad feelings toward the neighbor's cat. I think the other two will be okay because they stay on the move lower in the tank but I'm still worried.

Do You Like to Entertain?

Do you like to entertain? Do you entertain often?

Pam Anderson in her book Perfect Recipes for Having People Over says that the very word "entertaining" makes people fearful. She sites a Gallup poll that found that Americans rank entertaining--along with filing tax returns and visiting the dentist--as the number-one stress-related event in their lives. Entertaining scored even higher on the stress chart than childbirth. She says that we should stop entertaining and just have people over.

Well I like to cook and I like to try new recipes and I like to sit at the dinner table and talk. So I don't mind having a few people over. Six people at the dinner table is my favorite number. If I get eight people at the table the conversation gets fragmented with one end of the table talking about one thing and the other end talking about something else. I hate missing out on either conversation. The food is important but the intimacy and conversation is what is best.

Perfect Recipes for Having People Over is a great cookbook because not only are there recipes but she also gives tips for prepping ahead of time so that you don't end up in the kitchen. Of course that is settled in our house because the kitchen and dining room are connected. I can keep up with the conversation at the dinner table.

Are you getting the picture here.....conversation, conversation, conversation. And do you know one of the things your children will remember when they are grown? Times when family and friends shared a meal together. I've found that if you just have people over and keep it simple you can get over being stressed. So yes, I do like to entertain because the payback is such a wonderful way to stay connected with family and friends.

Printing Is Hard

Actually printing isn't hard, it is getting the file ready to print that is hard.

I'm working on some 10 images that I spent maybe a 30 to 45 minutes total working over in Photoshop before I put them up on flickr. Maybe I should work them over more before I put them up on flickr but I doubt that I'll ever do that. To prepare a digital file for printing takes many times that long. I would say I've worked on each image, and I started out with about 15 images, at least three hours apiece, then made a small 5x5 print of each one.

All these little work prints were lined up on a table for editing and some of them didn't make the cut. Sometimes they don't make the cut because they just don't fit into the over all feeling for the total group. Actually in this group of images one of my favorites isn't making it because it just doesn't fit in with the saturation of the other images. And sometimes a print is weak or redundant when compared to the other prints. Often you see how you can make a better image so it is back to Photoshop to work on it some more, a little tweak here and another there. I wish I could see all these issues on the monitor. But most of the time I can't see them until I have an a workprint print in my hand.

This particular set of images were made with the Holga camera at the San Miguel fair in early October. This means film, which means the additional step of scanning and sometimes rescanning to get the best file to work with. Most photographers leave their Holga images with low contrast and muted colors. I love that look but when I worked on these images they just ended up saturated with color. Each decision, each click can be second guessed. Too dark, a little magenta, burn the edge? I get up and walk away from the monitor. I look again. Work some more. At some point, you just say, stop! It is the best I can do today and you push the print button. But getting to that print button is hard work.

Cultural Studies 101

Today is the feast day of Our Lady of Guadalupe. I'm not going to go into all the history of why the Lady of Guadalupe is so important in Mexico because you can read a well-written account of it here. But I will tell you that since last night San Miguel has been honoring her. This altar is on the street behind us. They build it every year and have fireworks, music, food and recite the rosary. During the day on December twelfth, there are several major processions that either come into town to the San Antonio church or go through town to the Guadalupe church and then out on the highway to the orphanage. Many businesses are closed and the children don't go to school. All during the night there were church bells and fireworks from one area or another.

Besides being a religious symbol, the Virgin of Guadalupe is a cultural symbol of significant importance to Mexican national identity. Both Hidalgo and Zapata waged war underneath Guadalupan flags. You see her image everywhere....on plaques, on T-shirts, on tattooed bodies, on jackets with sequins, on dishes, on.....most anything that can contain an image. Many families have framed pictures of her image in their houses and today they brought the image to church to be blessed.

I really don't know how you can possibly choose to live in Mexico and not know anything about the Virgin of Guadalupe. But you know what happened today? I found out that this is possible. The Yahoo email group that many people who live here subscribed to had some people who were asking about and complaining about the noise.....the bell ringing and the fireworks during the night. They wanted to know, "Was this a holiday? Why did the Mexicans have to ring bells and shoot off fireworks and disturb their sleep?" How can anyone who chooses to live in another country be so culturally unaware? So ignorant of the history of that country? I'm embarrassed for them. I think they need to go to Mexican Cultural Studies 101 before they are allowed to renew their visas or FM3.

Chilaquiles Recipe

This chilaquiles recipe is put together from several places but the recipe that it is built on the most is from one of Zarela Martinez cookbooks; Food from my Heart, Cuisines of Mexico Remembered and Reimagined.

First of all, this isn't an exacting recipe. Certainly not exact like you need when you are baking. There are several ingredients that need preparation before you begin to assemble the chilaquiles but they can be done ahead of time and then put together at the last minute. This definitely isn't one of those 30 minute meals and I'm not an expert on writing down recipes so you need to read through the whole recipe before you start. I'm not going into details about how you roast peppers, or cook a chicken and things like that because if you are a regular cook you already know it. But this I can tell you, it is delicious and I had people going back for seconds and asking for the recipe.

Billie's Chilaquiles Recipe

2 or 3 roasted peeled poblano peppers cut into 1/2 inch pieces. I use poblano peppers in lots of things that I cook so I usually have some in the freezer. If you don't have them on hand, then you are going to need to roast and peel the peppers and they can be stored in the refrigerator until needed.

1 pound shredded sharp white cheddar cheese. Again you can shred the cheese ahead of time and store it in the refrigerator until you are ready to assemble.

12-14 corn tortillas dried on the counter or in the oven until they start to curl up - firm but not crispy. Cut each into 20 to 24 small pie shape wedges. Or you can cut them then fry them quickly in hot vegetable oil and drain on paper towels. I like drying them rather than adding any more calories to this rich dish. If you use fresh tortillas I think the dish will be too mushy. I like some texture from the tortillas.

2 cups prepared sour cream - This is straight from Zarela's cookbook and it is a great idea for almost anytime you use sour cream in a recipe.
2 cups of sour cream
1/2 cup finely minced onion
1 small garlic clove minced
2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh cilantro
salt to taste.
Mix all this together and then let it sit for at least 5 minutes or store it tightly covered in the refrigerator for a few hours. It is one of those things that builds an additional level of flavor to a recipe.

3 to 3-1/2 cups tomatillo sauce:
1 pound fresh tomatillos
1 dried (or fried) corn tortilla
1/2 cup chopped onion
2 garlic cloves chopped
2 or 3 serranos - I put in 1-1/2 to 2 then taste and add more depending on the hotness of the serranos and/or the tastes of the people I will be serving. But I think that 2 is probably the right amount under most conditions.
1 cup loosely packed cilantro leaves
1 tablespoon of sugar (you will need to taste and decide if it needs more sugar)
2 heaping tablespoons of Mexican crema or sour cream or you could probably use heavy cream.
1/2 teaspoon of salt or to taste
Cover the tomatillos with water and cook about 5 minutes or until they change color. Drain but save 1/2 cup of the water they were cooked in.
Put the cooked tomatillos, cooking water and the tortilla, onion, garlic, serranos and cilantro leaves in a blender and blend for a minute. I like to have a bit of texture in the sauce rather than smooth. Taste and adjust salt and sugar. This can be made ahead and refrigerated. When ready to use, reheat in a sauce pan and add the crema or sour cream.

1 3-1/2 to 4 pound chicken stewed and shredded into small pieces. This should yield about 3 to 4 cups of shredded chicken. You can prepare this ingredient ahead of time and store it tightly covered in the refrigerator until you are ready to saute it with the onion and poblanos.

When ready to assemble chilaquiles, saute about 1/2 to 3/4 cup of chopped onion and the cut up roasted poblano peppers until the onion is translucent. Add the chicken and saute until the chicken takes on a slightly warmer color but not browned. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Assemble in a large bowl. Add the chicken mixture, the shredded cheese, the pieces of tortillas, about 1/2 of the tomatillo sauce and 1/2 the prepared sour cream. Toss until all the ingredients are mixed. Put in a 9x13 baking dish and top with the remaining sour cream. Bake in 325 degree oven until it is heated through...about 35 to 45 minutes. Take out of oven and top with remaining tomatillo sauce.

Serves 8 maybe 10 depending on what else you are serving.

Work, Work, Work

I've been busy. Barbara and I gave a Brunch Baby Shower at my house on Saturday. There are several things I can blog about from the last few days but I don't have time to really develop the stories so I'm just going to dump it all in this one blog entry.

It took some doing to get the house ready for the shower. First of all we had gardening to do. My plants in the patio had been shredded in the hail storm a couple of weeks ago so I bought lots of pots of white poinsettias and spread them around in the flower bed to cover up the damage. I also bought some new plants to put in pots where the plant that was there was dead or doing poorly. Secondly, we had to move furniture around so that people would have a place to sit down to eat or at least a place so they could put their glass down while they held their plate on their lap. I arranged flowers and rented dishes.

Renting dishes took two walking trips to the rental place across town. It would have been much faster to use the phone but that wasn't an option for me. While I can understand a lot of Spanish when I'm looking at the person face-to-face, on the phone I'm usually lost and I didn't trust that I could get the order right via a telephone call.

Although Barbara was helping out with cooking the food, I had wanted to do the main dish. At first I thought I would do a strata but when I tried one recipe I didn't like it that well. So I decided to try chilaquiles with chicken. I wish I could just take a recipe and cook it but no I always think I can do something else with it, kick it up a notch, as Emeril would say.

I tried out my version of chilaquiles on Ned and he said it was a keeper. Then I nearly drove myself crazy trying to decide how many times I needed to make the recipe to serve 25 women at a brunch. I didn't want to end up with huge leftovers but I certainly didn't want to run out of food either. Somehow in the middle of the night I arrived at some conclusion about how much I'd cook taking into account that these were women, it would be a brunch, it was very rich with cream and cheese, and there was a lot of other things to eat as well. That very unscientific process worked well because even though lots of the women went back for seconds, they ate all of the big green Mexican platter/dish of the chilaquiles and I had a 9x9 Pyrex dish left over as a backup. Whew!

I'll post the recipe later because several people asked for it. I hope they can cook by look and taste because my measurements are "to taste" more so than actual teaspoons and cups. And actually I think once they see the recipe they might not want to fool with it because there are too, too many components to prepare before you put it all together. This is not a 30 minute recipe!

The shower was for Lisa and can you believe that here in San Miguel, we have a baby coming and both sets of grandparents live here too. I know that the general opinion is that San Miguel de Allende is full of retired gringos but that isn't quite true. We have a fairly significant group of gringos with children.

I am working on about eight images for a group show so I can take the finished images back to Texas when we go. I'm also full of angst about these images. They are difficult images from Holga negatives and they are radically different than anything else that will be in the show but the curator for the show thinks she has the right place to hang them and she would like some whimsy and color. I still have at least another week of work on them. If you could factor in equipment, overhead and time, a piece of fine art photography would cost so much no one would buy it. Except for those very few big players who are getting in the thousands for an image, I would guess that most of us make about ten to twenty-five cents an hour.

So the answer to "What did you do this week in San Miguel?" I cooked, gave a party, gardened, shopped, worked on images, rearranged the house and........
Live isn't dull in San Miguel de Allende!

ATM Scams Again

We were caught in an ATM scam here in San Miguel de Allende a little more than two years ago. The scammers came back to town this weekend. We have two friends that had money taken out of their bank accounts after they used their ATM cards over the weekend and we've been reading about a lot of other people that were caught in the scam too.

The last time, when it happened to us, the Fraud people at our bank told us that at that time there was a lot of ATM fraud in Mexico, England and Australia. Somehow the criminals manage to put some device on the ATM machine and read all your information including your pin number. Some of the people that were hit this time had money taken out of their accounts in other places in Mexico in a very short time. This is a well organized scam.

I'm sure that when we tell friends who visit to use Traveler's checks rather than the ATM machines that they think we are alarmist or that Mexico is full of criminal activity. Nope, no more so than England and Australia. I would imagine that the scammers hit tourist destinations in many countries. So be careful and have a plan in place to check on your bank accounts and credit cards often so you know if there is unauthorized activity.

One Second Exposures

I've been looking back at portraits I've made in the past. Some of my favorites are from the Yucatan. Medium format camera, Tri-X black and white film, tripod.....and a relatively slow shutter speed. Maybe 1 second. Just think how many 1/500th or 1/250th or even 1/125th of a second you can put in 1 whole second. A one second shutter speed is slow when you compare it like that. And at one second you need that tripod so things stay sharp.

Do you get more of the essence of a person at one second than you do at 1/500th of a second? Someone will probably say that a well exposed negative is a well exposed negative (or digital file) It doesn't matter if it is 1/500 or one second if it is the right combination of ISO to Shutter Speed to Aperture. I understand that is true from a factual standpoint but I don't think it works that way for me.

Logical or not, I think that working with a tripod and with longer exposures means that I have more "essence" of the person in my picture. It means I have made contact with them and they are willing to share something about themselves with me.

El Cafe

I walked past the little coffee shop near the Instituto. She was alone, no customers. I had the camera on my shoulder. I turned around and walked back and asked if I could take a photograph. She said okay.

The Only Thing We Have to Fear.......

Liz Kuball announced on her blog that December was Portrait month. I like Liz's blog because she is so open and honest about her journey as a photographer. She wants to get over her fear of approaching strangers and asking to make a portrait. As Franklin D. Roosevelt said in his speech in 1933, ...the only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.


Liz is using that quote to get herself past her fear of doing what she wants to do but is paralyzed with fear about doing....Making portraits of Strangers. And just to be sure that she is committed, she has announced before God and fellow bloggers that she is going to make and post a portrait everyday during the month of December. I'm in awe of her commitment and my first thought was that I should do the same thing....Commit on the blog to making a portrait everyday during December because this ties in with a portrait project that I've been thinking about for a couple of years. Sometimes I think I'm just procrastinating but maybe it is fear. I started asking myself what is the fear.

Afraid I'll fail?

Afraid people will think I'm crazy?

Afraid they will say "No?"

Afraid I can't stick with the plan?

Afraid my portraits will be copycat, be bland, have no soul?

Afraid to try it with the Holga camera?


Well this list could go on but I think you get the idea. I'm not as brave as Liz. I'm not committing to making the portrait of a stranger everyday during December but I am going to try to make more portraits of strangers, family and friends this month. So when you visit you might see some of them posted.

Downloads

The other day in the car, I was telling Ned about my menu for a girl's brunch I'm giving. I talked about Chilaquiles with tomatillo verde and also about another casserole that is similar but with a red sauce.

Ned asked, "Do they have eggs in them?"

"No, just tortillas, cheese, chicken and sour cream and either a green or red salsa."

"I thought Chilaquiles had eggs....so what is that breakfast thing with eggs?"

"I can't think of anything like that," I answered.

The conversation moved on to other things. We finished our shopping and we were headed home.

Suddenly, I looked at him and said, "Migas."

"What?"

"Migas. That is the breakfast thing that I use to order that had eggs and tortillas in it."

Does your brain do stuff like this? You just draw a blank but then sometime later it suddenly downloads the information.

Is There a Perfect P&S Camera For Me?

The grass is always greener on the other side it seems.

For about two years I've been wanting a small point and shoot camera to carry in a pocket or purse all of the time. My Canon DSLR camera weighs in over two pounds and so if I'm not planning to shoot, I often leave it at home. But at night when we go to a restaurant or on a little shopping trip it would be nice to always have some way to "grab" a shot if I want to.

I've been reading about each new P&S camera when it comes out. Most of them didn't take more than a glance because one of my requirements is that the camera can shoot RAW images. Some of you probably don't know what that means but once you cross over into RAW territory you just can't go back. Basically it means that you have total control over the digital files instead of some engineer in Japan deciding how the pixels should be interpreted.



One of the cameras that I was interested in was the Sigma DP1 which was announced over a year ago but so far hasn't been released. Sigma said it would be "a camera with the best still image quality in a compact body." That is the perfect description of what I want but after so many months since the announcement, I had decided that the DP1 was a no-go and would never be released. It was just a concept.
This year the Canon G9 came out and it has gotten pretty good reviews. The Con's are it is noisy above 200 ISO, isn't a wide angle lens, and is bigger than I'd like. It is too big for a pants pocket although it would fit in cargo pant's pockets but still it would work in a purse or backpack. A good thing about it is the price that is $100 less than its older sister the G7. So after two years of waiting I was thinking okay, I can live with this. I'll get it when I'm back in Texas.

Then this week the Chief Operating Officer, Kazuto Yamaki of Sigma made this announcement pretty much saying that the DP1 wasn't measuring up to their expectations for the camera and they have re-designed some parts of it and it is now in Alpha testing. He didn't have a release date but indicated that it would be right when they released it.

If this camera could live up to its early specs, this would be the camera I want. But how long would I have to wait until I can see for sure whether the grass is greener. Maybe a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush!