"The debate is an old one. New however is the ease – though, I can assure you, editing away objects in Photoshop in a clean way is far from easy – and the extend in which manipulation can be done today. Magic Wand-ing, cloning and gaussian blur are now part even of the vocabularies of a growing number of retirees with too much spare time and an interest in photography. The expectation that a beautiful images ‘has to be manipulated’ is so ingrained that we don’t even pause to question our own paranoia.

But, rather than bothering ourselves with the question if an image is 100% ‘true’ – something that, in my own opinion will never be – we should ask ourselves if adaptations (not ‘manipulation’) are reasonable; if they add or remove something essential to the image. Erasing some zits from a model’s face is perfectly reasonable. Making eyes a little brighter can be legitimate. Blowing up boobs, lengthening legs and shrinking waists is not.

Ethics surrounding photo-manipulation is never so simple as a yes or no question and is not even a ‘thin line’; it is a mine-field in a no man’s land. That careers can be scuttled be being ‘caught’ doing so is sad, in particular because in the trench war between ‘digital compositors’ and photo-purists, there appears to be little willingness to come to a middle ground."

"An extension to pinhole photography, a zone plate—or a Fresnel zone plate—is used to take pictures with a camera without the use of a lens. It looks like the above picture. Think of a Fresnel zone plate as a pinhole surrounded by another pinhole which, too, is surrounded by yet another pinhole, and so on."

The basic premise of Lytro’s technology is pretty simple: the camera captures all the information it possibly can about the field of light in front of it. You then get a digital photo that is adjustable in an almost infinite number of ways. You can focus anywhere in the picture, change the light levels — and presuming you’re using a device with a 3-D ready screen — even create a picture you can tilt and shift in three dimensions. (I got a demonstration of the camera’s 3-D photos on a laptop earlier today, and was blown away.)

"SOLSTICE SOLARGRAPHS: Last December, the staff of the Philippus Lansbergen Observatory in Middelburg, the Netherlands, invited members of the general public to join them for a solargraph-making party. A solargraph is a simple pinhole camera made from a soda or beer can lined with a piece of photographic paper. About a 100 cans were deployed around the observatory and, six months later, here are the results:…"

"Much of pinhole photography relates to the use of time and being creative with the light from the sun, similar wonders to that found in astronomy. A 6-month exposure will enable you to image the arc of the sun as it rises or sinks throughout 6 months of the year. As well as this you will get some foreground detail and a camera to look at with awe as a small hole etches its 6-month exposure from your window ledge, garden shed, lamp post, tree etc.

Being able to capture a period of time far beyond our own vision is incredible enough, but even more amazing is how simple it is to do. The final camera gives an extreme wide angle of view of 160 degrees."

"Here’s a cool way to add a little extra splash of color to your room without breaking the bank. These compact LED mood lights let you choose from 256 different colors using a clever touch-sensitive color chart on the side."

we need these in Ann Arbor

"The following formula was taken from Bob Schramm's article in Post-Factory Photography. I have tried varying the amounts of each of the three ingredients but have found the basic formula to give the best results. Adding more tartaric acid seemed to increase contrast slightly and move the image color to a more neutral gray but then graininess became a problem. Adding more silver nitrate didn't have much effect, as was the case with more ferric ammonium citrate. I doubled the amount of all the chemicals in the formula in an attempt to make a single coat solution and got excellent contrast with rich blacks but grain was again a problem. A drop or two of 1% gold chloride can be added to the sensitizer just before coating to move the image color towards purplish-brown. My main supplier of chemicals is Artcraft Chemicals (http://www.artcraftchemicals.com/) and I highly recommend them."

"Here’s a look at our Photosynth app:"

"Hugin has now reached stable state: the software is recommended for general use."

""David Leung in sailor suit, 1911." Platinum print by Fred Holland Day. Another look at the work of this somewhat eccentric photographer."

"The Optio W90 can survive those four-foot drops and is waterproof to 20-feet. You can even take pics underwater and in temperatures that are freezing. This sounds like the perfect camera to strap to the back of a penguin as he is attacked by a seal while floating on an iceberg."

"If you don’t multi-RAW process, you can take photos with immediacy—but you are losing out on a great part of the richness of digital photography.

Let me back up a second to explain what I’m talking about. If you have a DSLR, it can probably be set to save your photos as RAW files, as JPEGs, or as both. RAW files have different file extensions (for example, NEF for Nikon and CR2 or CRW for Canon)—what they have in common is that these files store all the information from the time of exposure.

Essentially, a RAW file is a potentiality rather than a final rendition. Ansel Adams said of his work that a negative was a score, and the print the performance. In much the same way, a RAW file is the score, and what you do with it in the digital darkroom is the performance."

"It's not the CG that looks weird; if you shot an ordinary scene with the same 3d technique it would look boring and flat in 2d (indeed, the difficulty of emphasizing depth by adjusting focus on a consumer video camera is a big part of what makes it 'look like video'). So the primary reason Avatar is a Big Deal for Hollywood is that Cameron seems to have succeeded in developing a 3d photographic technique that is much more compelling and realistic than the standard fixed-angle 3d which has been used until now, which actually emphasizes the separation of the audience from the action. And in order to fully appreciate this...yes, you'll need to go to the theater."

"This is the best and most amazing thing we saw at the conference that wasn't directed by James Cameron: Zebra Imaging boldly proclaims that they "produce the most innovative holographic products and technology in the world," and after an in-person demo, you walk away convinced. Words can't describe what you need to see with your eyes, so check it out (demonstrated by Zebra's Michael Klug):..."

"As I scan the list of popular DSLRs that have been purchased it’s clear that Canon and Nikon lenses have dominated the list once again. However instead of listing them in a mixed list in order of popularity I thought it’d be more useful to list them by manufacturer. Afterall – if you’ve got a Canon DSLR you’re not going to be interested in a Nikon or Pentax lens."

"Columbia University's Computer Vision Labaratory is testing out a product called the BigShot, a digital camera intended to be taken apart and assembled by children, in order to remind them that yeah, someone actually designed and built this thing."

"Think about that for a second. Depth of field principles dictate that everything in the same focal plane will be in the same focus. This lens bends this rule literally by bending the light entering your camera, creating extreme spherical and chromatic distortions that you can control. What’s really cool is, similar to pinhole cameras and those of yesteryear, these lenses are completely analog. There is no communication going on between the lens and your camera. No focusing, no aperture control, no VER or any of that fancy stuff. In fact, the aperture can only be set by dropping a magnetic disk in front of the lens with holes cut out in various sizes. How cool is that?"

Be sure to look at the background and silhouetted wires in this shot. See the comment, "That's one of the most amazing collections of overhead wires I've ever seen on Shorpy. I'll bet that it has a lot to do with the business on the ground floor of our featured building."

"I started the Ypsi Project in January of this year. I started the project for various reasons - it was a way to force myself to get out, to meet people, get involved, etc…and it was going relatively well, I thought. I began to focus more on portraits than on objects or places. I was encouraged and excited about the willingness and enthusiasm of the people that I met.

Then I started a new job and lots of personal things began to take up a significant amount of my attention and energy, blah, blah, excuses, excuses."

"..."

"If the technology catches on, camera performance will be no longer be limited by the software that comes pre-installed by the manufacturer. Virtually all the features of the Stanford camera – focus, exposure, shutter speed, flash, etc. – are at the command of software that can be created by inspired programmers anywhere. “The premise of the project is to build a camera that is open source,” said computer science professor Marc Levoy."

"When helicopters pass through dust storms, contact of the particles with the rotating blades produces either sparks or static electricity. The phenomenon has been observed during combat operations in Afghanistan; Michael Yon has documented the effect, and has named it after two U.K. soldiers who died there."

"I've seen "feral" used to describe dogs, cats, even goats. But I have wondered if it couldn't also be used to describe certain houses in Detroit. Abandoned houses are really no big deal here. Some estimate that there are as many as 10,000 abandoned structures at any given time, and that seems conservative. But for a few beautiful months during the summer, some of these houses become "feral" in every sense: they disappear behind ivy or the untended shrubs and trees planted generations ago to decorate their yards. The wood that framed the rooms gets crushed by trees rooted still in the earth. The burnt lime, sand, gravel, and plaster slowly erode into dust, encouraged by ivy spreading tentacles in its endless search for more sunlight."

BE SURE to click through and load the images.

"Last week I read in the morning paper about a street here where 60 out of 66 homes were vacant or abandoned on a single block. The reporter called it a "ghost street." Yesterday I found myself in the area. Other than an errant sofa, the street was completely empty, almost peaceful. I took a photo of every house on the north side of one block and then stitched them together. If you were to compare the current international housing crisis to a black hole sucking the equity out of our homes, this one-way street near the northern border of Detroit might just be the singularity: the point where the density of the problem defies anyone's ability to comprehend it. These homes started emptying in 2006."

"I happen to believe that this blog tells a positive story. It is the story of a family unsatisfied with a typical yuppie trajectory in San Francisco who intentionally moved to the most maligned city in America. It is the story of a man who finds that city beautiful in ways that may be difficult to understand at first, though if you stay long enough he'll try to explain. It's the story of thousands of people around the world who for some reason return to this website despite having no connection to this failing Rust Belt, one-industry town wounded by racism and poverty but surviving with a compelling grace. This is, I believe, ultimately a story with hope: another family choosing to root itself where so many are warned never to go. A city full of beautiful people surviving among the ruins. Strangers who come here to read with care and concern in their hearts. A seed that germinates in words never before read."

"July 1940. Berrien County, Michigan. "Migrant fruit workers from Arkansas." 35mm nitrate negative by John Vachon for the FSA."

"In a previous post I laid out some guidelines for helping you create stitched panoramic photographs. To help further inspire experimentation of this technique, I scoured Flickr for some prime examples of what can be accomplished. Each image links back to the Flickr page and most contain large or even original size images if you want to take a closer look."

"In this tutorial one of our senior members from our forums Japaslavian (Jeff Masamori over at Flickr) shares a simple photoshop technique for enhancing contrast."

Nice images of the few times we got outside without totally freezing

"I've decided to start blogging. Apparently people think what I do for a living is interesting so I will try and make it fab. It also help web visibility. Gotta market. Here's a fun new photo of me..."

via http://growabrain.typepad.com

via Ectoplasmosis. BE SURE TO SEE RIGHTMOST PICTURE, SIXTH ROW

via Boingboing

nonphotorealistic photography

Didn't actually know that camera RAW formats were closed.

Nobody ever accuses plants of knowing recursion theory... yet there you are, looking right at it.

Surely somebody I know owns photographs of the old swimming pool at the Santa Fe Institute. Maybe me, even. I'll have to check.

Yes, related. My brother.

"Today, possibly because of Photoshop and other photography-doctoring software, people have become suspicious of photographs. This is a good thing."

Rediscovered for Ron Jeffries, who is driving to Omaha today.

If viewed with Safari, color managemnt "works"; no other known browser shows the picture as created.

Sunnier than I recall it....

I search the skies of Amsterdam....

Haven't shifted some regular browser bookmarks to del.icio.us yet. This from the "wish I had time right now" files.

Worth bookmarking as well as adding to the blogroll....