Category Archives: Photography

CameraTrace

Software

Catch that thief.

This is clever. Given that most cameras record their serial number in the photo file’s metadata, this app allows you to track pictures published on sites like Flickr using that serial number, searching for it on the web:

Click the picture for the maker’s site.

Now my Panny G3 is not exactly something I would really miss were it stolen. It’s not ‘throw-away cheap’ but it’s close and, if stolen, likely does not warrant the expenditure of time and effort to recover it, though I suppose the psychic satisfaction of catching a thief might be worthwhile. But if I owned something silly-priced like a Leica M9 or S2, or a digital Hasselblad, then this app would get my attention. As for the iPhone, whose content has value far above the cost of the hardware, ‘Find My iPhone’ does the trick at no extra cost and stories abound of the flat footed set apprehending thieves.

For UK residents, there’s a like app named StolenCameraFinder.

Something to bookmark should that awful day ever come.

Photojournalism now

Photography

Times they are a’ changin’

Back on September 16, 2008, I wrote:

The last reference was to an iOS app which allowed any snapper to upload newsworthy pictures.

Well, look at this from the Gannett Blog:

Anyone, it seems can take a picture, but few can write. That has long been the mindset in newspaper circles, and while the likes of Robert Capa, W. Eugene Smith and Robert Doisneau might disagree, it’s very much the way of the world.

Scam

Photography

There’s one born every minute.

Hard to know where to begin when writing about this scam:

Click the picture for the article.

It’s unclear whether the ‘artist’ shared in the spoils – let’s hope so as that makes the whole thing just funnier to contemplate, but I can’t help but quote him:

He said he “carried this idea for a picture around with me for a year-and-a-half”.

I usually trash my losers right after loading the files into Lightroom, but this one wouldn’t even have lasted that long, as I can’t see why anyone would waste time taking it in the first place.

Scummy ‘art dealers’ like Larry Gagosian get away with this sort of thing, selling crap to insecure hedge fund managers desperate to show their wealth on the walls, but that sort of sum could get you a few decent Degas sketches as a minimum.

A fool and his money ….

Sales pitch from Christie’s:

Be sure to listen to the sales pitch linked by Arun Gupta in his Comment, below. For sheer chutzpah, it rivals the picture.

Tiffany’s at Christmas

Photography

A subtle and powerful ad.

I love good advertising but it’s not something seen too often, so it was a particular pleasure to spot this in the December, 2011 issue of American Vogue:

There is not one iota of reality here. The chap would be freezing with no coat on, his beloved flat on her rear owing to those ridiculous heels and I suppose they flew to their location given the absence of footprints in the fresh snow.

But the message is powerful – the upward view to some mythic destination, the intense effect of the famous cyan Tiffany box, the vicarious thrill the viewer shares at the moment that is about to be. Wonderfully well done, even if he overpaid by 40% ….

No more cover-ups

Paintings, Photography

Too funny.

This has to be one of the funnier examples of the overreach of regulations.

Could it really be true that cosmetics makers use the one ten thousandth of one percent of the world’s most stunning women, heavily made up, superbly coiffed, expertly lit, photographed by top dolllar image makers, to sell their make-up to the rest who are really largely beyond help?

Surely not?

What is even funnier is that the companies making these products feel they have to further enhance the results in post processing. Photoshop may be a no-no when it comes to news reporting, but in anything else I say “Have at it”. If the result sells more product or makes for a more striking picture, why not? What happened to caveat emptor? Every painter in the history of art has been a putative Photoshop user by editing at the creative stage. These modern digital artists simply do it in post production, just like Ansel Adams did it in the darkroom. (“Dodging and burning are steps to take care of mistakes God made in establishing tonal relationships”, though what God had to do with it beats me).

You really think that Raphael was telling it like it was to Julius III?

Raphael. Julius III, 1512.

My, but the old boy aged well. No liver spots on his pristine white hands, no syphilis sores.

Raphael wanted to get paid just as much as the photographer, art director and Photoshop maven responsible for the Cover Girl number.