BBC4 Documentary: The Genius of Photography

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James
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BBC4 Documentary: The Genius of Photography

Post by James » Tue Oct 23, 2007 7:06 pm

http://www.bbc.co.uk/photography/genius/

Does anyone who has a TV which is actually capable of receiving BBC 4 interested in watching this?

swithun
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Post by swithun » Tue Oct 23, 2007 7:36 pm

I could fire up my digibox and we can watch it on my projector if you want.

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Post by martinmckenna » Tue Oct 23, 2007 10:11 pm

i could also try and video on my comp , not sure if i get bb4 . whist on the subject of photograpy , i was reading an article on one of my favs which are Bernd and Hilla Becher , heres some pics , ive been told each photo is taken at the time of day , and they try and get the light the same too .its diffrence and repetition i find these photo really heavy shit

Image

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oh i do like collections of things

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Post by Jimmy Bastard » Tue Nov 06, 2007 6:53 pm

Liking this just now.
Don't know a huge deal about it save that the pensioners invovled are from Glasgow.
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Pep Up The Turmoil

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Post by swithun » Tue Nov 06, 2007 10:04 pm

There is more on them on boing boing.

Does it devalue the real events? Does it say something about the nature of photographs and their relationship with what they are photos of? Does it give the old folk something to do? Who knows, but I like them too.

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Post by martinmckenna » Mon Nov 12, 2007 3:50 pm

i found this today , strange

Image

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Gandhi
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Post by Gandhi » Tue Nov 13, 2007 11:00 am

yeah, that picture freaks me out. I really like it, but its also really dark. happyness in the face of armageddon...optimistic image, or sick?
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Post by martinmckenna » Fri Dec 07, 2007 1:02 pm

This is the work of thomas Demand

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Gandhi
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Post by Gandhi » Fri Dec 07, 2007 2:42 pm

they kind of bore the crap out of me to be honest! All very clinical. i like the lines and lighting of the 2nd pic but just doesn't really excite me very much
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Post by Gandhi » Fri Dec 07, 2007 3:27 pm

However the pensioner pictures are pretty cool.
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Post by swithun » Fri Dec 07, 2007 3:34 pm

I think Demand's stuff is pretty good. Lines rock. Where would we be without them? Although they would be improved by having some of his friends standing in the foreground, maybe giving a thumbs up or peace sign.

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Post by martinmckenna » Fri Dec 07, 2007 3:36 pm

when i first saw them, even although i was told how they are done ,I thought they where pretty boring too.

am not sure how demand gets the images to produce the photo .it may be found photos or he takes them . then what he does is make model of the photo in cardboard and paper and then takes a photo of it and destroys the model , so all we have left is the image of it . these photo are quite big , so am not sure if you could work this out having seen them as i have not seen one. i think this is important cause i believe a work should stand on its own without all the chit chat .

i like them now cause its a space the dont exists anymore, and they are quite generic and could be anywhere , the boredom of the spaces we inhabit .aslo you think its real , but its not . kinda throws you . what can you trust

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Post by Gandhi » Fri Dec 07, 2007 4:11 pm

so he takes a picture of something, then makes a model of it, which he them photographs then destroys the model?

That does make them definately more interesting in a contextual way but still rather dull (for me) on the visual side of things!

I am currently playing around with Photoshop's inhouse effects and then came across a thing called photmerge. Looking more into it I found a link on things called HDR images. Im sure you've heard of them, but they are basically 3 photos of the same scene taken at different exposures. the pictures are then merged together given the photos a weird ethereal kind of look. I think they look amazing whereas a lot of people find themselves annoyed by the fact that effects have been used. I don't see the harm in it as i feel it produces another type of art as opposed to destroying another. If you want a go at it then firstly see if you camera has an Auto Bracketing feature (3 exposures at once), and then try uploading them on to Photomatix program and it does the rest. If you don't have Auto bracketing i'm guessing it would be harder to do but definately not impossible by any means (you may have to use just static scenes though). i would love to find out how to do it with film though, that would be amazing.

A very similar technique was used on the film Zodiac out recently, and the film looks beautiful because of it. It makes me wander why the technique isn't used on more comic book films as they would certainly suit the style.
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Gandhi
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Post by Gandhi » Fri Dec 07, 2007 4:13 pm

why has the word ( Z-O-D-I-A-C) been changed to "made up bollox" when im talking about the film?
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Post by Gandhi » Fri Dec 07, 2007 4:16 pm

its quite funny really
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Post by martinmckenna » Fri Dec 07, 2007 4:22 pm

there are quite startling images , they pounce on you ! they are similar to the next artist am going post once i find some good images

i think my camera does that thing you are talking about

not sure about bollox thing , sounds like a conspiracy to be

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Post by swithun » Fri Dec 07, 2007 5:09 pm

There is a filter on the BB which turns some words into others. c.u.n.t = cunt and p.o.r.n = porn etc..

I gave a workshop on doing HDR with GIMP in Infoseed a while ago. The results weren't as amazing as the ones above because a) I had to take different photos b) without a tripod c) with a cheapish camera d) and GIMP doesn't do 16bit RAW picures (yet).

But with the right subject, a good camera that does autobracketing and when GIMP can process RAW format images, we can take some high dynamic range pictures of the Forest, with all the cool lights and dark corners.

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Post by martinmckenna » Fri Dec 07, 2007 5:26 pm

yeah that would be cool,

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Gandhi
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Post by Gandhi » Sat Dec 08, 2007 11:08 am

that would be ace, let me know when you want to do it so I can get involved.
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Post by martinmckenna » Sat Dec 08, 2007 2:56 pm

you can use ufraw for raw images , but your stuck with 8 bit with gimp . krita
seems to support 16 bit , raw images and cmyk ! , so maybe this is of use .

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Post by James » Sun Dec 09, 2007 10:50 am

I'd be interested in that workshop to. I can supply some images to work with as well ...

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Martin
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Post by Martin » Mon Dec 10, 2007 1:44 pm

CinePaint is a GIMP fork which supports 16-bit images. A UFRaw plugin can be built for it too.

If anyone's interested in learning a bit more about UFRaw I'd be happy to help with a workshop, I've been doing some minor development work on it for a while now. In particular I've been picking up a lot about colour management and have the equipment and know-how to calibrate & profile cameras and screens.[/url]

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Gandhi
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Post by Gandhi » Mon Dec 10, 2007 2:10 pm

you have a screen colour calibration thingy? That owuld be very useful. Don't really know how they work though, do have to bring my whole computer in or just my monitor?
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Martin
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Post by Martin » Mon Dec 10, 2007 2:13 pm

I have access to a Pantone Huey via a friend. Pretty cheap one but does the job, and recently supported by the Argyll open source tools.

Ideally you want to calibrate on the whole setup, because your video card and drivers and cable can all potentially affect what gets to the monitor.

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Gandhi
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Post by Gandhi » Mon Dec 10, 2007 2:53 pm

Actually I was going to ask somewhat about my video card. It seems to be working OK but everytime i start it up it says its not running properly as I don't have enough power running to it. Although i Have a 650 PSU and it connected correctly. i'm confused.

Anyway I'm selling it to by a laptop so if anyone wants a 3.2Ghz, 1gig ram, 80 gig harddrive, 128 video card and fully loaded with XP and Adobe multimedia suite with 2 monitors make me an offer.
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