2020 Archives - Page 3 of 7 - s2z Photography Blog

New Photobook Idea

I have begun working on a new photobook idea. It is nothing novel. Just pictures of the 14 or so public phones that are situated throughout Sunshine. This screen grab from Lightroom showing 11 that I have already photographed.

The idea has sprung from a larger project I am working on about Sunshine, the place I live. I have repeatedly returned to several places around the suburb. At one point I noticed the phone box on the corner of Station Place and Sun Crescent which I photographed. I then found a website that lists all the public phones in Sunshine, and in one afternoon photographed 11 of them.

My research has turned up some interesting information. I will add some of this to the final book. At this point I’m unclear if I will use film or digital to make the pictures for the final book.

The History of the World Wide Web

I found this website that explores through a timeline and in a decade by decade series, how we got to where we are in terms of the current world wide web. It uses fairly non-technical language and builds on and adds to some of the Web’s best known stories.

Why would you blog in this day and age?

This is why.

Some West Suburban Bungalows

In 1966, Ed Ruscha photographed ‘Every building on the Sunset Strip‘ in Los Angeles. It became a book and the original is highly sought after. I have seen the copy the NGV has in its collection. Such a simple and elegant idea. The book is one long accordion type book. It is small but intriguing. I have attempted my own version of the idea twice now. Once in Yarraville with a small stretch of houses that have since been demolished, for the Regional Rail Link. The ‘album’ is on flickr it is entitled Buckley Street Seddon. It took approximately 40 minutes to make those pictures.

I did the same recently, only this time I walked along Wright Street, Sunshine, from Stanford Street to Hampshire Road.

I started at the Stanford street and walked West, the numbers on that side of the street are even numbers. I excluded the corner houses. The photography component took all of 20 minutes.

There was one empty block primed and ready for redevelopment. And two other blocks with for sale signs on them. Big changes are indeed afoot. What form shape or size they will take remains to be seen I guess?

2020 Bowness Shortlist

The 2020 Bowness Shortlist has been announced.

Congratulations to the successful applicants, some of who I know in person; and a couple I have even worked with.

The shortlist is:-

Klari Agar, Belinda Allen, Sam Amar, Riste Andrievski, Emma Armstrong-Porter, Zoe Arnott, Robert Ashton, Narelle Autio, Reza Bagheri, Kate Baker, Charlie Barker, Chris Barry, Chris Bekos, Madeline Bishop, Tom Blachford, Paul Blackmore, Chris Bond and Drew Pettifer, Jesse Boyd-Reid, Jane Brown, Karen Burgess, Jane Burton, Danica Chappell, Ali Choudhry, Peta Clancy, Michael Cook, Nici Cumpston, Matteo Dal Vera and Michael Weatherill, Tamara Dean, Karla Dickens, Stephen Dupont, Louise Faulkner, Jacqueline Felstead, Anne Ferran, Ash Garwood, Amos Gebhardt, Tom Goldner, John Gollings, Philip Gostelow, Helen Grace, Lee Grant, Janina Green, Helen Grogan, Ponch Hawkes, Leila Jeffreys, Shea Kirk, Shivanjani Lal, Kelvin Lau, Honey Long and Prue Stent, Fiona MacDonald, Alister McKeich, Izabela Pluta, Greg Semu, Damien Shen, Slippage, Valerie Sparks, Cyrus Tang, Christian Thompson, Louise Whelan, Amanda Williams, Anne Zahalka

Jörg Colberg Newsletter

This is one of many voices attempting to speak outside the walled gardens of Google, Amazon, Facebook and Apple [GAFA]

Early Abstractions? [TyAT Edition]

abstract photogrpah — Early abstract experiments in digital photogrpahy 15th of August 2000

When I first started using digital cameras I was fortunate to have been given a then high end amateur type camera. Even at $2000.00 or so dollars it was far too “automatic” for my liking. As a consequence I enjoyed trying to subvert these controls and make pictures that hinted at a photograph but could have been anything at all.
This is one example of my success in achieving this. I made this picture at home on the 15th of August 2000. Twenty years ago today.

New Online Group Exhibition

I am involved in yet another online exhibition. This time with the Friends of Photography Group. This is their 3rd exhibition asking ‘members’ to submit an image made or printed during the Covid restrictions. I submitted a print I made on Ilford Multigrade Fibre Based paper, scanned. I made 2 versions and toned one in sepia and the other in selenium, this is the sepia version.

Here is my ‘statement’ for the image.

Back in 1989, I listened to one of my lecturers talk about his relationship to the landscape and in particular She Oak trees. That notion has stayed with me ever since. This print is a result of this exchange. I continue to photograph these trees as I encounter them. Given that many councils are regenerating their open spaces the significance of these trees is important.

bloglovin’?

In the vein of resurrecting older technologies to circumvent, GAFA, [Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon]. I’m adding this blog to blog lovin’.
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Luminar 4

If you are like myself and many other creatives who use and rely on software to get the job done. You may well be sick of Adobe’s new licensing model? I have always been a proponent of alternatives to the mainstream and prior to 2002, there were several much better software programs out there that left Photoshop in the dirt. Fast forward now to the next century and somehow Adobe has become the Microsoft of the creative industries.

screengrab of Lumnar 4 — the editing panel of Luminar 4

Have no fear there ARE alternatives. One such player is Skylum software’s Luminar 4. I have been paying for this software for a couple of years now and when version 4 arrived with DAM built-in I was ecstatic. Luminar 4 has several features that beat the pants off Lightroom. These features are great if you are a novice digital photographer and want to get up to speed using software to enhance your raw files. At about $90.00 AU it’s a steal for the current version. [If you click through on this link it helps me with discounts moving forward].

Before writing this article I did some digging to find some comparisons between Adobe Lightroom and Luminar and found this excellent article, by, Usnea Lebendig on shotkit.com. Here’s an in-depth article on Luminar itself; also on shotkit.com.

I won’t repeat what has been written other than to say the fact that I do not need to import images into the software to work means a lot. I expect version 5 of Luminar to knock Lightroom off its perch. Currently I use the two packages side by side, and given my approach to software generally, I should give the AI features in Luminar more of a go.

Other features that both Lightroom and Luminar have that are useful are the option to review/preview edits. Luminar’s online help looks more succinct and direct than Adobe’s I feel too.