Back to the Past

I learned today that that there is now only one photo shop - literally, one - on the entire planet authorized to process Kodachrome film. Sure, it was obviously going to happen, and obviously, one day, that one shop will also cease processing. It's inevitable, as time and technology move on.

Or...do they?

Take a look at the photos posted early in the thread:

Kodachrome photos on DP Review

Absolutely stunning, and taken 65 years ago with equipment my kids wouldn't even recognize as a camera. Equipment you can buy used for pennies on the dollar that puts to shame virtually every digital camera in existence.

More here:

Alfred Palmer @ Shorpy.com
Jack Delano @ Shorpy.com

What the hell happened? Billions of dollars - decades of time - spent on research and development and only now do we have digital cameras that can - maybe - arguably - approach the image quality first obtained 65 years ago. Meanwhile an entire generation of would-be photographers is growing up without any understanding of just how far the tonal boundaries were pushed decades before they were even born.

This is a strange definition of progress...

The cure for writers' block...

...is to write.

Something, anything.

Strange that something like this can be found so close to million-dollar "green" condos.

Still Alive!

You'd think moving from a startup situation to an acquired-company situation would ease the work-life balance a bit - but no such luck. Right now I'm in Italy doing 70 hour weeks trying to bring a new system to life and the workload is brutal.

So even though Cortina d'Ampezzo is just up the street and Venice is just down the street - no new photos. Not strictly true - I have phone-photos of the system as it slows slumbers to life but those are obviously not shareable.

Changes

Every step of my "day job" life has involved moving from larger companies to smaller ones. The happiest - and arguably most productive time I've ever spent at work was at a startup in Boston where 6 of us were bringing to life a new technology. I miss that crew, and I miss that time, and one day I hope to recreate it.

That said, this was a rather momentous week for me as for the first time in my professional existence I am moving from a smaller company to a larger one.

Dolby Acquires Brightside

It's going to be an interesting summer...

Phat Photos

As in Wide Angle. A perpetual struggle with most dSLRs, as is razor-thin depth of field.

I recently swapped some iStockPhoto winnings for a much wider lens but - that 1.6x crop factor - still a problem. Can't get around it - laws of physics and all that.

Which means its time to step up in class - either to a 5D (not a fan of the body, to be honest, but Oh! the image quality!) or a 1D (best camera body on the planet, but older sensor now) or the updated 1DmkII ( $$$ ). Yes, I could step all the way up to a digital medium format - but that would be $$$-squared.

Stay tuned - tentative plans for a trip to Korea in January and Shanghai in March - will do "something" before then.

Snow in the Canadian Southwest

I may as well succumb to the inevitable and post the obligatory snow photos.The next few were all taken on the same snowy evening - an evening our local press reported as being a "white out" - from which I am forced to conclude they have never seen a proper snow storm.



What I wouldn't have given for a 17mm perspective on a full-frame sensor that evening! Also noticing that how I deal with images has changed since I started working on a 30" monitor. For the first time, the display outresolves the images!

Holga Snow

It had literally been several months since I had snapped any photos at all. Work is insane - impossible to relate to anyone who has never lived the startup lifestyle - and no need to explain to anyone who has. It was so bad that despite ending up in Korea for a few days - and only a few days after the loose screw up north detonated a nuke - I didn't manage a single photo.

When I went out this evening I didn't know what I was after. I looked up and found...



...motion.

Too centered, too ordinary, too obvious

But I still like it.



For some reason, either my memories of film are fading or these conditions allowed for photos that really do look like B&W. With even the slush now disappearing from the streets, one last monochromatic memory.

Hill Street Blues

San Francisco is a great place, but there are large tracts of the city that were clearly untouched by dot.com affluence (fleeting though it may have been). The number of homeless and panhandlers is astounding, especially given this is one of the wealthiest cities in the wealthiest country on earth.

Not a car-seat-friendly street.

A couple of nights ago my partner lost conciousness and stopped breathing. A little CPR, a short 9-1-1 ambulance ride, and a night in acute care took care of things, but it was a stark reminder of how much of partnering goes into making (and sustaining) a family.

Even if you don't live on the side of a hill.

Sly Tech

Recently I came across a great deal on a very nice piece of glass, a long telephoto zoom that opens up to an aperature of 2.8. A very, very nice piece of glass. And it captures nice images. Crisp, sharp details, full of nice color and contrast.

It's the most boring lens I've ever owned.

I'll never get rid of it, of course, because sharpness and speed and accurate color are things you need for voyeurism of the journalistic variety.

But...there's no way of getting around it...it's boring.

Flowers for Vincent

About 20 years ago, the art world went through a spasmodic love affair with Vincent van Gogh. It turned out a lot of the high prices were complete bunk - artificially inflated, Enron-style - but however you looked at it, van Gogh was, for a little while, the be-all and end-all of painting. Personally, I didn't get it. Then a few years later, I saw my first "live" van Gogh.

And I got it, instantly.

Van Gogh does not translate on a flat page or screen. He painted in three dimensions, piling and shaping the paint until the shadows of the textures intermingled with the shadows of the image he was recasting. It's not sculpture, it's far more subtle than that, but the end result is a visual sledgehammer.

Steel

Some day in the future, large metallic objects may be too valuable to be left lying around, waiting for someone with a vision to turn them into something interesting. Fortunately, that day is not yet here.

Taken near Michael den Hertog's Granville Island studio. LensBaby, with a little grain mixed in.

Mobitel Camera

Somewhere in the archives I have an image of Emily and her grandfather at the Tour de Gastown. It had that quality about it where all references to space and time seemed to be removed: it could have been taken nearly anywhere in the Western world, nearly anytime in the past century.

This is not that photo, but for some reason it reminded me of it. Or maybe I'm just perpetually seeing the world through Daddy Eyes, and what triggers my subconcious is seeing my daughter with her grandfather.

Who knows?

The astute viewer will notice this one doesn't get bigger when clicked: it was taken with a camera phone, 1/3 megapixel resolution.

Spring

Taken on the marina side of Granville Island. It was just one lonely red rose up against a blank concrete wall. And then the sun came out for a moment...

Homeland Security, Great White North Style

I was told the Government of Canada was paying big bucks for "art" with high levels of red content. This is the only photo I took today with any red in it.

Night Suspension

Taken near the south tower of Lions Gate Bridge, a sulfur lamp shining on the cables, taken while laying on my back on the vibrating bridge deck while K waved traffic around me. Ok, just kidding about that last bit.

I tried a number of exposure/aperature combinations, but nothing was really working. Then it occured to me that since there was virtually no color in the image, it should be converted to black and white. And because it's black and white, with no detail in the emptiness, I could crank up the ISO, knowing the chroma noise could be flushed out by raising the black point in post-processing.

Blair Witch

There is something very enjoyable about watching young children leap before looking. Every step, every dark tunnel, is more adventure than cause for concern.

The Green Room

Back in the day, black and white film was occassionally painted to give it a faux-color appearance. This one I did in reverse - bleeding away most of the reds and blues, leaving only a little green.

Taken near Beaver Lake, in Stanley Park.

Bottoms Down

Yes, I freely admit this has "greeting card" written all over it. About the only thing missing is a cat hanging from a branch. But somehow images seem much less corny when they involve your own kids.

I really like the tonality, at least in print. This is another of those images that just doesn't seem to want to come right on the screen.