We recently had the pleasure of meeting and photographing Mariana Garcia in her Downtown Eastside Studio for the cover of the British Columbia Edition of Canadian Immigrant Magazine April 2010 Issue. Mariana runs an arts studio where Women Artists in the Downtown Eastside can create their work and provides a venue to display and sell their artworks. Read the full article here.
I’m a photographer who does editorial and advertising work, as well as personal portraiture. I’m also a 3D or CG (Computer Generated) artist and Instructor. I was among the first to lead the charge from shooting film (using a Mamiya RZ67 Pro II) to digital (using a Kodak DCS-760) in editorial and advertising shoots as early as 2001, and remember (sometimes not so fondly) the challenge of managing 36mb 16-bit Tiff files when 256mb Compact Flash Cards were considered a reasonable size, when my single-core (multi-core was but a twinkle in many a geek’s eyes at the time) on-location Apple iBook had a total of 10gb Hard Drive space with 768mb of RAM, RAW work flow and Digital Asset Management were considered arcane arts, and having to tediously burn, back-up, and hand deliver sets of CDs to my clients after a shoot. Using Photoshelter’s Archive storage management and gallery/image delivery systems changes all that – not only making it easier to manage and secure thousands of image files online, but also providing a means to present and deliver work to clients professionally and conveniently.
This is a series of vignettes on how I use my Photoshelter Personal Archive today.
A Tale of Two Cities
Whenever I upload photos from a shoot with Canadian Immigrant magazine, the decisions on which images to use are made by editorial teams based both in Vancouver and Toronto. Using Photoshelter’s invite-only gallery feature, I can give private access to the images from the shoot, which not only facilitates the final shot selection by Editors across two cities, but also gives them instant access to the full resolution images that can be downloaded directly into lay-out.
Momoko’s sister and grandmother visited from Japan. On the last day of their visit, her sister surprised with a very special Kimono, for the purpose of shooting her Seijin-shiki (成人式) ceremony photos. They booked us for a shoot on a morning ferry from Victoria to Vancouver and we did the shoot on that very same afternoon. Since her sister and grandmother were to go home to Japan on the very next day, they were worried that they would not be able to see all the images from our photo session. We promised that we would show them all the images through an on-line gallery. We uploading the images and sent invites for the gallery shortly after, and the decisions on which prints to order where made both by family members in Japan and Vancouver.
I’m also a 3D Artist and Instructor, specializing in texturing, lighting, and rendering. At times, I get asked to make a presentation on various aspects of 3D production, and the classes that I teach. Sometimes, the presentations can be impromptu and the workstation that happens to be hooked up to the projector may not have the right software installed, or I may not have my flash drive with presentation data on hand. By keeping many of my rendered images in my Photoshelter Archive, I can quickly pull the images into a Gallery, and using the built-in gallery tools to sequence the slides, turn it into a professional presentation – with just about any workstation that has an internet connection and a Flash enabled browser.
…a mix of local and international talent that gives this city it’s unique flavor, and I want to play a part in promoting it. Because of the way Photoshelter’s core Archive to Gallery system is built, I can easily create mini-portfolios like the one I created for Make-up Artist Ayumi Komiyama, without having to create folders with duplicated data (which would be the case when creating web galleries from a program like Lightroom or Photoshop). Because the galleries can be e-mailed and embedded into blogs and web sites (by clicking on the e-mail or embed code links on the bottom of the navigation bar) – they can be like mini, self-contained portfolios that can be sent to whoever wants to see them. The Photoshelter – Graph Paper Press integration makes it efficient for me to publish artist profiles and interviews such as this one.
On one of the rare occasions that I could actually follow the updates on my Twitter stream in real-time, I read that one of the people I’m following, an Editor in a major Canadian Fashion magazine, wanted to have some sushi in Vancouver. The time it took me to pull some recent shots of Sushi (from one of my favorite Vancouver Restaurants) from my archive, organize them into a gallery, post it on my Photoshelter – Wordpress integrated blog, and send her the link on Twitter? Around 3 minutes (and a lot of that was due to my Internet connection bandwidth more than anything else). She said the food shots made her drool. I’d say that’s a good thing.
Make-up and Hair by Ayumi Komiyama
Model Yuka Saito
Ayumi Komiyama is a Make-up & Hair Stylist whose work has been published in the covers of the Vancouver Sun Style Section, Reach Magazine, and Klip magazine. I asked her a few questions about her work, inspirations, and aspirations.
Q: What inspires you as a make-up and hair artist? Ayumi: I gain my inspirations from my 5 senses, which are what I see, smell, taste, hear and feel.
Q: What do you think about when doing make-up and hair? Ayumi: I think about what is the best for the client and strive to bring out the unique qualities of that person. Ultimately, I like to create something that is best for my clients. Also, I like to have different stories attached to different styles that I create.
Q: Please tell us your approach and experience in make-up and hair styling? Ayumi: I always have the fundamental ideas and basic skills in mind. I also like to keep in mind that nothing can be done without a practical approach and I like to utilize my observational skills to replicate work that has been done by others. From the replicated works, I like to add my own ideas, which may not have any significant relationship to the art itself, to make a whole new piece of art.
I obtained skills in the areas of hairstyling, makeup, nails and kitsuke at the hair dresser school in Tokyo. Then I worked at a hair salon and learned the basics in working in a professional environment. I also obtained socials skills, which I require to interact with my clients. I often seek for advice from my fellow staff members and my customers regarding any potential improvements I could make in any areas of my specialty. I am a person who values individual differences, and after working for a while, I was at a position to teach others. I always only teach the basic skills necessary to the new staff members and let them improve from there using their own unique techniques, since it’s no fun having the exact same stylist.
Q: What do you think is important for the Art of make-up and hair in the future? Ayumi: Currently, CG (Computer Graphics) is becoming big and I would like to work with this wonderful technology, however, I would also like to preserve the beauty of the Art itself in that I want everyone to appreciate the natural beauty of the art (No CG or other editing).
the advance group in any field, esp. in the visual, literary, or musical arts, whose works are characterized chiefly by unorthodox and experimental methods.
–adjective
2.
of or pertaining to the experimental treatment of artistic, musical, or literary material.
3.
belonging to the avant-garde: an avant-garde composer.
4.
unorthodox or daring; radical.
Camilla Vanegas exhibited her designs at the Avante-Garde Design Contest of Vancouver Fashion Week ( Winter 2009).
A lot can happen in a flash. In early 2009, through Vancouver Fashion Week, we were fortunate to meet and work with Vancouver fashion designer Porscia Yeganeh. This is the cover of the style section of Vancouver Sun for the Vancouver Fashion Week press release during March 2009. The next is the cover of Reach Magazine Special Edition.
This is our image of model Alicia Crudo wearing a Porcia design in The Vancouver Sun.
This is the portrait we took of Porscia Yeganeh on the cover of Reach Magazine.
Here is the gallery of Porcia’s designs earlier this year.
Immigrants are strong people. Last August, I was honored to meet and photograph human-rights activist Bushra Jamil for the cover of Canadian Immigrant Magazine. You can find the whole issue here.
Being an immigrant myself, I love this publication because it fearlessly talks about many of the issues that many immigrants have to face everyday. I am proud to be doing work for them.
Cedalion standing on the shoulders of Orion from Blind Orion Searching for the Rising Sun by Nicolas Poussin, 1658, Oil on canvas
Introduction
The challenge of teaching the History of Photography is that there is an incredibly broad spectrum of material to go through, so many different kinds of photography that are practically worlds onto themselves, that I can easily spend an entire semester teaching the history of any one them, which is much more than the two 3 hour sessions I have allocated. The last session was a 16,000 year walk back in time from looking at cave paintings to the contemporary issues facing image makers today. This session is the second class of History of Photography, dealing with The Digital Revolution – and I find it only fitting that I deliver the course material, in part, through my blog. (I briefly considered Live Tweeting it on my Twitter account, but then that would compromise the value of your education (-;
Review Of Part I
There is a Latin saying: nanos gigantum humeris insidentes. It means “Though we may be dwarves compared to giants that preceded us, if we stand on their shoulders, maybe we can see a little further.” There can be no doubt that advances in technology have allowed us to see much further, much clearer, and much faster than possible in any other time in history – and this is all the more true with advances in digital technology. There is no ther time in history where we can alter the look of an image so easily with just a few clicks of a mouse. The real question is, “So what?”. The highest resolution sensors, the sharpest lenses, the most advanced image editing operations really don’t amount to much unless the resulting image itself has something to say. So in the last class, we looked at the history and motivations for image making, photographers whose images changed perceptions on both the medium of photography and their subjects, how the technology evolved, as well as touched upon contemporary issues that makes us ask the questions ‘Why?’ and ‘What’s the point?’, and hopefully help us ask our questions into finding meaning in our own photography and the images that we see. For a brief recap of the last class;
And finally finding a conceptual framework from which to find meaning from looking at images, either our own or those made by other artists, by looking at the point of view of the creator/artist, the viewer, and the technology used to create it.
Digital Technology Timeline
Even just 60 years ago, the world was a drastically different place. The next section is a time line which shows the evolution of digital technology that has radically reshaped the contexts in which we conceptualize, create, and view images today.
1947
The Transistor is developed by John Bardeen, Walter Brattain, and William Shockley at Bell Industries, winning them a Nobel Prize and initiates a revolution in the Electronics Insdustry
1951
The VTR (Video Tape Recorder) is developed at Bing Crosby Laboratories. It uses electrical impulses to record images on magnetic tape.
1956
Shockley Semiconductor Laboratories experiment with the creation of ‘Silicon Crystals, giving rise to ‘Silicon Valley’
1957
Russel A Kirsch at the National Bureau Of Standards creates the first scanned photo (one of his son) with an early mechanical drum scanner.
1959
The Integrated Circuit is invented by Fairchild Semiconductor manager Bob Noyce, who later co-founds Intel corporation.
1964
Tha Mariner spacecraft transmits electronic images of Mars back to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California
1969
Wilard Boyle and George Smith at Bell Laboratories design the charged-coupled Device (CCD), which until today is used in digital cameras to record images electronically.
1972
First patent for Filmless Electronic Camera filed by Texas Instruments
1980
Sony Corporation is the first to commercially market color video cameras with a solid state image sensor, the CCD.
1981
Sony released the first Sony Mavica electronic still camera, the camera which was the first commercial electronic camera. Images were recorded onto a mini disc and then put into a video reader that was connected to a television monitor or color printer. Not really considered to be a true still camera, it was a video camera that took video freeze-frames. Instructor’s Note: With the introduction of the Nikon D90 and Canon 5D Mark II in 2008, with the ‘ground-breaking feature’ being the ability to shoot video, most would be surprised that the first digital camera was a video camera adapted to shoot stills.
1984
Canon conducted a trial of a professional color still video camera (the RC-701) and an analog transmitter at the Los Angeles Olympics. The images were transmitted back to Japan via phone lines in less than 30 minutes and were then printed in the Yomiuri Shimbun. The color electronic still video camera with a 400K pixel CCD used in the tests was the first practical application for public use.
1984
Apple Macintosh personal computer with a speedy graphical interface and a mouse
1986
Canon was the first to market a still video camera, the professional model RC-701. The RC-701 was aimed mainly at the press market. It had four dedicated interchangeable lenses and also offered an adapter for 35mm lenses. Price of the RC (RC stood for Realtime Camera) with an 11-66mm f/1.2 lens was about $3,000. The complete RC-701 system consisting of the camera, a player/recorder, a printer, a laminator, and a unit for phone transmission cost about $27,000. The CCD was 6.6mm x 8.8mm with 780 pixels horizontally. This was equal to about 300 horizontal and 320 vertical lines on a TV monitor.
1986
NIKON SVC (Still Video Camera) PROTOTYPE – This camera was built around a 2/3-inch CCD of 300 000 pixels (.3 Megapixel Camera). It allowed the analog recording of 25 or 50 images on a small floppy disk of two inches, the same one as used by the Canon Ion to be marketed in 1988. The body of the SVC was designed similar to that of the Nikon F801 film camera which was marketed two years later, Two lenses were intended for the SVC, a 6mm f/1.6 and a 10 to 40mm f/1.4. The Nikon SVC was shown at Photokina ‘85.
1988
Joint Photographic Experts Group develops and implements standards for an image compression format (JPEG)
1990
Photoshop 1.0 (Mac Version) (Instructor’s Note: which is why, along with an integrated monitor that had better QA and more consistent output, the Mac became the standard tool for desktop publishing)
Kodak Photo CD
1991
Kodak DCS 100 (1.3 megapixel $20,000)
1992
Kodak DCS 200 (includes a hard drive)
1993
Adobe Photoshop for Windows
1994
Compact Flash is introduced by Sandisk
1996
The Vancouver Sun and British Columbia Province become the first major newspapers in North America to convert from film to all digital photo capture, using Nikon N90 based 1.3 megapixel NC 2000 cameras developed by Kodak and the Associated Press.
1999
Nikon D1 – first digital camera to be designed and manufactured by a single camera company (2.7 megapixel)
2001-2003
The world transitions into digital image capture. I sell my Mamiya RZ-67 Pro II camera and purchase a Kodak DCS-760, the first true 6 megapixel camera that could be bought for less than $10,000 USD. It was this generation of camera, along with Nikon’s D1X that really drove the transition to digital capture in mainstream editorial and advertising applications. Prior to this time, asides from press images transmitted by wire, most editorial and advertising photography was photographed with either medium-format or large-format film. By first-hand experience, what really drove the sales and R&D of early digital cameras was the Advertising Industry, where advertising photographers could justify purchasing $25,000 digital backs that, at the time, had a maximum resolution of 6 or 12 megapixels.
The Curious Case Of Moving Pyramids (And Other Photoshop Disasters)
While as far back as in 1858, with Oscar Rejlander’s ‘The Two Ways Of Life’, along with the Pictorialist movement, it was shown that photographs could clearly be manipulated. However, this took a lot of work (or at least a dedicated darkroom). For the average person, and for most of the 19th century, photography was considered to be ‘an accurate depiction of truth’. The widespread use of digital cameras and image manipulation software changed this. Here are some points for discussion;
Even more recent is the yet unresolved case where an Italian photographer claims Annie Leibovitz used his images as backgrounds for a high-profile calendar project. The issue here, of course, is not one of manipulation (it’s obvious), but rather one that is arguably as compelling – copyright.
