yangchen_lin

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<p>Dear fellow photographers,</p>

<p>If you are in London from 26 March to 6 April, you may be interested in my London Underground Photo Exhibition at The Strand Gallery, celebrating 150 years of the London Underground. Details here:</p>

<p><a href="http://www.linyangchen.com/about/tube150">www.linyangchen.com/tube150</a></p>

<p>The exhibition is sponsored by <a href="http://www.loxleycolour.com">Loxley Colour</a> (main sponsor) and <a href="http://www.bobbooks.co.uk">Bob Books</a>.</p>

<p>Best regards,</p>

<p>Yangchen</p>

<p>The elasticity of photographic interpretation is such that the same photograph could be interpreted by different people, or by the same individual at different times, as a facebook-type communication or as a work of profound art. And it sometimes depends on the way it is presented - the size, format, lighting etc. And, say, how about the music that accompanies it, if any. I would actually prefer my photographs to me open-ended and subject to diverse interpretations, although I would try to suggest via captions the inspiration I had when I took it. But I would be reluctant to impose a concrete interpretation.<br>

Ultimately, we are forced to ask the question of what happens to our photographs long after we're gone. Perhaps the best thing that could happen is that they continue to be hung in a gallery in Paris or London for the enjoyment and inspiration of future generations.</p>

<p>I would say that it's superficially like the difference between Newtonian mechanics and Einsteinian relativity. For practical everyday purposes it probably suffices to say that the crayon is red when it's hidden, as it provides useful information to someone else who might like to retrieve it and photograph it or use it to draw something. However, Einstein's equations are extremely beautiful and complicated (I heard from a theoretical physicist friend of mine) and I wouldn't mind having a go at understanding them sometime.</p>

<p>Perhaps one could gain insights from atonality (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atonality), which is probably the closest one gets to accidentally and randomly firing a shot while changing the battery. The issue here is the nestedness of 'idea' and 'concept' - although atonality is an idea/concept, once within the boundaries of atonality one could plausibly argue that one creates sounds with no nonrandom idea/concept i.e. random. But even this may have a problem, because if we use a pseudorandom number generator, it's as you know not truly random. So, depending on what temporal/spatial frame of reference you are considering, a photograph can be defined as having no preconceived idea/concept, although it could gain idea/concept from retrospective interpretation. I should really take the camera out one day, take random shots and see whether the distributions of shapes and colours in the large sample size of photos follows some kind of statistical distribution. And it would be interesting to see whether these distributions differ across photographers.</p>

<p>In my recent photography in the street I have found it helpful and sometimes even necessary to hold the camera away from my face either because I couldn't actually fit into the gap where the camera was positioned or I would miss the moment in the time taken to climb or lie down into position (provided there was space or permission to do that in the first place). Definitely not inconspicuous in these cases. What I'm referring to is not, of course, strictly shooting from the hip, but I think your video would be even more interesting and useful than the normal hip shooting videos if you generalized it to encompass different artistic and practical scenarios where shooting away from the viewfinder is required.</p>

<p>With due recognition to the legendary work of Walker Evans, I'm reluctant to hip-shoot with a remote trigger because I wish to control the framing as well as possible with my hands if I'm not using the viewfinder and I've given up on being inconspicuous with an SLR anyway. As some of you have suggested here and in other threads in this forum, some believe that street photography is not only about capturing the person but also composing his environment in a way that tells a compelling story. </p>

<p>And it seems to improve with practice; I'm getting a higher percentage of keepers now than before. I guess if you do it a lot, you could hip shoot a little more reliably with 50mm or longer in an emergency, not that I can imagine many situations where that might be required.</p>

<p>Glad to hear that they let your video stay on - it sounds like a win-win-win situation for you, the industry and the public who gets to know the music better.</p>

<p>If anyone is holding an exhibition in a public gallery he/she might want to check with the gallery about playing music to go with it - some galleries (or perhaps most or all of them) already have a blanket licence that allows one to freely playback any recorded music at the venue.</p>

<p>I used to be an amateur musician and music has often inspired my photography in the planning stage (where I imagine how I might want to compose the shot in a way that is as beautiful or dramatic as the music) and the post-processing stage (when listening to the music reinforces what I find pleasing about the shot, translating into judicious post-processing adjustments that communicate my photographic message more compellingly to the audience).</p>

<p>I have been grappling with the dilemma of whether to play music with photos or not, as many of you have. On the one hand I wish to communicate my world of sound and sight to the audience, but on the other hand they might derive more pleasure from assigning their own favourite music to the photo than from being forced to listen to the Mahler symphony I would choose to accompany my images. Maybe it's nice to play music when you actually have an opportunity to explain to the audience in person about your conception, but better to let them use their own ipods when you're not physically there, unless of course sound is an integral part of your artwork.</p>

<p>Tim, thanks for teaching me a new word :) Sh*t does happen, and humans even create the preconditions for it to happen sometimes.<br>

Perhaps the atoms of my body would have gone on their separate ways by the time this technology gets out of hand, although the magnesium alloy of my other body might remain intact long enough to see armageddon.</p>

<p>Tim's comments remind me of statements by Stuart Kauffman in his book <em>Investigations</em> that the number of ways in which things could recombine in novel ways in the future is 'not finitely prestatable', and that there is a putative 'fourth law' of thermodynamics that allows for diversity and complexity to increase over time. It does look as if the complexity and nonlinearity of the universe can be endlessly beautiful for the camera lens, yet scarily stochastic and unpredictable at the same time.</p>

<p>Unless I were exclusively landscape or studio etc., I'd keep the D3 without any hesitation and get a used top-grade lens like a Nikon 17-35. Given appropriate handling at the right place and right time, the images will be amazing and the experience of being there to capture the moment will be unforgettable. Worth far more than $700.</p>

<p>Thanks Peter for the very informative link. Two other things that bother me about using Facebook for photography are the clause giving Facebook blanket permission to reuse your uploads and the compression algorithms that visibly degrade the images. Facebook facilities in general will most likely slide progressively further from quality towards quantity as the number of members and activity levels continue to increase. Facebook can bring one's work to a wider audience but quality has to be addressed elsewhere.</p>

<p>I recommend this very interesting and comprehensive book if you can find it at the library: Sidney F. Ray's 'Applied Photographic Optics', http://www.focalpress.com/books/details/9780240515403/<br>

The great thing about it is that despite the wealth of technical detail it is highly readable.<br>

Best regards,<br>

Yangchen</p>

<p>A few years ago a friend saw a photo of mine and asked me where it had been taken, saying he wanted to get a similar shot. I told him the exact spot, he got it, his picture eventually went on exhibition and I was invited to the opening event (a great privilege for me). Being close friends he had had the opportunity to approach me directly and I had the honour of contributing to his photography. My high regard of his work was by no means diminished, because the rest of his photography was ample testimony to originality and creativity. If one has his/her own unique style, I don't think it matters that the occasional photo bears a coincidental resemblance to someone else's. In a continuous (as opposed to discrete) world, the continuous 'probability distributions' of photographers' portfolios are bound to overlap to a small extent no matter how hard one tries to be different - it's all probabilistic :p</p>

I tend to think that Nikon have good reasons for designing their professional speedlight such that the diffusion dome forces the speedlight to zoom out. If there is any advantage in allowing the flash to zoom around while the dome is attached, they wouldn't have made the extra effort to include the switch to disable the zoom, would they?

 

Yangchen

Hello folks,

 

talking about macro lenses and extension tubes, one day I thought I'd try some super macro by fitting 68mm worth of extension tubes to the 60mm f2.8 Micro Nikkor. I could handhold it provided the arms had good support. Have yet to find the chance to try it under field conditions with macro flash without tripod, which is what I regularly have to do in the wilderness (so far using the 60mm without extension).

 

What I concluded from this is that buying the 60mm (and extension tubes, not bellows which are more cumbersome) would be a highly workable and economical idea if you were going into real hard core macro where you can get very close to your subjects in the field. Of course if you want to get really close you have to get the macro flash, but with the 60mm lens alone (i.e. no extension) I have managed to get very acceptable shots (no harsh shadows) near the close focus distance using just the D200 built-in flash (-1.0EV) with the entire frame illuminated (I am poor too, I still ain't got no speedlight). The 60mm is the cheapest of the modern micro nikkors, if I am not mistaken. If you need more distance between your subject and the camera, you need longer range (and more expensive) missiles than the 60mm.

 

If you think that you are going into macro more exclusively, you might consider the option of selling some of your other lenses or equipment in order to fund a solid macro arsenal.

 

Anyone has experience in this? Is there any other possible lens setup that can get overall better magnification, depth of field, sharpness and lack of distortion/fringing? I hope I have made some sense; will welcome any criticism of my deductions.

 

regards,

 

Yangchen

Hello,

 

I am bringing my D50 on an expedition in generally near-freezing temperatures

that goes without electricity for about 2 weeks. I am considering the option of

modifying the MS-D70 CR-2 battery adapter and using it in the D50, as it is a

waste to purchase a few more EN-EL3 rechargeables just to use them only once. I

read on the web that the voltage generated by the CR-2 batteries in the MS-D70

is ok for the D70 but too high for the D50, but I could not find any first-hand

account to prove this difference in voltage tolerance between the D50 and D70.

 

Has anyone actually used the MS-D70 in the D50? Can the D50 function properly on

the CR-2 batteries and how long does one set of three CR-2 batteries last

compared to the EN-EL3?

 

Thanks for your help!

 

Yangchen