Yesterday I found (via retweet) a site called Timescapes.org, which is run by an independent filmmaker, Tom Lowe. He has posted some samples on his web site, and has announced on his that he’s just hit the road for some extended shooting opportunities for his first film “Southwest Light”. Will definitely be keeping an eye on his twitter feed to see when new samples are posted. If they’re anything like the one below, they’ll be well worth taking a few minutes out from a busy day to watch.

Timescapes Timelapse: Mountain Light from Tom Lowe @ Timescapes on Vimeo.

Saw this on Twitter from MoGraph TV linking up to it. This is a real-world video that blends perfectly suited music into a series of landscape video clips, most presumably from South America. This is further motivation to find a way to get down to Chile and explore the region of Patagonia one day. Before I kick the proverbial photo bucket! Enjoy.

Happy 20th, Photoshop! It’s amazing to think that roughly 17 years have past, since I tried Photoshop for the first time (and later tore the shrink-wrap off my first copy (version 3, left). I was introduced to Photoshop while working  at the University of Iowa’s Mac computing lab. Weeg, the source of all digital goodness in the known universe. Well, it was for me, anyway.

Seventeen years is a long time in software terms, but I can still remember the excitement of installing Photoshop on my “bad-ass” PowerPC Mac, clocking in at a massive 66MHz and sporting a whopping 16MB of RAM (I think). Any faster and I’m pretty sure that computer would’ve warped the space-time continuum, making time travel possible. Truthfully, tech specs weren’t the rage back then as they are today. All that mattered was I needed to ace my magazine and newspaper layout class, and Photoshop (along with the venerable Aldus Pagemaker) were going to help me do that. No more long trecks to the lab.

Apple Quicktake by H.G. Wells?

It was around that time Apple had also introduced the very first digital camera. It was about the size of a ham sandwich and looked a  bit like one of the alien ships from the original War of the Worlds. I think it clocked in under 1 megapixel and many images turned out noisy and a little blurry from the tiny lens. But that didn’t matter either.

What mattered was the sense of possibility that it brought. To that point I hadn’t been formally introduced to the art of taking pictures, and it would be another five or six years before I decided to take that career path in earnest, but the idea… that we could snap pictures without film, bring those into our fancy Power PC computers right away, and work with them in Photoshop. That… that was just the BOMB. Think about the buzz surrounding the iPad today, and multiply the initial euphoria by five. Today we expect to be amazed and given perfectly functional products from day 1. Back then it was all new, all an experiment.

I remember one of the first images I created with my “digital arsenal”, Photoshop at the tip of the proverbial spear. It was a logo for a product concept that we had to invent, and then create some basic packaging and collateral for. Our journalism professor was nothing if not pragmatic. She knew that having the ability to design and layout commercial concepts, as well as double-trucks for a newspaper or magazine, would be important for her students. So I came up with a futuristic software company, and I used Photoshop to create a simple graphic. It was actually a pretty cool looking, orange and yellow spiral galaxy, on a black background (to blend in with the brochure background). Used up a lot of ink! So with just a little bit of color, texture and pattern applied to the canvas and this thing called the Twirl filter, my journey had begun.

Save Ferris (from Windows Paint)

Thereafter, many a flat-looking scan and layout were bettered by the inclusion of Photoshop in my workflow. Without so much as a darkroom and cheap enlarger, I quickly learned how to improve color and contrast, crop away distractions, apply subtle (and sometimes no-so-subtle) effects. Remember that back in the early 90s, this was pioneering stuff. Prior there had been Windows Paint, and that’s about it. Remember Ferris Bueller’s masterpiece?

Once in the working world, I realized that marketing jobs -the only corporate kind a kid with a journalism degree could get- were not something I was cut out for (see also: banging head against wall; Dilbert; Initech; shifting paradigms; etc). My goal was to work my way into a position where I was designing collateral materials using Photoshop and other creative apps. Such was my mania for pixel-crunching….

Photoshop 5 Splash Screen

So, during time away from the office, my interest in Photoshop continued. I upgraded to version 5 (right), and was determined to find a way to do this kind of work. 1998 was a transition, moving from W2 status to contractor, from marketing to web design. The web was still a pretty primordial place design-wise and the tools reflected that. Everything was layout based on HTML tables (bad idea), and IE 6.

It was around this time that Photoshop began shipping with a copy of ImageReady, the web-aware version of Photoshop. ImageReady and Photoshop made it possible to create more graphically pleasing layouts with the use of Slicing, Animations, and offered a wide array of optimization options, to keep files sizes down for all those 56K modems and AOL subscribers. 10 years on it’s hard to even say “AOL” without laughing a little, isn’t it? The important thing was Photoshop again made it possible for me to do the kind of work I wanted. But after a year+ of web design, I realized this was still not the solution. I wanted to become a photographer. People warned me it would be a long road and that many photographers fail, but being a glutton for punishment, I went ahead and started the journey anyway.

Fast-forward more than 10 years and I’ve authored my first Photoshop training videos, with more on the way. It’s just as big a part of what I do as my camera and keyboard, and helps to make every good shot I create, and every tutorial, that much better or more interesting, respectively.

Thank you, Adobe, for 17 (really 20!) years of amazing software advances and creative possibilities!

Blizzards, blizzards everywhere! It’s the dead of winter and for many photographers who don’t work in studios, that means a reduced travel schedule and fewer days in the field. Sometimes the gray skies and snow can keep us locked up in our offices, doing other things for weeks. But I think winter is a great time to reinvigorate your sense of purpose and to find new sources of inspiration for what you love to shoot. Take a look at what other photographers and publications are doing, and start planning for the first spring thaw! Maybe take a long weekend somewhere you’ve always wanted to photograph so when the weather turns you’re back in the mindset of capturing the people, places or moments you most want to capture! Or, maybe take a look at your current gallery and think about how you might want to change the vibe or new directions you might want to take for 2010.

Nikkor 24mm f/1.4G ED Prime

Earlier this week Nikon USA announced two newly designed professional wide angle lenses. For anyone who needs to match up their latest Nikon DLSR with a fast, light weight wide angle prime, there is the AF-S NIKKOR 24mm f/1.4G ED. This should be a really excellent street photography lens, capable of bringing in large structures and other surroundings, and in very low light. It’s not cheap though, at over $2000. B&H is listing no ship date as yet.

I’ve always had mixed feelings about  prime lenses. On the one hand they can produce slightly cleaner and sharper images than the equivalent focal lengths on competing zoom models. (In this case the AF-S NIKKOR 24-70mm f/2.8G ED, or the lens I’m about to discuss below, also new from Nikon this week). The other obvious advantage is that they’re much lighter and allow you to be more nimble with your DSLR. Anyone who has lugged around a backpack or Pelican case full of Nikkor Zooms knows how nice it would be at times to walk around unencumbered by packs or cases, shooting as you find things. Less to worry about in terms of theft as well, especially in urban areas.

The downside is, if you realize you can only get so close to a subject or you want to abstract away some of the background, you’d be better off with a zoom in many cases. Convenience and some extra clarity vs. creative flexibility and extra weight, that’s what it boils down to. One of my photography professors also used to note that sometimes, to really learn to see things with one lens, and really explore with that lens, can make you a better photographer. You don’t rely on the zoom capability as a “crutch” for getting close to something or choosing a better angle. I’ve found this to be true at certain points in my career. Zooms can make you lazy, even as you’re walking around, exploring a given area.

AF-S Nikkor 16-35mm f/4G

The other new wide angle lens Nikon announced this week is the AF-S NIKKOR 16-35mm f/4G ED VR, which can be seen as an alternative to the popular ultra-wide AF-S NIKKOR 14-24mm f/2.8G ED. The newest offering is about $600 cheaper, while offering arguably a more practical focal range for things like street photography, landscapes and the documentary work. Also the VR capability is huge when you’re in tight spaces where a tripod just isn’t practical. I think I’d go for 16-35 and VR at one less stop, vs 12-24 in most shooting scenarios….

The only minor drawback is that you lose a stop, making this perhaps a less practical choice when photographing in dimly lit areas or at night in the city. Then again, it’s very easy to push DSLRs like the D700 and D3 series to ISO 1600 and beyond, and achieve really clean looking results even in low light. Add a bit of judicious noise reduction in ACR or Lightroom and perhaps losing that extra stop doesn’t mean as much as it used to for certain types of photography. This lens is definitely on my B&H watch list. If I make the purchase I’ll be reviewing it right here, probably in late spring. Will keep you guys posted.

Motionographer posted a piece on this amazing video (which I think was made for a Massive Attack song, though I’m not familiar with their recent work). Basically it’s an entire city, frozen in time during a moment of destruction and chaos, and the camerawork flies you through it, showing everything from a flock of birds fleeing from the top of a light pole, to tank blasts and people panicking on the streets. Really amazing work. The abstract style is really interesting as well, dropping cinematic realism for more angular, symbolic shapes and visual relationships.

Apple has announced the long-awaited Aperture 3 upgrade at this week’s Macworld Expo. Many photographers, myself included, were starting to wonder if Aperture was dead in the water. Thankfully there’s still a real competition in this space. I strongly believe that products like Aperture and Lightroom will be much better from rev to rev with both players actively pursuing market leadership. This was true of Freehand and Illustrator back in the day, for those old enough to remember Aldus (and later Macromedia, which was acquired by Adobe). So this is good news for photographers, regardless of which product you have preferred to this point.

A free trial version will be available soon. The $99 upgrade for existing users brings a pretty nice array of new features, including native 64-bit support, comprehensive GPS support with an enhanced version of the Places feature we have in iPhoto, comprehensive video support, non-destructive adjustment brushes and a bunch of other cool-sounding additions. (We’ll see how cool they actually are in practice soon. I’ll be ordering a copy today and reviewing it here in the coming weeks.)

Aperture 3 From Apple

I haven’t had much time to look into it but the Nikon D3s has in recent weeks finally become available from some retailers. It’s a very similar camera to the original D3, however it has a newer sensor with a higher ISO capability (comments I’ve read on noise performance are promising), and new HD 24fps video capabilities.

There is some vignetting (to be expected in such low light situations and likely very long lenses being used) but this video is really pretty remarkable when you consider how clean it looks. Makes me think twice about ever springing for a new video rig from Sony when it is so much more natural and convenient to shoot video with the same camera you use for stills….

…because they’re getting screwed by Hollywood it seems, despite their work being almost omnipresent in any succcessful film you see today, critically acclaimed or otherwise. Tim Clapham (of Cinema 4D and FXPHD fame) Tweeted this morning about an open letter to James Cameron (creator of movies like Titanic and Avatar, which have had enormous box office success  and which rely as heavily on CG and VFX as much as they do upon a good story being told).

To my amazement (I have no Hollywood connections so rarely hear about these issues), Visual Effects Artists and CG production people still do not get paid royalties for these amazing films! Executives, actors, writers, musicians… they all (rightly) receive royalties, but somehow the system is so screwed up that the people who create the very worlds and characters that make a movie like Avatar possible, do not get paid royalties. This is borderline criminal IMHO, and well past the boundaries of unethical.

Sometimes the big shots who make the rules in Hollywood need to have their bells rung a little and reminded that we -the people who pay their salaries by going to the theater, buying DVD and Blu-Ray discs and buying PPV movies from our TV providers – care about this issue. But the larger problem here is most people don’t know how badly VFX and CG artists are being shorted here, even creative professionals. That’s why I’m posting this on my blog; I encourage you to do the same or at least Tweet about it. It’s the least we can do, given all the amazing experiences these artists have given to us.

(TUTORIAL STARTS @ 2m30s if you want to skip the Intro!)

High Dynamic Range imaging (also called HDR or HDRI) is a way to “bridge the exposure gap” for scenes that have too great a tonal range to be captured by today’s best DSLRs. For example you may have a sunset where the highlights, when properly exposed, do not allow for the detail to come forward in the shadow areas (or vice-versa).

HDR imaging was designed to circumvent this problem by leveraging your camera’s bracketing features to get a good exposure for each of the highlight, midtone and shadow regions, and then merging them together. From there special software algorithms are used to “tone map” the camera data into a visually appealing shot.

Now, photographers who use OS X can add a new HDR tool to their digital photography arsenal. HDR PhotoStudio 2 offers a completely self-contained solution for selecting, merging and tone-mapping raw files on the Mac. After working with the trial version for a couple hours, I think this software has real potential. There are a couple little quirks and bugs, but that’s to be expected with any new software, and considering they’ve knocked $50 off the price for a limited time you can’t beat it. The feature set is pretty deep, including sharpening and noise reduction, and all of the tools are fairly straight-forward.

In fact I am so excited about seeing an elegant, affordable HDR tool like this on the Mac that I thought I would post my first free tutorial for the new year here on the blog. Soon the rest of the site will have a brand new design and a lot of new content including information about new tutorials and my new book, but for now hopefully this works! Let me know what you think…

Who says motion graphics types have all the fun? Thanks to Motionographer for posting this. It’s an excellent combo of real footage and CG, seamlessly wrapped together. If I were to ever get a job in video production and FX, this is exactly the type of thing I’d want to work on, short of cinematic projects. Short, simple and really effective. Then it’s onto the next project! Enjoy.

FX Coaster Commute FTW.

I’m not normally what you’d call a Daring Fireball junky, but he does definitely bring an interesting perspective to certain Apple events and products. Wednesday he penned a pretty interesting and insightful overview of the iPad experience and what it means for Apple and for all of us. Aside from his description of the iPad’s app performance and responsiveness (“It is fast, fast, fast.”), he correctly notes the huge implications of Apple using its own A4 chip, both in terms of what it could mean for iPhone and for mobile computing in general.

I will go a step further and say that with the economics of social networking pretty much an uncontrolled wild-fire right now (it’s the reason why this 30-something re-built his blog and joined Twitter for the first time this year), Apple could truly become the driving force behind all or most of the computing hardware we use in the years ahead. Funny to think about that, after 20 years of listening to people say “Apple is dead.” Well, maybe 15 years… no one has said that in at least five years as far as I can remember!

Nick Campbell over at Grayscale Gorilla has published what I think is a really cool Cinema 4D tutorial, showing how to model and build a realistic looking chain link from scratch, and then animate it in such a way that it reacts to swinging from a supporting structure and then wraps around another structure that it “hits” during the down-swing. Tweeted this one too but figured it’s worth a direct video embed.

How to Make A Dynamic Chain in Cinema 4D from Nick Campbell on Vimeo.

Creative types, say hello to the Netbook Killer and the next big advancement in indie publishing and learning: the Apple iPad. A big part of what we all do in the digital imaging world, is share knowledge about our artistic works, and of course our favorite creative software. Apple is going to change how we look at creative training, as well as sharing our art, with their new “tablet”, called the iPad.

The Apple iPad: it's almost here!

For starters this probably spells the end of bulky, less-than-engaging text books. Five major publishers have already signed on with Apple, more are sure to follow. This will change the way we enjoy novels, newspapers and even tutorials!

A few of the highlights include: custom Safari browsing and email apps; iBooks with graphical bookshelf and built-in bookstore; GPS with Google Maps; calendar software; iTunes with built-in storefront; games; custom iWork Suite for getting work done; Wi-Fi + 3G; IPS display at ~130ppi; 10 hours battery life; and quite a lot more.

The FCC hasn’t finished approving it yet so we won’t be able to get one until March or April, but this offers so much value -even the highest end model is under $900!- I’m sure they will be back-ordered almost immediately once the availability notice goes out. I for one will be ordering on Day 1 so I can test it out and see what’s possible as both a creative professional, and author / instructor. Definitely have plans to bring my new book to this medium if the ePub format allows it. More to come soon!

PhotoTuts author Andrew Gibson has posted a nice tutorial that demonstrates a simple means of “combining exposures”, by creating two different files from the same raw file and then bringing them together in Photoshop. While this technique typically won’t produce as dramatic a result as exposure-bracketing a scene from your DSLR, and then using HDR techniques to bring them all together, it’s also much quicker than most HDR techniques. So if you don’t have a lot of time to dedicate but want to get more from a scene you captured that has a higher dynamic range, it’s worth a look.