BEFORE the blog. BEFORE the iphone. there were pictures.
Posted by Dean Bradshaw | Filed under Photography Links
Imagine taking a picture every day for a year. Not too difficult in the days of digital ninjas and technology samurais.
NOW imagine every day of the year for EIGHTEEN YEARS.
IF you can’t..the late Jamie Livingstone will show you how…
Peek inside an intriguingly ordinary life…
NOW
TED Talks: spreading ideas that change the world
Posted by Dean Bradshaw | Filed under Photography Links, Thoughts and Theory
I’ve been meaning to blog about this for a while. I enjoy sharing important learning resources with other people out there and the following is one of the most empowering (knowledge is power, right?) resources on the internet.
If you haven’t heard of TED talks, then this is your lucky day. I remember when I first came across them. I subscribed to the podcast and furiously went through my itunes playlist, highlighting those including key buzzwords that interested me: photography, biology, evolution etc.
But what are they? Rather than explain, i’ll just feed you the blurb on the about page of TED’s website
TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from those three worlds. Since then its scope has become ever broader. The annual conference now brings together the world’s most fascinating thinkers and doers, who are challenged to give the talk of their lives (in 18 minutes).
When I tell people about TED I tell them ‘Imagine a conference where the smartest people in the world talk to you about what they know most about for 20 minutes’.
I will post links to some of my favourite TED talks relating to photography in the coming weeks.
In the meantime, spend a few hours exploring and listening here.
BIG Images and BIG promises…
Posted by Dean Bradshaw | Filed under Photography Links
An estimated 2 million people in person watched Barack Obama’s inauguration as the United States 44th President last week. Some of the most interesting material from the event are the less conventional viewpoints of the event that you won’t see in your local newspaper or on the weekly news bulletin.
Firstly, there’s the gigapan image, a 1,474 megapixel image of Obama’s Inauguration – captured with a Canon G10 point-n-shoot and a Gigapan imager which, after being mounted to a railing, automatically shot 220 frames which were then stitched together to form the final image. Amazing! You can read more about how it was made by the man himself, David Bergman.
If you like that, check out a similar gigapan image taken at the 2008 Olympic games which I posted about a few months ago.
Secondly, we have a number of brilliant images from all over the world illustrating the global audience watching Obama’s inauguration posted over at the Boston Globe’s website – pretty amazing. One of the most spectacular is the third down – an image taken by a satellite of the event from directly above – showing the masses of people as though they were swarms of ants.
Finally we have an image unrelated to President Obama’s inauguration but which follows in the same vein of really large images. Titled ‘We’re all gonna die someday’ to make allusions to our collective humanity – the final image is a remarkable 100m (yes, metres!) long and is a very creative application of digital technology. I imagine we’ll be seeing more and more of this type of thing as the digital medium matures. View it here…
Enjoy!
Boston Globe: 2008 in photographs – part 1
Posted by Dean Bradshaw | Filed under Photography Links
The year 2008 in photographs according to the Boston Globe…
Check out that massive wave at the end – in Western Australia no less!
Enjoy.
How do you feel about bullets? Robbie Cooper unveils the faces of video gamers…
Posted by Dean Bradshaw | Filed under Multimedia, Photography Links
Ever wondered what you actually looked like whilst pulling that contorted face in an effort to have little Mario jump far enough so that he doesn’t fall to his doom? How about when you’re on your last life and the countdown is ticking away?
Wii tennis? Now don’t even get me started…
In an exceedingly innovative piece for the New York Times, titled ‘immersion’, Robbie Cooper photographed young video game players reacting to games under similar circumstances…only more guns and grenades were involved (whatever happened to friendly old Mario?).
To get the shots, Cooper rigged up a high resolution RED video camera behind a pane of glass, and projected the games onto the glass.
Ashes and Snow – Gregory Colbert
Posted by Dean Bradshaw | Filed under Multimedia, Photography Links
Ashes and Snow is difficult to describe.
It is unlike anything I’ve ever seen before, a primeval tapestry of visual imagery, rare instances where the power of the images comes less from their formal beauty than from the way they envelop the viewer in their mood … windows into a world with which we have become disconnected…
Tags: ashes & snow, imagery, Multimedia, storytelling
See what it feels like to be at the Beijing Olympic Stadium
Posted by Dean Bradshaw | Filed under Photography Links
Photographers readying to shoot the men's 100m final at Beijing National Stadium on Saturday (Photo by Kari Kuukka)
A new frontier within photography is dawning. Powerful software is allowing photographers to do amazing things, from HDR (High Dynamic Range) photography, which allows photographers to capture a substantially larger range of tones by combining a number of different exposures, to rich multimedia slideshows and interactive presentations which are allowing photojournalists to tell their stories through the best means possible by combining sound, video and still photographs.
Another of these technologies is becoming more and more popular. 360 degree interactive panoramic photography, as seen in Google earth’s ’streetview’ has an incredible ability, even beyond the power of the motion picture and video, to recreate atmosphere and tangible sense of place.
One of the best examples I’ve seen of this is a 360 degree high resolution panorama, shot by sports shooter Kari Kuukka from a photographer’s corral about 30 minutes before the start of the men’s 100m final at Beijing National Stadium last Saturday. For me, this single image recreates what it would be like to be in the Olympic Stadium better than anything else I have ever seen.
To view the Flash panorama in its own window, click here. The Shift key will zoom in, the Command (Mac) / Control (Windows) key will zoom out. Click and hold down the mouse button inside the photo to navigate around.
Tags: link, Multimedia, panorama
The cloud is falling: The future of professional photography
Posted by Dean Bradshaw | Filed under Photography Links
If you’ve ever given any thought to becoming a professional photographer, give this article at Sportshooter.com a read. It is a fascinating insight from one of the world’s best photographers, Vincent Laforet, into the future of professional photography.
Tags: link, professional, professional photography
Keeping track of your images on the web: Tineye
Posted by Dean Bradshaw | Filed under Photography Links
Thankfully, I haven’t had any major issues with copyright infringement on the web – yet.
However, it remains a serious issue, especially for users of such Photo sharing sites as Flickr, whose images can be searched for and copied by everyone from highschool bloggers to major corporations. Luckily, in the case of commercial usage, art directors and designers are usually savvy enough to make a formal request from the photographer before publishing an image of theirs without their consent – they’ve learnt from the lawsuits.
Tracking down such offenders has always been very difficult, as it is often only through luck that a photographer might stumble upon his or her image being used. However, this is all about to change.
They say a picture is worth a thousand words – so how many words is a moving picture which speaks worth?
One does have to apply to use Tineye in its Beta form in order to use the service – Don’t fret, applications are generally accepted within a day or so.
