Spring Begins?

Spring is around the corner. Got inspired this arvo by the rapidly flourishing Melbourne pool over at flickr. Produced these two shots. Sadly my batteries ran out!

s2art & Technorati?

Some weird stuff is going on out in cyber space with my "handle" s2art Technorati lists several entries by Scoottie and one by Swissmiss. Hmmm?

Flickrites Inaugural Melbourne meeting 2005

What a glorious day weather wise for the inaugural meet up of Melbourne Flickrites. Photos galore will no doubt be uploaded. check my flickr sets section to see what eventuates?

As far as I can tell,scootie seems to have been the only one to blog the whole affair.

Online Play and Toys

Flickr has a group of people who make lots' of little toys that hook into the databases there, somethings called API's, this new one is great, it's called delivr and sends a postcard from your own stream or that of the entire database of 1,000,000 members to anyone you care to send one to. On the world of the internet this is nothing new, however, what makes this special is you can source your own images or others and make some weird and whacky popstcards.

Canon G5, 350d versus nikon Coolpix 5400?

Camera test and reports coming soon.

I am testing a Canon G5 this weekend ready for a class next week. Recently I used a Canon 350d for a series of tests, and I own a Nikon Coolpix 5400, so I'm planning on a write up on all 3 cameras from a users perspective. Stay tuned.

Recently found some online news regarding the new breed of Epson Printers on the market. I also recently attended an intense weekend workshop on colour management, that indicates to me the end of the wet darkroom is nigh, what are the ramifications and what does this mean for Photography educators? Stay tuned for this article also.

Insignificant Microbe?

Finally. Finally, spent some time tweaking my blog template to get it more the way I want it to look, only taken 12 months, a solid dose of insomnia helps too? Both of my readers will notice only the smallest of changes and then only if they scroll down the page on the right and look? There is aslo a new addition to the other links there. My TTLB Ecosystem addition. According to their home page, you can have their database scan your blog and see where you fit in the scheme of things, i.e. the blogosphere. No surprises here, (as I write), I'm not much at all, just an insignificant microbe, ah well, maybe that's a good thing?

Perhaps if I could write as well and as frequently as Vitriolica, or Jess, then maybe I'd end up a “ Higher Being” like, Instapundit. And if indeed I could write this well and often what would my photography be like? Would I still be able to teach workshops in Photoshop? One things for sure, I'll never be a Despot in Training!

[A small edit and after thought, if I may, the truthlaidbear seems to list primarily neo-conservative and conservative sites as the top ranking sites. Surely this is not the case. There must be some other left leaning blogs out there getting the traffic, or a more even representation of them. Or are we seeing a cultural backlash to left leaning thinking, and the blogo-sphere is a reflection of that?]

Ages ago I got a little recognition for one of my shots on Flickr by Flickrzen a site that highlights the cream of the crop from flickr itself. A quote from Susan Sontag, prompted by my visit to Flickrzen.

"Naive or commercial or merely utilitarian photography is no different in kind from photography as practiced by the most gifted professionals: there are pictures taken by anonymous amateurs which are just as interesting, as complex formally, as representative of photography's characteristic powers as a Stieglitz or a Walker Evans."

Transport!

Friday night at Transport Bar, Fed Square, colour colour every where.

The colours here are simply as the camera recorded them. My camera was set on daylight colour balance at the time, some levels adjustment and burning in using photoshop have occurred after converting the file to a better colour model using Lobster, the colour management plug-in for Photoshop

Digital RAW files?

Recently went out and about testing a new camera purchased by one of my more regular employers.After shooting away frantically, and enjoying the whole process, I got home and much to my surprise, the raw files I had shot could not be opened by my copy of Adobe Photoshop CS™.
"What the hell" I said
Is this another upgrade scam from software giant Adobe™? A dig around the Adode™ site seemed to indicate the only way to open these files was to use the latest version of their RAW of converter. Not to worry I knew of a demo piece of software, made by Phase One that opens many files and does a much better job than Adobe Photoshop CS™ anyway. As it was a 30 day demo version, I thought I'll include this in the next years computer budget, (assuming I'm still working there). A bit more digging around on the web and I discover that low and behold, Adobe™ has released a FREE tool that is designed to open any and all RAW format presented to it. Indeed it works and works more than adequately for most people's needs. So if you can not afford to purchase the Phase one Software or justify it's price then you can use the new DNG software made by Adobe™

Here's an image made with the Canon 350d and opened using the DNG RAW file converter, then tweaked slightly in Photoshop to enhance sharpness and contrast

Here's some more info on RAW files, as part my regular research for my Part time photography teaching work at PIC photographic imaging college.

Waiting

Winter has some advantages, this sunset occurred last night as I was waiting for my wife to pick me up from work. It was pretty spectacular to watch, sadly both my camera batteries died before I could get much more than a handful of shots off, this is the most dramatic, I cropped out the city skyline in a couple of the other shots but I liked the impact of this one the most.

Photograph, manipulated using Photoshop and the excellent Photoshop colour correction tool Lobster

Podcasts?

It seems it's not enough to blog away madly or even photo-blog, but now podcasts are all the go? Hmm personally I'm not an Aural person? So podcasts aren't on the horizen yet, we'll see, I might give podcasting a go, seeing as my felow flickrite macaddict has given podcasts a go. Time oh time where is it going?

Oil Peak?

It's the end of the world as we know it.

Luxury

Had the luxury recently of spending an afternoon out and about shooting. The light while not consistent, was sporadically beautiful, this shot I hope shows what I mean

I have another version of it in my flickr stream, composed differently, with a different intention in mind

As always, tweaked in Photoshop, and this time using Lobster too.

A Quote

A quote from Dianne Arbus:-

"There's a quality of legend about freaks. Like a person in a fairytale who stops you and demands that you answer a riddle. Most people go through life dreading they'll have a traumatic experience. Freaks were born with their trauma. They've already passed their test in life. They're aristocrats."

Taken from The Age and used here without permission

Concrete as Canvas

Two shots today!

Both taken minutes apart, of the same piece of concrete, who'd have thought that concrete could be made to look so beautiful, as always tweaked using photoshop, and the colour tool for photoshop Lobster. Taken using my little Nikon Coolpix 5400, shot in raw mode, these could well end up as prints in an upcoming show I'm planning on having.

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Our 2004 Holiday Snaps

Both of my readers, if they haven't already fallen asleep, should remember that this time last year Nik and I went for a quick 6 week jaunt around the world. Well, at last I've managed to get all the good holiday snaps on line. They can be seen at flickr.com, as part of my photo-stream.

Choose from either,

• Basic
• Slideshow

I also took some time out to make images yesterday using my own Nikon Coolpix 5400 and the School's Canon 350d. If I can get my act together I'll write a comparison article between the two cameras. they have some features and tools that make the difference between the two interesting. Ultimately, neither is superior to the other, I just some ease of use and practicality type beefs about them both. Cream of the crop will get posted over at flickr, over the coming days.

Willaim Street

Photoshop Workshops Winter 2004

Finished my last photoshop workshop for the winter, here's an image made some time ago and tweaked using Lobster and Photoshop

iPod Flea?

iPod spoof, this may require registration but it's worth it

Daylesford's Winter Light

Over the weekend spent some time in Daylesford, a small country town, west of Melbourne, with a real ‘feel’ that I enjoy every time I visit. Testing the new Canon 350d camera my work has recently purchased, and will publish my review of it compared to my Nikon Coolpix later, here's a shot from Saturday Lunch at Cliffy's. One of the reasons we went up was so I could undertake a colour management course run by Les Walkling, through the Daylesford fotobiennale, also some thoughts coming on all that as well.

The weather was superb, if a little cold, but when the sun came out it was truly gorgeous, ah to do nothing but spend my time shooting and exhibiting?

To buy or not to buy?

I am a big fan of Robert Adams' writing and photography, a book has been recently published that I may consider buying about hope, reflections and journeys.

Obey

On a recent winter's day I retrurned to a point west of the CBD, on the western highway, to make an image of this well known grafitti. At work we have spent a couple of days reveiwing mid year folios. And as always I come away from these exeperiences refreshed and with my mind ticking over about all the possibilites of what photography is and what it offers. Intuition and surrealism is what's ticking over in my head these days. What has this to do wit the image below? Very little but my photostream at flickr has much potential for the expansion of the these ideas, as does the whole ide and approach to making images with a camera.

We will be heading back to Daylesford this weekend for the Daylesford Photobiennale and a seminar on Colour Management. So hopefully there'll be lots more images floating around here and on flickr than there has been in the last couple of months?

Image replaced due to bandwidth theft, by this person.

Stripes

Weekend reflections, here's a shot from a couple of weekends ago, been a bit quiet here this weekend may get out and grab some shots later today.

As usual, I've tweaked it using photoshop and Lobster

Green spots?

Do you have perfect colour vision? Here's a link to a page that will have you blinking in disbelief?

Awesome birthday present!

My belated birthday present saw us in a helicopter flying over Melbourne for 20 minutes. Almost immediately after taking off my battery ran out! Luckily I had a spare and continued to snap away for the remaining 15 minutes or so. The light was awesome and I managed to keep the camera shake to a minimum. I of course have loaded an edited down set on flickr, some of which required a slight levels or curves tweak and some sharpening in Photoshop as do all camera files.

The experience left me speechless for most of the flight, I was either too busy snapping or just soaking up the view! We flew from Southbank, East out toward East Melbourne, skimmed past the MCG, then down towards Brighton. From here we turned around and headed up towards the City via St.Kilda then out to the inner Western Suburbs, where we did a loop over Williamstown, then back along the river in to Southbank. Awesome is the only way I can describe it.

Here's Nik and I just about to take off, seconds later the battery went flat in my camera so I missed grabbing shots of the Eastern end of the CBD and the MCG, etc. None the less Nik, god bless her, managed to fish out my spare battery from my bag in the back and back in business we were.

My secret obsession

The Saturday after my birthday saw me plane spotting, almost until the sun went down.Tweaked in Photoshop of course!

Back in Business

My USB, Cable has arrived, so now I'm able to download from the camera, here's a shot from a local shopping centre, taken in that magic hour of dusk and slightly tweaked in Photoshop.

20,000 plus!

Well even with out a USB cord, I am still getting plenty of visitors to my Flickr-stream, so far over 20,000 in the mere 8 months I've been on the site.

I would have love to have known who the 20,000th visitor was, and personally shaken their hand or for that matter the 10,000th. Ah well, such is cyberspace? Whether or not this does any good for my exposure, as an artist or not I'm not sure? It may or may not be helping my Photoshop Workshops too, I still rank pretty high in the ranking on the three main search engines, so I'm not complaining about things at all.

Peach tree in light

Currently without a USB cord to download the 25 + images currently sitting on my camera, here's one from from my very recent archives, taken about 4 or 5 days ago, of the peach tree, now minus it's leaves. As always tweaked in Photoshop, using the droplet that corrects Photoshop's colour problems Lobster

Fay Godwinn 1931-2005

Fay Godwin

Fay Godwin, who for many years has dominated British landscape photography, died on the 27th of May, having been in hospital since Easter following a stroke and heart problems.

Born 1931 in Berlin where here father was a British diplomat (her mother was an American artist), she settled in London in 1958, and picked up a camera to photograph her own children in the 1960s. Her contacts in publishing led her to photographing writers, and then she embarked on a series of collaborative largely topographical works with well known poets and authors, including several still on my own bookshelves. I first met Fay when we attended a workshop together in Derbyshire in 1979. I've always felt that books such as 'Remains of Elmet (1979) with Ted Hughes (a reworked,version, Elmet, was published in 1994) Romney Marsh (1980) with Richard Ingrams, The Saxon Shore Way(1983) with Alan Sillitoe contained some of her best work, but she resented the fact that both the book cataloguing rules and publishers lists gave priority to the writer rather than the photographer.

Her 1985 'Land', although still retaining an essay by author John Fowles, was the first book to be fully hers, and accompanied a show that toured both in Britain and the US. (It includes one image I watched her making on the workshop we both attended, and on my living room wall is my image of a sleepy lion at Chatsworth that she also found irresistable.) Other works followed, including another of my favourites, The Secret Forest of Dean (1986). Fay was a great walker and a champion of access rights for ramblers - she was president of the Ramblers' Association from 1987-90, and remained a life vice-president. Later works such as Our forbidden land (1990) made her feelings clear on this, both through the images and her own text. More recently, Godwin worked in colour, and in 1999 she self-published a small 'artist's book' Glassworks and Secret Lives. A few pictures from this and other works are on her site, along with a wider selection of her life's work in the book Landmarks which accompanied her major London retrospective in 2001.

Used here without permission from about dot com

Epson Printer?

New Black and White?
Epson's latest printers, including the Epson R2400 which were announced a week or two ago, seem to offer better black and white prints than previous models from Epson or others. It seems as if for the first time, an 'off the shelf' printer using the manufacturer's inks and software may be able to compete with (or even better) the best third party inks and software.

Jeff Schewe was one of Epson's beta testers, and in his Epson R2400 and Ultrachrome K3 Ink Report on the Adobe PhotoshopNews site, he shows the kind of results he can get, concluding "The Epson R2400 is a serious contender to meet or exceed the standards of traditional silver based black and white prints." You can also read a user report on the inks from another beta tester, Joseph Holmes, who says "I have no doubt that this is the best system ever for making color prints."

Used with the right papers, such as Epson Enhanced Matte, the early results from Wilhelm Imaging Research for the Epson 9800 printer suggest permanance display ratings of over 200 years, making the prints likely to last longer than those made by conventional methods. The site also has an interview with Greg Gorman who has been printing both colour and black and white on the Epson Stylus Pro 4800 printer and the new UltraChrome K3 inks.

At the moment I'm still waiting for more detailed reviews from printers, especially those with experience of current high performance black and white printing systems, such as the Cone Editions iQuads and Peizotone inks, and software RIPS such as Roy Harrington's QuadTone RIP or the Bowhaus IJC/OPM used with inks such as the Piezotones or MIS inks. One advantage of the Epson 2400 (and other printers using the new UCK3 inks is the ability to use the same printer for gloss and matte black and white prints as well as colour.

The Epson Stylus Photo R2400 and Stylus Pro 4800 were expected to ship in 'May 2005', though were not available when I last checked. The most recent date I've seen for shipping in the UK is the first week of June. The larger and more expensive Pro 7800 and Pro 9800 are expected Autumn 2005. Epson seem to have responded to earlier criticisms about black and white quality and and permanence, while also improving colour performance. If more extensive reviews confirm the early promise of these printers, then many more professional photographers will be able to get the kind of results they need from inkjet printing without hassle.

Used here without permission from about dot com

Frederick Sommer

The Frederick and Frances Sommer Foundation is a non-profit charitable trust founded in 1993 by the Sommers and others, located in Prescott, Arizona. It holds Frederick Sommer’s personal library, a collection of artwork, maintains the Frederick Sommer website and reviews reproduction requests.

Particularly of interest on the site are the special features which look at some of of Sommer's best know images and explains how these were made and the ideas behind them. Currently it shows the double exposure portrait of Max Ernst, 1946 and The Virgin and Child with St. Anne and the Infant St. John, 1966. This year is the centennial of the birth of Frederick Sommer (American, born Italy, 1905–1999), and to mark the occasion there is an exhibition at the Getty Centerin Los Angeles which opened last week and runs until Sept 4, 2005.

You can also read more about Sommer and his work on About Photography, in the feature Frederick Sommer - Surrealist Master written shortly after his death, which also has links to other sites featuring his work.

Used here without permission from about dot com

Suburban....

...Zeitgesit? Tweaked using Photoshop, and Lobster

Facing East

Once again, captured that lovely late afternoon light that Melbourne is so capable of producing, then of course needed to be emphasised using Lobster and Photoshop, which by the way went swimmingly, thank you to all particpants, I hope you gained something form the whole experience as I know I did, don't be shy keep in touch, and share your images with me and the world at large.

Drive-by shoot

One of my secret hobbies is to do this — dangerous as it is! Sometimes this approach yields interesting results. Even without the Photoshop tweaks, minor as they are.

Elizabeth St. corner Latrobe....

Looking up, resized in Photoshop.

Nick Cave at Festival Hall

Last night saw myself and Nik at the Nick Cave concert, at what was my only Festival Hall concert in 20 odd years. Festival Hall in Melbourne was the place to be seen and the venue of many a sell out sports or entertainment event for decades.Probably best known for staging professional wrestling and boxing matches, many a riot started at The Hall, and some even spilled into the street and parking lot, none last night thank god, but as always a couple of idiots nearly spoiled it for others.
Festival Hall was built by John Wren in 1915. Rebuilt in 1956 after being burnt down the year before, it was the Olympic Games venue for gymnastics and wrestling. In the 1950s and 1960s it became an entertainment centre, with famous appearances including Bill Haley, Frank Sinatra and the Beatles. By the 1990s it had been overtaken by more spectacular venues, but the Wren family remained in ownership. The last time I was there, was to see Billy Joel, probabaly in the early 80's. Lots of things have changed since then, the most obvious being the licensing laws, see the two beers in my hand. (Two because I knew I would never find Nikki again if I wandered off later to get another beer.)

(Teaked in Photoshop of course)

Some of the other less obvious things were the technological ones, and no Nick Cave wasn't using a radio mike. Mobile phones. Yes folks people were snapping away madly at the concert, with their phones, I had a go at one stage, but the light levels were too low and by the time Nick Cave came on I was too taken away by the moment to bother pulling mine out again. Digital cameras were out and about too. I didn't take mine in as I wasn't sure about security, and had no intention of having mine cloaked or being generally hassled by the folks on the doors. At one stage I was convinced that I saw someone videoing a couple of songs with a small digital still camera!

I can't for the life of me, remember the song listing, but I do remember being impressed by the level and quality of sound, you know you're at a Rock 'n Roll gig, when you can feel bass drum in your shins and in the floor - awesome! The crowd didn't seem to me to be THAT up to speed with Nick's repertoire as the crowd reacted the most to some of the earleir stuff, one of which was so old I didn't know at all, Nik my wife who's been a ‘Cave fan’ longer than I've known her, went off with the crowd, but all the other songs I knew and enjoyed. The crowd while it seemed large to me wasn't overwhelming and if I really HAD to I could have found the bar and bought a beer or two. Boy though by the end of the night my feet were killing me!

As we left we caught up with the lovely Ed 'n Cindy, who, even though we knew were going to be at the concert, didn't manage to locate till the end, and as it turns out, were a mere 3 or 4 meters away from us at the front of the stage, the whole time! Nik grabbed a bottle of water at the nearest Kebab van on the way to the cars then it it was off home, I'd come straight from work. Driving home I played the ‘The Lyre of Orpheus’ and when it came to the track ‘O Children’ I had to wave an arm out the car, the way Nikki had been waveing her arms to the song at the concert. All up a great night was had, by all concerned especially my gorgeous wife Nikki!

Blue?

To some the camera has an albeit mistaken belief that it holds some form of objective power, to reveal more than it can hide, if this is the case, what does this image reveal?
A colour one we call blue and a light squiggle in the on the bottom right. Not much else.
The colour is what draws me to this image, and even though it has been tweaked slighhtly in Photoshop, this is pretty much the colour it was when I downloaded from my Nikon Coolpix 5400.

Autumn Light

Despite Autumn's alleged onslaught, we are still having gorgeous days.

Image manipulated with Photoshop and Lobster

Daylesford Fotobiennale 2005

I'm pretty excited about the upcoming Daylesford Fotobiennale, running from the 3rd of June to the 3rd of July 2005, in particular I may even add some work to the ‘Little pictures, Big Ideas’, show as well, stay tuned for that one?

The Magic hour

Possibly one of the last times this term/semester I'll get a chance to go out and shoot as my fancy takes me. Thankfully the light was awesome all day, and as I was out and about during the magic hour I captured this shot, hand held I might add.

3~4

Over the weekend managed to capture that beautiful late afternoon light, tweaked in Photoshop of coure, using Lobster as well

New Photography book

I just received my latest Amazon purchase, Frederick Sommers' most recent publication, Photography, Drawing, Collage.

I was fortunate on a recent trip to the United States we stopped in at the CCP in Arizona, they have an extensive collection of his prints there. And I spent a lot of time there looking at his wonderful images that are meticloulsy printed. The reproductions in this book are some of the best I've ever seen, and of course the book is peppered with gems of quotes like this one

“ …The value of a work of art or scientific formulation lies in the precision of positional relationships”
From a talk given at the Art Institute of Chicago, October 1970, revised June 1983

Sunrise 05.05.04

Most mornings, I'm up before the sun comes up, this morning it looked like this

Don't call me a Geek!

Are these guys geeks or what, a software install party!

DILO - a flickr game

Recently participated in a mini DILO (Day in the Life of) over at flickr. Normally these fall on the summer and winter solstices, but the admins of this group decided on a mini DILO as the past couple had occured during a week day. Needless to say it sounded easy at first but by about 4:00pm I was struggling.

My day got off to it's usual start, light breakfast, checked out flickr and off we went for a not so typical brunch with my Mother who just happened to be in town. Brunch was at Southbank and we decided to park in North Melbourne, and walk the 6 or so kilometres there. I shot from the hip on the way, and got a couple of nice surprises but took my time on the way back where I got a couple of good ones too. The saving grace was the couple of junk/antique shops we hit towards the end as well, which in some ways in not THAT different for us on a Sunday.

Here's my favourite image from the day.

All up I shot 180 plus frames, and managed to edit this down to about 36 or so shots for my DILO submission.

As an aside, flickr is real slow this morning, hmmm popularity has it's price?

Fed Square, night shoot, 2005.04.28

Instead of images of/from China, here's an image from a recent visit to my favourite Arcitechtural site in Melbourne, Federation Square. More images of course over at flickr, in my Fed Sqaure set

No manipulation in Photoshop at all, other than resizing for this page.

Ripper of a week...

This week is shaping up to be a ripper of a week. I am spending today out and about with my students doing a gallery crawl, a good friend is returning to Oz, for a short holiday, today, and I'll be having a lovely Sunday brunch with my family, and the I'll be involved in a flickr dilo on Sunday as well, so all in all plenty to look forward too.

The NGV has several shows on at the moment of note.

The gallery crawl is one of the few perks in an other wise poorly paid (but rewarding) job, here's what we are seeing.

• Bill Henson's 30 year photographic retrospective
• Metroplis, a screen based exhibition based on "The City"
• Japanese Studio Photography
• Several smaller galleries around town

I actually got a chance to see the Henson show on a recent trip to Sydney, and was suitably impressed. His early work was I suspect presented for the first time the way he envisaged it. A mss of images displayed Salon style, overwhelming the visitor in it's density of human faces, moving out from the darkness. In Sydney the work was presented chronologically in several rooms each room being used to represent a ‘period’ in his work. This will be one show that will require several revisits I'm sure and thankfully they are selling multi-visit tickets.

Sunday's dilo, or Day in the Life of is a small game that many folks on flickr get involved with, it simply involves shooting all day and uploading the pics to flickr with the tag, dilo. It's an interesting way to get an insight into other people's lives. You post five of your best on the actual dilo page and the rest are set up in your own personal stream for folks to find and look at.

Kodak slips further in the Photography business

This snippet of info from my nifty little app called Net Newsreader, I have simply cut and pasted but it sdoes all the hard work reads all my RSS subscriptions for me and all I do is skim the headlines and pick and choose what I explore furhter, no more surfin' for me.

Kodak reports first quarter losses

Despite a growth in the digital arena, Kodak has reported a net loss of $142 million, or 50 cents per share, compared with net income of $21 million, or 7 cents per share, in the first quarter of 2004. Sales also fell by 3% to $2.83bn from $2.92bn in the same period last year. Kodak Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Daniel Carp says, "While the first quarter's performance was disappointing, such short-term volatility is to be expected as we transform Kodak into a digital company."

Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com) 23/04/05 dpreview

Mobile Phone camera and shopping trolleys

Finally have sorted my mobile phone camera image transfer woes, using my new Sony Ericsson K700i, cameraphone, in conjunction with my new bluetooth enabled G4 iBook, I can wirelessly move the files across to the HD and from there edit and or upload to anywhere I like.

Currently I have a couple of sets of images made using these kinds of cameras, shopping trolleys, and portraits.

This kind of camera may well allow me to consider an image a day approach now perhaps a second blog?

Here's a sample of what I'm doing, for the odd occasion flickr is down.

I love the way these cameras so easily distort what is presented to them, the resulting images from this lo-fi camera, conjure up all sorts of ideas about photography and veracity

Hong Kong street Photo

Continuing my series of images from our recent trip to Hong Kong

Tram boy arrested at gunpoint: witness

From the Age newspaper

A motorist has told of the "pretty brutal" arrest of a 15-year-old boy who allegedly took a tram for a joy ride last night.

David Iliff told theage.com.au about eight police cars surrounded the tram, which was at the intersection of Glenferrie Road and Wellington Street, and carrying about 10 passengers.

"A number of police officers had guns drawn and were yelling at the boy inside the tram to open the doors," he said.

Mr Iliff said a female passenger protested when the boy was pushed against a seat and handcuffed.

"She pointed at them (the police) and yelled something ... but the police were pretty angry as well and sort of pushed her aside," he said.

"Once things settled down, they talked to the witnesses, but first of all it was pretty brutal."

Mr Iliff said he was initially shocked by the police's actions."From their point of view I'm sure they didn't know if he had a gun or whether he was trying to kill people, so I guess it was appropriate, but at the same time, it did seem excessive."

Victoria Police were not immediately available for comment.

The boy allegedly drove the new low-floor Citadis tram from its depot in South Melbourne up to 30 kilometres, police said.

Detective Senior Constable Barry Hills, of the police transit division, said the boy admitted his obsession with trams during a police interview.

"He's a nice lad, he's a good lad. I think his obsession just got the better of him," he said.

Senior Constable Hills said the boy went on a test run on Friday night, stealing a tram from the South Melbourne depot and driving it to Port Melbourne, back to South Melbourne, then back again.

It was an escapade reminiscent of Nadia Tass' 1986 film Malcolm, in which an eccentric inventor played by Colin Friels loses his job as a tram driver after a joy ride on the tram tracks.

Last night, the boy allegedly drove out of the depot about 8.50pm and went to Port Melbourne. He then used the tram's directional rod to change the tracks and divert the tram towards Clarendon Street in South Melbourne.

Police said he altered the tracks again to travel down Glenferrie Road, where he picked up passengers.

Constable Hills said police were alerted to the theft by staff at Yarra Trams' control room about 9.20pm. No passengers called police.Senior Constable Hills said passengers only became suspicious of the boy, who was wearing a jacket similar to a tram driver's, just before his arrest.

"There was a couple of moments when the driver overshot the stops and was confronted by a couple of passengers, and that's when they've become a little wary."

Three sets of keys are needed to operate the Citadis trams.

Senior Constable Hills said the keys were believed to have been stolen three weeks ago from the Box Hill depot, but said the theft was not reported. "It does take considerable effort, time and concentration to drive these trams." Senior Constable Hills said the 15-year-old used the test run on Friday night to work out how to use the complicated braking system.He rejected suggestions the boy may have been taught about trams by well-meaning drivers, believing he learned simply by observing the drivers at work.

Although he stressed the potential serious consequences of the theft, Senior Constable Hills said the boy should not abandon his dream of being a tram driver. "I believe that if he stays on the straight and narrow then it's certainly not going to affect his future," he said.

The boy, from Sunshine, was taken to Boroondara police station and charged with nine offences, including two counts each of theft of trams and conduct endangering life.

He was bailed to appear before the Melbourne Children's Court on June 20.

Absolute Power corrupts absolutely

Today's quote comes from Ian Lobb, the creator of Lobster, the droplet that improves colour control in Photoshop.

And I'm paraphrasing here:-

“ Photoshop has the power to make all the images in the world look the same.”

More software monsters?

From Dpreview dot com

Adobe acquires Macromedia. Adobe has announced an agreement to acquire Macromedia in an all-stock transaction valued at $3.4 billion. Graphics software giant, Adobe, will acquire the web and application development software company Macromedia at the close of fourth quarter 2005. A press release issued today said the two companies will provide customers with a 'more powerful set of solutions for creating, managing and delivering compelling content'. More...!Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

Macromedia's spin on it all

Adobe's spin on it all?

Sigh, yet another Monster is created?

Will need time to assess and digest this one?

Visuals from Hong Kong

Another Hong Kong snap, processed in Photoshop, and Lobster.

Probing Questions answered

Ever wondered?

• Can the human eyeball be knocked out of the head?
• Was Walt Disney a fascist?
• What's the origin of "cut to the chase"?

Here's where you'll find the answers to these and many more probing questions. Thanks to Ian for sharing

Hong Kong Photography

Continuing the series of images, manipulated of course, Using Photoshop, and Lobster made whilst we were in Hong Kong Recently, this image sums up my thoughts on the island quite succintly.

Photoshop 10 years behind - still!

Photoshop CS2 was announced recently. The link here to digitalphotographyblog, claims to revue the software, all I read is an Adobe marketers list of "new features", nothing new there I guess? What I find interesting though is the appearance not once but twice, the phrase "non destructive editing". I am flabbergasted, that this has been made public? I mean I have long know about this and it is something very easily, demonstrated to astute students, even on poorly calibrated equipment, it's, the destructive editing is not even subtle! So what's going on over at Adobe? Is Adobe gearing up for a major shift in how it makes Photoshop work? Will we finally see an end to it's memory hogging and wasteful practice of loading ALL pixels into memory, will we get a faster and more intuitive package that responds to the slightest gestural movement of the hand and pixel?

The new Camera Raw 3.0 workflow allows settings for multiple raw files to be simultaneously modified and batch processing of raw files, to JPEG, TIFF, DNG or PSD formats, can now be done in the background without launching the main Photoshop executable. Integrated, non-destructive cropping and straightening controls allow raw files to be easily prepared for final output.¹

I'm no soothsayer, nor a real industry pundit, but I'm not holding my breath for an application as graceful and elegant as Live Picture was nearly 10 years ago. Back then RAM was exepnsive, and processors expontentially slower, yet I could open a 200+ meg file in a fraction of the time Photoshop does it now. My editing was never final, I could always change anything to any degree, even after saving and closing the file, remember this was 10 years ago. Photoshop back then at Version 4 only had ‘revert to saved’ or one step of ‘undo’. Needless to say, this puppy won't be rushing out in the middle of the year and purchasing an upgrade of Photoshop, it's more than adequate now with what it does, and I've still got my copy of Live Picture running quite nicely on my Laptop thank you very much, when it comes to big fine art prints.

¹My emphasis source.

More Honk Kong Stories

I still have some stories about Hong Kong I wanted to share with you, both.

One of the days we were in Hong Kong, was a public holiday, which really only means that the Government run places are closed, schools and the like. Anyway we were out and about doing the touristy thing most of the day, and we encountered 5 groups of young people doing their homework. This homework consisted of surveys on a variety of topics, ranging from what we did in Hong Kong to comparing our two countries International Airports, Hong Kong International is brilliant by the way, only two years old. Anyway the surveys were really ways for the students to practice their English, which varied from poor to very good. Often a tape recorder was involved as well, not sure where that fitted in?

All of the students were polite and inquisitive, and very obviously studious. One of the last surveys we participated in was down on the promenade that offers good views of Victoria harbour, and virtually no retail space, anyway I took this survey, and it was conducted by 4 very polite and friendly young men. The first question on their survey was about Gender and the boys in eager anticipation had ticked the wrong box at the top of their form. So suddenly it seems I have miraculously switched genders, when I pointed this out the lads, there was a huge outburst of laughter, and I suspect that after we had finished no end of ribbing, but they were still pleased to have completed another survey. We always were asked to have our photo taken at the end, we gladly did, sadly we only snapped a couple of snaps of our inquisitive students ourselves.

On our last day which we spent on Hong Kong Island we spent some time in Hong Kong park. This is a truly weird experience, usually most metropolitan parks attempt to mimic nature in some way. This park had all the usual lakes and seats and ice cream stands, as well as an aviary. A beautiful big one at that, the experience of walking amongst these birds was great, the cacophony as we walked in was not deafing but certainly loud enough to make you know where you were. After attempting a couple of meagre shots of some of the brightly coloured parrots in amongst the trees, I noticed something odd about some of the larger trees, they actually seemed to be made of concrete, they were! Which was really weird because it was fairly well done, and you needed to look real close to work it out.

The park also had a playground of course and it was surrounded by cameras, surveillance cameras! Surreal was the experience no less, here we are in the big City surrounded by huge tower blocks, and in the middle of the park a playground surrounded by closed circuit TV cameras?

From the Hip, Hong Kong

Resized and manipulated in Photoshop to enhance the diagonal of the image showing warmth and coolness, age and youth, technology and tradition.

Politics, Art and the Internet?

Today's political thought for the day comes from a nice little essay over at Znet, please read it.

One of my favourite artists is having major retrospective show at the Met in New York, the reason he is a favourite considering he's actually a painter? He was a connected with one of my favourite Photographers, Frederick Summer. Last year I was fortunate enough to see some real Sommer prints at the CCP in Arizona. Exquisite doesn't begin to describe them, I just wish I had more time to look at them, one day, one day I'll go back.

I sometimes wonder, what Mr Sommers would think of digital photography and technologies? He is renowned for his painstakingly beautiful silver gelatin prints, and his respect for the process involved, the computer has in some ways liberalised this and in other ways cheapened it. I can for example go out, shoot any number of images, dependant only upon my storage medium that I'm carrying, come home and automatically process them quickly, and with a minimum of effort, upload them to the web and head out again for more shooting. Is this a good or a bad thing, does volume of production lower the value of an artistic object? This very argument was had by a bunch of young enthusiastic 1st year art students back in the late 80's, I was one of them, it wasn't resolved in my mind and still isn't although I'm heartened by what I see as a burgeoning art movement involving photocopiers, the internet and public walls.

Flickr is having a massage, so I'll post a few images here, ones that I wanted to work on more on my crt monitor, as the light in Hong Kong really had me tricked, resulting in more underexposure than I would have liked, fortunately they, the images I made in Hong Kong are rescueable.

Another Hong Kong Photo

Shot on the streets of Hong Kong and manipulated slightly in Photoshop

Daily photo from Hong Kong

I plan on posting a photo or two over the next few days from our recent trip to Honk Kong, enjoy this one, won't you?

This one is of ‘Nathan Road’

Hong Kong Photos on Flickr

See how other folks on flickr photograph Hong Kong?

Friday 9:30 am Hong Kong

This may well be my final post here from Hong Kong, the internet access I am paying for here in the room runs out at about 3:00pm local time, it's now 9:00am, so whether or not I get a chance to post again remains to be seen.

Thursday was a funny one, really, wandered around a couple of shopping districts, on the penninsula intending to do a bit more ‘culture’ only to discover the 2 cultural institutions we wanted to see were closed. Nik needed to do some more shopping so after a nice lunch, I spent the rest of the afternoon in the hotel, uploading pictures to flickr and catching up on e-mail as well as chatting to Ed. The evening saw us, having cocktails at a bar called Felix, (designed by Philip Strack) on the 28th floor of the Pennisula Hotel (Hong Kong's swankiest) overlooking the harbour, (awesome view) followed by dinner in a swanky restaurant, called Spoon. Great restaurant experience all round, but the food and service really took the cake!

Currently have uploaded 79 photos, from the trip, all up I've taken about 806 photos, I've only loaded the ones that required the least correction as I prefer to use my CRT monitor to make these desicions, so more images will be added to the Honkers 2005 set probably during the week next week, when I am at home.

Live from our Hotel in Hong Kong

Yesterday we went to Macau, it's a strange boat journey of about 50 to 75 minutes, depending on the boat, you catch. Macau, is a nice island bigger than we/I thought and we only spent a couple of hours there, had pizza in a small side street, checked out the streets and architecture, we caught the wrong bus back to the ferry, and had to quickly catch a taxi, to back track!, The cost $10.00 Hong Kong Dollars, roughly $2.00 Aus, truly amazing. Nik had trouble with the boat, but gladly didn't need the «bag», I was only worried about the odd surge here and there. The trip it was in a catamaran, both ways, but the one coming back was bigger, and faster and smoother, than the one coming over.

It's weird being surrounded by the Asian tourists. You get so used to seeing them in Aus and being bemused by them and now here we are surrounded by them and in a manner of speaking connected to them in more ways them one. It's been overcast nearly everyday, and this has played havoc with my exposures, normally I set program mode to -1 stop, ( I like using program in these situations allows for more spontaneity and quicker work) this underexposure covers me for Aussie lighting conditions, but here it seems too much! Done lots and lots of shopping, some Museums and Cultural stuff, Nathan Road is just bizarre and everywhere there is decay and rust, usually augmented or surrounded by Neon. Spruikers constantly harass you around the hotels, mainly for getting tailor made suits. The crowds don't really peak till around 7 or 8 at night, with shops not really trading till 11:00 or so, so Nik can shop till almost 9:00pm, every night if she wants?

Monday saw us on Hong Kong island, via a tour group, (fuck I hate those thing), still it was only for a few hours, and as a consequence I got to experience this small temple overlooking a bay, Stanley Bay. The tram ride up and down Vic peak was awesome, and the views were great despite the overcast conditions. We left the group behind, after the Victoria peak part of the tour, and made our own way around various parts of the island, even found a small photo-gallery or two.

We had dinner that night up at Victoria peak, a very pleasant end to a hectic day.

I've added the photos to date of Hong Kong to flickr

Day two in Honkers

Well it's day two here and we have covered a few miles indeed! Got to check out several districts around the place and have ended up here in this little groovy bar called MiX. Which has, again free WWW, but not only that this time I am writing from a cute little iMac! This place is in the bustling business district, the language spoken here seems to be, mainly English, which sounds a bit strange after spending the last couple of days hearing the locals talk, with barely a tourist in sight! The main things we have done today, are, visit the "Jumbo" floating restaurant with a rip off ride on a Sampan, visit Stanley Bay, and actually get past the tourist traps that are supposed to be markets, and see the city from Victoria peak. We were given as part of our package, a "tour" this is where you usual get dragged around like sheep kind of tour and see the sights, one of these sights was a jewelery making factory, which in reailty are nothing more than thinnly veiled attempts at making you part with you dollar, we survived, without a. falling asleep or b. parting with any cash

The best part today I think has been the view from Victoria peak, despite the pollution.The other execllent sight today was the small temple that few of the other toursits on our free tour bothered to visit at Stanley. Yesterday's pic count barely made it to 200 and today I've taken less, mainly because we've been stuck in a bus with a couple of loud yanks and a handful of whiny poms! Still when I do get around to uploading, will try tonight form the hotel as I have checked it out and it all seems to work nicely, there will more than enough to choose from.

Hot off the press from Honkers!

So here we are tavelling around (In Hong Kong), this time only for a week though. I'm writing this from a hotel coffee shop just off Nathan road (crazeee). It's Sunday arvo here, and even now the streets are teeming with people. We have already braved a small street cafe for lunch, which was inresting and reasonably priced. The flavours were not the typical Chinese flavours that we get at home, and yet they weren't the same as any other flavour of Asian stryle food we eat there either! With an interseting ordering sytem that revolved around a tick sheet that was handed in at the counter on the way as you paid, it was fun to eat there. Will be prepared to give it a go again, for sure, like we've got any choice really, as the hotel food prices are... well... hotel food prices. Beer on the other hand is going to be a bit of a struggle I think some of the local 7-11's are looking ggod at this point.

The flight, here was not too bad, got a bit of a kip on the way. It was a night flight that left Melbourne after 11:00pm, so there wasn't much to see, except for a stunning sunrise over the wing of the plane this morning, stay tuned for the pix from flickr no doubt, I'm hoping to upload from our hotel room, which has paid broadband in the room. The day before I left I got a chance to wander around twon and make a few images in the laneways around Fed square and in Fed square itself, again if I can get them up to flickr from the hotel room I will. Shot around 200 images which for me is lot and speaks volumes about how digital has changed my approach to my image making. I have shot 133 images already in the few hours we have been here in Hong Kong! None of which will suspect will be really capable of giving off the right feel about the way this city just seems to teem! On this short trip, it's a real different feeling not having to worry about rushing off somewhere. Unlike our last trip which seemed to be one constant run from one hotel room to the next station to the next hotel room and so on. Gven the time we have here, and the fact I am using free internet, expect to see at least 2 or three more updates here while we are gone!

1 Year Old Today!

Well it's one year today since I started jotting down all sorts of things that relate to Photography, Photoshop and my own cybertravels. How things have changed in the short space of a year. When I first started I was still struggling with CSS (I am still am to a certain extent) and was disappointed at my percieved inability to add images here, worried that I would not be able to write enough, and planning for the big trip Overseas. Now of course I have a pro account at Flickr, and can link back here to add some images or link to my own site, have travelled around some of the large cities of the world and am about to embark on a new trip to South East Asia, albeit for a short week this time, and surprisingly managed to write a few words at least once or twice a week.

In terms of the whole idea of building some sort of readership, pffft, well that was never going to happen, really was it? But some of my friends do read this (thank you all), and on this trip overseas, I'm pretty sure internet access won't be as difficult as it was in parts of Europe,(I hope). So hopefully I can keep folks in touch with our next journey. I know that flickr folks will get to see plenty of pics after the event. As for posting pix during the event and whether or not I will be able to write here whilst gone, well we shall see.

I know I rave on about Flickr a lot, and I'm sorry if you are bored by this but I'm going to rave some more today too. A couple of things have become apparent to me thanks to the whole GNE (game that never ends) idea. Firstly, flickr is addictive, I find myself whiling away many hours reading comments, posting comments, adding work to groups, administering my own groups (3), keeping my portfolios/sets organised. Now after almost 5 months of membership, I'm starting to see who (on my contacts list anyway) are the photographers I really like, who are consistent and who pull the odd shot out of their arses so to speak. Here's my favourite list of flickrites so far. In no particualr order, (and apologies if you aren't mentioned here I can only skive off work for so long).

• Irregulargirl, daring confrontational, edgy and poetic, is the only way to describe this chick's (with 'tude) work.
• Macartsit11, produces, colourful, consistent and creative work, a solid eye, and a recent Mac convert to boot!
• Shoegazer, works closely with Irregulargirl and sometimes their work is swapped and crossed over, so it's difficult to tell who shot what, still great work nonetheless.
• Swissmiss' work is minimal and exquisite, and she occasionally visits an Aunt and documents small impromptu performance pieces.
• Jengray, produces solid analog work often with a 6 x 4.5
• Lunaryuna, a fellow urban photographer, shares similar interests to my self and her work is excellent, she is also quite passionate about the squared circle group.
• Scootie, is the not only one of the few Melbourne members of flickr, who's work is consistently of a high standard, but I have also met him, in the flesh, (as a consequence of joining flickr), two other excellent Melbourne photographers are Mitchie Girl and Subsonix, aka, Dj Mudgutz who happen to be former students to boot!
• Ozlomo consistently produces fine, lomo-shots and is also Melbourne based
• My life as a Haint, is prolific and suitably bent, he manipulates heavily to the point where his images are barely recognisable as photographs.
• Sam_ produces very beautiful urban landscapes, that have a fairly bleak look about them but are strong images nonetheless.

I could go on but I don't want to bore you with ALL the details, suffice to say that if i covered all of my contacts todate I'd have several screens of text for you to plough through.

Some of the other interesting things that have happened to me whilst being involved in the community that is flickr is, I've met folks who are passionate about Vegemite and aren't from Oz. A Cabbie in Brisbane regularly photographs his passengers in his cab, and discovered the joy of walking around looking down.

So happy birthday to you s2arts.blogspot.com, and thanks to all the folks at flickr who are shaping the site into what seems to be a damn fine community, one of those fabled cyber communities I've been hearing about for so long!

Pictures to follow ; )

Twelve months is a long time in the blogosphere!

Well tomorrow is the date that marks the 12 month mark for this blog, given what's coming up over the next few days I doubt I'll be able to do anything particularly exciting, we'll see maybe the day after?

Washington Post reader definitions

Once again, The Washington Post published its yearly contest in which readers are asked to supply alternate word meanings.

1. Coffee (n.), a  person who is coughed upon.
2. Flabbergasted (adj.),  appalled over how much weight you have gained.
3. Abdicate (v.), to give up all hope of ever having a flat stomach.
4. Esplanade (v.), to attempt an explanation while drunk.
5. Willy-nilly (adj.), impotent.
6. Negligent (adj.), describes a condition in which you absentmindedly answer the door in your nightgown.
7. Lymph (v.), to walk with a lisp.
8. Gargoyle (n.), an olive-flavored mouthwash.
9. Flatulence (n.) the emergency vehicle that picks you up after you are run over by a steamroller
10. Balderdash (n.), a  rapidly receding hairline.
11. Testicle (n.), a  humorous question on an exam.
12. Rectitude (n.), the  formal, dignified demeanor assumed by a proctologist immediately  before he examines you.
13. Oyster (n.), a person who  sprinkles his conversation with Yiddish expressions.
14. Pokemon (n), A Jamaican proctologist.
15. Frisbeetarianism (n.), The belief that, when you die, your soul goes up on the roof and gets stuck there.
16. Circumvent (n.), the opening in the front of boxer shorts.

You mean these words have different meaning to these?

Thanks to Chris for sharing

Easter, a quiet time all round really?

Both of my readers, who know me, will know that I am a big fan of Apple computers, here's an interesting timeline that shows the development of the macintosh as a personal computer

Still posting away madly at flickr

Still using Lobster to manipulate my images in PSP

Recently we were in Sydney to celebrate our 3rd wedding annivesary, took 400 plus photos over the 3 days, and after almost a week of editing and post-production produces this resulting set on flickr.

I can't sing enough of the praises of lobster the plug-in for photoshop that compensates for the colour shortcomings of the app

2005's must see photography exhibition

This exhibition will be in Victoria soon.

High Speed Photograph

Most viewed image on Flickr

Lewis Baltz - George Eastman House

One of my early influences in photography

Lobster-Photoshop comparison

A side by side comparison of two images, one manipulated in Photoshop using Lobster and other tools, the other straight out of the camera, (with a small amount of un-sharp masking applied).

Photoshop, Farker, Lobster, Flickr, Striker!

Downloaded a new app. today. It's called Farker, and it's an RSS news-reader that displays somewhat goofy headlines from all over the world, also allowing folks to comment on them, some pretty hilarious stuff in there.

Here's an example:-

"Backstreet Boys plan comeback tour. Publicity stunts begin with drunk driving charges"

or this one:-

Aromatic Patrons of CA library asked to leave, proclaim, “… reading stinks anyway!”

pffft, what can I say?

Over the last couple of Mondays, been attending a workshop on Photoshop, run by the inventor of Lobster™ a powerful editing plug-in that gives photographer's complete and correct control over their colour manipulations in Photoshop. Download the demo version, and download the notes/tutorials that go with it you'll be amazed at how it transforms your digital darkroom approach. I have been enjoying the workshop from several aspects, being taught again by a former teacher ( who is an excellent teacher by the way) and seeing how someone else teaches the Photoshop™, as well as getting to peek at Photoshop™ from a slightly different angle, and using it in a slightly different way.

Flickr has been down for some time today, bit of a worry I hope they don't do a dot bomb on me? I'm planning on using the service for some serious artistic investigation over the next few years. I also wanted to link to a couple of the images I made whilst on the School camp over the weekend, will have to wait awhile I guess, or maybe I'll just embed directly here?

On a different note I am not working today, because, and I quote

TEU representatives met with the Vice Chancellor recently to continue negotiations to seek to achieve an agreement for a 2008 expiry date and 22.5% pay rise as outlined in the NTEU's Position Paper on our  EB settlement.
The Vice Chancellor was adamant that she would not be agreeing to either the 22.5% pay claim nor the 2008 expiry date for the agreement.

My small contribution to the news aspect of blogging.

Digital Images from NYPL

A new free online service is being offered by the New York public Library. It allows people to download any of their 250,000 images to do as you please with. A real nice research tool I guess and I suppose depending the quality of the files maybe even possible to own a classic photograph or two.

Final Days of summer

Off to the annual "Kamp Krusty, this year it's shaping up to be wet and possibly wild. This image was made about the middle of the year, last year, during a mid year camp we held, so this in itself will be an interesting return journey for me.

This region of Victoria has had a fascination for me for many years now, I think I have been camping there on and off for 20 or so years, focusing on a couple of spots in particular in the Otways. One place Stephenson's Falls (see image above) has had a special connection for me, and after all these years I have a series of images made there that could constitute a body of work. So dear reader stay tuned as I prepare to head off west for the weekend several cameras under my arm ready to shoot shoot and photograph anything and everything that catches my eye.