iBook of my 2012 Governor's Island photos

Covered 2015

Started as a painting, turned into more akin to a sculpture (especially since there isn't any paint, other than the primed canvas)

~58" high

Interestingly I had to get a softbox attachment for one of the strobes to get reasonable detail. The best I could do otherwise was this:

Capture One

I've been a long time user of Apple's Aperture program (remember buying a new graphics card so I could run Aperture 1.0), and with it's imminent demise, I've been casting about for alternatives. The Obvious Answer is Adobe Lightroom, but I found myself cringing everytime I was about to open it up.

I find the UI quirky, unintuitive, and inconsistent.  While its multiple monitor support tortuous (if you switch to another program, both windows snap back to one monitor. Amusingly, you can't drag the window back to its "home" monitor -- the only way I found to get it back in it's proper location was to quit Lightroom and start over).

Prompted by reading this detailed post on PhotoApps.Expert I gave Capture One a try. Happy I did.

The dual monitor support is fine. The UI is a bit quirky, but very consistent. The controls are very intuitive (once you get past the initial quirks) and, to me a least, give you a good sense of how the image is going to be impacted, e.g., keystone correction is something I never had a lot of use for in Photoshop. I never found the controls that easy to use and the results left me with a solid feeling of meh.  Capture One, is easy and I find the results to be a significant improvement (note: I'm not bashing Adobe's algorithms here.  User Error for sure, but minimizing user error is the mark of a program that's not only a productive tool, but also doesn't make you cringe when you're about to use it).

Anyhow. The end result is that I found it easy to go from this

to this

in a couple steps.

Simple corrections, done simply, making for a better image. An optimal process.

Robert Irwin @ Pace

Blown away by his fluorescent tube work.

Mostly just shocked that there was something that could be done post Dan Flavin that was radically different, simple and deep.

 A testimony to just how great Irwin is.

 

  

 

   

 

  

Tilted Ash

I've been working primarily with coal ash for most of this year.

The bulk of the work has been photography, but I surprised myself by finishing with a sculpture.

(I recommend clicking the links & seeing the larger photos)



Details:

Focal Stacking

I'm surprised at how easy it is to combine multiple macro photos with different focal lengths in CS6:

Select the layers then
Edit->Auto Align Layers
Edit->Auto Blend Layers

Pretty quick, even with D800 images.


Here's the results



From these inputs

Small Sculpture

I've been trying to understand leather a bit.

This is the first piece in a while that I'm happy with (for scale, the knife is 7 inches long)




Update: 2 June 2014: I took another set with different lighting on a steel background. I lie these better, but thought I'd keep both up.

"seeing through"

On a recent trip to Osaka, I challenged myself with trying to see (and photograph) things in a way that's new for me.

I came up with what I'm calling "seeing through" in which foreground objects are blurred to the point of translucency. It was cherry blossom season in Osaka, and cherry blossoms lend themselves well to the technique.

Here's the originals

and after a bit of Tiffen processing.

Revisiting Governor's Island Photos 2/2

More of the same set

Revisiting Governor's Island Photos 1/2

New monitor, some new ways of looking at/processing the shots

The previous four were deaccessioned dresses, this is a deaccessioned parasol

Richard Serra in Chelsea

Saw his show in Chelsea a few weeks ago.

He's partially moved from curves to works consisting of large steel slabs.


The first piece has slabs 9" thick, ~ 10 ft high

The first shot inadequately shows the scale

As usual I'm most interested in the details, e.g., where the slabs "touch"

The other pice consisted of four steel blocks (the blur on the left is an adult, just to get a sense of scale).

Again, I was drawn to the detailed textures (damage?)

NUNO Scarf

Got this scarf at the Peabody Essex Museum, primarily as a reference of "what you can do with fabric"

Their website is pretty sparse, but they seem to be doing a lot of amazing things.







On the website the say

Computers integral to designing and production from the launch.

Without a doubt.

Future Beauty at the Peabody Essex Museum

Spectacular show, highly recommended.


I didn't get many shots, as I was quickly informed that photography wasn't permitted -- fortunately they didn't make me purge the shots (unlike my experience in the Korean DMZ).