Komamura ViewCamera Converter for DSLR

Convert your Horseman, Nikon, or Canon DSLR camera into a View Camera with Komamura's View Camera Converter

details here http://www.komamura.co.jp/digital/VCCpro/index.html

English Press Release here
http://www.komamura.co.jp/e/press/PR090817vccpro.pdf

Pirelli 2010 Calendar Preview NSFW

Eniko Mihalik, Rosie Huntington Whiteley, Catherine McNeil, Abbey Lee Kershaw, Daisy Lowe, Gracie Carvalho, Marloes Horst, Lily Cole, Ana Beatriz Barros, Miranda Kerr, and Georgina Stojiljkovic all appear nude in the 2010 Pirelli Calendar as shot by Terry Richardson, though this is a preview.

http://www.fashionising.com/pictures/s--Pirelli-2010-Calendar-Preview-NSFW-3181-1.html

"It's not who you know, it's who you blow."
--Terry Richardson

Chris Jordan Interview

Digital photographic artist Chris Jordan interview on Bill Moyers Journal

http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/08072009/watch3.html

Snap Pictures in the Dark with Electrophysics AstroScope

US company Electrophysics has two adapters which can make your Canon or Nikon dSLR snap pictures in the dark. Such an application is not new and was previously implemented in surveillance and video cameras for recording footages in the dark. But the AstroScope 9350-series adapters are specially designed to be used with dSLRs.

Electrophysics AstroScope is an advanced night vision module that incorporates a state-of-the-art image intensifier that transforms dark scenes into bright, highresolution images. The AstroScope 9350EOS-P is specifically designed for Canon EOS-type cameras and mounts between the camera body and Canon EOS lenses using the standard Canon bayonet. AstroScope incorporates a high quality optic designed specifically for today’s digital SLR cameras and delivers full frame images with little or no vignetting.


These night vision systems fit between the camera body and the lens. There is a central intensifier unit (CIU) which illuminates the scene dramatically even if there is only a weak light source. What is special is that these adapters maintain the electrical connections required for image stabilizer operation and autofocus by the optics.

http://www.electrophysics.com/night-vision/

NAKED TOKYO: FRIDAY June 26th

Come join me and friends for a group exhibition in Roppongi's SuperDeluxe this Friday.

The Naked Tokyo exhibition presents the work of an international group of photographers focusing on self-portraiture, sex, eroticism, and anonymous nudity.

41 Photographers
50 Photos
One Night Only!


Start Time: Friday, June 26, 2009 at 6:30pm
End Time: Saturday, June 27, 2009 at 2:00am
Location: SuperDeluxe in Roppongi
Street: B1F 3.1.25 Nishi Azabu, Minato-ku,

Phone: 0354120515
Email: nakedtokyo@gmail.com


Naked Tokyoでは、セルフポートレイト・セックス・エロティシズム・ヌードに焦点を置いた国内外の写真家の作品展を開催いたします。
４１人の写真家
一夜限り

June 26th (Friday) from 18:30 @ SuperDeluxe in Roppongi.
1000 yen entry fee

http://www.super-deluxe.com/2009/06/26/
http://www.nakedtokyo.com/

Photo (C) Max Hodges, from NAKED TOKYO Exhibition in Shibuya, December 2008

Ryoji Ikeda’s ‘+/- [the infinite between 0 and 1]’: An Interpretation

Ryoji Ikeda: +/- [the infinite between 0 and 1] is the first major retrospective of Ikeda’s work, presented by the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo (MOT) and runs until June 21st 2009. The exhibition includes new commissions, large-scale audiovisual projections, sound, and Ikeda’s abstract celluloid landscapes.

Click here for a nicely formatted version of this article as a PDF file.

Ikeda has quickly earned himself an international reputation as a leading electronic composer and sound artist. His work is hailed by critics as the most radical and innovative examples of contemporary electronic music, earning him a Golden Nica prize in the Digital Music category at Prix Ars Electronica in 2001—one of the most important yearly prizes in the field of electronic and interactive art, computer animation, digital culture and music.

Although best known for his sound installations, Ikeda has extended his activities and compositions into the visual arts, and these activities have caught the attention of MOT’s chief curator Yuko Hasegawa. “Previously, we have held exhibitions of veteran and midcareer artists as solo shows,” says Hasegawa, “but we really want to focus on the younger generation and represent them in solo shows.”

Ikeda has been intensely active in sound art through concerts, installations and recordings since 1995. Described as an ‘ultra-minimalist’, Ikeda employs cutting-edge computer technology to develop a unique set of methods for sound engineering and composition. His works feature computed, mathematically pure ‘microsonic’ tones, frequencies and noise that sometimes exists at the edge of perception.

These intense, exhilarating sounds are integrated in audiovisual installations, projected at cinematic scale in his concerts, in which each pixel is precisely calculated by mathematical principle. The vast scale of the projection heightens and intensifies the viewer’s perception and immersion in a world of pure objectivity. Acoustics and sublime imagery—derived from pure mathematics and from astronomy, genetics and other real-world data—are employed to create an experience of time that and be sped up, slowed down and frozen for analysis. Space too is like a field that can be traversed at high-speed, or sliced up for scrutiny.

Time and space, the vast universe of precision numeric data representation, and the limits of human perception are explored with precisely correlated and synchronized audio and video rhythms that sound and image fuse and become indistinguishable—resulting in a synaestheia-like experience.

Although usually described as an electronic composer, this retrospective demonstrates Ikeda’s talent as a visual artist too with large-scale photographic work and a 35mm x 10m abstract celluloid landscape known as data.film [nº1-a].

“My intention is always polarized by concepts of the ‘beautiful and the sublime’”, writes Ikeda, “To me, beauty is crystal, rationality, precision, simplicity, elegance, delicacy. The sublime is infinity, infinitesimal, immensity, indescribable, ineffable. The purest beauty is the world of mathematics.”

Consider how these sentiments are expressed in a pair of Ikeda’s artworks shown in his ‘V≠L’ exhibition. The work was inspired by his dialogue with Harvard mathematician Benedict Gross and explores the idea that perhaps nothing in the universe is random. Consisting of two horizontal panels, one is etched with a prime number consisting of over 7.23 million digits; in counterpoint, the second panel presents a random number generated by computer algorithms, also consisting of over 7 million digits. From more than a few inches away, the panels appear as a random, concrete-like grey texture. But close-up they reveal a mind-boggling array of 0.8mm-high digits, daunting in their vastness and precision. For comparison, consider that the estimated number of atoms in the observable universe is a number only 80-digits long. Unlike the random sequence, this prime number is like a jewel, a mathematical diamond that can be contracted into the sum of two squares and expanded. Its endowed with special properties which make it vital to data security. But change a single digit and this whole, delicate, seven-million-two-hundred-thirty-five-thousand-seven-hundred-and-thirty-three unit long system of perfection becomes unstable and collapses.

Such expressions of point and counterpoint abound in +/- [the infinite between 0 and 1]. Other examples include the white-light of SXGA projectors within the perfect black room. The 10 screens itself a play on the nature of the number 10 as representing the both the on-and-off of binary logic. The notion of [+/–] polar-opposites are found in the contrast of signal vs. noise as individual instances of discrete data and moments in time are plucked from the vast oceans of endless random data. Light and sound is used to freeze certain moments in time like unique snowflakes, only to dissolve back into a sea of data on the next beat.

Review and description of Ikeda’s work tends to stop short of interpretation. Indeed, with regard to the meaning of Ikeda’s work, curator Hasegawa’s says that Ikeda’s art, “doesn’t have any particular symbolic meaning; it is nonsignifying. He just wants to create a kind of matrix, or give the idea of the universe and infinity, for the visitor to simply enjoy. You can read whatever you like into the work.”

But while Hasegawa seems to believe the exhibition amounts to little more than audiovisual eye-candy, this writer found many clear, masterfully crafted messages, and believes that taken collectively, Ikeda’s work has the same power and potential as any work of great art to be a catalyst for profound personal transformation.

Spoiler alert: if you’re planning to visit the exhibition, I suggest you experience it for yourself before reading further.

The flash of revelation happens once you make your way down to the basement where a second level of the exhibition has been constructed. Here a through-the-looking-glass counterpoint to the entire exhibition upstairs has been ingeniously constructed. This alternate exhibition is identical in size and layout, but whereas the former space was set in pitch black darkness, we now face a negative-image in the form of a pure white room, Great care is taken to make it work. The expansive floor is covered in delicate white felt, and visitors don fabric slippers so as to not scuff the floor with their shoes. The felt doubles as an acoustic absorption material, helping to create an anechoic-chamber-like silence in the room. The entire room is lit from above by a grid of large panels which produce a soft, uniform and continuous light source.

Instead of 10 video projections, we find ‘the irreducible [n_1-10]’: 10 static, black panels composed of a large—but finite—set of numbers. These numbers of so tiny, they are barely visible to the naked eye. Whereas before we explored the unbound vastness of space, the limitless expanse of discrete moments of time, and the infinite range and precision of data representation with god-like objectivity, now we arrive at the polar opposite: the single, here-and-now subjective experience of the only one true universe. Here all the hypothetical possibilities collapse into a single instance of the world having a specific form and state. Our subjective perception of this particular place, the one-and-only world in which we inhabit, is enriched and is much more reified by its contrast with the inverse, counterfactual world of pure objectivity[1].

The experience is supplemented by ‘matrix [5ch version]’, a 5-channel audio installation composed of five Meyer Sound Laboratories SB-1 parabolic long-throw sound beams. Exploiting the directional behavior of a parabolic reflecting surface, the SB-1 provides the ability to propagate precisely focused sound waves while maintaining a narrow beamwidth.

Listeners who traverse, and disrupt, the soundscape created by these 5 speakers, encounter a highly-subjective hearing of the work. There is no objective position, only one vastly entangled system as the act of observation itself disrupts the sound waves and the acoustics are highly dependant on the position and direction of the listener’s body, head and ears within the field. This further solidifies our conception of space as a uniquely subjective experience.

Venue details:
http://www.ryojiikeda.mot-art-museum.jp/

-----
[1] The ‘White Room’ mise-en-scene in the movie “The Matrix” plays an analogous role. The stark white, horizonless background, and anachronistic setting reinforce the emptiness and artificiality of the Matrix. By contrast, the subsequent transition, made without physically leaving the ‘white room’, to a scene on the outskirts of New York City, reinstates the theme of simulation versus reality in the film.

One is also reminded of the “white room” scene in “2001: A Space Odyssey”, in which Dave Bowman ages rapidly. Devoid of doors and windows, this room too plays counterpoint to the ordinary perception of space and time.

Canon puts new Japanese camera factory on hold

Notice regarding delay in construction, start of operation of Nagasaki Canon

TOKYO, December 17, 2008—Canon Inc. announced today that it would delay the construction and start of operation of Nagasaki Canon Inc., the manufacturing base in Higashi Sonogi-gun, Nagasaki Prefecture, established in July this year.

Since 2000, demand for digital cameras has continued to increase rapidly. As demand is expected to continue growing in the future, Canon recognizes the need to expand its production capacity for both digital SLR and compact digital cameras.

Upon newly establishing Nagasaki Canon, original plans had called for starting construction in January 2009 and commencing operation in December 2009, carrying out production operations in collaboration with Oita Canon Inc., also located in Kyushu.

Recently, however, growth in demand for digital cameras has rapidly declined compared with original projections due to the global economic downturn triggered by the failure of major U.S. securities firms, which has necessitated a revision of earlier production plans. This serious drop in demand is expected to continue for a period of time. These factors led to the company's decision to delay the start of construction and operation of the new manufacturing site.

With regard to future construction and operation plans for Nagasaki Canon, Canon will watch market developments for the time being and announce a revised schedule once the timing has been determined.

This decision will have no impact on the hiring of individuals that have already received employment offers and are scheduled for hire from January 2009, including new graduates in April 2009. These individuals will undergo training at Oita Canon as originally planned and will be assigned work at Nagasaki Canon sometime following the start of operations at the new site.

The construction was originally announced in July and was to be called Nagasaki Canon Inc. The site is located in Hasami-cho, Higashi Sonogi-gun, Nagasaki Prefecture. The cost of setting up the 41,700 square meter facility would be 17.4 billion yen (US$198 million) with a completion date in 2010. Over 1,000 staff would be required to run the facility.

Three Point Lighting Tutorial

Nice basic three point lighting tutorial

Google gives online life to Life mag's photos

Google gives online life to Life mag's photos

Google gives online life to Life mag's photos
8 hours ago

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. (AP) — Google Inc. has opened an online photo gallery that will feature millions of images from Life magazine's archives that have never been seen by the public before.

The new service, available at http://images.google.com/hosted/life, debuted Tuesday with about 2 million photos. Eventually, Google plans to scan all 10 million photos from Life's library so they can be viewed on any computer with an Internet connection.

About 97 percent of Life's archives have not been publicly seen, according to Life.

The photos can be printed out for free as long as they aren't being used as part of an attempt to make money. Time Warner Inc., Life's parent company, hopes to make money by selling high-resolution, framed prints. The orders will be processed through Qoop.com.

Life's archives include photos from the Civil War as well as some of the most memorable moments from the 20th century, including the Zapruder film capturing John F. Kennedy's assassination.

Google has been indexing a wide variety of information that previously wasn't available online as part of its efforts to lure even more traffic to its popular search engine. For the past four years, Google has been scanning millions of books stored in dozens of libraries around the world.

The Life partnership represents Google's biggest undertaking in professional photography. Google hopes to work out similar arrangements with the owners of other large photo archives, said R.J. Pittman, a director of product management.

Photo Exhibition : Kwon Choul, photojournalist

Kwon is a friend of mine who contributed some images to my recent TOKYO REALTIME: Kabukicho project

Photo Exhibition : Kwon Choul, photojournalist
Time: 2008 Nov 01 11:00 - 11:00
Summary:

Living in Kabukicho (Main Bar)
Kokoro-chan, a homeless girl in Kabukicho (Sushi Bar)

Description:

FCCJ Main Bar & Sushi Bar
November 1-November 29, 2008
Kwon Choul, photojournalist

I come from Korea, and a relatively peaceful part. Perhaps that's why Kabukicho, Japan's biggest entertainment district, was at first too much to fit into my viewfinder. But soon, recording the fleeting moments of the town became an addiction.
The women of Kabukicho summon all men's dirty desires. Bloods and violence are daily visitors. Sometimes I want to turn my face away from Kabukicho and its tourists, students and drunken salarimen. But if you want to really see people’s lives you have to conquer fear and surrender yourself to violence and desire. That’s why I live and shoot in Kabukicho. Within the Kabukicho district, the Koma Theater Plaza is crowded with people throughout the day. Ten years ago cardboard houses started to concentrate in the area. In one of these houses I met a small girl living with her father.

"What is your name?"
"Kokoro!"
She held up four fingers to tell me her age and smiled.
"Who are you living with, Kokoro?"
"Hmmm... With my daddy."
"What about your mom?"
"I don't know!"

After Kokoro was born in Asakusa her father took her to Omiya, Shibuya, Ikebukuro, and finally to Kabukicho. Now she lives in a child welfare facility.

Kwon Choul, photojournalist.
Born in South Korea, 1967.
Kwon is well known for his work on Shinjuku Kabukicho, Hansen's disease, North Korean escapees, US military base issues, and minorities in Japan.

Publications:
"Kabukicho Jihen (Kabukicho Affairs) 1996~2006" (Wani Magazine)
"Kokoro-chan, a girl in Kabukicho" (Kodansha, will be published December 2008)

Ninagawa X LaChapelle

Couldn't help but noticed the similarities between this photo by Mika Ninagawa above, and this shot of my sister Avalon by DAVID LaCHAPELLE (Avalon Fallen in Shrubbery, 1995) below:

cevin key X dj oto

Web gallery of shots I took at a skinny puppy dj set at Shinjuku Kabukicho's MARZ on Oct 25th '08

all shots created in-camera (no photoshop)

You can hear some of Elliot's (DJ OTO) tracks here:
http://djoto.com/

Canon 40D Hacked to Record Movies

http://www.crunchgear.com/2008/09/23/canon-40d-hacked-to-record-movies/

Death of the historic war photograph

Photojournalists around the world agree that the monumental snapshot of war, epitomised by pictures like Robert Capa's Falling Soldier from the Spanish Civil War, and Vietnamese Nick Ut's children running from a napalm attack in 1972, has lost its power on contemporary internet-using audiences.

Internet viewing figures show a shift in attitude towards pictures of war. People no longer trust old style current events photography, and appear to be losing interest in it.


continues on Telegraph

Tonchidot: Sekai Camera

Canned demo vaporware, or possibly the greatest advance in the integration of mobile location-based contextual video-driven telephony with user contributed content the world has seen?

http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/09/17/tonchidot-madness-the-video/

Thanks Haru-chan!

Leica S2 with 56% larger sensor than full frame

Photokina 2008: Leica has unveiled a brand new autofocus DSLR system designed for professional users, which is configured around a 30x45mm sensor (i.e. 56% larger than 35mm full-frame).

Details at dpreview

Get to know WeeGee the Famous

He captured tenement infernos, car crashes, and gangland executions. He found washed-up lounge singers and teenage murder suspects in paddy wagons and photographed them at their most vulnerable -- or, as he put it, their most human. He caught couples kissing on their beach blankets on Coney Island and the late-night voyeurs on lifeguard stands watching them. And everywhere he went, he snatched images of people sleeping: drunks on park benches, whole families on Lower East Side fire escapes, men and women snoring in movie theaters. He was the supreme chronicler of the city at night. --bio continues at http://www.soundportraits.org/on-air/weegee/

Selected Works online at the Weegee's World courtesy of the International Center for Photography Midtown

more biography here:
Weegee: Paparazzi or Social Documentarian?

Thanks Koga-san!

Nice article on Araki by Andrew Lee

And the Japanese art scene certainly
differs from other countries. Takashi
Murakami and other Japanese artists
argue that there is no distinction between
high and low art in Japan because “art”
was a concept introduced from the west.
Araki agrees. “In my mind there is
absolutely no hierarchy. Just like all
women are beautiful. I really don’t like
the idea of what is right and what is
wrong. What is sacred, what is profane.
What is art and what is obscene. I don’t
want that kind of categorisation.

http://homepage.mac.com/a.lee/main/writing/araki221005.pdf

TED Talk: Photography connects us with the world

David Griffin: Photography connects us with the world

SLR camera shoots high-def movies, too

When I first got my Canon 5D DSLR I was disappointed to discover that it couldn't shoot video. Why could my $750 Panasonic LX1 with Leica lens shoot 640 x 480 video at 30 frames-per-second, but my $2500 Canon can't I wondered.

Enter the Nikon D90



New Nikon SLR camera shoots high-def movies, too
By PETER SVENSSON – 1 hour ago

NEW YORK (AP) — Nikon Corp. on Wednesday launched the first digital still camera with interchangeable lenses that also shoots movies.

The D90 single-lens reflex camera, or SLR, takes 12.3 megapixel stills, but can also shoot movies in the high-definition 720p format. It will be available in September for $1,000 without a lens.

Compared to a consumer digital movie camera, the D90 will provide extra versatility for a videographer, since different lenses have different looks and applications.

Tell It to Judge, and Photographer

NYT spotlight on Steven Hirsch, the photographer behind Courthouse Confessions

Video link here

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Tokyo Koenji Awaodori Dance Festival

Upcoming shooting opportunity

Tokyo Koenji Awaodori Dance Festival is held annually on the last Saturday and Sunday of August.

http://www.koenji-awaodori.com/indexEn.html

Tokyo Koenji Awaodori Festival was first held in 1957 and celebrated the 50th anniversary in 2006. As the festival developed into a huge event, the number of visitors has also grown significantly from the original few thousands into 1.2 million.

Photography as a Weapon

NYT article on photography by Errol Morris

Photography as a Weapon

Licensing photos from flickr

I never understood why Flickr doesn't just have their own opt-in program which would allow licensing of one's images a la Corbis or Getty.

Great Photo on Flickr? Getty Images Might Pay You for It
By Miguel Helft

If you are a photographer with high-quality images posted on Yahoo’s Flickr service, you may soon get an e-mail message inviting you to become a paid contributor to Getty Images, the world’s largest distributor of pictures and video.
Yahoo and Getty Images said Tuesday that they had entered into a partnership under which Getty editors would comb Flickr in search of interesting images. They will then invite photographers to participate in the program and ensure that their images have the proper releases to be licensed legally. Those who are included in the program will get paid at the same rates that Getty pays photographers who are under contract with the company.

more details here at NYT

Richard Avedon <> Avalon Hodges

Just discovered that my sister was one in one of Richard Avedon's last photographs before he died in Oct of 2004. Wasn't a portrait, but a group shot. She is the princess with the little dog.

from an article in The New Yorker, Nov. 1 2004:

Although, in the course of a sixty-year career, Richard Avedon was known mainly for his originality in portraits and fashion photography, he also confronted the realms of politics, power, suffering, and war. He documented the civil-rights movement in the South, the Vietnam War, mental institutions, and, in a portfolio called “The Family,” the Washington establishment of thirty years ago.

Earlier this year, Avedon decided that he would try to capture a sense of the country in the midst of a crucial Presidential election campaign. He travelled well beyond his studio on East Seventy-fifth Street, visiting the Conventions in Boston and New York, and, among other places, Killeen, Texas; Reno, Nevada; and San Francisco. After more than fifty sessions, he also had a series of sittings scheduled for his return East—with Donald Rumsfeld, William Rehnquist, Alan Greenspan, and William Kristol—but on September 25th in San Antonio, where he had been working with Iraq veterans and was preparing for a sitting at a school, he suffered a cerebral hemorrhage. Six days later, he died, and this portfolio, “Democracy,” was left unfinished.

Dangers of Street Photography in Kabukicho

did tomoko mention that 3 guys kicked my ass?

[5:13:11 PM] andreszd says: no!
[5:13:13 PM] andreszd says: ?
[5:13:17 PM] andreszd says: what happened?

[5:16:53 PM] Max Hodges - White Rabbit Press says: oh was out with 3 Japanese. two girls and another guy. We were all in suits and had dinner in Shinjuku and drinks in Kabubukicho. On the way back to the station I snapped a pic of some girl sitting on the curb. she had her head down like very drunk. but not puking. didn't get her face or anything, just her sitting there. some guy out of the blue came over and complained that I took the picture. I immediately said "sumimasen sumimasen, keshimasu." (trans: sorry, i'll delete it) and showed him that I was deleting it. (if it was a stellar photo I might have tried to keep it, but I didn't really care about the shot at all). and then he kicked me. so I said again, "keshimasuyo!" (trans: I'm deleting it!) and tried to show them that I'm deleting it, and he punched and kicked me. after about 3-4 times of that, I gave the camera to my friend so I could fight back

[5:17:39 PM] andreszd says: shit
[5:17:46 PM] andreszd says: fighting in a suit!
[5:17:51 PM] andreszd says: then what happened?

[5:18:15 PM] Max Hodges - White Rabbit Press says: his friend joined and I busted his friend's nose. (got blood on my shirt and jacket) :(

some people tried to break it up, and someone held me from behind. at first I was like,, oh this is bad, but then I just figured that the guy behind me was just trying to stop the fight so I relaxed...but then he threw me down to the ground, so I had three guys kicking me.

[5:18:33 PM] Max Hodges - White Rabbit Press says: I managed to take off my jacket at one point...

[5:18:41 PM] andreszd says: jesus
[5:19:07 PM] andreszd says: go to hospital?

[5:19:50 PM] Max Hodges - White Rabbit Press says: dude kicked me as hard as he could in my thigh. it's very bruised. hurts to walk. even hurts when I lay down. kills me on stairs. also hurt my shoulder, jaw, neck, and stomach/adbomin near my lower rib. luckily they didn't break it.

[5:19:52 PM] Max Hodges - White Rabbit Press says: no
[5:20:12 PM] Max Hodges - White Rabbit Press says: no hospital. cops came and the dude who started it manged to walk away while the cops where checking my ID haha

[5:20:30 PM] andreszd says: man
[5:20:34 PM] andreszd says: wtf

[5:21:06 PM] Max Hodges - White Rabbit Press says: on the way home, I saw another fight and took pictures of it. I've seen like 4 fights in the last couple weeks. too many K1 fans in the place. think it gets them all in the fighting mood.

[5:21:49 PM] Max Hodges - White Rabbit Press says: guess my luck in kabukicho ran out. think I'll just take photos of cats and flowers from here out.

[5:22:55 PM] Max Hodges - White Rabbit Press says: hard to fight three people...

A Guide to New and Used Camera Shops in Tokyo

A Guide to New and Used Camera Shops in Tokyo

Portable Polaroid PoGo Printer

Long live Polaroid!

Here's how it works -- you snap off a picture with your cam phone or Pict-Bridge enabled shooter and then send the image to the PoGo via Bluetooth or USB. The PoGo then prints out a borderless image on a 2-inch by 3-inch slice of thermal ZINK photo paper.

Wired reviews Polaroid PoGo Printer

JapanToday: Japan News and Censored Discussion

It's always nice to have an audience for one's work, so I'm happy that a photo of mine selected to appear on JapanToday's Picture of the Day. But after I posted some comments of their site, about the photo I took, the editor ask me not to please not comment anymore. Saying:

...some readers have already challenged you with insults, which I have removed.

I'm afraid we cannot allow a direct dialogue between readers and yourself because it will get nasty. We wish readers simply to discuss what is going on in the photo.

I only wish you not to participate on discussions where you took the photo. If you hadn't identified yourself, it would have been OK. We apply the same rule to writers as well.

Chris

Personally, I can't think of a single better use for a website forum than as a place for the authors to engage in discussion with their readership. But apparently JT only permits reader-to-reader discussion. Am I the only person who thinks that is a bit odd? Seems like they let the bad apples spoil the cart. Just get rid of the abusive accounts instead of prohibiting your own contributors from engaging in discussion with the readership...

It gets stranger. Yesterday's Picture of the Day, a photo of girl crying at the site of Sunday’s stabbing spree in Akihabara, someone made this comment:

...Then there are all the people taking photos of the three victims as they die in the streets ! Question ! What exactly are you going to do with those photos ? I mean how sick is that !... Sick folks ! Really sick !!!

To which I replied:

Many of those amateur photos made it into the mainstream news. Only so many people can help a victim. Do you know how to stabilize someone and provide first responder medical care?

You never know what purpose an image might come to serve. Perhaps they document the valiant efforts of rescuers. Perhaps they could be useful in court. Do you suppose that photograhy of war atrocities is equally sick?

You could make the same criticism of journalists in China after the earthquake...taking pictures instead of helping with search and rescue. But that isn't their job. If no one plays that role, the stories would not get out.

On April 16, 2007, a 23-year-old man shot and killed 32 people at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. As the shootings were taking place students reported what was taking place on blogs, mobile phones, instant messaging, Flickr, Wikipedia, and social networks.

Is taking a photo of a crime scene inherently wrong? I don't think so."

Then I got this email:

This is to inform you that your message on JapanToday.com has been removed for the following reason:
Off Topic

">there are all the people taking photos of the three victims as they die in the streets ! ...

On April 16, 2007, a 23-year-old man shot and killed 32 people at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. As the shootings were taking place students reported what was taking place on blogs, mobile phones, instant messaging, Flickr, Wikipedia, and social networks.

Is taking a photo of a crime scene inherently wrong? I don't think so."
--
JapanToday.com Moderator Team

Good grief! I don't understand the logic of that...

My reply to the JT Editor:

How can comments about taking pictures at a crime scene be deemed "off topic" on a Picture of the Day page about a recent killing spree?

As a small business owner myself, I thought I should tell you, that based on my experience having my recent comments edited and removed I don't plan to comment again on your site. It's simply a waste of time for me to spend any time engaging in discussion and constructing thoughtful comments when they might instantly disappear for no clear reason. It's impossible to even guess what you might deem as "off topic" considering what was just deleted and considering what does get past your moderators.

When visiting your site to check the progress of discussions, I'd spend time reading news articles which caught my attention, so having a comments section is definitely a way to make a site "sticky". But your moderation policies are too frustrating. I don't mean to sound unpleasant, but just wanted to let you know--as someone who knows how hard it is to run a business--that you just lost a customer.

I'm flattered that you're selected to post my photos, and you're welcome to continue, but asking that I don't engage in discussion regarding my own photo seems very strange to me. I can't think of a single better use for a website discussion section than for the readership and the authors to engage in dialog.

I think a better way to deal with trolls is to give them a warning and site the specific Terms of Use which they are violating and kindly remind them to read the Terms of Use. If they don't get the message and continue, just delete them.

You're Terms at JapanToday are over 3000 words. Do you think people actually read them? The Terms of Use at TED.com--a favoriate site of mine--are about 200 words (9 and 10 don't count).

Sincerely,
Max

Bruce Gilden vid

Bruce Gilden at Magnum

I am showing a slice of life in New York City that in several years won't be there any longer. Many of the people that I photograph are people who have a certain individuality in the way they walk, the way they dress, the way they look. But the world is getting smaller and smaller, so people are tending to look more alike, dress more alike. All of these differences are disappearing, and it's making it tougher to find people to photograph. I believe I'm preserving that so maybe one day my pictures would be considered documentary photographs.

from interview here

Photographer's Bill of Rights

Photographers Bill of Rights

I'll talk to the Japanese Photojournalist Association sometime and see if this is all true in Japan...

WIRED blog article on the basics of RAW

Why You Should be Shooting RAW

another apple shot

Here's my setup--shot with my mobile phone. Shooting through an umbrella with 580EXII flash on manual mode, 1/8 power. Using white cards on the opposite side to fill a bit. Camera is Canon 5D w/24-105mm f/4 EF lens at 55mm f/8.0, 1/100 sec, ISO 100. Used a remote control and camera is tethered to Lightroom so I can sit in front of the camera and easily preview the shots.

still life with apples

Tim Rudder and I decided to shoot apples to practice still life lighting. I'm not real excited about my results, but ran out of playtime for today. I wanted the light to just illuminate the rim and make it look like a flower. Didn't really like the placement of the highlights in the first shot.

Flower Appple


I wanted the highlight to be more like a ring shape around the rim after countless trial and error I finally more or less acheived it by bouncing the flash off a white card that was held very near the apple. In this setup shot you can see I used this black curtain to hide the flash itself.



Lips Apple:

Pixel Perfect

The New Yorker interviews photo retouch master Dangin Pascal.

LINK

Fuji makes you sign bizarre EULA to buy a camera

By signing this End User Questionnaire, End User certifies that (1) the subject camera is being purchased by End User for the above stated legitimate business purpose, (2) End User will make its best efforts to safeguard the camera from being used by others, and (3) in the event End User transfers the camera or the camera is lost, stolen or is otherwise no longer in End User’s possession, End User will immediately notify Fujifilm of such event.

more at boingboing

Found this on a fuji website:

Fujifilm UVIR Digital Camera USA End User License Agreement:

By breaking the packaging seal you acknowledge your understanding and acceptance of Fujifilm's Ultraviolet (UV) and/or Infrared (IR) sensitive digital camera firmware End User License Agreement. The camera firmware contained in each system package is fully activated to engage the camera's UV and/or IR capabilities and ready for use. No other firmware modifications are necessary in order to activate the camera's UV and/or IR wavelength sensitive CCD. THIS LICENSE IS NON-TRANSFERABLE.

You hereby acknowledge and agree that your use of the camera's UV and/or IR light energy sensitive capabilities, as enabled by Fujifilm's camera firmware, will be purely to accomplish a legitimate business purpose in the medical, forensic, fire investigative, law enforcement, scientific, systems integrators, museum/antiquity, aerial photographic survey, astronomy, professional nature and fine art photography, photographic education and local and federal government markets.

In addition, you further agree not to use the camera's hardware and firmware enabled capabilities to engage in unethical photographic conduct involving the violation of personal privacy, child endangerment, lewd photography, and or paparazzi like activities.

source

Stanford researchers developing 3-D camera with 12,616 lenses

Stanford electronics researchers, lead by electrical engineering Professor Abbas El Gamal, are developing such a camera, built around their "multi-aperture image sensor." They've shrunk the pixels on the sensor to 0.7 microns, several times smaller than pixels in standard digital cameras. They've grouped the pixels in arrays of 256 pixels each, and they're preparing to place a tiny lens atop each array.

The result: an electronic "depth map" containing the distance from the camera to every object in the picture, a kind of super 3-D.

more here

(thanks kevin!)

How to hold a camera

Been discussing ways to hold a camera with a few friends. Here's an interesting approached (thx for the link Taro):

TOKYO REALTIME: update

Created a DIGG post for the new audio tour series.
DIGG THIS?

We Come in Peace (to sell expensive handbags)

Chanel Mobile Art Container Site with artist profiles and vid

(thanks to Spencer for heads-up)

Photography as a Terrorist Activity

London's Metropolitan Police recently launched a counter-terrorism campaign that warns citizens to be on the lookout for "odd" photographers. Posters promoting the campaign present the camera as if it were a weapon. The climate in the U.K. is such that the photographers there last year organized a photographer's rights petition out of fear that public photography might become a licensed activity.

Campaign posters here

In 2004, New York's Metropolitan Transit Authority considered a ban on photography in subway stations. It dropped the idea the following year.

In 2006, Saudi Arabia lifted a ban on photography in public places to attract more tourists; some restrictions remain, however.

Somewhat related: Police in Japan have on occasion asked me and my friends to delete photos of police and their police boxes that we've taken on public streets here in Tokyo. I don't believe they have an real legal basis for that here, but a friend in Singapore tells me that photography of police in his island country is strictly prohibited.

When I added, "doesn't a free and active press play an important role in monitoring the police in a democracy?", he reminded me that there is no such thing as a free and active press in Singapore.

Surprisingly (to me), world opinion is divided on the importance of press freedom, according to a BBC World Service poll of 11,344 people across 14 countries. About 48% of respondants in Singapore supporting controls over the press to ensure peace and stability. Unfortunately Japan was not represented in those results.

Sex in the Park, and Its Sneaky Spectators: The Photography of Kohei Yoshiyuki

WHY are the Japanese couples in Kohei Yoshiyuki’s photographs having sex outdoors? Was 1970s Tokyo so crowded, its apartments so small, that they were forced to seek privacy in public parks at night? And what about those peeping toms? Are the couples as oblivious as they seem to the gawkers trespassing on their nocturnal intimacy?

Layers of Voyeurism If the social phenomena captured in these photographs seem distinctly linked to Japanese culture, Mr. Yoshiyuki’s images of voyeurs reverberate well beyond it. Viewing his pictures means that you too are looking at activities not meant to be seen. We line up right behind the photographer, surreptitiously watching the peeping toms who are secretly watching the couples. Voyeurism is us...

Click here to continue reading this NYT article.

Audio slideshow Layers of Voyeurism

Refocus Imaging: Computational Cameras

2008 may see a new generation of cameras, dubbed computational cameras, that allow viewers to refocus an image after it has been captured.

Refocus Imaging, a Stanford University spinoff, is licensing lens and software technology
that allows a camera to capture the entire light field entering the lens, not just an ordinary image.

An array of micro lenses between the lens and sensor capture all the focus fields at once. Viewers can then move a slider accompanying the image file (which will be a new format) and refocus each image file at will — an entirely new end-user experience.

I don't know how many viewers would really care about refocusing an image, but I think this technology has more interesting applications such as making it easier to extend the depth of field in macro (close-up) photography--something which can be accomplished today with a technique called focus stacking but requires a lot more work and can be problematic or impossible if there is motion in the scene.

Focus Stacked Dolichopodid(Source: AirBrontosaurus )


According to Refocus Imaging, their Digital Lens platform requires only two changes to a conventional camera:
-A new microlens array in front of the sensor
-Refocus’ proprietary software

The incremental change in hardware creates an enormous increase in the power of the recorded light. A conventional camera records only the average value of the many light rays striking each pixel. A Refocusing Digital Lens camera records each of the individual light rays, providing much more information to compute better pictures.

See it in action: select an image from the Refocus gallery and click on the image to focus at a specific location. Use the right hand slide bar to push or pull the focal plane.

Note from Chris aka AirBrontosaurus on the above Dolichopodid image:

Manual focus stacking with moving objects can be tough. You have to be quick, but still make sure you capture all the different points. This is compounded by the fact that the fly in the picture (Dolichopodids) are very, very skittish. The flash pulse usually sends them flying, so you can only get one shot before they're gone. This one didn't move, so I figured I had to get a good stack on him.

The macro lens I use (Canon MP-E) actually doesn't focus. It only has one focusing distance for a given magnification ratio, and you have to move the entire camera to change the focal point. So, in addition to working with very small DOFs, you have to move forward and backwards tiny amounts to get all the focal planes to line up. It's hard, but a lot of fun.

Nadav Kander, Photographer

Just learned about this photographer from a friend recently. Really love his compositions and muted tones in Yangtze, The Long River.

His flash site is a bit slow to load, but well worth the wait.

www.nadavkander.com

Early Morning Skyline in Akatsuka

Shot this shot and a few others at daybreak today.



Click it for a better look!

PauseTalk Photo Pool

We recently setup a flickr Photo Pool for our PauseTalk design group.



What is PauseTalk?
PauseTalk is a monthly meeting of Tokyo-based creatives. We meet on the first Monday of each month starting at 20:00 in Cafe Pause in Ikebukuro. The idea is to create a forum where Tokyo-based creatives can share and discuss their current projects, meet other creatives for potential collaboration, and keep their thumb on cultural currents. PauseTalk was founded by Jean Snow who writes about design in Tokyo and works at White Rabbit Press where he is co-producer on a top-secret project.

Tamao Photographer

I found a photog. on flickr who's work I really love.



But when looking at her work, I wonder: are some of these shots possible with straight photography, or is some Photoshopping necessary to get the right results?

Something seems special about the colors and tonality in many of the shots. Regardless, she's a very exceptional photographer! Click her photo above to jump to her gallery.

International Center for Photography: Photo Tips

Here's another link to add to my collection of good photography tips:

International Center for Photography: Photo Tips
(thanks Spencer!)

Casio EX-F1 Ultra-high Speed Digital Camera

Casio Computer Co Ltd will release a digital camera "EX-F1" in March 2008. The EX-F1 is a totally new type of digital camera that delivers speed and digital functions never before available. This new concept in digital cameras lets you shoot photographs that capture every moment of a moving subject, and movies that open up a whole new world invisible to the naked eye.

Capturing up to 60 frames per second at full-resolution and a staggering 1200 fps if you drop the image size to 336 x 96, this innovative camera will also shoot 1920 x 1080 Full HD movies at 60fps.

From an interview with Casio's Jin Nakayama, general manager for QV Unit of Planning Department.

[the EX-F1] can shoot pictures that even a digital SLR with a high-speed auto-focus function cannot shoot and pictures that are invisible to the naked eye...

When it is difficult to take a picture of an object, take a movie of it. The wall between movies and still pictures is formed by immature technologies...

Whether it is a movie or a still picture does not matter. The (ideal) still picture might be the one taken from a movie....

Check out the super slow motion videos here

tech specs on dpreview

Money shot: will the EX-F1 breath new life into the porn video industry?

Improving one's photography

I don't claim to a be good photographer by any means--I've only pursued it with any passion for a couple months--but I wanted to pass along some tip and techniques which have helped me.

Understanding your basic photographic concepts like aperature, depth of field, and shutter speed is important (read your manual!), but it doesn't matter how technically excellent your photo is if the composition sucks.

I think this is a great starting place. Kodak has a lot of simple tips and techniques. Read the Ten Tips article, try experimenting with all the ideas, then read it again.

Here's another article on composition which had helped me a lot. Everytime I read it I get more out of it. Rinse and repeat.

Here's a great single-source collection of articles on photographic composition I've found. Some of the articles are actually on landscape painting, but they are also very helpful:
http://photoinf.com/

Finally, learn from the pros. This list of photog reps which should supply plenty of inspiration (tip of the hat to Spence for the links):

http://www.katybarker.com/
http://www.judycasey.com/
http://www.jgkinc.net/
http://www.marekandassociates.com/
http://www.monacoreps.com/
http://www.billcharles.com/
http://www.corneliaadams.com/
http://www.managementartists.com/
http://www.apostrophe.net/
http://www.jedroot.com/
http://www.sergethomass.com/
http://www.creativeexchangeagency.com/
http://www.oliverpiro.com/
http://www.art-dept.com/
http://www.pmionline.net/
http://www.artandcommerce.com/
http://www.artpartner.com/
http://www.afgmanagement.com/
http://www.moomanagement.com/
http://www.morganlockyer.com/
http://www.artwingny.com/
http://www.janicemoses.com/
http://www.ba-reps.com/
http://www.barbaralaurie.com/
http://www.chrisboalsartists.com/
http://www.tomboothinc.com/
http://www.margecasey.com/
http://www.clmus.com/
http://www.edgereps.com/
http://www.evcreative.com/
http://www.exposureny.com/
http://www.infocus-ny.com/
http://www.i2iphoto.com/
http://www.tonyjayinc.com/
http://www.triciajoyce.com/
http://www.sarahlaird.com/
http://www.lamprechtbennett.com/
http://www.brucelevingroup.com/
http://www.mapltd.com/
http://www.wschupfer.com/
http://www.radicalmedia.com/
http://www.sgmnyc.com/
http://www.artistsandcreatives.com/
http://www.exposureny.com/
http://www.p-achard.com/
http://www.stocklandmartel.com/main.aspx
http://www.bird-production.com/

IWGP homeless shelters

Click image for larger view.

I think I'm done shooting homeless at night for a while. The cold is too painful. Felt like my feet were frozen the night I shot this one.

Ikebukuro West Gate Park at Night

Not really sure if I like this photo much or not... what do you think?

Click the image for a larger view

Ikebukuro Night Shot

Here's one of the shots from some night photography I did in Ikebukuro last month. Nice colors. Click the image for a larger version--they always look better.

One cold night with the homeless in Ikebukuro

The Swedish Dånk! collective has been invited by Stadmuseum (the city museum in Göteborg) to do an audio-installation about homeless people in Gothenburg and in other cities around the globe. They've asked me to contribute some field recordings from where homeless people can be found in Tokyo for the project. Here a link to some of the photos I snapped during the night I recorded. Some of them are crap (shooting at night without a flash is always a challenge), but I like enough of them to share:

Link to photo gallery

The makeshift shelter in the photo above is on a median between several lanes of high-speed traffic and below a pedestrian bridge, elevated freeway and train overpass making it very noisy and polluted with carbon monoxide. The man who sleeps here has to cross the road and climb the fence to enter and exit.

To let you know how cold it was that night, by the time I got back home at 6 AM it was snowing.

The audio file below was recorded from the same pedestrian brige where I took the photo above. It's unedited except for having added a one second fade in/out on the ends and coverting from the 96Khz/24-bit recorded file down to this 3.7 MB mp3 file (the original three minute recording is a whopping 106 MB).

I think the Gothenburg designers are going to do some kind of remixing with them. If there is a website component to the project I'll supply that link at a later date.

It's always interesting to do these kinds of field recordings, because during the process you really become aware of the various rhythms and textures which we normally just seem to filter out. I guess it's kind of like fishing--often it's just an excuse to spend some time in nature. Some of my nighttime exposures can take several minutes, which gives me some time to let the surroundings really sink in.

It was pretty loud on location, so turn up the volume for the full effect. See if you can identify the low rumble of the train passing, the creaking and groaning of the overpass and pedestrian bridge which was bouncing from the traffic load above. The car traffic comes in waves--modulated by the traffic signals further up the street. I like the sound of the motorcycle which passes a little before the 3 minute mark.

audio/08012301.mp3

Pictures shot with a Canon EOS 5D with help from a Canon TC-80N3 timer remote controller. Lens is a Canon 28mm/1.8 prime.

Audio recorded with a Sony PCM-D1.

Takoyaki Ojisan

Click photo to see larger version.

Took this with my Canon 5D in Shinjuku on Friday night. Unfortunately it seems like Blogger compresses images in some nasty way because the original looks much better. (sigh).

For those unacquainted with Japanese cuisine: he's cooking takoyaki--fried Octopus balls. Of course Octopi have eight legs, which yields four pair of balls. ;)

Koenji Gallery

Some snapshots from yesterday's fact-finding mission to Koenji with Vanessa and Jean:
Koenji Gallery