Category Archives: Photographs

Hubble

Paintings, Photographs

Beautiful images.

Needless to say, once America comes up with an invention of genius, the small minds pervading the corridors of Congress see to it that the modest cost – and hang the benefits – becomes a political football and the project is mothballed.

I’m talking about the Hubble space telescope of course, perhaps the costliest camera ever made. Look at this image of the red spot(s) on Jupiter:

Jupiter from Hubble. Early 21st Century.

Vincent Van Gogh would be proud.

Van Gogh. Starry Night. June 1889.

The Hubble book is from National Geographic and you can buy it from Amazon by clicking the picture below. I get no click-through dollars if you do that; it will be a cold day in hell before I resort to that disingenuous and pathetic ‘business’ model.

Click the picture to go to Amazon US.

I bought the paper copy as no one at National Geographic has yet realized that interactive iPad books are what the consumer wants. Al Gore’s outstanding Our Choice is the standard here.

A quick Facebook rant:

Sadly, PushPop Press, the maker of the app for Gore’s book, has been acquired by Facebook, sponsor of the largest crime against privacy and the individual in the history of the world. In totalitarian Russia the KGB at least had to search you out. With Facebook, the innocent masses volunteer their most private information at no cost, no threats, no torture, no truth serum, whereupon it is resold, without their knowledge, to law enforcement, prospective and current employers and any advertiser with a check book. Careers are ruined by a single, childhood indiscretion, in a medium that can never be erased, but can most certainly be subpoenaed.

Meanwhile Facebook pays ever-increasing amounts for inventions which threaten its very existence – like the $1 billion just paid for the nonsensical Instagram – in an attempt to maintain its hegemony. A business doomed to fail as surely as the sun will rise tomorrow, with minimal barriers to entry and subject to the whims and wants of a fickle, youthful consumer. Too bad PushPop Press will likely go down with it. Why Apple did not acquire this business beats me – the book publishing app, like the Hubble, has been mothballed.

Fotopedia

iPad, Photographs

How a picture book should be done.

Our son was doing a homework project on the Spanish Missions in California and the one assigned, which he had to profile, was Mission San Gabriel. In contrast to the others whose roofs rest on adobe walls, San Gabriel has the roof resting within the walls, the latter reinforced by over a dozen vertical buttresses – large stone columns to bear the side load of the roof on the walls. It was an interesting project and we both learned a lot doing it, but at the conclusion I had to put the boy to right.

“Winston, old man”, said I, taking the lad aside, “when it comes to roof supports, there are buttresses and there is Notre Dame.”

And this is the picture I showed him.

Notre Dame, ÃŽle de France, Paris. Flying buttresses.

Seldom has there been a more perfect marriage of form and function than in these flying buttresses, light and airy, as befits the City of Light. Gazing at this of course made me long for Paris, and there is no better way of seeing that gorgeous city through photographs than by downloading the free Fotopedia – Paris app to your iPad. The app is custom designed for the iPad, and will not run on laptops, desktops or Zunes.

The design is a masterpiece, as you might expect from the former chief technology officer of applications at Apple, Jean-Marie Hullot. There’s an interesting piece on the man in the NY Times Blog. The app is not about hotels, or sightseeing or boat trips or restaurants. It’s about showing the most beautiful city in the world on the best display device in existence. I have run it on both the iPad1 and iPad3 and it works well on both.

The photo below is from Fotopedia – Paris by Magnum photographer Jacques Bravo and is of the roofs of Rue Mouffetard in Montparnasse, a particularly pleasant reminiscence for me as it was a snap of that very street which saw me first published in Leica Fotografie in 1974. On an iPad, touch the picture for the Fotopedia app. On a laptop or desktop, you can save by clicking on the picture and then syncing your iPad using iTunes.

Touch the picture on your iPad to download Fotopedia – Paris.

There are several other Fotopedias, but after this one, who cares? Oh yes, there’s one about the US National Parks for all those who believe landscapes start and end in Yosemite. Good for the Saint Ansel set, I suppose. And there’s one on North Korea (what?) for manic depressives. But Paris is the one to get for this street snapper.

A face in the window

Photographs

Just strolling about.

I have long had the habit of looking up when strolling the streets and it’s a trait which has been rewarded many times.

On 24th Street, SF. D700, 75-150 Series E. Click the picture.

In the large print I have made of this, the whole has a Renaissance quality, not just for the light on the child’s face but also for the wonderful texture and subtle coloration of the drapes. Any Nikon DSLR snapper who has yet to avail himself of the bargain basement, 75-150 Series E zoom should do so pronto before word gets out and prices double! The maximum aperture is f/3.5 at all focal lengths and the whole thing is diminutive, in keeping with the price. No excuses are needed for the results it renders. I have installed a CPU in mine to bring it into the 21st Century.

CPU installed on the 75-150mm Series E Nikon lens.