Once while testifying in court, Frank Lloyd Wright referred to himself as the world's greatest architect. Asked later how he could make such an excessive claim, he replied, “Well, I was under oath, wasn't I?” (Secrest, 1998, p. 376).
Maybe like me, you sometimes fantasize about greatness, recognition, the respect of your peers, maybe even fame and fortune. I wonder sometimes if I will ever have the success in my career and life that I hope for. I get caught up in the daily struggle to move forward, personally and professionally. Depending on the day of the week or who knows what, my assessment of my progress is unsure and very fickle. Today I am the greatest photographer that ever lived, tomorrow I can't find a good photo to save my life. If there was a pill I could take when I wake up in the morning to push me in the direction of the former as opposed to the latter. Oh well!
Could it be that the truly great photographers, architects, artists etc... are cursed / blessed with a greater measure of arrogance and narcissism than your average joe? Do they get up in the morning with the idea that the world is holding it's breath waiting for their next move? Do they let failure get in the way of their opinion of themselves?
This ought to give you plenty to think about the next time you pick up your camera.
Well, I better get going.....the world is holding its breath.
The excerpt above this post is from an article in the Annual of Psychoanalysis (2005), written by James William Anderson Ph.d.
Saturday, July 21, 2007
Frank Lloyd Wright
Monday, July 16, 2007
Alien Skin Software Review
Click image for Large Preview.
I've been trying to schedule enough time to put together my review of 3 Software Plug-ins from Alien Skin Software: Exposure, Snap art and Blowup. Work and other commitments have kept me from my blogging duties, not to mention all the time I have spent playing with the Filters. The image above this post is some Album Cover art that I have been working on. There isn't one element in the image that hasn't been run through at least one of the film- look filters in Exposure or the Faux- art filters in Snap art. I haven't had the time to test the upressing software Blow-up, but I'll probably get the opportunity soon enough to use it on the Album Cover image. I am very particular about upressed output, so I am interested to see how well the Alien Skin software holds up to Genuine Fractals, which is my standard choice for resizing images.
EXPOSURE:
The idea behind the Exposure Plug - in, is to render images captured digitally more like what you would expect from photos taken with traditional film. To do this, Alien Skin provides 36 different Black and White and Color Film Stock filters and 54 other variants of traditional printing and processing looks applied as a Photoshop Plug-in. Just a few of your choices in the monochrome filters include the look of Fuji Neopan, Ilford Delta 3200 and 200 SFX infrared film. With 19 choices of Color film stock, like Fuji Velvia, Kodachrome 64 and ISO 500 GAF, you can't go wrong. There's more than enough variables of filmstock and processing filters to keep you up all night applying different combinations. Each filter application creates its own layer so you don't have to worry about altering the underlying background image. None of the filters take more than a few seconds to run on 8 bit color images and just a tad longer on 16 bit.
Note: Most of my photographs are created with an 8 mega pixel camera with the subsequent Raw File producing a 45 MB 16 bit processed tiff. My PC runs a Pentium 4 with 1 gigabyte of Ram, so I'm not quoting figures for a Apple G-5 with Dual processors. Who really needs to spend that much money on a machine that saves you just a few seconds anyway. Go get yourself a PC and have more time to make coffee and Cold Calls.
With the variables of color, tone , focus, and grain you can create your own magic filter and save it as a preset in the user settings box, displayed under the filter choices in the settings tab. This will let you repeat the mojo on other images. Don't try and remember what you did, just save your settings and give it a memorable name. Exposure saves the settings for you in a special file; all you have to do is click the manage button in the user settings box and import any previously created filter. Visualizing the before and after has been made easier than ever with the Preview Split drop down box, which lets you choose a screen split ( Filter / No Filter ) in 8 different ways. ( Example: filtered on left with right side unaffected or filtered on right with left side unaffected, top, bottom, diagonal, or full screen) . This is just for previewing the effect on the image versus no filter at all. You can set the screen split any way you like that works for you. When you are ready to apply the settings, hit the OK button and you're done. The software applies the settings and ( if you like ) creates a new layer in your file with filter applied. This keeps you from altering the original and also allows you the option to fade the filter back with the percent slider in Photoshop. You can finesse the image even more by knocking it back a little using a layer mask to grab just the right pieces. You don't have to beat somebody over the head with a filter. Give them a taste and keep them wondering !
SNAP ART:
Snap Art is billed as a Plug-in to help you create beautiful, natural media artwork from your digital images. There are 10 different Art Styles to choose, including Watercolor, Oil Paint, Impasto, Pointillism and my personal favorite Comics. All of them do exactly what they're supposed to do, turning your images into faux works of art. With the option to apply variations of color temperature, contrast, saturation and brush stroke, they give you endless ways to enhance your photos. You can also pick a Canvas ( Background ) texture for your artwork with over 14 Choices to choose from, parchment, wood and leather to name a few. These filters are hard core and you will want to run them on a duplicate layer, just as you would with the Exposure filters. Setting the strength of each parameter on a given filter is much easier and comes with many more options than your standard Photoshop filter. The final output is also much more believable than what you get with the crappy filters in PS. I can see myself using the Impasto and Oil Paint filter to create ready-made portrait backgrounds for compositing. Remember. Try not to over do it. A little goes a long way !
Alien Skin Lists the retail web price as follows:
Exposure : Retail $199.00 US / $149.00 for registered owners of other AlienSkin Software.
SnapArt : Retail $149.00 US / $ 99.00 for registered owners of other AlienSkin Software.
Mac and PC compatible !
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
David Honl Light Mods For Portable Strobes
Photojournalist and Entrepreneur David Honl has created some really cool Light Modifiers for your portable on camera strobe system. At the core of these simple lightweight tools is a Speed Strap with rubberized coating that can be left on your Canon or Nikon flash at all times. There are no messy adhesives required, just a Velcro outer edge to secure the strap to itself and for mounting various gobos, reflectors and snoots. Each light modifier will attach quickly to the Universal Speed Strap directly to the outer Velcro edge. Ballistic Nylon is used for all the strap accessories maintaining a stylish and indestructible professional look. Trust me, these things are brilliant and affordable. The Speed Strap sells for $9.95 US and the other accessories are under 20 dollars each.
I will be buying a set of these!
Monday, July 9, 2007
Time For A New Watermark System
Recently I have given more thought to the importance of metadata and watermarking for images published on the web. I have always been a little slack in marking my images with the proper metadata. I create so many different versions of each image and save them in so many sizes and formats that I more often than not forget to check that I have included keywording and metadata. Even when I remember to mark an image as a copyrighted piece of original art, complete with keywords and warnings; they somehow end up naked and metadata free when they finally show up on a clients web page. No copyright, no keywords, a completely untraceable image. 20 years from now an image could still be circulating in cyber space and I might not even remember that I created it! It's not that I'm that concerned about unauthorized use or suing somebody for damages when they have inadvertently used an image beyond our agreement. I just think it would be great if every image had a simple reasonably small watermark that could point web surfers in the direction of the original content creator. Maybe something as simple as a 3 number system with letters replacing numbers in different positions when the original 999 numbers have been exhausted.
Example: 000, 001, 002, thru 999 then 00A, 00B, 00C and continuing, letters in the first position A01, A02, A03, and second position 0A1 0A2 etc... should give 8,722 different combinations that would be permanently connected to individual photographers worldwide. Each person having a number for life! We would of course have to reserve the number 666 for 'Celebrity Photographer' Annie leibovitz (Just kidding).
If we take it to the next level and use 3 letters and include case sensitive lettering, the possible combinations go far beyond my ability to calculate. After I sell this idea to Corbis or Bill Gates I don't care what the rest of you do with the number system, I'll be living on an island with my harem, counting my money.
Now, the idea in my head is an elegant, artistic font ( Watermark ) that would be uniquely recognizable as a creator tag, possibly contained in a sphere or rectangle with rounded edges. It would definitely have to be so attractive and hip looking that it would be an interesting yet non distracting inclusion into an image. Something like the signature of the artist in an illustration or painting, which we now expect to see on any piece of artwork. For web images, I can't imagine it would be too hard to implement this system. One organization could be created to establish and manage the assignment of each lifetime code with a one time fee that would grant each individual permanent ownership of the number combination, similar to a Brand burned onto a cattle rancher's inventory. To simplify the point, each image is like a wayward steer who has escaped from the rancher's property. Without a brand ( that can't be removed ) the animal's owner cannot be established. An image with a simple code could be connected to you ( Content Creator ) and your website as quickly as you could look up a word on Wikipedia. Without this simple solution, web viewers are unlikely to connect an image with the 'Photographer' who worked so hard to create it. The available options for hidden watermarking and metadata don't address the simple vanity issue of having your work identified with you, the photographer!
People are already accustomed to Social Bookmarking Buttons, favicons in the URL and similar logo identifiers. Why not create something similar for photographers?
Remember, I came up with the idea first! Send your check or money order to......
Friday, July 6, 2007
Nikonians.org Website for Nikon Lovers
A reader has turned me on to a really great website www.nikonians.org for Nikon Shooters. It's quite a comprehensive website, featuring articles on Nikon Cameras, lenses, flash and related gear. Nikonians offers it's members varying levels of service including inexpensive ( niksecure ) camera / gear insurance, forums and the option of displaying personal gallery images in forum posts. Classifieds, photo tours and seminars open to Silver level ( $25 yr) members round out the extensive package. Basic membership is free, with Silver, Gold or Platinum level memberships costing $25, $75, and $200.00 respectively.
From the Nikon site:
Full membership levels have access to:
- Receive rebates from selected companies
- Show your support with special icon in the community
- Sign up for our attractive Photo Insurance NikSecure
- Get your own image gallery
- Access local Nikonians events and workshops
- Upload images and link to images in the forums
- Access to classifieds (sell & buy area)
- Free shipping from the Nikonians Pro Shop (Platinum only)
- Search for photography friends in your area
Almost makes me wish I shot with a Nikon........almost!
Thursday, July 5, 2007
The Work of Chema Madoz at haha.nu
haha.nu which bills itself as a lifestyle blogzine has a wonderful page of images by Photographer / Artist Chema Madoz. There are around sixty incredibly beautiful black and white images to view on the page, mostly quirky and thought provoking images of mundane objects. It is an amazing example of what a great mind can do with the average 'found' object. The artists book "Chema Madoz", 80 page hardcover from Publisher Assouline '1999' is available at Amazon.com. I noticed that there are several used available at very reasonable cost.
Check it out
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