Great Oregon Steamup 2009

As I work with the 1080p video capability of the Canon 5D MkII, I begin to see some interesting possibilities. The image quality is quite outstanding. A friend says that standard definition video (640x480) gives you a sense of how something is shaped. He says that 1080p gives you the texture of the thing. I couldn't agree more.





I have been editing videos using Sony's Movie Studio Platinum Plus. It's a nice application that allows me to create 1440x1080 digital cinema materials. The capabilities of the software suite is pretty good. The only thing I would like (without having to pay more for it, of course) would be additional blend options for merging video track 2 onto video track 1.

Each year in Brooks, Oregon a group of steam powered farmers haul out their great collections of equipment to share with the public. These events are held over two weekends; the last weekend in July and the first weekend in August.

This year I spent time with the steampowered tractors. They are awesome good fun. Next year I should spend a little time in the steampowered sawmill sheds. That thing is definitely not something a person should try to recreate at home. LOL!!!

Anyways, until then, here is a short video of one of the earlier tractor designed engines.

Photography

Drama and $24 million

Photography

Portland Photographers' Forum Newsletter

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This Month's Meeting: Wednesday, August 19, 7:00 p.m.

Guest Speaker: Christopher Perez Alternative Histories

"Ideas for my large multi-year photographic image projects arrive when least expected," Chris Perez says."As I read various novels by Jules Verne, Tom Robbins, Ian Banks, Terry Pratchett, and Susanna Clark I could almost see what images from Alternative Histories might look like. In similar time, I worked with Tribal Fusion bellydancers to see where I might be able to take a related idea. Talking with NagaSita (one of my models) I learned that there are active communities of people engaged in the pursuit of Alternative History ideas of Tribal Fusion, Noir Victorian Gothic, and Steampunk. These styles are based on the idea that we live not in a uni-verse, but rather, in a vast multi-verse of time coincident Alternative Realities, just like the novels I was reading." "My photographic project swiftly incorporated these ideas and extended them to include the thought of how image might look as they pass through a "seam" between the various multi-verses. There would be hints familiar to us, such as graphic design elements from 1880 Paris, France. Images would be stressed and somewhat distorted due to the pressures placed on them as they passed through a "seam". Clothing styles could be emblematic, in the case of Steampunk, of what might happen if oil never replaced steam." "This is how my overly active, geeky, complex mind works. This is how my Steampunk, Tribal Fusion, and Noir Victorian Gothic series of images came into being."

Photography

Someone provided a very nice calculation of the number of potential photographic art collectors about a decade before I ran a similar calculation. The difference between my calculation and this author is that I assumed all art and came up with a figure of a most 300,000 potential buyers in the USA. The author's calculation of 10,000 collectors of photographic art seems about right.

Without going into details, I feel the collector market for photography is indeed rather small. With a large number of artists vying for print sales, it puts pressure on photographers who work in the area of collectible photography.

No matter how you view it or what you believe, its important to understand the forces in play.

Flickr

There is a rather unique way of finding images on Flickr. It is provided by FivePrime and is called Hive Mind.

I have started to use this as a means of finding the very best examples of a subject, style, or tool.

Here are links to semi-random subjects. Each page is sorted by Flickr's "Interstingness" property.

qtpfsgui - an Open Source HDR application

texture layers - a technique of image manipulation that I particularly like

Canon 5D MkII - a look at "interestingness" from the point of view of specific camera equipment

This is a brilliant way of swiftly reviewing the very best work to be found across the Flickr universe. If you ever wonder what the state of the art is, just take a look using this image filtering tool. You might be utterly and pleasantly shocked, just as I am.