Updates to my web site, www.jonroemer.com, add images to the recent work galleries in the People and Architecture sections.  Some of the images have been previewed here, others are new.

New home page image from the Maine 2007 portfolio.

Some images from architecture assignments this past spring:

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Some more new portraits…

From the assignment shot outside the United Nations, referenced in a recent blog entry:

From an editorial assignment:

The subjects, Trudi Schupbach and Eric Wieschaus, are married.  Both are biologists at Princeton University and both work with fruit flies.  Eric won the 1995 Nobel Prize in Physiology.  They were great subjects.

When I scouted locations I was a bit at odds with what to do.  I needed to get a photo of them together, a more formal portrait.  Their labs, as are most university research labs, are very chaotic, more so than I wanted for the portrait.  Once I saw the double microscope that was it.  I knew it was perfect to use as a prop and a metaphor for their work.  We set up in a nearby seminar room. I made a faux ringflash using three small softboxes and Trudi and Eric were game to try many different poses.

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Firefox 3 was released today.  From my web stats I know that more and more PC users are using Firefox instead of MS Explorer.  So, I thought I’d point out that under Firefox 3 you can now view images online correctly and *accurately. Unbeknownst to most users, Firefox 2 and earlier did not display images correctly.

Of course, getting FireFox 3 to handle images properly takes an extra step or two (Firefox neglected to make it simple by adding a check box in the preferences) but it’s easy and painless to get it to fall into line.

You can edit the color management setting in Firefox by entering “about:config” in Firefox 3′s address bar, agreeing to accept the risk of voiding the Firefox warranty (what risk?, Firefox is free and you can always re-download it) and then typing “gfx” in the filter field.  Last step is to double-click the gfx.color_management.enable line to change “False” to “True” and you are all set.

If you are not comfortable working under the hood then you can download a Color Management add-on.

*Following either of the above methods will enable Firefox 3 to present images as they were intended to be seen.  Ideally, you still need to calibrate your monitor but using a web browser that can display images correctly is the first step in seeing the true color and tone of image files when they are presented online.

Background Info

Web Browsers and Image Color

International Color Consortium (ICC) Web Browser Color Test

MozillaLinks Blog on Firefox 3 Color Management

Answer:  Artists working in the United States.

The National Endowment for the Arts has compiled census data to give a picture of artists in the United States through 2005.  There are just shy of 2 million artists, 1.4% of the work force, and photographers total just under 150,000 (7.4% of all artists).  Overall, 60% of photographers are men but under age 35 60% of photographers are women.

The report debunks one major myth about artists, that artists are for the most part unemployed and marginal, as it found that only 13% of the people whose primary occupation is as an artist also have a second job.  Digging deeper though, just shy of half the photographers are full-year, full-time workers.

Additional Photographer Details:

-More than 80% of photographers are non-Hispanic white but the field is becoming more diverse.  The proportion for non-Hispanic white photographers under 35 is 73%.

-The median age in the field is 39 with the majority over 35.

-Over 40% of photographers are self-employed.

-The median income of photographers, $26,300, is lower than the median for artists and lower than the median for the US work force.  The median income for male photographers, $35,500, is more than the double the median income for female photographers, $16,300.

-If you only look at full-year, full-time photographers the median income is $37,600 which is more than than the national median income, $30,100.

-In New Jersey, my home state, the number of photographers dropped by 18% between 1990 and 2005.

In his preface to the report, NEA Chairman, Dana Gioia, writes:

Compared to other U.S. workers, American artists tend to be better educated and more entrepreneurial. Artists are twice as likely to have earned a college degree as other members of the U.S. labor force, though they receive relatively less financial compensation for their educational level. Artists are also 3.5 times more likely to be self-employed. American artists have learned to be creative not merely in their chosen fields but also in how they manage their lives.

He concludes with:

From global exports to local investments, the new American economy depends on imagination, innovation, and creativity, and those are the skills that artists develop, nurture, and promote. Isn’t it time that the nation notices?

New York Times Article on the Report

NEA “Artists in the Workforce, 1990-2005″ Report

New York, NY, 06/10/08

Shot portraits in three locations in Manhattan yesterday.  First location was just outside the entrance to the UN.  Heat index was around 105^o.  Luckily, the first subject was cool as a cucumber.

We also got to experience first hand some of New York’s recent spate of objects falling from the sky.  While we were scouting locations we stopped in a deli in Tudor City, moments later, directly outside the deli, a large section of detailing on the building fell crushing the front end of car and taking out a motorcycle.  No one was in or on either, nor standing at the corner where it occurred, so fortunately no one was hurt.

In the past few years delivering image files has shifted from CD’s to one of three options:  DVD’s, External Hard Drives or Internet Transfer.  Which of the three is most appropriate depends upon file sizes, overall job size, speed and convenience.  External Hard Drives are most appropriate for large jobs as Internet Transfer is when speed is the mitigating factor.  In the middle is delivery of the assignment on disc and a confluence of factors has brought DVD delivery to the forefront – DVD drives have become ubiquitous, the price of DVD discs have fallen, camera file sizes have grown bigger and the speed of DVD burning has increased.