Digital Photography Manipulations?

Digital photographs manipulated in photoshop, are they somehow less “ photographic”?

According to some folks over at flickr yes.

This notion displays a lack of understanding of the entire photographic process to my mind. Manipulating photos in a program like Photoshop™ is simply processing. All photographs are processed. Analog ones in chemistry, digital ones in a computer. All digital photos whether scanned form film or downloaded from a digital camera require some level of manipulation, the degree of manipulation required depends on several factors, the means by which the image was captured, and the output device, (there maybe others but I can'think of them just yet).

So here's a scenario, you choose to shoot in RAW for because like me you don't trust some camera manufacturers idea of what an image should look like. This image upon downloading requires processing of some sort, otherwise you have an image whilst full of digital information visually may express nothing, or what about the other extreme, you are travelling and don't want to fill up your cards to quickly, so you settle for a jpeg from the camera, even these are not as crisp as they can be and require some intervention in the process. My point is digital manipulation is no more unphotographic than push or pull processing, burning or dodging or spotting, there is no cheating going on. Anyone who thinks there is doesn't understand the process.

Learning Photography & Flickr Updates

Photography Books aren't just about pictures, once again Peter Marshall over on photography about dot com has an article worth reading. so if you want to learn how to take better pictures or learn how to ‘read’ your own and others photos then have read of his article.

Recent addtions to my flickr account/site:-

• Portrait of a place
• The Flood of 2005
• Chase #7 a kind of scavenger hunt game, currently with about 80 participants.
• Melbourne's Trams crickey never thought that I'd become a tram spotter?

For both of my readers, I have also uploaded an image from my desktop of the info from the folder where I store my camera files. It's been a busy 5 weeks I can tell you but I just know things will slow down, particularly in the winter months when daylight is short and workloads are in full swing! Still 1442 images is nothing to sneeze at, of course not all of them made it to flickr but those that did I'm pretty happy with and of course will use the sets feature to ‘organise’ the images for further publication elswhere, probably as books.

Melbourne Floods

We had some serious rain here in Melbourne over the last 2 days, our local creek almost broke it's banks. Last night I went down and snapped off a few shots, so I'll post them later at flicker.

I took a couple of panoramas using the panorama assit option on my Nikon Coolpix camera, and then tried to assemble them in photoshop. The results are OK but because I didn't use a tripod they are a little wonky, which is easy enough to fix in photoshop, or i can just leave them as a slightly off and wonky ‘Cubist/Hockney’ style image.

see no evil....?

What fun you can have if you have the inclination!

Briefly:-
tripod,
3 shots (with self timer in this case)
opened in photoshop
shift dragged two images on the top,
create masks through them so you can see the other layers below.

Photoshop Manipulations

Here's an image manipulated in Photoshop to look like a cheap plastic camera!

It's amazing that given the technology available to us like photoshop folks are still find ways to subvert that technology

Personally I can take or leave photoshop, so long as the image is a good one.

First Ericsson Mobile Phone images

Here is an image made with my Ericsson K700i. It isn't the first but it seemed to me to justify the extra cost of e-mailing to myself to have it posted at flickr, of course on a real monitor, it falls apart, but on y mobile phone screen it looks sensational. the colours are what really drives me here, and the way the mirror looks like a planet earth, looking down in dismay at the discarded shopping trolley, in all that crazy mixed up light it's just great I reckon?

This phone camera also has a built-in function which allows you to stitch together 3 pictures to create a panorama. Now whilst these images are by no means accurate renditions of the scene presented it certainly gives the feel of the scene as it was experienced.

I think I am finally coming to terms with what these new technologies mean to my own creative practices. I can really appreciate the way that images can be produced quickly and spontaneously. Then once on the web can be organised in seamless and intergrated bodies of work that are interconnected.

My most viewed image on Flickr?

My last post from home for the summer of 2005, leaving later for work. Anyway, the most viewed image of mine at Flickr? Strangely its a screen-grab of my favourites, with 211 views, prior to that, it had been a shot of a mannequin dressed as Santa outside a shop in Fitzroy. Strange very strange indeed? I mean I can understand the mannequin shot but a screen grab of other folks photos that I enjoy?

Photographic Flickr frenzy!

FWIW, I have uploaded over 150 photos in the six week break from work, with probably a 25% hit rate means I've shot more like 600 in this time frame!

With me back at work tomorrow, I suspect the upload rate will drop right off, who knows, it's all just to easy to shoot process and upload these days.

The total amount uploaded so far to flickr is about 783 images but a substantial number of these are from the archives.

Ericsson K700i Review

Update on the phone review.

The darns thing stitches panoramas together, has a black and white function, as well as sepia, negative and solarised. My god when will all this end? The downside to this camera is that I am unable it seems to turn off or change the ghastly shutter/clicking sound. Buggah!

Mobile Phone Camera 2

Here is my new mobile phone.

A big thanks to Matt at Telechoice in Northland for the help in upgrading at no cost. I chose this particular phone because it was one of the few that was listed on the Apple site as bluetooth compatible

Well so far so good, have almost completed setting up the phone, once I have the bluetooth attachment for my laptop it's away I go with my idea of seriously exploring these cameras as cultural tools. Flickr is probably where most of them will end up, who knows. For the time being here's my ‘thoughts’ on the camera.

I like the backlit keypad, and I like the icons and the rollovers attached to them, the menu system was very quick and easy to work out too. However the small gripes I have a this stage are, the Navigation key, this is small for a person of my size and I seem to be either missing it all together or hitting it when I don't want to. The built in ring tones are somewhat limited in their choices and because I don't have the bluetooth all configured yet I don't think I'll be able to download any other options. I am also a little perplexed about the e-mail configuration, and I'm waiting for some messages tom arrive that are supposed to help me set it all up, I've been waiting since about 8:00pm last night?

Still all in all it's shaping up to be a great phone with what appears to be pretty reasonable image quality. Stay tuned for the snaps dear Reader.

Flickr Downtime again?

Hmmm it seems flickr is down again for a couple of hours, uh oh! For two hours! Ai Carumba!

Urban Landscapes 23.01.2005

A couple of the shots from yesterday.

Digital Photography on the fly

Yesterday, I found a train that is in the process of being dismantled. Of course Melbourne's graffiti community was onto it, or should I say had been onto it really. So I popped on over and snapped off a few shots with my Nikon Digital Camera.

The Graffiti artists were hanging around working whilst I was still there. Some of my initial impressions were, that these guys and they were all guys, seemed to be much older than I'd ever expected them to be. The smell of enamel paint hung thick in the air, caps of enamel paint cans were strewn everywhere, along with empty stubbies and plenty of the detritus of a train dismantling. I hope to go back and have another go at making some more images, before Smorgons finish the job, stay tuned fine reader. The images are simply edited in Photoshop for the web, no other editing has occured what you see is what you get!

Sets at Flickr?

One of the reasons I am hangin' out at flickr is because it allows me to create sets - quickly and easily - and it helps me to then sequence my images as if I was preparing them for an exhibition. these days I make books rather than exhibit. So I now have a new set at Flickr, possibly a new book as a consequence? Inspired in part by Frederick Sommer's new site

Art Photography?

Interesting photo project?

Over three months, Danish designer Simon Hoegsberg stopped 150 strangers on the streets of Copenhagen and New York City and asked them what they had been thinking about the second before he hailed them. Using a microphone and a dictaphone, he recorded their answers, then snapped their photos. The result

From Jeffrey Zeldmans's site

Photography book collecting, and how should I archive my images?

A man who takes after my own heart as far as photography and book collecting goes. One day I'll catalog my entire collection and post it online, I have a piece of software that does it effortlessly.

Am reading more and more about photographic image management. Read this morning how someone uses a small app from Adobe™, to organise and categorise his images. Currently I use an app called iView (the free lite version, no RAW file support). But don't do much more than drop a CD's worth (however long it takes to fill one) into the app to create a file, and give the file a meaningful name for easy referral at a later date. Later when I need to find an image I just open the iView file or files and ‘browse’ for the image I want. It is a completely visual process, that ties in with my memories of time and place, seeing a few images around the time the image was taken often is enough to jog my memory and hone in my search. So far this process works for me, of course though most of my work is personal and predominantly about the landscape or culture, I have few images of events anniversaries or birthdays, these are the times I want to party not make images so I don't make them.

All Honkey Dorey so far but what about in ten years time? Will I still be making images in the same vien? I've already changed my focus by shooting for screen and small prints only now. And even this year when i printed my first small run limited edition book I just went off gut instincts and chose a handful of images that seemed to work, all visual. Does this make me to easy to please? Are other people more demanding of their images?

Just thinking out loud I guess?

Spam or Link to Photoshop workshops?

Something that appeared to be spam that *may or may not* be spam turned up in my inbox today? A site called yahblogs.com has added me to there database? Hmmmm we'll see what transpires.

Here's what the e-mail said:-

This email is not SPAM.
We are just letting you know we've selected your content.
Have a great day!

Sure enough when I checked the site mine is listed not very high in the photoshop term search though?

Speaking of which my last photoshop woorkshop for the summer holidays is this weekend, the 22nd 23rd of Jan 2005 from 9:00 am to 4:00pm, I have one place left so contact me if your interested? The cost for the two days is $230.00 this includes all course notes and materials needed for the coure and lunch both days. So maybe I'll see you there?

Porn.............

Fashion masquerading as soft porn, well what can I say, some fashion is just fashion, this is soft porn no doubt!

Quotes on Truth and Photography?

Well whaddya know, looks what pops into my inbox from an e-mail list I'm on. Some very tasty quotes about what Photography is or isn't.

"The demise of the relative and analogical character of photographic shots and sound samples in favour of the absolute, digital character of the computer, following the synthesizer, is thus also the loss of the poetics of the ephemeral."
-- Paul Virilio, _Art and Fear_

"When the world, or reality, finds its artificial equivalent in the virtual, it becomes useless."
-- Jean Baudrillard, _Impossible Exchange_

"Don't you think the world's greatest game artist ought to be punished for the most effective deforming of reality?"
-- ~eXistenZ~, dir. David Cronenberg

"To have a regard for reality does not mean that what one does in fact is to pile up appearances. On the contrary, it means that one strips the appearances of all that is not essential, in order to get at the totality in its simplicity."
-- Andre Bazin, "In Defense of Rossellini"

From a C-theory article by Nicholas Rombes.

Veracity or Truth?

An artist who intrigues me at the moment is Larry Sultan he works in colour and in spaces that are used by the porn industry but the scenes he photographs are often disquitening, no “ action” takes place, there are often awkward moments of solitude, people sitting quietly in parts of the scene that either seem out of place or hard to locate. The colour in some of the shots I've seen on the web are fantastic compostions, this shot in particular has the small splash of hot pink in the lower right corner that just balances all the other colours in the room perfectely, the model appears to be completely bored perhaps waiting for something to happen? All the images I've seen so far form his book, ‘The Valley’ suggest to me that this work has the hallmark of of Robert Frank's most famous, work ‘The Americans’. A must buy when the money starts rolling in again.

From the Amazon dot com book description:-

Since 1988, Larry Sultan has returned time and again to photograph on porn sets in Los Angeles's San Fernando Valley--the Silicon(e) Valley of the porn industry. But The Valley is by no means a documentary on porn filmmaking. Rather, it is a dense series of pictures of middle-class homes invaded by the porn industry. Sultan's lens focuses on pedestrian details--a piece of half-eaten pie, dirty linens in a heap, "actors" taking a break--that offer clues to a bizarre other-world. The lush and intricate images adroitly play with artifice and reality, adding up to rich, elliptical narratives that circle around the concepts of "home" and "desire." These images of homes and gardens, porn actors and film crews, studio and location shootings are an ambiguous meditation on suburbia and its trappings, family and transgression, loss and desire, the utopias and dystopias of middle-class lifestyle. The Valley and its many-layered photographs outline the complexity of domestic life at the beginning of the 21st century, opening up new perspectives for photography through its innovative combination of staged and documentary photographs. In 1998, an English magazine asked me to go on a porn set. I flew down to Burbank Airport with my wife, and we went to the house they'd given me the address of. It was a dentist's house on Van Alden. That name had all kinds of connotations when I was in high school. Because the Valley is so haunted for me by the ghosts of childhood, all of these street names have Proustian connotations. All I have to do is to say: Havenhurst, Van Alden, Vineta, Dubois, and a flood of associations comes back to me. [...] After the first five minutes of the strangeness of it all, I started to look around, going to the bedrooms, wandering through the house. It felt like a permission to go into a house in L.A. and to imagine how someone would live their life in this house. I made the pictures for the magazine. I left and thought, "This is it, this is what I have to do." --Larry Sultan