rb.log

Bruce Osborn: Oyako - Portraying Japanese Generations.

These shots by bruce Osborn of different sets of parents and their children in Japan are really interesting, and in some way unsettling. I love the fact that in some shots the kid is the non-conformist, while in others it's the parent. And how many kids have followed in their parents footsteps.

It's been a bit of an odd year for photography. Although I feel like I've taken far fewer shots then normal, it doesn't really seem to be the case. I've hit just over 7,000 for this year, which is up from last year. I've just felt a lot less focused on photography as an activity. My shots have been far more casual.

Picking my Favorites of 2005 has been a little tough. Although I feel like I've taken less shots in the last 12 months then the previous 12, I've picked more shots this year (60) then I did for last years set (44). Maybe that's just bad editing?

I was asked if some of my architecture images could be used on Architypes.net. The site is a collaborative wiki that's focused on describing architecture as a set of patterns , each of which correspond to an idea for successful architectural design. A pattern might, for example, descibe a way in which a building uses natural light or fits into it's environment. It's an interesting idea.
My shots are sprinkled around the site in different pattern descriptions, and also listed conveniently on this page.

My friend Lenny's rake art shots are pretty stunning. Take one rake, 1 beach and shoot photo from a kite. Easy. Not.

There's been a lot of traffic about Poloroid-o-nizer recently, but I figure there's no harm giving it a bit more. It IS cool, after all. There's also a Flickr Group for it.

Seems to be a few new examples a week of people exploiting the Flickr API. The Flickr Related Tag Browser is one of the cooler ones I've seen recently. Try typing "Egham" in here for a few photos in and around us.

These shots from our Orlando Vacation ended up being mostly of the Kennedy Space Center. Not sure why. There are a few others.

Thanks to Caterina for including a photo of mine in her brief blog entry on Flickr about the spiral tag.

I was looking at this cool photo on Flickr by Orbital Joe called Fells Point ShiftyG filter, and was curious what a ShiftyG filter was. Through Google I found this great plug-in tool for Photoshop , which I assume is what Joe has been using, called virtualPhotographer. It has a whole bunch of great color and black & white effects, and costs zero dollars.

Can anyone guess the process behind the beautiful shots in the Small World series?

I saw this cover for the book The Island Walkers when I was at Third Place Books over the weekend. For some reason it struck a chord with me as inspiration for doing collages, particularly of macro photos mixed with architecture. Just want to remember to try something like this out with my own photos.

A second day out while Matt was staying, this time a walk along the South Bank in London.
These are mostly of the Tate Modern and an exhibition of the work of Mark Newson at the Design Museum.

Starting out with these instructions I've been messing around with Photoshop to make this shot look like it was taken with a Lomo camera.

Basically, my variation is to:
- Open the photo.
- Using the Brightness/Contrast dialog set the contrast to +20.
- Using the Hue/Saturation dialog set the saturation to +20.
- Create a new layer.
- Set it to an Opacity of 80%.
- Set it to a layer blend of Soft Light.
- Set the foreground color to black. (hit D).
- Pick the Gradient tool, set it to radial, then pick the Foreground to Transparent fill. Hit the Reverse checkbox (so it switches to a Transparent to Foreground).
- Fill the layer from the middle out.

Here's the before shot:

It's tough not to make Stonehenge look like just a pile of rocks. I've done my best for now. Having some of the detail, like crows and people help, I think.

This was part of a day I spent randomly driving around the countryside with Matt Kotler, and there are some shots of a white horse and other bits an pieces included.

Thanks to Caterina for blogging about One Letter, the new group I've created on Flickr. I'm excited so many people have become members ("Consonants") in such a short space of time. 80 and counting.

I totally buy her comments about site maintainance:
"Groups that have active administrators and frequent photo pruning mostly flourish, while others that see no care and tending often die."

Of course, that means a certain commitment of time. I may have to rope others in if it gets stupid. I totally buy Caterina's comment about making a group "useful" though, by avoiding it being watered down by photos that don't really "fit".

I've created a group on Flickr called One Letter for photos like this one, of one letter. I hope to build up quite the alphabet. Feel free to join and post.

Thumbnail generation is automatic. Sub-page generation is automatic, and they have a whole set of tage you can use to set up the pages any way you want. It's a bit like MovableType for images, but feels more flexible (to me) then MT for handling albums.