Category Archives: Photography

Valley of Fire

Photography

My son Henry & I were super hyped to join Russell Brown & his merry band last Monday at Nevada’s deeply weird International Car Forest of the Last Church for some fire photography featuring pyrotechnic artist Joseph Kerr. As luck would have it, I had to send Henry on ahead with little notice, pressing my DSLR on him before he left. Happily, I think he did a great job capturing the action!

Russell of course caught some amazing moments (see his recent posts), and you might enjoy this behind-the-scenes footage from Rocky Montez-Carr (aka Henry’s kindly chauffeur 😌🙏):

“Nobody walks in LA”—but with Content-Aware Fill, they can skate there

Photography

Some 20+ years ago (cripes…), 405: The Movie became a viral smash, in part thanks to the DIY filmmakers’ trick of compositing multiple images of the busy LA freeway in order to make it look deserted.

Now (er, 8 years ago; double cripes…) Russell Houghten has used what I imagine to be similar but more modern techniques to remove car traffic from the streets, freeing up the concrete rivers for some lovely skateboarding reveries:

Some sparkling aspirations

Photography

I’m headed out to Death Valley on Friday for some quick photographic adventures with Russell Brown & friends, and I’m really excited to try photographing with burning steel wool for the first time. I’m inspired by this tutorial from Insta360 to try shooting with my little 360º cam:

 

“Just don’t be horrendously disappointed if it doesn’t turn out quite like this,” advises Henry, my 12yo aspiring assistant. Fair enough, dude—but let’s take it for a spin!

If you’ve ever shot this way & have any suggestions for us, please add ’em in the comments. TIA!

“Adobe Trotsky”

Google Photos, Photography

I was really pleased to see Google showcase the new Magic Eraser feature in Pixel 6 marketing. Here’s a peek at how it works:

I had to chuckle & remember how, just after he’d been instrumental in shipping Content-Aware Fill in Photoshop in 2010, my teammate Iván Cavero Belaunde created a tablet version he dubbed “Trotsky,” in mock honor of the Soviet practice of “disappearing” people from photos. I still wish we’d gotten to ship it—especially with that name!

Update: Somehow Iván still has the icon after all these years:

New stock photos are 100% AI-generated

AI/ML, Photography

PetaPixel reports,

PantherMedia, the first microstock agency in Germany, […] partnered with VAIsual, a technology company that pioneers algorithms and solutions to generate synthetic licensed stock media. The two have come together to offer the first set of 100% AI-generated, licensable stock photos of “people.”

None of the photos are of people who actually exist.

The “first” claim seems odd to me, as Generated.photos has been around for quite some time—albeit not producing torsos. That site offers an Anonymizer service that can take in your image, then generate multiple faces that vaguely approximate your characteristics. Here’s what it made for me:

Now I’m thinking of robots replacing humans in really crummy stock-photo modeling jobs, bringing to mind Mr. “Rob Ott” sliding in front of the camera:

Milky Way Bridge

Photography

A year ago, I was shivering out amidst the Trona Pinnacles with Russell Brown, working to capture some beautiful celestial images at oh-dark-early. I’m wholly unsurprised to learn that he knows photographer Michael Shainblum, who went to even more extraordinary lengths to capture this image of the Milky Way together with the Golden Gate Bridge:

PetaPixel writes,

“I think this was the perfect balance of a few different things,” he explains. “The fog was thick and low enough to really block out most of the light pollution from the city, but the fog had also traveled so far inland that it covered most of the eastern bay as well. The clouds above just the eastern side around the cities may have also helped. The last thing is the time of evening and time of the season. I was photographing the Milky Way late at night as it started to glide across the western sky, away from the city.”

Photography: Keyframe mode on Skydio 2 looks clever & fun

Photography

File under, “OMG, Duh, Why Didn’t We Think Of/Get This Sooner?” The Verge writes,

With Skydio’s self-flying drone, you don’t need to sketch or photograph those still frames, of course. You simply fly there. You fly the drone to a point in 3D space, press a button when the drone’s camera is lined up with what you want to see in the video, then fly to the next, virtually storyboarding your shot with every press.

Here’s some example output:

Check out the aforementioned Verge article for details on how the mode works (and sometimes doesn’t). Now I just need to get Russell Brown or someone (but let’s be honest, it’s Russell 😉) to expense one of these things so I can try it out.

Rad scans: Drones & trees

3D, Photography

Earlier this week I was amazed to see the 3D scan that Polycam founder Chris Heinrich was able to achieve by flying around LA & capturing ~100 photos of a neighborhood, then generating 3D results via the new Web version of Polycam:

I must try to replicate this myself!

You can take the results for a (literal) spin here, though note that they didn’t load properly on my iPhone.

As you may have seen in Google Earth & elsewhere, scanning & replicating amorphous organic shapes like trees remains really challenging:

It’s therefore all the more amazing to see the incredible results these artists exacting artists are able to deliver when creating free-to-use (!) assets for Unreal Engine:

[Via Michael Klynstra]

Photography: “A Choice of Weapons”

Photography

Nearly 16 (!) years ago I noted the passing of “novelist, self-taught pianist, semi-pro basketball player, composer, director of Shaft–who somehow he still found time to be a groundbreaking photojournalist at Life for more than 20 years” Gordon Parks. Now HBO is streaming “A Choice of Weapons: Inspired By Gordon Parks,” covering his work & that of those he’s inspired to bear witness:

Dreaming of a Neural Christmas

AI/ML, Panoramas, Photography

Oh, global warming, you old scamp…

Illinois stayed largely snow-free during our recent visit, but I had some fun screwing around with Photoshop’s new Landscape Mixer Neural Filter, giving the place a dusting of magic:

Just for the lulz, I tried applying the filter to a 360º panorama I’d captured via my drone. The results don’t entirely withstand a lot of scrutiny (try showing the pano below in full-screen mode & examine the buildings), but they’re fun—and good grief, we can now do all this in literally one click!

For the sake of comparison, here’s the unmodified original:

Cinematography: Ireland in IMAX ☘️

Photography

Liam Neeson narrates

“Ireland invites giant screen audiences on a joyful adventure into the Emerald Isle’s immense natural beauty, rich history, language, music and arts. Amid such awe-inspiring locations as Giant’s Causeway, Skellig Michael and the Cliffs of Moher, the film follows Irish writer Manchán Magan on his quest to reconnect Irish people from around the world with their land, language, and heritage.

Of course, my wry Irishness compels me to share Conan O’Brien’s classic counterpoint from the blustery Cliffs of Moher…

…and Neeson’s Irish home-makeover show on SNL. 😛