December 2007 Archives

Self-portraiture is nothing new in Photography. Digital Photography increases the ease and speed of applying such a project. [flickr is rife with narcissistic projects like this, but what photographer isn't interested in a picture of themselves every now and again, although the 365 day project is an interesting one] This guy, has an ongoing project that he says he will do until he dies. Interestingly, he also lists several other projects that are long term documentary in nature, of the most recent internet famous one is by Noah, who interestingly only ran the project for 6 years.

A nice little article describing why point and shoots don't really benefit from large chips over 6 mega-pixels.

Thanks to Bart for the headsup

Is this not the time of year that folks make lists? Given my list would be something along the lines of process film, make prints create new e-book/s, shoot more film, it'd be pretty boring. So I'm not writing one.

On another side note, the two prints I had in the show recently at Gallery 124 in Sunshine sold, thanks to Chris and Paul and the person who bought them whoever you are? As a consequence I've decided to print the entire body of work, entitled maps, as a series of small silver gelatin prints. So this gives me a year or so to find a space and make the prints.

I took delivery today of a set of desktop speakers by JBL, that I won in a competition, that I didn't even realise I'd entered. Thanks Australian Macworld.

Season's greetings to all my readers, it now seems I have more than 2, whatever your religious beliefs, philosophical leanings or socio-political stance.

Found this today on youtube, one of my favourite Sci-fi movies on DVD, again.

It's interesting seeing how my images are used around the internet, the consumerist uses this image, in an article about Borders and plastic bags, another article about rock and roll and taxes used a graffiti image of Jim Morrison that I photographed, to decry the lack of 'attitude' to the tax department.

All this thanks to bighugelabs.com's flickr dna page.

Victoria Park's 'ART$MASH' VPG's 2nd annual fund raising show.

Opening Wednesday 19th December 2007 5.30 - 8.30pm.

Exhibition runs 20th - 22nd December 2007.

I've a couple of small pieces in there.

Not sure if I've mentioned this before, but once a week I upload 7 photos from my hard-drive to facebook, seven photos only, some weeks it's hard, this week in particular, others it's even harder, if I didn't shoot much during the week. This; on top of my daily posting direct from my phone which requires a different approach to selecting.

...and that's not being talked about.

Yah! Flickr has stats now, more info on their help page.

In camera, or post-production?

Recently in a flickr discussion forum, the issues of in-camera processing came up. LotF, the photographer in question, was disappointed at the results his new camera was producing, with in-camera b & w conversions, compared to an older camera. Some argued that it was the camera, or maybe the camera's software. Others also wondered out loud about the pro and cons of in camera conversion and post production conversion.

I am a fan of being aware of and able to control outcomes to meet my expectations, this is something any software that is fully automatic will lock the user out of entirely. Therefore I tend to avoid in-camera processing, besides it's almost impossible to make good judgments on a screen that small.

So, for me the only way to convert is in post-production. I did however conduct a small simple test, one shot as usual and then the same shot with the camera set to b&w*

I used Photoshop's black and white conversion on the default settings. The results indicated to me that post was indeed better. Subtle but better. [The in-camera shot for comparison.] The highlights were over-exposed, the shadows and mid-tones were ok though, I guess if you had the software to run a jpeg through a raw conversion tool, you could fix up some of the problem areas and blend them together.

This in camera processed shot, has blown highlights and poor mid tone separation, the contrast seems to high too for my liking.

Post processed has more values to work with, the shadows reading #3, are little empty for my liking though, easy fixed with some tweaking in Photoshop.

We are fortunate to have a northerly aspect in our backyard. This means the light sweeps across the yard transforming the view at certain times of the day and an year into something that is a sight to behold. I often use is as test area for cameras, for kinda obvious reasons I guess. As a result I now have kicked off a new small idea.

Melbourne Victoria Australia, Workshop Bar Elizabeth St.

Thanks to Burntfilm [Rob].

Some days a photograph no matter how minimal, can say more than I can dream of ever saying.

Thanks to TK on flickr, here's a good read on the newsweek site about the state of photography as a cultural tool.

A new feature has been introduced to the flickr experience, called places, it allows you to search for and find images of places around the globe.

I suspect things will shortly be getting out of hand around here.

APROPOS – HUMAN RIGHTS IN ARTS EXHIBITION

‘Apropos - Human Rights in Art’ brings together international, national and community based artists to explore how contemporary practice can articulate and illuminate issues of human rights.

Apropos presents a wide range of mediums and approaches used by contemporary artists to critically respond to current human rights issues and the role of art within that dialogue. Including collaborative and community based projects, Apropos actively engages with the broader community and facilitates the artistic expression of those directly affected by human rights violations.

The works in Apropos respond to a diverse range of human rights issues including freedom from discrimination, environmental issues, refugees, poverty, labour rights, indigenous issues, humanitarian conflict and freedom of expression.

Participating artists include:

• Zehra Ahmed (NSW)
• Clifford Charles (South Africa)
• Claudia Del Fierro (Chile)
• Juan Ford (VIC)
• Alex Gibson (VIC)
• Matthew Hunt (WA)
• Raafat Ishak (VIC)
• Ash Keating (VIC)
• Deborah Kelly & Tina
• Fiveash (NSW)
• Andrew Mcqualter (VIC)
• Leonardo Ortega (Chile)
• Mark Hilton (VIC)
• Scott Redford (QLD)
• Christian Thompson (VIC)
• Culture Kitchen Collective (ACT)
• Gembel Collective (East Timor)
• Taring Padi Collective (Indonesia)
• StART Community Artists (VIC)
• Victorian Equal Opportunity & Human Rights Commission
• Community Art Project (VIC)

BUS Gallery 117 Lt Lonsdale St Melbourne, Films Screening @ RMIT Capitol Theatre 113 Swanston St Melbourne.

A new experience in online photography and chat is in beta stages.

It's like flickr on crack!