Sleeveface

 I'd love to do this with my students if any of them understood it when I refer to an album or record cover.  Usually I get, "Are you talking about CD's Mr. G?" or "Album? You mean like a picture album?" This conversation usually then degenerates into me calling them "young and ignorant" and them responding with taunts about me being "ancient and senile".

Click on over to Accidental Mysteries to see a whole series of these shots.

[Image captured from Sleeveshot: Accidental Mysteries: http://accidentalmysteries.blogspot.com/2010/02/sleeveface.html]

YoungMe:NowMe

Yesterday's post reminded me of a contest ZeFrank, a popular blogger, ran last year called, YoungMe:NowMe. Essentially, you find an old photograph of yourself as a child or a baby and then recreate the exact pose with you as an adult.

I think this would be a great idea to use with a class of kids who need a digital photography assignment. Or a fun staff activity. Or just fun for the sake of having fun. I am trying to get my family interested in doing this for all the adults. Then I want to take the results and put them in a photobook. I'll let you know if they say yes and maybe post some of the results.

The shot shown at the top was the winner.

[Image captured from YoungMe:NowMe site]

Imagine Finding Me

Chino Otsuka has a unique collection of photos. She took old snapshots from her childhood and Photoshopped her adult self into the scene. The gallery is called Imagine Finding Me.

I loved these photos and of course while looking wondered if my students could pull this off? I think this could be another interesting project for a photography or multimedia class. Students would have to give some thought to lighting. Clothes. Shadows. Scratches.

It could be fun for kids. Fun for me to grade.


[via Monsters and Rockets]

Panaramic Inauguration

This panoramic image was mentioned on several sites and I finally clicked over to take a look and was impressed. I loved being able to zoom in on sections. Close enough to make out facial expressions. The creator had this to say:

I made a panoramic image showing the nearly two million people who watched President Obama’s inaugural address. To do so, I clamped a Gigapan Imager to the railing on the north media platform about six feet from my photo position. The Gigapan is a robotic camera mount that allows me to take multiple images and stitch them together, creating a massive image file.

[Image captured from David Bergman's blog: All Access: http://www.davidbergman.net/blog/2009/01/22/how-i-made-a-1474-megapixel-photo-during-president-obamas-inaugural-address/]

Improvised zoom lens

While vacationing in Monterrey, California recently I had the opportunity to try something out that's been on my mind. I had my digital camera and my binoculars in my hands at the same time so I decided to try and take a picture holding the camera up to the binoculars lens

The first picture you see here was taken using only my camera zoomed in all the way. The second was taken using the binoculars. It worked but it took multiple attempts to get it just right. It's tough to hold the two together and keep everything steady. I had a lot of blurred shots. You also have to line the two up perfectly. The bird didn't help by walking out of the frame.

I think a simple jig might do the trick here if I were to try this again. Something that could hold both in the same plain and free me up to focus and frame my shot.

Now if I only had a telescope.......











[Images all taken by Al Gunn and are free for the taking. No restrictions. No attributions. If you need a free picture of a sea gull than I'm your man!]

Picnik: Online photo editor

I was looking for an easy, convienient and free way for my students to do some simple photo editing. We have Photoshop available in my lab but it isn't loaded on every computer in the school. Not a lot of kids have it at home as it's pretty expensive. So, I went and looked at Adobe's online editing site thinking it might be an alternative. I liked it. It let you do more online than I expected but you have to create a login and register before you can get started. It didn't take much time but it was one extra step. Plus, one more login and password for my students to forget.

I remembered reading about a free online editing site and after a little searching, I found the one reviewed. It's called picnik and it doesn't require any pre-registration before getting started.

When you enter the site you click the Get Started Now! button. This will take anywhere from 10 to 30 seconds depending on the speed of your connection. Only time it's taken longer to start it up for me is when I've been at home and running several programs at once, checking my mail and singing along to a Bob Dylan song. In my lab, with all my kids logging in at the same time, it took about 15 seconds.

You'll be prompted to sign in or create account. You can if you want or you if you just want to get in and edit a picture look a little further down the page and you'll see an Upload Photo button. Click this and you can then navigate to the photo you want to edit and upload it from your computer. It even has a little progress widget to show you that it is working. Once again, this has always taken less than a minute to finish. Once it's done you'll see your picture and this toolbar.




I uploaded an image of a lilly from my backyard.


















I clicked on the auto-fix tab to see how well the program could fix simple exposure flaws.


















Not a huge change but it did lighten the picture a bit. I've used this feature on other photos and have seen a big difference. Other times, I like the original better or I ignore this button and tweak the settings in Exposure. I shot a picture of that control bar so you could see your options.

























I picked the Crop tab next and got a nice surprise. The crop screen is divided into thirds. In my multimedia class this led to a good discussion of the Rule of Thirds. (Nice explanation here if your not familiar with this term.)

Before leaving the editing section, I wanted to test the red eye tool so I found a picture with a bad case of "demon eyes" and used the tool on that image. I felt the results were perfectly acceptable. Here is a close-up of before and after.







Next I went into the Create section of Picnik and here's a random selection of a few of the effects available applied to my lilly.





















Drop Shadow






















Focal Soften





















Heat Map





















Pencil Sketch























Polaroid Frame

I like this program. I've had kids in my building using this for a couple of weeks now and haven't had any complaints. It's easy to use. It's easy to upload and download your picture. It's free.

[Images: All pictures and graphics created by Al Gunn and he gives up all rights to these photos. Use them as you will.]

Better photos through composition

Quick tutorial on improving photos through composition. The author give two easy techniques: one with your camera and the other with your photo editor.


Show it to your students and set them loose for a fast lesson on your first day back after suffering the indignities of a nasty stomach virus.









[Image: Captured from Information Addicts: Change Your View, Change Your Composition: http://www.informationaddicts.com/change-your-view-change-your-composition]

If you outlaw cameras only outlaws will have cameras.

Right after writing about cameras being everywhere and the difficulty in stopping people from taking photographs in a concert venue, I read this article on BoingBoing; UK mall bans grandparents for trying to photo their grandkids. The article describes a couples experience in a shopping mall in the UK. They were stopped using their camera because taking photos was banned due to a "security risk."

"Oh but that could only happen in the UK. It wouldn't ever happen in the US," you say. How about Silver Springs, MD where a photographer was recently stopped from taking pictures.

Lots of bandwidth on this issue and it is only going to get more intense as cameras get smaller and more pervasive. This might be a good classroom discussion starter. I know it has me thinking.

[Image Source: Amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com/ Sony-DSCU10-1-3MP-Digital-Camera/dp/B00006JHTQ/ref=pd_bbs_3?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1199397124&sr=8-3 : Found this on Amazon after doing a search for "tiny camera".]

Cameras Everywhere

I didn't ever think that I would ever have a post about Paris Hilton on my blog.

Never say never.

This isn't going to be any deep think piece on her, her contribution to society, the role of the celebrity in today's world or even a fashion critique. I ran across a photo of her at a party and it wasn't Paris that caught my eye, it was all the cameras in the audience. (OK...so maybe I am getting old....but really, it was the cameras that caught my eye!) They weren't the usual big paparazzi style cameras. These were all small hand helds similar to the one I carry with me most of the time.




I grabbed the picture and messed around with it in Photoshop and was able to find 19 cameras being held up. The four in the back I guessed on. There were a few more that were just too blurry to call. But, in this snapshot of Ms. Hilton, there were at least 19 people in the crowd taking pictures. Probably a few professionals, but my assumption is that most of them are just regular folks who had their camera's with them.


I am also guessing that at an event like this, people come partly to see Paris Hilton. The management probably doesn't discourage their taking pictures. I posted earlier this month about an experience at a concert watching folks take pictures during the event with their cameras. I didn't mention that there was an announcement first thing asking patrons not to take pictures or record the performance. That didn't stop a large number of people from still doing it. I remember a time in my younger years when a camera or recording equipment would be confiscated if observed by any of the concert staff. What's a concert venue to do when pretty much every one coming into the theater now has the ability to record sound and pictures?

How do we define fair use and copyright in a world where what I see and what I hear can be saved so easily on my electronic devices?

[Image Source: FoxNews: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,319810,00.html]

Way Cool Photoshoot

Saw this photo posted on Strobist the other day along with a video detailing the steps in creating the image. It was made by Brandon Voges at Brouton Stroube Studios (fun site to browse) and involves multiple photos and a lot of Photoshopping. Each person in the shot was photographed separately and then it all was pieced together.

I once had a group of students trying to stage an action shot. There was a lots of different things happening at the same time. They spent hours trying to coordinate all the actors to move simultaneously hoping the camera guy would hit the shutter correctly. One person always messed up their cue and so they kept doing it over and over again. The part I remember clearly was one young man whose job was to jump in the air. The next day he was so sore he couldn't do it anymore. They changed their plan at that point.



After watching the video, I thought what a great project idea for a tech lab or a photography class. Of course you'd have to keep your photo "school safe." No paint guns. No jumping up from a trampoline and landing on mattresses. No milk thrown around... at least not in my lab. But if you have access to a digital camera and Photoshop, your students could use the same techniques that would have their friends scratching their heads and asking, "How'd you do that?"

[Initial Source: Strobist: "A Little Light Painting": Nov 27, 2007]
[Image: Brandon Boges; Bruton|Stroube; http://www.brutonstroube.com/]

Frugal Lighting for Video

Lighting a video shoot is not one of my strengths. I blame my color blindness but, it's more likely that I just don't work with it enough. One reason I've not had much experience with formal lighting is the expense of professional kits. For the price of a few lights I could get lots of other equipment that I felt I needed more for my labs.

Last year I shared space with the photography teacher and began to see that I may have been mistaken. Her students were did some amazing things with lights. I've been intrigued by articles I've read over the past year about using cheap lighting for photography purchased from Home Depot or your local hardware store. If you are just starting out or trying to set up an inexpensive light kit for a school, this might be a way to go.

Here is a short post on the Strobist that walks you through the fluorescent light aisle of Home Depot with the frugal photographer in mind. The entire blog is about lighting. There is also a ton of pictures done by the author and his readers. I cruised through the site and saw a few pictures that were slightly risque. There wasn't anything you wouldn't see in a woman's fashion magazine but I still don't think I would chance sending kids to this site to explore. (Why I am reading women's fashion magazines is a whole other story!)

[Image: © Dawid Kasprzak - Fotolia.com]

Photographs of the Photographers

A few years back I was at Rocky Mountain National Park watching some elk. A man with a huge backpack of equipment came up and started to set up to photograph the scene. I ended up watching him. He had a lens that was as big as my leg. His tripod was a mechanical contraption out of a science fiction movie. He was wearing a vest with a million bulging pockets. It was fascinating.

When you first start sending students out to take pictures they want to stand far away from the action. They tell me it's embarrassing to get so close. They end up with those all too common "vacation shots" of little tiny people who are barely recognizable.

"Yup! That's Aunt Ruthie there by the rim of the Grand Canyon. At least I think that's Ruthie. She has a hat like that one there. Nope. Nope. That's some stranger. But, ain't the canyon beautiful?"

It is hard to get young photographers down into the action. Possibly this series of pictures will inspire them as they show photographers in action. Unfortunately, the photos are not cited. I love this content and will look for similar sites, but please leave a comment if you know of a good location that cites it's sources.

I might mention that I have mixed feelings about the photographer getting down into the action. Sometimes the photographer becomes a part of what she is trying to film. Ever been to a wedding where the photographer is more visible than the bride? The couple end up with great wedding photos but the guests remember the big guy with the humongous camera taking pictures. I have no answers here, just a vague unformed thought about how can we really be observing something if we are part of it?

Update: (11/13/07)I just checked on this site and it isn't working due to the owner running out of memory in their account. (I think?) Hopefully, the pictures will be available again sometime soon.

[Image:"Photopgraphers and their hard work." \STATiC. 27 Oct 2007 .]