February 22nd, 2010 § 0
Times Square, February 20, 2010
My kids seem obsessed with knowing a person’s age. Somehow, to them, it connotes where the person fits in the world.
Dad, how old is the Naked Cowboy?
Fifteen. [That's my stock answer when it's clear there is absolutely no reason I should know the person's age.]
Yeah, right. Anyway, I don’t think he looks that old. [Which has come to mean relative to my wife and I.]
Hmm…. I’m walking here! I’m walking here!
ShareLink: Email • Twitter • FacebookFebruary 19th, 2010 § 1
A few more images from the buffer.
West Windsor, NJ, February 19, 2010
West Windsor, NJ, February 19, 2010
West Windsor, NJ, February 19, 2010
Click images for larger versions.
The Buffer blog post.
ShareLink: Email • Twitter • FacebookFebruary 19th, 2010 § 0
Photoshop turned 20 yesterday – so it’s time to bring out a couple of quick stories.
I first started using Photoshop back with version 2.5. It was on a Windows PC in 1992 or 1993. Back then, if you bought a mid-level or higher scanner Photoshop was often included for free and that’s how I came to own it. While I didn’t dive in head first, I played with it for many years and initially used it as a tool to clean up and prep scans. It wasn’t until the advent of good digital cameras in the late 90’s, early 00’s, that it became integral to how I work.
I have two brushes with Photoshop greatness in my career. The first is indirect and occurred when Adobe Camera Raw came out. In spite of the all the hoopla over it I found it to be challenged at best when working with Nikon raw files. My comments led an extended email correspondence with author Bruce Fraser and to spending lots of time photographing a MacBeth ColorChecker so that Bruce could test the files and pass information along to Adobe.
The second was much more direct. One of the successive versions of Adobe Camera Raw had a bug or two in it. I found them and posted them on an Adobe forum. Shortly after I got an email from Thomas Knoll, co-author/developer/inventor of Photoshop, with an invitation to be a beta tester for Adobe Camera Raw. I did that for a couple of years, Camera Raw versions 2.2~3.3. After 3.3 the beta program seemed to fizzle out. Releases went right to public betas or whatever part of the program I was in was asked to do less. It was never quite clear since communication was often one-sided (from Adobe outward.)
By the spring of 2006 I was starting to use Apple’s Aperture as my main raw processor and it was time to move on. Regardless of all the shifting about with raw processors over the years (Nikon Capture, MacBibble, ACR, DPP, Aperture) as digital capture matured from an infant to a pre-teen (?), the one constant has been Photoshop for almost all work beyond the initial raw conversion.
Happy Birthday Photoshop!
ShareLink: Email • Twitter • FacebookFebruary 16th, 2010 § 2
I live where I grew up, in Princeton, NJ. While the town has changed over time, as any place would over 46 years, it remains essentially the same. What has changed the most is the surrounding area.
Back in the day, as a kid, Princeton was surrounded by a belt of green 10-20 miles thick. Made up of farms and woods, it was a buffer that was as much psychic as it was physical. It kept the rest of the world at bay and it ensured a sense of small town life even though New York and Philadelphia were only 50 miles away.
Once, when probably 13 or 14, I went on a bike ride with a friend. We headed northeast along the canal and then at a certain point veered off. Up and out of the Millstone River basin, hours seemed to go by. Hot and thirsty, lost in every sense of the word, we were rewarded for our efforts when a Stewart’s Drive-in appeared off on its own, inhabiting a space carved out of a cornfield. Where was it? Where were we? We didn’t know and to a large extent it didn’t matter. It was summer, the days lasted forever, and it was hours until sunset. We had enough change for drinks, the owner pointed us back towards town, and after ten miles or so, biking through woods and farms, we were home.
Princeton is no longer isolated in that physical sense. The sod fields which lined Route 1 are gone, replaced by malls, shops, and hotels. There a long lines of traffic headed into town in the morning, out in the evening. Most of the rest of the land has been developed for housing or office parks. But traces of the buffer remain. To the east and the northeast of town, on the other side of the lake and the canal, there are still fields. Decent sized swaths of land, divided by long stretches of evergreens which rise three stories tall.
Plainsboro, NJ, February 16, 2010
Plainsboro, NJ, February 16, 2010
Click images for larger versions.
ShareLink: Email • Twitter • FacebookFebruary 16th, 2010 § 0
February 12th, 2010 § 0
Photographed this past fall, NYU Dental School’s new Oral and Urgent Care suite struck me in how much it reminded me of the house in North by Northwest.
Vandamm House, North by Northwest
The house in the movie, inspired by Frank Lloyd Wright, never existed in real life. The exteriors were painted mattes composited with live action foreground images.
NYU Dental School’s new suites:
Larger versions of the last two images are on my web site in the Architecture>Commercial gallery, here and here.
ShareLink: Email • Twitter • FacebookFebruary 11th, 2010 § 0
There is another great portfolio of images by Platon in this week’s New Yorker (publication date, 2/15/10.) Titled, The Promise, it captures portraits of the leaders of the civil rights movement.
Photographs: Platon
I think The Promise and Platon’s other recent series (Service and First Dance) establish him as the heir to Avedon’s Portraits of Power.
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Polaroid, once a cultural touchstone, enhanced its aura through the use of its Artist Support Program. It allowed Polaroid to get direct feedback from artists on their products, it helped the artists, and it enabled Polaroid to build one of the most unique, diverse, and enduring collections of art.
Now the collection is being sold off to pay the debts of a Ponzi scheme, a result of one of the companies which owned Polaroid in 2008. While only a fraction of the collection is being auctioned, it will most likely be the last time any significant grouping of the images will be seen together in public.
This spring Sotheby’s will have a public six-day viewing of the work prior to the two-day auction on June 21 and 22.
New York Times article – From That Instant Thrill, Enduring Art, Now for Sale.
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