Carpe Lux

Subjects are the subject today

bryan — 2004-12-23T07:08:59-07:00

It's interesting watching people's reactions to photographs. I've come to realize that there are different "personality" types when it comes to how people respond to a series of photographs. This ties in to a previous post about photographing cliche's. For many people, particularly non-photographers, the subject of the photograph is king. It doesn't matter whether the photograph is any good technically, either in terms of sharpness, exposure, lighting, or composition. To them, in order for the photograph to be interesting, the subject has to be interesting. I'm just the opposite. I don't really care what the subject matter is in the photograph. I respond mostly to the play of light in the photograph, and secondarily to how it's composed and how it's technically executed. It's kind of like how I respond to music. I rarely pay attention to the lyrics of songs. I don't even know the words to some of my favorite songs of all time, either because I can't understand what the words are anyway, or mostly because I simply don't pay attention to them. I respond mainly to the melodies and textures of the music. To me, the words are just part of the texture, and they don't have to make any sense at all. In the 70's I liked many of the songs by the band America, even though if you actually listen to the words, it's hard to make any sense out of them. Neil Young was also an early favorite of mine, and the words to his songs rarely made sense either. I like country music, or more precisely, I like the sound of country music. But ironically, I don't really like what many country songs are saying. I just like the sound of the words, and the particular instruments being played, especially fiddles and pedal steel guitars. As far as photographs are concerned, I respond mostly to the lighting. I could care less what's being lit. The subject could be a stunning landscape, a plastic doll hanging upside down in a window, an old ratty coat, water, sun, sky, buildings, people, whatever. To me, if a photograph is executed well, has good lighting and composition, and is sharp when it's supposed to be, and soft when it's supposed to be, then it's a good photograph, and I will probably like it, regardless of what's being photographed. I'm not so sure that most people are like that -- even many of my photographer friends don't seem to be like that. It's particularly a problem during the judging at the monthly competitions in our local camera club. Even though the judges are supposed to evaluate the photographs objectively, without regard to the subject, (unless there is a designated theme), most judges have a hard time factoring the subject out of the equation. Some like portraits, and dislike landscapes, or vice versa. And they seem to judge accordingly. My pet peeve is when the subject is a cliche'. For example, take photographs from one of the many well-known photographic icons of Arizona and Utah, such as the slot...

Early summer of cliches

bryan — 2004-11-21T07:54:42-07:00

My summer started off with photographing well worn subjects. In early June, I went to the "Wave" in th Paria Canyon Wilderness just south of the Utah border near Page, Arizona. The Wave is a geographical quirk of swirling sandstone that is quite striking. Here's a sample photo of one of the buttes at the Wave. While it's a great photographic subject, I've seen many pictures of the Wave, so I was a bit uninspired when actually photographing it. Like many places in the Southwest, the "Wave" has been photographed so many times before by so many people that I'm left a little bit jaded by the whole experience. That's not to say I didn't have a great time during the outing, (although it was a very hot hike in early June), and it's not to say I didn't get some good pictures, I just wasn't inspired by them. I love being outdoors, and I especially love this area of the Southwest. I feel a great kinship with this land. But I really don't care to be taking the same pictures that everyone else is taking. I mean, how many pictures like that above does the world need? It's almost as bad as the proverbial cat picture. Usually, in outings like this, I try to look for the unusual to photograph, the overlooked. I like to look the "other way" when confronted with a famous photographic icon. Alas, I didn't find anything this trip, partly because it's such an effort to simply get there. That was mostly due to the time of year. Don't go there in the summer if you can help it. It's just too blaming hot. If you do go, plan on leaving the parking lot way before sunrise, so that you can get there and back before late morning. We left the motel about 3:00 am, figuring that would give us plenty of time. Alas, we weren't actually on the trail until after the sun was just rising, and for those of you familiar with the southwestern deserts in the summer, that meant it was hot from the get go. We met some hikers of questionable intelligence on the way back, around noon. They had very little water with them, and were carrying their young baby. I can't imaging hiking in this remote, hot desert in the middle of the day without water, or a hat, or at least a minimal amount of survival gear. It boggles the mind how clueless some people are. Another popular spot near the Wave is of course, Antelope Canyon, the famous slot canyon right outside of Page, just south of Lake Powell. Amazing photographs have been taken of this canyon, by greater photographers than I, and while it was an outstanding experience to be hiking between these narrow canyon walls, I was left uninspired by the photographs I got back. I almost can't stomach to see another shot of Antelope Canyon. I did manage to get a somewhat unique shot looking up, by combining two exposures together -- one for the glow...

"Shortly" is about 4 months

bryan — 2004-11-21T07:36:59-07:00

He's baaaaacckkk. After a long haitus from this blog, I decided this "morning", 3:55 am, that it's about time I start posting something again. My last entry said that "Hopefully, I will be posting something shortly". That was back in August, and before that, May was the last time I entered anything. So it's time to get caught up....

Where have I been?

bryan — 2004-08-10T02:15:38-07:00

Well, it's been several months since I lasted posted to this blog. Don't know why, really. I have some entries that have been in the works but I have been distracted and working on other things, and this blog has went on the back burner. Hopefully, I'll be posting some more shortly....

Some digital math

bryan — 2004-05-05T11:37:37-07:00

Back when 1-3 Mpixel cameras burst onto the scene, and back when film scanners were in their heyday, probably the foremost question on most people�s mind was �how many pixels do I need to equal film quality?� No one really seemed to know the answer, or to state it more precisely, everyone seemed to know the answer. And the answers were all different. Here�s my take on the whole affair. This �take� is based on real-world experience, and also on some �ballpark� math. This is a rather long post. click here to download the complete Word document If you don't want to read this long post, here�s a summary: I think 12Mpixels = 35mm quality, and around 48Mpixels equals 6x7 medium format quality. At the 22Mpixel mark, I think the other factors of digital capture, such as immediate feedback, outweigh the resolution advantage of medium format film capture, and make going digital rather compelling. I also think that these �resolution� wars are missing what�s going to be the more significant aspect of digital capture, and that is the possibility of having high dynamic range images, that capture above and beyond the 10 stop range of film....

Another lemonade stand

bryan — 2004-04-30T05:00:06-07:00

Whenever I tell my friends that I'm developing a photo-editing program, I get the most curious reaction. To almost a person, they all say something like: "Well, there's already Photoshop, so why are you doing this?" This is like saying "Well, GM is already making cars, so why should you?" Well, why shouldn't I? Just because the kid down the street is selling lemonade doesn't mean I can't as well. This is but one example of the way anyone who is inventing or developing something is discouraged by everyone around him from doing so. It's real easy to come up with reasons not to strike out on your own, to not invent something new or better. But giving in to these reasons doesn't get you anywhere. It's far better to try to figure out all the reasons it should be done. That's how progress is made. Most people think I'm crazy. Those that don't are those that are also off trying to develop new software gadgets. I know very few of these kind of people though. Deep down, I suspect the non-developers out there are just envious that they don't have the courage to strike out on their own, so they try to bring the rest of us down, to make us "safe" to them. No doubt, developing a non-trivial software product by yourself is a significant undertaking. It's like trying to build your own house. I used to write books on C++ programming, and when I was working on a new book, I felt like I was moving in molasses. Every word, every paragraph, and every piece of code had to be pulled, kicking and screaming out of the realm of non-existence. Programming is like this too, but maybe not quite as slow a process. Still, it feels like I'm moving in slow motion, as every button and every dialog box slowly takes form and function. All the while, I'm being told that I shouldn't be doing this, that it's of no use. That's it's "already been done." But I trudge on, undaunted....

JPEGS and patents

bryan — 2004-04-30T04:34:08-07:00

I see where Forgent, the company that owns a patent to an algorithm used in the compression technology behind the JPEG file format is suing all the big players for incorporating JPEG files into their products. This includes just about everybody in the digital photography industry. I guess this also means I won't be supporting the JPEG format in my own photo-editing program. I hope Forgent gets the huge backlash they deserve. And I hope this means the death of JPEG. I never really cared much for the format anyway. For putting images on websites, or sending via email, it's a decent enough format, but as a format for archiving and editing images, it leaves a lot to be desired. The JPEG format isn't likely to go away anytime soon, though, being as prevalent as it is on the web, and being that it is widely used in digital cameras. But it may fade away into being a minor player, just as the GIF format before it.(GIF was once widely popular, but it used the LZW compression algorithm, to which Sperry Rand held the patent.) The most likely candidate for replacing the JPEG format is probably the JPEG2000 format. Other than in name, the JPEG2000 format is unrelated to JPEG, and uses a more advanced and superior form of compression. It also handles 16 bit color channels where JPEG does not. More importantly, the technology behind JPEG2000 is, by the intention of its creators, not patented. It's not a widespread format yet, but Forgent's actions may spur the adoption of it. Another possible replacement is the PNG (Portable Network Graphics) format. This format has been around a while, but has never seemed to really catch on. Maybe it will now. This latest flap over the JPEG patent is just another sad example of what is wrong with patents, particularly in the software realm. The original intent behind patents -- to encourage innovation -- was a perfectly fine one, but it has become twisted beyond recognition. There are two problems with the current state of affairs. One problem is that since patent rights can be bought, we see big companies buying up patents right and left, and patenting every insignificant idea they can think of, and then essentially extorting money from everyone else. This hurts small companies the most -- the very companies that drive most of the true innovation. I don't see how big companies being able to buy up patent rights is encouraging innovation at all. Quite the opposite. I resent companies like Forgent, which don't do any of the innovation themselves, reaping the benefits of someone else's clever handiwork. I personally believe that a patent should not be transferrable, and should only be held by the person that invented the design behind the patent. Corporations in particular should not be allowed hold patents. Instead, they should have to license them from the people that own them. If the person (or perhaps his or her immediate family) holding a patent dies, the patent should expire with him or her, even if...

Astia as a B&W Film

bryan — 2004-04-28T09:51:52-07:00

Well, my previous entries have talked about Fuji's new Astia 100F film, and have talked about color vs black and white photography. In this post, I guess I'll tie them together. For I have discovered that Astia 100F makes a great B&W film! Hah! Recently, I took some photos shot on Astia 100F and converted them to B&W. I was pleased with the results. While I'm sure that regular B&W negative film has a wider exposure range, I was able to achieve some some nice results with Astia 100F, it being a color slide film and all. Here's an example, from a recent trip to Vulture Mine in Wickenburg, AZ: As can be seen from this example, Astia 100F has a reasonably long shoulder on the shadow side of things, compared to its Velvia counterpart. So why use a color slide film for B&W photos? Well, this way, I get dual purpose out of my photos. As I mentioned in earlier posts, some images look better in color, some better in B&W. I don't know about you, but I can't always tell when I'm out in the field. By using Astia, I have the luxury of deciding later. Not to mention that I get those gorgeous medium format slides which look wonderful under the loupe, and even more wonderful projected. Another plus is that I don't have to worry about which type of film I have in the camera. I once bought several rolls of B&W film, and then proceeded to never use them, because, invariably, I already had color film (usually Velvia) in the camera when I wanted the B&W look, or I didn't want to load the camera with B&W film only to take a few shots, and then be "stuck" with the B&W when I wanted the full color of Velvia. Now, I can just load in Astia if I think I might be wanting B&W images, but if I should change my mind, or have a whole bunch of shots left, I'm not sacrificing too much color staying with Astia, (if you could call it a "sacrifice". It's not really.) Sometimes, images look good in color and black and white. Here's the same image as above in it's original Astia 100F color. (I happen to like this color version better.) Now, I'm sure those of you who are shooting digital exclusively these days might think the comments above are awfully quaint. Guess I can't argue with that, other than to say that using a color slide film this way would not have been possible without digital technology (ie. scanners and digital editing). I'm fully embraced in the digital world -- I haven't spent the last year or so writing photo editing software for nothing. I just have chosen for the moment to stick with film capture. It makes the most economical sense for me, otherwise, I'd be trading a rather expensive, perfectly fine medium format camera for a rather expensive digital camera. 22MP backs cost a pretty penny, and despite the "conventional wisdom" spouted by those who should...

More on Color vs B&W

bryan — 2004-04-08T09:27:42-07:00

In my last posting, I forgot to mention the following point about the color vs black and white theories: If black and white photographs are "fine art" but color photographs are not, then why are almost all paintings in color?...

Color vs B&W

bryan — 2004-04-08T08:25:51-07:00

The conventional wisdom in the photography world is that black and white prints are "better" or more "artistic" than color prints. Many people fervently believe in this, including many of the "masters." I've never understood this myself. I'm a fan of color photography. Ever since my first photograph, I've worked almost exclusively in color. I've probably only shot a couple of rolls of black and white film in all my 30 years of photography. Color excites me. I take mostly landscape pictures, and most black and white landscape pictures leave me cold. The beautful greens and blues of idyllic mountain scenes, or the bold, red bluffs and canyons of the desert southwest cry out in color. Putting such scenes in black and white seems almost criminal. There are exceptions of course. The landscape masterpieces of Ansel Adams come to mind. I never really cared much for his prints until I had the opportunity to see some of his originals down at the Center of Creative Photography in Tucson. The difference between Adams's originals and the reproductions that most people see is like the difference between a 1 MP image blown up to 16x20, and one taken on a 8x10 view camera. I was completely blown away by two of Ansel's originals. No, not the famous "Moonrise over Hernandez," but one of his waterfall prints from Yosemite, and a print of a snow covered mountain top with clouds. I don't remember the names of these pictures, but they are exquisite. What's exquisite about them is the luminosity that emanates from them. They simply glow. It is magical. What's interesting is that these very same pictures shown as reproductions in the museum gallery book store were lifeless, and not very special at all. What is it about the glowing luminosity in these originals? Is it simply because they were done in black and white? Many would say "yes," because in black & white, you are reducing the image to it's essence, and that essence being the tonal gradations of light. This belief is a religion to many. They say that it's the color that's distracting, and that it detracts from the soul of the image. But I don't think so. In fact, my example of seeing Ansels' originals and then seeing reproductions of his work proves the point. They were all black and white prints. But it was the photographer's printing skill in the originals that made all the difference. So can you get that same glowing luminosity in color? I'd like to think so. In fact, one of my main aspirations as a photographer is to capture that luminosity, but in glorious living color. I want to be the "Ansel Adams" of the color landscape. I want to do in color what he was able to achieve in black and white. I can't say I've succeeded at this yet, (far from it!) but I've got a few prints that show promise. I think part of the problem with color prints is that in the past, controlling the color printing process was just too...

Those annoying thumbnail viewers

bryan — 2004-04-08T07:32:17-07:00

While thumbnails are a good thing (both the ones on your thumbs and those tiny scaled versions of your images), many software packages that provide thumbnail viewing drive me up the wall. Windows 2000 and XP are a prime example. I work with large images, anywhere from 50MB to 500MB and beyond. If I have such files in a directory, and have the misfortune of opening a folder in Windows XP or 2000, Windows goes off and tries to build thumbnails of all the images in the folder. Building a thumbnail of a 500MB file takes a long time. Building ten or twenty of them takes a really long time. Yes, the thumbnails are built in the background, but it chews up gobs of processing power, and takes your hard drive hostage in the process. It can really slow down your computer-- and I have a dual processor system. I can't imagine what it's like on a slower, single processor computer. And yes, I can turn off the thumbnail viewing, either by changing the folder viewing option to "list," or "detail," but I have to do this individually for each folder I might create. And just because I turn it off in a parent folder doesn't mean it will be automatically turned off in any sub-folder I create. It's particularly annoying in XP, which being "smart," decides I have image files in my folder, and defaults to "thumbnail" view. So I have to go in manually and change the viewing option. What a pain! And yes again, I can turn off the whole mess by switching to "classic" window view, globally, for all folders, but then I lose the rest of the information that Windows provides in the left pane of the folder view. That other information can be useful. Even when I'm in list view or detail view, if I make the "mistake" of clicking on an image file, Windows goes off and tries to build the thumbnail for that image, so that it shows up in the left pane of the window. That's fine for small images, but it's complete nonsense for larger ones. I don't want thumbnails built for my 500MB images! While it's true that some types of image files have thumbnails built-in that imaging software can tap into for fast viewing, many formats don't. Standard TIFF files are a good example. Besides, I don't need thumbnails for my 500 MB images. Why? Well, because my large files are for "special" images -- the kind that can win competitions, or are for sale for large prints, etc. Being "special" means I have relatively few of them, and I tend to put each in their own separate folder, so I can store variations while editing. I know darn well what image is in those folders -- I can tell by the name. And being "special," I am intimately familiar with what's inside. The last thing I want to see is a thumbnail, especially if it takes a long time to build. This contrasts to the way the average Joe...

Old digital files

bryan — 2004-03-31T15:22:17-07:00

I've recently been reading Brooks Jensen's blog at the Lenswork magazine website. It's interesting that he chose to do a blog via audio files only, and on top of that, no photographs! I guess he didn't want to risk putting up any cat pictures -- ha! Anyway, this is not a criticism of his site, but just an observation. I've always liked his editorials in LensWork magazine, and ditto for his blog. In one of his entries he talks about how he has kept old negatives, dating all the way back 30 years ago, and how the intention was that someday he'd go back and re-print them, now that he has better printing processes, etc. Brooks notes that after all this time, he rarely goes back to these negatives, and really has no desire to. He's interested in the pictures he's taking now, not what he took 30 years ago. So what was the point of meticuolusly storing all these old photos? Now that we've entered the digital age in photography, where our "photos" are stored in digital files, I've noticed this same phenomenom, updated to include the new media. I still shoot film, but I scan in those images I want to make prints of. During this process, I make it a point to scan my 6x7 or 35mm slides and negatives with "full" 4000 dpi resolution, and with 16 bit color channels. I use Photoshop (for now, until I get my own photo editing program up and running), and use adjustment layers heavily. I save my fully layered photoshop files, and perhaps some final flattened Tiff files, onto DVD's. The idea being of course, is that someday, I'll go back and redo those pictures, using better software, better techniques, etc. These files tend to run on the huge side. For example, a single layered 6x7 4000 dpi scan with 16 bit color channels runs a whopping 530 MB. When I start adding layers, and maybe have different editing approaches stored in separate files, all of a sudden, I can easily fill up a DVD with just one image! So, after doing this for three or four years now, I have a lot of DVD's. And have I ever gone back and reworked any of these images? Apart from copying off the final version of an image, and making another print, the answer is: rarely. I've probably only reworked a couple of images. Ironically, if I do decide to rework an image, I find myself rescanning it first! (I forgot to mention that I store the original transparencies as well -- they still are the ultimate storage medium.) I'm not sure why I always want to rescan the transparencies. Part of it is that I think I can do a better scan this time around. I don't know. It's just a tendency that, until I read Brook Jensen's article, I hadn't really paid much attention to....

More on Astia 100F

bryan — 2004-03-29T17:55:39-07:00

A bunch of us from our camera club went up to Vulture Mine near Wickenburg and took pictures of --- junk again! Most of the shots were indoors in old mining buildings. Most of the people were using digital cameras. I was one of the few film holdouts. After the positive results I got with Astia on the trip to Jerome a few weeks ago, I decided to shoot a bunch of rolls of Astia on the "junk" subjects, thinking it would be a great film for that subject matter. I also shot some with Velvia 100F for comparision. I used my Pentax 6x7 exclusively. The verdict? Well, for sure the colors Astia 100F are more neutral, and very accurate. As I noticed before, Astia 100F doesn't have the tendency to go as blue in the shadows as Velvia 100F, and it does have a "longer" shoulder on the shadow side of things. However, this time around I discovered a drawback to Astia. Not having shadows block up as easily also means you have less contrast, and thus the transparencies just aren't as sharp under the loupe as Velvia. The loss in sharpness is subtle. It's more of a feeling -- a feeling I've learned to trust. And in "blind" tests I've done with myself, it's a repeatable phenomenon, so I know it's real. But I'm probably the only one among my friends that would even notice. I found myself liking the Velvia transparencies better -- they just had more pop. Along the perceived sharpness, I'm sure the slight increase in saturation is also a factor. So, lesson learned. I think I'll stick with Velvia 100F unless I really want the softer contrast and more accurate colors of Astia. I'm sure Astia would make a great portrait film, although I haven't tried it in that setting yet. In any case, the difference between these two films isn't all that much. To me there is less difference between Velvia 100F and Astia 100F than there is between the old Velvia 50 and Provia 100F. I am finding that for most things, the palette of the Velvia 100F is quite pleasing, and a good compromise between the highly saturated Velvia (which I must confess is still great for those scenics that need the extra color), and the neutral, more accurate Astia 100F....

Astia 100F

bryan — 2004-03-19T17:05:40-07:00

I took a break yesterday from an intensive few months of programming on my photo/image processing software, and went out and actually took some photographs! Haven't done that in a while, it seems. Instead, I've had my head down coding as fast and intense as possible, trying to get a product together someday this millenia (lol). Me and some friends went up to Jerome, AZ and took pictures in and around this former mining town. In my bag was some new Astia 100F, so I thought I'd give it a try, being mostly a Velvia 100F fan these days. While Velvia is great for scenics -- which is what I mostly shoot -- I was very impressed with Astia. I'd forgotten what neutral colors looked like. This is a very nice film. While most of the picture we took were of old mining junk -- junk being the operative word here -- I managed to sneak in some flower shots, and even managed to nail some really nice photos. I was surprised to see how well Astia handled the colors. Normally, I would have considered flowers Velvia's territory, but Astia handled them quite nicely, thank you very much. I also happened to take a few photos around my house of the spring color and the seemingly out-of-place greens in the desert mountain park across the street from my house, both with Velvia 100F and Astia 100F. The interesting thing is that I could detect only a little difference between the two. The Velvia is a little bluer in the shadows. In fact, one criticism is that the new Velvia is sometimes over the top on it's sensitivity to blue. Curiously, not all the time, but I've been noticing it more and more. It's still much better than the Provia 100F IMHO. I don't seem to get the weird cyan casts like I did from time to time with Provia 100F, and it was often too cool on overcast days. Anyway, it appears I should do some more experimenting with Astia. It might make a nice flowers and landscape film after all. I have a feeling that Velvia, and particularly the older Velvia 50, will be better for those overcast situations where you need to pop the color....

C++ in Whidbey

bryan — 2004-03-15T15:06:52-07:00

Just finished listening to a Microsoft Webcast on what features Visual C++ will have in the next release of Visual Studio, codenamed "Whidbey", which is targeted for Longhorn applications. I was especially heartened to find out that they have added the "deterministic" cleanup of objects to Managed C++, and without needing the silly "Dispose/Finalize" methodology. Instead, you'll use destructors like you normally would in C++, in conjunction with some template wrappers. Their reasons for doing so was just what I've been saying in previous posts -- basically, that there are many times you need to cleanup an object as soon as possible, yet you want it to be automatic, and work in the face of exceptions. In their examples, for instance, they had templated wrappers like auto_dispose<> and auto_close<> to help handle these duties, so you could get stack-based life-times, for instance, for managed objects. I feel completely vindicated in my criticisms of managed code ala C#. I was beginning to think I was the only one out there that thought that delayed cleanup was not always a good idea, and it seemed that people were buying into garbage collection without thinking about the consequences of doing so. It would appear that wasn't the case. I guess I just wasn't tuned into the right blogs. (They listed some blogs at the end of the talk that I didn't know about. Now I can spend some time reading them.) Another interesting note is that it doesn't appear this feature will be added to C#, although the talk wasn't quite clear on that point, so I could be wrong. But if it is indeed so, it will mean that C++ will be "superior" (I use that in a qualified way -- nothing is ever "superior" in every way) to C#, at least for people like me, who want control over what's going on in our applications, yet with as much automatic help from the language as possible. So it would appear that staying with C++ will still be a viable option, and for that I am glad....