tingilinde

sport - in beautiful high contrast b&w

lovely photos by Paolo Pellegrin in today's NY Times

geometry in the air

Jeff Geertsen took this in Gibson Part in Great Falls, Montana.

excellent!

the power of images

Greg recommended the powerful imagery of Alexey Titarenko - amazing, almost dreamlike stuff!

About the same time Jheri pointed to the "dancing video" that is making its way around. Take a look if you haven't seen it. A simple idea capable of bringing joy.

snapshots from minus ninety south

Impressive location, temperature and scenery

serious food photography

The food we eat often doesn't look as good as the "stuff" that was photographed to sell it to us.

Trengove Studios sells and rents food props - from the cereal splash you see to "ice" cubes that are hand blown from pyrex and go for $75 each. Check out some images you may recognize.

an amazing photostream - the loc

The Library of Congress photostream at Flickr.

wait until you have serious time

Their blog is another feature that requires serious time

teaching us how to see

The NY Times ran a piece on Ansel Adams - be sure and check the interactive feature linked from the main article.

I was a teenager when I saw some of his prints for the first time. They taught me several things: you need to look at things carefully, even simple scenes can be fascinating, shadows and contrast are powerful and it doesn't make any sense for me to think of myself as a photographer.

the blind and photograph

neat and inspiring The little movie is a nice introduction.

thanks for the link Jean!

amazing images

Amazing images of the sort pioneered by Doc Edgerton at MIT in the 30s

(thanks for the link Greg!)

prime lenses

Lens design is filled with tradeoffs and zooms are very compromised compared to simpler designs. I'm a big fan of "prime" lenses (just a single focal length) and good ones at that. There is some clumsiness and I can't afford a good digital camera for mine (all Nikon glass), but the performance is almost always better.

Jeff points out a piece on the subject aimed at the novice camera user.

large format photography

Over the years Alan and I have had a a conversation about really large format photography ... moving beyong 8x10 inch film. It turns out some very specialized work has been done (some amazing stuff from Polaroid when the company was viable) and interesting experiments seem to pop up in unusual places.

This is the largest I know about - the 1800 gallon developing tray caught my attention

snip

The Great Picture was created over the nine months leading up to July 2006 by six well-known photographic artists collectively known as The Legacy Project, aided by 400 volunteers, artists, and experts. Working in their jet-hangar-transformed-into-camera, the group hand-applied 80 liters of gelatin silver halide emulsion to a seamless 3,375-square-foot canvas substrate custom-made in Germany. Development was done in a custom Olympic pool-sized developing tray using ten high volume submersible pumps and 1,800 gallons of black and white chemistry. The premier exhibition at Art Center College of Design, South Campus, will feature The Great Picture along with videos and photographs in an environment designed to re-create the dramatic atmosphere within the jet-hangar-as-camera where the giant photograph was made.

The Great Picture has been featured in hundreds of publications from art journals such as Art in America, Photographie, AfterImage, Juxtapoz, and Black & White Magazine to newspapers such as the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, Der Spiegel and The Guardian. A hardcover book on the project, now in production, will be released in 2008. In addition, the Guinness Book of Records pre-approved and is now evaluating applications in two categories: world’s largest photograph and camera.

The photograph shows the control tower, structures and runways at the heart of the shuttered 4,700-acre Marine Corps Air Station El Toro in Southern California, shut down in the base closings of the mid-1990s. Once home to U.S. Marine Corps air operations for the western United States and Pacific region (including Japan, Korea, Vietnam, and the Middle East), El Toro is now being turned into housing and one of the largest urban parks in the western United States.

user experience and photography

For many photographers (at least 35mm class), there just isn't anything better than a Leica. Daring Fireball notes a New Yorker piece on the subject

a nice short description I've seen of the Leica experience:

The Leica is lumpless, with a flat top built from a single piece of brass. It has no prism, because it focusses with a range finder—situated above the lens. And it has no mirror inside, and therefore no clunk as the mirror swings. When you take a picture with an S.L.R., there is a distinctive sound, somewhere between a clatter and a thump; I worship my beat-up Nikon FE, but there is no denying that every snap reminds me of a cow kicking over a milk pail. With a Leica, all you hear is the shutter, which is the quietest on the market. The result—and this may be the most seductive reason for the Leica cult—is that a photograph sounds like a kiss.

I don't know of a camera that puts less between the photographer and the photo - and does it so well...

Of course, when push comes to shove for the serious photographer, things are getting interesting (if you are willing to spend something north of $35k)

color photos from six decades ago

A few years ago the Library of Congress had an exhibition of color photos from America during the early 1940s ... a remarkable, and largely forgotten project. I blogged it when the exhibit took place, but apparently it is being pointed to by reddit. ... so take a look if you missed it.

The photo is from Madison County Montana...

open source aerial photography

This looks very appealing - noted by the Make blog...

(if the site doesn't work, here is the make link)

seeing red

People have been excited about a new video camera from Red for about a year - it is supposed to be released this year and a price list has appeared.

A friend who does video is excited about this, but the performance is so far beyond what is currently done in that price range that skepticism reigns. This claims to be a 4k camera and can even do 2540p at 60fps.

lovely widescreen photography

Joergen Geerds has fantastic panoramas of NYC (and a few other areas)

recommended!

alternatives to passive entertainment

Recently I saw a report aimed at the upper management of one of the larger tv/phone/internet providers. The message was that people loved to be entertained and, by providing them with entertainment everywhere, profits will be wonderful. There were details about securing the paths to the viewers (oddly enough IPTV is seen as making the viewers "active" rather than "passive") and making sure upstream datapaths from households are small, but the big message was "content is king" and there will be a revolution in content delivery.

I don't buy it. Content has never been king - communication has been more important historically (nods in the general direction of Andy). People have limits - most won't happily pay more than $200 a month to have "convenient" movies available on their TVs, cellphone and computers. $2 songs on their mobile phones aren't going to cut it.

What encourages me is the growth of amateur activity

am·a·teur (ăm'ə-tûr', -tər, -chʊr', -chər, -tyʊr') n.

A person who engages in an art, science, study, or athletic activity as a pastime rather than as a profession.

I would modify this ... A person who passionately engages ...

Many (most) of those around me have some amateur activity where they actively grow. I was tempted to make a list, but I would miss too many people - I'm really impressed with much of the work I've seen. Photography is common, music for some, art for others and even amateur science (Sukie is a well respected amateur ferret medical expert). One person makes computer numerically controlled machines that are used to make more exotic machines, yet another makes guitars from scratch. Several are passionate about cooking as an art, a few are serious skiers, some make short movies and one is a B-movie actress. The list goes on and on. If you fund yourself you can not only live a dream, but stick with it and your skills will improve. These are all fascinating people.

I relax by attempting digital art and music. Don't be impressed. I'm astonishingly bad, but I'm the only audience and have a low threshold for quality. With help from a few mentors I'm slowly improving and the act of creation has fundamentally changed how I hear and see things around me.

For those who use computers, the tools are better than ever. My little twelve inch laptop may not be the best platform for doing art, but my desktop machine is just fine. A few thousand dollars gives me the same tools used by some of the best artists on the planet. This is the same amount of money we would be sending to our TV provider in a few years if we opted for high end entertainment rather than "lifeline" TV service.

I recommend this sort of activity to almost anyone - I haven't found any TV shows that are as rewarding as my low quality artwork - at least to me. (I note it is the act of making the items that is important to me - I generally destroy the results)

There are a few great things on TV and one shouldn't abandon the medium, but all of you have something more in your creative souls than being able to laugh along with a sitcom. Perhaps you can get together with friends and create your own show. Look at the beginnings of Rocketboom or some of the early shows on Adult Swim -- or SouthPark for that matter.

The Fall TV season and the relative inactivity of Winter are approaching. Forget that new HDTV. Give thought to scaling back your cable bill. Give yourself some tools and lessons with the savings. Your consumption of media may drop a bit, but when people at the holiday party as what you are reading or what you thing about some hit show, you can talk about your artwork, musical arrangement, homemade cosmic ray telescope, or whatever ...

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I apologize for the soapboxing, but there are richer activities than being passively entertained.

can you see the milky way?

I'm always amazed when I hear someone has never seen the Milky Way. It shouldn't be surprising - I have never seen any reasonable display of it in New Jersey. I used to see it from the Eastern end of Long Island on clear moonless nights, but the light pollution that comes with population density generally renders it invisible.

It can be overwhelmingly spectacular. Growing up in the intermountain West, I was treated to wonderful views on a regular basis. As a kid I had a difficult time identifying the constellations because there were too many competing stars.

Watching the star studded sky on a moonless night is powerful and a great place to contemplate the deep questions, to tell stories or to listen to the coyotes (or wolves if you are lucky).

If you have never witness the grandeur may I recommend a vacation?

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This photo is from La Silla Observatory in the southernmost part of the Atacama desert in Chile. To the left is the old 15 meter dish of the Swedish-ESO Submillimetre Telescope, and on the is the ESO 3.6-metre telescope, at the highest point of the mountain. There is an upside-down reflection of the sky in the highly polished antenna dish. The orangeish-yellow area of light on the dish is the reflection of the city lights of the city of La Serena, about 100 km away. Even in the darkest places there is light pollution.

This is a 40 second exposure with an unguided early Canon dSLR - I can pretty much guarantee that your own dark adapted eyes will produce a more spectacular image (not in limiting brightness, but in sheer "wow")

snow and spring

snowbounce
Originally uploaded by esc.

We had a snowstorm this morning.

photographic gear

In the past two weeks two friend have asked me for camera recommendations. One was confused by the hyper abundance of models and the other was looking for a dSLR to improve the quality of family photos.

I'm not a terribly good photographer myself, but I know a few people who are (Bjarne and Lynn among the readers of this blog and a few professionals). I have a sense that the quality of photographers follows a powerlaw curve. At the high end there is a combination of genius, art, hard work and training. At the low end there is ... well ... not much. Most of us can greatly improve our photography through experimentation, study and feedback ... taking a course or even getting involved with online photography support groups (Tips from the Top Floor as an example) can dramatically improve one's art.

I will go so far as to claim that a sophisticated/serious camera in the hands of an unskilled user will decrease the quality of the image. (have you ever watched a rich kid try to drive a Porsche with a manual transmission and a racing clutch?) At some point a good camera, lenses, etc will improve your art. In the hands of a real photographer, art can be done with almost anything (a great camera helps, but I've seen brilliant images taken with a Kodak Brownie).

The great thing about digital photography is that you can afford to make mistakes. Taking thousands of photos won't bankrupt you. A cheap point and shoot is sufficient for the basics as is a dSLR, but the point and shoot has the potential of living with you allowing you to experiment and increase your skills at a much faster rate (I don't see too many people lugging around with a dSLR everywhere they go). Don't get me wrong - a dSLR is capable of better photography than a point and shoot - but the trick is to learn photography. Learn composition. Learn how to pose. Learn how to control light. Learn postproduction. Learn printing (an area where I have made very little progress)

My advice is to get something that you can comfortably control (don't get me started on horrible digital camera interfaces), get a flash and tripod (or beanbag) and practice practice practice. Don't worry about the most expensive camera you can afford because, when you are a good photographer a year or two down the road, you probably can do better and will have a better perspective of what you really need.

[If you have the bucks and know you will be sticking with the hobby, get the dSLR and a good point and shoot (I admit to have drooled over the new Leica-ish Lumix - I haven't tried it, but this may be the first serious digital camera with a usable interface)]

Good photographers should ignore my comments as they already know/have what they need for their particular flavor of art. One friend has a Canon EOS-1Ds Mark II - it is so large that I would never use it. He does lug it around and creates spectacular imagery. Another friend does amazing art with his tiny Canon ELPH. He usually shoots medium format digital, but that is for fashion and ad photography - the Canon is for his own use and he says he is more creative with it than the big camera.

6700 people per square km

Hong Kong has an amazing population density. Here are some images from a Michael Wolf show on the subject. beautiful in their own way.

beautiful botanical time lapse movies

This is just amazing and beautiful - Kris' bontanical time lapse blog.

Go and look at everything!

of different ages

Sean mentions the art of Bobby Neel Adams - the age maps are particularly fascinating.

mexico city from the air

I love architectural and aerial photography.

Here is a guy who takes images of Mexico City from his helicopter.

then and now

taking images from the same place at different times - sometimes called rephotography

newyorkchanging is a good example.

great high speed photography

just go!

very large format photography

Steve mentioned the Gigapxl Project ... nothing like moving towards 4 gigapixels of information. The technical section is a good discussion of trade-offs in this hybrid project.

simple composition exercises

I don't consider myself good at photography or art, but I try a few things beyond normal shooting and sketching to sharpen what skills I have. I don't know where I came across these - perhaps an old Kodak book or Nikon seminar, but you really see the world differently if you keep at them for a reasonable period.

The first is a simple point of view exercise. Look at a scene anywhere - your office, your house, while on a walk - and locate an interesting object. Spend some time concentrating on its shape, colors and textures. Now notice the background and do the same. How does it fit with the background? Now move a bit to the right - how have things changed? Now to the left ... then up a bit and down a bit. This seems like a silly exercise, but it has greatly increased my standard library of things I'm willing to photograph or sketch. I try to spend at least two minutes every day doing this. There are times when I find something really interesting and a half hour goes by - so be warned.

The next exercise is one of composition and can be a bit dangerous. I tend to walk quite a bit. When I'm in a safe area I close my eyes and walk for some time with my eyes closed - usually 15 seconds or so. Near the end I turn somewhat and open my eyes to a new scene. I don't move my head, but allow my eyes to move and pick out the key elements of the fresh scene. What is interesting? How crowded is the scene? Am I too far or too close? What sort of depth of field would be best, etc etc. Again a very simple exercise, but you get to the point where you can quickly figure out how to compose photographs or drawings.

So its off on the walk...

a camera on a string

Aerial photography from kites has been a fascination - Scott Haefner has a nice collection of images as well as notes on his equipment.

vanity snail mail postage continues

About a year ago the USPS ran an experiment that allowed its customers to use stamps with their own designs and a 2D barcode with relevant information for the postal service. The trial appears to have been continued. Here is a OS X client.

I think we spend about $10 a year on postage stamps at this point - email dominates our life.

still -- ferret stamps ...

beautiful scientific photography

These images are much better than those I used to take with electron microscopes...

(thanks Jeff!)

some people know how to use a camera

Greg points out Sensitive Light - a great photoblog.

The section on smoke is great, but spend time in the other sections (esp favourites)

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Speaking of photography, there are inexpensive ways to dramatically improve your photographic creativity (at least for 99% of amateur photographers).

a visual vacation

There must be tens of thousands of photo blogs out there. Most are bad (the sort of photography I do) - a very few are worth looking at. I've been visiting obritb1 for some time and recommend it as an interesting place.

r/c aerial photography

Winston points out some rather fine images taken from cameras mounted on radio controlled aircraft.

the great war in color

Tahir has turned into someone of a photography fiend and notes a fascinating site with color photographs from WWI.

The autochromes are wonderful -- Tahir and I have the same favorite. If you ever wondered about what Greta Zelle (aka Mara Hari) looked like, give this link a try.

Such a terrible war -but which ones aren't?

looking down

Yann Arthus-Bertrands Earth From Above continues to delight.

Take a break and visit the place if you have never been

the r1 project - high resolution photography

Clifford Ross has been working on a high resolution camera and some early images have been taken.

The press section has a few details - nothing terribly exotic (vacuum clamping to hold the film flat to a mil, microscope focus and 9 x18 inch film - it sounds like a lithography camera from the early 70s), but the claim is it is solid and works.

The images are digitally scanned producing a 2.6 GB file. Dealing with that in Photoshop is an interesting issue.

He prints to five by ten foot paper...

henri cartier-bresson

I have just learned that Henri Cartier-Bresson has died.

He makes my top five list of photographers and probably does for most people who worry about the art. Probably the most important surrealist photographer, he worked intuitively looking for what he called the decisive moment when a photograph came together at the point of view of the photographer.

Even if you don't recognize his name, you know his work. Quite a bit is displayed on the web - here is a good starting place.

a genius in every sense of the word

fascinating photography

I have no idea what the captions are and the page load is slow on broadband, but some of the photography is fascinating. Thanks for the link Mike!

3d danish royal wedding images

Nice QTVR images of the Danish royal wedding at the best QTVR site on the net.

A broadband link is recommended.

color photography from the depression through wwii

The NY Times recently plugged a new book that celebrates government sponsored color photography from the Depression through WWII.

It turns out the Library of Congress also features some of this work (only 1600 color photos were made) with small samples as well as archival quality tiffs (these are in the 200 megabyte range).

The specific government organizations were the Farm Security Administration and the Office of War Information and great photographers that even I've heard about took part (Walker Evans and Dorothea Lange for example).

It is always worth time lurking at the LoC site.