On the train. Late at night. We all just wanted to get home. Do you notice how the “MAR. 20 – APR.6 M” travels from the eyes of the person on the left to the person on the right?
going home
March 25th, 2008
guagua dominicana
March 25th, 2008
I love this shot. They look like they are just chilling out but in reality, a motorcycle would be safer.
One of the most convenient ways to get around the DR is hopping onto a guagua. It’s basically a super cheap, kamikazee-style dominican taxi. You stand along side the road, you wave one down, and you get crammed into a beat-up minivan with at least 20 other passengers. But hey, at 10 pesos, no one is complaining. It’s actually a great fun bonding experience.
recession hotdogs brought to you by dubya
March 24th, 2008
After work today, I boogied over to B&H to pick up a couple of things for the studio at work. (BTW, I love the engineering of B&H’s delivery system. One of my goals for this site is to interview whomever is responsible for engineering that system. I think that it would be a GREAT case study. It rivals the Romans and their aquaducts.)
Anyway, I left and walked down 35th to get to the A and passed by Gray’s Papaya. Lo and behold, they had a new neon sign – “RECESSION SPECIAL SAVE $1.”
Well, George Dubya Bush says that the economy is “due-ung, umm… oH-KAY (*thumb held upward*). ” Well, the folks at Gray’s Papaya obviously think otherwise. And quite honestly, probably so does every other free-thinking, minimum-grade-school educated, non-media-suckup, brainwash-resistant, jingoistic-cognizant citizen.
I know. I said that I wasn’t going to get political with this blog (subliminal message moment - GO DONKEYS!). So, just look at the pretty photo above and think, “Mmmh… yummy hotdogs. Me love president. Mmmh… Yummy, yummy hotdogs. More ketchup.”
BTW, I purposely included the “sarah marshall” poster as a means of time stamping. Like when a kidnapper has the hostage hold up a daily newspaper. Oh geesh… this post probably has at least 5 FBI watchwords. I’m speaking my mind. Now I have a file. Well… at least a little thicker. See you in X-Ray.
made up
March 24th, 2008
This is a shot I shot before a photo shoot when the model was being “made up.” I’m throwing this up onto the site as an example of backlighting to my students.
While I realize that algorithms are being developed that recognize human skin against backlight, currently a lot of digital cameras nowadays will meter for the light coming in through the window and therefore make the photo’s foreground (the pertinant part) too dark. The faces were too close to the backlight and I didn’t have a spotmeter to hone in directly on the face. So, I metered the clothes of the subjects and, because they were in the shadows and I wanted to make sure that the faces were properly exposed, I stopped down 2 ƒ-stops ( I could have also have metered off of her hand and stopped down about 1 ƒ-stop). This created a well-exposed photo. The window is blown out but that is natural and simply adds to the natural ambience of the photo.
quotes 2
March 24th, 2008Sorry Ansel. You’re a bit behind the times with this one…
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“Not everybody trusts paintings but people believe photographs.” – Ansel Adams
quotes 1
March 24th, 2008Interesting quote. Not sure if I agree though. To me, it seems that invention requires imagination.
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“It takes a lot of imagination to be a good photographer. You need less imagination to be a painter because you can invent things. But in photography everything is so ordinary; it takes a lot of looking before you learn to see the extraordinary.” –David Bailey
prospect park
March 23rd, 2008
A Hasid walking along in Prospect Park, Brooklyn.guggenheim parking
March 23rd, 2008 
A picture inside the Guggenheim of a friend on the top floor. I took it from the main floor. The photo reminds me a bit of a multi-level parking structure where you drive around and around, up and up trying to find a space.
street meat 1
March 23rd, 2008
japanese burberry
March 23rd, 2008
I took this picture at 53rd & Park. A group of Japanese businessmen got caught in the rain. They ducked into the Burberry shop and all came out with the same umbrella. Well, it is Burberry. How many options are they going to have. I found it visually amusing. I chased after them for a couple of blocks until I finally saw a good composition.
*bug* – indesign cs3
March 23rd, 2008
I’ve posted this to the Adobe forum but have gotten no answer yet. It seems like it is happening to many others though.
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Trying to insert values in ID CS3′s control panel is problematic. Also, ID CS3 hijacks other programs.
(InDesign CS3 control panel)
Our studio is having the problem of inserting values in to the top control panel. Both with the Selection Tool and the Type Tool. We highlight the input box, we enter in a value, the new value stays for a second or two, and then reverts to the previous value. Also, if we try to copy in a value, the box de-highlights and the value gets pasted on to the actual document in a new text box.
Also, InDesign is hijacking other programs as we’re working in them. In other words, it keeps bringing itself to the front when it should be staying in the background.
This is happening in InDesign CS3 5.0.2 running on Leopard G5s and Tiger G5s. It seems to have appeared with the 5.0.2 update. It was not happening with 5.0
Anyone out there reading this having that problem?
UPDATE: This is still occurring with InDesign CS3 5.03 and OSX 10.5.4
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And while I’m on the topic of CS3, let me move into rant mode.
What’s with the Periodic Chart elements graphics? If CS3 were software for chemists, that would be very clever. But CS3 is for Illustrators, Designers, and Retouchers. Surely Adobe could have come up with something more aesthetically applicable. Of course, I should be grateful… CS2 was a butterfly, a flower, a seashell, and a feather. Man, that was a dark period. New Age software. A free tye-dye with every purchase.
I’m guessing that the designers who created Macromedia’s MX logos moved over to Adobe during the buy-out and are the ones who came up with the CS3 logos.
Rudy
alien skin exposure 2
March 23rd, 2008
Let me preface this by saying that I love the look of film vs digital. No ifs, ands, or buts. It’s like spinning vinyl vs spinning CDs. More emotional, more tactile, more better. So that being said, I’m probably not the best reviewer for this product. But then again, I’m sure that there are some digital purists out there who feel that this software is heresy.
A couple of days ago, a co-worker turned me on to a Photoshop plug-in made by Alien Skin called Exposure 2. It’s a filter that you run in Photoshop that will simulate a wide variety of photographic films, both color and B&W. Unfortunately, it doesn’t have my favorites, Pan F and FP4, but it does have Portra, Velvia, Kodachrome, Polaroid, and TRI-X, among others. I miss film grain with digital and, while I’ve just starting playing with it, I like it so far and I have high hopes for it.
Apart from the obvious of the plug-in simulating film grain, it actually does quite a bit more. It’s not a one-trick pony by any means.
A few things I really like: Unlike Liquify, Exposure automatically creates a duplicate layer to which it applies the modifications and it tags the layer with the name of the film stock. You still have the original available to fall back on (if you prefer, this default can be turned off). And, you can try as many film simulations as you want. Each one will create a new layer. To compare with your original, you then simply turn on and off layers. In other words, your layered .psd file can contain as many variations as you feel like attempting.
The sharpening feature seems to work a bit better than Unsharp Mask and feels more intuitive. Regarding grain, there are lots of variables to work with to personalize your grain.
The color curve section has both a graph and sliders – I think those intimated by the color curve graph in Photoshop will embrace the sliders. In fact, I think the sliders will serve as a great learning device because, move them, and you immediately see how the curve responds.
Finally, the Preview Split function is great. It allows you to see before and after all within the same image. And there is a “push button” also – push to see before, let go to see after.
At $249, it’s a bit pricey but you can download a fully functional 30-day demo from the Alien Skin website. While you’re there, check out all of the other demos available. (and no, I’m not being paid by anyone to say this) I believe, though, that one of the podcasts that I was listening to had Alien Skin as a sponsor and said that their listeners could get a 50% discount off of Exposure 2. It was either “This Week in Photography” or “The Digital Photography Show.” Or neither. Or maybe I dreamt it. I honestly can’t remember.
Regardless, check out Exposure 2. Analog for a digital world. And Alien Skin… please add in an Ilford Pan F and FP4 conversion.
Rudy Pospisil
podcasts
March 23rd, 2008
I have about a 45 minute commute each way each day from my place in upstate Manhattan to my job at EL. On top of that, when I teach at Pratt, I’m looking at almost 1 1/2 hours.
Well, I bought myself an iPod nano (the red square video one) and what a great purchase that has become. Not so much for the music or videos but for the podcasts. I’m loving it! Hands down, Car Talk is my favorite. As I’m never around a radio when it broadcasts each Saturday, I’ve only been able to listen to it at best infrequently during the past 20 years. But now that it is available as a podcast on iTunes, I listen to it every Monday morning as I trek to the train.
This leads me to the point of my post: photography podcasts. There are quite a few of them available on iTunes. Also, Creative Suite podcasts, and, as I’m trying to become fluent in Spanish, I’m even excited to see lots of Spanish language podcasts.
Anyway, I’m currently listening to the TWiP podcast. Check it out and let me know what you think. As I listen to the other offerings available on iTunes and find them useful/enjoyable, I’ll post them in the sidebar category, “Podcasts.”
Rudy
musica de cuba en la RD
March 22nd, 2008
This past Thanksgiving I visited friends in Santiago, Dominican Republic. One night I was driving around with my friend Carolina. We drove past a carnicería that had a Cuban band playing out front. Above the carnicería was a restaurant outside of which this woman was standing. This is one of my favorite shots because it feels very cinematic and captures the ambience of the evening. Pues, más importante aún, era caliente. Sabrosa.
During the 10 day trip (my second time there), I traveled back and forth between Santiago, Sosua, Cabarete, Santo Domingo, and all the towns in between and I shot over 800 photos. I’m currently working on editing them down into a book of 20 or 30. I’m sure that I’ll post more as I go alone. Algun día, volveré.
Inauguration
March 22nd, 2008
Well, my birthday was two days ago and instead of getting a sportscar or motorcycle as some sort of fragile ego, penile replacement, I’ve decided to get into the blogging game. I’m a photographer and production artist for Estée Lauder in mid-town Manhattan and I also teach photography at Pratt in Brooklyn. I used to run an extensive community bulletin board many years ago but closed it down due to the time involved.
I’m going to take a different tack this time and focus mainly on photography and advertising and I’m sure that I’ll be throwing Mac stuff in from time to time. I’ll be using this blog as a forum for showing my own photography as well as discussing equipment and software, and anything else the slightest bit photo related. Plus, it’ll help me refresh my coding skills. I’ll try to keep the politics away.
Please… feel free to comment or suggest.
Rudy
BTW, I’m not sure who created this post’s image but I found it here.
