Updating OnOne & having fun

Towards Sunset

After Sunset

I have been experimenting with the new OnOne10, its fast!.My perspective is it is most of the great tools rearranged and set up so they can be used standalone not only as an add-in (to lightroom). There By-line “photo editing made simple” is very appropriate. I’ve also had much fun using browse & layers rather than lightroom and then passing files to other applications which are simple to set up. Unfortunately I haven’t figured out how to send multiple photos into Autostitch. However the simplicity of the file export means they can easily be sent somewhere autostitch can pick them up.

PhotoFriday :: Glass Half Full or Half Empty

Fish & Chip Night with a Glass Half Empty (or Half Full)

Life is Good

For PhotoFriday‘s topic Glass

CreativeSpaces :: repurposing an old Enlarger as a Copy Stand

My studio clean up has bought a focus on sorting out the mess, and throwing out a lot of it. However it also got me interested in how to organize my diverse works, store them and most importantly start keep a catalogue of my works. In the process after a little web searching I came across the CALL (Creating a Living Legacy) project,  Which does lay down the important steps in what they term Career Documentation, involving creating a viable archive including photographing your work. Its a good read and guide.

Whilst small flat works (watercolour sketches etc, photographic prints, many of them old family photos) could be scanned on one of my two multi-function printers I have. I also have an old and  “cheap” slide & negative scanner that is so old It not longer has a driver and can only work with an old XP laptop (I have keep for compatibility with some old devices like this). Larger art works (and I have some BIG ones) had to be photographed. Which is easy enough. However I also do a lot of more sculptural small things as well. I figured an old fashion copy stand was what I needed. Even if someone still made copy stands I doubt I could justify the expense to photograph a few items.

Clearing out some of my father’s untouched storage I came across our first enlarger (in a poor state). It was missing the globe housing and lens. I soon realized it could be easily converted to a perfect copy stand.  I just had to unbolt the enlarger bellows unit, to give me a perfect mounting position, roughly over the centre of the base). I also found an old bracket for an old and broken off-camera flash bracket and figured it would be perfect to connect the camera. A little experimentation and I found I needed a small piece if rubber (cut from an old kids play mat) as a way to really tightened the connection. With its slot mounted vertically I had considerably flexibility when I attached the camera by the base screw tripod connector (no elaborate quick release mechanism here).

Using the stand is simple. Place the piece on the base, rack the camera up or down till the piece largely fill the viewfinder and focus. A macro lens if you have one is great also. I haven’t built any special lights for the stand (yet) and have used it both outdoors in the shade and indoors in my studio away from direct sunlight without needing extra lighting. Rather than trigger the camera manually I do have a remote shutter release but have found the 2 second self-timer just as good. Set up like this I have found making copies is even faster than scanning. Position the object (after a bit of practise there is no need even to check the viewfinder if the items being photographed are roughly the same size). Next half press the shutter (to focus), when the whirring stops (if it starts at all) fully press the shutter and stand back. Beep beep click, its done. Position the next object. Its just as fast when taking photos of old prints.

With an extended table and the the camera cranked as high as I safely can get it, and un-zoomed to 28 (the widest I dare to avoid undue distortion) I can easily photograph to 40 by 25cm (approx. 18”” by 10””), not quite A3. With the stand turned around so the camera overhangs the back of the base and the stand protruding off the edge of a table (securely weighed down on the based) I can photograph items on the floor up to 90 by 59cm which is roughly A1. With this configuration it is hard to focus through the viewfinder but that’s when I find connecting the camera to my computer comes into its own (my Canon T3i tethered to lightroom is perfect).You have a very remote control and can zoom in to get the focus perfect.

I’m proud of my repurposing, Further I can now strongly recommend a copy stand over a scanner for any artist as a way to record their art.

The New Google+ but no Photos or Hangouts

The new Google+ has arrived, its faster (much faster) and bolder (a red header line with a more responsive style design) but really more of the same. EXCEPT there is no direct menu link into google photos and hangouts,These are are presumably becoming very separate applications, so that ok. Also missing from the menu are circles and pages, which I don’t understand. The Truth is I removed Google+ off my phone a while ago and I have been visiting google+ less and less much from the computer. I don’t see anything to encourage me back. However if you want to give the new google+ a go check out the “How to Use [the New] google+: Tutorial” blog post by Traffic Generation Cafe

Thanks to +Ananda Sim for the heads up on the How too…

PhotoFriday :: Yellow

For PhotoFriday‘s topic Yellow

PhotoFriday :: The Rural Road

For PhotoFriday‘s topic Rural

Digital Archives :: An Unfortunate Truth

The biggest issue in setting up a long term digital archive is related to what physical storage media you plan to use. The digital world is littered with various storage media that have very short operation lives and/or have fallen from common usage. I have used Punch paper tape, Punch Card, Reel to Reel Magnetic tape, Various Tape Cartridges, 8”Floppy Disk (yes they were once that big but they could hold around 1.3mb), 5¼” Floppy Disk (only 360kb), 3 ½” Rigid disk (720kb but later 1.4mb), Zip Disks (a glorious 100mb), CDs (compact disks with a capacity of around 700MB) on to DVD (which generally hold 4.7gb) and Blu-ray (which can hold up to 25gb). Unfortunately the unspoken secret here is as the capacity and specifically the information density has increased the shelf life tends to decrease. The punch paper tape for the late 60s is good to go (if only I had a reader) if it hasn’t been torn, so are the punch cards from the early 70s, but everything else has probably reached its best by date and there is a reasonable chance you will experience corruption or errors reading older media already. Even CD and DVDs, once thought invincible start to have troubles after only a few years, even less if they are not handled carefully. What about solid state memory (like SD memory cards, USB keys or the newer SSD drives), unfortunately they have limited life spans as well (more to do with the number of reads and writes) in normal usage they may outlast the next form of storage HDD. The conventional hard drives (whether built into your computer or as an external USB style) also have some telling untold secrets (see backblaze study, which suggests seagate drives are more likely to fail than western digital, but I have had the opposite experience I have 4 dead western digital my book USB drives but 3 healthy expansion seagate drives, one of which considerably older). The caveat here is they will probably last a day or two longer than the guarantee. So what about cloud storage that’s forever isn’t it? Well if you look in the terms of Service (TOS) or most cloud service providers there is generally no mention of loss or damage of stored data (I guess they assume you must already have a copy as well, ie from their point of view the data is backed up by you). Only Amazon seems to have addressed this, and I hope companies like google could be relied upon. However they are companies that are unlikely to last forever. So cloud backup is where we are at now, not cloud archiving yet. So where does that leave us. We will need to plan to regularly move any digital archive onto new media as technology change and popular taste determines. Clearly an Archive of Digital Photos must not be hardware/media specific.

I trust all this scares you into making a backup of your digital photos right now. Stop reading and go and do it!

PhotoFriday :: Foam on the Shore

For PhotoFriday‘s topic Minimalism

CreativeSpaces :: Sketching Gear in my Camera Bag

Yes I always do carry a small sketch book in my camera bag. Why?

They are not full of finished art works, mainly there are squiggles that are really little more than doodles. There are also notes on the lighting, time and conditions. Maybe I have sketched the horizon and marked where the sun/moon rise or set. Perhaps I have scouted around for an interesting foreground silhouette. Occasionally there will be records of some key colour aspects of what was happening. Most are just me trying out some composition decisions, often this is just getting a feel for shapes and tones (not exactly notan but similar).

I prefer to have the mini A7 visual diaries. Every now and then you might find the local art supplier has a selection of sample pads made up at A7 size, at a very attractive price. There will be watercolour and various drawing surfaces and perhaps fewer pages than the normal pads but they will be attractively priced. They are idea for the camera bag. I also include and old/used (ie short pencil), perhaps a pen and I have been experimenting with woodless pencils, they can be sharpened or broken off and used as a crayon, They are also very black.

Sometime ago, I had seen a video by Matt Kloskowski talking about the 50/50-rule. Which basically suggested spending 50% of the time to capture what you want but then spend as much time again doing something, original, creative or experimental. This was a nice coincidence because I had years previously made some notes or more key words on different things to try out, scrawled on the back page of an early little sketchbook. Here is my list of alternative ways begin to see a photo.

• What is the first thing you see? Do you return to looking at it or something else?
• What should be left out?
• Which details are help tell the story?
• Is the Light? Hard, Soft, Low Key High Key, Direction
• Is there a way to balance the mass/tone. Avoid symmetry
• What is the important Colour? Emotion? Atmosphere?

The best reason of all to have a sketch book in your camera bag is it forces you to look and find an image (not just focus on perfecting a crop in your viewfinder). An Artist has to see their subject and figure out where to put it on a blank page. You don’t have to spend long just a few squiggles will give you an idea of what to capture. This really seeing is likely to modify how you position the camera and take a photo, much better than just lifting the camera to your face and finding an image in the view finder.

Creative Spaces :: The Plein-air Sketching Kit

I enjoy painting and sketching outside. Very little of this work gets directly into exhibition pieces but that’s not really my purpose. I find I do remember more and connect with a place more strongly when I have spent a little time sketching.

Over time my “sketching bag” has evolved to include more paints (watercolours and water soluble media) and brushes. If I use pencils they will probably be really soft (eg 4B or 6B) but I have begun to use ink pens more often. I’ve become a real fan of Derwent’s Inktense blocks.  Whilst charcoal is good for the studio, it can’t stand the travel and rough handling so I have found conte is way better.

I currently have two identical smaller re-purposed shoulder carry bags (handout from a tour group) and have them fitted out with similar basics. One is just a little more slimmed down than the other. Things get used up and I make occasional changes of what I consider is essential, particularly the surfaces I am painting/drawing on. Sometime I just have a basic sketch book, other times I might want good quality watercolour paper (ie > 300gsm) I pretty well always have one packed and ready to go. At the moment I have only the one folio to carry better quality media (ie individual watercolour or pastel papers) it also holds a drawing board that can be attached to a camera tripod, (see my tripod easel post), This normally travels with the larger kit which is logical as it has more watercolour paints.

Yes all that stuff does fit in the dark blue bag! Easily!

CreativeSpaces :: What is a “fold out” studio?

It’s really nothing fancy, “”fold out” studio is just my name for a portable workspace (and specifically the equipment and media for it). I have had a fair bit of practise in creating such a “portable” studio. One of my favourite places to create is in a place down the coast, a couple of hours drive. To use it I must include all I want in the back of the car (space is generally limited) and I need to be able to hand carry the bits, thus weight has also been a consideration.

I think it is reasonable to assume anywhere that can make a functional studio space is likely to already have a table (or desk), chair (or stool), access to water & power. From the car boot experience I like to have everything fit in a canvas style duffle bag or a couple of smaller carry bags. Fitting it all in a duffle bag also means when necessary it can easily become standard luggage for flying (ok not much room left for clothes).  It also needs to fit in the bottom shelf of my studio cupboard.

What I expect to be able to do it is is sketch, paint and also take or process (lots of) photos. I also want to be able to use my basic tool kit of photo management and post processing software (ie I need a computer and preferably access to the internet). I also prefer music (usually jazz) when I’m creating (I have an old IPod nano but I find my phone does just as well and I usually have a selection of music on the Laptop as well). Earbuds/headphones so I don't annoy others

So what goes in the Duffle Bag?

• Sketching gear, Optionally [Plein-air Sketching Kit, or Portable Sketching Desk]
• Painting media pencils, watercolour [Pastels,Acrylic]
• Brush Roll(s)
• Surfaces, Sketch books, good watercolour paper, Small “test” canvases
• Light Drawing Board (fits into base width of Duffle Bag)
• Folding Easel
• Empty Trays and Containers
• Old Towels (as Padding, Cleanup &/or Drop Cloth)
• Power Board (not shown)

Other Items Hand Carried.

• Android Phone (LG 7L)
• DSLR Camera (usually my Pentax K20D)
• Laptop (Toshiba)
• USB Backpack Harddrive (for backup, extra music)
• WiFi Modem
• Battery chargers

CreativeSpace ::Time for a Change

Whilst I have the luxury of a Home Office and a separate Studio. They are significantly different places with different meaning. The office is the place to work and I can leave the work behind when I leave the room. Creativity doesn’t work that way, it just happens and is difficult to turn on and off. The environment has a lot more sway in the creative process than most folk appreciate. Unfortunately my studio has succumbed (or more precisely keeps succumbing) to clutter. A stained glass filter from Dreamscope might make it look inspiring but all the junk it hides makes it hard to just sit down and create. So how to fix it?

When I really though about it I don’t limit my creative spirit to the studio anyway. I have different places where I do find inspiration and focus to create. Some are handy, a few steps away, some take time and effort  to travel to. So before cleaning up my studio yet again I spent some time contemplating these places and what I need in those locations. Being in the right place at the right time is difficult but being there with the right tools is more important. So I’ve spent some time thinking about what might be that right tool. Is it just a sketch book, a camera (smartphone maybe but would a DSLR  be better?). What about colour, watercolour, pastel or camera again? Do I need computer tools?

This let me group my work and media into the places it may be useful, not the place I tend to dump it (ie not the table or floor of my studio). Not only was this interesting it refreshed my thinking about what I need and always having it ready. This journey will make a nice set of blog posts so stay tuned.

My objective for the next few years is to seek out artistic residences that I can both learn from and perhaps return a little extra new knowledge back into their community. Having myself prepared to create in other spaces is an important first step.

PhotoProject :: One Image Three Ways

Sometimes it is worth taking one image and processing it in a variety of ways. Yesterday sunset was very memorable. Here I firstly have a Raw image processed in Lightroom (just of tone & colour balance). Next is a bracketted set made into a tonemapped HDR using Aftershot Pro, Finally I have used a Dreamscope filter.

Wow What a Sunset

Truely Brilliant, but fleeting

PhotoFriday :: Blue Hour Skyline

For PhotoFriday‘s topic Skyline

Discovering the simple elegance in chromecast-ing

I must admit I had been ignoring Apple TV, streaming, chrome casting and such. Unlike the supposed typical Australian net user I don’t use such technology to download pirate videos of the lastest TV show from the USA. So I am late coming to the wonderful little chromecast dongle. Rather than playing with streaming video, I came across the wonders of the chrome cast as a way to avoid cables and incompatibilities when giving a presentation (or training session) directly from my computer. What it can do is allow you to throw your screen onto any modern TV and most data projectors without a cable. Thus avoiding resetting screen resolution, cables not long enough or other such hassles. The TV, Big screen or projector just needs a HDMI input and most recent equipment will come with this. You just plug in the chromecast dongle into the HDMI socket (it generally needs to be connected to separate power supply, a charger is supplied with the dongle but any powered USB port is fine).

There is a downside, you need to have WiFi, both to set up the the chrome cast at a new location and carry the stream from your screen during the presentation. Most venues these days do have internet & WiFi but if they don’t and If you have a smartphone that can create a local hotspot that will be fine for running a powerpoint or a live demo of software. Perfect for a travelling trainer. However it could be a very expensive way to stream cast a full movie from somewhere else on the internet, depending on your phones data package.

You can broadcast from your phone or tablet via special apps, and you probably already have some of these. For example the You Tube app on android will direct the YouTube clip to your chromecast, no need to download it first. Google Slides, can make a slide show presentation located on google drive directly controlled from your from your phone (and yes it can read powerpoint files). The real power lies in the ability to send the contents of any chrome browser tab, to the chromecast, and thus big screen it is connected to. The current version also has the ability to send an application output or your entire screen (these later options are in beta release and can be a little laggy at times). So as long as you have a chrome browser you can send anything you can get on your PC screen onto a larger presentation stage. All without any fuss.

I also like the backdrop (aka screen wallpaper) settings on the unit which lets you use your own pictures from Google Photos, Flickr (or facebook if you must) or just stick with the google selected photo as a slideshow screen saver.

Still having fun with dreamscope

https://t.co/DvpzlgiSdI still having fun with dreamscope

— AP@imageo (@APimageo) October 22, 2015

PhotoFriday :: The Colour of Art

For PhotoFriday‘s topic Colour

PhotoEditingTools :: HDR well After the fact

 

Some time ago I used to take 5 photos in my bracketed sets. I was experimenting with different EV steps and this set remained unprocessed. Further these are all jpeg not RAW. Its not a gripping image but has a little potential as an abstract composition. I came aross the set when I was checking through my photos and thought I should give Aftershot Pro”s HDR merge a try out with 5 images rather than just 3. There was no need to worry it worked perfectly. The only item of note was, it is very important to run the feature based align when you are merging 5 hand held images, but Aftershot did a great job.

Not yet a great photo but a pleasing improvement none the less, much closer to what I feel I would have seen and attracted me to take the photo. These days I normally only take three photos but 1.5 EV apart and in RAW on my Pentax and 3 photos 2 EV apart on my Canon. There is lots of well meaning advice of the right settings for HDR, most of it apparently given with authority but totally prescriptive and usually without explanation. If you have decent software I suggest you experiment for yourself and find those settings that best suit you and your camera, and be gentle with the sliders during tone mapping (aka avoid the lurid colours).

PhotoFriday :: My Favourite Location (this year)

My all time favourite photographic location is still probably South Walkerville, but over the past year I have been taking a lot of photos just down the road in Jells Park. The scenery may not be  world shattering but I am enjoying capturing the migrating birds, the subtle changes of light and reflections.


For PhotoFriday‘s topic My Favourite Location