The Story of Stuff…
Posted by Dean Bradshaw | Filed under Thoughts and Theory
I saw this a year or two ago but I was reminded of it by an art director friend of mine.
I could write about this forever, but brevity rules these days, so I’ll pass it on as he did…
_____________________
Pass it on.
_____________________
What is the Story of Stuff?
From its extraction through sale, use and disposal, all the stuff in our lives affects communities at home and abroad, yet most of this is hidden from view. The Story of Stuff is a 20-minute, fast-paced, fact-filled look at the underside of our production and consumption patterns. The Story of Stuff exposes the connections between a huge number of environmental and social issues, and calls us together to create a more sustainable and just world. It’ll teach you something, it’ll make you laugh, and it just may change the way you look at all the stuff in your life forever.
Watch the first chapter here:
Tags: consumerism, environment, sustainability
TWITTER: Profound or Banal?
Posted by Dean Bradshaw | Filed under News
So I just gave in..
If you’d like to be informed of the precise moment I eat my next sandwich or have the urge to shout from the rooftops through another means (on top of a blog, flickr and facebook) - follow me on twitter.
It is peculiarly addictive…
Before I joined and even now, I share the wonderful musings of techno-skeptic Margaret Wente.
“If you thought Facebook was banal, try Twitter,” says she. So why do we use the short-messaging network and how can we explain its meteoric growth? The Toronto Globe and Mail columnist/cultural anthropologist gives four possible critical explanations:
1) “Is it really hunger for community? Is it, as one Twittering friend suggested, a safe substitute for talking to yourself, something that other people tend to find disturbing?”
2) “One more symptom of mass attention-deficit disorder – yet another excuse to distract ourselves from the dull or difficult tasks at hand?”
3) “Is it really fear of dying? Maybe Twittering is just another way (like getting and sending e-mail) to reassure ourselves that we exist: Ego tweeto, ergo sum.”
4) “Maybe the drive to tweet is just the logical extension of our narcissistic age, in which nothing in the world could possibly be more fascinating (to us) than what we’re having for lunch.”
But if you can’t beat em’, join em’ …
Tags: social media
Chuck Close: Thoughts on photography and personal voice
Posted by Dean Bradshaw | Filed under visual style in photography
The thing that interests me about photography and why it’s different from all other media, is that it’s the only medium in which there is even the possibility of an accidental masterpiece. You cannot make an accidental masterpiece if you’re a painter or a sculptor. It’s just not going to happen. Something will be wrong.
This is simultaneously photography’s great advantage and its Achilles’ heel: it is the easiest medium in which to be competent. Anybody can be a marginally capable photographer, but it takes a lot of work to learn to become even a competent painter. Now, having said that, I think while photography is the easiest medium in which to be competent, it is probably the hardest one in which to develop an idiosyncratic personal vision. It’s the hardest medium in which to separate yourself from all those other people who are doing reasonably good stuff and to find a personal voice, your own vision, and to make something that is truly, memorably yours and not someone else’s. A recognized signature style of photography is an incredibly difficult thing to achieve.
It always amazes me that just when I think that there’s nothing left to do in photography and that all permutations and possibilities have been exhausted, someone comes along and puts the medium to a new use, and makes it his or her own, yanks it out of this kind of amateur status, and makes it as profound and moving and as formally interesting as any other medium. It’s like pushing something heavy uphill. Photography’s not an easy medium. It is, finally, perhaps the hardest of them all.
Tags: Art, creativity, Style
Canon Australia Professional Photography Awards: Perth Exhibition
Posted by Dean Bradshaw | Filed under News, Perth Creative Scene
For those of you in Perth, be sure to check out the travelling Canon APPA exhibition being held in the Central Park Building (152-158 St. George’s Terrace) between the 20th of April and the 1st of May.
_________________________________________________
From Canon’s website:
The Canon Australian Professional Photography Awards (Canon APPA) represents the very best in Australian Professional Photography. Now in their 32nd year, the Canon Australian Professional Photography Awards recognise the top professional photographers in Australia. The 2008 awards received a record number of entries with an increase in submissions of 45%.
The Canon Australian Professional Photography Awards are open to all Australian and overseas professional photographers. Photographs are individually critiqued and scored via a rigorous peer-review judging process to determine the highest-scoring prints across the different categories of Advertising/Fashion, Editorial, Commercial/Industrial, Illustrative, Portrait, Wedding, Environment, Science & Nature, Landscape, Photo Illustrator and an Open Award. From the 10 category winners, one photographer is chosen as the major winner.
In 2008, the major prize and title of Canon AIPP Australian Professional Photographer of the Year was awarded to Melbourne-based professional photographer, Mercury Megaloudis, of Megagraphics Photography.
New Work: HEAT
Posted by Dean Bradshaw | Filed under Fashion Photography, Lighting, People Photography, Portfolio, concept photography
I’ve been shooting lots in the studio lately.
Here’s something we shot recently. This was mostly an excercise in lighting, pushing the boundaries of what I had tried before and then adding a little bit extra. I shot a whole series and this is only one of the standout frames. One of the issues shooting under such controlled lighting is that many of the frames only differ almost imperceptivly in facial expression and framing, so it’s often difficult to choose a favourite! We had tried this same shot with a fan from the right but I really like the simple symmetry so in the end decided against it.It is composed of about 5 lights - can you guess where they are?
I really enjoy the studio in that all the gear is within easy reach and I can throw as much light around as I want, shaping it with grids, octaboxes, beauty dishes and all manner of reflectors. However, I often feel it lacks atmosphere and a sense of place. In this shot I added a background element to provide some interest and depth to otherwise stark surroundings - the image being more conceptual than something based in reality.
I have a huge backlog of shoots to process, so stay tuned for more uploads throughout the next few weeks.
Drobo: backup storage solution for your photography
Posted by Dean Bradshaw | Filed under GEAR
It’s been a while since my last post. I have been in over my head working on shoots and retouching the last few weeks.
About 2 months ago I picked up a Drobo. A Drobo is described as a storage robot - an array of convential SATA hard drives managed so that your data remains redundantly stored across all the drives. The Drobo acts as one very large drive so that finally I have my images all in one place. This makes organisation much easier and in turn my work flow one step less convoluted. Previous to this investment my tens of thousands of images were spread across a number of external hard drives - making organisation and digital asset management a bit of a nightmare. Not only were they often difficult to locate, but this method was exceedingly insecure.
The current iteration of the Drobo is the Drobo 2.0, whose main drawcard is the enhanced includes firewire connectivity which results in increased transfer speeds - perfect for photo and video applications. I purchased mine from B&H.
It’s one of the best purchases I’ve made and though pricey, allowed me to set my mind at ease when it comes to storage.
Listen to more about Drobo in the following videos (Note that these refer to the first generation Drobo which lacked some of the features of the current model).
Tags: drobo
Amazon Kindle: The future of reading
Posted by Dean Bradshaw | Filed under GEAR
When I travel, my suitcase is always too heavy. You’d think that it would be because I lug lots of gear across the countryside…
The real reason is that I am a book and magazine addict - my packing regime consists mostly of packing a small number of clothes, an assortment of miscellaneous camera items and as many books as the seams of my suitcase can withstand. Don’t worry, I still lug more camera gear than I should, but that all comes along with me as carry-on.
Anyway, I’m getting sidetracked.
Meet Amazon Kindle - the future of book reading and an item that if it was available in Australia - would save me a whole lot of space when I’m packing for my next trip.
Check it out here.
Otherwise, here are some of the highlights direct from Amazon:
- Revolutionary electronic-paper display provides a sharp, high-resolution screen that looks and reads like real paper.
- Simple to use: no computer, no cables, no syncing.
- Wireless connectivity enables you to shop the Kindle Store directly from your Kindle—whether you’re in the back of a taxi, at the airport, or in bed.
- Buy a book and it is auto-delivered wirelessly in less than one minute.
- More than 230,000 books available, including more than 105 of 112 current New York Times® Best Sellers.
- New York Times® Best Sellers and New Releases $9.99, unless marked otherwise.
- Free book samples. Download and read first chapters for free before you decide to buy.
- Top U.S. newspapers including The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post; top magazines including TIME, Atlantic Monthly, and Forbes—all auto-delivered wirelessly.
- Top international newspapers from France, Germany, and Ireland; Le Monde, Frankfurter Allgemeine, and The Irish Times—all auto-delivered wirelessly.
- More than 1100 top blogs from the worlds of business, technology, sports, entertainment, and politics, including BoingBoing, Slashdot, TechCrunch, ESPN’s Bill Simmons, The Onion, Michelle Malkin, and The Huffington Post—all updated wirelessly throughout the day.
- Lighter and thinner than a typical paperback; weighs only 10.3 ounces.
- Holds over 200 titles.
- Long battery life. Leave wireless on and recharge approximately every other day. Turn wireless off and read for a week or more before recharging. Fully recharges in 2 hours.
- Unlike WiFi, Kindle utilizes the same high-speed data network (EVDO) as advanced cell phones—so you never have to locate a hotspot.
- No monthly wireless bills, service plans, or commitments—we take care of the wireless delivery so you can simply click, buy, and read.
- Includes free wireless access to the planet’s most exhaustive and up-to-date encyclopedia—Wikipedia.org.
- Email your Word documents and pictures (.JPG, .GIF, .BMP, .PNG) to Kindle for easy on-the-go viewing.
- Included in the box: Kindle wireless reader, Book cover, Power adapter, USB 2.0 cable
Ed Ulbrich: How Benjamin Button got his face
Posted by Dean Bradshaw | Filed under Filmmaking
A talk from the 2009 TED Conference has been posted featuring Ed Ulbrich, from Digital Domain, explaining the Oscar-winning technology that allowed his team to digitally create younger and older versions of Brad Pitt’s face for “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.”
Watch the clip here
Count the Seagulls
Posted by Dean Bradshaw | Filed under Wildlife Photography
What a sight to behold.
I came across these thousands of Pied Cormorants roosting on a remote sliver of beach early last year.
See how many seagulls you can find…
Within 15 minutes of us arriving and observing the birds, a pair of wedge tailed eagles swooped into the enormous flock, taking out at least 3 cormorants as easily as a farmer would slice through a field of wheat.
The shoreline was littered with carcasses from previous forays - the beach a well stocked larder for two raptors fortunate enough to find it.
Did you know?
Posted by Dean Bradshaw | Filed under Thoughts and Theory
Technology, alongside the human race, is developing at an exponential rate. The invention of the wheel occurred thousands of years after we first picked up a stone tool - whereas in relative terms the development of the iphone in lieu of the commodore 64 happened in the blink of an eye.
What this means for us is almost impossible to comprehend - and it isn’t often that one stops and really thinks about it.
This will make you do just that…
