White Background Photography

I want you to take a look at the picture below. Look at it for at least 10 seconds. Don't just look at it. Observe it. Analyze it. Ok?. Go!.

Now tell me:
1)Is the image a whirlwind of ideas and words-turned-image?

2)Did anything catch your attention? What is it?

The answers will most probably be:

1. No, it's a normal picture
2. Yes. The girl with fishnets on her arms and a flowery dress over a black dress, whose sight is directed at a point in the higher right corner of the screen... What the...? How did I get all those details???

That is the power of the white background. All your attention is directed to the colored subject in the center of the photograph. The white background is used by almost all kinds of photographers, to bring out textures, contrast, and to center attention on the subject of the photograph. Even underwater photographers use it to get pictures of tiny, colored specimens like camouflaged octopuses, angel fish, and a whole troupe of crustaceans.

The trick to isolate your subject on a totally white background is, theoretically, simple: you put more light on the background than on the subject, usually done by pointing two lights directly at the background. Example: You measure the suggested exposure on your subject. It calls for an f4 aperture. You must then light the background so that it calls for an f8 exposure. When you photograph the model using f4, the white background will be overexposed, and it'll come out extremely white. Being perfectionist pays here: you must eliminate anything between your lights and the background that can wash it, because if you don't, you'll get a bunch of hazy shadows on the background.

Other useful tips:

Use reflective material. Not necesarily white, but definitely, something that makes light bounce off effectively.

Leave a distance between your subject and your background, around 2 metres, so the light hits the backgound in an angle greater than 45°.

Don't forget to light the subject correctly. Even though the white background is important, it will be of no use if your subject appears like a black hole in a white wall.

Thank you all!

El Verano, y la economia.

El mundo de hoy es diferente al de hace 2 años. Generalmente, la frase "El mundo de hoy es diferente a..." se acopla a un periodo de tiempo mayor a una década. Pero en este caso, el mundo sufrió una increíble mutación en breves dos años. Basta con ver el papel de Facebook hace dos años, luego, el papel de Facebook hace un año, y luego, el papel de Twitter comparado con el de Facebook en el presente.

El cambio al que me refiero surge de la recesión económica que estamos que estamos viviendo. Sin embargo, este no es el cambio en si. El cambio yace en que, hace dos años, conseguir un empleo en McDonald's, o un ser interno/office boy/ asistente en una oficina, entre otros trabajos característicos de la juventud, eran relativamente fáciles de conseguir. Sin embargo, la reciente situación económica ha llevado a las empresas y franquicias de todo el mundo (Algún erudito sacaría a Alemania de la ecuación, pero yo no soy un erudito) no solo a no contratar personal, sino a recortarlo. Noticias viejas, dirán ustedes.

Pero empieza el verano. Época de cínico despilfarro, rebajas, y tiempo libre. Y este verano en particular, estará marcado por falta de ventas, mucha gente que se quedara en casa en vez de irse de vacaciones, y no muchos empleos disponibles. Falta de ventas, falta de dinero, Falta de dinero, nadie sale de vacaciones, los jóvenes se quedan en casa. Sin empleos disponibles, los jóvenes tienen aun mas razones para no salir de casa.

John F. Kennedy dijo una vez:

Escrita en chino, la palabra crisis esta compuesta por dos caracteres.
Uno significa peligro, y el otro significa oportunidad.

Si hay algo característico de las crisis, es que obligan a la juventud a evolucionar, o a caer en el olvido. Las generación nacida entre 1985 y 1995 será una generación que bien, podrá ser la impulsora de la economía del futuro (después de 2012, cuando se prevé la crisis llegara a su fin) o bien, una carga que la generación 1995-2005 tendrá que llevar.

Por mi parte, he vuelto a escribir aquí...

When the Going gets Tough, the Tough get Going

High Speed Photography (Part 1)

High Speed Photography is the discpline, or science, of taking exposures of extremely fugaceous moments, like a traveling bullet, or an explosion.

The first application of High Speed Photography was in 1878, when English photographer 

Eadweard Muybridge was hired by Leland Stanford, a Californian businessman and owner of several race-horses to prove a higly-controversial question of the time: whether all four horse's left the ground at a certain point during a gallop. Mr. Muybridge used a combination of mechanical and chemical means to take pictures of one thousandth of a second on 12 cameras set 2o inches apart, to cover the whole 20 feet a horse transits in a horse stride. Muybridge proved that all 4 horse's hooves do actually leave the ground when the legs are tucked beneath the horse.

See you Monday!

Why Twitter's for young people...

A week ago, give or take, I read an article (or was it a column?) by TIME Magazine's own Lev Grossman entitled "Why Facebook is for Old Fogies". And I must admit, it absolutely convinced me. Specially, point number 1: Facebook is about finding people you've lost track of . But the point that really caught my eye was number 9: We don't understand Twitter. After chewing on it for a while, I came up with 5 reasons why old fogies don't understand Twitter (unless you explain it to them) and why more young people should use Twitter. With or without Lev Grossman's permission, I hereby give you


5 Reasons Why Annoying Teenagers and Such actually LIKE Twitter


1- We love Everyone to know what we did/do: You know it. We know it. If you got drunk at Haley's party on Saturday, be sure everyone at school shall know this by Monday. Twitter allows us to extend this communication power beyond anyone's imagination. Twitter allows us to tell everyone, in real time, what really is happening at Haley's party. And we love it!


2- 1337: Twittr g1v3s u5 y37 an07th3r r3a50n t0 w4173 7h15 way


3- Facebook's too complicated: With all those apps, information, "Wall", albums, etc, Facebook needs a manual. I'm all for RTFM, but at times, I like to sit on my desk, open my Explorer (or Chrome, for those of us Google fans ;) ) and just write what I'm doing at the time.


4- Twitpic: Flickr is soooooo 2004


5- Twitterific: Imagine doing ALL of the above, from your iPhone or iPod Touch. Yes, I know you can also download Facebook for iPhone/iPod. But, the name sucks. We love Twitter!!!

Google 2001

Remember those days, when the Google logo was, let's accept it, crappy, and when you typed words like MySpace, or Facebook, or Twitter, or YouTube on your browser, and nothing would show up? Or maybe when Wikipedia was still lodged on the Nupedia.com domain.

Yahoo ruled, and Google was the rookie. The world was simpler. HD was still a work in progress, and digital cameras barely reached 3 megapixels, or were VGA-based. Social networking sites were in experimental phase (remember TheMakeOutClub?). Oh, and loading Games and other Flash-based internet applications would consume at least 10 minutes of your time.

Yep, those good days. You can live them again. To celebrate 10 years of existence, Google has launched a special page featuring the Google 2001 index, the oldest one they were able to dig. It even features the crappy logo, and the now-pathetic statement "Search 1,326,920,000 web pages"

Have fun searching for pages that didn't even exist in those days. Then look at the Google Chrome

 and Picasa 2 iconslodged in your Dashboard or quick-access bar, and ask yourself: 

"Damn, has it really been that long???"

Google 2001 

Instant Photography a History of Magic with Light and Chemistry

Anyone who's ever worked with film roll to take pictures, and doesn't have his own dark room, knows about the terrible combination of frustration, expectation and fear one has when the roll is sent to a photo-lab to be developed. Some common expressions are:

"Was it a good picture?"

"I should have used a tripod. Do you think I should have used a tripod?"

"Damn you Nascar!! Can't they slow down just for a second???!!"

"I think I left the lens cap on..."

"It might have been overexposed..."

It's all this, mixed with the fact that everyone wants to look at the pictures of little Susan jumping into the pool for the first, that makes the developing process a loooooong one. We're talking about memories and jobs here, people!

You might remember from A (Very) Brief History of Photography, Part 1, about an early photographic development process called the Collodion process. The collodion process had many variations, although it was mainly made on glass. One of this variations was known as tintype, or ferrotype. It involved using a thin metal plate instead of glass, were the exposure would develop. Since the size of normal ferrotypes were rather "small", compared to other types of exposures, the development process was quicker. An experienced operator could finish developing the image in a few minutes. They were cheap to make, and also fast. So, one might call the ferrotype the first "instant" photograph.

True instant photography started back in 1947, when Edwin Herbert Land presented the Polaroid Land Camera to the world.  Named Model 95, it would use the peel-apart instant photography system. 

The exposure would be made on a negative material, which would then automatically be pressed down against a positive material. In between both, there was a small pod containing the developing agent, which would burst when both materials were pressed against each other and passed through two rollers. Original instant photographs would be sepia. In the 50's, this was upgraded to standard B&W, and in 1963, Polaroid released Polacolor, which used a process involving dye diffusion.  After being developed, both halves were peeled apart.

In 1972, the Integral film was introduced. Integral  film is the instant photgraphs everybody knows and loves: a gray image would come out of the camera, and it would gradually develop, right in front of you. Integral film would use a vanishing opacifier (the gray image that appears intially in the exposure, and then disappears, revealing the image) and the same development agent pod, mixed with a gelatin mixture, among other chemicals.

As well as being extremely practical, instant cameras had applications in the arts and experimentation:

In peel-apart exposure, emulsion-transfer and emulsion-lift are the two most popular techniques of modifying the exposure.

Emulsion transfer consisted on peeling the still developing image apart, and then, the negative image is rubbed on another support, while emulsion lift was made by separating the image from the print, and placed on another material, typically, watercolour paper.

In Integral films, one can manipulate the image by simply applying pressure on the still developing image. This way, one can achieve many effects done in Adobe Photoshop with his bare hands.

By rubbing the image, one can achieve a blurry effect, or even a melting effect, like the one in Peter Gabriel's third album

Supreme Instants: The Photography of Edward Weston

How to Make Better Polaroid Instant Pictures.

The Magic of Instant Photography

 

 

INSTANT FILM PHOTOGRAPHY

 

 

SUPREME INSTANTS: PHOTOGRAPHY OF EDWARD WESTON

 

Instant film photography: A creative handbook for Polaroid, instant film, and convertible cameras


Polaroid Black and White Land Films: A Guide : Polaroid Instant Photography

What is Plasma?

If you ask a doctor, he might tell you that plasma is the liquid from the blood, lymph, or muscles, in which cells are found.

If you ask a physicist, he'll define plasma as an ionized gas, a gas that has 1 or more free electrons, which makes it a conductive agent and it responds to electromagnetic fields. Not only that, but he'll tell you that plasma is a distinct phase of matter, apart from solid, liquid, and gas.

All stars (our beloved Cancunean Sun included) are made of plasma, and the space between those stars is filled with plasma. 

Plasmas are divided into the following

1. Artificial Plasma: The one found in your beloved HDTV set, the plasma ball you loved to look at back in the 80's, the pinky/bluey/purpley glow coming out from neon signs, and rocket exhausts.
2. Terrestrial Plasma: Lightning and aurora borealis are the most common examples of terrestrial plasma
   and
3. Astrophysical Plama: Stars, solar winds, and nebulae.

Harnessing the Sun

In the ancient Egyptian city of Cocodrilopolis, lived the Petsuchi, crocodiles adored as gods, adored with jewelry and goldware. They were called the "Sons of Sobek", Sobek being the Crocodile god of the Egyptians. In the video game Age of Mythology, Petsuchi are gigantic crocs that use a burning glass to obliterate armies.

The burning glass is a large (in some cases very large) convex lens used to concentrate the light of the sun in a very small area, thus heating this area, and eventually, burning it (think of a child with a magnifying glass).

The burning glass technology has been known since antiquity. You may remember from an earlier post, i wrote about the Nimrud lens, the oldest known lens, a piece of rock crystal that may have been used as a burning glass.

The most well known use of a burning glass comes from the legend that Archimedes, the greek philosopher, designed and created a gigantic burning glass during the siege of Syracuse. Some people dissent form this belief, saying that it wasn't a burning glass, but a series of mirrors.

One present use of Burning glasses are the solar furnaces used in smart homes and at certain isolated populations of Andine Peru. This use a set of mirrors placed parabolically to concentrate the sun's light on an object, sometime passing through a lens to further condensate the beams.

NASA vs Hackers

It appears NASA needs another anti-virus software.

Kelly Humphrey, spokeswoman for NASA stated that a virus was detected in the laptops used by astronauts in the International Space Station. The virus did not affect normal operations. The virus was described as a Keylogger worm, that searches for information (passwords, account numbers, personal information) to hackers and crackers across the internet. The virus was unable to do any harm, because the laptop computers aboard the ISS are not connected to the internet or Mission Control in Texas.

It's not normal seeing someone angry at Steve Jobs. Come on, let's accept it, the guy's as hateable as YouTube's sneezing baby panda. Or at least, that's the way it was, until now.

For example, and this comes from Gizmodo, canadians are a tad angry at Jobs, because of Rogers Communications, the only carrier with contract to sell the phone, data plan $75 a month that comes with a mandatory 3-year contract, 100 text messages, 300 weekday minutes, and a 750MB cap on 3G usage. The letter can be found here.

Another example is this one, from a young man from Mexico, or Spain, or England. He has posted this video on YouTube, asking "everyone" to "boicot Apple" by "not buying the iPhone 3g", which, in his own words is "slightly crazy". Up to this moment, the video has received 474 viewings and has 14 comments (it's sad but true: almost every comment in the video has an offensive word in it...) The reasons he gives to boicot Apple's 3G are this ones: The cost to maintain the iPhone would be much too expensive, added to the fact that the iPhone would have to be bought in $30 a month plan, with mandatory 2 year contract ( I haven't confirmed this last thing, though). Oh, and he also let free that part of us that's angry with Bill Gates by saying: "this is something i'd have expected from Microsoft".

Here's the video:


Give me a day or to to add subtitles.


iPhone 3G

WALL-E Craze

OK, I guess you've all seen WALL-E's trailer: The little robot who continues picking trash long after the human race leaves planet Earth (Disney string section. WALL-E is released Friday, for those of you who don't yet know, thank you.

So I decided I'd feature two WALL-E related things today.

The first one is an NXT based WALL-E. The robot scans the ground looking for litter, then lifts it, and places it in it's belly. The instructions are here. It was created about a year ago, taking inspiration from a leaked WALL-E picture.

The second one is WALL-E. Again. Made from paper. Origam-E if you wish it that way. I know, this is supposed to be a technology blog, not a traditional japanese paper flexing art blog. But look at ORIGAM-E!!!! It's small, it's made of paper, and it is based on a robot from a Disney movie. Can it get any more adorable???? Doesn't it make you want to throw the Swashbot out the window? The piece is made by Brian Chan, who's also made a Robert Downey Jr... sorry, Iron Man, out of paper using origami. You can see his page here.

We hope this whole WALL-E craze is worth it. Although, I have no reason to doubt from a Disney/Pixar movie. Speaking of which, I think Brian Chan should get to work on making an origami Buzz Lightyear.

WALL-E

Crabfu's return: the R/C tortoise!

Okay, so, a few weeks ago, I posted this story about 3 robots made by a guy called Crabfu in the Internet. The videos of this robots were filled with comments, that basically read "awesome..." and "cool..." among other things.

Now Crabfu's back, and he's brought the R/C Tortoise with him. Although it lacks the personality Swashbot 1 had, I think it's worth seeing the little homemade gadget run all around his creator's terrace, and bumping into his cat:




R/C Tortoise
YouTube