All posts filed under: Photography

Flickr

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Do you know why we have two ears and only one mouth? Because we should be listening twice as much as we are talking. I think this little piece of wisdom is fantastic. (Although perhaps not correct from an evolutionary standpoint) Listening to others has helped me tremendously over the past few years. The initial design of my website was my idea, but it was the advice of my friend and webmaster Nick that helped me create something far better than I could have done alone. Flickr is another example.  It required the input of others for me to understand the usefulness of the Flickr ( “the best online photo management and sharing application in the world” ). I signed up to Flickr a couple of years ago, put up 4 or 5 photographs and pretty much forgot about it.  At the time it seemed to be unnecessary to put my photos on another website when I had just spent so much time and effort creating my own.  Meeting the computer gurus in Tokyo last month, was …

On the bookshelf – Sport & Action

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Another title in Rotovision’s The World’s Top Photographers’ Workshops series is Sport & Action. For me this is perhaps the weakest in the series. My main niggle is that there are nine sports photographers and one wildlife photographer. Andy Rouse’s photographs are excellent, but they are completely out of place, especially when there is a separate and far superior book in the series called Wildlife.  The other reason for not enjoying this one so much is perhaps more contentious. It seems to me that for  sports perhaps the still camera is not the best medium for recording events. The opposite seems to be true in the world of Fashion & Advertising where a well crafted image has far more impact than catwalks or television commercials.

Mac or PC?

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A year and a half ago I needed to get a new computer having caused the PC I was using (Seiko’s) to go into thermal shutdown so many times it had fried various essential components.  The problem was one of multiplication.   Most people print small (around A4) and the file sizes you are dealing with aren’t huge.  The amount of data I was dealing with was larger for several reasons. A2 sized prints – files 4 times the size of A4 Printing at 600 dpi   – files double the size of 300 dpi  Printing in RGB16  – files double the size of RGB8  What this meant was that the computer files coming from the scanner were around 750mb. If I started to use the cloning tool to remove dust specks, or even worse used layers, there was the distinct possibility of spontaneous computer combustion.  I wanted a computer powerful enough to run Photoshop and handle large data files without breaking a sweat, and to be able to do this while I am working …

Nakamura House, Okinawa

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Nakamura House is a traditional Okinawan house that dates back to the 15th Century. Its roof is covered with red clay tiles while the walls are made up of sliding wooden panels. The moveable walls can be opened to allow cooling breezes in the summer heat or closed and braced against wind and rain during typhoons. A shisa – lion dog – talisman sits on the roof protecting residents from evil spirits.  The house has eight rooms, many with the tatami flooring – the rectangular mats made of woven straw. Some rooms contain artifacts including traditional bingata kimono. The house is located in the northern part of Naha City on the main island of Okinawa. Nakamura House is open everyday from 9.00 to 17.30

On the bookshelf – Travel & Nature

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  Rotovision is a British publisher that produces several really good books on photography.    I just got one of the latest releases in their “The World’s Top Photographers’ Workshops” series titled Travel & Nature. The book is divided into ten sections each based around a particular photographer. Each section has an interview with the photographer, several pages of their best photographs and then a Tips for Success page where the photographer gives 10 nuggets of wisdom (or common sense).  Travel photography is a bit like ecology  in that it is a blend of several different disciplines. This book therefore has interviews with a wide range of photographers including Steve Bloom (nature), David Doubliet (underwater) and Lee Frost (landscape).  I have most of the titles in the series, some of which are better than others. Travel & Nature due to its diversity is a great book by itself, and if you like the informative style that delves more into the mindset of the photographer rather than the equipment he or she is using it deserves its space …

Journalists, programmers and a robot

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Tokyo’s weather may not have been cooperating, but fortuitous timing meant that I could catch up with several fellow ex-pats now living in the metropolis. On the first night I was invited to The Foreign Correspondents Club of Japan in Ginza and met photographers Jeremy Sutton-Hibbert and Alfie Goodrich along with Justin McCurry the Tokyo correspondent for The Guardian, Julian Ryall the Tokyo correspondent for The Daily Telegraph and Chris Dunn an International Trade Consultant. Great guys living really interesting lives. On the second night I met up with programmers Hector Garcia, Pietro Zuco and Ignacio Izquierdo and chatted about Flick’r and the ongoing computing revolution. Fascinating stuff and just in case you didn’t know… On my final morning Tokyo treated me to a special mix of sleet and wind, so I headed to Aoyama to meet ASIMO. ASIMO didn’t say much, but was probably aware that in the near future his offspring will rule the world and we shall all tremble in their wake….

Rainy days in Tokyo

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It was either cloudy, rainy or snowing the entire 3 days I was in Tokyo. This meant that the exterior architectural shots I wanted will have to wait for another visit. I did however visit the Tokyo International Forum to get some interior shots. The building was designed by architect Rafael Viñoly and completed in 1996. The glass and steel latticework (which looks a little like an upturned boat) fits the surrounding area far better than the similarly modern Kyoto train station.  

Pentax 645 digital

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The Pentax 645 digital is a thing of legend, that is for years there have been rumors of it’s possible existence but time and again it has failed to materialize. Back in 2005 it was going to be an 18.6 megapixel camera, a year later it had changed shape. By 2007, there were plans that the camera would now have a 32 megapixel sensor but it looked uncertain whether it would make production. By 2008 the general consensus of fellow Pentaxians seemed to be that the camera would never see the light of day. Then yesterday a post appeared on the website Amateur Photographer. PMA: PENTAX REVIVES MEDIUM FORMAT DIGITAL CAMERA PLAN (UPDATE) If you will allow me to steal from Mark Twain… It appears that  the rumors of its death have been greatly exaggerated.

Daibutsu – Giant Buddhas

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After Hachinohe I went a little further north to the city of Aomori. Aomori is home to the Nebuta Festival in August, where huge colorful floats parade through the city. In mid-winter Aomori, like Hachinohe, is cold and gray with most of its residents either indoors or bundled up against the freezing conditions trying to commute to and from work on treacherous roads and sidewalks.  One local attraction that interested me was the Showa Daibutsu a giant bronze statue of Buddha around 45 minutes by bus from the city center. Constructed in 1984 it is 21.35 meters high and weighs 220 tons.It was the largest Buddha in Japan until the construction of the Ushiku Daibutsu in Ibaraki Prefecture.  It sits in a clearing among the trees and unlike the giant buddha at Nara is exposed to everything Mother Nature has to throw at it.    Other giant Buddhas I have seen in Japan include the one at Nara, and the one at Kamakura.   Haven’t been to the Ushiku Daibutsu, but if you have please post …

Which scanner do you use?

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I scan all my transparencies with an Epson Perfection V750-M scanner. It produces fine results, and is reasonably fast and reasonably priced for what it does. In Japan is has a different name the GT-X970, but much to my delight you could still select English rather than Japanese when installing the software. In the past when clients have requested, images have also been sent out for drum scanning. This has however was infrequent, and tended to be only when they wanted very large files. Also essential to scanning is an air duster, to keep the scanner surface and transparency free of all the dust you can see, and then plenty of time, patience and the spot healing brush tool in Photoshop to remove all the tiny specks of dust which appear once you have enlarged the file. Of course if money were not an issue I would run out and get an Imacon Flextight X5. It would do the job faster and produce better results if I was scanning images to very large sizes and needed …