ultraorange.net » photography

Dali – Communists on a Beard

orangeguru — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 14:57:52 +0000

Click image for more Reds.

Communism was born as a result of the harsh reality workers had to face in the Industrial Age. You can count on the Spanish Master of Surrealism to put a different spin on it …

PS: Does anyone know the great Photographer?

Nicholas Murray – Marilyn Monroe & Fruit (1952)

orangeguru — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 19:01:00 +0000

Click image for a larger Banana.

This is an odd portrait: it follows the old tradition of "still life studies" (painting a bunch of fruit of vegs) and mixes it with a hot celebrity.

Sure the fruits are strategly places in her crotch to imply fertility and juiciness, but Marilyn has a sad expression in her face. Not sexy at all …

Portraits from the Congo

orangeguru — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 16:02:00 +0000

Visit this BBC Gallery for some incredible Portraits.

Black faces have such a different, but incredible expressiveness and not many photographers really know how to work with this different kind of facial contrasts.

Herding the Pixel Wolf Pack

orangeguru — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 08:47:13 +0000

Photo Journalists try to satisfy our huge hunger for images. It’s not enough that we watched an event on television, we still need / want pictures when we read about the very same event in a newspaper or online.

It’s no longer enough to read a text that something happened, we want a visual confirmation. After the Age of Text we are entering the Age of Video.

And the Pixel Wolfs are happy to deliver …

Korean War in Winter

orangeguru — Sat, 26 Jun 2010 11:08:11 +0000

Click image for a larger horror.

War is always brutal, but any campaign lasting into a bloody harsh winter is even more so.

Napoleon’s troops had to pay a terrible price, so did Hitlers’s Wehrmacht and Allied Troops in Korea (pictured above).

Hasselblad Hogs by manyfires

orangeguru — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 09:26:54 +0000

What a great shot by manyfires I found via flickr. Not only humans have very expressive faces …

Gertrude Käsebier – Red Men (1903)

orangeguru — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 04:04:00 +0000

Click image for a more native look.

Another stunning photo by the great Gertude Käsebier at the height of her career. Once again she proves her unique approach. Most portraits of Indians focus rather on the "differences" between the races instead of the shared humanity. This portrait is intimate and gentle, focusing on the person and not the ethnicity.

The most excellent Metaphor for all things related to Public Relation and also Marketing

orangeguru — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 20:57:53 +0000

Click image for more importance …

The evil genius Edward Bernays had the insight to use his Uncle’s Sigmund Freud’s great work to sell us even more crap by appealing to our emotional needs and desires.

Public Relation is nothing less than propaganda and that was also the name of Bernays great book on this very topic.

Today most Marketing (which actually should be different to Public Relations) has degraded to the same low level approach as PR.

Photo: Tirage-lambdat by the amazing Philippe Jarrigeon.

Gertrude Käsebier – Manger 1899

orangeguru — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 17:28:54 +0000

Click image for a bigger one …

Another great photo from Gertrude Käsebier: intimate, sensual and quiet.

This is a shot from the early days of Photography and was mostly influenced by how painters had depicting mothers. But contrary to the glorified paintings (which Käsebier could have easily recreated in a studio), she added a hefty dose of realism.

Therefore she broke the old stereotypes and gave her audience a new way to connect to art.

Water is tough if you are tiny

orangeguru — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 16:00:00 +0000

Click image for a bigger Ant.

Insects need water as much as any other creature on this planet. But if you are tiny you just can’t drink it. The waters surface tension makes it probably as tough as freshly poured concrete is for humans. That is why some insects can walk on water, because the surface simply is "hard" enough for them.

Many insects either get their water supply from their food or drink from morning dews like that Ant above.

Photo by the great Meszaros Andras – Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2009

Gertrude Käsebier – Yoked and Muzzled – Marriage

orangeguru — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 15:33:29 +0000

Click image for more cows.

Another great shot from the amazing Gertrude Käsebier from 1915. The title says it all – guess she was not a big fan of marriage?

Delightful Innocence

orangeguru — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 08:36:02 +0000

Click image for more innocence.

Don’t be shy my dear! Your beauty, charm and pretentious innocence promises many delightful moments between us …

PS: Does anyone know the Photographer of this great shot?

Gertrude Käsebier – Miss Minnie Ashley

orangeguru — Wed, 26 May 2010 05:57:01 +0000

Click image for a a larger version.

Gertrude Käsebier was one of the first leading female Photographers. Her life was tragic and her career often conflicted (read the Wikipedia article for more details). It’s all rather sad.

Nevertheless her art is still amazing and like so many great artists she was ahead of her time and didn’t really benefit from her talents.

Those Guys from Pathology

orangeguru — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 21:58:46 +0000

Click image for a warmer touch.

This is exactly how I imaged people working in pathology. Does anyone know the brilliant photographer?

*update*

This photo is called "Stefan und Gert".

The Photographer is the amazing Werner Stapfelfeldt – more of his work here on Seenby.com! And you can actually buy a print of this great shot there as well!

The Magic Eyes of Elizabeth Taylor

orangeguru — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 10:16:47 +0000

Click image for past glories …

Who can resist the gaze of Liz Taylor – the modern Cleopatra of Hollywood?

The Noughties: The Triumph of the Pixel – digital Video and Photography are now everywhere

orangeguru — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 21:52:56 +0000

To own a digital camera at the end of the 1990’s was pretty unusual and expensive. Ten years later almost every gadget seems to be able to shot photos and videos – even in High-Definition …

Cheap Sensors

The arrival of cheap sensors and storage allowed cell phone and computer manufacturer to stuff a camera into almost every gadget we carry around. There are hardly any cell phones or notebooks without a cam these days.

And the Quality! There was literally an explosion of pixel power – who would today bother with a 1-Mega-Pixel-Camera? Sure pixel resolution is not everything, but the image quality has equally improved with pixel quantity.

Early Nokia prototypes …

Cheap Monitors

But the Revolution of the Pixel includes LCD monitors – which are now huge and cheap (my current 24"-Samsung-Display would have been astronomically expensive in 1999). The analogue monitor is dead – LCDs have overtaken our eyes. Their sharpness and extreme colour range has redefined our viewing habits.

Cheap Storage and Bandwidth

Big sensor create big images – but today we also have the CHEAP big memory cards, sticks and chips to store them – as well as fast broadband to send our crappy holiday shots to all our friends and social media appendices via eMail or Social Media website (like Flickr and Facebook).

The Real Changes: record anything everywhere and at anytime

Because not only Big Brother has CCTV cameras everywhere we mere mortals can and do record anything. Thanks to YouTube and Flickr (and their clones) we can and do share everything we record.

In the last ten years there has been a flood of digital videos and photos. I suspect we all shot more images and hours of footage in these last ten years with our cheap gadgets than all generations before us?!

And the pixelated flood will continue.

On the web you can videos of any occasion and situation: from airplanes crashes, terrorist attacks, amateur sex and children’s birthdays. It alls there.

I wonder how he feels about that (public) video in twenty years?

The new global sharing culture enables us to share our lives with others and see how others live their life’s. It has never been so easy to experience, study and learn the human condition.

Since we love Social Porn (<- see my essay on that subject here) this trend will continue. It’s not Big Brother watching us – we love to show ourselves and watch others. This was first limited to celebrities and personal holiday snapshots. Today we can record and broadcast our own lives 24/7 – and some people already do.

That also means that social acceptance of being watched by the government and others has risen. In a world were everybody can record, share and watch everyone the old idea of privacy is gone …

We all know what you did ten summers ago … and you will never be able to delete that image …

The Real Changes: the Web never forgets and will find you

The global visual sharing culture has just begun, already billions of images and videos are online. And the web never forgets …

In the last century your parents were probably the keepers and guardians of your embarrassing childhood shots – today compromising material will sooner or later land on the web.

Many employers as well as "friends" check on Facebook and other social media your history before they get closer.

Thanks to Geo-Tagging and Facial Recognition it will be much easier to find a specific person in a gazillion images and videos. There is no such thing as anonymity in this brave new pixel world.

Reality – captured from many slightly different perspectives.

The Real Changes: the global Big Picture and Synthesized Reality

Soon there won’t be a place that hasn’t been photographed or captured in video. We will have a complete visual memory of our planet.

But there is more: all these images and technology will not only allow us to "find" each other – it will allow us to merge all that huge image and video pool into synthesized memory spaces (<- read my essay here).

Smart software literally stitches photos into a 3D-environment and connect / compute additional information into that "space".

When you think that Google Streetview and Google Earth are pretty amazing than hold on to your socks – the new kind of search will finally feel like stranger than any science fiction movie you have seen …

Is it real or is it … HDR?

The Real Changes: Reality is not as good as High-Definition

The last ten years have also brought a different change: the way we perceive what "reality" should look like.

Cameras, monitors and videos have slowly changed from the old 4:3 format to 16:9. The future is no longer square, but widescreen …

But the sharpness, colour range and contrast of images has changed dramatically, best illustrated by so called HDR-Images.

Before and after the HDR treatment …

Similar to before mentioned synthesized memory spaces already available cameras can combine several shots into one "High dynamic range image" that looks more real than reality.

Before the arrival of digital tools (read Photoshop or Paint Boxes for professional TV and Film productions) it was very hard to manipulate images.

Today almost any cheap camera or cell phone cam offers "image improvement filters" ranging from simple red eye removal to face finders and even body slimmers.

All these technologies have changed our perception of reality: old black & white television was unreal, even analogue colour TV looks unreal to a certain degree – and so do "classic" photos.

But today’s image technology allows us to create images and videos that look and feel more real than reality, but catching and synthesizing more details, sharpness and speed than ever before.

Remember him?

The Real Changes: The Decade of Photoshop Fakery and empty Movies with too much CGI

The last ten years saw the Perfection of Fakery – thanks to tools like Photoshop, After Effects and many other image manipulation tools.

Movies like Jurassic Park and Matrix paved the way for CGI in movies – and helped the directors to tell amazing tales. But today many movies and TV shows feel boring, because there are too many "amazing effects". Special effects have turned into a big bore …

But Photoshop & Co are now also the #1 toys for Fakery – from Beauty Magazines and Advertising to Viral Videos – Fakes are now everywhere.

Every time people see today an amazing photo or video they distrust what they see: "Is it photoshopped or is it real?!"

Fakery is increasingly hard to spot and image manipulation is now standard for almost anything you see printed or on TV.

Especially advertising was always about fake reality, but now that advertised reality looks absolutely real and can be even more beautiful than ever before. Especially woman still try to "achieve" the beauty standards in advertising – but these fake beauties are unreal and do not exist … their "level of beauty" can never be reached by any real person …

LonelyGirl15 – the first YouTube Superstar?

The Real Changes: Democratization of Broadcasting

When 8 mm movies came out it was touted as the Hollywood revolution for everyone. But the technology was cumbersome, expensive and difficult to master.

Today a GOOD video camera is affordable even for amateurs and the quality is amazing. Editing and special effects software is also cheap and basically the same the real Pros in Hollywood use.

But most of all there is now a global and cheap way to show and distribute your videos: the web.

New talent and film students can create movies and no longer rely on movie theatres, Hollywood studios or TV broadcasters to bring their work to the masses.

That means there is a wider platform for artists, moviemakers and crap alike – but it is most of all a true democratization of moviemaking and broadcasting like never before.

Low Budget series like LonelyGirl15 became global brands / phenomenon’s. Becoming a superstar on a budget was no possible!

Hello Human! Do you know where are you going to?

The Real Changes: 3D-Environments and Augmented Reality will change how we deal with real life

Today we are quite used to "live" in 3D spaces, either in games or car navigation systems – not too mention Google Earth …

The visuals of Computer Games have made a huge leap forward in the last 10 years. The X-Box, Playstation 2 and Wii can deliver incredible visuals.

Games have been pushing simulated 3D worlds for now over 20 years. New games look incredibly realistic and have left it’s visually primitive forefather Pong far behind.

But 3D engines, geo-tagging, camera sensors and search engines will merge into a new technology called Augmented Reality.

Here you look at the world through a computer display – and the computer will analyze what you and it sees – and add additional information.

The simplest form of this technology have been car navigation systems, but newer versions will go much further.

This is just a simply version of AR …

They could tell you for example which people or businesses are in a building nearby, because a search engine show you all information regarding the location you are currently at – and also know thanks to other peoples computers and cell phones who is currently near that exact spot you are standing.

Like other technologies this will make us even more dependent on our little gizmos. The pocket calculator robbed us of the need to learn math. The cell phone is our external memory for phone numbers, addresses and even our schedule (be honest how many phone numbers can you remember?).

Augmented Play Time …

Most people could hardly read maps anyway, but Augmented Reality will make them totally dependent on where to go. And thanks to "smart software" it will tell them what to shop where and that the person in front of them is their wife …

Conclusion: a new form of Telepresence

We are developing a totally new visual culture. Once the invention of photography radically changed how we captured reality and made it permanent – so will the digital capture, global storage and synthesizing of photos and videos.

Everybody needs a cam like this and everybody will wear some form of camera in the future anyway …

Thanks to a coming 24/7 always-on camera capture we will also develop a new form of Telepresence we have developed in the last century: first there was the telegraph that allowed almost instant reporting of events far away. Then came the telephone and radio, which allowed us to hear live events far away. With television we suddenly had eyes and ears all over the globe. We could watch catastrophes and music concerts unfold live.

A global web connected camera network will allow us to watch anything everywhere. It is not just a network for "watching" – it also will record, store and cross connect everything it sees.

The new telepresence and visual network will let you watch such events even from "unrecorded" angles …

This global camera network is not like Big Brother – it is a decentralized sister network, which consists of millions of independent digital eyes and ears that record and record …

Like a computer game all that data can be used to replay and synthesize the events it captured.

An amazing Shot of the recent Wildfires around LA

orangeguru — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 20:43:36 +0000

Click image for an amazing view.

Yes, sometimes an image says more than a thousand words and can make a situation perfectly clear.

Great shot! Great idea to seize the moment!

Pierre et Gilles – Astronauts

orangeguru — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 00:57:26 +0000

The gayest couple in the universe. How much candy coloured kitsch can one planet endure?

But I do love their art for their unique style and shameless indulgence in … uh … candy moments.

Robert Doisneau – Versailles

orangeguru — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 16:37:03 +0000

I am a huge fan of Maestro Doisneau’s sharp observations and all too human moments – even when they happen between two marble gods.

Mapplethorpe – Derrick 1982

orangeguru — Mon, 25 May 2009 20:54:43 +0000

What I always love about Mapplethorpe is his clarity and respect for the viewer. He simply selects a view and leaves it to the viewer to make up his / her own mind. No flashy moments, no spectacular angles.

Therefore her proves to be a great artist and patient enough with his audience to "dig deeper" – and not pushing them ahead.