Software Review: Strata Foto 3D 1.5
Posted on July 13, 2008 - Filed Under Culture, Photo | Leave a Comment
Strata Foto 3D 1.5 is the part of the Strata 3D product line that lets users load a series of masked pictures into the Foto 3D interface and generate a real-time 3D object. This object can then be exported VRML, to 3DS, to a layer in Photoshop CS3 Extended, or used in one of Strata's other 3D products. The goal of Foto 3D is to allow a 3D model to be created quickly and inexpensively while requiring few technical skills and no expensive hardware.
To use Foto 3D correctly the primary things that you need are a camera that takes JPG or TIFF images, a printer that is capable of printing out the special calibration mats that you need – a decent laserjet or inkjet printer should do fine – a tripod, a solid background that is different from what you are going to model, and an evenly lit space.
The first thing that you will want to do is calibrate your camera lens. Most cameras have some distortion that is not really noticeable when looking at a single image, but when you are trying to isolate, mask, and match up a series of images at different angles, it becomes more important. To calibrate the lens, you print a grid of dots onto a plain white sheet of paper. Secure the paper on a piece of card stock and take several pictures of it with the lens you will be using; more details are in the manual. You then load the images for Foto 3D to adjust.
Next thing to do is to print out a calibration mat — a specially designed printed pattern of dots that needs to be placed under the object when it is photographed. It needs to be appropriate to the size of your object and this mat allows Foto 3D to determine the exact positioning of the camera relative to the object. This can be a single page or multiple pages in size.
Now that you have everything in place, you set up your tripod-mounted camera; you might get away with not having a tripod if you have someone moving the model, but I would personally not want to try it this way. You will need to take at least 15 images from an angle that is low enough to take frontal shots, yet high enough to capture the calibration mat. You then take another four or so from higher up, and one from a top angle. If you want to take more images that is better; these are really just guidelines for the minimum to get a quality image. On my image, I moved one set of dots to the left for each of the first group of shots, then four or five from higher up, and finally the top shots.
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Video Training Review: Vue 6 xStream Essential Training With Larry Mitchell
Posted on June 30, 2008 - Filed Under Culture, Photo | Leave a Comment
Vue 6 is the latest release from e-on software for the creation of realistic 3D environments. These include landscapes, buildings, and atmospheres. These creations can be used for both still work as well as animation and have been used to create new worlds for popular films such as Pirates of the Caribbean and Spiderwick Chronicles. To learn more about the product itself you can read my review Vue 6 Infinite.
Your trainer for this library is Larry Mitchell, a digital media artist and producer for the last 20 years. He has created graphics and software for TV shows, arenas, video games and commercials. Vue 6 xStream Essential Training is divided into 11 lessons and runs 9.5 hours.
Lesson 1, "Getting to Know Vue" begins with a brief welcome and an explanation of how to use the exercise files. Then you move into an overview of the Vue interface and the rich number of options that are available for you use. You then are shown some essential preferences and how to select and transform objects. Lesson 2, "Vue Objects" gives you a good run through of all of the different objects that you can find in Vue such as primitives, rocks, plants, water, clouds, and terrain.
Lesson 3, "Additional Objects" describes the library, text, and the importation of 3D objects. Lesson 4, "Modeling Objects" teach you about the ventilator objects, Boolean, objects, and group objects. Ventilators are a method to give you a localized wind source so that when the main wind is blowing one way, the ventilator can blow something a different direction. Boolean allows you to use logic to create an new item from more than one object. Group objects allow you to create parent/child and sibling/sibling relationships between objects.
Lesson 5, "Materials" is all about the different types of materials that you can work with from within Vue. Here you will see how to create basic materials, animated materials, eco systems, hyper textures, and sub surface scattering; allowing light to be absorbed or redirected through a material. Lesson 6, "Lighting" shows you how to create different lighting types, how to control and edit lights, and converting objects to area lights.
Lesson 7,"Cameras" guides you through the use of camera. Cameras are how the rendering sees your objects. This includes controlling the camera, showing you what the advanced camera options are, and how to use frame guides to make sure that objects are effectively displayed in your render. Lesson 8, "Working with Atmospheres" is a detailed lesson in making your world appear more real. Here you will work with clouds, the sun, sky, fog, stars, wind, and other things that will give your image depth.
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Book Review: The Photograph: Composition And Color Design By Harald Mante
Posted on June 12, 2008 - Filed Under Culture, Photo | Leave a Comment
After you deal with the technical aspects, the crucial elements that determine the quality and strength of an image are the organization of the elements and their content. It is these elements that make up the art of the photograph. Creative photography is built upon the mastery of these elements.
In The Photograph: Composition and Color Design, Harald Mante, a distinguished teacher of the photographic arts in Germany, explores the principles of line, shape, color, contrast, and design. His goal is to explore composition and design at a much greater depth than is available in most books to date. The Photograph is an oversized book with 280 full color pages and is divided into six chapters.
“The Point” refers to a means of organization in which the relation to the image plane is small or relatively small. A point is static and maintains its location. In this chapter you will explore various arrangements involving the point within an image. These points may be defined by an object, a color, a shape, or even multiple points, but they all draw you in. You will explore the point’s simplicity, arrangement, repetition, texture, pattern, and more.
“The Line” is a method organizing an image in an active arrangement. By using lines, you actively draw the viewer’s eye through the image, clearly creating movement. Here you will study how forces acting on a line force the eye to something in the image. You will study the properties of a line – how horizontal and vertical lines work differently in an image, and how diagonal, irregular, oblique, and groups of lines affect images.
“The Shape” is the design element by which areas of tone and color are bounded within or are allowed to cover the entire image. Described here are rectangles and squares, circles, ovals, triangles, as well as variants of irregular shapes. Also included are the contrasts of shapes.
“Universal Contrasts” are almost always present in a picture. These are the differentiations of light and dark, or of monochrome and colors. They give rise to the special effects within a picture. They are the differences between the figure and the ground, and the variations of space, and can be caused by the natural environment or the use of focal lengths.
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Book Review: Understanding Shutter Speed by Bryan Peterson
Posted on June 3, 2008 - Filed Under Culture, Photo | Leave a Comment
Most people know of Bryan Peterson’s 2004 bestselling book Understanding Exposure in which he explores in detail the relationship of aperture, shutter speed, and how to achieve successful exposures in difficult situations. In his new companion volume, Understanding Shutter Speed, he takes on one of those aspects in depth: shutter speed.
Unless working with still life, every moment offers up the movement of a subject. How that subject is captured brings the moment back to us. In every situation there will be a number of ways to capture that image. The goal of Understanding Shutter Speed is to give you the knowledge to make the best choice. The book 160 pages and is contained in five chapters.
“Shutter Speed Facts & Myths” begins by explaining that within most picture-taking situations you have six possible combinations of f-stops and shutter speeds that will result in correct exposures. This does not mean that each will take the same image, but rather will result in six quality images, each with a different look and feel to it. Also discussed is the affect of ISO on images and how it applies to action photos.
“Fast and Moderate Speeds” examines how to freeze action and how shutter speed affects what you see in an image. Here the author takes you through a number of shutter speeds from 1/100 to 1/1000 and shows you what they really mean in relation to your picture. While moving to faster stops action, slower speeds can create more artistic looks and you will see what can be done when slowing things down a bit.
“Slow Speeds” notches things down even further by exploring speeds of 1/30 to of a second and how — when used with the panning of the camera and the movement of the camera to follow the central object in the image — you can slow it down while everything else is blurred.
You will also explore the use of a tripod and how it can be used to imply motion. You will see how to paint with shutter speeds, how motion zooming can be used to bring motion to a still object, how by attaching a camera to what is moving you can get a different perspective, how to photograph ghosts and angels, as well as how to work with dusk and low light situations requiring a second or more of exposure.
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Book Review: Waiting for the Light by David Noton
Posted on May 21, 2008 - Filed Under Culture, Photo | Leave a Comment
Waiting for the Light is not only a collection of images by David Noton, a highly skilled and highly successful landscape photographer, it is an also insight into the mind of a professional who has won numerous awards and has been working freelance since 1985.
Waiting for the Light is a visual journey of David Noton's work to date. It is an exploration of his images and it showcases some of his very best work. It contains many items from his portfolio which include photographs from every continent around the world. It is highlighted by the accompanying text that places an emphasis on his use of light and his ability to capture the essence of a place. The book is 160 full color pages divided into an introduction and four parts.
"The Waiting Game" reflects on the fact that there is some luck to get the right kind of light, but if you haven't put in the preparation you will not get the perfect shot. Just showing up does not mean you will get great photos. In fact, if you just show up and shoot, all you will be doing is "taking" pictures, not "making" a photograph.
Part one covers "Vision." Before a camera is even touched there is a lot of work to be done. You must first pre-visualize, compose, and plan your photo. These are all things that can be done with only the eyes of a photographer. Being in the right place at the right time is essential. Being there is all about finding, visualizing, and planning an image before shooting the picture. It is about finding a starting point, imagining how it could look, and then being in the right place at the right time.
Here you will explore light; the most fundamental part of photography and a photograph made in the wrong light is worthless. You will see about composing a photograph. This is about arranging shapes in a frame. You also have to take into consideration color; here you will see the five options for color. How you use it will be somewhat dependant on the light, but it will also affect the effect your image will have on others.
Then you will see how distance will give your image scale. Will it be big and majestic, or will it tower and encompass you? Time dominates you as a photographer. If you are doing landscape photography, then you need to be in the right place at the right time. This usually means out before dawn, and out before dusk. These two times of the day are when the light is most vibrant and gives the best shows. These are considered "Happy Hour" for the photographer.
Part two "Environments" cover subjects that are different, giving a photographer their own challenges. The light in a rainforest is different than the light in a desert, and different yet again is the light in the arctic. Whether it is rock, sand, ice, water, wood, or concrete, the author takes you through these subjects and more, showing both the work he has done and the challenges he has faced when working with them.
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Miley’s in Trouble Now
Posted on May 13, 2008 - Filed Under Culture, Photo | Leave a Comment
Recently, a picture of Miley Cyrus on the cover of Vanity Fair was released and caused a stir for parents and Miley fans alike. This didn't bother me as much as the pictures that were released of her lying across a teenaged guy with her bra showing. The reason this all surprises me? Guess which picture I hear the most trash about?
Now, I don’t want to pass judgment on Miss Cyrus. What she does in her free time, and what article of clothing is showing is certainly none of my business. I'll be honest, I think she's stupid for letting this all happen – but she's a teenager, and I know from first hand experience that teenagers do stupid things. However, wouldn't you expect more people to be mad about the pictures with her bra showing than the Vanity Fair ones? I mean, which one do you think is going to have a more negative effect on your pre-teen daughter?
I don't even really see what's wrong with the Vanity Fair one. She was covered in a revealing, yet modest way, and she wasn't showing anything big. The biggest thing I have against it was that her father, Billy Ray Cyrus, let it happen. He probably wasn't even there. It can't be easy to be a celebrity and have your daughter be one, too. I'm sure he can't be with her all the time. I don't know if that justifies what happened, but I've certainly seen worse parenting.
Then we have the picture of her and the guy, no doubt a private photo revealed to the public by so-called friends. This one bothers me the most. As a star, you take on a certain responsibility to the public. You have to keep your personality, work with others, and look good for the public, understanding that there will be a few incidents. We're all going to make mistakes, and though in our eyes celebrities are gods, they're actually only human.
Yes, the pictures were private, but, she shouldn't have taken them in the first place. This isn't the first time a picture like this has leaked through, if you all recall the Vanessa Hudgens incident. It's not as if all teenage girls take pictures of themselves in their underwear either, I wouldn't be caught dead doing it, and I know plenty of other girls who wouldn't, either. She could have gone without taking the pictures, but once again, she's a teenager. She's going to do stupid stuff.
Besides, how can she not get in trouble when she's constantly being compared to Britney Spears? People are just looking for the bad stuff about her. I know that most artists and actors hate being compared to someone no matter how true it is, and to face facts, Britney Spears is not the best person to be compared to. Sure, they're similar — they're both young, blonde, original Disney girls. However, does that automatically mean every girl that comes through is going to be like Britney? I haven't heard of anyone comparing Ashley Tisdale to her. Miley seems to be the only one cursed with that. If they keep pushing that reputation on her, eventually Miley's going to follow it.
Do I think this whole incident will ruin Miley's career? Not really. Vanessa seemed to bounce from it well, and hers was worse. However, I just have to wonder if this is the last incident. It better be — Disney is still upset about this one.
Book Review: The Digital Photography Companion by Derrick Story
Posted on April 28, 2008 - Filed Under Culture, Photo | Leave a Comment
Derrick Story's book The Digital Photography Companion is sized conveniently enough, like a slightly oversized mass market paperback. And the intent is obvious. Story wants to create a manual that is easy to take along with you pretty much wherever you go (hint: vacations). He follows it up by writing in a conversational style and includes lots of bright color pictures that further increase the reader's engagement.
Story covers both digital SLRs and compact cameras and in an excellent opening chapter, he explains the major differences between the two. Some part of the audience for this book might find the information on image sensors to be too technical – and for them there is enough practical advice to help choose a camera. But for those looking for a more in-depth explanation, this is a great hook.
Right after that Story lays out the features and functionalities of digital cameras in alphabetical order. This I felt put the book in camera manual territory. I own an old Canon Powershot G3 and while Story was describing the features (somewhat mechanically) I felt his book offered no more value than my manual (which is very well written, by the way, and a text that this book squarely competes with).
Once we are past this alphabetical cataloging, the book really starts to shine. How does it do that? By offering lots of practical advice on how to create and take great pictures, sometimes by replicating studio settings with low-tech contraptions. For example, Story shows you how to devise your own light meter, shoot in rain, bounce light off household reflective surfaces, and trick your camera's white balance.
Besides being very useful, these tips also offer terrific insights into how the digital camera works. It enhances your understanding of the instrument you are working with.
Later the book also contains a useful chapter on how to post-process your pictures using software. Story covers a number of popular packages such as Apple iPhoto, Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom, and Microsoft Expression Media. I would have really liked to see Story cover some web-based image editing applications in order to get in touch with Web 2.0 technologies.
There is also coverage of printing your pictures, a detail in the book that I really appreciated. And instead of trying to cover printer features and explain how to choose a printer in depth, Story keeps the focus on the camera by creating a short table with specific printer recommendations for different types of users.
Book Review: Layers – The Complete Guide to Photoshop’s Most Powerful Feature By Matt Kloskowski
Posted on April 19, 2008 - Filed Under Culture, Photo | Leave a Comment
Layers: The Complete Guide to Photoshop's Most Powerful Feature was written because author Matt Kloskowski wished that there had been a book specifically on layers when he was first learning Photoshop. Everyone knows that layers exist, and most people use layers to one extent or another, but few really understand their full potential. Yet understanding layers is one of the keys to understanding Photoshop. This book will show you exactly what you can do with layers, and how to do it. The Complete Guide to Photoshop's Most Powerful Feature: Layers is 288 pages in length and is contained in 9 chapters.
Chapter 1, "Layer Basics," explains the basics of layers. But even if you are familiar with layers, you will still want to read much of this chapter because there are quite a number of techniques that are shown here that many may not know exist. This is divided into the true basics, the use of multiple layers and stacking, and another lesson that has a ton of tips and tricks that you don't want to miss.
Chapter 2, "Blending Layers," lets you take layers even further by showing you how to mix layers together. By using the techniques illustrated here you can go beyond simply manipulating the opacity and really start learning about blending. The author's goal is not to show you every single item with regard to blending, but rather show you only the ones that you need to know about to get the job done. He begins with the three most important techniques, and then fills in with some additional ones that can be used as well.
Chapter 3, "Adjustment Layers," shows that there are other layers available beyond the regular layers that you have been working with thus far. This is a different type of layer in the way that it lets you edit images nondestructively. It even lets you apply selective adjustments to specific parts of your image.
Chapter 4, "Layer Masks," continues a technique that you learned in chapter 3 when making adjustments. Layer masks let you nondestructively erase areas away from one layer to reveal the layers below. An adjustment layer automatically includes a layer mask, but a regular layer does not so here you will learn how to add a layer mask to a regular layer.
Chapter 5, "Type and Shape Layers," are two kinds of layers that have not been covered as yet. While type layers are what you use to add text to a Photoshop document, they have a lot more power available to them as well. With type layers you can let your text take on a life of its own. Shape layers allow you to work with shape in your documents. Here you will work to making a poster using the Shape tools. With these, you can go beyond the simple shapes and create complex one.
Chapter 6, "Enhancing Photos with Layers," is about how to enhance digital photos by the use of layers. Here you will learn how to combine multiple layers, paint with light, perform selective sharpening, dodge and burn, enhance depth of field, and create soft focus.
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Book Review: The Silencing by Alix Lambert
Posted on April 5, 2008 - Filed Under Culture, Photo | Leave a Comment
We all know that there are circumstances where journalists put themselves at risk in order to cover a story. Camera men, reporters, and photo journalists frequently report from war zones and come under the same fire as the soldiers they are reporting on and run the same if not larger risks. For unlike the soldiers, they aren’t in a position to defend themselves. Yet while it is true that journalists are at risk under fire, it is only on rare occasions that they are deliberately targeted during these situations.
In his introduction to Human Rights Watch’s World Report 2008 called “Despots Masquerading As Democrats,” Kenneth Roth, Director of Human Rights Watch, wrote that silencing the media is one of the ways that a government has of ensuring the denial of the democratic process to their people. Now there are many ways that a government can do this: creating laws that control the media; allowing monopoly ownership of the media in return for favourable coverage; censorship; and either directly killing, or turning a blind eye to the killing of journalists.
It’s no coincidence that one of the first things that a government does when it wants to control how its people think is that it seeks to control the mass media. Even in North America–with our so-called free press–we have seen how easy it is for governments to sway public opinion when they are able to manipulate the media properly. Yet this behaviour pales in comparison to countries where journalists are murdered on a regular basis and the government attitude has done nothing to discourage this behaviour.
In The Silencing, a new book published by Viggo Mortensen’s Perceval Press, multi-talented artist Alix Lambert has compiled a collection of interviews, essays, and photographs that tell the story of six Russian journalists killed for being good at their jobs. For each of the six individuals, Ms. Lambert has visited the murder site and photographed it and interviewed a family member and/or colleague to tell us a little about the person who was murdered.
In her introduction, Ms. Lambert says that with the photographs she was trying to represent the sense of absence, what had happened, what might still happen, and that they are about possibility, loss, death, pain, passion, yet also about hope. The essays aren’t necessarily about the murder, or even what the story was that the person was working on that resulted in their murder–although in some of them that is mentioned. Instead they are about the person and what they meant to the person writing the essay.
In order to give us some idea of the significance behind the murder of these six people, Ms. Lambert includes in her introduction an essay by Ann Cooper, former executive director of the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), about the development of a free press in the former Soviet Union under Mikhail Gorbachev during the period of glasnost and perestroika in the mid 1980′s, and how that press actually prevented a coup by extreme Communists from overthrowing Gorbachev in 1991. Yet the problem was that with freedom from state control in the early 1990′s meant that there was no longer the state’s money paying the way for the press. Wealthy individuals began buying up the major media outlets in Moscow and turning them into mouthpieces for their political and social opinions.
So by the time Putin came to power in 1999, it was easy for him to start reigning in the freedom of the press, because the public no longer had the same faith in their objectivity that they had earlier in the decade. Putin was smart in that he only went after the major television stations and allowed independent print media to exist, knowing full well how little influence they actually carried. Of course, in the larger metropolitan centres like Moscow, other means could be brought to bear to exercise control of journalists who would report on matters that might be troubling to certain parties.
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Photography Review: “All Access with Kevin Mazur” at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum
Posted on March 28, 2008 - Filed Under Culture, Photo | Leave a Comment
A synchronized increase in negative connotations and the general gall of the paparazzi has made it difficult to differentiate the artists from the exploiters among celebrity photographers. Kevin Mazur is one of the select few who has managed to tow the artist’s line. It is this same line that has led him right into Cleveland’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum as its newest special exhibit, “All Access with Kevin Mazur.”
The exhibit is currently open to the public through May in the Ahmet M. Ertegun Main Exhibition Hall, which showcases twenty-plus prints spanning his twenty-five year evolution.
Mazur’s career germinated from a childhood love of rock ‘n’ roll and a life-changing high school graduation gift, his first camera. He attended his first concert, Led Zeppelin, in 1977 by way of mail order tickets and a party train. However, it was the magnetic force of Stevie Nicks from whom he could not pull his camera away, essentially laying out his life’s ambition for him.
From there he learned to duck and weave security, funding his way through scalping tickets. His renegade techniques eventually paid off and his first published photo was of Billy Joel, appearing in People magazine in 1982. Unlike many celebrity photographers, Mazur is one of the few who is actually invited to events and welcomed on stage and behind the scenes. He describes his career as a snowball effect: You meet one rocker and inevitably you meet their rocker-friends and so on and so forth. Before you know it, you are the only one Bob Dylan will allow into the recording studio and Prince is inviting you to document his Oscar after-party.
Like many artists, the story behind the piece means as much and sometimes more than the piece itself. Meeting Mazur, I was privileged to hear the stories behind the photographs, the essence of the moment, which he revealed in an animated manner. The moments of raw talent he has immortalized through his photos is only half as intriguing to me as the portraits he is able to compose. One of the portraits is a close up of Willie Nelson. His profile dominates the left foreground with a blurred American flag in the right background. The black and white composition emulates a delicate pencil drawing. The flag is a subtle reminder that Willie Nelson is about as American as apple pie, without seeming too clichéd because of the blurred effect.
Through his portraiture, one can see Mazur has a knack for making others comfortable around him, which allows him to capture subtle nuances in facial expressions and honesty in the moment. In a portrait of Ron Wood of the Rolling Stones, the expression on his face is an understated smirk that looks as though he just heard an off-color joke and is trying to keep a straight face.
Among Mazur’s other subjects are Rock Hall inductees Van Halen, Michael Jackson, David Bowie, Bruce Springsteen, Sting, U2, Elton John, and Madonna.
After twenty-five years, Mazur still possesses the same child-like enthusiasm with which he began his career. Coupled with a keen artist’s eye, he has managed to take his childhood dream to the “premier place to be displayed if you are a rock and roll photographer,” the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. This is hardly the end of the road for Mazur, as he stated, “When it’s not fun anymore, that’s when I stop… it’s still fun.”
Mazur’s first book, All Access with Kevin Mazur, will be published by HarperEntertainment, an imprint of HarperCollins, in 2009.
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