Posterous theme by Cory Watilo

Peter Raffelt


Filed under: Photography

Candid Portrait Selection

Zurzeit werden Aufnahmetechniken für Fotokameras entwickelt, die statt einem oder mehrerer Bilder gleich eine Sequenz aufnehmen, ähnlich einem Video. Sinn und Zweck ist die Jagd nach dem "Decisive Moment". Aber wer soll nach so einer Foto/Video-Session die gelungenen Portraits aus hunderten von Einzelbildern auswählen? Unten seht ihr eine erste Antwort:

 

Candid Portrait Selection from Video from Aseem Agarwala on Vimeo.

 

Currently camera manufacturers develope techniques to catch not one or a few frames but a stream of frames like in a video. The purpose is the hunt for the "Decisive Moment". But who will choose the best portraits out of hundreds of frames from that kind of photo/video session? Above you'll find a first anwere.

Chase Jarvis: Think You Don't Need To Focus? Think Again.

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Photo: Lytro
via blog.chasejarvis.com
Chase Jarvis zur Frage der "Fokussierung". Ich bin da nicht ganz so pessimistisch: da ja schon heute fast niemand mehr "scharfstellen" muß (bis auf Berufsfotografen und engagierte Amateure). Aber ein erweiterter Gestaltungsspielraum - nichts anderes ist ja die Platzierung der Schärfeebene - schafft auch neue Unsicherheiten beim Fotografierenden: was soll ich den nun scharf stellen, welches Bild ist schöner. Die Technik ermöglicht mir (später) eine bewußte Auswahl zu treffen, aber wollen das die Anwender wirklich?
Ich frage mich viel mehr: bringt das die "schöne" Unschärfe zurück in die Alltagsfotografie?

Chase Jarvis about the question of focusing. I'm not so much pessimistic: today only a few people do "focus" by hand (except for professionals and dedicated amateurs). But an advanced creative leeway - thats what focusing is about - creates new uncertainness by the photographer: what should I put the focus on? What is more beatiful? The technology gives the ability of consciously choosing, but is that what the user want?
I ask myself a lot more: is that bringing back a "beautiful" unsharpness into everyday life photography?
Related post: Light Field Camera

Meet The World's Most Expensive Photo

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Cindy Sherman/Courtesy of Christie's
via npr.org
The 1981 self-portrait taken by celebrated photographer Cindy Sherman was sold at a Christie's auction Wednesday. The sale surpassed Christie's estimates of $1.5-2 million ringing in at a final price of $3,890,500. That's not only a record for the photographer, but also the "highest price ever realized for a photograph," says Daniel Kunitz, editor in chief of Modern Painters.
Read more at npr.org

And here is a list of the most expensive photos.

The landscape of war - pictures by Donovan Wylie/Magnum

It is these traces, or marks of war, many of which overspill from their own time zones, that drew photographer Donovan Wylie to the country.
[...]
His pictures are sublime studies of the landscape littered with military outposts, and mix the notion of the observers and the observed, something much of his previous work in Northern Ireland has addressed.
via bbc.co.uk

BBC picture editor Phil Coomes about Magnum photographer Donovan Wylie.

Part of the role of photography is to exaggerate - Martin Parr

"Most of the photographs in your paper, unless they are hard news, are lies,” says Martin Parr. “Fashion pictures show people looking glamorous. Travel pictures show a place looking at its best, nothing to do with the reality. In the cookery pages, the food always looks amazing, right? Most of the pictures we consume are propaganda."

[...]

"Part of the role of photography is to exaggerate, and that is an aspect that I have to puncture. I do that by showing the world as I really find it.”

 

via telegraph.co.uk

via A Photo Editor

The Falling Man written by Tom Junod

Do you remember this photograph? In the United States, people have taken pains to banish it from the record of September 11, 2001. The story behind it, though, and the search for the man pictured in it, are our most intimate connection to the horror of that day.
via esquire.com

Eine fesselnde Geschichte über ein Foto, dass viele gesehen haben und viele nicht sehen wollen. Zu finden auf Esquire.com, 8. September 2009, aber auch irgendwie zeitlos.

An unputdownable story about a picture, many have seen and many don't want to see. From Esquire, September 8, 2009 but somehow timeless.

Google+ may carry dangers for photographers

An interesting read in "blogPost" of the Washington Post:

 

Since Google+, Google’s answer to social networking, came out a week and a half ago, there’s been much talk about the new possibilities it has introduced, whether it can really beat out Facebook, and how to get that elusive invite.

But the dangers of joining Google+ have not yet been fully explored. How far will Google go with targeted advertising? What will be the implications for our privacy? How will Google use my content once it’s part of Google+?


More on: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/blogpost/post/google-may-carry-dangers-fo...

Light Field Camera: focusing on the "depth of field" in a new way

 

Die Entwicklung der "Light Field Camera" von Lytro hat das Thema "Schärfe" und deren Bedeutung in der fotografischen Gestaltung wiederbelebt. Mir stellen sich dabei folgende Fragen:

1. Wird die Möglichkeit, sich nicht mehr um das Scharfstellen kümmern zu müssen, besser Bilder hervorbringen, da man sich z.B. mehr auf den entscheidenden Moment konzentrieren kann?

2. Oder verlieren wir damit die Fähigkeit, die "Schärfentiefe" als Gestaltungsmittel einzusetzen?

3. Wird in Zukunft der Fotograf solcher Bilder "seinen" Schärfebereich festlegen oder dem Betrachter diese Möglichkeit geben?

Mit dieser Entwicklung wird die Festlegung der Schärfe vom fotografischen Vorgang abgekoppelt. Ich denke, dass man gespannt die ersten Resultate professioneller Fotografen abwarten kann, um beurteilen zu können, ob und wie sich die Fotografie dadurch verändern könnte.

 

The development of the "Light Field Camera" by Lytro has revived the topic of "sharpness" and its importance in the photographic composition. This makes me wonder:

1. If the option is no longer having to worry about focusing, does this create better pictures, because you do concentrate more on the decisive moment?

2. Or do we lose the ability to use the "depth of field" as a design tool ?

3. Will the photographer in the future determine  "his" focus area, or give the viewer this opportunity?

 With this development, the definition of the  focus area is decoupled from the photographic process. I think you can wait for first results of professional photographers, to assess whether and how this will change photography.

 

 

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