Discontent

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

Yes, I've seen lots of computer screens where everything is messed up because the users have no idea about the existence of calibration; what I have noticed with the little iPad is different: it appears to give all the images that I find on the web, my own as everybody else's, a sort of sense of thickness, a kind of enhanced substance and tonality - not meaning bumped contrast...

You are right, Rob. I judge whether my pictures that I prepared on a calibrated monitor look good on the web by my iPad, and even my lowly iPhone 5s. The monitor I have at work, for example, is horrific for photography: as if someone is shining a militarily-grade airplane search light from behind it, that's how bright it is. Lowering the brightness by a hardware button only makes it dimmer, grayer, and the image loses that "a sort of sense of thickness, a kind of enhanced substance and tonality," as you nicely described it.

[Rob C]

You are right, Rob. I judge whether my pictures that I prepared on a calibrated monitor look good on the web by my iPad, and even my lowly iPhone 5s. The monitor I have at work, for example, is horrific for photography: as if someone is shining a militarily-grade airplane search light from behind it, that's how bright it is. Lowering the brightness by a hardware button only makes it dimmer, grayer, and the image loses that "a sort of sense of thickness, a kind of enhanced substance and tonality," as you nicely described it.

Thank God that a pair of eyes I respect sees the same thing as I!

Rob

[Rob C]

Yes, everywhere, and - calibrated screens excluded - the variation drives me mad.

If it weren't for prints I'd have moved on long ago.

Keith, would you like to amplify on you possible alternative destination, hoping you didn't mean quitting photogaphy?

Rob

[KLaban]

Keith, would you like to amplify on you possible alternative destination, hoping you didn't mean quitting photogaphy?

Rob

Rob, yes, if I could no longer print I simply wouldn't bother pressing that button.

:-(

[Eric Myrvaagnes]

Rob, yes, if I could no longer print I simply wouldn't bother pressing that button.

:-(

I'm with Keith on this.
Photography without prints would be like eating piles of raw cookie dough that is never baked into cookies.

(I like cookies, in case you wondered.)

Eric

[KLaban]

I'm with Keith on this.
Photography without prints would be like eating piles of raw cookie dough that is never baked into cookies.

(I like cookies, in case you wondered.)

Eric

Agreed, and I also doubt that raw cookie dough is genuinely 16 bit.

;-)

[petermfiore]

Agreed, and I also doubt that raw cookie dough is genuinely 16 bit.

;-)

Well, I make sure my cookie dough is at least 22 Bits per...anything less is ungodly.

Peter

[Rob C]

I am not able to agree with this cookie stuff because of 77 Sunset Strip. I keep wanting to break into song, and that's not good when one has few cranial hairs left.

However regarding less serious sins such as prints: no, I no longer can print, courtesy HP, but the inclination has also gone because of the several boxes of pretty pictures that I have stopped looking at.

They have come to represent the second, unwritten tenet in the Book of Donovan; the first, if you have been backsliding, posits the point that for the amateur, the most difficult problem is finding a reason to make a photograph. The second one, tenet, that is, is that once the first has been overcome, there remains, then, only the punishment for that particular sin: the print.

I can understand why Donovan left it unwritten.

[petermfiore]

However regarding less serious sins such as prints: no, I no longer can print, courtesy HP, but the inclination has also gone because of the several boxes of pretty pictures that I have stopped looking at.

Hi Rob,
That's reality...actual pictures in hand we no longer look at...the world loves the screen. My painting students idea of what paintings look like are from SCREENS. Flat, textureless, and color God only knows. Try to get them to see work in the flesh is met with much resistance. Why move? "We have the screen". And it's in their pocket!

Peter

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

... My painting students idea of what paintings look like are from SCREENS. Flat, textureless, and color God only knows. Try to get them to see work in the flesh is met with much resistance...

Your students, Peter?

[petermfiore]

Your students, Peter?

Slobodan,

This is all too familiar a sight in our world. Yes, it's sad but there is no going back to viewing the real deal....the SCREEN rules.

Peter

[degrub]

except where there is no cell reception !

[petermfiore]

except where there is no cell reception !

Cellular Data baby!!!

Peter

[Michael West]

Slobodan,

This is all too familiar a sight in our world. Yes, it's sad but there is no going back to viewing the real deal....the SCREEN rules.

Peter

 I would surmise that reflected light does not trigger the synapses nor stimulate chemical release in the same manner as direct light which is  what all screens generate. 

we may need to start "printing on HUGE monitors  to compete with phones and tablets!!.. ;-}

[Two23]

I see scenes like this every day and can't help but think of a waste:  the waste of life-time.  People sit hypnotized, unaware of their surroundings, unwilling to engage the people around them.  They are the zombie myth come true.  Eventually most will live long enough to get a diagnoses of cancer or other terminal disease.  Will the more enlightened then realize how precious time is, and how they have wasted it?


Kent in SD

[Jcradford]

Hi Rob,

You know as well as I do that a lot of this has to do with a love of gadgetry. "I've gotta have the new NiCanon doohoppy so I can see how it actually works." As I've mentioned several times and you've mentioned several times, real photography hasn't much to do with gadgetry as long as you have gadgetry adequate to what you're trying to do. A real pro can shoot a wedding with the least capable semi-pro camera on the market today, and do a great job. The reason I know this is that my down-the-hall pro friend in Colorado Springs used to do stunningly beautiful weddings with what's nowadays way-out-of-date stuff that no current amateur would even consider.

But what the hell, I'm subject to the same urges, so I can't knock it. I just bought a good-looking Rogue flash grid because I want something that'll throw a more controllable red or blue splash on the background next time I do headshots. The next time I do headshots probably will be a couple months from now, if ever, but man, now I'm ready! Feels good.

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[Jcradford]

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

How many times have I done that?  Lots.  I have sliders and jibs, light gear, lens, etc that i seldom use ... thank God for eBay. 


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[Rob C]

I notice the effect of the iPad myself; it may prove a money-saver in the end becasue I spend far less time on the computer and sit elsewhere instead, more comfortably and off that dreaded typìst's chair that I have.

It also comes in very handy during lunches which are mainly out, and I enjoy listening to music instead of gazing around at the other tables and people. Nice to look at pictures between courses, too!

However, I think it's very poor form to use cellphones or iPad things in company: if you can't be bothered to give your companions your full attention, why bother with them at all? Imagine the feeling: your first date, and she pulls out her cellphone... hasta nunca, baby!

Rob

[JNB_Rare]

Your students, Peter?

Let's hope their teacher had them searching for information about Dutch Masters (or something else educational) after spending an appropriate time viewing the painting(s). Sadly, it isn't always the case. I remember watching a middle-aged man walk into a local gallery, raise his iPad, and start to rattle off a picture of each wall. He walked out before the flabbergasted staff had time to react.

[Rob C]

Do you notice, too, how the machines have introduced segregation? That image doesn't bode well...

Virtual lovers get you nowhere. In art or anything else.

Rob