insights into photography
In the world of photo editing, sharpening is the tool that you love to hate. It can easily turn your beautiful photo into a harsh, unattractive image if you’re not careful how you approach this. For something so simple, there are many avenues to pursue – but which is best?….more This article is written by Christopher O’Donnell who makes a lot of sense and has a very nice website
The digital camera continues to revolutionise our photographic lives. The complicated and expensive days of film are now long gone. But recent years have seen camera technology begin to stagnate. Have we hit a megapixel plateau? Is facial recognition as far as the point and shoot can go? Or is there an exciting future in store for the camera?...more
Meet the Lytro light-field camera. While still in the early stages of development, hence the lack of images of the camera hardware itself, it is shaping up to change photography in a big way. The new technology allows you to create a one-stop shop photograph that can be selectively focused after the picture has been taken....more on Geeko blog
One thing the Lytro can’t fix though is an unforgiving portrait or awkward family photo. There are however some compact cameras currently on the market that say otherwise. Enter the make-up applying point and shoot, which intelligently airbrushes shots to make the subject look better....more
Digital cameras are also set to change the way we approach and view photos altogether. Traditionally in order to take a snap you need to have the lens pointed at the subject. Only the widest of wide-angles can pack in about 180 degrees of what you see in front of you. Imagine a camera that can snap absolutely everything around, creating a single snapshot of a scene in its entirety...more
So what direction should camera design be taking? The traditional viewfinder approach to things still seems to be the best way to take photographs. Ergonomics have barely changed since the advent of the SLR and rangefinder years ago. There is, however, one concept from Canon which could drastically change the way we approach a camera. The idea is the ultimate bridge camera with all encompassing wide angle to 500mm zoom. This means the end of heavy camera bags, switching lenses and expensive camera kits.…more
How many of these ideas will get beyond concept is something only time will reveal
A new portrait photograph of the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh, the first to be commissioned of the two together, has been released by the National Portrait Gallery in London, as part of an exhibition to mark next year’s Diamond Jubilee called The Queen: Art and Image.the exhibition information is
17 May – 21 October 2012
Porter Gallery
Queen Elizabeth II
by Dorothy Wilding, hand-coloured by Beatrice Johnson
1952
NPG x125105
Touring
The new portrait by Thomas Struth can be seen on the BBC website and there is a recording of Struth talking about the image
“Forget the camera, forget the lens, forget all of that. With any four-dollar camera, you can capture the best picture.” Alberto Korda
The picture of the Argentine born Marxist revolutionary Che Guevara is the most famous, most reproduced image in the world. You see it on tee-shirts, bedspreads and baseball caps and as Richard Castle of the Brisbane Times wryly observed “strolling down Brunswick Street or Chapel Street, it could be easy to think Che Guevara was the only man under 40 never to have worn a Che Guevara T-shirt”.
Oxford School of Photography 