ARCHIVE 4: May 2009

DAVID'S PERSONAL NEWS PAGE
and JOURNAL

Jan/Feb 2009
March 2009
April 2009

In this Archive:

CTC Topping Off
DSLR Required 143
Routh, Michael
SD Fair Judging
Seitz Digi Pano Cam
Yosemite 1st Report
Zoomify

5/31/2009 - San Diego: Beginning Course Requirements of a DSLR

Following some recent discussions, I have just written and made available on the SDCC page a small data sheet to answer the question of why we now require that a student in the Intro to Digital Class (Photo 143) must have a DSLR.  It is a hard decision because it creates an economic hardship on many who would like to take the class. We have experimented with this and the results are clear and inescapable.  Not only does a consumer level point and shoot prohibit the student from the proper completion of some critical assignments, the camera provides no tool with which the student can learn about serious camera operations in preparation for using other cameras such as medium or large format as they progress in the program.  Subsequent classes need to be able to rely on some of those skills that a student cannot experience or lean with a lesser grade camera.

Fortunately there are options.  They can take Photo 105 which is a generic intro to photography without the equipment requirement.  Or some of the local camera stores will rent an entry level DSLR for the semester for about $150 - $200 which is about the price of a  used or simple film based SLR.

If the program is to become the serious one we envision then we have no option but to make this requirement standard. A credit for the 143 class is all that is needed to sign up for more advanced classes.  As I said, fortunately there are some options for the students who really want to take the 143 class but cannot afford to buy a new DSLR, even an entry level one.  You can download that new datasheet by clicking here. It is in PDF format.

5/28/2009 - San Diego to Mtn. Springs and Back

I have so much work for both the upcoming presentations at the Fair and also for next semester to do during this break (not to mention finalizing issues for the sale of the movie done back in the '90s) that I found myself totally scattered and unable to concentrate.  In the old days my wife would appear, shove a camera case in my hand and tell me to get out and create something to still my mind.  This time a friend showed up and wanted to go shooting.  I was worthless doing anything else so thought a day break might be good.  And besides I needed some new images as illustrations for the presentations I needed to make.

We drove out I-8 going East (you cannot go very far west on I-8 from my place unless you have a boat) and first stopped at the sight of Buckman Springs.  I once before did some shooting of an abandoned house but this time concentrated on an old abandoned restaurant/garage.  The walls are all that is left and they have been decorated with the work of a lot of taggers which gives it a strange feeling.  I took several shots of it including a 12 Frame mosiac and the HDR shot shown here.  There is little point in showing the mosaic since the detail is impossible to resolve properly (although once I get "Zoomify" up and running that should change dramatically).

We then took old Hiway 80, then 94 and circled around Boulevard and Jacumba and ended up near Mountain Springs on a long abandoned section of the old road way.  We were very close to the border in places and the fence actually ran near the road.  What seemed like several billion Border Patrol and Sheriff's vehicles were in constant orbit in the area. 

The afternoon light was getting very yellow and the yellowish rocks along with the backlit cholla and dried grasses created a warm pallet that really contrasted with the blue sky.  Some of it seemed perfect for color such as the shot above along a low lying ridge. 

But looking back south over the great peaks of rock piles (I'd love to have the geology of this area explained to me someday) there was enough drama that it seemed appropriate for a black and white version.

This view, by the way, is looking south toward a common route that many of the illegals use to come into the country.  The route is incredibly difficult with treacherous footing, a lifetime supply of rattlesnakes, plants dedicated to making you look like a pin cushion, blazing heat, and no water.  Many of them do not survive the attempt even though some local groups put out water barrels for them along the common routes.

It is a clear statement of profound desperation to escape a failed system and try to find opportunity here in this country that anyone would try to cross this terrain on foot, and even more so that women and children would also try it knowing the risks.  We really take so much for granted and have no clue what we have.  I've not heard of a single individual, much less large groups, trying to make this trek in the opposite direction though they will sit around and complain about how terrible it is here and what bad people we are, or how we should work to make our culture, the one that people have died to join, into a reflection of the one they died to get away from.  In my not-so-humble opinion the complainers are morons.

Alas, I am now out of excuses, and need to get on with the other work.  But the day was good for clearing the brain.  I love what I do.  How many other professions allow such a life?
 

5/27/2009 - San Diego: Faculty Meeting-teaching digital

Last night Prof Melinda Holden hosted a City College faculty get together complete with taco bar.  It was terrific, and made even more so by some really substantive talk about curricula issues all aimed at the goal of making our program even better.  Our primary discussion kept coming back to issues involving the integration of digital curricula with the film based existing program.  We already have created a digital entry track into the program but one question was, given the reality of the digital take-over of the photo world, should we even be offering film classes much less trying to make the foundational courses coincide.

It is a very good question.  I have friends who are "film to the death" believers but reality is not with them.  I applaud their loyalties but sometimes it is the result not of progress or objectivity or even real knowledge of comparative characteristics but of a misplaced sense of snobbery.  And in some cases it is willful blindness that would make them prime candidates for membership int he flat earth society.  Nevertheless, our program is still committed, at least in the near term, to maintaining an active film based program.  Transfer students and many following a fine art track would be ill served if their favored technology suddenly disappeared.   Working with emulsion-based materials is an approach that will be with us, especially in the art world, for a long time.  There is a resurgence in interest even in wet plate collodion which has little but historical interest to support it.  But the interest is there nevertheless and we need to address it.

The real issues are the proper way to teach the newer digital technologies.  The extreme options are to replicate the approaches of the last hundred years of emulsion technology or to come up with a completely new paradigm.  I fall somewhere in the middle.  For some time into the foreseeable future I think photographers will be using cameras that, except for the medium they support, all have the same issues of exposure, depth of field, motion control, focus, etc. that have been around since the first cameras.  It is still, after all a light-based medium using optical technology to capture the initial version of the image.

But from there, things change drastically.  The digital darkroom shares only some terms and a few core concepts with the emulsion based wet darkroom.  And in that area things have to be looked at differently.  And between the capture and the processing, remains the question of what should a photograph look like?  To many that is no longer even a relevant question since the new technology allows us to make it look like anything we can conceive.  That argument asserts that we have now the same freedom, as artists, to define for ourselves what our imagery should look like using all of the tools at our disposal.  The old guard argues that a photograph, made by any technology, is still a photograph and needs to conform to traditional views or aesthetic propriety. 

No final answer has come forth to sway all parties.  As artists perhaps we need not worry about it.  As teachers, it has to be addressed as it plays a crucial role in the design of our courses.
 

5/26/2009 - San Diego: Semester Break

I am officially done with the Spring semester.  My grading is completed and all turned in to records.  Now I have about 2 1/2 weeks with no classes but I do have a full schedule of things.  I would like to go shooting again with Lee but also have school prep to tackle including setting up for web-enhanced abilities for the summer Photo 143 class.  And I need to get my presentations for the Fair up to date and ready to go. 

I will be giving four 90 minute presentations (Digital Workflow, HDRI, Panoramas and Mosaics, and Macro/Close-ups) plus two evening panels to participate in (Judge's Roundtable and Digital Dialog Panel).  You can see the schedule of presentations by clicking here.

And maybe I'll finally be able to get the Yosemite images worked on and uploaded for you all to see!

5/25/2009 - San Diego: Memorial Day

We used to call it Armistice Day then Veterans' Day.  But by any name it is a day we once set aside to remember that this is still the country of freedom and thank the veterans, living and dead, whose sacrifice of at least time and all too often their blood and lives, was what has paid the price for that freedom.  We have, as part of our Constitution, a "Bill of Rights" which has stood as a model for the world on how a government should view and treat its people.  It enumerates a whole set of "freedoms" central to us: freedom of the press, freedom of speech, freedom to assemble, freedom to worship as we please among others.  But our freedom was not bought for us by journalists or orators or clerics.  It was purchased by those, and only by those, who were willing to stand up and fight for it. 

FDR's famous "Four Freedoms" speech enumerated those plus additional  freedoms as well.  But there is one freedom we seldom speak about that is at the very core of the ethic that makes (or at least made) us that beacon to all who aspire to be better than they can be in other places.  That is the freedom to fail.  It is the great motivator.  When that freedom is removed then our millions of years of evolution of human nature is ignored and we are all thrown in a situation where there is no point in aspiring to greatness because when the fear of failure is removed then the possibility of greatness is removed with it.  History has demonstrated over and over that when Government becomes a safety net for failure it also becomes a cap on success.  When we remove the dread of failure we also remove the point of success and make it meaningless.  Humans do not respond well to having their efforts become meaningless.

The human brain seems to be wired in such a way that we learn fastest and best from trial and error.  Indeed we seem to learn very little from instant and often lucky success.  It is through trying, failing, trying again, getting closer to the mark but still missing, trying again and again until we can succeed nearly every time that we learn and elevate our skills and knowledge.  If we manage to remove that freedom to fail then all of those other freedoms, paid for with so much American blood and pain, will quickly fail and become meaningless as well.  I would hate to see that happen though in my opinion it is a real possibility.

So if you enjoy ALL of our freedoms, remember where they came from, remember who paid for them and continues to pay for them... for YOU.  And when you see a person in uniform or a veteran of service, smile and thank them. You may personally want no part of it; you may hate what they have to do, hate the whole concept of the military, march and protest against it at every opportunity.  But it is only because of those uniformed people who felt differently that you have the freedom to get out, assemble, and speak your mind.  You may hate what they are but you need to thank them because they and they alone have paid the price so that you can not only be what you are but you can strive to be ALL that you want.  You can fail at it.  But only because you can fail at it are you also able to achieve it limited only by your own efforts and skills... and imagination.

5/18/2009 - San Diego: Finals Week and Fair Judging

Woo Hoo, it finally arrived!  The last week of the semester is upon us.  it was not nearly as a stressful a semester end as last Fall when madness reigned supreme in my life, figuratively and literally.  But because of my inability to completely shake whatever virus nailed me and get over an annoying residual cough, I will be glad for some days to just relax.  However Lee Peterson and I spoke at the Fair's Judging about going shooting and I'd climb out of my bed of woe for that pretty readily.

On Sunday last (17th) I was part of the judges collective for the International Photo Exhibit at the San Diego County Fair.  I will also be on several panels and give a couple of workshops.  This year I was put with Greg Klampt and Jim Respess to judge several digital categories.  There were a few really outstanding entries but overall  I thought the work was weak and was disappointed some of my students hadn't entered since their work is generally so much better.  I hope they do well in the Student Showcase part of the Fair. 

I do not believe digital is in any way inferior to film and, in fact, offers options and artistic potential far beyond film.  But, at least in the overtly digital categories we judged, the work this year did not give me many examples to support that contention.  There was no real "WOW" moment in any of the categories although there were some really fine pieces in the pure digital art category.  The judges roundtable will be interesting...  It was in too  many cases apparent that the technology was more important to the creator of the piece than the art side.  It was often as if they had taken a shot in which, somewhere inside the borders was likely a very nice image but we, the judges were expected to find it and in payment we were given a technically impeccable piece to admire.  They sadly had the wrong panel because we were not impressed.  There were so few in the normal high scores that to find enough images to hang we had to go back to lower scoring boxes and on one case could not find enough even then.  I hope the other categories had a better showing.

Linda Fiske and I agreed to go back on Thursday to judge video and web stuff since those judges did not show up.  Oh well, I suppose we will get some more Fair tickets for doing it.

05/14/2009 - San Diego: All I want for Christmas

Many of you know that I like doing Mosaic images where a single image is made up of many smaller frames so that the resulting final photograph has enormous resolution.  Of course that takes time to shoot and build.  Well there is a solution:  It is called the Seitz 6x17 Digital Camera.  in addition to having a 6x17 inch sensor sporting 160 megapixels, its processing engine can produce 48 bit HDR images to be tone mapped back to 16 bit files that are amazing to see.  Want to see some?  Well British Photographer David Osborne was lucky enough to get to play with one (color me jealous!) and has produced several 8 ft prints of astounding clarity.  If you go to the link below, that page is driven by a wonderful engine called "Zoomify".  Click on the red icon to see the image full screen then use the slider to zoom in and out.  Give it a second to go to high res mode with each movement.  Click HERE to go to his site.  On that page the little "hand Icons" will cycle through 4 amazing panoramas.

Now for you gift givers out there, the rig is only about $45,000 USD so don't delay!

05/12/2009 - San Diego: Back from Yosemite

I'm back from the Landscape Class's field trip to Yosemite NP.  As usual this was a beautiful trip.  It is hard not to love the area: one of the true natural wonders of the world.  We were there for four days which was not nearly enough time but we (well, I ) had to be back for class on Monday.  Spring had definitely come to the Valley as almost everything possible was in bloom.  The water was running furiously over all of the countless waterfalls and the green of new grass and buds was that rich "Spring Green" that nothing can quite duplicate. 

To the right is a shot of Bridal Veil Falls taken from the Tunnel View Overlook.  It was generating so much mist and spray it wasl like a heavy rain down on the trail.

Here to the left is a shot looking up at Glacier Point from the Fens, a marsh area near Happy Isles at the end of Yosemite Valley.  I'll have more photos as the week goes on but I wanted to get this posted as soon as possible.

I was not completely recovered from the viral infection that laid me low the week before but nothing was going to keep me from this trip.  However I was truly not completely up to full steam and had a seriously reduced level of endurance and stamina.  Hiking around carrying gear really wore me out, so much so that I had to catch some cat naps in the car on several occasions while others were out shooting.  How embarrassing and, worse yet, how frustrating!  I'm definitely feeling the effects of the little exertion I actually did now as all I want to do is sleep.  But the coughing is down to less frequent fits of it and the headaches are all but gone. Hopefully by next week I'll be close to normal again. 

The good news was that both Glacier Point and Mariposa Grove were open so I have some shots from each.  Unfortunately the day I was at Glacier point there was a heavy haze in the valley so it remains to be seen what I can do with those shots.  I am so anxious to have the time to work with them.

I've not had a chance to do much more than download images and make a couple to put here almost as place holders.  As soon as I have a chance, perhaps this weekend, I'll finish processing them and put them in the Yosemite folder.  Meantime you can see some images from previous trips by going to the gallery page and selecting the Yosemite Gallery or by clicking HERE.

While in Yosemite I met Landscape Photographer Michael Routh.  Do check out his website.  He has some very nice images from all over the west. 

Sadly, I also ran into a group who were doing wet plate photography.  That is a fascinating old time process and I would have normally stayed to chat with them but to be honest they were a bit rude.  They came to a turnout where Michael and I were shooting and told us to move our cars so their workshop people could park there.  I was done and just chatting so it was not a big deal.  But I would never do that to another photographer or even to another tourist.  If there were a special place I wanted to shoot with my class I would arrive early enough to be there first and would never try to push others aside.  That is not a very good way to make potential collectors interested in you or your work since it just makes you look like a jerk.  For the brief moment I did converse with one of the group while packing away my gear he let me know clearly that THEY were doing REAL photography.

Allrighty then...  guess he put me in my place as a Johnny-Come-Lately wannabe.

05/01/09 - San Diego Bed of Woe... and Missed Ceremony :-C

What a wretched week it has been!  I've been on my back, coughing my lungs out with what the Daktari think is some sort of viral infection but NOT the panic inducing Swine Flu.  Actually I do not have some of the major symptoms of flu at all and I thought I just had a major sinus infection at first (and am still not 100% convinced that is all wrong). 
But with the world in a panic (and this is California after all) I was told not to go to school.  In fact the clinic said they were overrun and they took my symptoms over the phone and presecribed the ever popular "...take two aspirin and call me in the morning" approach. 

That was anti-climatic since I could not stay awake, alert, and even marginally productive for more than about an hour at a time then had to slink back to bed for a few hours.  My temp spiked on Wednesday at 102 them has slowly abated.    This morning I was awakened as usual with a coughing fit so got up, showered and am having some cereal for breakfast.

I am SOOOO tired of this!  I'm not a good patient to begin with and my extremely low boredom threshold does not help either.  I've got some prints to mail off, stuff to complete the film project to do, and about all I've been able to accomplish is padding to the kitchen to eat, trying to complete an online certification course and  (taking 2-3- times the amount of time it should since I can't concentrate for long spells) and then heading back to bed.

Topping Off Ceremony

And to add insult to injury, today, I am missing the "Topping Off" ceremony at our new building when they place the highest beam.  Now THAT really makes me angry!  However Prof Melinda Holden was there and took some photos of it which she graciously allowed me to use.  Those photos and more information are on the CTC Page of this site.

 
(Photograph (c) Melinda Holden)

As you can see, the building is really beginning to take shape.  Photography will have the top two floors of this building.