Kia ora tatou:

1. For those of you interested in the E-dialogue, Beth has posted a reply to my earlier letter. You can check out her response in Letter to Beth. I will be mulling on this for some time to come before I post a reply.
2. I have just worked with a trial of a new PhotoShop plugin called Viveza, which uses layer techniques to improve contrast, saturation and brightness in PS images. It is fast and efficient. It is also expensive ($US250) and at that price, I won’t be rushing in to buy it. Mind you, Nikon users with Capture NX get it included..
3. A salutory reminder. An acquaintance rang me up today, seeking advice on software. Like so many people, his (digital) memories are stored on his hard drive at home. Last week his partner pushed the wrong buttons and his 3500-image collection shrank to zero. Now he is very interested in looking after his photographs! He has been using Picasa, since he is NOT techno-literate, and wants an app(lication) that will enable him to download the files from his Canon Ixus, sort, file and backup, with some minor editing functiuonality at this stage ( more than Picasa). I suggested the ZoomBrowser that came with the camera as a start point. You may have ideas for apps he could try that are more than P. and less than Lightroom. Any comments gratefully accepted.
4. I had a rush of enthusiasm to the wallet and succumbed to the temptation to get a Wacom Tablet. Now I am wondering why I didn’t do it years ago!! For PhotoShop users, especially those of you using masks, it is truly intuitive and making selections is waaaayy more accurate than a mouse (did you know the mouse was invented by Apple?). If you live in New Zealand, you might want to check out prices on one of my favourite Kiwi sites, PriceSpy.
5. And from the Department of Addictive Branches of Photography. As part of a project I am working on, I spent last Friday night at AMI Stadium in Christchurch, photographing the Super 14 Rugby clash between the Canterbury Crusaders and the Jaf Auckland Blues (the Blues rightfully came second). I now have even more respect for sports photojournalists! It is not easy and all about defining the moment! At the beginning of the game the STG ( Special Weapons and Tactics Group) literally dropped in (from a hush-kitted Iroquois) to deliver the ball. Thank Goodness they are obviously Crusaders supporters! Now.. does anyone have a good second-hand 300/2.8 in Canon EOS for sale?

The greater the artist, the greater the doubt. Perfect confidence
is granted to the less talented as a consolation prize.
::: Robert Hughes - Art Critic :::

There is nothing with which every man is so afraid as getting to know how enormously much he is capable of doing and becoming.’

- Søren Kierkegaard

From time to time, when I am blessed, other photographers come to see me, to chat about photographic direction, or more specifically, their photographic direction. I always find these sessions stressful and nerve-wracking. I really feel like the aerialist inching along the tightrope suspended above Niagara Falls. One slip of the lip and untold damage will be done. I am acutely conscious of the responsibility and psychologically I sweat blood. (more…)

“Humanity is worth more than a picture of humanity that serves no purpose other than exploitation.”

-W. Eugene Smith

You darkness, that I come from, I love you more than all the fires that fence in the world – for the fire makes a circle of light for everyone, and then no one outside learns of you. But the darkness pulls in everything: shapes, and fires, animals, and myself, how easily it gathers them! –powers and people. And it is possible a great energy is moving near me. I have faith in nights.

–Rainer Maria Rilke

Enough of the geeky posts, and of heckling Andrew (Macboy) Spencer. It is time to get back to photography.

A while ago, on a forum I belong to, I was asked the question, what is the difference between photojournalism and documentary photography? It has always seemed obvious to me, but then I took the time some years ago to think it through. They are 2 terms that are easily interchanged and seen as interchangeable. In fact they are not. While they share the same genus, in fact their blood groups are incompatible.

There is a difference. In this essay I want to look at the 2 of them and try and pick out the similarities and dissimilarities. (more…)

Kia ota tatou:

Well, they were quick out of the repair shop.

Adobe have just released Lightroom 1.4.1 and Camera Raw 4.4.1 which,according to Adobe’s Tom Hogarty, supposedly ” includes corrections for issues described below and in previous blog posts.”

Interestingly, “The Lightroom and Camera Raw team apologize for any inconveniences caused by the issues presented in the initial updates”

I am conveying this to all of you sensitive souls who found the results of 1.4 a little…disturbing..

Ka kite ano

Kia ora tatou:

For those of you brave souls trying out LightRoom 2.0 Beta, be aware that being a beta, it is unsupported and fairly bug-ridden. As people spot issues and report them, the development team will be working to fix them. When you realise how many million lines of code there are in a relatively simple application and that the simple misplacement of a semi-colon can have huge downstream effects, then it is probably undersatanable….

Andrew Spencer, are you reading this?

For your edification, I have published the Release Notes, which contain a list of the known bugs ( known, that is…there will be others): (more…)

Kia ora tatou:

For those of you who love Lightroom, some good news…maybe.

If you are a licensed user of the product, you can download the 2.o Beta here, and use it until August 2008…if you dare… Yes, I have, before you ask.

According to Matt Kloskowski, LR 2.0 offers the following cool features: (more…)

Kia ora tatou:

Yesterday, a fine-art photographer friend sent me a link to an exhibition at the McNamara Gallery in Wanganui, New Zealand by a “noted” Kiwi FA photographer, Peter Peryer, and invited me to give my thoughts.

I dutifully followed the link, and studied the work.

And studied it some more.

And studied it some more.

And thought. And stared. In amazement.

And this quote came to mind:

The hardest tumble a man can make is to fall over his own bluff.
– Ambrose Bierce

I invite your comments……

Noho ra mai