Single-Serving Photo

First and foremost, a happy new year to all of you, my lovely readers. Whether you check in now and then or have been a reader for several years, it is solely for you that I do this. Believe me, when I talk to myself I don’t do nearly as much editing.

Anyway, what better way to ring in the new year and to step back from the commotion of life, if only for a moment, to appreciate the bigger picture than… With a picture? A picture exactly one year in the making, in fact.

Michael Chrisman, a 31-year-old photographer living in Toronto, set up a small pinhole camera on January 1, 2010, overlooking the city’s skyline. On new year’s eve, he collected it. The developed picture is shown to the right, and I have to say, I love it.

In the image you can clearly see the trails of the sun across the sky, each one tracing a slightly different path as the Earth tilts on its axis through the course of the year. You can see the reflections in the water, and you can easily make out the CN Tower, Toronto’s most distinct fixture.

Think about this for a minute. A tiny pinhole sat open for 31.5 million seconds, sending beams of light toward a piece of photographic paper, capturing an image that by itself represents a year of activity. Three hundred and sixty five revolutions of our planet around its sun.

It’s a great way to put life in perspective, I think. I wish you all the best in 2012, stay tuned for more photography talk in the coming weeks.

Please read more about Michael’s creation on thestar.com: Year-long exposure of Toronto skyline produces ‘dreamy’ image

You remember the National Association of Photoshop Professionals? NAPP? Their president, Scott Kelby, is like the Photoshop guy, he teaches Photoshop and Lightroom and travels all around the world doing seminars and evangelizing for Adobe (in an indirect way, as a representative of over 30,000 people who use Photoshop professionally). He’s as close to a Photoshop guru as you can realistically get before you become Thomas Knoll or Russell Brown.

What I’m trying to say here is that you really couldn’t learn Photoshop (or Lightroom) from any better folks than Scott Kelby and his Photoshop crew (Corey Barker, Pete Collins, RC Concepcion, and of course Matt Kloskowski). Normally this type of instruction costs a few bucks or at least a trip somewhere. But not this week.

This week only, presented in a live format, Scott and his crew (he calls them “The Photoshop Guys”) are doing a series of retouching presentations that you can watch for free. This starts tonight at 6 PM EST. The presentations are, in order:

• Wedding Retouching (tonight, Dec. 5)
• Digital Makeup (Dec. 6)
• The Next Level of Retouching (Dec. 7)
• LIVE Show – Audience Participation in Q&A (Dec. 8)
• Tips from the Industry (Dec. 9)

My understanding is that the fourth presentation is the only time that The Photoshop Guys will take any questions directly from the digital audience, but all five presentations will be streamed live.

To tune in, just visit Retouching Week on Photoshop User. It looks like the video and chat feeds are having some problems at the moment, but since the event has not yet started I’m sure the IT screw at Photoshop User will be able to work out all the bugs before it gets underway tonight at 6.

I don’t know about you guys but I’ll be tuned in!

Today is Louis Daguerre’s birthday, and Google is helping to celebrate it by devoting their logo to him. Happy 224th, buddy!

Wait, are you really about to ask me who Louis Daguerre was? Hey, it’s OK, to be fair the guy has been dead for about 160 years… Even so, in this line of work I sort of expected more from you. Maybe you’ve heard the word Daguerreotype before? Even my browser spell-checker knows that word. That’s right, it’s a photographic process; that’s probably close enough for most tabletop trivia games.

Unfortunately, this blog is not interested in tidbits of trivia, so get ready for facts. Lots of facts. With historical context. (more…)

It is easy to say that we are “standing at the crossroads.” Occasionally it’s even true, but the expression sounds so important, it evokes such responsibility, that it’s hard for scientists, technologists, journalists, historians, economists, and futurists to hold back the urge, even if the decision to be made is minor, the outcome arbitrary.

So recognize that it is with a full understanding that I say to you, right now, we stand at the crossroads of creativity. We’ve stood here before, we will stand here again, but I can say categorically that we stand here now and it is an important and exciting time to be a photographer. (more…)

The goal of photography is to capture a moment, an idea, a thought, or an event and suspend it in time. Whether it is journalistic, editorial, representational, abstract, or artistic is not important in reaching that goal. Occasionally, as a photographer is striving toward their singular goal, they unwittingly meet another one.

Such is the case with these amazing depression-era color photographs published by the International Business Times; though they were taken at the time as recordings of events (though demonstrating the aesthetic sense of the accomplished photographer), the social and cultural distance between the depression and today has vaulted these images into pure artistry. They are truly breathtaking; scenes from a past world, a past America.

View the entire set of photographs on International Business Times: Rare Color Photos from Depression Era.