February 2008 Archives
This image, was almost ruined by the most basic of technical errors. Flare!
I had to apply some post production to bring the image back to life. In the world of film and larger format cameras a lens hood is a given, for me. The post helped but still didn't bring the image back to life. and a good crafts person, uses tools like photoshop to take the image some where else rather than rescue it.
This little digital camera of course has no built-in ability to add a lens hood. I guess a design issue that the camera manufacturers have to weigh up, after all there would be few amateurs who would consider moving into the position where the sun was so oblique.
I would like to see the facility to add a lens hood to any camera, to minimise these issues.
Photography and memory are culturally intertwined in ways that are beyond my abiltiy to write about, but this little find, is; well; worth a thousand words.
[From Message in a bottle « Flickr Blog]
Perhaps you might like to skip the blog entry and head straight over, to photojojo?
Errr this assumes you have a flickr account right?
We're all used to spam, we have various ways of dealing with it. This morning I received and e-mail that surprisingly got missed by my spam filter. Surprisingly, and thankfully. The e-mail asked me to visit a new site, one it turns out is dedicated to art and photography, but not your usual on the wall stuff. It is an online TV show dedicated to Photography and Art.
I had a quick look and what I really like the most was the segments on off the wall TV ads, I will go back and explore more.
[Edit]
It seems that they are trying to be some sort of high end youtube for photographers and artists. Mainly your usual polished and somewhat titillating commercial work, not too difficult mind you.
It has been a while since I talked about one of the best digital photographic tools on the market, Lobster, that overcomes one of Photoshop least talked about shortcomings; colour.
Recently, I received an e-mail from the developer, that Version 2 will be released shortly.
The funniest part, for me, however was in his e-mail he stated that he knows no-one who uses a Windows box, and wondered if I could help him find a tester for the Windows version, and of course I, actually, am in the same position, all the Photographic power users of Photoshop I know run Macs.
Here's a screen-grab in my flickr stream.
Sorry to say folks but Polaroid is continuing to make film, they are however, switching to a different technology in 2009, this will have minimal impact on current stocks of materials as Polaroid have plenty on hand to last until 2009.
Our supplier at my work, from "Schreiber photographics", a reputable man who has been in the business for over 40 years gave me the scoop yesterday. So have no fear Polaroid film is here to stay.
Speaking of, I recently acquired a Polaroid 600 camera and will, when I get the chance begin uploading shots from it to my flickr account.
Oops, yesterday I mentioned an open source light-weight image editor for the Mac, it's called Seahorse and can be downloaded, from their website.
Apologies folks, things are heating up around here, it's going to be a big year all round.
Here is a good article on the new paper I mentioned a day or so ago.
This years winners are online.
The winning entry, for spot news, reminds me of Capa's famous shot on the Normandy Beaches at the end of WW2. And will I suspect generate some heated discussions around the world.
Just found out about this new inkjet paper that uses similar technologies as fibre based papers. One of the reasons I still use a darkroom is because of this paper type only being available as a wet process, it is called fibre based paper and uses a material called Bartya.
I've yet to get my hands on some but a reliable source is impressed, anyways from a website that sells the paper.
HARMAN PHOTO Professional Inkjet GLOSS FB Al Paper is a premium quality, nanoporous paper on a true photographic fibre base. It is designed to produce instant dry high quality images on a wide range of photo-dedicated inkjet printers, using dye or pigment inks. Uniquely the paper incorporates a layer below the ink-receiving layer called Baryta. Baryta is a special coating that is traditionally applied to fibre photographic paper base prior to coating with the emulsion layers. The technical benefits of this layer include greater detail and definition, extended tonal range, and excellent archival properties. In addition Baryta coated fibre papers have a unique look and feel which have become the standard for fine art photographers worldwide over the course of more than a century. The paper contains Alumina, which gives a high degree of glossiness, optical image density and vibrancy.
Can't wait to get my hands on some.
This year sees me teaching a subject I haven't taught for several years. It is both an easy subject and a hard subject to teach. At my work we call it Folio. It is a subject designed to help students develop conceptual and technical skills in creating a body of work that they may use to either gain employment, or go to further studies. It also exposes them to many more photographers than they would normally see, or look at, and gives them an opportunity to learn to articulate about photographs beyond: "I like this because it worked" or "I took this because it looked beautiful".
At one level this is an incredibly liberating experience it can allow me to free associate and talk at length about what I think photography is and isn't, what is good about it and what I dislike, where I've seen it come from and where I see it going to.
It also relies heavily on the experience, for some of the time anyway, being a 2 way street.
All in all it's going to be a good experience, challenging but good nonetheless. This year I'm expecting folio to impact on what I write and how often I write here, so readers please forgive me if I go off on a tirade or start speaking in jargon. After all what does constitute a good photograph, is there such a thing as a bad photograph, is it important to pay attention to the kinds of details that have long been important in photography like good craft, how important is the substance behind a photograph, should a good photograph hide more than it reveals?
These are some of the questions I hope to encourage my students to contemplate and try and articulate in language and their photographs.
Just sent off a request to Aviary - Creation on the fly / tools, for access to their software when it's launched.
[From Aviary - Creation on the fly / tools]
Thanks to Subbzy for the heads up
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