Which is more Important: Shutter Speed or Aperture

Mitch Tapper in an article in NATIA News titled, "Digital Photography for Law Enforcement - Which is more important: Shutter Speed or Aperture," concludes that in surveillance photography, shutter speed is the more important. He said, "I would have to say that in our line of work, I would favor the shutter speed because if you use a small aperture to gain depth of field and you have a lot of blur because you used a lower shutter speed, you will be worse off than having less depth of field and having more ability to eliminate the blur...If you do no want to shoot in manual mode, meaning that you are responsible for adjusting both the shutter speed and the aperture, then I would suggest shooting in Shutter Priority Mode, where you will pick the shutter speed and the camera will pick the corresponding aperture. If you pick too high a shutter speed, the camera will let you know that you are out of exposure range."

End of Semester Blues

Here we are the week before finals. My final project is complete and photos for the Mediafest 2010 are in the print shop. As this year comes to a close, I again must say good bye to many fellow students who are moving on to 4-year universities or new opportunities. I will miss you and wish you all the very best and hope to see your work posted on websites or on display in galleries. Thanks to Kirsten and my fellow students for helping me become a better photographer.

Field Trip to UOP to View Senior Projects

We visited UOP to review senior projects for candidates for a BFA. We were hosted by Jennifer Little who also provided a tour of the photo facilities. In addition to digital photography, art projects included ceramics, oil paints, silk screening and sculpture. We were fortunate to have met three of the seniors. Two were collaborating on a advertising campaign for the Brickyard on campus with a series of large silk screens. Yolanda Cunningham, the other student artist we met, discussed her powerful sculptures titled "Drug Addiction." Yolanda is a reformed addict who is using art as a medium to get the word out to the world about drugs emphasizing marijuana as a gateway drug to crack cocaine and other drugs. Her life-size plaster images of drug users and the skeleton inside a giant plastic inflated crack pipe were very strong.

Ms Little showed us several of her pieces. She starts with a large format film camera, scans the negative, then prints digitally. The body of work involved landscape images taken from under bridges and culverts. The prints will be shown at Stanford University beginning July 8, 2010. She also has a second body of work titled, "Sightseers" that will be on display at UOP in August 2010...both a must see.

Just returned from four whirlwind days in NYC. We stayed in Hells Kitchen in Manhattan just a few blocks from Times Square and Central Park, which provided me a wealth of photographic opportunities. Everywhere you look - shapes, texture, contrast and color.

I spend a couple of hours at the Museum of Modern Art to view the latest photography exhibits, visited the worlds largest adult candy store -B&H Photo and Video on Ninth Ave (something like Fry's on steroids), took a "three hour tour" around the island (didn't see the Skipper nor Gilligan), and, of course, visited Ground Zero.

A memorable moment occurred when we took the C train to Patsy's Pizza (a favorite family eatery)on the West Side at West 74th St and emerged from the subway at the foot of The Dakota where former Beatle John Lennon was gunned down in December 1980. (I saw the Beatle's last live concert ever at Candlestick Park on August 29, 1966)

Across the street from The Dakota in Central Park is Strawberry Fields with this mozaic...

Horizontal Diptychs

Vertical Diptychs

Retouch Before and After

An old photo of my maternal grandparents and the grandchildren at the time (circa 1961). Same photo retouched and cropped.

Today we viewed two movies. The first about the shooting death of famed Canadian photo journalist Hugh O'Connor titled, "Stranger With A Camera" and the second about Appalachian-based photographer Shelby Lee Adams titled, "True Meaning of Pictures."

While documenting living conditions in Jeremiah, Letcher County, Kentucky, Hugh O'Connor was killed by Hobart Ison who objected to his presence and the on-going stereotyping and criticism by outsiders, as well as the tendency by the outsiders to show only the poor of Appalachia.

The message from this movie is the camera is invasive and exploitative and the resulting images aren't necessarily true because images don't tell the entire story. The job of the photographer is to depict fairly what he/she sees.

The second movie is an introduction to reknowned photographer Shelby Lee Adams who was borne in Appalachia. In contrast to Hugh O'Connor who was resented by the locals, Shelby contends that the locals "accept me (as a photo journalist) because I accept them." In Appalachia, Adams sees people who are in pain and is trying to show hard life.

His attempt to fairly portray Appalachians hasn't happened without controversy. Many question what he has chosen to show us and his view of life. While he claims he doesn't film the worst, his staged images tell a very bleak story. Critics feel Shelby exploits his own culture trying to make right the previous wrongs.

Photographically, his photos are fantastic, but I wonder if staged photos tell the truth.

Beautiful clouds, green hills and an open road. Taken 3/4/2010 on the backroads in the Delta

Sports Illustrated File Management

I just leafed through my latest copy of Sports Illustrated (March 10, 2010) that is dedicated to the Olympics. SI employed 8 photographers that took a collective 272,655 images (that's 2,622 images per photographer per day). Talk about file management...

An interesting link to tilt shift photography

http://www.tiltshiftphotography.net/photoshop-tutorial.php

Andy Warhol like Indian

Playing with the Curves option in Layers produces these interesting primary/complementary images

Photoshop Manipulation Before and After...

Assignment 2: Portrait: Thank you Carli

Assignment 2: Interior subject: A bookshelf in the livingroom

Starboard Bay in Discovery Bay

Assignment 2. Create a landscape collage in the style of David Hockney. This is from my deck.

Sturgis Motorcycle Rally 2009

Camp site outside Sturgis, South Dakota. Wall-to-wall tents and bikes

Keep'em In Sight

Taken left-handed with my Canon PowerShot 1100 while at speed.

Lake Williams, Wash, MC Ride 2008

This beautiful lake is near Spokane, Washington.

Stow Lake, GG Park

Three of us took a ride to Golden Gate Park in San Francisco. I loved the scene.

Along Oregon Cost Somewhere, MC Ride 2007

Following Fred, MC Camping 2006

This photo also was taken at speed. I am following Fred into fog along Northern California coast.

Motorcycle Camping 2008 near Twin Falls Idaho

After a long day on the bikes, we make camp at sunset in Idaho

Field Trip to UoP

Today we viewed the work of Daniel Kasser titled, "Western Technosites," an interesting collection of digital photo collages. He would superimpose close-ups of small objects such as nuts, nails, sprinkler heads, etc and marry them, by pasting, on landscapes. The large prints were displayed on a neutral gray wall, suspended by matching clear plastic push pins and black binder clips. I liked the presentation (industrial) and his concept of superpostion of small scale objects on landscapes. Unfortunately, upon close inspection you can identify the pasted images and in some cases the landscape images were blurry around the edges of the picture. The blurry edges seem to be due to the initial exposure, and the hard edges on pasted elements are a product of the software. Perhaps there is a way to blur the edges of the pasted image....

New Class

Fall 2010. The beginning of my adventure into Digital Photography. I will post photos of merit as I go along and you're welcome to follow.