Would you care to explain why you feel like that? Since you are an inhabitant of this planet, your thoughts and actions affect us all. If you hate a country so much we ought to know at least why.
Among many, many things, why I think that there should be far fewer Russians in this world, I remember one situation, that I still vividly and unpleasantly see from time to time.
It was in the middle of the night during one of many air, rocket, and shelling attacks. There was a sound and a feeling of rocket strikes, then the air alert signal went off. And I had to run with the child in my arms to the basement of the neighbor's apartment building, hoping that we are lucky enough and fast enough to not get hit, and hoping that if there were a direct missile hit, there would be another exit in this basement. So we would not get trapped there under layers of concrete, as has happened to less fortunate people in my hometown.
Thank you for the explanation. From that I would infer you wish there be less people from every country that has done the same as Russia. Would that be correct? Do you wish, for example, that there be less Americans, French, Germans, Italians, and Japanese? Also, have you thought of ways how our society could implement your recommendation and reduce the number of people from these countries? Would you suggest a quota of mass extermination for each country, perhaps to be agreed by an international panel? How about the logistics of that? Perhaps something like the Nazi camps with incinerators? I’m genuinely curious about your desires because, as a fellow citizen, your wishes and desires affect us all.
If you are interested, me, personally, was partially affiliated with libertarian party and left Russia after first police visit in early 2021 (so a year before the war, even better in your terms). But that's just an ad hominem and doesn't matter in fact.
Talking generally, that's true that most people didn't leave, and that's totally fine. People don't deserve to play heroes and suffer in prisons because they were unlucky enough to born in wrong place in wrong time. Everybody deserve to have a peaceful life with their families, hobbies and jobs. Wanna play hero - get a visa, go to Russia, give your life, get shit done, if that's so easy. Humanity will be grateful for you.
If you don't - don't say people to do that just because they have different color of passport or speak other language. There is nothing wrong in being a "coward", people just want to live their lives, it's not a game, there is no savepoints.
Each person in the world can be only judged by his own actions, not by others'. Simple, but extremely important, idea which was an outcome of 2 world wars. If you create more hate by nationality or citizenship - you are just like Putin with his "bandera" fetish. Just different objects, really.
The author gave a nice general overview of the topic.
But the thing is, none of these technical things are essential.
Like a lot of people here (me included, but I am actively trying to get rid of it) the author has an engineering mindset, that was built (I am just guessing here) through years and years of engineering work.
And it is really cool and may give an advantage in some professions (and sometimes in life overall), but it is not the best approach to photography or in any other arty topic where one could not objectively measure pleasure and value, and where aesthetic perception is the main definition of something being excellent and desirable.
People often forget that photography is still mostly an art form. And in art, the most important aspect is provoking some kind of emotional response (folks mostly pursue pleasant ones, but it is not limited to that).
To understand lenses, focuses, and shutter speed
how much time does one need? A couple of days? Weeks?
It is objectively easy to learn the rule of thirds, focal points, white balance, etc. But which white balance makes beautiful images? Which calculations would make your friends adore their faces in the photo?
I have no answer to that, do you?
Should images be dark, moody, and sharp like Roger Dickens's cinematography to be likable? Or dark, blurry, and saturated like Wong Kar-wai movies? Or they should be bright, light, and symmetrical like Wes Anderson's fairytales?? Or grainy and geometrically precise like Henri Cartier-Bresson's works? Or maybe images need to be provocative, erotically charged black-and-white photos, fashionable and borderline pornographic like Helmut Newton's works?
There are a lot of cases then some person with a developed sense of beauty creates unimaginably stunning photography by using a smartphone build-in camera, but even more cases when someone with a pricey a-la Hasselblad, titan tripod, cinema-level lenses, 5-point professional lighting, and a long list of detailed photogear videoreviews making the most boring and forgettable images possible.
Feelings > Any technical aspect, rules, or calculations
I am not saying that knowing your tools is not important at all, but it definitely less important than the internet wants it to be.
For example, I know a Magnum agency photographer who takes all his photos with any digital SLR in auto mode (p-mode). And he adores Instagram.
So for any person who wants to start into photography (but not photography-related technology), I suggest watching a lot of photo books and cinematographically superior movies (all by critically acclaimed authors), visiting classical art museums, and for all costs avoiding any online photography communities.
And you should take as many photos as possible every day. Not only on vacations or holidays but just as a visual diary with colors that you found beautiful, unusual patterns that you start to see around, and unexpected shapes that things around us are forming.
Aesthetic goes first. It should be like a tingling feeling on the tips of your fingers when you see something interesting. Then from it go lighting, composition, and color. And these three are codependent.
You need to start seeing light, feeling colors, and thinking in shapes.
Need to develop your sense of beauty and your watchfulness/visual awareness/contemplation (sorry, I don't know how to translate this properly).
One cannot create beautiful photography if one does not know what beauty is.
I've been reading this forum since years, and generally its perception of photography is rather technical and very proud to achieve perfect photos with the right color balance and all that. Sure it's nice to know all those technical concepts, so you can be conscious when destroying them, and have fun.
Concerning photography tech, it's great to talk about sensors, how mobile camera is being achieved nowadays, like explained in those Pixel blog posts, or even about analog photo development works.
Hey HN, enjoy bad photos, take pictures with the worst camera you can find. I've read in some comments here that you need to take at least 10k photos first until you get better, this is not a sport
The original Russian title of the investigation was "Orcs who defeated the techies: How the siloviki infiltrated Kaspersky Lab — and what it led to", you can check this story in Russian here:
https://meduza.io/feature/2018/01/22/orki-pobedivshie-tehnar...
