What is Kept Light About?
Kept Light Word Map
I have been writing on this site, and on its predecessor, for some years now. I have written on a variety of topics. Although all are somehow related to photography, the salience of issues becomes visible through a word analysis. To that end, I used a Web application from Wordle using the site’s content from a series of posts and instructing it to use about 4,000 words it found there. Wordle can automatically eliminate the common English words, which I used; and manually deleted some words that had no salience in the scope of things, such as “like” or “hill”. I could have eliminated more but it is tedious work, so you may still see some words that have no salience as to the content you may find here. The resulting word map is the image you see here, click on it to enlarge it. If you want to see the original, point your browser to Wordle.
Photographic Printing Workflow
I gave a presentation at the Photographic Society of Rhode Island, PSRI, on producing quality prints using repeatable workflow. It also included a couple of tips on how to create multiple proof prints at once. This is based on a technique I learned from John Paul Caponigro, he calls it “Bracket Proofing” and it works like a charm. The following slide show will give you a refresher if you were at the presentation, or will give you a general idea about the workflow that you can try to replicate. Watch the slide presentation as some effects and layered images are shown as single image in the PDF files. For instance, the soft proofing sample image shows only one state in the PDF file, you will see both states in the presentation. In any case, I hope you find them useful.
Photographic Printing Workflow Presentation
… and his drawings
If you liked Michael Paul Smith’s time-travel photographs from the past, take a look at his drawings and paintings. They are rendered with great technical detail, great technique, and they manifest strong artistic vision. The drawing below is his “first attempt to draw with colored pencils.” Colored pencils? Explore all his collections and galleries for real gems.
Colored Pencil Drawing by Michael Paul Smith
A Different Kind of Photography
A '58 Plymouth Fury in 1960
Flickr has millions of photographs; now I don’t know the exact number but it seems to house a huge volume of photographs. Many, obviously not all by any stretch of imaginations, are similar photographs of places people have visited, friends having good time, animals caught in interesting and cute poses, and so on. In that haystack, I have stumbled upon a photographer and his unique work that both amazed and very pleased me.
'55 Oldsmobile with Bungalow
Michael Paul Smith combines his mastery of model building with his photography and the result is akin to some kind of time-travel. His affinity to mid 1950s automobiles and his roots still strong in his hometown compelled him to build models of the era, cars, trucks, diners, car dealerships, country roads, and so on. I find his model building skills are extraordinary and his photography quite original and exacting. I have his permission to use these couple of photographs to give you a taste of what awaits you. I encourage you to visit his flickr collection and have a trip down the memory lane. Thank you Michael for your vision, and for your permission to use the photographs in this post.
A Very Brief Video Summary of 2001: A Space Odyssey
Last week I watched one of my all-time favorite movies again. 2001: A Space Odyssey by Stanley Kubrick is probably the best science fiction movie ever and does not seem to get stale or old. Instead, even in 2010, 9 years after the period it depicts, the movie still brings a glimpse of the future. Perhaps we will never get to 2001 as Kubrick and Clarke envisioned, maybe that’s the appeal.
The movie is layered and peeling those layers still proves to be fun, challenging, and inspirational. After I watched it, I decided to provide a visual summary that I hope will serve as a flashback tool for the fans of the movie. If you have not seen it before, this summary will likely not talk to you. But those who have seen the movie and enjoyed it will probably fill in the missing 2 hours from this visual summary. Let me know what you think of this derivative work and whether it speaks to you or not. About 12-minutes long.
Enjoy!
Adobe Air and Application Install Problems
I have written several posts on Adobe CS4 installation problems and how I finally managed to install the parts that I needed. At that time, the problem always happened as the installation software attempted to install Adobe Air and/or an Air application. One part of my solution was to skip installing Adobe Air. Since then, on multiple occasions I tried installing Air applications which always, without exception, ended up my computer being rebooted. Every so often I would get curious enough and would have enough time to spend on this issue and search, experiment, and fail again.
Today on Adobe forums I stumbled upon several posts that mentioned the application “Folder Lock” being a problem. I had that installed at one time on my computer, I had uninstalled it way before the CS4 installation problems. But I was able to find the file mentioned in the forums and removed it. That did not solve the problem. Then, I reinstalled Folder Lock and uninstalled it using its specific method once more. Lo and behold! I could install Air applications! Not that they are earth shatteringly necessary or useful, but it brought a sense of closure, at least at a personal level, to my ongoing battle with the Adobe installation problems.
Now, clearly Folder Lock appears to be an obstacle for Air applications to install. Shame on Folder Lock. That said, why on earth Air application installers, or Air program itself not designed, or corrected to trap this problem and give a meaningful error message instead of crashing the computer. Another point that is still very problematic is the advice given by Adobe tech support. They insisted that I should uninstall all Adobe products. Had I listened to them,uninstalling Adobe software would not help my problem. As guilty as Folder Lock, or similar software may be, Adobe and its tech support provide good company to it.
Happy Mother’s Day
To all mothers, young and old, especially to my two special ones, a very happy mother’s day.
Promotion Party
Recently I have been promoted to the rank of full professor. To celebrate, Jan and I had a party at Efendi’s Med Grill and invited our friends from the department and the School of Business. As luck would have it, Elif and Mina happened to be here as well. Below are some photographs from tonight’s party.
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