Suckability

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John Updike in an essay quite critical of photography as an art form wrote, "We cannot expect the camera to suck in, with light and shade, the photographer's emotion." Mr. Updike died recently before he got to fully appreciate what photographers can do now. We can suck... and we can regurgitate... at a level with painters. Now whether we can suck as well as they can... Hmmmm... That depends upon the suckability of the individual artist, huh?

Rita's visiting her family this week, so I went to NYC for the day last Friday with my buddy Chis Herr to do a day of pre-processing with my Canon G10. A peculiar thing happened. It felt claustrophobic. I've not ever been as aware of the teeming masses that crammed the sidewalks and streets. The police were enforcing the traffic lights in teams with solid white chains to corral the pedestrians from simply ignoring the signals. Crammed, jammed, slammed about I had no sense of fear, but lots of discomfort as the tide rushed along the grimy ways.

The city's showing its age, and melancholy.

Oh... Post Processing for this surreal capture was done with Lucis Filters in CS4. At the moment at least, my recollections of last Friday seem best described in surreal.

Rapture

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Sometimes it pours like syrup... it's stuff we can touch, and feel it run across our skin. And if we peer into it, eyes closed, it's a warmer than a baby's giggle.

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"You know," she said with a peculiar smirk, "you're never more than four feet or seventy seven seconds from wonder."

"Huh," I looked up from my book at the woman in the seat across the aisle.

"Actually," she wasn't really looking at me... more through me, "wonders are so commonplace that they're frequently invisible to us. Artists though... artists they recognize every one of them. Or at least I think so."

"Huh?" I said again. Not terribly original but I wasn't really in a conversation with her so much as I seemed to be her very small audience.

"Yet you know, they're not all of the same moment, um, import," there was a childlike quality about her. "But even then it takes an artist to understand the differences. Most are just moving, passionate, instants. And then there are those few wonders which can move the artist to.... to..." Her eyes flittered. Hunting that word sent her head moving almost as if she were a little girl on a midsummer's night adventure tracking a dancing lightening bug.

"They can move the artist to what," I heard myself murmur willing the word to come to her... to have her reveal it to me...

"To... to... _rapture_."

The rest of the trip we both sat... silent.
***

Apple pulled its service today. Now http://homepage.mac.com/byrneprintmaker/ sits up but my door's closed. I can't remove it, change it, or alter it in any way. I guess if I stop paying for my mobile me subscription it will vanish in a puff. But since MobieMe is a cloud where I sync all of my machines, that's not likely.

So it will bob up there on the virtual seas. Odd huh?

I gotta find another place to store my images. Suggestions?

4 Rules Of Wedding Guest Etiquette Photography

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Maria and John were married last weekend in Pittsburgh. And the reception was held at LeMont...

The gourmet restaurant sits behind a crystal wall atop Mt. Washington which peers down upon The Point... where the mighty and historic Ohio, Monongahela, and Allegheny rivers swirl together to showcase Steel City's astonishing explosion of world headquarters.

While they're destined to enjoy a lot of things, the couple - my wife's cousins - will never again be the stars of a setting to rival their wedding afloat in a glimmering gem filled with everyone they love.

I wanted to capture one feeling to bring them back there each time they open it up over the years. A memory for them... So? How'd I do?

Following the rules...

When you're a guest there's a clear etiquette involving photography.

Most importantly, there's a professional who's earning a living documenting the event. .

• Rule number one... DON'T COMPETE! Don't interfere, insinuate, elbow, or shove into the pro-space. You're not the cook, so hunt for the crumbs.
• Rule Number two... Don't compose the bridal party. They have entered the zone of photography fatigue. The pro has done all of the standard poses, configurations, assemblies, and CLICHéS!!!!
• Rule Number three... Discover the details and candids. These are the atmospherics which will bring the memory book to life for the kids twenty years from now. You know the people better than the pro, know the culture. Know what will make Aunt Clara tear up, Uncle Jim giggle. You know about Harry's hairpiece and Myrna's implants.

And you know what the bride and groom consider romantic. If you want to give them a present, don't go looking to grab yourself one.

Here's your chance to repay your hosts for a great family meeting... By marrying your craft to their tastes.

• Rule 4... The wedding is NOT about you... yet strangely, the more invisible you become, the more memorable you will be....

Justin

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this is my nephew Justin. He's married to Suzy... who was last night's posting. We're in Pittsburgh for the Fourth Of July weekend. Fireworks are making my dog Rocco crazy. Poor little guy. He doesn't understand how patriotism involves exploding things. Hmmmm... maybe I don't either. Lemme think on that.

Suzy

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My niece is seven months pregnant. Seemed to be a nice milestone to mark.

First Viewer

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There are two people involved in the making of every fine art photographic image... The person who takes the picture, and the person who creates the image. Once, maybe, they could have been the same person. Maybe when all final photographs were little more than contact prints, then the person who did the pre-production, and squeezed the shutter was almost the one who made the image. But even then there were a range of chemical decisions to make during the bathing of film and paper.

Ever heard the expression... you can't put your hand into the same river twice? That's my point here. In this new world of post processing, you are in a different emotional space when you view the image that you... as a photographer... took some time before. Hence two different minds come at the challenge... every fine art image is a collaboration between you then, and you now. Oh, and maybe the third you - who is the first viewer of the final image?

I wonder though... I just wrote that every final image is a collaboration... but, I'm sure you know that sometimes it is also a conflict... I am right there as well?

Betrayed

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"It's ending," he thought.

"They're breaking it apart right now," he thought.

"And it will never come together again," he thought.

"Not like that," he knew.

The City Rocks - Hot

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Heat’s come back to the East Coast. The city’s are searing but they keep coming atcha’. Throb and temperature wind together like hair in a braid. Summer cities aren’t a support system for life… it’s the other way around.

Cities get like chewy stuff inside of a Tootsie Pop… A gooey pay-off when the coating cracks under the scurrying thrump-bump atop the super seared shell.

Watch it shimmy in the back-beat of a zillion earbuds plugged through the sweat
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Pre processing in Manhattan on 42nd street through my 40d's EF-S 10-22mm (f3.5-4.5). And post? Howzabout some Bokeh, swirlled around in Topaz after a lot of careful mixing in CS-4.
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I stood there years ago… High August… Air thick like a stagnant puddle… A nearby boom box LOUD…
Billy Idol … Hot In The City
Throbbing… EVERY – THING!!!!
Like that up there…

What happened to Billy Idol?

Talky

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"They said I was talking in them too much! They wanted documents, subjects, techniques, not expressive photographs." - André Kertéz on why the legendary photographer stopped working for Life Magazine in the 1950s.

The expressionists are less concerned with reflecting the real world than in revealing our emotional reactions to it. Hmmmm... I wrote "our" there. That's interesting.


This is my second visit to this surreal feeling. It keeps flashing back.

***

Pre Processing in Manhattan (the Figure) and in Lancaster County (The Armstrong farm). Canon40D, through my Canon EFS 17-85mm (f4-5.6) – Post Processing: PhotoShop and enhanced in small parts here and there with thingees like Lucis, and AlienSkin filters. Which, I hope, makes the thing talk a lot?

Frank Byrne

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Frank Byrne's my neighbor. Frank and his wife travel the world.

See Frank travel?

Are we related? Hmmmm.... probably.

Technical stuff? Well I took Frank's picture with my G10 in Musser Park last week. Took the image of St. Peter's at the Vatican last time I was in Italy (love writing that). I used my old Canon D20 with the Canon EFS 17-85mm (f4-5.6). And I abstracted all of those feelings using Bokeh and Snap Art. You know this'd probably be stunning blown up large over a fireplace inside of one of those great gilded and filagreed frames, huh?

After The Times Square

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I'm re-studying expressionism. It demands complex, well planned images with parts that are worked by the artist to the point of distortion in order to communicate the feelings of the moment.

Here's Broadway, an explosion at night. Blasting color over every part of you... Throbbing with shocking energy. Noisy, fast, a cacophony of sheen. Too much to compute.. Too big to focus. Too massive to step back far enough. Neck hurting high and needling its way into the black curtain up there.... Puncturing it.

Broadway's a vertical thing at Times Square after the Times stupidly left the party.

Doll Face Puddle

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Found her at Valley Forge. Really. She seems right for that encampment, eh?

I've begun to notice that I don't seem to have a dark side. I look at my images and yeah, they hit the three bases... they appeal to visual, emotional, and intellectual puddles of the mind. I'm happy with the way they communicate what I want them to... It's just that dark side stuff is considered so... so... DEEEEEP, right? Everything else splashes about in shallower puddles.

Ah well... she's charming... and I'm guessing that there's still a tiny place in a lot of us for sweet, huh?

On the other hand.... maybe I'll go upstairs and think some dark thoughts... I'll letcha know :-)

Al Lewis

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Before he retired Al and I were partners in a still super-secret project. He's a legendary criminal attorney and was, once-upon-a-time a District Attorney and then Chaired the Pennsylvania Crime Commission responsible for the labor/mob convictions of the middle of the last century. He was the minority counsel chairman for the joint Congressional Committee investigating the Kennedy assassination. He's also a good friend. Which, of all of that stuff, is the most important to me.

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Again i took the picture in natural light with my Canon G10. 1600 ISO makes some noise. BUT... once again, after asymmetrically cropping for the square I'd composed for... I knew that I was going to process the image first with Bokeh to control the enormous depth of field of the G10. Then I reworked the lighting to create the right setting for the Edward Hopper palette. And lastly I pulled in an impasto tool from Snap Art intensely reworking the dynamic range in Photoshop.

It is all about mood.

Pastoral

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I've become fascinated by the possibilities in the SnapArt filter that AlienSkin makes. So I stopped the car by the roadside last weekend just over the Maryland border to the south of Lancaster County. I was hunting for a pastoral that i could make speak eloquently as an oil painting. I stitched a pano together in PhotoShop, then found a dramatic sky from some I found over Cape Cod. I wanted a sky that would set off the palette perfectly and reinforce the wonderful orange highlights in the scene.

This is a robust tool, eh? Especially when you have the gamut of PhotoShop devices to selectively draw out the feelings. As I studied the site, I focused upon the tranquil balance of water, hillside, and the way that the vegetation has, over a lot of years, embraced the bridge and fit it into the natural flow of this place.

That's what I wanted to communicate in a final image... I think I've got it. Wuddaya think?

Re- Scootered

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Maybe you'll recall this by clicking here. Last September I posted that earlier conclusion on the version above. But as you know, I'm growing obsessed by the possibilities in AlienSkin's Snap art. But.. but... but... I do mean possibilities. See, while its interesting to see what happens when I try the presets that they give me.... I'm a lot more interested in what the image says than what the engineers at AlienSkin say.

It's a problem that photographer's have. Some of us believe that photographic purity means determinedly filling the frame that Leica engineers dreamt up... that purity in image making means that truthfulness to a final image means never going a pixel beyond what lenses and cameras offer up to the sensor.

And as you know.. that's an attitude that drives me NUTTY!

So I wondered how this new technology could let me dig out even more from an image that I reeeeeely liked. And since ScooterGuy is among my favorite graphic accomplishments... well... I fired up the SnapArt, and the Bokeh and I dug!

Now whether this is better than the original is one interesting question. But a discovery was how much more robust these tools are in working out alternatives. But.. but... the most interesting thing is how much fun the process is. Wheeeee!

Whoa! EarthMonster!!!

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WOW! Some weeks are reeeeely unforgettable. A couple of days ago I told you about AlienSkin's featuring my work. BUT.. BUT... BUT... This is infinitely HUGE.... . I have just learned that the increasingly influential EarthMonster Illustrated has named ME the featured artist for June! Click here if you don't believe me. YIPES!!!! Look at the artists they have discovered on that elegant monthly E-Zine and they've added ME!

YIPPPIE!!!!

(Slap!) Um, thanks, I needed that.

Okay, I've stopped panting an I'm calming down and I'm chanting my mantra and my heart's slowing nicely...

If you are not a regular visitor to EarthMonster Illustrated, you're missing something cool. Some of you noticed it first when I recently added it to the bar on the right under: PHOTOGRAPHIC COMMUNITIES/FORUMS. Well for those who didn't, I hope that you'll drop on by and thank Mark for his labor-of-love in assembling such a wonderful site for us, AND for hunting out all of the featured thoughts and people on that column on the right of his site. And of course I hope that you'll scroll down his page and enjoy the artists he's featured before me in previous editions of EarthMonster Illustrated.

Did I say...

YIPPPIE!!!!

AlienSkin Feature!

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This is pretty cool. Jeff Butterworth the CEO of AlienSkin likes the stuff here on ImageFiction. So he asked if it'd be okay to mention it in his company's May 09 Newsletter Blast and here on the AlienSkin blog! And he reeeely liked our friend Steven Issell's work and even used his fighter plane as their cover image.

You know that I'm becoming convinced that pixels exist to be enhanced, right? So click here to see the AlienSkin page I've posted above along with a passel of enhancements!

Sidewalk Girl

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Alrighty.... Let's think about a little city girl, sitting on the sidewalk, watching stuff happen all around her as the evening comes on. Well, why think about her... instead, here... Think on her. K?

Enjoy..

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You're right. I rarely EVER remove major pieces of color information from my images. Well, okay, but this isn't a monotone. FAR from it. But I sensed a nostagic eeling when I saw here sitting there outside of her house, her dad sitting behind on the door stoop. She felt like a long ago memory, and I wanted to show you that memory even more than I wanted to show you the Sidewalk Girl

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And then there's Snowball..

Poster #9

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The Race was miles long. She ran it... against racism. I'm guessing she's run that race throughout her life - actually as opposed to this morning when she ran it metaphorically.

Her exhaustion is so wonderfully mixed with a satisfaction... that brings the word 'dignity' to my mind. You know, I believe that all of our hopes may be minor, except to us, but some things matter because we choose to make them matter. And so this lady just ran for miles, and her satisfaction is what it meant to feel, "Everyone won..."

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Once again - here's the virgin image from my flash card. Again the image was captured with my mighty Canon EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6 IS USM Lens.




As with the others in this series I drew this image into a square template by replacing the contents of the smart filter in my template (where the text already existed as well.)
I simply moved the original about within the square frame to maximize the composition. In post the problem was to deal with the explosion of confusion. Which first required the AlienSkin Bokeh filter to deal with the depth of field. That easily allowed me to convincingly blur the background. I then created a series of adjustment filters to restructure the dynamic range. Of course this also allowed me to re-arrange the highlights and shadows along with the color range and vignetting. One again, I over balanced the lightig and effects so that I could once again turn to the AlienSkin SnapArt filter.

Once again I opted for the oil painting option to continue the style of this series. I adjusted the stroke length and depth, lighting, contrst, and color balance... particularly in micro areas throughout the plane. Settling on an image I saved the effect on a new higher level. then Masked away with various brushes each set at about 30 opacity so the effect cold be gently introduced. This allowed me to bring back skin texture and perspiration highlights particularly on her arms and on the right eye region as we look at the image.

I merged the layers, duplicated the result and pulled out the Topaz Adjustment filter. This llowed me to draw considerable texture and vivacity into the image. Of course I applied a mask to this layer as well... at full intensity, so I could selectively brush in dramatic elements at full, well... Topaz, so to speak.

Finally I used an adjustment layer to reduce and balance the saturation throughout the image and then after flattening those layers I duplicated this layer, ran it through the smart filter, fully masked it, then brushed in sharpness and texture in key areas, particularly around the eyes and hair.

Simple? Um, well no. But if you're looking for some filter which will create result like this at the click of a button... well Buddy, luck ain't with you :-)

Poster #8

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Okay... so I lied.

Really intended to end this series a few days ago, but then I started to run into people around Lancaster and they wondered about it. And they've asked if there were more pictures. And well, I'm really really really easy is what. It'd be cool to find a place to show this series. So if you'll put up with it... I've a few more that are nagging me to come onto your monitors.... Okay?

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Would it help if I shared the process a tad more than usual? Okay, Again I took this virgin image through my mighty Canon EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6 IS USM Lens on the D40.

And I've created a template for this series which involves a square smart object so the framing's automatic.I composed the image in the square frame. Then using various adjustment layers I arranged the lighting. and dynamic range to a heightened contrast. I followed that with the AlienSkin Bokeh filter to get rid of the annoying left foreground details. I also brushd in some green color into that area that I sampled from the upper background. Then puling up Topaz Labs Adjustment 3, I rearranged the areas of emphasis both with respect to saturation and detail. Again the arrangements were designed toward the top of the options. See, I've discovered that that sort of preparation's best to get the AlienSkin SnapArt options to cut well.

Then it was a matter of flattening the image, reducing it to 72dpi and 800 pixels on an edge then saving it as a jpg.