I would add for those undertaking advanced/tertiary in their field, these shortcut proceedings, but not as much as you would think.

[From Deleted images are submitted as art and make for interesting looking work.]

Which of corse begs the question, what makes a good photograph these days?

Traversing a polarized history, landscape photography shifted from scientific exploration to the idealization of nature and the spectacle of human ‘progress’. Lost along the way was a sense that photographs of the land can speak to an ecstatic experience.

Michael Lundgren

Occasionally life gets a little overwhelming, altfotonet.org is running behind, most other projects are on track. In the interim it seems some time last year Alec Soth stopped blogging, in some ways I don't blame him. This blog seems a worthy filler, even if, the author, comes at things from a slightly different perspective.

[From ManBabies.com - DAD?]

What's kind of ironic too is that the only reason i launched my news reader, was because I just downloaded a news reader to my new iPod touch.

Technology has been bristling around the house of late, a new iPod and a new Phone all in the same month.

The iPod, went on holidays with us, and when ever I could find wi-fi for free I used the internet. The 2 hotels we stayed in Thailand did in fact have it, so for a few days, I didn't miss too much at all. The new phone, is really a camera with a phone attached, and I kind of feel guilty using it. At 5 mega-pixels the camera may even furnish some real prints?

Let's see if we can change that.

Also found this neat application for my iPod touch, that may serve some pupose, we'll see?

So, in the last few days, I was contacted by my telco and offered a new phone, not an iPhone though, this new phone has a 5 mega-pixel camera in it, and will cost extra to add 3g accessibility to it. The iPhone, has but a 2 mega-pixel camera, and looking at some of the plans on offer in terms of downloads, I still think I am better off sticking with the new Sony Ericsson C902, my biggest fear? That the new phone will have TOO MANY camera features in it, after all part of the challenge of using an image capture device like a mophone is that you are limited to light and composition as the only way to achieve image nirvana.

Other implications are:- 1. My mophone blog may stop or change. 2. My Neo-documentary project may also end or change.

Fast forward a few years, to the beginning of flickr, and you see groups worshipping the idea of shallow DOF. Why, I wonder? The technical limitations of Digital cameras and the size of CCds and lenses makes it easier to get great depth of field at 'relatively' wide apertures, compared to film.

Digital Photography has made shallow DOF something to aspire to, for the sake of the technique alone.

Shallow DOF is just like any other photographic technique, to be used and exploited by the creator to get the idea across or tell the story they need to tell.

One of MY favourite photographic techniques to use is time, hence the exif data in many of my titles. The mophone's ability to fleetingly interrupt time in a discrete yet challenging way is what draws me to it. After all to paraphrase one my of my students, photography doesn't freeze time, it simply allows you to see the moments you missed. Camera Phone's just add to that challenge.

In the end a good image is a good image, despite the technique/s used to create it.

Yesterday I talked about this new app I downloaded [fluid.app], since I downloading and running it I've had some problems, serious ones. Of course this particular laptop is very long in the tooth, and at the wrong end of the power scale. I also set-up at 5 apps to run using it, so maybe that was too much a drain on my humble system. The problems I had were, applications hanging to the point where apple+option+esc, was no good and I had to apple+control+restart. The 1st time I did this, I then got the flashing question mark on my start up disk! After a bit of prodding and poking I managed to get things back up and running. Then today the same thing happened, with all 5 apps running again, so I have now stopped using the app, and the apps it creates until I can investigate further.

Pity it is a great idea.

Edit, it seems that it is an OS issue, and may even work well on Intel machines

First process your image in your favourite raw processor. Next, duplicate the background layer twice. Now, convert each layer to a smart object. On the top layer, apply the high pass filter at a setting of about 30-50. On the next layer, convert the image to b&w, using black and white converter in image>adjustments. Apply the high pass filter again, this time however, at a much lower setting, say around 1.5 to 3. Now change the layer blending mode to soft light on all layers above the original background layer. hey presto a crisp image with the kind of acutance we've become accustomed to from our years of film use.

The original image

The finished image.

Uploaded with plasq's Skitch!

*This technique requires Photoshop CS3, Kent Johnson first showed me this idea, I've tweaked it slightly, as I'm sure others will have.

Less is more, as always, be careful, not to go too far overboard with the sliders, but if you do if you've used smart objects you can edit the setting at a later date, on the un-flattened file. So even without CS3, you can simply apply the high pass filter to the image directly, and the results will be the same, but you won't have the infinite undo-ablitiy that the smart objects allow.]]> http://blog.stunik.com/2008/06/photoshop_sharpening.html http://blog.stunik.com/2008/06/photoshop_sharpening.html photography photoshop photoshop/digital tech:photo Sat, 14 Jun 2008 16:56:12 +1100