FRIDAY 7-13-12 On A Foggy Day

This is essentially a slide show of flowers around my home in Eureka, Ca. I put the music of a nice song I made using Apple garageband loops. I just named it the date but Friday 7-13-12 is more fun then most dates. The music is like a Canon something Bach may have done, mostly strings, some french horns, bassoon and a nice Oboe lead. The camera was a canon (no pun intended) rebel XSI with a 100mm 2.8 lens at ISO 200 on a foggy day.

How Canon Camera Gear is Made

Here’s a promotional/educational video by Canon that explains both how digital cameras work and how it manufactures them. Interesting fact: lenses are so precise that if they were to be enlarged to the size of a sports stadium, the margin of error would be less than the thickness of a business card.

Understanding Ring Lights / Ring Flashes: A Lighting Tutorial by TheSlantedLens

 A great lighting tool is the Ring Light or Ring Flash. The Ring Light was invented in the 1950's as a light source to capture medical images. Fashion photographers and DP's soon found this great light source and used it to shoot people. It's perfect because it creates a wonderful highlight on the skin and allows the shadows to fall away from the camera. This video is a look at how to use a Ring Light or Ring Flash. Keep those cameras rolling and keep on click'n! by theslantedlens.com (Jay P. Morgan)

There are also passive light modifiers, which will shape the light from an ordinary (shoe mount) flash into that of a ring flash. The adapters use a series of diffusers and reflectors to "bend" the light in an arc around the lens axis. The light is then emitted from that arc. This maintains any through-the-lens (TTL) lighting functions that may be shared by the camera and flash, as the actual light source has not changed.

Ring flash as a lighting technique has enjoyed a strong resurgence over the last few years,^[when?] as photographers realize that it is far more useful than the one-look way in which it has been used for decades. Specifically, it is now being used primarily as a fill light to raise the illumination level of shadows created by other, off-axis lights. It is considered^{[by whom?]} to be a particularly good source of fill light, because it does not create harsh shadows.

FUN MAKING THE COMMERCIAL

Ai Weiwei: Without Fear or Favour

Arts documentary, first broadcast before Ai Weiwei’s arrest by the Chinese authorities in April 2011, and his subsequent release after being detained for 11 weeks.

Architect, photographer, curator and blogger, Ai Weiwei is China’s most famous and politically outspoken contemporary artist.

Alan Yentob explores the story of Ai Weiwei’s life and art, and reveals how this most courageous and determined of artists continues to fight for artistic freedom of expression while living under the restrictive shadows of authoritarian rule.

Life and work

Ai Weiwei's father was Chinese poet Ai Qing,^[6] who was denounced during the Anti-Rightist Movement and in 1958 sent to a labour camp in Xinjiang with his wife, Gao Ying.^[7] Ai Weiwei was one year old at the time and lived in Shihezi for 16 years. In 1975 the family returned to Beijing.^[8] Ai Weiwei is married to artist Lu Qing.^[7] Ai Weiwei has a son from an extramarital relationship.^[9]

In 1978, Ai enrolled in the Beijing Film Academy and attended school with Chinese directors Chen Kaige and Zhang Yimou.^[10] In 1978, he was one of the founders of the early avant garde art group the "Stars", together with Ma Desheng, Wang Keping, Huang Rui, Li Shuang, Zhong Acheng and Qu Leilei. The group disbanded in 1983,^[11] yet Ai participated in regular Stars group shows, The Stars: Ten Years, 1989 (Hanart Gallery, Hong-Hong and Taipei), and a retrospective exhibition in Beijing in 2007:Origin Point (Today Art Museum, Beijing).

From 1981 to 1993, he lived in the United States, mostly in New York, creating conceptual art by altering readymade objects.^[11] He studied at Parsons School of Design^[12] and at the Art Students League of New York.^[13] At the same time, Ai became fascinated byblackjack card games and frequented Atlantic City casinos. He is still regarded in gambling circles as a top tier professional blackjack player according to an article published on blackjackchamp.com.^[14][15][16]

In 1993, Ai returned to China after his father became ill.^[17] He helped establish the experimental artists' Beijing East Village and published a series of three books about this new generation of artists: Black Cover Book (1994), White Cover Book (1995), and Gray Cover Book (1997).^[18]

Sergey Brin’s Live Demo of Google Glass

Here’s the live demo of Google’s Project Glass that was given by co-founder Sergey Brin yesterday at the company’s I/O conference in San Francisco. As we reported, they had five skydivers wearing the camera glasses beam footage of their jump live into the conference center through a Google+ hangout. If you think cameras are connected to the Internet now, just wait till Google Glass goggles are released sometime next year.

5 Killer Canon Lenses for Recording Video with Your DSLR

 Thinking about recording video with your Canon DSLR? stillmotion put together this short video with 5 lens recommendations based on their video production experiences over the years. 

One recommendation is the 24-105mm f/4 IS “kit” lens that comes bundled with higher-end Canon DSLRs.

This lens allows you to have image stabilization at the wide end (24mm), perfect for tight spots in which you can’t bring bulkier stabilization systems. (via Fstoppers)

Just Plain Love: A Documentary Film About Henri Cartier-Bresson

If you’re a fan of hearing from photography greats and have some free time, check out his awesome documentary film about Henri Cartier-Bresson titled Henri Cartier-Bresson: L’amour Tout Court (“Just Plain Love”). It was directed by Raphaël O’Byrne back in 2001 when Cartier-Bresson was 92 years old, and features interviews with the legendary photojournalist as he talks about how various photographs were made.

  Henri Cartier-Bresson (August 22, 1908 – August 3, 2004) was a French photographer considered to be the father of modern photojournalism. He was an early adopter of 35 mm format, and the master of candid photography. He helped develop the "street photography" or "life reportage" style that has influenced generations of photographers who followed.

 (via Imaging Resource)