Photoshop Curves

After my weekend photoshop workshop last weekend I remembered this Photoshop curves trick.

It is a great trick I learned a long time ago, but, I can't remember where or how I learnt it?

This is the usual curves dialog box, after I have reversed the values by clicking the small black and white triangles at the bottom of the graph.

If you hold down the option key on the Mac or the alt key on Windoze, hey presto you get 10 squares vertically and 10 square horizontally.

Divide 255 by 10 gives you 25, this then enables you to loosely apply zone System ideas to your images in Photoshop.

You can even make a tool, that can help you visualise this all by making a strip that has 11 shades of grey from 0 to 255 in it.

Another little tip is if you click the small button on the bottom right of the dialog you get a large version of the dialog box.

Technorati tags:-photoshop, curves

Flickr Toys

Busy weekend here this weekend.

Thanks to barb for sending me to check my unofficial flickr score which I'm pretty pleased about, the score that is. It is a very elegant and beautifully designed site by netomer, who is not only one of my contacts, but a damn good photographer too

According to his neat little tool this image made Explore / Interestingness in the last 7 days, I'm kind of not surprised as there was a lot a banter and discussion under this image, and it was faved pretty heavily too. So thanks to Kent, AvD and all the other folks who made comments and faved this image. Now, I'm back to work!

New York Exhibtion!

Self-Portraitr: An Interactive Exhibition Curating the Flickr Community

Very interesting, wonder how it will work, might even give it a go myself?

The press release in part reads,

Pace/MacGill Gallery and the School of Visual Arts’ graduate photography department are pleased to present an interactive exhibition of self-portraits drawn from Flickr.com, the online digital photo-sharing network. Flickr’s user base consists of over one million members who share images and image-related information. Two leading forces in the New York art world—-a major photography gallery and a top art school—-have joined together to observe this online conversation of image making. The mining and showcasing of this material strives to engage and expand a rapidly growing virtual arts community. The exhibition will be accessible to both viewers and contributors alike via the Pace/MacGill website www.pacemacgill.com. Pace/MacGill’s gallery space will house ten computers on which visitors can peruse the pictures gathered from numerous global photographers as they would online. A few monitors will display slideshows of images specifically collected via the gallery website.

The exhibition will not only rely on the Flickr community for content, but will also depend upon the activity of the site’s users for the organization and editing of what is anticipated to be thousands of images from the age-old genre of self-portraiture. Whether the image is taken by a professional photographer overseas or by an amateur experimenting with a camera phone in New York City, each image posted on Flickr and “tagged” as a self-portrait will automatically be filtered and directed into the exhibition. The Pace/MacGill Flickr interface, created by SVA’s Jeremy Chien and Stephen Jablonsky and programmed by Kelvin Luck, allows users to vote for favorites, track the most viewed image, and create categories. Sorting options or subcategories (self portrait “with mirror” or at “beach,” for example) within the virtual exhibition will enable further definition and refinement.

The work in the exhibition will perpetually expand with the proliferation of users until the popularity of each category aids in its editing. As more images are collected and more users are interacting with the site to make selections, the work will become more discerning and interesting. One can choose the role they wish to assume: curator, artist, etcetera. With every click of the mouse, viewers become participants; the interactive community defines the exhibition. The hope is that the final result will be a 50 print exhibition of images chosen by the community.

Well exciting indeed!

Technorati tags:-flickr, gallery, exhibition

Public Art

Some cool sound and multimedia installations going on around town at the moment.

Machines That Read?

Flickr has an algorithm called interesting-ness, today I made pg 37 with this image, but it's almost like a kiss of death really, I mean how can a machine be taught to judge beauty and merit of an image? From what I can tell it requires a certain number of visits and comments as well as favouriting to make this part of the site, with less than 20 views and a mere 2 comments and 1 favourite, what the hell is going on?

[Edit] Well less than 24 hours later and it seems to have disappeared! It's a very fluid thing this algorithm, but meh whatever!

Proofs in the Digital Age

Well maybe it is possible to treat one's digital wok in a similar manner to analogue, perhaps I just need to learn some more patience in dealing with my digital files.

Just spent the day flicking through my archives using iView. Found some gems and will over the coming days upload them to flickr.

iView, is a freeware app that used come with Roxio Toast. It helps you keep track of your images, by allowing you store facsimilies of your images on other drives or external storage devices.

I use it in my workflow to create a file of the contents of a CD as I burn it. Then some time down the track when either I'm looking for a specific image or just browsing for images I open the file of a given date and browse the contents of the file, if I find something I think I want to use, I match the CD to the file and load it up and away I go. You can even open it from the iView interface into any app I choose to add to the list of available applications.

Proof

There is something special about sitting down with a cup of coffee and flipping through tactile proofs exploring and wondering about opportunities, of images

Cameras

Digging deep into the archives on flickr now!

This was taken with what, was then, a fairly reasonable camera sometime in the late 90's, hasn't camera technology moved along a long way since then? My wife's current camera about 1/2 the physical size of the one that took this image cost 1/2 the price of the Kodak DC260 and produces twice the file size. Back then I enjoyed using this camera but never was quite sure what I was going to use it for, as the images were quite small, too small for print, anyway, well large prints. And in those days broadband was a dream for most Australians, and flickr was just a pipe dream. Multimedia was one way I was thinking of using these, 13000 plus images, but coding up 13000 plus pages of html didn't really grab me. So Images from my Kodak DC260 sit here on CD roms awaiting some use.

Well here we are more than 5 years later, and I am shooting even more digital images now, big enough for small prints, and broadband enables me to share this work with the world.

Thanks to all those folks on flickr who make it a great place to hang and look and talk photography.

Arnold Newman Dies

Sad Sad News!

Arnold Newman, died earlier this month.

From Wikipedia.

Newman graduated high school in Miami Beach and attended the University of Miami studying painting and drawing with an introduction to ——Modernism. Unable to afford continuing after two years, he moved to Philadelphia, PA to work for a studio making 49-cent portraits. His time there taught the importance of interacting with his subjects and allowed him to developed his technique.

Newman returned to Florida in 1939 to manage a portrait studio in West Palm Beach. Three years later he opened his own business in Miami Beach. In 1946, Newman relocated to New York, opened Arnold Newman Studios and worked as a freelance photographer for Fortune, Life, and Newsweek.

How the hell did I miss this one?

Well anyway even though I am not much of a portrait photographer, I always remember with fondness being introduced to him and his importance within the history of photography

Wating... Waiting...Waiting...

Today is the 30th of June.

"So!" I hear you say!

Well today is important not because it being the end of the tax year, but because, I am waiting to hear about a gallery appliction lodged with the CCP and a competiton I have entered at the MGA.

Needless to say I doubt much will get done around here today!

A dip into the flickr archives then for this image of Eureka Tower.

New Bodies Of Work?

Not only is the light really nice at the moment, but I've started a new series of images based on some discoveries,one of which was at a local croquet lawn.

Chairs and shopping trollies are the two things that seem to most turn up in the oddest of places.

The kind of places I've always enjoyed 'hanging around' seem rife with them.

My sets are growing. This is something that I've been contemplating in terms of my output as an artist,can I justify producing work that is a culmination of an experience [walking around with a camera], rather than having some idea in my head and making images about it, the idea?

Is the idea of exploring an external world in an inner way justification enough? After all, Marcel Proust said,

The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.

So seeing and make images of my own local area with new eyes, or in a way that is interesting is this enough?

While we're on quotes, here's another again by Proust, that speaks volumes,

Art is a selective re-creation of reality according to an artist's metaphysical value-judgments. An artist recreates those aspects of reality which represent his fundamental view of man's nature.

The site where the quotes are from? BrainyQuote.com, a great site indeed

More Winter Light

While we're on it, more winter light.

Again part of the maps project

Incongruous

Another example of the gorgeous winter light to be had sometimes in Melbourne.

This sight seems so common, abandoned furniture in obscure pockets of big cities, I don't understand how. Our local council has regular hard rubbish collections and a 6 day a week tip that allows locals to dump their rubbish quite easily.

Despite the light this shot sums up the occasional state of mind I find myself in these days. Hence the title.

Not that that is a bad thing really?

Bollywood Director?

Wanna be a TV producer, of a Bollywood classic?

2006 Winter Light

Winter light sweeps though my house in amazing ways.

It days like this that really make me appreciate what it is "I do"

Even better that I get paid to "do it".

You do remember don't you?

we are not what we remember of ourselves.
we are what people say we are.
they project upon us their convictions.
we are nothing but blank screens.

So sayeth casoulbyrd, indeed a powerful sentiment.

There were many reasons I like the look of flickr when I signed up, irregulargirl's images was one of the reasons, so here's a peek at her set that just keeps on growing.

"it was electric... so frightfully hectic"

Recently experienced an interesting 'spectacle'. A Dance competition!

Several things that struck me were that this kind of event even existed, that it was actually a competition between 4 dance studios owned by the same company, that folks could get so into the whole competition idea in the first place.

Photographically I new I didn't have a hope in hell of subtle or nice lighting, so I resorted to my one of my favourite techniques in this kind of situation, 'Flash & Blur'. It can be a bit hit and miss, especially over longer distances, but when it works it works well.

Tech specs, f4.3 0.5 sec 400 ISO, flash set to -2. According to my EXIF data in Photoshop.

Here is the EXIF data pulled from the file using Graphic converter.

• Image title:
• Make:-NIKON
• Model:E5400
• Orientation of image:1
• X resolution:300.0 ppi (pixel per inch)
• Y resolution:300.0 ppi (pixel per inch)
• Resolution unit:inch
• Software:E5400v1.4
• File date and time:2006:06:24 20:40:51
• Y and C positioning:co-sited
• -- Exif IFD --:
• Exposure time:1/2 s
• F number: 4.3
• Exposure program:Normal program
• ISO speed rating:400
• Exif version:0220
• Date and time of original data generation:2006:06:24 20:40:51
• Date and time of digital data generation:2006:06:24 20:40:51
• Meaning of each component:YCbCr
• Image compression mode:4.0
• Exposure bias:-0.7
• Maximum lens aperture:3.0 APEX = F2.8
• Metering mode:Pattern
• Light source:unknown
• Flash:Flash fired, auto mode.
• Lens focal length: 10.3 mm
• Color Space:sRGB
• Valid image width in pixel:2592
• Valid image height in pixel:1944
• File source:reserved
• Scene type:reserved
• Custom image processing:Normal process
• Exposure method: Auto exposure
• White balance:Auto white balance
• Digital zoom ratio:not used
• Focal length in 35 mm film:50 mm
• Scene capture type:Standard
• Gain control:Low gain up
• Contrast: Normal
• Saturation:Normal
• Sharpness:Normal
• Subject distance range:unknown
• Compression scheme:JPEG
• X resolution: 300.0 ppi (pixel per inch)
• Y resolution:300.0 ppi (pixel per inch)
• Resolution unit:inch
• Offset to JPEG SOI:4596
• Bytes of JPEG data:6819

I was trying to capture the movement colour and light from the whole night and this is the best I could do. Several things impeded me. The table settings were PACKED in as much as possible not allowing much freedom of movement in and out of them, and being a 'guest' I didn't want to put any noses out of joint by jamming cameras at people in the wrong place or wrong time, besides anyone who knows me will know that a people/portrait photographer I ain't.

The town hall itself was an interesting old building and worthy of several hours of wandering with a camera and tripod. I didn't shoot much by my standards only a dozen or so shots, but the colour and movement seemed well captured, even if I do say so myself.

All Done - For Now!

Well all done, now 6 rolls of film to process and given the light and me being at home all day, I think that number will rise!

Next the flattening & the numbering, then over the coming months, the perusing, to see if anything is worthy of further exploration or printing even?

Photoshop may even fall into the equation at some point, if only I had access to a nice printer like the Epson 7400! The 9400 would be even better though!

Something that I of course have forgotten about is the waste, over 50 rolls of film in the last few months, equals 50 test strips and 50 proof sheets, not counting a pair of rubber gloves, no end of hand/paper towel, several empty plastic bottles and assorted packaging, oh dear. analog indeed!

1 of 13

One down 13 to go, several ideas on this one.

Kent's Portrait involving fabric and bodies, headless bodies, as well as some ideas I'm tinkering with in relation to flat surfaces and shadows, and the usual urban landscapes too.

Of Course!

Vernacular?

So more than 90,000 views. I'd like to se my work get that level of exposure at the NGV.

Speaking of the NGV, maybe I should write an exhibition review of a show I've seen lately?

American beauty at the NGV international at the moment has got to be one of the best shows I've seen since the Bill Henson show of 2004, or was it 2005? Anyways, Lee Freidlander Walker Evans and Robert Frank have got to be in my top 10 of favourite Overseas Modernists photographers from the last century. Lee Freidlander I'm told shot enormous amounts of film to get the kind of 'visual' treats he achieved, and Walker Evans, documenting life with an 8 x 10 camera, with the most superb compositions and drawing that I have ever seen. Robert Frank well I'm almost speechless here. His controversial book from the 50's 'The Americans', even has an introduction by one of my favourite poets/authors, Jack Kerouac. The space at the NGV international is small, so sadly the amount of work on show is scant, but several of my Favourite Lee Freidlander shots are there, the one with the triangular cloud over the stop sign, and the shot of the tourists at Mt. Rushmore, are moments never top be repeated, slices of time that say as much about what is being photographed as the photographer and the time and place, and managing to be funny as well!

This show is a must see, just for the ideas it portrays, which is an idea close to my heart. 'The Vernacular'.

“I speak of the things that are there, anywhere and everywhere – easily found, not easily selected and interpreted.”
Robert Frank

13 May to 22 October 2006
Photography Gallery, Level 3
Admission free