June 23rd, 2009 § § permalink
Running concurrently as guest blogger on “A Photo Editor”.
Begin:
I have been staring at hi-res scans of my 8×10 work on my Apple 30″ inch LCD display for a number of years now and wondering why the same displays have not yet been made to accommodate large display sizes. Thin museum quality LCDs, LEDs or better yet, OLED displays to display our work in larger sizes, 40 x50, 60×50 and bigger….
Anyone who has had the pleasure of watching a well mastered Blu-ray disc on a good quality 1080P HD screen will come off the experience a better man or woman and wonder why this technology is not being put to good use in the world of photography. I am convinced that there is a large market for high end electronic displays where photographers and other artists can show their work in a way that completely bypasses the “Print”. Personally, I have been very frustrated by the process, one fraught with difficulties, work flow hick ups, expensive and many other such issues which crop up when faced with the task of producing large prints for gallery or museum display.
Often the end product is nice enough, or close enough to my creative intentions, but the greatest frustration is that the last step in the making of images is left to a printer (not to me), and to one who may or may not care about my real intentions. The limitations of their technology, skills, experience, and increasingly scare geographical locations often prevent or limit my creative choices, not to mention the cost of a C-41 printer .
I work very hard to produce an image which pleases me, but I often find myself frustrated by that last step…a final step many photographers struggle with: The exact and brilliant reproduction and display of one’s work. Even-though, the print has served us well for well over a 150 years, I believe it is time to explore and demand that a niche market of high end large flat screen displays be developed for the photography market.
My original idea was to use 16:9 ration LCD TVs but the aspect ratio does not fit the average aspect ratio of many cameras(8×10, 4×5. 6×7 etc…). This led me to believe that there would be a market for high end LCD or OLED flat panel displays for fine art photographers, as well as other artists who might wish to display their work in a format other than regular TV panoramic formats. The ability to buy a high end barebones display, that is one without broadcast tuner or other electronic components needed to display moving images, would open a new medium for display and appreciation of photography as a whole.
From a personal comment on “A Photo Editor”: “Here is an example: this is a “screen shot, command, shift, 3 of a file of mine at 66.7% on my 30? display. The original image was shot with an 8×10 field camera on Kodak 160VC, scanned on a high end flat bed scanner. The original full size image is 12706X15821 at 300 dpi…..40×50 image…I used it to print a 40×50 print and I can tell you the print looses life, on my display it’s just astounding…
….go to this URL and click on the image to enlarge it, at least Safari does this, and look at it on you screen, if it is well calibrated and reseanably large, you might get the a general idea of what I would like to go…This all works on my set up and hopefully it will on yours “
“CLICK HERE”
Many photographers, unlike myself, did not grow up with film and digital cameras and have become very adept at manipulating and producing digital photographs and other works of art. These growing communities do not seek out the traditional print and to date, contents themselves to viewing their work on PC screens and on the internet. A new product catering to their needs, and to mine would be extremely successful and well received by a new, as well as older generation of photographers and visual artists…
The ability to frame this display with conventional frames, as well as sophisticated and functional color, contrast and multiple viewing interface (contrast, luminosity, back lighting, etc..) would render this product a versatile and more easily accepted new format. For example, the photographer might wish to approximate the look and feel of a C-print which could be achieved, as well as many other results.
A photoshop compatible display, one easily calibrated with common and sophisticated ICC profiles would go a long way to express the photographer’s vision, as well as provide him or her with a versatile, cheaper, more user friendly and better adapted product than the traditional C41 print. This display would be a sharper, more detailed version of their digital original.
I am convinced that this generation of photographers, as well as subsequent ones will demand a product better attuned to their digital abilities and aptitudes, not a product which is becoming increasingly scarce, expensive and monolithic. A product found only in major metropolitan areas, but who’s market share is shrinking and becoming more difficult to purchase and review. Most photographers who print for a gallery, home or institutional display do so long distance or through Fed-ex, a process which is rife with expensive reviews, slow and archaic.
There are many types of displays but personally I think the OLEDs are starting to look increasingly like the display to be. Their contrast aspect ratios are extraordinary, as well as their incredible thinness. Samsung’s latest 40″ OLED TV is an astounding piece of technology and produces a brilliantly sharp and amazingly detailed image, one much closer to what I am used to when I stare at my 8×10 commercial drum scans. Another interesting technology which to some degree is still in its infancy are E-readers(electronic paper). These albeit small displays have a very interesting way to mimic the book page and a visually tactile texture which I personally would like to see incorporated into larger color or black and white electronic display technology….
To conclude, here are other potential uses for Electronic Fine Art display (EFADs, just made that up):
1-Ability to wirelessly control the content of the display. For, an artist or photographer might upload and change a show over a period of time by adding or removing work over a network.
2-The same principle could apply to a collector who might wish to “subscribe” to an artist’s work and receive a photography subscription. New images would be uploaded based on a specific delivery contract with galleries, musems and collectors.
3-Work would be sold and downloaded in any number of electronic formats and uploaded into the display. Some high end TVs allow the user to transfer their family photos to their screen for viewing but a more high end and flexible system would be easily devised to allow the artist or photographer to fine tune the image on a screen or allow for laptop and PC connectivity.
4-Imagine a show of 40x50s or 50x60s and larger EFADs in a darkened room, gallery or museum setting. Personally I cannot imagine a more impactful way to display my personal work.
5-Re-usable.Price wise these displays might cost more up front than a typical print but large, archival quality frames are extremely costly; making a EFAD competitive and attractive.
6-Matt and glossy screens…and even touch screen technology.
7-…..I am purposely leaving this list short and open sourced as I think it would be best if my fellow photographers and artists could add their own ideas and suggestions. An open source submission will make for far more ideas and suggestions, as well as other concepts than I could possibly come up with. Some of you might well be far more technologically inclined than I am and that knowledge might lead this idea to further developments, as well as serve as a way to push this concept on manufacturers and make this dream a possibility somewhere down the line. Have at it…the discourse will create its own weather and further refine this burgeoning concept.
December 10th, 2007 § § permalink
I am currently developing a line of photography based video games with Atari. This up coming video gaming library will be available for purchase on this site in Q3.
The franchise’s titles we are currently developing and market testing are being quickly expanded to satisfy the needs of the gaming and discerning visual creator’s library.
Titles available in Q3 :
“Terry’s Pro Shooter 4”: Join Terry Richardson and shoot socialites and celebrities in New York’s heavily defended upper East Side social gatherings . Join Terry and shoot your wad on your gallerist’s tits and fornicate with up to 16 online players, featuring never before seen multi-player hotel-animatronics. New “T4™” joy sticks, deliver unmatched social climbing and positioning while you surf Lexington and 85th, survive a debutante’s dream body and join the “Crank Gang” to roam deserted streets.
“I’m Diane Arbus, bitch!”: Join Diane Arbus and Joel Meyerowitz as they challenge you to make your mark in the fast moving world of street photography, capture the elusive with startling flash photography, evade polices and street sweeps. Dive in an unprecedented 353 levels of “Street’s” and “Hobo-photography”. Redeem camera credit anthologies or clash with angry mobs in ‘The Grid”, in level 3.
“June’s Weddin’ 3?. Capture lifetime memories, indulge in our virtual 3D wedding planning and catering and try out our “Brother’s Speech Slurring” technology, catch the garter and bone aunt Mary. But Avoid our “Dry Heaves’” pit to fly to honeymooning Tahiti, but plan it well or beware of version 3’s “Her Hidden Newly Hitched Neurosis™” .
” SS-ex Freaky”, Join Michio Nobuyoshi and capture “The Money Shot™”. Explore your sexual identity within our 7 multi-player levels of split-screen love nut busting 3D virtual reality. Our unprecedented “Scratch and Sniff™” and online avatar slut technology gives you a unique 360 intensity and unheard off directorial gaming abilities.
“Call of Art Basel 3?. Follow your favorite artists and critics to Basel and Miami, drink appleteenies and make your assistants fly economy. Virtual “You Sell Them Larry™” and 3D horn rim technology. Navigate our new multi-player online HD booth technology and live the breathlessly real, contemporary cinematic fury of collectors, artists and critics.
“Conde Nasty 3?: Travel French counties for Conde Nasty and shoot lifestyle of real Caucasian “Hottie”. Our “Quaint™” technology will have your eating organics and driving antique French Citroen 2CVs. Pose near lavender fields, smiling country bumpkins and 300 kinds of stinky cheeses. Restore your peace and harmony with our new Euro-3D virtual realities.
Choose from one of our twelve traveling possibilities but start with “Richy Rich” or “Bobo Pastorialist”, and then move on to level three and “Landed Gentry”. Graduate to ” Grand Thai Whore Mongery”.
This game is also available in travel Adrenaline, Medical and Sexual tourist; breath taking gaming combinations of :”I’m Diane Arbus, bitch!”, ” SS-ex Freaky” and “Conde Nasty 3?. Shoot those adorable Guatemalan hill ladies or “Run for your life in Karachi”.
more to come….. Stay tuned to further developments and to all our upcoming gaming possibilities.
December 7th, 2007 § § permalink
After re-viewing that “I was a sex god in Soviet Estonia”, I was reminded of David Hamilton‘s work. David Hamilton has been doing his part to piss off the religious right for the better part of the last century; and when I was a kid in France, in the seventies, his work was all the rage; and like strikes, George Marchais and the CGT, he was everywhere he wanted.
Of course his work has come under fire in the United States as “child pornography”. Since I won’t even think of touching that one with any pole, of any length, I’ll let you do your own special judging. I also could not really find any Hamilton images by searching, so instead I found and am posting (not at work…oops, too late) a generic nude from the seventies, to titillate your puns intended.
What I find enviable about the seventies nude aesthetics is how unique and specific it churned out to be. I suspect that the work of David Hamilton was a huge influence on the genre but also within photography’s subsequent struggles with Thatcher-Reaganite era censorship. For better or for worst, David Hamilton’s work was hugely influential to generations of photographers, from Jock Sturges to Sally Mann, and to all those fashion appropriated, one might see in Vogue or W these days; tame emulations of his kitschy erotic masquerades. At the end of the day David Hamilton’s work fell victim to the religiously rabid masses, the moral policing of a world bent on censoring the relative validity of The Hamiltons and Sturges.
Invariably those self righteous religious fascists bitches turned out to be pornography’s biggest consuming masses; they themselves the true agents and perpetrators of pedophilial sexual abuses; all the while diverting attention from themselves and onto those few who may not necessarily deserve it, or be tied to the whipping post of the fearful and “coincer”.
PS: Hamilton openly acknowledges that his photos depict their subjects as idealized sexual fantasy objects for men attracted to young girls.”There’s only three of us in this business. Nabokov penned it, Balthus painted it, and I photographed it.” This comparison is more than a little self-serving; David Hamilton is more like the Maxfield Parrish of softcore porn.
Whatever is to be said about him, we live in a world were work like his, becomes almost impossible to judge, exhibit or discuss publicly. The cacophony of a fearful public along with the resurgence, exploitation and trade of millions of innocent sex slaves makes for artistic suicide these days. We live in a fugly world, no matter how and with whom you look at it !
December 7th, 2007 § § permalink
Robert Wright has recently been writing eloquently about editorial photography on his blog. I wrote and thought so much about this shit, way back in the nineties, that doing it again would render me haplessly apathetic. I’ll leave it to him to articulate it in these here teens. A fine job of it, if you ask me. Start with this post and move on to today’s for the full experience.
November 28th, 2007 § § permalink
Hard to believe someone as exceptional as Adrienne would find me even remotely worth considering, but “to know Adrienne is to love Adrienne“. Never met someone quite as extraordinary as she.
November 22nd, 2007 § § permalink
I have not yet posted an image of Raphaël so here he is. Since this is Thanksgiving, and eventhough, I have never been a big fan of this manufactured holiday, I have to say that I am thankful for the endless amusement and merriment my boys bring to my life. Quite the little “Terrance and Philip”, those two are. This image of Raphaël was taken last spring during a rare moment of introspection. I must have threatened him with grave consequences for him to sit still and not goof off for less than a micro-second.
I am eternally thankful that my boys are healthy, handsome, funny and intelligent. If you are reading this blog and have children of your own, I wish you all the same and many happy returns; but as Calamity Jane used to say: The adults can “go fuck their’selves”.
November 9th, 2007 § § permalink
This is going to be really interesting:
Let’s see, I usually wake up between 6 and 6:30. Feed Raphael breakfast and drive him to the bus stop in the Haight, I salute him and off he goes to get some educated. That little bitch better get me some return on my money. With my personality, someone’s gonna have to pay for my old age. I park the XC70, you see, I really need it to haul the gripage (and BTW, I ain’t no bobo, if that’s what you’re thinking!).
That ’s right I paid my dues way back in 86', in that Far East village, gentleman gentrifying C and D for the the rest of yous bohemian bitches. Remember Bernard ? that's right, I built that kitchen organic shit, but that’s another, more interesting story, we'll save it for later, in between morning lattes. I even got threatened by a man vet with TNT. Who the fuck tries to stop someone from hammering away; drunkenly pulls the pin and holds the safety, with a fucking hand grenade?; greatest generation, aye?).
What was I saying, oh yeah, I park the lease and slowly walk over to get me some Cafe. Every day I get a latte, I used to get cafe au lait but the coffee at Tullys is so shitty™ I have to get a latte to drown the taste. Since I spend most of my days alone, as freelancers often manage, I stick around for an hour or so, generally abusing those around me, by, as the brits used to say, “take the piss” out of they. If they don’t like it they usually sit somewheres else and ruminate. Of course I fully expect those who stayed to “take the piss” out of me. With any luck it’s funny, otherwise it’s just hate, and what’s the point, aye?
If I don’t feel like socializing or those who don’t mind “a pissing” can’t be shaken from their early morning grumblays, I’ll check ye olde email on the mobil-ay, point one finger, and go to it. Check stock prices to see how rich some people are getting and harangue the poor fools waiting for the google buses; a stone’s throw away. Those are the worker bees who didn’t get stock optionated and are now forced to commute greenly every day. These big black buses come by 2 or 3 times a day and swoop them up and away. They have those quirky cubes designed to highlight their individualities, a couple real live pooches and some snurf guns, for when the inner child needs a break. That's some cute and funny shit I have often been asked to “portray”. Some of them actually build themselves habitats for the work a day; they use a mixture of spit and clay which they store in pouches, in fleshy pouches, along with the volley balls, they receive on: “Explore the day”. They do this, like africanized honey bays; but all in one day...
So, around eight in the morning, Adrienne, drives by coffee and drops off Gabriel, number two, that way I can walk him to school. I shower him with kisses, make fun of him, he curses me and on we go, hand in hand, we walk to school and shoot the breezes. I love those monkeys and I LOVE being a daddy; I love boys especially but I am sure that if I had girls I would quickly turn into a drooling papie.
Kids are humanity’s answer to all those douches we have to deal with everyday, unless of course they have early joined those masses, in which case, well, that’s a real fucking shame. Am I to presume that they were born that way? Feel free to lump me in with all other afore mentioned idiots, after all, one man’s fool is another man’s tool. Stands to reason, don’t it?
Also around 8:30, if my leg is aching up, which it usually is; it’s not called chronic pain for nothing, ain’ it? (read previous entry), I pop a couple Vicodins to shave that snake; but fear not, the rest of him keeps on kicking throughout the day, to remind me its not quite done with me. Afterall, who wants to run around like a fucking caged monkey, thinking about nothing else but how much freaking nerve pain a primate can endure in a day. Thank you opiates, and yes I have a prescription, and no, you can’t have it, and no, I am not fiended; I have actually reduced and never increased the dosage. As previously explained, I am very slowly getting better, lots of steroids and Botox injected, twice weekly physical therapies; and oh yes, once again, thank you opiates; without you I would have been freaking desperate . Surviving the last year without these beauties would have been far too manly for my taste.
Anyway, around 8:40, I slowly walk back to the XC seventies and pop in some African CDs, I am a big fan here, let’s say 30 years; turn on the ignition and peel off like the French born that I is.
On the way home I curse California drivin’; by far the worst goddamn cretins on Gore’s not so green earth; ain’t it?
Worthless bunch of inattentive, self righteous, passive-digressive, incompetent clueless douches. Give me New York City or Paris any day, that’s my kind of tootin’ anyway; where men drive like clown monkeys and women bray like camel riding donkeys . If ever I have guests, I try to tone it down but “es-startlement happens” ! (new word here, means: Spanglish to describe the startling processes).
Not to spare you the tedium, I take Belvedere or Cole to 17th and Market and then down the hill to the Castro, that’s where I live with my girl, and the progenated. Up Douglass and up up and away.
You see, I am a divorcé, so off I go to live communally. Clicker in hand I open the brand new garage door and ram the cardboard flotsam to the back of these here garages. Step out of the car, disrecollected, close the roll ups and walk up, up and away. Back down to get recollected and back up again’.
Open the door leading into the deck, trip over the Bar-B-Qued remains and drop the keys that opens the kitchen gates. Wheel the dishwasher back in place and to the home offices; it’s more feminine that way. Tap the keyboard and wake up the CPAs, “Good day”! To show cheer and show my good graces by animating objects, is an important part of my day to day.
I check email one more time and snurf the dailies: the Jackanory, aphotoeditor, Heading East, 2point8; these are all people I either know, or we communicate; sometimes every day. I like them, and their energy and efforts are always greatly appreciated. When I feel less pressed, like today, I roam the interneted, and less well known tottering blog-aided…. I comment, but shouldn’t, too much time away from these bitches! Thankfully I can finger type with great rapidity.
If I am feeling friskay, I’ll write my own entry, usually consisting of what this blog generally disseminates with great identity, which it’s supposed to portray, or a least try to communicate, what a slightly older, effeminate esthete, British and patrician academic might think. Well crafted, defined, opinionated, ideated; ideas, tidbits, wisdoms and recollections collected while traveling with the Queen and her majesty’s secret services; all the while, throwing in, a few contemporary rabbits and expletives, to appear younger than I might actually turn out to bees. I have tried to have that come across with greater clarity and voice-hover all my entreaties, but that was way too time consuming, I had to put that one to sleep. Enough for right now, I have actual work to do, but fear not, more’s a coming your way…..
November 8th, 2007 § § permalink
November 8th, 2007 § § permalink
The Photo Editor continues his daily postings and it seems I can’t just ignore him, dammit:
He writes:
“I’ve never met anyone as loyal as Martin Schoeller (here). To the subject, his team of people, the client, his agent, his style, his goals, the print… everything. It’s more than just being a nice guy and delivering consistently good work there’s honesty and integrity, and a devotion to the craft, and an incredible work ethic that adds up to, well, loyalty.
There was a point in his career where he was thinking oh shit, this big head style is not going to define me but over the last couple years he’s decided the market forces are too great and produced a book and several gallery exhibits of big heads”.
Commentum, humanum est:
Loyalty: I am going to go out on a limb here and throw the baby out with the bath water but I am of the opinion that Yankee psychology leaves little room for such august affectations. I might even venture to proclaim that in this country, as someone who has lived on three continents, Europe and Asia being the other two outside this one; that personal and economic loyalty are oft ridiculed personal and corporate qualities and attributes.
Martin Schoeller, besides being an extremely talented photographer probably owes much of his success to his temperament and character but also to the simple fact that Europeans are taught, at an early age, to stick by those who raise you up, and that to not return the favor is an abominably rude and crassly North American attribute.
Americans tend to take their entrepreneurial zeal a little too seriously and often dismiss budding friendships and partnerships for short term profits. Friends of mine who work in Europe, China and India dislike working with North Americans most of all for lacking these most natural virtues; knowing full well that if they do not give way to our commercial brutishness, that they, the ” Yankees”, will take our business elsewhere to save less than a few cents.
Business is based on personal character and on nurturing relationships, but these values are often ignored in response to brutishly attained profits; victims of our quarterly reported and greedish creed. The unflinching coarseness of the market has created increasingly newfangled, unemotional and unavailable beasts.
Nothing wrong with profits but profits without relationships will eventually diminish returns on those very real and coveted profits. Without lasting relationships the proverbial economic air slowly gets sucked out of the market and replaced with increasingly short termed and noxious speculative fumes (dot coms, sub prime shenanigans, dollar stockananigans, just to name a quick few…..)
Nonetheless, it’s nice to see that sometimes, humanity and simple loyalty can be appreciated, at least on a personal level. As for institutions, they are in the business of stripping those very human qualities to replace them with malignantly optioned algorithms and purposeful speculative economic rape and pillage.
As far as I am concerned business without values such as loyalty only leads to blindingly irrational exuberance, quickly followed by the digestion of increasingly depressing, manic, and loathsomely bitter pills. This seems to have become, not only the modus operandi of the North American economy, but more recently, the engine of its continued, rapid and possibly irreversible enfeebling.
Anyway, Americans are a versatile and flit footed people; let’s hope we can learn from our mistakes and regain some of our legendary humanity, which as of late has been sorely missing from the North American psyche. Nevertheless, I also wonder how quickly Martin might be forgotten should he falter to produce or fall pray to illness, age, cynicism or simple disgust?
Sorry, was that self-righteous enough for you? I swear I stopped reading Paul Krugman way back in two 0 two !
Sorry for the rant, I know it isn’t appreciated as constructive in this here “God’s country”.
November 6th, 2007 § § permalink
I have always loved chuck close’s work and I think he is one of the least recognized and influential of all the very best contemporary artists. Nevertheless, here is another reason to appreciate his work further still, I could not agree more with the quote below:
“Photography is the easiest medium in which to be competent, but it’s the hardest medium in which to have personal vision that is readily identifiable”.
