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Tag: Ansel Adams

The press of the shutter is just the beginning

I shoot RAW+JPEG and process mostly RAW images. SOOC (Straight Out Of Camera) JPEG images rarely look the way I want them to look, and importing both RAW and JPEG into Adobe Lightroom Classic takes time (those darn 24MP files) and disk space (my Lightroom catalogue started in 2008 and is now 1.39 TB on disk). My SOOC JPEGs are usually downloaded to my iPhone for immediate sharing on social media.

However, I do enjoy using film simulation recipes, and I want to be able to import the RAF file (RAW format for Fujifilm cameras) into Adobe Lightroom Classic and THEN apply the film simulation recipe and settings to the RAF image.

I have no problem sitting in front of the computer editing photos to my liking, even if it takes hours. The well-known landscape photographer Ansel Adams, and other famous photographers spent hours in the darkroom, dodging and burning. To me, using SOOC JPEG is the digital equivalent of taking the roll to the local shop for development and printing.

An excellent example is the photograph Schweitzer with lamp at his desk by W. Eugene Smith, from his 1954 photo essay A Man of Mercy on Dr. Albert Schweitzer and his humanitarian work in French Equatorial Africa. The image took 5 days to produce, in order to reproduce the tonal range of the scene, which ranges from a bright lamp (relative to the scene) to dark shadow.

Ansel Adams elevated dodging and burning to an art form. Many of his famous prints were manipulated in the darkroom with these two techniques. Adams wrote a comprehensive book on producing prints called The Print (Adams 1995), which features dodging and burning prominently, in the context of his Zone System.

Wikipedia

I may not have their skill of composition, lighting, etc., but I would like to think I am cut from the same cloth when it comes to developing my images. The press of the shutter is just the beginning.

Sunday Paper - Brain Training Games, Ansel Adams, Tim Cook

Every Saturday, I share a list of inspiring or interesting articles that I read during the week. Here’s what I read this week.

The government has used tracking technology in printed documents to unmask anonymous writers.

Not all printers' tracking information is readily visible. Some of the documents we obtained about this technology showed that there is a subsequent generation of tracking technology, which apparently works by slightly rearranging dots that the printer is expected to print, rather than by adding new dots. Anyone using a color laser printer should assume that it uses some kind of tracking mechanism, whether or not tracking dots are visible in its output.deeplinks

The new iPad Pro.

There are also ergonomic issues: To use two-handed gestures, your iPad can’t be in your hands. So these are gestures primarily intended for iPads that are on a table, in a case, in a lap, or otherwise someplace where you’ve got both hands free to manipulate data. That’s limiting, but it’s also freeing—these large devices are far more likely to be put into situations like that, and if you consider a future with even larger iOS devices, two-handed gestures should become an even bigger part of the interface story.Jason Snell

Apple CEO, Tim Cook on technology.

While he calls AI “profound” and increasingly capable of doing unbelievable things, on matters that require judgment he’s not comfortable with automating the human entirely out of the equation. “When technological advancement can go up so exponentially I do think there’s a risk of losing sight of the fact that tech should serve humanity, not the other way around.”MIT Technology Review

Apparently, memory boosting games are a crock of shit.

All isn’t lost though; where specialised brain training games failed, regular games, inclusive of Mario Kart-style experiences and more conventional hobbies like blackjack and bridge, succeeded. Alzheimer’s Research UK, while stopping short of linking stimulating hobbies to the prevention or cure of degenerative brain disorders, notes that people who play card games have better cognitive abilities and even larger brains.High50

The HomePod is $350.

It’s really meant to be a “smart” music listening device that you can get answers from… that’s it.Nuclear Bits

Photography trends.

The great 20th-century American landscape photographer Ansel Adams, when asked what camera he used, famously answered: "The biggest one I can carry!"The Online Photographer

Every Saturday, I share a list of inspiring or interesting articles that I read during the week. Here’s what I read this week.