I haven’t been keeping much of an eye on the photoblog world lately, as I’ve been focussed on other things, but I came across this site today, and I recognised it immediately. Ahh, I thought, I remember this site. Bookmark it this time, so it doesn’t get away! I spent some time looking through the archives and I have to say I’m so impressed by the work there.
Now I look at his about page, and it seems Tyler, the perons in question, is no stranger to acclaim. Take this for example: Awarded “Photoblog of the Year” at the 2007 Photoblog Awards. OK, how on earth have I neglected this site before now? As I said, I obviously haven’t been paying attention to the blogosphere lately.
In any case, if you are as wayward and unobservant as I have been lately, check out wink. Tyler, I take my hat off to you mate. Some of your stuff I would put into the category of ’sublime’. It’s my kind of work. It’s always good to find some inspiration, and I know wink will be a source of inspiration to me for some time.
I was cleaning up the other day, and came across an old notebook from my uni days. I went through it to see if there was anything I needed to keep, and I found one page that I’d written that I wanted to post for posterity.
Considering the obscene (though incredibly uneven) wealth of the Western world and the extreme poverty the rest of the world largely suffers, I thought this comment had to be recorded. To put it in context, on the 22nd of May in 2001, I was in an elevator at UTS, my university, and two teachers got in with me. As we were dragged up to the 20th floor, I overheard this simple comment.
“We could make the other house into a big kitchen, but I’m not sure we really need that.”
The comment was passed in all seriousness and the man who was listening didn’t react in any particular way. I, on the other hand, nearly fell over, and pledged to write that comment down when I got the chance. Seven years later, with the housing boom and resultant housing crisis, I wonder what they did with that second house? On a larger level, what does it say about western excess? Can we justify this level of wealth when such inequality exists? Or are we supposed to be just grateful that it’s not our children starving in Ethiopia? It’s a mixed up world isn’t it….
The other main highlight of PMA 2008 was watching the judging of the 2008 AIPP Canon APPA (Australian Profesional Photography Awards). Firstly, I went to the AIPP stand and acquainted myself with the book from last years awards - and found 2 of my own pictures on page 84 (yay!). Then having got a feeling for the level of Silver, Silver with Distinction and Gold, I went to watch some of the judging.
It was fascinating, if for nothing else, just for the organisational structure. I’m not sure how many entries there are but I am pretty sure it is up around 10,000. In any case, it’s a lot of images to judge in a few days. Nonetheless, not having seen any photographic judging at this level before, I was somewhat surprised initially at how little time they devoted to each image. 5 up to possibly 20 seconds looking before they scored it. Only if there was a +/- 10 point dispute, did they have a discussion at all. If it was awarded one? point under award level (say 84 points and 85 is Silver) then it went to re-judging in another room.
So it was helter skelter and very subjective. There were often very large divergence in the points given, and these ended with at least an interesting discussion (sometimes) and a bit more of a look and a remarking. There was a huge range of quality on display, from the slightly ridiculous (OK, a lot of students are encouraged to enter, even though they realistically don’t have a hope in Hades to win anything) through very good student work and all the way to top of the line professional images. After a while I got in sync with the judges and started guessing the scores pretty closely. The way it works makes it easy as well. The numbers are largely irrelevant, If it deservers Silver, then it needs 80 points. If it deserves Silver with Distinction, then it has to go over 85. But not over 90, or that’s Gold. And not many get Gold. Only the very best. I thought the judging was pretty fair overall, with some dubious decisions of course (there just is no accounting for tatse sometimes). There is a feeling that the AIPP judge dark and moody very highly, but that didn’t seem to be evident to me. Maybe times are a changing…
I didn’t have any entries in this year, but it was fascinating to see up close the actual prints that received all the accolades. And I can only say one thing - the level is just going up and up and up…
PS> The winners have been announced. Check out Canon’s site for more details.
(click the small play button at bottom left to watch the video here,
or click the large one in the middle to go to the youtube site)
Carl Sagan was an amazing astronomer who also happened to be a gifted story teller. His passion and eloquence about the universe led him to writing about 20 books, including ‘his most well known, ‘Cosmos’. This book became an incredible 13 part TV series, which was aired in Australia in the early 80s, and for me was a great revelation. It informed my burgeoning atheism, and gave me a sense of wonder of the universe and a humble sense of perspective from which I have not recovered
There is now a 7 DVD set of Cosmos available (check out eBay or Amazon, or the ABC shop if you want region 4). This series is a must for anyone who wants to be humbled by the incredible nature of the universe. I will never forget Carl mathematically ‘proving’ the existence of life on other planets, simply by mathematical equation on a blackboard.
I mourned his passing in 1996, but his life work lives on and hopefully it will inspire the next generation as much as it did me.
As I write, there are no doubt a lot of people getting drunk. It’s Sunday night, and the PMA Australia 2008, held in Brisbane, is finally over. I was only there for two of the four days, and I didn’t even go to a single paid conference event. I was there in a role as a professional photographer come consumer, and as such I was there to suss out future directions, trends, and all the latest gear. It’s a highly personalised experience going to such an event, due to the incredibly diverse nature and levels of professional photography. I hang around the lower levels as it is, but that doesn’t make my perspective any less interesting. Here’s what I thought were some of the interesting bits.. (I’d be here for days to discuss it all)
Adobe - They placed nearly ALL of their focus on Lightroom 2 Beta. Sure, they plugged CS3 and a few other bits and pieces, but they seem obsessed with Lightroom. I am only just today evaluating the product for myself, but to me it sits awkwardly between and on top of other Adobe products. It’s not a full on cataloguing software like iView Media Pro (now Microsoft Expression v2, and more of that later), and neither does it have the browsing power and functionality of Bridge. It handles raw and dng files, and it does some local adjustments and non destructive editing, but in no way does it replace Photoshop. So what does it do? Well, I think the best explanation I got was from well known Photoshop author Mark Galer, who basically said that it was a work flow solution for some photographers, in some situations. To me it feels like it’s aimed at consumers as opposed professionals, but I’m still to really figure out how it works. What I do know however is that my test catalogue of some 3500 images (mostly jpgs and a few hundred raw files thrown in as well) fills up some 3.46GB of space. The images themselves only fill 8.45GB. Admittedly I have 1:1 previews built in to the catalogue, but it’s a whopping catalogue nonetheless. My old iView Media Pro catalogues covering over 10,000 images with full size previews were only 1GB! Go figure… I do like the design of Lightroom however, and I look forward to discovering exactly where it sits amongst the plethora of photographic software now on the market. All I can say however, is that Adobe are going real hard on this one, so I assume they see such a product as filling a very important niche or future direction.
As I write, there are no doubt a lot of people getting drunk. It’s Sunday night, and the
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