Once again Photoshop CS5 shows itself to be a major upgrade. In this episode of The Complete Picture, Julieanne Kost shows you some of the new painting features in Adobe Photoshop CS5 including the new Natural Media Bristle Tip Brushes.
June 28, 2010
June 16, 2010
The Life of a Photograph…
The Cowboy by Sam Abell
There was once a time when photographers thought of themselves as members of a Brotherhood/Sisterhood. As a photographer, you were one with all other photographers. Whether you liked a photographer’s work or not, you respected that person for the energy they brought to it. Well in these days were “artists” (usually painters) now call themselves photographers.They know little to nothing about that brotherhood/sisterhood of like spirited folk feel. Yet, in an Andy Warholed way, they can appropriate the images of others. Not only appropriate/steal an image, but actually call it they own! When artists and Big Time arts institutions feel comfortable with this type of behavior, there’s a problem.
A few years ago I read about the artist, Richard Prince. He had put together a series of works at the Guggenheim Museum about the New Americana and some blah, blah, blah. In his exhibit, he used an image of photographer, Sam Abell. So here’s an interview with Sam Abell about what he thinks about this guy stealing one of his images and is making crazy amounts of money from it. Sam is a class act, but there ought to be a law about things like this. I think they should call it Copyright Infringement! Yet it seems to be legal. Kinda like bringing the financial markets to their knees in 2008. It’s legal, but is it right or ethical?
But wait, there’s more! Well now it seems that someone else inspired by Prince, is selling the Abell image as micro stock for pennies in comparison in a project called 20×200! Photography, it’s a crazy business
June 7, 2010
Creating a Black & White Photograph
Now, this doesn’t sound like rocket science, and it isn’t, but care should be taken when making a black & white conversion from your image files. Today, many cameras have a built-in function which allows the photographer yo make a black & white image from the original color scene. While this feature is handy, you give up control of your image to an algorithm. Plus, if you’re a control freak like me, I may want that color image later. Now you may say, “Hey Jarvis, you can always flip the switch back from B&W to full color and shoot both!” And I say, “But why?” Why stand there playing with the camera instead of making wonderful photographs?
Well, in this video, I give you a Quick & Dirty overview of how to handle B&W conversion in Photoshop. You’ll see how to give yourself maximum control over many aspects of the conversion process and end up with a beautiful image that no camera algorithm or One-Click-Wow in Photoshop or Lightroom can give you. Check it out.
May 19, 2010
A Few New Botanical Image Ideas
I’ve been working on some new work from scans,. Mostly from dried flowers that I’ve had laying around. Photographing them has allowed me to at least throw them away! For the past month I’ve also been using my scanner as a macro camera. I amazed at how much detail there is to objects. I’m looking froward to doing more this summer on this idea.
I wasn’t thinking about Dreams, when I was taking those photographs. That idea came later, and was in the moment.
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May 15, 2010
New Self Portrait, sort of…
Well, this really isn’t new. I shot this about three years ago. I was testing a process that my students at the Ellington School of the Arts were about to embark on. We were working on a project with the National Portrait Gallery here in Washington, DC, commemorating the photographer Gordon Parks. The students were to use a 4×5 view camera to photograph their family, then digitize the negative to make 11×14 fine art pigment prints. I needed to work out all the bugs so this would go as smooth as possible
A newly rendered Self Portrait
While the students loved the magic & professionalism of working with the view camera and the studio lights, they found the process slow, because of all the camera prep before the actual shot is made. Yet, it all worked out just fine. The process slowed them down enough to consider what they were doing, instead of their usual joy ride approach in making photographs.
OK, back to me! We were using a Calumet Cambo 4×5 camera, Rodenstock 150mm f/5.6 lens and Polaroid PN/55 film. For the lighting we used Calumet Travelite 750 monolights with a large 36″ 48″ Chimera softbox. I used a 16″ cable release for triggering the exposures.
The reason for this image to be labeled as new is because I needed a head shot for a brochure that the Panasonic Digital Photo Academy is producing. I sent them the one I normally use, which looks like an ink rendering, but thought I’d look at the others that came from that session. Well, during that session I shot with a Nikon and forgot about those 4×5 shots I made. So, it now they looked pretty fresh, snarl and all! Since I’ve been playing around with NIK Color Efex Pro, I opened it up in Photoshop to see what I could come up with. I like the look of the Pastel sub-filter. It reminded me of a Cyanotype, and I went with it. The frame on the image is the natural residue from the Polaroid PN/55.
Chimera
May 14, 2010
Queen of the Night
On First Discovery
Last night while in my studio, I could sensed a familiar sweet faint aroma. I thought, “Hmmm, I didn’t see any pending blossoms from my Night Blooming Cereus, yet when I looked up, there it was. I’ve had this plant for over 30 years, and it still fills me with a sense of wonderment. This cereus, which is a member of the cactus family, blooms for one night only. I have often photographed these blossoming events, from the the first beginnings, to the finality of its dried pods. Since my Panasonic LX3 was on my desk, I took several snaps. With its small size and outstanding macro capabilities, I was able to manuever it to get shots I couldn’t with my big Nikon.
I wish this camera was able to take time lapse automatically. It would be nice to make a video from the stills. I’ll just have to wait for a bloosm to be in the right place for me to use a tripod or even my little Joby Gorillapod, so I can do the time lapse manually.
Night Queen: The Morning After
I enjoyed making these photos. I started out just to take a couple of quick reference photos, then just really got into it. Winded up taking a liitle more tha a roll. (I still think in terms of rolls of film – 36 exposures+) The shot to the left is looking up from my desk. The shot to the right was made the next morning.
May 8, 2010
Three New Dogwood Scans
Last week a sent off some new work to Panasonic’s Digital Photo Academy for their Earth Day newsletter. Here are the three I sent.
May 2, 2010
Adobe Labs – Adobe Lens Profile Creator
Adobe Labs Lens Profile Creator
This is an interesting new technology from Adobe Labs. It allows for the profiling of camera lenses. In Photoshop CS5 and Lightroom, you have the ability to correct for camera “distortion”. Now in the old days, I considered Lens distortion a “visual effect” ! But now a days it seems there is a quest for “perfection”
Now Adobe has the tendency to only speck in terms of their latest & greatest software releases, like CS5. But since they also mention Lightroom & Camera Raw it “may” work with the latest update Photoshop CS4 since Camera Raw and Lightroom share the same Raw conversion engine.
The interesting part of all this is that Adobe is asking its user community to send them their .LCP(lens correction profiles) files that they create.
This is what it does in Photoshop CS5
Adobe Labs – Adobe Lens Profile Creator.
April 29, 2010
ATLAS Gallery, London – Faces of Our Times
Meet The Beatles, by Robert Freeman ©1963
The Atlas Gallery was founded in 1994 by Director and owner Ben Burdett.
In 2005 The Atlas Gallery became the official gallery agent of Magnum Photos for all print sales in the United Kingdom and represents all Magnum photographers in the UK and its world-wide territories.
One of the great things about being on the Photography Now mailing list is all of the wonderful announcements you receieve about international photography exhibitions. I’m amazed by the number of photography shows that occur around the world everyday. As a photographer, the thing I enjoy and learn from Photograph-Now’s newsletters, is all of the subjects, objects, and approaches that are presented as “legit” . Now, by legitimate I’m talking about what photography dealers are willing to and can sell! I must admit, when I’m creating photographs, in the back of my head is the thought, “I love this, but who cares?!” Then when I see something of a similar vein in Photography-Now, I see that all is well and I’m on the right track. However, in a small town like Washington, DC, it can be hard to read just where dealers and collectors are coming from. But that is a whole other story.
OK, back to the ATLAS Gallery’s exhibit. When I visited the Gallery’s web site there were so fimilar and unfamilar ‘Iconic” images there. Not that I know evry grand portrait image, but it is always interesting to see something new and have my imagebank grow a little bit more. As I look at the faces of these famous people, I also see/feel myself passing through history. All those faces of people who were alive during my life time, and now they are gone. I’ve got that alblum, Meet the Beatles. I think back when I 9and they) were kids, with our whole live ahead of us. Now, only two are left. Who’d thought! I expected them to make music together forever, and it all ended in 1970. Photography is an amazing time machine.
Check out the photos. ATLAS GALLERY – FINE ART PHOTOGRAPHY
April 26, 2010
A Voice of Light in the Darkness
A couple of weeks ago I commented on an article that was in the NY Times about the Death of Photography as a Career Path. I’ve just read an article by Selina Maitreya on the same topic. Man what a difference! In Selina’s post, she speaks to the Life of Assignment Phototgraphy. In it she cites certain Truths, from her perspective. One Truths is, Negative loud voices are ever present.
I think that no matter who you are or what you are doing these days, you must work very hard to rally against the every present clutter and clamerings of these Negative Voices. The message of “Abandon All Hope” or that “Greed is Never Going Away, so Get Your Share” or that “There is only one Group that the Voice of Truth Belongs To”. So in that we folks how are Creative People must not lose sight of this, and be prepared to provide a message of Hope for everyone. So, get out there and show that portfolio!
