Something lovely this way comes

Out of the death and decay of last fall springs beauty. A metaphor for the spiritual life perhaps?

SoFoBoMo

I have signed up to participate in the first annual Solo Photography Book Month (affectionately known as SoFoBoMo). It's being organized by my friend and fellow photo blogger, Paul Butzi. The idea is to produce a solo photo book with at least 35 photos, from start to finish (print ready), within one month. We can start any time between March 1 and April 1, but then we have 31 days to finish. I'm planning to do it from April 1 to May 1. I'm a bit daunted by the task, mostly the part about getting 35 photos that are worth publishing in a book within a month. I could probably find 35 photos from my entire oeuvre over the past few years that I'd be willing to publish, but all in one month? That's more than one great photo a day. But as Paul points out, it's not about getting something that's going to win awards, it's about getting something completed, which is the problem most of us face. So I'm looking at this project as a good impetus to get out there and do some more shooting. In order not to waste time with the nitty gritty during the limited month, I'm spending some time now to learn Adobe InDesign, the software I'll use for the book layout.

I'm not yet sure what theme I'll choose for my book. It'll necessarily need to be stuff I can take locally, unless I manage to complete the 35 photos in one week in Texas, where I'm going for Transforming Culture, a symposium on arts and the church. If it's going to be local photography, I could get back to my series on interesting colored houses in Vancouver which I've been wanting to do. Since there are no silly restrictive codes and covenants limiting what color people can paint their houses (like in the neighborhood where I lived in the Eastside of Seattle), there are all kinds of houses painted fun colors -- shocking purple, green with orange trim, ones with fake thatched roofs, etc.

And speaking of amusing local sights, I often see this bus parked along the side of the road not far from my house. You probably have to click to see the larger version to read the smaller text "Please stop when dogs are barking." Vancouver is a very dog friendly city, which is great for me and Cricket. There are off-leash areas in almost all parks, and dogs are allowed to go in swimming at certain parts of the public beach. A lot of business owners put water bowls for dogs out on the sidewalk in front of their shops, and most stores allow people to bring their dogs inside (unless they sell food).

Save a tree...or...make a tree?

A group of students at Regent College built this "tree" in the atrium out of paper cups to give us all a visual wake-up call about how many non-recyclable paper cups we throw away in an average week. A sign on the wall nearby encourages better stewardship of God's creation: "Drink responsibly. Bring a travel mug from home or use a ceramic mug here. Every bit helps." Gives new meaning to Regent's occasional slogan "Under the Green Roof."

My little Canon G9 is coming in handy for all sorts of impromptu photos like this. As long as the lighting is good [note the painting in the background which you can just barely make out: "The entrance of thy words giveth light" :-) ], I'm quite pleased with its results.

Spring is sprung...

Yikes! Has it really been that long since I've posted? I see some of you patient regulars have been checking back nearly daily in hopes that I'll get back to some new material. Well, between scanning old slides, staying inside because of yucky wet snowy weather, and being busy with other non-photography things (yes I have another life -- or several), I haven't had much new to post. But your patience has been rewarded.

Generally spring comes very early in Vancouver. I've seen crocuses pushing their heads up as early as the last day of January, but first week of February is not uncommon. This year it came late, but it is coming. I saw my first snow drops a few days ago. And this weekend the weather has been beautiful.

Color restorations, continued

A friend suggested that I consider just making these old slides black & white instead of trying to restore the color to an original I can never be sure of. So here's that same photo again, completely desaturated. It should would save time to do it this way, and I like the result. But there is also something to be said for the color restoration (imperfect as it is).

Color restorations

Just wanted to show you the before and after on the color corrections for one of the slides I've been restoring. Here it is after I've touched up all the dust specks and scratches but before any color corrections:

And here it is after the color restoration:


Amazing what you can do in Photoshop, eh? I did this using Color Balance (sky) and Hue/Saturation (everything else).

Scanning and restoring old slides

I have a big project I've been working on in dribs and drabs, and that's to scan a whole heap of slides that my grandfather took back in the 1930s and 40s, get rid of scratches and dust specks, and restore them to their intended colors. Most of them were taken on a Kodak Bantam Special on 828 slide film. It's hard to find anyone who will scan that stuff anymore these days, since it is larger than the standard dimensions of 35mm film (28x40mm as opposed to 24x36mm) and doesn't fit slide scanners. I bought the top of the line, a Nikon Super Coolscan 9000, thinking that would allow me to do them at home, but even that doesn't have a large enough opening in its slide holder. So I'll have to try to rig something up with one of its larger transparency holders, or else do them on my Epson 4870 flatbed scanner in transparency mode and manually crop them to the right size and rotate them slightly if I didn't get the orientation lined up just perfectly with no tray to hold them in (and that won't be ideal, because the focal distance of the scanning beam will be slightly off). For now I'm working on the few 33mm slides that are in the collection.

It's a labor of love, I tell you. It takes nearly an hour to do each one if there is a lot of color distortion and hundreds of noticeable specks. Photoshop can do a pretty good job of dust and scratch removal on sky, but on other things it sometimes adds too much blur which I don't like. So I'm going through and doing them all painstakingly with the spot healing brush tool. Even though it is time-consuming, I'm quite pleased with the results. Here are two of the ones I've done so far. One is my grandfather with his uncle and the other is his wife, my grandmother, with her aunt-in-law (the wife of my grandfather's uncle), with my dad as a little boy in the background. I love how vivid the reds still are in the flowers (I really didn't have to restore that at all) against the still somewhat muted rest of the photo of the women. Did their dresses have more blue or green in them? I can't tell. I got the skin and hair and grass colors looking right, and that's about all I can hope for. I have chosen to keep the slide mount backgrounds on, to reveal the origin of these photos.

Candle in the Night

I'm always mesmerized by candle flames. I shot this with my Canon G9. If you stare at the dark space between the wax and the flame, where the wick is, or just a hair above that, at the bottom fringe of the darkest orange part of the flame, after a while you'll begin to see the flame shrink from the bottom up, as if it's climbing up the wick.

OK, I've been at the computer too long. I keep forgetting that I've started the kettle boiling for a cup of tea. I'm now heading down to flip the switch for a third time! Maybe I ought to just sit down there and read until it boils this time.

Singing off the same hymn sheet

That's what they say in the UK when people are what we in North America would call "on the same page" (or "wavelength"). These lovely sisters in my church gave me permission to post the photo I took of them in one of our services. We are one of the few churches around which still sings in four-part harmony. It's wonderful -- like being part of a heavenly choir! Congregational singing has been a big part of my faith over the years, and like a friend of mine once told me, hymns are part of my prayer language. I've been invited to document our church's worship through photography on a couple of occasions. All the photos in the mini slide show that flips by on the home page were done by me. If you're in the Vancouver area and looking for a church that seeks to integrate faith and the arts; peace, justice, and biblical truth; heart and mind; spiritual formation and mission; people of all generations; lay men and women in ministry...come check us out: Point Grey Inter-Mennonite Fellowship.

Merry Christmas

I took a walk at night with my Canon G9 and got some interesting photos of Christmas lights, etc. I'm not thrilled with the image quality of the G9 as compared to my 5D, but it's not bad for something I can just toss in my purse and take with me anywhere I go. And this photo was shot after dark (the sky looks way more blue in the photo than it did in real life; the camera figured out it needed a long exposure). It's pretty grainy and blurry (handheld, of course) but I kind of like the effect. No Photoshop sharpening at all.

I'll be taking a hiatus for the next couple of weeks, through the New Year. See you when I get back.

Narrative Photography

Update: fixed the link for Jeff Wall's Mimic, so if you read this already but couldn't see the photo, try now.

I've just signed up for a course on Narrative Photography at Focal Point, the photography school a block away from where I live (one of the reasons I moved to this house). Narrative Photography includes photojournalism, documentary photography, some kinds of travel photography. It's photography that tells a story, whether in a single photograph or a photo essay.

I was in Future Shop yesterday buying a small portable camera to keep with me in my purse all the time. I ended up buying a Canon PowerShot G9, after reading Paul Butzi's glowing recommendation. I had a pleasant experience with the salesman, Rick, who helped me. He is an avid photographer himself and was very knowledgeable and engaging (rare for Future Shop employees). We had a great conversation, exchanged recommendations for good photography websites, etc. He asked me who my favorite photographer is. I said Art Wolfe, a Seattleite who does beautiful nature and wildlife photos, particularly of the Pacific Northwest. Rick called that kind of work "eye candy" and introduced me to narrative photographer Jeff Wall, a Vancouver native who does "cinematic photography." He develops a concept, hires actors, sets up a scene, and takes thousands of shots of it until he gets it just right. Rick showed me some of Wall's work on the web at the store's computer. Wow! Check out this amazing photograph of his: Mimic. Look closely at the gesture the guy in the middle is making (view it in detail by clicking on the detail sqaure to the right). And the facial expressions on the other two. Now that is photography that tells a story!

I realize that most of my photos do not really tell stories, beyond just "this looks cool!" I hope the class on narrative photography will help me advance to a whole new level in my art. Today's photo is an attempt at narrative. The photo tells it all, but if you want the details behind it: It was taken on the property of my cousin in Hood River, Oregon, where I spent Thanksgiving this year. There had been a big wildfire Hood River in August and it came to within about 60 feet of my cousin's house!

Speaking of narrative photography, one of the more lengthy and interesting threads on photo.net's Forums is "Should a Picture tell a story?" Not all are in agreement about that.

Rusty spokes

Rusty old car wheels in front of the Western Antique Aeroplane & Automobile Museum in Hood River, Oregon. I did some burning in Photoshop to darken the topmost element wherever spokes and wheel parts intersected, to make them look more three-dimensional.

New Toy: Epson P-5000 Multimedia Storage Viewer

Sorry for the sparsity of posts lately. I've been trying to get an article finished which is overdue.

I didn't think I'd ever use this blog to do product reviews, but I like this one so much I can't help it. I recently purchased a new solution to the problem of not being able to take my laptop along with me in addition to my camera on long trips anymore. (I was forced to check my camera bag on a flight from London to Milan because of Heathrow's extremely narrow interpretation of the "one carry-on bag" rule; even a woman's small purse counts as a carry-on bag in their eyes; it was either check my camera or check my laptop; some choice!) Anyway, now I have this cool Epson P-5000 Multimedia Storage Viewer. The image quality is great, the 4-inch display is large enough to really see the photos, and the user interface is intuitive and easily accessible. It accepts CF or SD cards, copies the contents onto its internal hard disk (which stores 80 GB), and can connect via USB to a computer (where it will appear as an external hard disk). It also plays back MP3s and video using its little built-in speaker (zoom buttons control volume). A nifty little device. Much better than the SmartDisk FlashTrax XT that I'd been using before. The latter is excruciatingly slow, has a crappy UI, very poor image quality, and intermittently doesn't work at all.

That photo I'm displaying on my Epson P-5000, by the way, is one I took recently out on Galiano Island, the view from Hunterston Farm out over Retreat Cove, with the celtic cross on Loren & Mary Ruth Wilkinson's lawn in the foreground.

[Italy trip] Prayer

Old monk praying during the Vesper service at San Miniato al Monte, in Florence.

[Italy trip] Rose in the garden of Villa Agape, Florence

[Italy trip] Conventional conventical technology

I liked this wooden cart which I saw on the grounds of Villa Agape where we stayed in Florence, which is run by the Sisters of "Stabilite nella Carità" (stability in charity). Simple technology, elegant and rustic at the same time. Interesting shapes and textures. I did quite a bit of Photoshopping on this, as there were some distracting blotches of lighter color on the handle near the rusty metal joint which immediately drew one's focus and ruined the composition (in my opinion). I think I did a pretty good job of cloning the wood grain where those spots had been, in a way that doesn't look faked. This is Photoshop at its best -- used to fix something which was not a photographer's error, yet without violating the true nature of the original subject. (That gives a lot of latitude, by the way, to adjust colors, etc. And there is always validity in creatively changing the subject. So don't quote that line back at me if you see something more wild in my use of Photoshop in the future.)

Destroying restored art vs. restoring destroyed art

More reflections from my art tour of Florence. This 14th or 15th century fresco in San Miniato al Monte (Florence) looks like it has probably had some restoration work done on it over the years, as its colors are so well preserved (I have not touched them up in Photoshop). But also preserved for all eternity (until someone decides to do another restoration on it) are the graffiti of some 20th century vandals (in the lower right corner, on the red patches; click to zoom in on image). It appals me that anybody could be so philistine as to ruin art in a sacred space like this. Fortunately, at not very great expense (certainly not like what it would cost to repair the actual fresco), I can fix the damage pretty well in Photoshop. This illustrates the non-destructive restoration possible in digital media. I can keep a copy of the original, just in case someone doesn't like the kind of touching up I did.

Not so with non-digital art. Case in point: the famous Crucifix by Cimabue, painted to hang above the altar in Santa Croce in Florence. It had been lingering in storage, leaning up against a wall in the refectory, after renovations had replaced it with some other piece. Then it was almost completely destroyed in the great 1966 flood of the Arno River. The controversial restoration by Umberto Baldini used a new technique in which areas where the paint had been completely washed off are approximated with a pixel pattern that only suggests the color and outline of what was there before, but does not recreate brush strokes. Baldini and his team "felt strongly that it was inappropriate to leave this extremely important work as a mere fragment, and yet they were unwilling to deceive the viewer into thinking that the work was undamaged. Chromatic abstraction was their answer to this dilemma. Chromatic abstraction is formulated on the idea that three dominant tones can be abstracted from any painting. These colors, combined in the losses in small strokes that follow the dynamic flow of the image, and in the correct proportions, create the neutral color that blends most perfectly with the painting, making the losses the least distracting without inpainting them imitatively." (Getty Conservation Institute, Painted Wood: History and Conservation, p. 414.) You can see this clearly in the detail of Christ's feet (below, right; click to zoom in on image). Some people have objected to Baldini's restoration because it is not Cimabue's work at all. They claim that the ravages of time and natural disasters are part of the history of art that should be preserved. I am still undecided on this issue. I can't say I liked the restored Crucifix. But it is intriguing from an art historical point of view. You can read more about the restoration debate in this article, and (if you have JSTOR access) in "Art and Its Preservation" by David Carrier (Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 43:3 (Spring 1985), pp. 291-300).

With digital art (including digital photography), all of this is moot. The original cannot become degraded over time, or destroyed by a flood or fire, nor can it be vandalized, as long as a backup is made. And as long as it is converted to new media as they are invented and the old ones become obsolete! That latter would be a subject for "a whole 'nother" post (my favorite example of tmesis, a figure of speech in which a word or phrase is inserted into another word, often for humorous effect).

The golden lampstand

[News flash: This photo of mine has been published online in Comment Magazine. Click here.]

"Aaron is responsible for keeping the lamps burning continually on the Lampstand of pure gold before GOD." (Lev 24:4; The Message)

Here is another in my votive candles series (see also this one). It is a portrait of a serious man of God, at work in the house of the Lord. This is one of the monks at San Miniato al Monte in Florence, lighting additional candles before the Vespers service. I was drawn to the glow on his face, and only later noticed the subtle outline highlight on his hair from a bit of sun coming in the window above his head. Without that, his head would have blended into the dark background. I considered whether to crop more of the black space at the bottom, but I decided to keep it, to emphasize the height of his body. You can see his robe disappearing into darkness and can imagine where it extends to.

Another possible composition crops it in way close and reveals the time on his watch (even though I was standing about 30 feet away from him; see, there is a use for 12.8 megapixels!) -- the Vespers service did indeed start at 5:30pm. You'll need to click to view the image at full size to be able to read it. For you techies who are interested, this was shot with a 70mm lens, ISO 1600, f/4 at 1/125. Hand held, no flash. ISO 1600 on my Canon 5D rocks! It was very dark in there. I'm beginning to think I like this second one better. What do you think?

Where is the frame of this picture?

Frame-within-a-frame is a motif that shows up in all kinds of art, from René Magritte to Norman Rockwell to Alfred Hitchcock's films to the Frame Within a Frame group at Flickr. I visited Siena for a day and took lots of photos of all the beautiful architecture and art, just for my own memory. Boring. Well, you might want to see them and they might cause you extreme envy, but I can't claim they are my own artistic creations. However, when I deviated from the usual touristic camera behavior and started looking for the offbeat and quirky, which I guess is where my forte lies, I found this fun subject walking right across my field of view. I like it because though I've chosen to frame it in a certain way, the frame the man is holding makes its own declaration about what is the subject of the picture -- the man's legs and the bag of the lady behind him. Because he's holding two frames (which, incidentally, make a nice repeated shape), the people on either side of him got that experience (though I with my camera could only see one of those views).

Portraits of children

Yeah, I know this photo isn't exactly about the culture of Italy, but I did take it while I was over there. My little Italian cousins have provided wonderful subjects for me to photograph (see also this one from Milan last year), perhaps because they can't communicate with me and yet are fascinated by me, so they are ever so slightly suspicious and shy or impish when they are around me.

Photographing children is hard. Someday maybe I'll do a whole series on portraits of children, but for now just a couple of reflections. First you've got to get down to their level. That means squatting or crouching. Photos looking down on children aren't very good, generally, and besides, you'll be more likely to gain their trust if you are at eye-level with them. Second, you cannot -- must not -- get them to pose. They are naturally squirmy and can't sit still, usually. But even if you get one who can, children become extremely self-conscious when they are posing for a camera, even more so than adults. They will either be nervous about it and act stiff and unnatural, or they will think it's all a big game and paste on a huge fake smile. Either way, you'll end up with a lousy, uncharacteristic picture. Third, you've got to be patient and take tons of photos. Candid ones, in all sorts of positions and engaging in various play activities of their choosing, preferably in their own home environment, without their parents looking on. The more comfortable you are around children in general, the more comfortable they will be around you. If you can't seem to get a natural shot close up, use a long lens and stand far off so the child isn't quite as aware that you are photographing. Finally (and this goes for animals and adults, too), pay attention to the eyes. Children's eyes are very expressive. Focus on them. Catch spectral highlights in them from ambient lighting. Soft, natural lighting is best with kids. You might not have total control over all of these issues when a kid is running around, but that's why you take a lot of photos and weed them out ruthlessly, down to the two or three that are outstanding. The parents will thank you forever and tell you they've never seen such a wonderful photo of their child, and ask you if they could please have a copy of it.

I shot this one with my 70-200mm lens set to 130mm, at f2.8 and 1/60 of a second. My cousin's eyes are sharp, with focus falling rapidly away closer to the camera, so the sofa is not a distraction from her face. Nor is any of the background. She was playing hard to get, because she knew I was trying to take a picture of her. So she kept running around the house, hiding behind furniture, and popping her head out every few seconds to see if I was still there. I was, and I was ready with my camera for this one.