Archive for the ‘photography’ Category
Idiot, Dreamer, or Rousseau with a Camera?
“It’s not enough anymore that photographers show us exotic places. . . . A good photographer is a storyteller, a reliable filter of his seen and felt reality.” That is the approach of Kai Löffelbein who photographed a series on Hong Kong’s ‘Cage People’ – those who live in cage compartments in a cramped room.
A sampling of Löffelbein’s fascinating work, World of Wire, appears alongwith an interview on the Leica Blog where it is a rarity as a colour gallery.
The photographer’s grounding in “social issues” seems to have a bearing on his ‘storytelling’ as evident in the way he juxtaposes a rooftop shack of sorts with luxury skyscrapers.
It is one of the few brightly-lit daytime shots in the picture story. Most images are night, indoor light, underexposed, or dark-background photos. These techniques of exposure lend a grim and depressing feel to the images, accentuating the grim and depressing living conditions of the subjects. In Löffelbein’s words, so as to get across “their hopeless situation,” “pictures and mood of the story is quiet and dark.” Therefore, a photo that did not have to be shot at night was taken at that time, all the better to convey the isolation of the person symbolized by a disembodied hand. As the hand is cut off from its owner, so too is the cage-dwelling denizen cut off from Greater Hong Kong which has implicitly passed him by.
The photographer also uses other photographic devices to convey his point and tell a story, such as simple composition. Look at this downbeat, depressing photo. Cover up the right half until the central vertical bar with a sheet of paper and you’ll see that what remains doesn’t look remotely downbeat or depressing!
Löffelbein says, “Call me an idiot or a dreamer, but . . . pictures can make us think about what is going on in the world or in your immediate vicinity and show us our responsibility in a globalized world.” With the approaches and techniques that photographers like him bring, his objectives and aspirations are not remotely those of “an idiot or a dreamer” but those of, say, a Rousseau with a camera.
America from A Few Different ‘Angles’
Today’s post is all about America. Three photographers, and several different angles into ’50s Chicago, last century’s Fort Worth, and today’s twilit backlanes of rural America are on offer.
Wayne F. Miller, R.I.P.
Wayne F. Miller was a Photography giant for both the United States and Magnum for over four decades. Last week he passed away at a ripe old 94. The Washington Post ran a tribute cum obit by Matt Schudel yesterday. Earlier, Magnum had published reminiscences by Miller’s granddaughter.
His work as a photographer was quite eclectic: he photographed World War II, assisted in the curation of The Family of Man exhibition, and shot that lauded series of images of Chicago’s South Side, bringing to the fore that down-at-the-heels locality’s deeply human aspects for the first time. Then, after he was done with photography, he distinguished himself in forestry as a conservationist.
Miller had also taken some famous images of reactions to FDR’s death; more relevantly, his location shots taken in Australia during filming of the apocalyptic thriller On the Beach may be of special interest.
Several galleries of Miller’s superb body of work are online at Magnum.
Fact-Fantasy America
Hopper and Hitchcock. Pulp fiction and the seamy side. Tract housing and trashed cars. Of such things is the Art Photography of Todd Hido made as he photographs the twilit backlanes of a little-known America.
Hido’s imagery skips along the borderline of fact and fantasy; indeed, in Hido’s photographs fact seems to be fantasy, and fantasy fools you into believing it’s fact.
In a long but very engaging article in the Cleveland Plain Dealer, Steven Litt tells the story of how Hido’s ‘take’ on America derives from his childhood and the environs that he grew up in.
His highly stylized work is simply indescribable and is valuable on different counts. Hido photographs the American landscape in a pulp fiction light and even reduces it to neon abstractions. You also get pulp fiction proper and for those who like a little class and restraint, there’s a vamp reminiscent of Clara Bow from nearly a century ago
Litt says, “By any calculus, Hido is wildly successful. His big prints sell for $15,000 to $30,000 . . . .” One can see why.
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
If you liked Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid or Sam Peckinpah’s gorefest (if you watch the unedited version) The Wild Bunch, here’s the story for you.
Remember that faded B&W photo that’s seen in the former film? Steve Campbell tells the fascinating story behind it on the Star-Telegram.
It is not a story about great photography, but a tale of detective work, personal and family tragedies, American Western history, and a family of hard-luck photographers, the Swartz Brothers. After you’re done reading the article be sure to click on the ‘Photos’ tab.
You can see historic photographs of a long-gone American West and countless looky-loos (L.A. slang) watching firemen do their thing with a blazing train station.
All said, though, the story is about those notorious outlaws Butch, Sundance, & Co. (who look like regular fops in the photo). Campbell says that their “vanity photo turned into major misstep” as it led to their ultimate downfall.
Oh, well – maybe the slick pic was worth it.
COLLECtive – COLLECTION – exhibiTION
No doubt that by now you’ve read a thousand-and-one posts about Leica’s new Mini M camera, unless you’re just back from Mars (how was the weather?). So we’ll skip that particular news splash (cum explosion) and proceed to some interesting items that may have escaped your attention.
A Rare Exhibition
Photography Exhibitions in and of themselves aren’t unusual. Some kinds and types of Photography Exhibitions, however, are unusual, even rare. One of these is Making it Up: Photographic Fictions at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London. But don’t jump to the obvious conclusion – this is not a show comprising manipulated and doctored images. This exhibition concentrates on scripted ‘set piece’ photographs with an air of imaginative mystery. The name that most immediately springs to mind is Gregory Crewdson and his works are featured in the exhibit alongwith those of several others. Making it Up runs until March next year so you’ve got lots of time to catch it on your travels.
A Camera Collection
You’ve heard about William Eggleston and you’ve admired his photographs. PetaPixel thinks that it’s high time you heard about and admired his camera collection.
Just as Saurav Ganguly had (has?) a penchant for collecting cricket bats, Eggleston has “something of an obsession” with cameras, particularly Leicas, to the tune of cases and cases filled with them! All told, they number about 300!
Obviously, no photographer needs even a tenth as many cameras so Eggleston (besides obviously being a photographer) is displaying the indulgence and love of a collector. His collection includes limited editions and commemoratives – more evidence of Eggleston’s collector credentials.
In case you missed it, all these stacks of Leicas were photographed with a dinky, relatively humble Fuji X-Pro1! How cool!
A Photography Collective
The appeal of Photography and the passion it arouses sometimes catches one by surprise. Witness some small town small gallery in America hosting an exhibition of their ‘Photo Arts Collective’.
New Haven’s Collective is a loosely-assembled local group of photographers that support and critique one another. This small-town casual group boasts skilled photographers.
Consider the photo “Meriden, CT, July 4, 2012” which illustrates New Haven Independent’s story of the Collective’s exhibition. This arresting and somewhat bewildering image was described as containing “legerdemain of light and distance” (it has the distinct feel of a tilt-shift photograph) and was praised for framing fireworks in context with their setting and spectators.
If you read the charming story you’ll also come across a photographer opining, “To me this looks like Oz,” except that she was referring to L. Frank Baum’s ‘Oz.’
Kenji Aoki’s Lighting Approach and the Mantovani Sound
Kenji Aoki is a lighting master – the proof is in his picture of glasses. What’s more, he’s also a generous soul, for he teaches you exactly how it was done! The highly unusual perspective reduces the glasses to a monotone abstract image composed of interlocking and adjoining circles with gentle texture, accented by a lone ornamental glass.
As simple and artistic as the end-result is, the lighting setup required to achieve it is fiendishly complex and it is explained in How To: Experiment with Subtractive Lighting Using Glassware by Peter Kolonia in Popular Photography.
Evenness and precision was the foundation for the setup. To achieve this, six Profoto Pro-7b heads were bounced off a white floor while the surface on which the glasses were arranged was so perfectly lit that all throughout it was illuminated “to the exact same brightness to within a tenth of a stop.”
Mantovani, whose strings sound has never been replicated, was reputed to include a vibraphone caressed with brushes on some orchestrations to impart an aural shimmering ‘top’ to his overall sound, though no-one could detect the presence of a vibraphone! The same principle applies in the way a couple of techniques have been used, subtly and unobtrusively, to achieve the specific final effects of the photograph of glasses.
Undetectable but apparently necessary for the final effect is a very mild amber filter to produce the mere touch of an antique photo effect. Next, note that the glasses were placed on a pane of glass that itself rested on wooden blocks on an acrylic sheet (not unlike the principle behind insulation) for double diffusion. Finally, there was no light whatsoever other than the strobes’ reflected light – even the room lighting was switched off. Result: an artist’s sketch.
The lighting diagram is so easy to understand once you see it but it would have been well nigh impossible to reverse engineer that same lighting and effect simply by looking at the photograph – just like the Mantovani Sound.
Jewellery Photography: ‘Let the Light do the Talking’
We’ve highlighted tutorials on various kinds of photography, such as Landscape Photography and Flower Photography, on this blog. One we haven’t covered is Jewellery Photography. Jose Antunes brings just such a how-to for beginners on Photo Tuts+.
One good thing about photographing jewellery is that you don’t need space – a tabletop will do.
What you will need – and all you really need to get started – is a light source (a window), a macro lens, and some or another kind of reflector, which is easily found or constructed considering the tiny scale of the subject, and you’re good to go.
Antunes writes: “light has color, and that light changes. If you’ve a red wall in the background its tone will probably influence everything around.” Look at the four photographs of the same ring against different backgrounds near the top of the webpage. Note how the colour of the background is reflected in the band of the ring but, more than that, imparts a tint to the hue of the stone. You can use this fact to your advantage by simply trying reflectors of different colours.
“The goal for most jewelry photography is to create soft even light with very little shadow,” writes Antunes and his image of a pendant is a lovely example. However, he also writes, “You can also use flash, . . . . One flash will be enough, two will be great, . . .”
If, instead of creating soft, even light you want to produce a dramatic, mysterious effect with highlights, pronounced depth, and hard shadows, you’ll need flash. (Or, if you’re sufficiently advanced or ambitious, an appropriate lighting setup.)
As the tutorial says, “When shooting macro photos, your depth of field will be very shallow due to the small distance between the object and your camera. Because of this, it’s not uncommon to use apertures above f/11.” What this means, in turn, is that unless you use flash (or a high ISO, which you don’t want to do) you can’t handhold your camera. And so, a tripod is not only a nice-to-have, it’s almost a must-have. Instead of a tripod, a minipod tripod (not monopod) or tabletop tripod may be a better idea for this type of photography.
After all’s said and done, light is surely the most critical ingredient in Jewellery Photography. Look at the last pair of photographs on the webpage. They are meant to show how different the same ring looks when shot on an opaque black surface and when placed on a mirror. But look at how radiant, translucent, and captivating the stone looks in the second photograph and how dull and filmy it looks in the first. That’s light talking, and this last pair of photos is the compelling argument to ‘let the light do the talking’.
Charming Children, Fascinating Fotos, and Awesome Waves
On this blog we do a weekly roundup of Photography News that is unusual, even peculiar or weird. Today, however, this weekly post is about charming, fascinating, and awesome Photography News.
Charming Children
Grant Podelco brings the story of a photographer who focusses on children with their toys.
Gabriele Galimberti’s series of photos does not aspire to be high art; rather, it is a charming document of childhood, highlighting that which is most precious to children of different socioeconomic strata and different nations.
One can’t help but wonder at the collection of cheap plastic sunglasses owned by a happy little girl in Zambia (5), or marvel at the Kenyan boy’s sole pride and joy, an old stuffed monkey (2), and compare it with the play riches of the Chinese toddler (7).
Don’t miss contrasting the Albanian doll-like girl surrounded by a slew of dolls in a pink bedroom (12) with the Latvian boy with his countless corgi, matchbox and other toy cars (13) – classic girl and boy toys!
Do you wish that Galimberti had come by your house when you were a child?
Fascinating Fotos
Tim Barribeau brings our fascinating segment in PopPhoto. He recently reported on ‘Living Photographs’. Though admittedly quirky and unusual, this technique of building a picture or composition was also indubitably an advanced form. It seems to have reached its high-water mark back in 1918.
Technically, the most fascinating point is that “the compositions had to be designed to correct for the perspective of the 80-foot tower the photographs were taken from, so fewer people had to be at the base of the image than at the top.” This is clearly visible in several photographs. The process of creating and setting up a single photo “took weeks.”
To actually see these photos, you’ll have to go elsewhere – Barribeau’s feature presents only one.
An extensive gallery of these images has been compiled by Vincze Miklós on io9.com. It has several truly fascinating ‘living photographs’, including an eye-catching Liberty Bell, complete with crack, made up from 25,000(!) people.
It reminds one of the old child’s toy, Picture Peg, but being played with persons in coloured clothes as the pegs.
Awesome Waves
If ever a title precisely, exactly, nailed a hard-to-describe set of images, “frozen sculptures” to define Pierre Carreau photographs of waves is it. Lauren Davis introduces Carreau’s photos on io9.
However, what you see on that page is merely an appetizer; Davis points her readers to Carreau’s website.
The textures, glints, shapes, that you see in the first slideshow are simply astonishing. Some of the waves look more like sculpted ice and Neptune-carved glaciers.
Proceed to the second slideshow to be astonished all over again, this time by the awe-inspiring magnificence and heft of the waves.
Because the shutter-speed is so extremely high (is there a 1/50000 speed?!), the waves are ‘frozen’ and all feeling or effect of motion is lost. Though there is field blur, in many photographs there’s nary a trace of motion blur. This somehow deceives the eye and brain into thinking that one is looking at some fantastical real-life still object – a “frozen sculpture.”
Light Painting with Darlene Hildebrandt
If HDR is yesterday’s craze then Tilt-Shift and Light Painting are probably duking it out to be crowned today’s craze. For those who’re inclined to give their vote to the latter, Darlene Hildebrandt presents the first of a multi-part lesson on Light Painting in DPSchool.
This article is unusually systematic and logical in its organization; it’s more like a chapter of a Photography Book than your usual tutorial.
First, Hildebrandt provides an outline of her tutorial’s contents. The systematic approach is shown by her setting out the equipment first and even dividing this into “The ‘Must Haves’” and “The ‘Really Nice to Haves’.” With a beginning like this you know the author is going to be thorough. (How thorough? This thorough: “a penlight or small flashlight [your cell phone can work in a pinch] to be able to check camera settings and find an item in the bottom of your bag . . .”)
On to Camera Settings where the author gets into the principles of the technique as she explains how to achieve correct focus and the use of Bulb – open-ended shutter speed. The most informative nugget falls in the ISO bullet point, however. Even though you’re shooting at night you’re advised “it is always best to choose the lowest ISO possible” to minimize noise and also bypass the wait that the long exposure noise reduction feature on newer cameras will entail.
Hildebrandt’s thoroughness transitions into helpfulness as she makes several suggestions on finding, and even devising, good subjects to light-paint on in the dark, especially if you’re a beginner.
The technique of actual light painting is the real ‘meat’ of this valuable tutorial. This section has information ready and available that one would otherwise learn only through much trial and error:– How close to get to the subject, how to achieve an abstract look, where to aim the flashlight, to ‘keep moving’ – all these tips and many more will get you from square zero all the way to square ten, so to speak, on Light Painting. Learning and applying these tips and tricks will almost surely make your first foray a qualified success.
Part 1 even provides a handy-dandy diagnostic checklist at the end so you can make any necessary tweaks and adjustments.
‘Flipping’ us ‘Out’: PetaPixel Pulls a Hat-trick
We’ll start off the week with our weekly ‘whacky’ news roundup because there’s been so much of it, none more ‘whacky’ than—
‘Whack!’
In one or two B-Grade Hollywood movies, the hero or heroine gets a fresh lease on life when a lucky charm amulet or medallion they’re wearing deflects a bullet that would otherwise have shattered his/her breastbone.
Real life ain’t as (melo)dramatic as Hollywood but it can be funnier: PetaPixel reports (and links to a video) on how an iPad saved its photographer-owner from getting a ‘whack’ on the noggin from . . . a softball! (Well, Hollywood also did The Three Stooges shorts.)
The man was taking photographs with his iPad when the (near-)‘whack’ happened, and after his trusty Apple device did double duty as a shield, he just resumed taking photos with it! This is one ‘Apple’ that sure kept the doctor away!
“Strange obsession”
That’s what Chris A. Hughes himself calls his hobby but he’s being a bit hard on himself. He searches out vintage cameras with film inside them, which he then has developed.
The sample photographs, published by PetaPixel, show that Hughes is preserving other, unknown people’s memories which range from historic and of public interest to very personal, from humourous to sentimental. He’s a ‘memories salvager’!
The images include those of a space capsule, vacationing children, and a truly fine portrait that would have had the self-styled cognoscenti ‘aah’ing over it if it had been taken by a big-name photographer. You can see more of Hughes’s finds at the Found Film website.
Whacky and Strange . . .
. . . is what Jeff Cremer has a yen for and he travels to rainforests to photograph it.
A picture story on PetaPixel introduces us to Cremer’s “rare, interesting, and bizarre” images. However, if you’re one of the “tens of thousands” of persons who ‘liked’ one of his astonishing images of an intricate and delicate lattice-like cocoon on Facebook, this item is old news to you! If not, don’t miss the story.
PetaPixel also goes into how Cremer’s photos tend to go viral but if you capture such little-seen and astonishing critters in the wild, the ‘viral-ing’ is going to be pretty much automatic.
Congratulations to PetaPixel for today’s hat-trick; it too seems to specialize in ‘flipping’ us ‘out’ . . .
A Mixed Bag of Breaking News
English: Diagram comparing image sensor formats as used in digital cameras. For the sensor formats commonly used in DSLRs, the sensors are shown in comparison to the so-called “35 mm full frame” size. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
It’s been a while since we had a mixed bag of diverse news. Today’s the perfect day for it as in the past 24 hours we’ve heard about a technological leap, a specialized sub-genre, and an artistic and imaginative concept.
The Technological Leap: Aptina’s Sensor
Aptina’s new sensor is sized one inch, has 14 megapixels, and is a CMOS type. Ho-hum? No: because it will ‘crank in’ “4K Ultra HD video at 60fps,” reports PhotographyBlog. If you’re content with regulation 1080p Full HD then this sensor will blaze along at 120fps.
Aptina says that this new sensor, the AR1411HS, also offers excellent still image quality. However, the secret is that this “1-inch sensor effectively bridges the performance and price gap between the smaller 1/2.3-inch sensors commonly used in compact digital still cameras and the larger APS-C and full-frame sensors that are used in DSLR cameras,” even as it delivers high-end video performance.
It’s a statement of intent from Aptina that should have other makers of sensors, particularly Canon, looking over their shoulders.
Specialized Sub-Genre: Insects in Flight
Linden Gledhill “didn’t have the engineering and electrical know-how to create a homebrew trigger system,” yet he managed to “built a handheld integrated high speed insect rig” that takes laser-beam tripped photographs of insects in flight!
That sounds pretty darn impressive to do without a goodly bit of technical “know-how.” Is PetaPixel trying to confuse us or are its standards insanely high?
Whichever it is, Gledhill’s photographs speak for themselves – they verily ‘fly’! Leaving the technical complexities aside and looking at the photographs qua photographs, some are actually truly aesthetic, such as the one of the bee about to descend on a blossom and the one of two amber insects against a pink floral background, while one or two are simply delightful. No wonder these images are generating so much . . . ‘buzz’!
New Concept: Imaginative Hard-Copy Media
Digital cameras have made film cameras nearly obsolete but they’ve also made prints nearly obsolete as the vast majority of images are shared and viewed digitally with a tiny proportion making the transition to a hard copy.
In fact, the technological advancement of digital perhaps ought to have had a parallel advancement in the way in which photographs are printed, viewed, and displayed. And such an ‘advance’ of a kind does exist!
From Fleeting to Forever is an e-book and website that is filled to the gills with imaginative and creative methods to ‘print’ your photographs, reports PhotographyBlog.
3D Prints, composite photo frames, bamboo backing, and in-glass images are some of the hip new ways of preserving and displaying your photographic memories. None of this should suggest that high-quality printing on fine paper is passe´; it just gives you options – say, a lucite slab for the office cubicle, a monotone bamboo print for the den, and a composite family photo frame for the grandparents.
Some Nice Things I’ve Missed
Cover of Some Nice Things I’ve Missed
Some Nice Things I’ve Missed is the title of one of The Chairman of the Board’s lesser known and somewhat under-rated albums; after all, it does have three drop-dead killahs. This post is not about that album and FAS had nothing to do with photography but we’ll steal the title because it’s oh-so apropos as we look at ocean waves, a ‘hyper-simplified’ camera, and an exhibition of ‘movers and shakers’.
Waves in Satin
We’re used to seeing country streams and little waterfalls as smooth, satinny bands courtesy of long exposures while ‘Big Surf’ ocean waves usually get the 1/2000 treatment. David Orias has pulled a switcheroo and shot ocean waves using a looong lens and slooow shutter speed. The photographs have a very “painterly feel” as Orias (correctly) describes them.
Try this: disregard the upper, foamy spume of the wave and look at the lower half of each image only. You’ll see lines and streaks in similar tones and tints creating a unique sort of abstract image.
Conran’s Hyper-simplification
Would you believe that “the form factor of our cameras hasn’t kept pace with their function”? That’s what Jared Mankelow of Conran thought as he designed a new type of “hyper-simplified” camera as a challenge.
PetaPixel reports that it is so “hyper-simplified” that it lacks both lens and screen! How does it work? The designers think that the photos may as well be viewed on your smartphone or tablet device.
This camera will probably fail to attract serious photographers but the hip, with-it crowd may well flock to it, given its retro yet offbeat look. Note to Conran: the charcoal grey colour won’t fly; market it in chic neon hues and watch it sell like hot cakes!
Schapiro’s Heroes
That’s the name of an exhibition of portraits of the rich and famous as photographed by Steve Schapiro who has seen his work published in many prestigious magazines.
WWNO has published an interview with Schapiro and a mini-gallery which includes studies of Muhammad Ali, Martin Luther King, Truman Capote and a Karsh-like portrait of Barbra Streisand.
The interview is an interesting and enlightening one as Schapiro explains his M.O. of being “a fly on the wall” while also allowing for “collaboration[s]” with “talented” subjects to create “iconic” portraits.
Correction!
Did we say “FAS had nothing to do with photography”? Oops! Though certainly no photographer, Frank Sinatra was a bit of an enthusiast to the extent that he was ringside, taking photos of a certain bustup back in 1971 in Madison Square Garden between one Muhammad Ali and one Joe Frazier.
Two of Sinatra’s Ali-Frazier photographs were recently up for auction. Check ’em out here and here!
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