tony_killen1

<p>I honestly don't think that any of these have really improved him, and some have made him look very odd (the refrigerator-white scleras of the eyes, for example).</p>

<p>He's not a bad looking guy. His teeth need some work. Looking at the photo, his hairline is receeding a bit, but changing that is going to completely change his appearance. If he has acne, I sure don't see it. He could lose 10 kg, but that's not a photography correction.</p>

<p>Study the drawing masters as well as the painters. Look at Pierre-Paul Prud'hon, for example. Michelangelo, Rubens, daVinci etc.....look at their drawings as well as the paintings.<br>

I think anyone in the visual arts, including photography, should take a drawing course. Not because you need to be able to draw (although it's a useful skill), but because it teaches you to see.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>One word: film</p>

 

<p>I think the usual practice is to sign and number on the matting. The number 1 print is probably more valuable. Not sure either what calibrating the printer has to do with it.</p>

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<p>A word of caution. If you sue them they may come back to you and complain that you posted images of their concert in your blog without their permission to do so. Did the terms of your press accreditation give you the right to do that? Is that something you want to argue about in court? You could spend a lot of money on lawyers in the hopes of recovering compensation and end up defending yourself in a counter law suit. If all you hope to get is R1200 (which is about $160 if I understand the exchange rate), I'd say forget about it. An hour of lawyer time will cost at least that much money.</p>

<p>I think when a purchaser sees 1/20, he expects that there are only 19 other copies in existence and he values the work based in part on rarity. If you later do another run, then his interests as the owner have been harmed. It doesn't seem like an ethical practice or a way to build up a clientele. If your reputation is gone, it's hard to recover it.</p>

<p>You seem so aggressive for some reason! Michelangelo planned his paintings carefully. Jackson Pollock let paint fall in drips onto the canvas. What of it?</p>

<p><em>Does digital take the spontaneity out of photography?</em><br>

I believe that advanced modern cameras have taken something else out of photography (I just posted this in another thread on Holga cameras).</p>

<blockquote>

<p>By [the Holga phenomenon] I mean a re-discovery of the possibilities of unpredictability, of chance, of error, of lack of "perfection", of new and surprising ways of seeing things that advanced cameras have made impossible because they have engineered the process of taking photographs to a very high technical standard that leaves little chance for unintended outcome, something I consider soul-less.</p>

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<blockquote>

<p>And this statement is a reflection of ignorance about the history of photography. The Holga is a direct descendant of the Diana, which was used during the 60s and 70s, long before any newer technologies were around.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>If you read what I wrote, you'd see that I was referring to the Holga <em>phenomenon</em> , not to the Holga camera itself. By this I mean a re-discovery of the possibilities of unpredictability, of chance, of error, of lack of "perfection", of new and surprising ways of seeing things that advanced cameras have made impossible because they have engineered the process of taking photographs to a very high technical standard that leaves little chance for unintended outcome, something I consider soul-less.</p>

<p>Bill, the Holga phenomenon is the answer to over-priced, over-complicated, optically flawless but soul-less technology. Lomo shooters use just about the most basic equipment that can make a photograph today. It's completely authentic. And in my opinion, anything that's passed through Photoshop is no longer a photograph, any more than than a painting that's not made by a human holding a brush with paint on it can be considered a painting. I was at a fund raiser on Friday evening and was looking at some photographs to purchase. As soon as I read how one photographer had used Photoshop to get this-or-that "special effect", I moved on. I don't want computer generated special effects. I purchased a B&W print instead.<br>

Tony</p>

<p>John, interesting topic. You say that the fundamental issue for you is that it's easy to pick up and shoot digital. I don't know what your photography interests are, but if you want original captures that will last, I believe that hands-down, it's more likely to be on film than pixels. Many will remember those 5.25" floppies, then the 3.5" floppies. I don't have a computer today that can read those disks. Whatever I had on them is probably gone for good. Yes, I could probably still find an old computer that has a floppy drive and try to recover the files if I wanted to. But then do I have a program that could open them any longer? I don't know. Will Word 2007 open an old document from 25 years ago? I really don't know. Is the magnetic media still good? Again, I don't know. Today's jpeg, tiffs, and photoshop files: will they be readable in 20 years, 50 years, 100 years? How about "raw" files? If I had to guess, I'd guess not. But I have an old Kodachrome from nearly 50 years ago that shows me as a small boy with my family. The colors are glorious, everything about that old slide captures a day can I just about remember. I'll point-and-shoot for quick and convenient snaps, but if I want an image that has some chance of being around for a long time, it will be on film.</p>

<p>Thanks, guys for the advice. It seems like the combination of film and scanning may not be a bad option after all. You get real film, which is great for permanence and quality, and the convenience that come with digital images, like being able to email images to friends and family. I'm thinking about setting up a home darkroom again for B&W developing and printing. It's like going back 35 years in time for me.<br>

Thinking about film, I also bought an old box camera at a garage sale for $10. It takes 120 film. In the 1930s, Kodak gave away a half-million of these things to kids. Obviously, they made money on the film sales that followed. They could do film and themselves a huge service by giving away a million Holgas to school kids today.</p>

<p>Tony</p>

 

<p>New to this forum, and an escapee from Planet of the Megapixels! I grew up with film, used to develop and print my own B&W photographs and decided after some years of digital point-and-shoot to get back into real photography and shoot MF. I bought a used Mamiya 7iii/80 mm lens and shot a roll of Velvia. Oh my God, is all I can say!! The images are phenomenal, the color is gorgeous, and I can actually hold up a real image that isn't going to disappear forever when file formats change or when the hard drive crashes. No more photoshop! No more upgrade cycles every time a new "sensor" comes out.<br>

Of course, things have changed (for the worse, I fear). To get a printed photograph, is it really necessary to have every imaged digitized? Are there still commercial labs that will print onto real emulsion from color negatives?<br>

Looking forward to chatting with you all,</p>

<p>Tony</p>

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