“A secret about a secret”

© Karen Roehl 2010

I was recently at an art opening of my friend, the painter Karen Roehl (Ice Cube Gallery, Denver http://www.icecubegallery.com/i/Current_Exhibit.html ). Karen is an abstract expressionist painter. Her work deals with traditional issues of the genre, but her work is fresh and dynamic and the show was inspirational. Karen’s large abstract works got me thinking of art, photography and as usual, black and white photography.

Diane Arbus said, “A photograph is a secret about a secret. The more it tells you the less you know.”

Photographs are by nature an abstract representation, an interpretation of a moment. That is what makes photography so wonderful. In a photograph a little girl becomes an angel, a foggy morning a tale of mystery, a shadow a memory. All these are as Arbus states, “secrets about a secret,” images full of meaning to the viewer but of an uncertain reality and origin. Like my friend’s abstract paintings a photograph’s meaning may have nothing to do with the artist’s intention, however, this makes that image no less wonderful.

© Francine Zaslow 2010

Even in representational photographs, such as a recent exhibit by Francine Zaslow at the Griffin Museum’s gallery at DSI ( http://digitalsilverimaging.blogspot.com/2010/09/circles-of-life-images-by-francine.html ) , the artist takes something familiar and transforms it into something else. Zaslow’s black and white images of food render eggs, fish. and even pig’s feet, in a sculptural manner. Simple foods become monuments of form, light, and texture. The images are of food but their delight is in the representation of them as objects of beauty. It is my understanding that these images were originally produced to illustrate a cook book. In the gallery the images take on a life of their own and become something all together different. Again Arbus is right, “The more it tells you the less you know.”

I am going to try and hold on to these musings the next time I pick up my camera or paint brush. My thanks to Karen Roehl and Francine Zaslow for providing such excellent inspiration.

A Digital Holga?

Image © Saikat Biswas

In the late 80’s my wife (then girlfriend) and many other of our art school friends started using “toy” and “novelty” cameras. I believe the attraction to these cameras was the purest form of wonder that photography can create. The images from these devices was unpredictable with odd erratic depth of field, inconsistently exposed, and spontaneous.

Now through the wonder of the internet a designer, Saikat Biswas, has posted a detailed plan for what appears to be a digital version of the Holga. The Holga is currently in production in China and uses 120 film. Biswas’s version, the Holga D, if produced, would be a digital version or the original Holga.

I admit that I am intrigued by the possibility of the Holga D. Biswas has created an elegant and beautifully simple design. He has even posted “simulated images.” In some ways the proposed Holga D is too slick. There is too much control afforded the photographer. Perhaps the controls should be as minimal as the original film version?

I think that given the popularity of such digital camera accessories as the Lens Baby there certainly is a market for this camera, but you be the judge.

Link to site:

http://www.saikatbiswas.com/web/Projects/Holga_D.htm

Review: Nik Silver Efex Pro Software

Silver Efex Pro, is a plug-in for Adobe Photoshop©, Lightroom© and Aperture©. After spending just an hour with Silver Efex Pro I have concluded that this software is by far the quickest, easiest, and best way that I have found to convert, correct, and prepare digital images for black and white printing or display. What makes Silver Efex Pro so great? This is my “short-list” of outstanding features.

The image on the left is the original color image and the image on the right is the image converted
to Black & white using Nik Silver Efex Pro

1. Nik Silver Efex Pro retains all your RGB channel data. This gives you the maximum amount of control over your image. Even though your image is black & white retaining the RGB data makes printing more controllable and allows you to go back and make changes to your black & white files. Just think about it, there is a lot of information in each color channel, why just throw it away? In addition Silver Efex Pro has an intuitive interface. If you’ve ever worked in a darkroom Silver Efex Pro instantly makes sense. This plug-in has lots of features but is not confusing or loaded with dozens of effects that are only minimally different.

2. Control Points: You can set a point anywhere in your digital image and adjust the selected area’s brightness, contrast and structure*. You can create dozens of control points in an image, or copy and paste a control point to automatically apply the identical changes from the copied control point. Control points allow you to easily make changes without time consuming masks and multiple layers. This feature alone would be worth the price of the software as it can save you hours of image editing time.

Control point placed on image and brightness, contrast and structure adjusted

3. Select a Film Type: Silver Efex Pro has amazing presets that allow you to emulate the look and grain of a broad variety of films. The folks at Nik have also figured out how to make the “grain” in your digital photos look like real film grain. The pattern and density varies depending on the density and contrast in the image.

Tri-X 400 is selected from the Film Type menu

4. *Structure: I still haven’t figured out exactly what structure is in the technical geek-speak of software engineers but I know what it looks like. Structure adds the kind of depth and well structure the way that can be obtained in tradition film processing. My example is the way that Tri-X looks if you processed it in D-76 at a higher temperature…ya know what I mean? Well for those of you who are exclusively digital it also appears to add more tonal separation especially in the mid tones.

1. Preset Style Menu, "High Structure" selected 2. Brightness, Contrast and structure Sliders 3. Loupe for magnifying specified area 4. Zone System Scale

There area also a plethora of other features that make Nik Silver Efex Pro a “must-have” for anyone working with grayscale digital images. But you don’t have to take my word for it. Nik allows you to download Silver Efex Pro, and use it for FREE for 15 days (I am including the link below). I highly recommend Nik Silver Efex Pro and I can honestly say I actually had FUN learning to use this product!

Download Free trial version of Nik Silver Efex Pro via this link:
http://www.niksoftware.com/silverefexpro/usa/entry.php

All images © Andrea Zocchi 2010