∞ Blog ∞
On Photography, Art, And The Creative Life
Welcome to the place affectionately known as my "writings on the walls", where you will find images, thoughts, and discussions on Photography, Art, and The Creative Life... or so I'm told.
A.I.? D.I.Y.!
When it comes to creating (*generating) images using Artificial Intelligence tools, I ask students (really any photographers), can you do that without A.I.? Do you have the requisite skills and know-how to create these same images on your own? If not, then maybe you’re not the artist you think you are. If your first response is “No I’m not that’s w...
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A.I. and Ethics
Are there any moral or ethical considerations to be calculated when using Artificial Intelligence to “create” Art (or is “generate” a better term)? This makes me wonder if ethics are taught in school anymore?
So what does ethics have to do with using A.I. tools to create images or art? Well, when the tool is doing what has been termed “scraping” t...
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A.I. and “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice”
So what is all the uproar about Artificial Intelligence and the creation of images/artwork? I have a few thoughts 💭… Now let me say I have not personally interacted directly with any A.I. program targeting the creative image making field (i.e. Photography.) I have however watched a number of demos of some of the newer iterations like Adobe’s “Gene...
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It’s the LUT Life for Me!
A while back I did a video tutorial on how I create LUTs using Affinity Photo to color grade images and import them into my desktop 🖥️ program Exposure X5. Because Exposure X5 (and later versions) is one of the only image post-processing apps that has a well developed, robust and dedicated LUTs tool, it has been where I’ve chosen to utilize this p...
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One Lens to Rule Them All!
Now let me start by saying I am NOT by any stretch an optics engineer, nor do I fully understand the physics of lens creation. I certainly don’t know what Apple engineers know about creating lenses for iPhones and the technology associated with the chip sensors and neural goodness they employ to go with their lenses. That said, I can’t help but won...
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I’m A Skipper
I am a “Skipper”. No, not the boat kind, I skip software versions, and hardware upgrades on a regular basis (but not every time 😉.) Coming up in the analog photography days, it was easy to see the camera as just a “film holder” with a lens. Choosing a camera system was more about choosing the best glass for the best image quality, and that’s why N...
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How I Did It :: Used Film Post 1
This is the first in a series of 11 blogposts in the “Used Film” series describing the thought processes, creative decisions, and analog process of creating these images using film 🎞, both Polaroid and sheet film. So much of these processes, figuring out how to create the looks and effects, felt very much like being Victor Frankenstein and piecing...
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How I Did It :: Used Film Post 2
This image, called “Blue Ram” was created from a 4x5 Polaroid Type-55 single sheet of Black and White film. With Type-55 you get a positive Black & White print, plus a usable negative film sheet. I love the organic, analog processing marks of Polaroid films, mostly limited to the edging “marks.” They are so popular that several digital programs lik...
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How I Did It :: Used Film Post 3
If you are following this Used Film series in order, you’ll recognize the technique I used to get this second ram’s skull image. This particular image above is actually only technically the third step in the process and not the final image (it contains the negative image of the skull, plus the negative image of the paper background itself, both “sa...
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How I Did It :: Used Film Part 4
This image titled, “Feather, Stone, and Light” was inspired by the title track from the collaborative album of the same name by the Native American flautist R. Carlos Nakai. It is the literal interpretation of that instrumental piece, which I listened to while making this image. Shooting straight down on a tripod mounted 4x5 large format camera is...
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How I Did It :: Used Film Part 5
Ah, now this image I feel was truly inspired! What is it? Technically it was created as a background only for a watch ad where the theme was “Cubist” and meant to play up the qualities of the watch and it’s calendar features. After days of not having a clue as to how to illustrate a “Cubism” look with a 4x5 camera and analog film (remember this was...
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How I Did It :: Used Film Part 6
This image was originally created for an editorial cover illustrating the human senses. This one turns up the notch on creating multi-layered analog film images. Long before I was introduced to Photoshop I was creating various multiple exposure images in-camera using Polaroids and color positive films. I learned how to combine multiple images on a...
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How I Did It :: Used Film Part 7
Orchids are beautiful subjects to photograph whether in color or Black & White. For this one I chose to photograph it using Type-55 Polaroid. I chose a special Japanese art paper called Mulberry as the background for the infused seedlings and fibers in this thick paper. It seemed to convey that quality of life and fertility. Again I chose to light...
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How I Did It :: Used Film Part 8
This image, unique from the others in this series, comes from a 35mm Black & White infrared film negative re-photographed onto a Type-55 Polaroid neg. Remember a negative of a negative creates a positive image. In order to create a 4x5 Polaroid image from a 35mm original, you need a special piece of gear (or alternatively you could achieve similar...
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How I did It :: Used Film Part 9
So, you have to make a course to teach students about all the creative fine art possibilities of various Polaroid films. Before it went under, Polaroid had some very cool films nobody else could match. One of those films was the popular Time-Zero film for the SX-70 camera. One photographer I knew of from the ‘80s who pretty much owned this Time-Zer...
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