Like tears in the rain:
- Ah, if only this were a Photoshop job… The Online Photographer features an image of a boat plunging to its destruction. Note the unlucky dude in the upper-right corner of the photo (back of the boat). Mad Mariner has the backstory.
- Novak’s Blog has an interesting collection of moments frozen in time. [Via Bob Regan, who muttered “It’s a little ‘Hang In There‘…” Touché.]
- Slate’s Magnum series features images in motion . I really dig the fourth one, taken in Osaka. And #7 reminds me of time spent in Death Valley… (no further comment).
- "Oh, the Beemanity!!" Speaking of dudes being… dudes, remember this formula: Flying insects + flying gasoline + an SLR: great photographic storytelling. (Note: The copywriting is a carnival of profanity, but pretty damn funny. Just thought you should be forewarned.) [Via Tom Moran]
great blog post!
I don’t get all this resurgent concern about the reality of a photograph. As it’s been pointed out on the same site, ever since it was invented photography has also involved image manipulation. We just have more powerful tools now.
The very act of shooting: framing, choosing a lens, lighting etc, shows me that what really matters is what was on the photographer’s mind. I mean, take a really long exposure, wide angle, night sky shot. No Photoshop, just “pure photography”. Will a human being ever have a visual experience such as this ? Not with our current set of eyeballs. So does that make it real ? You are actually discussing what is reality, and frankly, that has been discussed centuries ago buy a lot of smart people.
I have lots journalists friends and I often sneer at their regard to “the truth”. To me, a war correspondent on my TV is just a very frightened guy sharing his experience, not reality encoded in NTSC. And that doesn’t diminish its importance in any way. Seeing the world through another person’s eyes is far more interesting than uselessly trying to fit reality in a medium.
A RAW file, for example, could be argued to be the truest representation of moment: simply the amount of photons that hit the photodiodes in an elapsed amount of time. It’s also not an image. If you want it to became one, you must step into its purity and input your parameters in a RAW converter. An image in its purest form doesn’t exist.
If anyone still had any doubt that photography is an art form, I think current tech is putting it to rest. It’s making more obvious what photography has always been, just another way to express yourself.
Nice Blade Runner reference…
P.S. You missed lots of very interesting imaging at the Microscopy Meeting. Thin on the science, but people have some very intriguing imaging needs.
[We’d love to hear more. Are there notes available somewhere? Were any Adobe folks in attendance? –J.]
I have some of the proceedings that I might be able to send off to you, but they might be of dubious value. Additionally, the meetings were small (1k to 1.5k people) and the real action on imagery was in the conversations with folks outside of the actual presentations and in the display/vendors area. Digital imagery is everywhere in scientific imaging now, even replacing traditional bastions of film in electron microscopes. The problem now is asset management, extraction of additional data and metadata and performing digital image operations and manipulation like those that we have talked about before.
I am unaware of *any* Adobe folks that were there.
[Okay, thanks for the info. I’ll touch base with Ashley. –J.]