New book contract

I’m please to say I have just signed a contract to write Basics Photography: Expsoure for ava books. The publisher decided to extend the series allowing me to cover this important topic. Publication should be in late 2009. 

FAQs Black-and-white and Basics Photography: Black-and-white  are both in the final stages of production and will soon be on the presses in Singapore. The Basics title should be available in September 2008 with FAQs following shortly thereafter.

The unreality of it all

A train of thought started early in the week when one of my ex-students emailed a link to the beta test download for Portrait Professional. I tried a very early version of this retouching software. It re-arranges features according to preferred norms while removing blemishes and improving skin tone. This kind of retouching has it place but for me the departure from reality is just too great.

Tuesday came with a press release about the Fujifilm FinePix IP-10 passport photo printer - this contains software that “automatically detects faces in the image data and then optimises face colouring to give quality, consistent results every time” - so identifying differences are to be wiped out to create some kind of image consistency. I guess this is for machine readability. So while we have a multicultural population with an endearing array of skin tones, the ID cards they carry will be uniformly coffee coloured?

Friday - idling away time at the supermarket check out looking at magazine covers and I spot this Lulu. It could be a Photoshop composite of two images but someone has seen fit to add a bright green foreshore and colour up a lump of green alien vomit in the foreground. I have never seen such colours in the real world and have never seen a landscape as poorly ‘retouched’ as this on a national magazine cover. I’m astonished that a magazine of Country Life’s reputation should publish this.

We really are in danger of forgetting how to see the colours and qualities of the real world.

Korean publications

I am delighted to see my first two books for ava now published in their Korean editions with new cover artwork. I’m told simplified Chinese language versions will not be far behind.

 

Basics Photography: Composition and Lighting

No.2 Kodak

This is a rather vulgar scan of the No2 Kodak print I recent bought at auction - she’s charming isn’t she? The original is subtly faded now and not as contrasty as this reproduction. The circular print will probably date from 1890-1897.

Kodak’s first roll-film camera - the No.1 produced slightly smaller circular images than this which is 3 1/2 inch diameter. The subject seems to be sitting on a post to which the gate it attached by a chain.

Philistines

I read in our local paper and hear from friends that the local campus of Newcastle College is to close for redevelopment and many of the teaching staff made redundant. The art and photography ‘leisure’ courses are to be canned, freeing up the large art studio for refitting as a salon where hairdressing can be taught. A spokesman for the college said they: “had been forced to act following the re-channelling of Government funding towards recognised qualifications and the training needs of businesses.” All hail the market economy - I wonder how many 16-18 year old boys will be training in the new facility?

My online dictionary gives the perfect definition. philistine a person who is hostile or indifferent to culture and the arts, or who has no understanding of them : [as adj. ] a philistine government.

Polaroid - no saviour

Though there was really no hope for Polaroid colour or integral print material, it could have been hoped that some of the black-and-white product - especially Type 55 neg/pos film - could have been licensed to others for production.

Sadly, HARMAN technology Ltd (Ilford) has now issued a press release quoting chairman and MD saying: “it would require substantial investment to re-establish (production) at HARMAN technology’s site in Cheshire, England. When compared with current and projected sales for the products, it was clear that such an investment could not be justified”.

So it really is all over.

Save Polaroid

I was very pleased to see the Save Polaroid campaign was underway with two websites - both listed in the Blogroll. Save The Polaroid is a heartfealt, personal reaction to the loss of a unique medium. Save Polaroid has a fantastic download-able Action Pack with such scary items as a graffiti template and pre-printed letters asking Fuji and Ilford to take up a license to keep the film alive. Start shouting.

Just answered my own question

I’ve just read in the online Boston Globe that Polaroid is shutting down all its film plants and that it will produce no more instant film - professional or consumer. This is a sad day indeed

Polaroid film going…

Just checked on the Polaroid online shop for the current price of Type 59 film for 5×4 colour transfers only to find the film has disappeared - only Type 79 is currently listed as a UK available product while the US shop lists NO colour 5×4 materials at all. Is that then end of Polaroid transfers in 5×4? Why was death so quick and why so silent?

Your camera and the bomb

This frightening reminder of the Cold War is a remarkable find from my Polaroid correspondent Bob Huber in New Jersey. Issued free by Polaroid in the early 1950s, this Atomic Radiation Tell Tale glowed in the dark inside your Polaroid 95 camera when hit by the gamma rays from an atom bomb. Without taking a picture, you were encouraged to process on of the instant prints to see how big a dosage of gamma rays your camera had received - of course you’d received the same! Details are on my Polaroid website scroll to the very bottom of the list of thumbnails and click on the Tell Tale.