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Investors Zoom in on Photography

Despite record prices for photographs at this year's auctions, it is still cheaper to corner the market in Leibovitz than Lichtenstein. Here's how to get started. By Stephen Milioti, Fortune magazine <a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/5406/570/1600/investorszoom.0.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/5406/570/320/investorszoom.0.jpg" style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" /></a>If you had wandered into the New York location of Christie's auction house in 1996, you could have purchased a print of Helmut Newton's "Two Pairs of Legs in Black Stockings, Paris" for about $2,300. Left: Sarah Hasted at her Chelsea gallery. Photo by Zubin Shroff. Then you could have spent the next decade eating, sleeping or lounging beneath the image of two models wearing only black lingerie and black spiky heels. Had you decided to sell that 1979 photograph at Christie's for $38,400 (as its owner did last month), you would have enjoyed better price appreciation than a comparable investment in an S 500 index fund, General Electric stock, or ten-year Treasury bonds. And Newton isn't the only photographer whose prices are on the rise.... <a href="http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2006/11/13/8393128/?postversion=2006111010">READ ON</a> <div style="text-align: left;">Posted by DAVID EMERICK <form method="LINK" action="http://www.smcm.edu/~dnemerick"> <div style="text-align: right;"><input value="David's Site" type="submit"> </div></form></div>

Investors Zoom in on Photography

Despite record prices for photographs at this year's auctions, it is still cheaper to corner the market in Leibovitz than Lichtenstein. ...

5:58 AM

Bill Christenberry's Cup of Tea

Students see L.A. from the ground up Four photo artists take 40 learners on a trip across the city, helping them focus on passion By Deborah Schoch, The Los Angeles Times Photographers Ima Kurada and William Christenberry keep their cameras ready as they roam a North Hollywood sidewalk beneath a bright orange rooftop sign announcing "Miss Peaches.com SOUL FOOD." Kurada is a diminutive 26-year-old photography student from Japan with green streaks in her short black hair who is becoming entranced with the shade of sky-blue paint on the stucco facade of a store. Her tutor is Christenberry, 70, a tall, soft-spoken man who helped pioneer the use of color in fine arts photography. He is an Alabama-born artist based in Washington, D.C., renowned for his photos, paintings and sculptures of rural Southern churches, sheds and sign-laden country stores. They have come together Saturday on Lankershim Boulevard with nine other college students as part of a project by the Getty Museum to pair artists with students learning to record their neighborhoods. Forty college students were divided up between four nationally known photographers and sent out to East Los Angeles, the Santa Clarita and San Fernando valleys and Venice. The goal of the project was to capture "where we live," a term borrowed from the new Getty photography exhibition of the same name. Christenberry and the students from L.A. Valley College who followed him to North Hollywood and Van Nuys would find sidewalks alive with the kaleidoscope-hued facades and signs of African American, Armenian, Latino and Caribbean businesses. The scene became a classroom for both student and teacher. "It's vibrant. Exciting. It's my cup of tea," says Christenberry before he points his camera toward the SOUL FOOD sign.... <a href="http://www.calendarlive.com/galleriesandmuseums/cl-me-photo13nov13,0,3218448.story?coll=cl-art-features">READ ON</a> <div style="text-align: left;">Posted by DAVID EMERICK <form method="LINK" action="http://www.smcm.edu/~dnemerick"> <div style="text-align: right;"><input value="David's Site" type="submit"> </div></form></div>

Bill Christenberry's Cup of Tea

Students see L.A. from the ground up Four photo artists take 40 learners on a trip across the city, helping them focus on passion By Deborah...

5:50 AM

RAW Resources

In response to Carl's post below called "Rain, and Noise," Ernest Theisen wrote: "I am just starting to learn CS2 Camera Raw. Can anyone recommend a good book for a novice?" Carl responds: Adobe has several excellent "white papers" on camera RAW covering both tone and color control and workflow management. Authors are Bruce Fraser and Jeff Schewe. Very good stuff, though pretty dense so you need to go over it several times to pick up all the packed-in hints. Best of all, they're free downloads. Just go search the Adobe site for them. Mike responds: For those who might want an actual printed book, I'd recommend Bruce Fraser's <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FReal-World-Camera-Adobe-Photoshop%2Fdp%2F0321334094%2Fsr%3D1-1%2Fqid%3D1163451743%3Fie%3DUTF8%26s%3Dbooks&tag=theonlinephot-20&linkCode=ur2&camp=1789&creative=9325">Real World Camera Raw with Adobe Photoshop CS2</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=theonlinephot-20&amp;l=ur2&o=1" style="border: medium none ! important; margin: 0px ! important;" width="1" /> or <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FPhotoshop-CS2-Raw-Camera-Digital%2Fdp%2F0596008511%2Fsr%3D1-1%2Fqid%3D1163451926%3Fie%3DUTF8%26s%3Dbooks&tag=theonlinephot-20&linkCode=ur2&camp=1789&creative=9325">Photoshop CS2 RAW</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=theonlinephot-20&amp;l=ur2&o=1" style="border: medium none ! important; margin: 0px ! important;" width="1" /> by Mikkel Aaland, which I think can be assumed to be a safe bet because my friend Michael Reichmann wrote an introduction for Mikkel. (I also think it's safe to assume you don't need both.) All things considered, Bruce's Real World Camera Raw is the single best book I've ever bought about digital photography. It has a higher proportion of necessary information than any other book, and it had more of an effect on how I work than any other book. It's lost its pull for me now that I've already read it, but I remember just vacuuming up everything in it the first time I encountered it. That one gets a "strong buy" recommendation from me. Posted by: CARL WEESE and MIKE JOHNSTON

RAW Resources

In response to Carl's post below called "Rain, and Noise," Ernest Theisen wrote: "I am just starting to learn CS2 Camera ...

1:05 PM

Maine Bank Forecloses on Lyman

The Camden (Maine) Village Soup is reporting that the <a href="http://camden.villagesoup.com/Government/story.cfm?storyID=81752">Camden National Bank has foreclosed</a> on properties associated with the Maine Photographic Workshops, Rockport College, and several residences and boats owned by Workshops Director David Lyman. According to the bank, which foreclosed on October 13th, it is owed more than $3.9 million. We're sure the many thousands of photographers of all levels who have fond memories of learning experiences at the Workshops over many years will be saddened to hear of its present troubles. We send best wishes to all who are affected and hope for the best outcome for all. <a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/5406/570/1600/workshops.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/5406/570/320/workshops.jpg" style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" /></a><blockquote>David Lyman's property at 70 Camden St., which consists of five buildings, including the Homestead, Haas Center and Film Barn, is valued by the town of Rockport at $1,983,700, including $1,306,200 for the buildings and $677,300 for the land, according to the Camden Village Soup.</blockquote> Posted by: MIKE JOHNSTON UPDATE: Read the 11/14/06 Portland Press Herald article "<a href="http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/news/state/061114photographic.html">Famous school of photography in fiscal crisis</a>" on MaineToday.com.

Maine Bank Forecloses on Lyman

The Camden (Maine) Village Soup is reporting that the Camden National Bank has foreclosed on properties associated with the Maine Photogra...

5:56 AM

Rain, and Noise

by Carl Weese Sometimes in the digital photography discussion forums around the internet you could get the idea that "high ISO noise" is the most important issue in digital capture, even more important than megapixels. I don't normally assign this issue such high priority, but there are times when it really does matter. I accidentally tripped over a way to reduce noise in certain circumstances so I thought I'd pass it along. It was a dark rainy day, weather that I really enjoy. I have an aging Olympus E-1 (it works just fine; what's aging is its megapixel count) and it's a nearly perfect rain camera because it's designed to be water-resistant. What makes it less than perfect is that there are no short, fast, lenses available for it and it has quite a lot of disagreeable noisiness beginning at ISO 400. If you want to run around and make handheld pictures with an ƒ/2.8-3.5 lens, ISO 400 is mandatory, maybe minimal. However, rainy days are dark, but the light is also very flat; low in contrast. Later in the day, back at the Mac, I looked at the pictures in the Adobe Camera Raw module of Photoshop CS2. Here's what the default settings showed for one shot: <a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/5406/570/1600/400A.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/5406/570/400/400A.jpg" style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" /></a> I had let the small areas of sky burn out just a little; easy to rescue in ACR. The dark areas are fully exposed, even the wet black tree bark which is one of the deepest subject values you're likely to encounter and describe in a print. But these low values can be made even softer. I dropped the contrast from the default 25 to 0. Then I pulled the exposure slider to the left, holding down the option key so highlight clipping would be highlighted, moving it just enough to eliminate the clipping. Then I moved the shadow slider to the right to give the dark tones some substance and increase the separation in the low values. This put some snap back into the image, but left it too dark, so I moved the brightness slider to bring up the middle values: <a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/5406/570/1600/400B.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/5406/570/400/400B.jpg" style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" /></a> Notice that the overall effect hasn't changed much, even the histogram shows little difference. But the way the RAW data has been rearranged is going to result in a much richer print. Plus, all the detail I wanted has been retained but the deepest captured data—which is noisy with this camera at ISO 400—has been clipped away by the shadow setting of 20. So I get a rich, noiseless print at a speed the camera isn't supposed to be able to do well. Bear in mind, many of the situations where you want high ISO have high contrast lighting and this approach won't work. You'd just lose all the subject's lower values. But in the many situations where the lighting is dim but soft, this little trick may come in handy. I don't know how other RAW processors work, but any good one should let you do analogous maneuvers to achieve a similar result. <div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/5406/570/1600/raintrees.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/5406/570/400/raintrees.jpg" style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" /></a>Carl Weese, Trees in Rain, Watertown, Connecticut, 11/12/06 </div> <div style="text-align: left;">Posted by CARL WEESE <form method="LINK" action="http://www.carlweese.com"><div style="text-align: right;"><input value="Carl's Site" type="submit"> </div></form></div>

Rain, and Noise

by Carl Weese Sometimes in the digital photography discussion forums around the internet you could get the idea that "high ISO noise...

4:43 AM

Printer Clogging Tip

Printer Clogging Tip

I had an interesting discussion with a surprisingly knowledgable in-store Epson rep at a computer store yesterday. (She owns and uses no few...

4:36 AM

Sun Shot

Sun Shot

Surely one of the strangest pictures I've personally ever seen, and I'm not entirely sure it should even be called a photo- graph—ma...

2:32 PM