Findingviews

Archive for the ‘Meanderings’ Category

Image by ♥ China ♥ guccio via Flickr

Last week I was taking photographs for the social media photomarathon. (This is now over – and I will shortly be posting my closing post on this event over at Shared Creation.) My final picture was a representation of cosy using a wine glass and a gas fire. I had the idea and then tried the shot out immediately using my mobile phone. This reminded me that at times I have used my phone to take pictures when I haven’t had a larger camera about. Some of these shots I have worked up significant images.

This got me thinking about the camera on my phone. Its always with me. I use it to take pictures or to record picture ideas. In effect its become a both a photographic tool and the equivalent of carrying a sketchbook. Artists have long carried and used sketchbooks for the very purpose of exploring the idea of a picture before it is committed to canvas. My phone now does that – taking odd pictures, capturing textures or small and useful images if I do not have a larger camera about. Its useful to do a quick and unsophisticated capture. After all it is impossible to guarantee remembering all ideas, but a phone with a gallery does a good job of being a concept list.

Of course you can always add to that.

I also use the mobile version of Evernote to jot down ideas and add context to what I have been taking.

So never forget – in your pocket is a small device that can record ideas.

Here is the picture that started this train of thought

I’ve recently been thinking about how to take better photographs of products – i.e. things that you want to sell. I’m suggesting that these suggestions are a bible – but I find bearing these points in mind does lead to better results.

1. Keep the Camera Steady – use a tripod or a rest
2. Keep lighting soft.  avoid the build in flash on the camera and angle lights so that the product is well lit with getting any glare. Sunlight coming in from a window is useful but avoid a bright sun as this will increase the contrast and make a harsh image.
3. Make use of post processing software  (free examples include Google Picasa or  Microsoft live gallery, pricier options include Adobe Lightroom or Photoshop) to enhance the photograph
4. Make sure that background your product is resting is plain and is a neutral or complimentary colour to the product
1. White or black make good backgrounds colours. Remember to use opposing colours. a dark object should be shot against black. a bright object is best shot against a black background.
2. Use a colour scheme generator to work out the complimentary colours for the main colour in the product. a good colour scheme designer is : http://colorschemedesigner.com/
5. Use a fill light. what this means have the main (soft) lights on the product.  use another light to illuminate to the side or behind the product to give an even or fill light.
6. Shoot from as straight onto the product as possible and zoom in close to the product. Zooming in close however does not apply when trying to place the product in context. What is important then is the composition of the whole scene
7. Make sure the products best feature is shown off as much as possible in the photograph
8. As there will be plenty of light set the ISO number low on the camera
9. Adjust the f stop (f-number) to give as much or as little depth as needed – a low number is a high depth of field. higher numbers give medium to little depth of field. I tend to get good results with a low F number
10. Remove shadows – adjust the position of the camera, product and lights to remove as much shadow as possible. If shadows to occur – remove later in post processing.

If  you have other ideas or suggestions I’d love to hear from you.

When you take a photograph, you are composing a view of a something. The moment the shutter releases a moment has been captured. Later if you edit or enhance that photograph you are composing it again. Do you crop, do you alter the importance or one thing over another? As the polish goes on the photograph changes from a composition of a moment to something else. That is where it all stops, your polished photograph is an interpretation of a moment.

What happens when time goes by even further?

Weeks, months or years later you take another look at the same photograph and say – I could do better. Now that time has past you are emotionally more distant from the moment and are viewing afresh with a different point perspective. If a reasonable amount of time has past you will probably have further developed your idea of style and will have new ideas on how an image should look. Applying your new viewpoint to an old image creates something new; another interpretation.

Is this valuable? – Well yes as something genuinely good and interesting can be the result.

Are there dangers? – Yes you are mashing up the past. Make sure you do not lose the old work. It is how you got to where you are today, it may still be valuable as an image. It will always be valuable as part of the record. In a digital world there is a danger that by continuously altering past work we lose past record and only have the moment.

The way I see it, digital recording gives us unlimited scope to edit. That’s unlimited scope to revise. We should do this if something good can be achieved, but we should be careful not to erase our pasts while we do this. Losing the past puts us into Big Brother territory were all we have are moments on a screen and very little else.

How did I arrive at these thoughts. I’ve recently updated a some of my earlier works. Here are the two latest examples.

I’m lucky enough to be able to access Windows 7 ahead of the main launch. This is a good thing since my company Alpha Technical Solutions is hosting one of the Windows 7 launch parties on October 22nd, this also meant with September drawing to close I’d better gen up on Windows 7.

So earlier on today I decided to upgrade my main workstation. Upgrade is a nice way of putting since I’d decided to go for the 64 bit version of Windows 7 and that most definitely means a clean install of Windows. So after making sure all my backups were in tip top condition and using Windows Easy Transfer to secure my settings I started to install Windows 7. It turned out that the installer is Microsoft’s best yet. Clean looking, nicely designed and very easy to use. The software went in an absolute charm. Before long I was rebooting into Windows 7. It looked nice, I picked a graphical theme and made sure that my documents were all being pointed to by documents and libraries (love libraries by the way – great way of organising files).

Next step – run some of the basic software installs. After all a clean install means all your applications have to be reinstalled. I always dread this bit – mostly as I use some pretty heavy weight programs and that always means reinstalling everything takes a while. It also means that I only put on what I really need. This is a good thing. Computers tend to get bunged up with clutter – so having to reinstall from scratch is always a good way of keeping things clean and fresh.

That’s my current state – everything essential is back working again, I’ve got a few more  installs to go, but these can happen over the next few days quite safely. What’s pleased me is that upgrading to Windows 7 has been so far painless.

Oh and how does it run? One word – smooth.

Image by Chesi – Fotos CC via Flickr

A few days ago I experimented with importing my RSS feed from Flickr. The good side to this was that is easy to pull in recent photographs using this service directly to Findingviews. The part of my that loves automation likes this idea. I update Flickr and the blog updates automatically. It reduces my work and Findingviews gains an update.

Oddly I’m now wondering how good an idea that is.

The reason isn’t particularly technical. Its all revolves around presentation. My general photographs and some basic notes are shared via Flickr. I also sell selected work on Red Bubble. Findingviews isn’t really about repetition of what I already release publically. Its about my thoughts and the images themselves. In other words I don’t want to repeat, repeat and then repeat more. The posts on Findingviews need to have their own intrinsic value, they have to be about something. This means that I will still import photographs from Flickr, but I will write something about these and add some value to the pictures.

I’ve decided not to use the power of RSS to bore you.

I’ve decided to try and entertain you.

Its a question of using the power of the feed in an appropriate manner.

Just because we can, doesn’t always mean we should.