There has been no lack of controversy surrounding the announcement of Adobe’s new Creative Cloud product line, and the California-based company is well aware. So much so, in fact, they’ve come out with an update to address some of the major concerns in moving from their traditional boxed-copy to subscription-based model.
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Hyperallergic has published an essay about a project titled Free Sitting done by artist Nora Herting, who got a job as a photographer at a JC Penny portrait studio for the project. Here’s the essay’s description of the project:
The portrait serves a testament to the subjects’ prosperity and personal relations, and yet, despite the time and care people take when having their pictures taken at commercial studios, the resulting photographs are rarely considered aesthetic objects. They are documentation. Herting’s work questions what, exactly, we are documenting in this benign, constructed way.
The studio-portrait experience has a structured set of parameters that form a stylistic equation. When participating in this process we become blind to its constructs. Artists disrupt and violate codes and, in doing so, bring them to our attention. Herting breaks the rules of the studio portrait, and the resulting photographs no longer fulfill their role as social symbols. Images programmed to be evidence of happiness or prosperity become painful, ugly or embarrasing, possibly revealing something unseen before.
If you can wrap your mind around this, please leave a comment with your translation or interpretation.
An Artist Goes Undercover at a JC Penney Portrait Studio (via MetaFilter via Nerdcore)
Image credits: Photographs by Nora Herting
Nikon says the megapixel race ended years ago, but its upcoming camera is rumored to be a 36MP beast. Canon, on the other hand, actually took a step backward in terms of megapixels, dropping from 21 in the 1Ds Mark III to 18 in the new 1D X. However, the company states that camera’s resolution is by no means worse than the 1Ds Mark III, despite what marketers want you to believe. A representative recently spoke to Amateur Photographer, saying:
We have designed the Canon CMOS sensor for the EOS 1DX so that it is much thinner than before and so that the photodiodes are closer to the surface of the sensor. This way the pixels collect more light and produce a better, clearer, signal.
With less noise, and our new improved processing algorithms, the camera is able to reproduce more detail. While using MFT is perhaps not the best way to measure the resolution of the camera, if you did use this method the results for the EOS-1D X and EOS-1 Ds Mark III would be very similar.
The 1D X also has a mirror that utilizes mechanical movement both ways rather than gravity, allowing for faster frame rates while at the same time reducing mirror bounce.
Canon EOS-1D X Equals ’21MP’ DSLR, Claims Firm [Amateur Photographer]
An integral part of being a respectable artist is to have your artist statement be so confusing that you can’t even decipher what it means. If coming up with one of these statements requires more time or brainpower than you have on hand, then check out Instant Artist Statement, an online generator that authors a perfect statement on your behalf for you to paste all over your website, exhibitions, and portfolios. Here’s ours:
PetaPixel’s work explores the relationship between the tyranny of ageing and emotional memories.
With influences as diverse as Kierkegaard and Andy Warhol, new combinations are generated from both explicit and implicit layers.
Ever since we were children, we have been fascinated by the ephemeral nature of the mind. What starts out as triumph soon becomes corroded into a cacophony of power, leaving only a sense of what could have been and the possibility of a new synthesis.
As spatial phenomena become clarified through boundaried and critical practice, the viewer is left with an insight into the possibilities of our future.
We’ll be replacing our “About” page with this statement soon…
Earlier this week stock agency FotoLibra received an email from English Heritage (the public organization that manages historical sites) that read,
We are sending you an email regarding images of Stonehenge in your fotoLibra website. Please be aware that any images of Stonehenge can not be used for any commercial interest, all commercial interest to sell images must be directed to English Heritage.
After the email and a strongly worded response was published to the FotoLibra blog, the story was picked up by Boing Boing, which then published a story titled “English Heritage claims it owns every single image of Stonehenge, ever“. Needless to say, there was a pretty swift public outcry.
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Fine art photographer Jane Fulton Alt has made a series of images commenting on the effect of the Gulf oil spill on Americans. The photos, in her collection “Crude Awakening,” are eerie and still portraits of swimmers and beach-goers drenched in oil. Some of her past work includes a chilling and intimate look at the devastation left behind by Hurricane Katrina in her book Look and Leave.
Also, like much of her work, Alt’s portraits aim to make a powerful statement. Alt says:
Living on the shores of Lake Michigan, I am acutely aware of the disastrous toll the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico has taken on all forms of life, especially as our beaches opened to the 2010 swimming season. This environmental, social and economic catastrophe highlights a much larger problem that has inflicted untold suffering as we exploit the earth’s resources worldwide.
We are all responsible for leading lives that create demand for unsustainable energy.
We are also all responsible for the solution and we must work together to protect the balance of life.
