Single-Serving Photo

I don’t usually do these short news-breaking stories, but this one actually irked me. Rob Galbraith, notable photographer and outstpoken reviewer of photographic equipment and technique, published a story in his blog, Rob Galbraith: DPI, pitting the late-2008 unibody MacBook Pro 15” display against the displays of two similar laptops, the Dell Inspiron and the IBM/Lenovo ThinkPad T60.

Conclusion? Despite Apple’s long-held position as a maker of laptops uniquely suited to field shooting, Galbraith says, “In ambient light environments which induce screen reflections, the late-2008 MacBook Pro 15 inch’s glossy screen moves deep into the not acceptable category.”

Though it remains in the running for one of the more accurate displays among laptops, it fails to outshine the Inspiron or the ThinkPad in overall color accuracy or viewing angle flexibility, according to Galbraith’s hands-on analysis.

Of course nothing is totally black and white in the field of photography or even technology, so be sure to read his full review and peruse some of the responses on the Slashdot post.

Okay, so I missed the boat on this by a little bit, but I think it bears discussion anyway. Earlier this month, an exhibition came to a close at the Yale University Art Gallery called “First Doubt: Optical Confusion in Modern Photography.” Optical confusion refers to that effect you get when you look at something and it isn’t immediately apparent what it is. The reaction is best when the subject matter is common and well-known, but portrayed in an unusual or misleading way.

For example, the photo to the right (which is from the aforementioned show) depicts a man’s chin, neck, chest, and part of his leg. The contrast and cropping, though, make it compositionally more interesting and somewhat more difficult to “figure out,” visually. I wouldn’t suggest that you run about photographing things in ways that nobody can ever puzzle out, or that high art must in some way be confounding to the general public, but you must admit that a composition that makes you scratch your head for a moment is going to hold your interest for that much longer.

The idea of optical confusion is (clearly) not new. I’m sure you’ve all seen the classic young woman/old woman illusion (shown at left), which, once you visually map out both images, seems to randomly flip-flop between the two in the mind’s eye. In photographic composition, this technique of close-cropping and creatively limiting the viewer’s understanding of what they are looking at can be a very powerful tool.

Take, for example, the image below (by Karin Rosenthal, “Belly Landscape,” 1980—which I snagged from The Online Photographer). When I first saw the image, I really thought it was a landscape; some sort of Adams-esque river valley. Of course by stating the title of the piece I’ve pretty much blown the lid on that optical illusion, but if you squint you can probably see it as a river valley again.

Certainly the specific genre of “body landscapes” is one with its fair share of avid creators, and it would be challenging now to forge new territory (no pun intended) within that space. Nevertheless, we can all take a cue from the clever way that the image misleads the eye.

The next time you’re out photographing or sitting in front of Lightroom (you do use Lightroom, right?), think about how you might add tension and interest to a composition through creative cropping, eliminating some of the most recognizable elements from a subject. Just a small tweak is all it may take to transform a solid, representative image into a thoroughly engaging work of optical confusion.

You can also purchase the official book containing selections from the collection used in the Yale University Art Museum show.

My thorough and attentive friends in the B&H affiliate department have sent word that they now have limited stocks of 5D Mark IIs!

The message reads, “We’ve just received word that the Canon EOS 5D Mark II is available in limited stock. Simply “add to cart”; ignore initial “back-ordered” message.”

According to Mike’s post over at TOP, their stock seems to be fluctuating in and out.

The price is $2,699 and you can buy it right here

I received another e-mail from the (former) Editor in Chief of JPG Magazine yesterday announcing that JPG isn’t quite dead. Here is the full message:

We couldn’t ask for a better community. In the week or so since our last email, the outpour of support has exceeded our wildest expectations. Your efforts, such as starting savejpg.com, writing blog posts, commenting on Twitter and Flickr, and generally making your voices heard, have provided exciting new opportunities for us.

We’re thrilled to say that because of you, we have multiple credible buyers interested in giving JPG a home. We will be keeping the site up after all, and hope to have a final update in the next week or so on who the acquirer will be. Thank you for making all of this possible.

Laura Brunow Miner
Editor in Chief

As I write this, it does look like jpgmag.com is still up and running, so feel free to look through the published photos, download archived issues, or check out some of their photo essays.

In a previous article, Shooting Modes Explained, I went into some of the details of the major shooting modes (aperture priority, shutter priority, manual) and the program modes (what Canon calls “PictureStyles” and Nikon calls “Digital Vari-Programs”).

All of that information is still very important, but I wanted to mention that a good fellow by the name of Adam Parker posted a comment there with a useful link to an article of his where he demonstrates the major shooting modes using… Gasp… Pictures!

You can read his article, Canon Shooting Modes – What Are the Differences? at that link. Bear in mind that it is a very Canon-centric article, and therefore I fully support it!

If you have a Nikon or one of those… Other cameras… This information may still apply, though the names of the modes will probably be different, or you may have more or fewer of them.