tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8513890003774128687.post7409598446426967221..comments2024-01-22T13:54:53.672+05:30Comments on Notes from Ceylon: Too Many CamerasPalmyrahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13562734428137206296noreply@blogger.comBlogger15125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8513890003774128687.post-7109026186517026562010-11-26T15:21:48.379+05:302010-11-26T15:21:48.379+05:30@Anonymous ('Did you know all these facts'...<i>@Anonymous ('Did you know all these facts'):</i><br />Hi, DM. Very glad you could drop by. For my views on image manipulation, see my response to 'af'.<br /><br />From the viewpoint of a future historian, a glut of information may be as bad as a paucity. Pity the poor scholars who will have to trawl through oceans of emails, Twitter feeds and Facebook status updates in the awful future.<br /><br />Keep in touch, my friend.Palmyrahhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13562734428137206296noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8513890003774128687.post-10546701450601265582010-11-26T12:59:08.755+05:302010-11-26T12:59:08.755+05:30Hmm...I remember many pleasant visits to the Thomp...Hmm...I remember many pleasant visits to the Thompson Lanka studio. Where I saw how the photos of local actresses were touched up - by airbrushing. So pictures have been telling fibs long before the digital age - mainly due to the efforts of various professionals.<br /><br />True, old-fashioned and expensive film meant that you had to be careful unless you had pots of money. It also meant you didn't find out that you had the camera strap or Aunty Bessie in front of the lens until after the event (irrespective of whether it was a wedding or the rather unlikely sighting of a Dodo). Plus, even if you don't mess up your shots there was always the chance of someone else doing it for you - like the developers or postal service / courier.<br /><br />Let's not forget the various toxic chemicals used in the film process (like cyanide compounds) - not very green. Or that colour prints have a life of around 10-30 years before they start fading.<br /><br />As for amateur vs professional - beauty often lies in the eye of the beholder. For what many consider to be a nice photo is dismissed as 'too chocolate box' by professionals (whose own offerings are equally liable to be derided as 'arty-farty'). <br /><br />The more photos there are the more chance of information and detail being captured - which is useful for historians, modellers and air crash investigators...to name a few.<br /><br />I would agree that people trying to record a moment or a scene are in danger of actually missing out elements of what they are witnessing (particularly holidaymakers with camcorders).<br /><br />Did you know all these facts? [with apologies to Nestle - well, not really]Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8513890003774128687.post-61708323009477899492010-11-25T14:22:53.105+05:302010-11-25T14:22:53.105+05:30So true Richard Simon. I have had this conversatio...So true Richard Simon. I have had this conversation many times before. While reading the part about how film used to be so expensive I remember how when we were in school, Kanya and I were so careful not to waste it, and hope and pray that when the pictures finally came back they would be good.Ashwininoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8513890003774128687.post-56372278716026903722010-11-25T09:31:37.211+05:302010-11-25T09:31:37.211+05:30A couple of points:
@af: As the post makes clear,...A couple of points:<br /><br />@af: As the post makes clear, I do not object the use of PhotoShop or other image manipulation techniques. The industry I work in uses them all the time. I am talking about something very different.<br /><br />@Nancy: yes, music has suffered even worse than photography from the 'digital devaluation'. When every consumer can carry 40,000 songs around in a matchbox, the relationships between the musician and music, and between music and the listener, are ruined. It is so bad that people are coming to forget what music actually is.<br /><br />Expect a blog post on this soon--perhaps next.<br /><br />@Anonymous--'travel with serious photographers': for reasons that should be clear to the meanest intelligence, this is not always possible. Besides, the places I go to often have people in them--members of the public, you know?--and they often have cameras.Palmyrahhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13562734428137206296noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8513890003774128687.post-61768350826555763202010-11-25T01:49:45.086+05:302010-11-25T01:49:45.086+05:30The only good photograph has a tit in it....Ashley...The only good photograph has a tit in it....Ashley<br /><br />In this day of digital photography, capturing the picture is anybody's forte. Embellishing it is where the mastery lies.<br /><br />My predictions for the future - experiencing a sunset would be painful. Watching birds fly would be in a dream. Being in unspoilt nature a pipe dream. That's when we'll appreciate all random photographers who have amassed millions of terrabytes of pictures so that when we need to see a vision or a bird in flight all we do is prompt the process and either holograms or fixed image displays would turn to the sight we choose. Still or motion, maybe the only way us humans would retain our sanity.<br /><br />I am of the variety Richard lothes, having no eye for the subject and a far from good camera, my motivation for taking pictures is an itchy finger. I have no remorse taking a zillion pictures plonked right in front of a meditating siddhartha, of his quivering nostril, all because an ant is crawling his way inside.Ashleyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08524588806567668837noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8513890003774128687.post-82681363141874288382010-11-24T20:02:07.783+05:302010-11-24T20:02:07.783+05:30Of course this is a gripe, it's Richard Simon&...Of course this is a gripe, it's Richard Simon's blog.<br /><br />Funnily enough the photographers mentioned in this post use Photoshop quite extensively. Timothy more than the rest.afnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8513890003774128687.post-16193053988675983042010-11-24T19:21:40.915+05:302010-11-24T19:21:40.915+05:30Next time travel alone or be choosier as to who yo...Next time travel alone or be choosier as to who you travel with. Serious photographers are thoughtful, keep quiet and just take pictures, quietly.<br /><br />This is more a gripe than an objective commentary. Its odd that just one photographer is favoured - which makes this pretty subjective.<br /><br />There have always been bad photographs and worse, bad photographers. And will always be. Just learn to avoid them. No need to state the obvious. You know what they say - if you have nothing nice to say just don't say it. Or to put it another way - if you have nothing new to say - keep quiet.<br /><br />This gripe is no better than another bad snap.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8513890003774128687.post-69786366717631528952010-11-24T19:18:18.710+05:302010-11-24T19:18:18.710+05:30Things are different now. What you’re saying here ...Things are different now. What you’re saying here applies to so many things these days – graphic design, music, art in general. There is a glut of creativity. Is this a bad thing?<br /><br />No, and then, yes.<br /><br />Now anyone and everyone with a program simple enough for them to understand and then use can create whatever they want and need whenever they want it and need it - for themselves. <br /><br />And it shows. <br /><br />It affects not only photographers and the studios they depended on, it significantly changes the situation for all working graphic designers, musicians... almost everything short of potters, weavers, sculptors, and chefs. You can even paint digitally these days.<br /><br />The cream will have to work just that much harder to rise to the top I suppose. Trying to reach people who can recognize the cream, then make them want to take the time to find it and pay for it – that’s the problem now. But hasn’t that always been the case?<br /><br />So, I agree – but what can we do but adapt to change?<br /><br />It’s never been possible to force people to stop and smell the roses (or, just shut up and look at the sky already...)<br /><br />The only thing you can do is get out of the car faster and put some distance between you and the herd.Nancynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8513890003774128687.post-5692873595979585112010-11-24T17:51:52.121+05:302010-11-24T17:51:52.121+05:30@Anonymous: comment away and welcome.@Anonymous: comment away and welcome.Palmyrahhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13562734428137206296noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8513890003774128687.post-62934731702727138272010-11-24T16:41:55.279+05:302010-11-24T16:41:55.279+05:30If you would prefer not to get anonymous comments ...If you would prefer not to get anonymous comments on your blog, please make it clear and you will get no more from me.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8513890003774128687.post-22735287353599012692010-11-24T15:34:00.885+05:302010-11-24T15:34:00.885+05:30Couldn't agree with you more and yes, it does ...Couldn't agree with you more and yes, it does seem that real photographers can't spell. Even the best of them.mahenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07322659951115920001noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8513890003774128687.post-91632232505783504502010-11-24T15:31:21.411+05:302010-11-24T15:31:21.411+05:30Writing in his column on language in the New York ...Writing in his column on language in the New York Times (April 7, 1996), William Safire revealed that the "ancient Chinese proverb" (one picture is worth a thousand words) had actually been coined by a New York advertising man named Fred R. Barnard. Safire credited this discovery to Burton Stevenson, who had found the earliest use of the phrase in an ad that ran in the December 8, 1921, edition of Printer's Ink, and had cited it as such in the Macmillan Book of Proverbs, Maxims and Famous Phrases. Barnard originally attributed his line to a Japanese philosopher. The next time he ran an ad in Printer's Ink (March 10, 1927), Barnard called it a Chinese proverb and illustrated it with Chinese lettering copied from a restaurant menu. Safire ends his little essay with this puckish rejoinder: "As Diogenes used to say, one original thought is worth a thousand mindless quotings." Here's the link to Safire's column: http://www.nytimes.com/1996/04/07/magazine/on-language-worth-a-thousand-words.html <br />Here is Fred R. Barnard's original ad (Printer's Ink, December 8, 1921): http://www2.cs.uregina.ca/~hepting/research/web/words/21.gif <br />And here is Barnard's second ad Printer's Ink (March 10, 1927): http://www2.cs.uregina.ca/~hepting/research/web/words/27.gifDavid Grahamhttp://www.grahamwritesagain.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8513890003774128687.post-39680959686833518822010-11-24T15:05:26.380+05:302010-11-24T15:05:26.380+05:30HAVING SAID THAT I MUST ASSERT THAT ANONYMITY IS N...HAVING SAID THAT I MUST ASSERT THAT ANONYMITY IS NOT WORTH A FARTAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8513890003774128687.post-81067987536259270452010-11-24T14:48:35.728+05:302010-11-24T14:48:35.728+05:30Your blog is the equivalent of about half a photo....Your blog is the equivalent of about half a photo.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8513890003774128687.post-32799323104618151272010-11-24T14:44:50.829+05:302010-11-24T14:44:50.829+05:30A picture is worth a thousand wordsA picture is worth a thousand wordsAnonymousnoreply@blogger.com