Monthly Archive for April, 2007

Flash based gallery production tools

Published
by
djaef
on April 29, 2007
in Software Discussion
. 0 Comments

I was going to write a small post on a new free Flash based tool from Airtight Interactive called PostcardViewer. But once I got started I thought it’d be better to expand it to review a range of Flash based tools designed for exhibiting photography on the Internet.

Of course there are many more options than just Flash based ones. There’s nothing wrong with a good old html gallery, or a html one jazzed up a little by some JavaScript. The trouble with these however, is that there are not very many good gallery production tools for making html galleries. Many might disagree, and sure Photoshop can whip up a gallery in no time, but they are not the most attractive and customising them is not easy for the amateur.

I’m not a fan of the overuse of Flash that we saw through the nineties. It was a case of technology for technology’s sake, and designers went completely overboard. But the pendulum has swung back somewhat in the last few years, and I think photo galleries are examples of a good, restrained use of Flash in web design today. So, looking at Flash tools, here are a few of the more popular and most common.

A very popular tool, and a great place to start is PostcardViewer’s older brother SimpleViewer. It’s popular for a number of reasons. First up, it’s free! Secondly, there are a wide range of ways to use it, both for generating your own content and putting it up on a website, or looking at others’ content with it (Flickr for example allows sets to be viewed with Simpleviewer..) For absolute technophobes, it’s still going to a bit of a struggle to get it happening, but then again absolute technophobes would probably not be within a kilometer of the Internet. For anyone with just a little courage and the ability to follow instructions however, it’s a piece of cake. For an advanced internet user, it’s almost too easy and hard core coders will not even bother because they want the challenge of something at least as difficult as Pixelpost (which is actually not that difficult, especially for a coder!) And the punters have voted. Simpleviewer is almost ubiquitous on the internet. There are a lot of people using it, because it is simple enough that anyone that can follow instructions can get it to work with a minimum of fuss.

PostcardViewer is another simple idea from the same developer. Check out the demo. I love the idea, and for certain projects, it’d be perfect. On an technical level though, it didn’t impress me because of the end quality of the images. As you can see in the picture below, they have a jagged edge through them at full size. It may not bother a lot of people but people keen about their photography probably won’t like it.

a screendump from postcardviewer
(note the jagged lines around the signs)

Flash presentations seem to have a weakness there. I don’t know Flash well enough as to guess why, but many Flash presentations suffer from image distortion of some sort. It’s likely to do with resizing images and the way Flash handles that resizing. Not all Flash presentations suffer from that issue, but some certainly do and it’s an annoying detail.

Another high ranking option in Google is Imagevue. I don’t know how many people use it, but I have seen the site before, and its ranking would give it a lot of visitors. It all looks very well made, but its over the top techie look doesn’t appeal to me at all, and it costs $54US for a license. Maybe for some, but not me.

Looking on google for flash based image gallery, I realise this task is hopeless. There are squillions of flash based image gallery generators, from the simple to the hopelessly complicated. The trouble is there are SO many good options these days. And the really good thing is that usablity is improving. I don’t know about you, but I think a lot of php based blogging options are simply too complicated for the vast majority of punters to get interested in. Only a very small percentage of users want to struggle with configuring anything in any sort of scripting environment. Even html is beyond the vast majority. To get good reach amongst the millions of amateur and professional bloggers / photographers, you need software that is EASY TO USE.

Or you need to pay for it. Foliolink is an example of a service where you get a whole website, which is essentially one big Flash based gallery. Lonna Tucker’s web site is a simply exquisite example of what you can get. But then again, it’s more her brilliant photography that is so dazzling, but the gallery is pretty cool as well. But the service is pricey - several hundred dollars a year. For a professional, this is of course peanuts, and it’d no doubt be tax deductable, and it looks like a great option if you are not interested in “rolling you own”.

For the slideshows on my parent website, I ended up having a go at a product a friend supplied. It’s called Slideshow Pro. It costs $25 for the basic version and $25 for an interface which is a bit dodgy really, because if you use the basic package, it’s all hand coding. It’s based on Ajax, and it makes cool slide show type galleries, but it’s got a lot of room for improvement. Still, I like the look of this one.

It’s an area where there is so much happening right now. I am the type not to want a purchased package and like to get my hands dirty. So in one way I’m very happy with a blog like pixelpost, which in itself is a very useful photo gallery. But if you want Flash based, and you have the cash, I haven’t seen anything better than Foliolink myself.

Beware, it’s a jungle out there…

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Talk about gullibility…

Published
by
djaef
on April 28, 2007
in Offbeat
. 0 Comments

I had to post this one.

I read today in the Sydney Morning Herald about hundred of Japanese people being scammed. Whats’ so unusal about that you ask? People get scammed all the time. But this one takes the cake.

It seems a company called Poodles as Pets has been selling poodles to Japanese customers for $1600(AU). This, they say is very cheap for a poodle, at about half price.

But it turns out, after God knows how long, that these “poodles” are in fact……. sheep. Yes, that’s right sheep. The scam was apparently uncovered by some film actress on TV wondering out loud why her poodle didn’t bark, and wouldn’t eat dog food. After that aired, it seems hundred of people rang to the Police to complain that their “poodles” were also acting a bit strange. One couple had even taken their animal to the vet to get its nails clipped only to”discover” it had hooves. They first discovered this at the vet!?!?!!

I find this story extremely difficult to believe. If it was the 1st of April, I would laugh my head off. But it’s coming from AAP, Australia’s national news agency, and so the story has a certain amount of credibility. Still, the thought has just struck me that they might also have been taken on this one.

Really, I’ve never heard of anything so crazy in all my life. How is it possible that people exist in the world DON’T KNOW THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A DOG AND A SHEEP? You don’t have to grow up in the country to know what a dog looks like. And sheep bleat. And they eat grass? Did no-one notice? I think we should give “Poodles as Pets” an award for ingenuity. I think I have given up any idea of ever going to Japan. The country now officially scares me. :) (just kidding)

So, real story or urban myth? I suppose AAP as the source makes me think it’s real. What a world.

see here for the smh article

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MissingMissed

Published
by
djaef
on April 28, 2007
in Personal
. 0 Comments

For some reason I’ve been thinking about my missing brother today. His name was Greg, and he disappeared while traveling in India in 1995. He was 36 at the time. And so I thought I’d link to a hypertext I made a few years back when I was in university. There is a bit of a sound intro, which is of course not licensed, so if you want Peter Gabriel to sue me, let him know won’t you. I did actually email him asking for permission, but of course nobody never bothered to reply. And so I haven’t bothered to take the music off.. Seems fair to me.

Anyway, for all those people who are missing relatives, this is Greg’s story. MissingMissed.

PMA Australia 2007

Published
by
djaef
on April 27, 2007
in photography
. 4 Comments

I wish I was going… It’s in Melbourne next weekend. If you’ve never heard of it, PMA Australia 2007 is a huge imaging technology expo, and being held in conjunction with it this year are the AIPP national awards. I have entered a few prints and hopefully I will be able to repeat my state level success, where I got a Silver for one of my entries.

I must admit to being a bit of a nerd. I could go out tomorrow and spend $50,000 on consumer electronic items. Hell, I could spend $50,000 on camera equipment alone. Even without that sort of money in my wallet though, I love checking out the latest technology. The advances in cameras and printers seem to be rocketing along as fast as the advances in computer equipment. You buy it one day, and it’s obsolete the next. There’s a side of me that is a very strong anti-consumer, and the endless upgrade cycle they seem to have locked us into is a sad state of affairs. But on the other side, technological advances really are moving that fast, mostly I suppose because of the enormous amount of money in it.

Still, I would have loved to go to PMA 2007. I would have wandered the aisles from morning to night, and gone to every workshop I could find. As it is I’m doing something completely different that weekend. But more of that later…

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The hardest thing you’ll ever do…

Published
by
djaef
on April 26, 2007
in Personal
. 0 Comments

Sit Still

Me and my son Eddie, and a shot entitled Sit Still.

I can only speak for myself of course, but for me parenting is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. Not that it’s all bad. Actually, it’s mostly really, really good. But it’s damn hard, and there are a few very tough moments, where you wonder how you ever got yourself into this position. Anyone with a kid can probably relate to that.

And of course, some kids are harder than others. And some partners are trickier to deal with than others. Actually, I think the thing I find most difficult about parenting is not even the kids. It’s the partner. It’s the difficulty of needing to come to some form of agreement on a whole raft of necessary structures, rules and responses to a virtually unlimited number of scenarios.

My wife and I work well together a lot of the time. We agree on a whole lot of things which makes it a fair bit easier. But we also come from very different backgrounds (actually we come from the other side of the world to each other), and we also have been brought up with very different attitudes. She’s very thoughtful about children and upbringing, and so I mostly defer to her, as she has spent a whole lot more time thinking things through than I have. In fact, I can honestly say that I have never in my life met a person with more respect for children than she has. I admire her for that immensely.

But that doesn’t make parenting with her easy. She can be a real pain in the proverbial. Very stubborn & very idealistic, which is a killer combination. I can be a pain in the ass as well of course, and I’m just as stubborn, but I can’t measure up to her in idealism, and so she always seems to have the upper hand somehow. It’s a done deal that a frazzled pragmatist can never trump a just-as-frazzled idealist. The cards are skewed.

I love my kids. Way beyond words. But putting the family thing together on a daily basis and treating your little darlings with love, respect and patience can be the work of a saint. And that is clearly something I’m not. Nor am I ever likely to attain beatification in this lifetime. I just hope they’ll all be able to put up with me, and that I will continue to grow into the job.

Being a parent is the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life. Joyfully, it’s also where I’ve done my best work. :)

The Political Compass

Published
by
djaef
on April 25, 2007
in Politics
. 0 Comments

This is a great idea. The standard one dimensional idea of the left to right political spectrum is hopelessly inadequate. The Political compass sets values across two scales, one social and one economic. This presents a much more accurate idea of where an individual stands politically. I do this quiz fairly regularly, and depending on my mood I move a little to the left or right or up and down. But essentially I am where I am, which is firmly ensconced with the libertarian left. I won’t say exactly where, cause some of you mightn’t want to talk to me anymore :), but I’m happy with it, as it’s a looong way from John Howard.

Do yourself a favour and take the test.

The site also has other amusements such as a plot of where classical composers were on the scales, and where the various EU governments stand. Well worth half an hour of your time (although if you want, it need only take 5 minutes).

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Is photo critique dead?

Published
by
djaef
on April 25, 2007
in photography
. 2 Comments

This leads directly from my last post, as I got to thinking more about the idea that the framework (the website) is not nearly as influential to the way we look at and discuss photography as the user. Certainly the Internet and the overflow of digital imagery that we are now experiencing has a big impact as well, but even outside the realm of cyberspace, this is a problematic area.

Let’s take my situation. I attend a TAFE college (Technical and Further Education) in Australia, where I am studying for a Diploma of Photography (I refuse to call it by it’s new name of Diploma of Photo imaging - yuk!) At one point in my first year, I asked one of our lecturers whether we would be having any classes on how to properly assess and critique photography. Granted, this is not a university and I may have been naïve to think we would study that sort of thing, but his answer was illuminating. He said it had been tried in previous years, but that there had been all sorts of problems, and they had dropped the idea on the premise that students couldn’t deal with critique on a serious level.

Now, I have to admit, that this stance has serious merit. There are people who simply cannot take criticism of their work. They only want to hear that a particular photograph is fabulous. I understand that of course. We all want to hear that. But if high praise is all we are willing to hear, doesn’t that say more about our egos than our photography?

I think one of the biggest problems is that we are not at all taught how to critique photography. When I was studying for my BA in Communication, we had to critique other student’s writing. Writing is very similar to photography in many ways I feel, in that there is an overall impression, there are details, and there are methods that have been used to create particular effects. All of these can be discussed and evaluated. We were directed to discuss various aspects of a student’s work, and avoid unsupported positions on the work. It was difficult but very rewarding, and it was very clear over three years how much better we all got at it. And I think we should be able to attempt the same with photography. Whether this is in an educational setting or on the internet, or at our friend’s house is irrelevant. What is relevant however is to be aware of the process. Without being very conscious about how we view and critique an image, we are likely to “jog in the spinach” as the charming Danish saying goes. If we limit ourselves to the subjective spectrum between I love it and I hate it, it is just a judgment and nothing at all to do with critique.

Photographers, much like writers, are a very sensitive bunch it seems. I can imagine a photo critique session in my class ending in tears very easily. But that’s mostly because there is not the will there for us to learn how to do it properly. It can be taught and it can be learned. But if we are left to discuss photography only using our own natural temperaments, differing standards and social skills, the result will always be patchy at best, and probably not much use to anyone.

Richard Tugwell is also looking at this whole question on his blog - in a much more systematic way than I am. Follow that thread here.

After writing this, I thought of some of my fellow students reading it :). And so I thought I should make clear that I don’t separate myself from any of this. I haven’t learned how to critique imagery in any formal way, although I have practiced it on several web forums. Some people might think I am too tough a critic, and that may be so, but my viewpoint has always been that if you are your biggest fan instead of your own biggest critic, then you are doing whatever you are doing for the wrong reasons and you will learn at a much slower pace. That is my theory and my theory only.. hmmp hmmp…
 :)

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The aptly named Flickr

Published
by
djaef
on April 24, 2007
in Internet
. 3 Comments

I sniffed around the edges of Flickr for several years. At first I didn’t really get how it operated, then I didn’t feel I had a need for it, and I found it overly large (and that was several years ago). Maybe it was a small thing like the design as well. There are so many sites, and for some reason Flickr just didn’t appeal to me.

Then a friend recently commented to me that they had put a lot of their pictures up and was getting good feedback. This intrigued me a little, as community and interaction are always two things I chase on the net. Information I look for when I need it - it’s there already in absolutely overwhelming amounts. But a good community of people interested in photography on a deep level is somewhat harder to find.

So I tried it out. By that I mean I posted a bunch of my images to see how the site functioned, and I looked around a lot at the various groups and how people commented on images. My investigations lasted only a half dozen visits or so before I started to get a bad taste in my mouth. I started to notice the preponderance of “Awards” given to photographs. You know - like “Your photo is so freaking cool, you can join our exclusive group for Too Cool photographers”. My overwhelming impression was that it was a great big back patting fest. So I just stopped visiting the site. (On the internet you simply vote with your mouse. My pictures are still there, alone, unvisited and uncommented. I suppose I should go delete them…)

Don’t get me wrong. I like good feedback on my photographs. I am not immune to praise at all. I have a photoblog, and I greatly welcome all and sundry positive comments. But I had no desire to join this back slapping party. It all seemed so inanely superficial, and maybe worse, it seemed to cheapen the photographs themselves.

After reading Richard Tugwell’s blog I think I am realising why. I want a deeper critique of images. I want people to go past the initial 5 second appraisal and look at what the photographer is trying to say, and to look at how well they said it. The overwhelming amount of images on Flickr, and the overwhelming amount of images added each day, doesn’t promote that sort of photographic critique. Instead it promotes “flick’ing” through them, giving them the five second thumbs up or down. It promotes superficial praise and ego stroking. Now I know some people need that a lot. It’s very nice. In fact it’s fabulous to know that other people think you are a really good photographer. But nonetheless it’s not the sort of site I want to spend my time on. I want to learn. I like useful positive critique, from people who have clearly taken the time to absorb, ponder and analyse the meanings hidden in my images. In this bustling world, it’s probably asking too much, but I want them to care, not just summarily dismiss the image as crap, or praise it as a masterpiece (or lump it somewhere in the middle, which is a good tactic I suppose, because that’s where most naturally fall).

There are a lot of fantastic images on Flickr. My argument has nothing to do with the quality of the images. There are also loads of really bad ones. My argument is about the framework a website sets up in which we appreciate photography. In some ways it’s not really Flickr’s fault. They set up a great service, and that’s the way it has developed. Other sites have gone in different directions, like one I recently discovered called onexposure.net, which goes the other way and has moderated content (more on this in a later post). And there are a million other photography forums on the Internet, some of them clearly better than others.

I wonder if what I’m looking for exists at all. Or is it a change in the way people view photography I am really after? I want to explore this idea further, and I will also follow Richard’s lead, who is also discussing closely related topics on his blog. Let’s see where it goes.

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UPDIG

Published
by
djaef
on April 23, 2007
in photography
. 0 Comments

If you don’t know, UPDIG stands for UNIVERSAL PHOTOGRAPHIC DIGITAL IMAGING GUIDELINES. This is a set of guidelines developed for digital imaging by the UPDIG Working Group, descibed on their website as “A working group of digital imaging professionals and allied trade groups and manufacturers, dedicated to promoting worldwide standards in the commercial application of digital imaging.” Read more about them here. The guidelines themselves cover the basic things we all should know about as serious photographers - ICC colour management, sharpening, meta data, and digital image workflow (DAM anyone?) to name a few. But as I know from experience, lots of supposedly serious photographers don’t follow half of these guidelines, which is a situation UPDIG was created to change. I am not holy either. I have a good understanding of all of the issues, but I haven’t put them all into practice yet. Implementing a good DAM strategy and ensuring my work follows accepted standards are something I’m going to work on a lot on in 2007.

To download the current Version 2 set of guidelines in pdf format click here .

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In search of ultimate image quality

Published
by
djaef
on April 22, 2007
in photography
. 1 Comment

Photography is not a poor man’s hobby. It can be of course, but it’s one of those things that the more money you throw at it, the better the image quality becomes. That says nothing of technical or artistic merit fortunately, as that’s where the poor man can have his revenge on the wealthy showoff with his Hasselblad. But wouldn’t it be nice to have it all… the skill to take technically brilliant photos, with creative flair and suburb image quality.

I can’t point you to a website where you can order the first two, but I did run across this article which pretty much covers the third. I’m not sure if it was on The Luminous Landscape first or not, but I found it there as well as on my namesake website, www.photografica.com. You would probably not know them as they are a camera shop in Copenhagen Denmark, specialising in the upper end of camera equipment, both digital and analogue. When I went to get my domain name, photografica.com was gone, but at the time I didn’t bother checking who had it. Only after deciding to register photografica.com.au instead, I realised it was a Danish business that had beat me to it. The ironic thing with that is that I lived in Copenhagen for many years and no doubt rode past this shop many many times. Maybe I subconciously liked the name, but I didn’t remember it.

Anyway, diversion over. The article is about putting together an “ultimate image quality” system, and it’s quite a read. The Luminous Landscape version has more pictures, but personally I think photografica’s post is easier to read.

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