Photoblo.gs

A brief sliver of light

Gary Gardiner — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 15:11:27 +0000

Took a long walk yesterday afternoon under cloudy skies that quickly evolved into a great shaft o flight just as the sun crossed the horizon.

It happened at the end of my walk not where there were any objects or subjects, such as the couple stretching and exercising at Inniswood, that would have made an interesting sunset-lit center of interest object for my iPhone. The couple were too far away for what I knew would be a very brief time the light would last.

All I had was the mausoleum at Blendon Cemetery, an object I’ve shot before when the light is right.

Added another iPhone photo to the mausoleum collection catching the narrow band of light between horizon and cloud layer reflected in the windows.

Shot with HDRFusion. Processed with PictureShow, Camera+, Blendr, and Instagram.

Instagram and OCD (thealdercatcorner.com)
The best photo apps for smartphones (guardian.co.uk)
The Hottest Celebrities You Should Be Following on Instagram (popsugar.com)
Should you feel guilty for buying your iPhone? (cnn.com)
The Smallest Sliver Of Evidence You Could Imagine To Prove The iPad 3 Is Getting A Major Redesign (AAPL) (businessinsider.com)
Making The Ordinary Really Kinda Cool (writingthegirl.wordpress.com)

When inches matter for composition perfection

Gary Gardiner — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 16:47:03 +0000

http://bit.ly/opc122811

I nteresting is how the difference of inches, sometimes the width of a body, or less, radically changes the composition of the compared photos. Above is a simple photo of a butterfly landing on flowers with a raging forest fire spewing smoke as a backdrop. Jae C. Hong’s photo, the one on the right, places the flower and butterfly against the more open sky and the horizon line at the bottom. The result, to draw your eye to the butterfly, is more effective than Djansezian’s photo where the same flower and insect are lost against the darker background. Time Magazine notes in a year-end piece about photojournalists often travel together covering the same events because of convenience and safety. Sometimes that doesn’t end well as we learned this year with the deaths of Tim Hetherington and Chris Hondros during an attack in Libya. An earlier marker was the deaths of Larry Burrows along with Henri Huet, Kent Potter, and Keisaburo Shimamoto, when their helicopter was shot down while covering the Vietnam War.

A Daily Report – Dec. 28, 2011

Gary Gardiner — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 03:14:57 +0000

It’s digital editing, not retouching

Gary Gardiner — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 19:10:53 +0000

Let the arguments begin! The caption for the photo at right, part of an article about digital editing for photojournalists at BJP Online, reads: “Yuri Kozyrev’s iconic image of the Libyan conflict went through the hands of the post-processing lab 10b before it was published to critical acclaim by Time magazine, due, in part, to its tones colours and contrast. Images © Yuri Kozyrev / Noor for Time.” I’m very old school both in chronological measurements and philosophical degrees. The standard code of ethics for today’s digital photojournalists is really no different than what it was for those of us who traveled through the film era with a broadly proscribed limitation on what was permissible in a darkroom, to the digital age where the prohibitions are no more stringent than before. There are several differences worthy of note. Although almost all news photographers who shot film chose Kodak Tri-X for their daily work. It was a different tune in the darkroom. If you could walk into any newspaper darkroom today, that is, if there were any remaining, you’d find a myriad of printing paper types ranging from very high contrast to Poly-Contrast with a o filter. Most paper types were intended to modify the contrast so the photographer, who typically made their own prints for the paper, could choose the way he wanted the news photo to look. Sitting beside the enlarger were a collection of stiff wires, usually coat hangers wires purloined from the news room closet, with varying sizes and shapes of thin cardboard taped to their ends. These dodging tools allowed manipulation of small sections of the print by blocking the light to keep darker sections from going dark. Also at the side were large sheets of thin cardboard with a variety of oddly holes cut in them. This is where the small pieces came from to make the previous set of tools. These sheets were used to burn in sections of a print to darken them to bring out detail or tone. When neither tool was the right size or shape, photographers simply placed their hands above the print paper and like the game of wall shadows, formed the right opening or shadow to alter the print’s density. When you had the time and inclination, it wasn’t unusual to watch as a photographer printed on variable contrast paper using several different contrast filters for different sections of the print. Clouds might get a higher contrast filter while the farm fields would get a flatter filter and the farmer at right in the frame would be normal contrast. The final step was Spotone, a grey ink or pencil used to cover scratches and dust on the final prints Now, on my computer, I have access to the same tools. Only this time they are in Photoshop. These tools are nothing more than electronic versions of darkroom tools. They are more sophisticated, complex, and capable than the wired dodgers, holey paper, and crunched fingers of my hands from the darkroom days. I burn. I dodge. I clone. I layer. I mask. And I adjust contrast, vibrance, brightness, midtones, and exposure as part of the normal editing process. What I don’t do is alter the content. That was forbidden in the darkroom. It is forbidden with digital images. I know photographers from both generations who were punished for failing to follow the code of ethics. One for pasting a basketball cutout from another print on an action photo that didn’t have one. Another for removing objects that were distracting in his original digital image. If you still wonder about 10b’s ethics, check the photo at right. I know many a photographer who would have wanted to use Spotone to remove the errant thread or clone out the objectionable white line across his head. I know few who would have.

Bearing Witness in Iraq

Gary Gardiner — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 15:26:51 +0000

Photographer’s boots on the ground in Iraq from 2003 until the last troops left, and beyond. Very studied narrative on war coverage.

http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/19/bearing-witness-in-iraq/

As American troops leave Iraq, Michael Kamber reflects on eight years of war photography.

You decide Columbus Dispatch’s Best POY

Gary Gardiner — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 15:07:27 +0000

The Columbus Dispatch is asking for your votes to choose the Favorite Photo of 2011. My choice is between the photo of Gov. John Kasich, by Eric Albrecht, and Jonathan Quilter’s Jim Tressel photo. I’m more in favor of the Kasich photo because it does a job of showing his difficulty when SB 5 failed a ballot issue forcing him to begin negotiations with its opponents to change state government financing. Tressel photo is also great but its college football and although important to more people than I want to imagine, Kasich’s hand to his troubled brow is more evocative of his difficulties than Tressel’s pursed lips. It’s also a shame to have to choose between great features and pertinent news photos. Kyle Robertson’s great feature of a National Guard helicopter on a security exercise deserves great praise. Of all the photos, the one with the most reader impact has to be Doral Chenoweth’s simple roadside portrait of a homeless man with a spectacular voice.

Link: Make your choice here.

Multimedia excellence from Maisie Crow

Gary Gardiner — Sun, 18 Dec 2011 23:54:17 +0000

Congratulations to Maisie Crow for the remarkable told story of the some of the survivors at Chernobyl. Her emotional connection to the film’s subjects places us in their lives providing a personal view of one of the results of the nuclear accident. There is a stillness to “Half-Lives.” Crow pauses, quietly, to let her images tell the story. The video lingers during interviews so we can study her subjects a little longer or watch as they move into a more emotional and personal arena for her to explore. When you watch this video for the second time, and you will, because the still photos require you to return for a longer look, make sure you watch the progressive storytelling scene beginning at at 6:05 when what appears to be a still photo moves into video and then through a series of still photos showing moments in the daily lives of the new city’s residents. Visually, Crow’s ability to combine still photos with video is striking. A still photo where barb wire fences prohibit entry to the plant (8:10) morphs into a tracking shot along the fence line and shifts focus to the now closed plant being slowly dismantled by a new generation of workers. The voiceover comes from a man working to dismantle the closed plant who as a boy peered over the same barbed wire with his friends with childish wonderment at what mysteries the fences contained. The video ends with another series of still photos documenting the everyday lives of subjects we now want to know more about. That’s good storytelling. This is a great video.

Links: Half-Lives: The Chernobyl Workers Now from VQR on Vimeo.

Maisie Crow on: Twitter and at Facebook

Iconic for all the wrong reasons. It is fake!

Gary Gardiner — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 14:21:20 +0000

So much for using citizens as photojournalists. The Standard-Examiner in Ogden, Utah, published what it describes as an iconic photo of two generations of locomotives traveling adjacent racks near the city. The striking photo, “submitted by a trusted contributor,” is fake, a composite of two photos taken 10 minutes apart and combined in PhotoShop. Andy Howell, executive editor at the Standard-Examiner in Ogden, Utah, tries to explain how the photo made it into print as a representation of a true moment. The salient quotes are below. “The photo represented an event that didn’t happen” “news deception that goes against the principles of photojournalism.” “However, the story behind how we ended up using a Photoshopped image as a news photo is more nuanced.” “I believe the photographer did not set out to deceive us or the public. The end result was more a product of miscommunication and a naive misunderstanding on the photographer’s part.” “a cautionary tale for us and other newspapers as we rely more and more on citizen journalists and contributors” “a distinction without a difference” “didn’t think twice about overlaying the photos” “To him, combining the photos was just a way of telling the story” “I did not think I was doing anything against the rules.” “sincere motives still can lead to bad journalism.” “we need do a better job of educating the public as to the role and ethics of journalism if we want them to be regular contributors” “Our role in policing content could be as simple as asking the right questions.”

Where Have All the Photojournalists Gone? To the Apple store!

Gary Gardiner — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 15:16:06 +0000

Other than the fact that most citizen photojournalism isn’t journalism and mostly poor photography, there is one major difference between it and traditional photojournalism. “Johnson says one thing professionals can offer that amateurs can’t is ethics. Not changing the context of an event with a manipulative image, for instance, or not adding or removing anything with Photoshop. ‘A news organization is only as good as it’s credibility,” he says. “It’s hard to control that when you are getting key content from strangers.’” Read the complete story

14 Useful Tips for Beginner Photojournalist (pluginin.wordpress.com)
Case Dismissed Against Milwaukee Photojournalist (pixiq.com)
CORBIS, Sygma, Bill Gates & Photographer’s Rights (imagenewsworldwide.wordpress.com)
Smaller, Faster, Stronger: Technology and the Professional Photojournalist (jpmphotoblog.wordpress.com)
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Parking garage view in TiltShift

Gary Gardiner — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 04:36:34 +0000

Had a few minutes after visiting the courthouse earlier today to watch traffic and pedestrians from the top of a downtown parking garage. The results from my iPhone.