June 6, 2008 by pmelcher.

Great gallery from MSNBC.com this week. Drop by and enjoy if you have time  : Photos of the week

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June 5, 2008 by pmelcher.

News of the sudden departure of Mary Ann Golan from the position of Director of photography might be link to this cover ?

The image comes from a Shutterstock / Istockphoto contributor and was licensed for legendary pennies. Microstock on the cover of Time magazine sure is a milestone. It would be interesting to know if it was the image or the cost that was behind the decision to use this image.

 More on this image and the reactions here.

Posted in magazine, commercial stock, TIME, transaction, editorial, Microstock | Print | 3 Comments »

June 5, 2008 by pmelcher.

Had wanted to write about him for a while . Most people will say, “aaa, this is not real photography because it deals with celebrity” and most people will be wrong. Photography and celebrity have a very special relationship. There would not be any celebrities without photography and photography would be quite lonely without celebrities.

Cartier Bresson or Capa shot celebrities with the same passion as  they shot unknown passer by, and for a long time a news photographer was asked to be as good shooting movie stars as he was comfortable shooting conflict. There was none of this current dismissal of celebrity photography as a sub  art . If paparazzi’s would focus their lenses on political figures, they would be heroes reporting real news. Because they capture Paris Hitlon, they are lesser photographers, even lesser human beings. The World Press would never consider a image with a celebrity  for its top award. Why is that ?

For having never covered a concert, a red carpet arrival or a movie set, most photographers who despise celebrity photography have no idea what they are talking about.

Let me introduce Scott Gries. I have been very fortunate to work with him a while back and he is an amazing photographer.  Editing his work is the hardest job one could have as you feel like keeping every image. Scott doesn’t shoot at rapid fire in the hope of getting the right image.  He waits for the shot. Like a hunter. There is no image before and after. He gets the image and moves on to the next one. Everything falls into perfection when he pushes the button.

        If you have ever shot a concert, you must know how difficult it is to shoot in poor lighting, no flash, music blaring, in a pit from hell, with forever moving targets on a stage much higher than you are. Scott is at home in this organized chaos. He makes it look simple and easy. But even when asked to shoot on location or in a studio, Scott brings his unchallenged talent for lighting to create unforgettable images. He puts his subject in such confidence that they look at their best.

Scott, unlike many photographers focuses on the lighting. He knows that it is the interaction between the source of light and his subject that his camera will capture, and nothing else.  That is why very often, when you see his photographs in the middle of others, you recognize it immidatly.

You can see more of Scott’s images on his website.

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June 3, 2008 by pmelcher.

A while back, I had written about photosynth, when it just came out. Created by Microsoft, the idea is to stitch together multiple images taken by complete strangers to create a panoramic view taken from multiple vantage point. Well, Google just issued their version thought the Spanish company Panoramio. Panoramio is the company that allows you to post your images on Google Earth.

With its content, Panoramio has created its on stitches to render a full anonymous picture of a place. Using hundred of images taken by various people at different time, one can visualized a place or a monument thought a series a similar images. One image leads to another one and so on. Maybe the idea is to put together photographs of the whole world so that one could literally see every place. Google certainly has the means and the ambition. It would be a sort of social map constituted of all the images of the earth as seen by everyone.

You can see an example here

This technology, along with others of the kind, shows how terribly unique the internet is when it deals with photographs . The possibilities to create and expand are almost endless, while giving the user a richer experience.

This would be hard to be used in sport, however, but just think if you could stitch together thousands of images of the winning moment at the 100 meter final at the Olympics. A thousand views for one moment.

This technology could also be applied to commercial stock, making the  image more 3D and interactive.  Or in news, breaking the usual slide show linear model of one image after the other but all in one. Think of the New York Times readers gallery of photographs on the crane incident. This, to me, illustrate the “Future of Contemporary Photography” much more than any images of eggs, empty parking lots or thousand of sunsets ripped from their online presence to be pasted on a lonely, endless wall.

Posted in multimedia, technology, commercial stock, google, web 2.0, slideshow, flickr, prosumer, editorial | Print | No Comments »

June 3, 2008 by pmelcher.

This is cool. really. Although it uses an example for paparazzi, it could be used for news, sports and even commercial stock. It will probably become the new “have you got it?” gadget of the photo industry.

Here is how it works. Mounted on a quad copter, a remote controlled helicopter with 4 blades for stability, a camera, a video feed and GPS unit are combined  to survey and photograph any place from 20 feet above the ground ( or lower). The operator can see through the video feed to aim and shoot stills that can be either transmitted or saved into an on board card. The unit is very silent and extremely stable.

It is still in a prototype stage and probably cannot yet be used over crowds of people. ( might fall and hurt someone). But just imagine the possibilities. If undetected, it can photograph a celebrity wedding for 1/10 of the price it would cost to rent a very noisy and visible helicopter. For nature or commercial stock photographers, it can allow to photograph hard or impossible to reach places. Just imagine : you could photograph a model on a cliff by hovering beyond the edge.

The boundaries of uses of this gadget are only in the  owners imagination . Click on the image to see  a video :

the photo copter

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