tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-52119522307151172512024-03-05T10:22:16.504+01:00Photo & PoetrySlow Photography and other walkabouts.amalrichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04787357625026281058noreply@blogger.comBlogger72125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5211952230715117251.post-51833479577851067462015-01-25T08:33:00.002+01:002015-01-28T17:03:01.879+01:00The Dilemma<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimoeBTiB3WMuD1kZU-6dAaESd_dULQv8H2WbYXpCTPOOyK5eePP0IUWs1vcb_KzxDcJ1fAw_eo1nPQVS-gyvtEc_2JkSi_IMXVPSPq5AH31L-v6IjUQNLSJGY5EWNAdz2MINKo7bs2HBw/s1600/1sQ4H5S.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimoeBTiB3WMuD1kZU-6dAaESd_dULQv8H2WbYXpCTPOOyK5eePP0IUWs1vcb_KzxDcJ1fAw_eo1nPQVS-gyvtEc_2JkSi_IMXVPSPq5AH31L-v6IjUQNLSJGY5EWNAdz2MINKo7bs2HBw/s1600/1sQ4H5S.jpg" height="334" width="640" /></a></div>
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A picture comparison between Sony and Olympus. Crazy: the same size, both with a 35mm equivalent! Now one is a FF 24x36, the other a half frame. And yet prices are not v. different with lenses, perhaps a 2-300 € difference.</div>
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This picture in a way begged the question of why I should stay with my precious m4/3.</div>
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Yes Sony FF lenses are bigger but not in this case. Yes they cost about the double, but perhaps I could get this Zeiss, and then use legacy lenses, my Zeiss Jena 50mm and the Jupiter 85mm. Note that they would both be stabilised by the new Sony A7II.</div>
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Check these early reviews:</div>
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- the <a href="http://www.thephoblographer.com/2015/01/19/review-sony-a7-mk-ii/#more-69519">Photoblog</a></div>
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- this serious <a href="http://blog.mingthein.com/2015/01/19/review-sony-a7-mark-ii/">Ming Thein's review</a></div>
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My problem however with mirrorless FF is that it is almost impossible to find an old UWA that does not make a colour shift and/or a resolution loss, due to the short register of the Sony, that causes steep angles of the light rays falling on the sensor.<br />
This while I still have my 4/3 9-18 which is truly excellent, with none of the above defects.</div>
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Some will say get yourself a native Sony UWA, but then I expect to break the bank with a 1000 $ lens!</div>
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So why don't give a chance to the E-M5 II with its sensor shifted 40 Mpx instead? Much depends on how practical and fast is the process, and we can't say at the moment.</div>
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One thing is likely however: at low ISO, FF 24x36 doesn't give you a resolution advantage.</div>
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Just check this review- comparison between aSony A7 and an a6000, that is between a FF and and APS-C, both 24 Mpx, at <a href="http://admiringlight.com/blog/sony-a7-ii-vs-sony-a6000-landscape-use/">Admiring Light</a></div>
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and especially its magnified samples: no resolution difference! Between a FF, and an APS-C shot, that is. Same should apply to an Olympus, which is APS rated in resolution.</div>
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Photo of falls.</div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times; font-size: small;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times; font-size: small;">A7II on the left, a6000 on the right, 24 Mpx for both, 100 ISO each (Courtesy Admiring Light)</span></div>
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The result perhaps would have been different at higher ISO or with the A7r 36 Mpx, but then it is a more difficult to handle camera, which has no IBIS yet.</div>
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So why don't give a chance to the coming Olympus 40 Mpx? Contrary to many young customers I can't care less for the FF's DOF. Just the opposite. For instant shooting, snaps if you prefer, I prefer to have everything in focus: more visual information, more theatre!</div>
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Financially by sticking with Olympus I'd have no need to change for a new series of lenses.</div>
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In fact as I get older I am on a gear-reducing trip. My worry is rather to keep or recover the faculty of <i>seeing</i> which I had lost lately. I might write about it in the following months, because that's all a photog. might ever need. Meanwhile you can consult this interesting article at <a href="http://www.diyphotography.net/gear-avoidance-syndrome-might-healthy-photography/">diyphotography</a> on gear avoidance, and its positive effects on photography.</div>
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I tell myself: don't squander your money. You don't need a studio camera, just a good enough one :) You might think differently, having more money than me... I do have some lovely lenses, among the best the inexpensive 19 and 30 Sigmas, and from my 4/3 past the 40-150 and the 9-18, both supersharp, At the most the Sony would be a nice *addition* with one or two lenses, and my legacy ones, back to the original focal.</div>
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Note</div>
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I must go back to Hospital for bladder surgery. I suspect that full recovery will take a month. That is when we'll know for sure how the sensor shift works. So be patient, and I'll write again about 'the Dilemma' Those to me are the most interesting mirrorless cameras, so worth a follow on.</div>
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amalrichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04787357625026281058noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5211952230715117251.post-55467273761401202452014-12-28T17:08:00.002+01:002014-12-28T17:11:47.275+01:00This is the strangest Christmas card...<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> ....I ever received in my life. But since I got it from my lifelong friend and videographer Daniel Jouanisson, I am not surprised by his whacky humour: </span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOS2jgFfONdc1nYFP8TIuaTiGxDsz2_PQkYGAzs5-np-y2hRfvM4gv3oNJijOsX0dphQzar2D8I6pFZD8I2gE73bz57GmRGTRdRM4az8LQufMO_IFea9ubCXECZ3C1gG_4Ho4PaFvJ4DU/s1600/DSC05921.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOS2jgFfONdc1nYFP8TIuaTiGxDsz2_PQkYGAzs5-np-y2hRfvM4gv3oNJijOsX0dphQzar2D8I6pFZD8I2gE73bz57GmRGTRdRM4az8LQufMO_IFea9ubCXECZ3C1gG_4Ho4PaFvJ4DU/s1600/DSC05921.jpg" height="640" width="370" /></span></a></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">It's a photo of a photo, by Jacques-Andre' Boiffard, a surrealist photographer</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">who has his first exhibition at <a href="https://www.centrepompidou.fr/cpv/resource/cqp6Bbx/r4b6qMG">Centre Pompidou </a>in Paris, where Daniel just went. Check the link!</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Here is another couple of shots:</span></div>
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amalrichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04787357625026281058noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5211952230715117251.post-91415400310346575372014-12-28T16:45:00.001+01:002015-01-03T05:53:07.471+01:00Sensor shift in the New Olympus EM5 Mk.2. <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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The refresh of this v. successful model by Olympus will be introduced in February, so all I have is some rumors. Movie rate, EVF, many of the features introduced by the latest Olympus models will be there, but the killer feature will be sensor shift (SS).</div>
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So far we know v. little: that it takes 8 pictures byf the sensor by 1/2 pixel, and achieves an image of 40 Mpx. We also know that IBIS stabilisation works in a bracket of 5 pixels . Since 1/2x8 = 4 pixels, so my bet is that sensor shift will happen as part of IBIS, with no need of a tripod.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpnX31C4DfjT9g4HQYjnN21nLtqyhQKVsJkx6vcHxGsIOHiytLqghf4sx6iJEprX6pUrzs6suR7vDIFOXBj7QgLq9ozrkTI6EV0kuv-mZDqUIhd9hyphenhyphen0CYGeyyw4WxF7QVtqse7DEpfyr8/s1600/Bildschirmfoto-2014-12-24-um-09.58.56.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpnX31C4DfjT9g4HQYjnN21nLtqyhQKVsJkx6vcHxGsIOHiytLqghf4sx6iJEprX6pUrzs6suR7vDIFOXBj7QgLq9ozrkTI6EV0kuv-mZDqUIhd9hyphenhyphen0CYGeyyw4WxF7QVtqse7DEpfyr8/s1600/Bildschirmfoto-2014-12-24-um-09.58.56.png" height="246" width="400" /></a></div>
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By my early experience with a superresolution program called 'PhotoAcute' I know that you must slightly shift an image after the first so the program can compare pixels, and increase the information as a result. The program, created by a Russian mathematician, was v. processing intensive, since each pixel of the preceding picture had to be compared with each of the following one.</div>
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Thankfully camera processing power doubles each year, so presumably each 8 pictures can be compared in a reasonable time, seconds instead of minutes.</div>
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We also know that the 'old' E-M5 could shoot at 10 fps, so again 8 frames can well be taken within just one second.</div>
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The old E-M5 'Its going to be redesigned anyway.</div>
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I assume that stotal shutterspeed of the 8 frames shouldn' be more than one second: shutterspeed defines how fast the objects in front of you can move, fluttering leaves in a windy day being the typical problem for the landscapist. The other problem is people moving through the landscape, but freezing that should be well within the capacity of the new system, provided one operates in fair weather.</div>
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What is the rationale for SS? First you don't need to change system anymore to have v. high definition. You don't even need to change lenses with more resolving ones, since the process is sequential.</div>
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At any rate the feature is excellent news for landscapists, portrait and macro users, down to PJ. An Editor is always happy to crop pictures (and a noob too).</div>
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People are asking if there will be less noise and better colours. Going by PhotoAcute, I'd say that the colours stay the same, but noise is filtered, while the sofware compares pictures.</div>
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A user also advocated more Dynamic Range a' La HDR.</div>
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But I'd rather bet that exposure is determined by the first shot and doesn't change for the following 7. The opposite would be a loss of time. So HDR will stay a separate feature, like it was in Photoacute.</div>
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BTW the E-M5 already has 12 bits of DR, so it's more than enough. Introducing more would mean to lessen the contrast and having flat pictures. Same goes for colour, it probably stays the same of the first picture, so what you earn with SS is really more detail and less noise.</div>
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All this was based on a pure deduction a la Sherlock Holmes, (!) but it might be v. different of what Olympus' engineers have concocted. Then wait for February and check how much of this set of assumptions is wrong :)</div>
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To me staying with one system only, and only one set of lenses is a remarkable advantage, and SS has stopped me in my tracks while taking an interest in Sony's A7 and having a fit of GAS. So well done, Olympus, with your 40 Mpx! My wallet is grateful...</div>
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When you are able to dabble with single pixels, small sensors still have the advantage. Less processing to do, quicker reactions of the camera.</div>
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Olympus' genius is to have designed a superresolution device working within IBIS, and therefore avoiding the need for a tripod like the Sony A7r is reported to need.</div>
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Now to recap: Sensor shift must work within IBIS. IBIS shift works within 5 pixels. If so 1/2 px x 8 frames = 4 px, well within IBIS.</div>
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EM5 also has a fast 10 fps so all could happen within a second. With a new double speed processor integrating the eight shots shouldn't take more than a handful of seconds, like an Art Filter.The result is more than twice the resolution and less noise.</div>
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amalrichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04787357625026281058noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5211952230715117251.post-4292381281728511332014-12-06T11:32:00.000+01:002014-12-24T11:47:24.621+01:00About the difference between Oriental and Western Perspective<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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A Picture of Mount Fuji by Karel van Wolferen<br />
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I use here the word Oriental, instead of Asian, because Atmospheric Perspective, as against the Linear Perspective of the West, belongs to the history of China and Japan. Nowadays in Asia they use a camera with built in linear perspective like everybody else on the planet!</div>
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Differently from Linear Perspecive that relies on the diminishing size of objects towards the horizon along converging lines Atmospheric Perspective conveys the impression of depth through a colour shift to blue in the distance, and the use of atmospheric haze. You can still observe in Leonardo's portraits, but it is still a factor in more modern painting like Turner's. The fact is that Asians didn't use Linear Perpective until the arrival of the Westerners, notably the Dutch in Japan, which might have imported their camera obscura and the first lenses.</div>
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As an introduction I will post a seminal article from Luminous Landscape: <a href="http://www.luminous-landscape.com/the_synthesis_of_chinese_landscape_painting_and_photography.shtml">The Synthesis of Chinese Landscape Painting and Photograph</a>y By George DeWolfe & Lydia Goetze, and their first diagram here:</div>
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3 plane diagram. Please check also Lydia Goetze lovely <a href="http://www.google.it/images?client=safari&rls=en&q=The+Synthesis+of+Chinese+Landscape+Painting+and+Photograph&oe=UTF-8&gfe_rd=cr&hl=en&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&ei=xtOCVNQqx_dq3-GBgAc&ved=0CBwQsAQ">pictures</a> in China.<br />
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By comparison this is the well known linear perspective, that we obtain from cameras:<br />
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So, three planes, or stages, instead of lines converging at the infinite distance. One must remember that the Camera Obscura, was originally invented as an optical help after Giotto, in order to help the painter to dispose objects at a distance in a logical, hierarchical order. Before that, even in Europe all objects (saints, their churches, the countryside) were either on the same plane, or two. Therefore they looked very flat.</div>
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China being a Confucian country, kept traditionalist views much longer, and transmitted them from the Ming Court to Japan, by the way of trade.</div>
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A Japanese view by Ten-Yu Shokei, 15th CE.</div>
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George DeWolfe & Lydia Goetze also insist on the role of Negative Space in Chinese Imagery. I have a theory that this is related to the Taoist and Buddhist views of creative emptiness. How could things simply be if they had no empty space and time in which to flow? And since they are so fleeting, what sort of reality do they have? Thus we are introduced to the world of Samsara, appearance, from which the hermit struggles to reach enlightnment, through the intermediate stage of emptiness, distancing from the ego and from there going to the permanent Self, which is Nirvana. Thus the origin of Negative Space.<br />
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I find corroboration of this in the Chinese travelogues of John Blofeld, a Western Buddhist who visited most of the ten sacred mountains of China in the 1930s. Look at <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/s?ie=UTF8&index=blended&keywords=John%20Blofeld">Amazon</a> for the Wheel of Life, or Journey in Mystic China.</div>
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Blofeld makes landscape descriptions from the mountains which are almost exact equivalents of the hermit view. They are usually plunging views from a mountain shrine offering the colours of dawn, a rainbow of pure saturated colours, from peach coloured to deep purple, before the retreating shadows,For the fasting hermit nature beauty is already a foreboding of Nirvana.</div>
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This plunging perspective on coloured peaks which dominates the foreest, above mists rising from the valley (negative space) while human activity awakes in the foreground is almost exactly the theme of many landscape Chinese and Japanese watercolours<br />
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Fisherman by Hirosige</div>
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Pilgrim by Kumi Yoshi</div>
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The lightness of the paintbrush can evoke a contour with just a line, and use colour patches to suggest the material world. The light touch of the watercolour is not going against the subtle perception of meditation. </div>
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In some landscapes you will also see a tiny line of men in the distance climbing steep passes: they are the pilgrims nearing a sanctuary. While the diagonal line conveys a sense of movement and depth it also shows the pious effort the pilgrims to ascend and reach the steep sancuary of their faith. Note that personal effort is the key of buddhism, where it is also known as 'accumulation of merit'.</div>
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Can modern photography even catch such subdued and spiritual feelings? Curiously the photographer I find nearest is Andreas Gurtsky, because he uses masterly the dual aspect of material reality and illusion which is specific of Photography. </div>
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Andreas Gurtsky, Engadine<br />
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Thus I contend that there is a lot to learn in Oriental painting even for a modern photographer. There are also some young Chinese photographers that I follow on flickr, which seem to still use traditional iconography. Let those forgive me if I use some of their pics for didactic use.</div>
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Chinese Landscape by 五味雑陳</div>
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by 五味雑陳 flickr</div>
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In both you will notice the importance of Negative Space.</div>
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I do suspect that the mists they make use for Atmospheric Perspective, might be in some cases simply be heavy pollution. Never mind it is still part of reality. :) But enormous rivers like the Yang Tse can also contribute, with their evaporation to plunge the plains in mists.</div>
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Let me end here by some other striking difference between our worldviews.</div>
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Linear Perspective has emphasized the separation between objects, which are disposed like troops for a review in front of a general.</div>
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In so doing it has reinforced our modern sense o duality between subject and object and between matter and spirit (or soul) which is the exact opposite of the Asian concept of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wu_wei">Wu We</a>i: let things be, let them flow, be part of them. </div>
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In Taoism the observer is always part of what he sees. The only Western equivalent that comes to my mind are some descriptions of solitude in the wild in Walden, by Thoreau.</div>
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But he too had to become a hermit, and restrict consumption, to enjoy fusion with nature.</div>
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This 'being part of the whole' also helps other photographic genres. It's only when you stop feeling separate from things and beings that you begin perceiving what is happening. Seeing situations instead of mere objects.</div>
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Because of this fusion with the flowing reality you will soon be able to predict in advance how the flow will progress. Blofeld explained very well how hermits found clairvoyance a very minor consequence of their years of meditation. </div>
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It is not a coincidence then if HCB quoted the book the Zen and the Art of the Archery, to explain his extraordinary awareness. It really has to do little with intellectual perception, the body is involved too in total perception of the whole.<br />
HCB's was Magnum emissary to Asia, and he made good his encounters there. The decisive moment is nothing else than a Zen moment, he discovered. And Negative Space in photography is the canvas of illusion on which you project an image. Thus there is a lot to learn from Oriental painting, especially because it relies on a different worldview from the West.<br />
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Henri Cartier-Bresson - Women of Srinagar<br />
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Just to make an example, in some languages, Chinese I suspect, one would never say that one 'shoots' a person or a landscape. It would seem a very unlucky thing to say. And yet Buddhist believe in the instant nature of reality, so meditation is no restriction to the instantaneousness of Photography. One must feel connected.<br />
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If one does not feel connected to the landscape one is facing, perhaps a moment or two of meditation might obviate the separation. There is really no separation between Self and landscape if one can suspend exploitative, aggressive attitudes, and concentrate on vision only.<br />
That might be the teaching of Oriental Art to a mechanical world that got caught in the dualism between subject and object.<br />
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To conclude, don't miss this fascinating feature about Nature in Chinese Culture, from the Department of Asian Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, here:<br />
<a href="http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/cnat/hd_cnat.htm">http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/cnat/hd_cnat.htm</a><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> American Postmodern photographer Jeff Wall makes a peculiar use of a 19th century Japanese print by Hokusai, </span>patiently rebuilding a windy day for a photograph, as discussed in my article on <a href="http://amalric2014.blogspot.it/2014/07/postmodernism-is-beauty-in-eye-of.html">Postmodernism</a></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">A fleeting world really, which took ONE year to re-compose by computer, by placing each leaflet in a consistent way! Quite a different concept from the original <i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wu_wei">Wu Wei</a>!</i></span></div>
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amalrichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04787357625026281058noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5211952230715117251.post-77985893780713967512014-11-25T15:51:00.000+01:002014-11-30T07:36:58.821+01:00The GM5 or the Personal Jewelry trend<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Am I being unfair in treating such a powerhouse as the GM5 as a Personal Jewelry item? </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Perhaps, but admit that at $ 999 (€ 800) with the 12-32 it needs to be not a camera only but something you can display proudly. BTW if you buy it with the Leica 15/1.7 it will make even a bigger hole in your pocket. But it is a match made in heaven, which will bring you even bigger kudos.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">I found the orange version even more gay and attractive, but here I am stopped by other considerations. Won't it attract too much attention in the street? Compare to the black GM5 :</span><br />
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Or the silver one with with the 15/1.7 (€ 1100)</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">The GM5 is v. similar to the GM1 I reviewed time ago, and which has not been discontinued:</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"><a href="http://amalric2014.blogspot.it/2014/03/a-petite-for-camera-panasonic-gm1.html">http://amalric2014.blogspot.it/2014/03/a-petite-for-camera-panasonic-gm1.html</a></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">There was an interesting comparison with a Canon dSLR:</span><br />
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The GM5 is slightly bigger than the GM1, probably because it now sports an EVF, but it is still a whole different proposition than an ordinary camera. It is the smallest ILS (EVIL) camera to do so. It has also some additional new features in its v. powerful engine, i.e.:</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">"The casual snap mode creates video snapshots of 2, 4, 6 or 8 seconds. Several different effects are included, including several fade in/out: black, white and color fades. We found the most interesting effect mode to be the rack focus feature, which allows you to select two spots using the touchscreen, then rack the focus from one to the other smoothly. The efect was pretty neat." Imaging Resource says.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">The GM5 has also an enhanced panorama mode, integrated time lapse and some 20 ways to personalize Jpegs, what Oly calls Art Modes, so it is really a full blown art tool, despite the size. No need to go RAW, you modify the Jpegs in camera and see the effect in the EVF, even before shooting.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">BTW I haven't found many reviews. You can try those:</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Photography Blog, which is a full review</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"> <a href="http://www.photographyblog.com/reviews/panasonic_lumix_dmc_gm5_review/conclusion/">http://www.photographyblog.com/reviews/panasonic_lumix_dmc_gm5_review/conclusion/</a></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Imaging Resource here, which is a pre-review:</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"><a href="http://www.imaging-resource.com/PRODS/panasonic-gm5/panasonic-gm5A.HTM">http://www.imaging-resource.com/PRODS/panasonic-gm5/panasonic-gm5A.HTM</a></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">ePhotozine, a short review, here:</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"><a href="http://www.ephotozine.com/article/panasonic-lumix-gm5-full-review-26172">http://www.ephotozine.com/article/panasonic-lumix-gm5-full-review-26172</a></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Plus you will find various interesting user reviews at the DPR's m4/3 forum. Owners are usually quite happy with the GM5, if not starry eyed.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Only complaint I heard was short lived battery (210 shots officially), slippery shape, slow flash synchro (1/50). I would probably keep it as a second camera anyway., and batteries are cheap and small, so hardly a problem. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">The beauty of m4/3 is being 'scalable', meaning you can use the same sensor size through different body sizes, so why not take advantage? I have a small equivalent, the E-PM2, that I bought for a song as a display unit. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">I use basically in Program and with either the P17/2.8 or the P14/2.5, without even looking at the screen since I have learned to frame by heart, and I don't want to attract undue attention in the street, by raising the camera to my eye.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">By knowing my frame, and trusting the camera exposure I can approach a subject down to one meter, without him/her noticing.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">The advantage the GM5 has is a real EVF, although some complained that it does tunnel vision. Never mind in the Summer it is probably a godsend , or when you want to frame exactly a landscape (with the E-PM2 I have my add on VF-2 for that).</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Now to return to the initial concept let me show you some sylish variations of a German design studio of the GM1. I suppose they'll do the same with the GM5, if people enjoy them. Do you? Despite what some say a camera is not only a tool, but an object of enjoyment, and in fact the GM5 is both. So why not have some fun?</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Finally, if I had a stroke of luck I would buy the GM5 in kit with the Leica 17/1.7, which is a lens with a lovable rendering that I could use on both the diminutive GM5 and, say, my E-M5, for more serious shooting. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">That is where scalable comes into play again. the E-M5, contrary to the GM5 has a 5 axis IBIS, and that in landscape counts a lot. No need of a tripod. Just stop down and use shutter speeds down to 1/8!</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">No IBIS means that you'll need a v. firm hand with the GM5, and either add a rubber grip or use a tripod. Please notice however that the 12-32/3.5-5.6 kit lens is stabilized.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Nevertheless I am a firm believer in v. small cameras. If Leica seize was the standard for small rangefinder in the 1950s, 60 years later electronics allows half the size for the same IQ. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Watch out not to drop the GM5 on the floor, it is nowhere as sturdy as its ancestor. But it is pocketable, where the Leica never was. And you can still get a Leica lens in kit with it :)</span><br />
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amalrichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04787357625026281058noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5211952230715117251.post-28282045857689929572014-11-25T15:30:00.000+01:002014-12-20T05:29:49.347+01:00Message to Navigators<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Hello, long time no see :) As you noticed the refresh rate of posts has declined considerably since last June.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">That is a period I have been in and out of hospital for some checks, and I will have to undergo some surgery soon. So this has prevented me to update this blog.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">The post about the GM5 will probably be my parting gift for the next 2 months.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">I have my sights on the Sony A7 II and the A9 with Sony's 50 Mpx sensor. January will seee the new EM-5 II. There might be also a fixed lens Olympus</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">However here was also another motive for slowing down the blog. In 8 months existence, I haven't seen a single cent, either in donations or Amazon commissions, despite messages of support.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">I think that most don't understand the nature of Internet work: it is not free, it must be paid somehow. The advantage is a large public doesn't need to pay much, but some it must, otherwise the flowers will wither.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">So, after convalescence I'll have to take some decisions. Perhaps to beef up the Amazon regional access, say add the Italy logo, explore AdSense icons, or beef up camera reviews, but password protect them.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Meanwhile you could decide if you want to do a donation for the past blogs.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Next, I have in mind a new long post about the Oriental Landscape tradition, which is very different from the Western one. It is indeed related with the buddhist and taoist tradition of hermits, and Wu Wei - the spontaeous mindless activity of nature. Instead of linear perspective, it relies on atmospheric perspective, the same we had in Europe before Giotto. It is centered on mountainous landscapes, sinking in fleeting mists, as seen by the hermits. Can photography convey such deep feelings?</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">So if all goes well, we'll have some very interesting stuff for January of February. Meanwhile please enjoy what has already been done, and think about how to finance the blog. I am open to suggestions, since in the same period I'll have to take decisions on how to modify the blog.</span></div>
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amalrichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04787357625026281058noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5211952230715117251.post-35240020307752439632014-10-12T15:30:00.000+02:002014-12-02T23:06:37.319+01:00Return to the real?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgACx2_wYzUgRO-nDY_JMzc1fIyfS6ROD3AZILbP53ASZvwZjaTdDAikaIT9GwauPYM2ISrNISPTpK7zUk99HyeVm3auEM8RzrOlldUtbB4Uly48z944iNsvZVcZ08NLrtCLxdmmU6yUFU/s1600/tumblr-mezk64ffh51qdoh4po5-500.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgACx2_wYzUgRO-nDY_JMzc1fIyfS6ROD3AZILbP53ASZvwZjaTdDAikaIT9GwauPYM2ISrNISPTpK7zUk99HyeVm3auEM8RzrOlldUtbB4Uly48z944iNsvZVcZ08NLrtCLxdmmU6yUFU/s1600/tumblr-mezk64ffh51qdoh4po5-500.jpg" height="438" width="640" /></a></div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 22px;">Frieda Khalo and Tina Modotti</span>
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I was surprised to find that under 'Realism' Wikipedia had nothing. To me, Realism was the very stance that guaranteed the relevance of photography.<br />
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Documentation, reportage are the very activities I grew up with, not only with HCB, or Magnum, I certainly grew up with Life, Paris Match, and the lesser illustrated magazines that catered about film stars. </div>
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Images of the Vietnam War and McLaughlin also defined v. well my youth. But suddenly all this was gone, replaced by <a href="http://amalric2014.blogspot.it/2014/07/postmodernism-is-beauty-in-eye-of.html">Postmodernism</a>, a re-photography at best, where the very concept of tangible reality had become doubtful or even disappeared.</div>
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I found a useful British site that provides theses, so let me quote it about <a href="http://www.ukessays.com/dissertations/photography/photography-real.php">Realism</a>:</div>
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"Photography was now used extensively in art, and in the new postmodern culture. Postmodernism discarded the idea of finding something new and original and instead focussed on recombining elements from existing culture. Nothing new was being created which soon meant that art had become exhausted. The postmodern culture played ‘with signs of never ending reference, where the more you played the less anyone seemed to know what reality it was touching’ (Bate, 2004a: 31) and we had ‘lost touch with what we thought reality to be’ (Bate, 2004a: 31). The constant referencing and re-referencing had led to us being absorbed in representation. We no longer knew what reality was, and what it was not. We were lost. ‘The fear about postmodern culture was that there was no longer any anchor to reality at all, and that ‘reality’ had disappeared into an endless chain of other representations’ (Bate, 2004a: 31). </div>
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"This never ending reference meant that all grip on reality had disappeared. There was a wish to return to something more stable and basic. There was a need for change, for something new to emerge from the endless trail of reference. In this culture, in which reality was discarded in favour of mass intertextual referencing, there was a desire to return to reality. As David Bate says, there was a, ‘wish for a grittier, ‘closer to reality’ relation through realism’ (Bate, 2004a: 35). Many people wanted a ‘return to the values of modernism (the straight and pure photograph) to contemporary art photography, this is a return to description, originality and actuality – precisely all the things that were strongly rejected by postmodernism’ (Bate, 2004a: 33).</div>
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I am not really presuming that with digital you can't do less or better than imitate film.You can with Fuji's Film Simulation modes, or Olympus Art Filters. To me Kodak's Tri X. or Ektachrome are the very modes in which reality appears.<br />
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One knows wowever perfectly well that in Digital Adobe reigns supreme, and with any of its sliders you can fetch any tone or colour your brain can conceive. So what is real?</div>
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There is also a social side of the question. As we saw in Rodchenko life in the streets, or in the city, squares,boulevards, was always meant as a presentation of the workers' life in the open, so it was the result of class struggle and social interaction. It is interesting to see that American humanist realism (The Family of Man) stepped back from such a socialist endeavour.<br />
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For instnce Vivian Maier couldn't be packaged as a socialist photographer, but we can probably use classical photographers like Paul Strand and Tina Modotti, who were part of another interesting institution like the Photographers' League in New York. In the 1930s it put together all the progressive photographers of the era, without many of knowing that it was a Communist project.</div>
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March of the Mexican artists by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tina_Modotti">Tina Modotti</a></div>
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Tina is interesting: the daughter of a communist artist in America, she was many things, a model, an actress, a lover of Weston, a photographer, notably in Mexico, where she made friends with Frieda Kalho. She drifted towards social symbols (see her in the sombrero with sickle and hammer).</div>
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Campesina and self portrait, Tina Modotti<br />
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After being expelled in Merxico, Germany and Switzerland she eventually fought in The Spanish Revolution with Moscow envoy Vidali. Although by 1940 she was herself a professional revolutionary, she gave up photography for more clandestine work.</div>
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Realism is certainly connected with social awareness in my conception, but not necessarily with communism. In the 1930s however the choice was stark between Nazifascism and communism, so one can't really use the same metrics of today. Just to remind of the times, Tina was actively researched by the Italian Political Police for assassination.</div>
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It was while on a fieldtrip in this class that Strand first visited the 291 art gallery – operated by Stieglitz and Edward Steichen – where exhibitions of work by forward-thinking modernist photographers and painters would move Strand to take his photographic hobby more seriously. Stieglitz would later promote Strand's work in the 291 gallery itself, in his photography publication Camera Work, and in his artwork in the Hieninglatzing studio. Some of this early work, like the well-known "Wall Street," experimented with formal abstractions (influencing, among others, Edward Hopper and his idiosyncratic urban vision). Other of Strand's works reflect his interest in using the camera as a tool for social reform. He was one of the founders of the Photo League, an association of photographers who advocated using their art to promote social and political causes.</div>
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Mostly because of the same Internationalism, Paul Strand came to incorporate the same ideals: his portraits in Ghana a or Sardinia wouldn't show only portraits of the individual, but also the social relationships.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjA-jXf-JUgMUo3gS6xkXrTy064Z0brQDPt9SuclckF6Sfilt847gpJ6JFqkwfmLTuhDaKQtZx-2ziUsXrY2LYABLfPsoz-QbJqqQ3mo1BNSvKHQuDbVKqsroOHszdp-RjVyXyjJ5jnano/s1600/Chief+and+elders.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjA-jXf-JUgMUo3gS6xkXrTy064Z0brQDPt9SuclckF6Sfilt847gpJ6JFqkwfmLTuhDaKQtZx-2ziUsXrY2LYABLfPsoz-QbJqqQ3mo1BNSvKHQuDbVKqsroOHszdp-RjVyXyjJ5jnano/s1600/Chief+and+elders.jpg" height="502" width="640" /></a></div>
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Paul Strand, Ghana<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGoa_14qp3sUviCYl2VZchYKz227dBZZyllQDPFktMVIUny86Pl1VRBMAyPZIGd2126VMXCOsePCVCtHMh6SfRgJUNKh0WQuuUkLQHvl-VX28BU1FZ2FfQTT539_dXv2xAvSN6U6wQ_Es/s1600/Sardinia-4ef8-ac1d-f52aaa982a48-2060x1615.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGoa_14qp3sUviCYl2VZchYKz227dBZZyllQDPFktMVIUny86Pl1VRBMAyPZIGd2126VMXCOsePCVCtHMh6SfRgJUNKh0WQuuUkLQHvl-VX28BU1FZ2FfQTT539_dXv2xAvSN6U6wQ_Es/s1600/Sardinia-4ef8-ac1d-f52aaa982a48-2060x1615.jpg" height="500" width="640" /></a></div>
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Paul Strand, Sardinia<br />
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In both social relationships jump to the eye. There is no beautification.<br />
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In June 1949, Strand left the United States to present Native Land at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival in Czechoslovakia. The remaining 27 years of his life were spent in Orgeval, France where, despite never learning the language, he maintained an impressive creative life, assisted by his third wife, fellow photographer Hazel Kingsbury Strand.</div>
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Although Strand is best known for his early abstractions, his return to still photography in this later period produced some of his most significant work in the form of six book ‘portraits’ of place: Time in New England (1950), La France de Profil (1952), Un Paese (featuring photographs of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luzzara">Luzzara</a> and the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Po_River">Po River</a> Valley in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italy">Italy</a>, 1955), Tir a'Mhurain / <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outer_Hebrides">Outer Hebrides</a>[2] (1962), Living <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egypt">Egypt</a> (1969) and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghana">Ghana</a>: an African portrait (1976).</div>
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portrait by Paul Strand</div>
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The timing of Strand’s departure to France is coincident with the first libel trial of his friend Alger Hiss, with whom he maintained a correspondence until his death. Although he was never officially a member of the Communist Party, many of Strand’s collaborators were either Party members (James Aldridge; Cesare Zavattini) or were prominent socialist writers and activists (Basil Davidson). Many of his friends were also Communists or were suspected of being so (MP DN Pritt; film director Joseph Losey; Scottish poet Hugh MacDiarmid; actor Alex McCrindle). Strand was also closely involved with Frontier Films, one of more than twenty organizations that were identified as "subversive" and "un-American" by the US Attorney General.</div>
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Strand also insisted that his books should be printed in Leipzig, East Germany, even if this meant that they were initially prohibited from the American market on account of their Communist provenance. De-classified intelligence files, obtained under the Freedom of Information Act and now lodged at the Center for Creative Photography at the University of Arizona, reveal that Strand’s movements around Europe were closely monitored by the security services.</div>
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All This took place under the auspices of the Photo League in New York (wikipedia):</div>
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The League’s origins traced back to a project of the Workers International Relief (WIR), which was a Communist association based in Berlin. In 1930 the WIR established the Worker’s Camera League in New York City, which soon came to be known as the Film and Photo League. The goals of the Film and Photo League were to “struggle against and expose reactionary film; to produce documentary films reflecting the lives and struggles of the American workers; and to spread and popularize the great artistic and revolutionary Soviet productions.”[1]</div>
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In 1934 the still photographers and the filmmakers in the League began having differences of opinion over social and production interests, and by 1936 they had formed separate groups. Paul Strand and Ralph Steiner established Frontier Films, to continue promoting the original goals, while at the same time Strand and Berenice Abbott renamed the original group to simply “The Photo League”. The two organizations remained friendly, with members from one group often participating in activities of the other. The goal of the newly reformed Photo League was to “put the camera back into the hands of honest photographers who ... use it to photograph America.”</div>
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The League quickly became active in the new field of socially conscious photography. Unlike other photography organizations, it did not espouse a particular visual style but instead focused on “integrating formal elements of design and visual aesthetics with the powerful and sympathetic evidence of the human condition.” It also offered basic and advanced classes in photography when there were few such courses in colleges or trade schools. A newsletter, called Photo Notes, was printed on a somewhat random schedule depending upon who was available to do the work and if they could afford the printing costs. More than anything else, though, the League was a gathering place for photographers to share and experience their common artistic and social interests</div>
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Among its members were co-founders Sol Libsohn and Sid Grossman (director of the Photo League School); Walter Rosenblum, editor of the Photo League Photo Notes; Eliot Elisofon, a LIFE photographer; Morris Engel (since 1936); Jerome Liebling, who joined in 1947; Aaron Siskind; Jack Manning, a member of the Harlem Document Group of the League and a New York Times photographer; Dan Weiner; Bill Witt; Martin Elkort; Lou Bernstein; Arthur Leipzig (since 1942); Sy Kattelson; Louis Stettner; Lester Talkington (from 1947); Lisette Model; and Ruth Orkin, a member from 1947.[4]</div>
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In the early 1940s the list of notable photographers who were active in the League or supported their activities also included Margaret Bourke-White, W. Eugene Smith, Helen Levitt, FSA photographer Arthur Rothstein, Beaumont Newhall, Nancy Newhall, Richard Avedon, Weegee, Robert Frank, Harold Feinstein, Ansel Adams, Edward Weston and Minor White. The League was the caretaker of the Lewis Hine Memorial Collection, which Hine's son had given the League in recognition of their role in fostering social activism through photography as his father had done.[</div>
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Most of the members who joined before the end of World War II were first-generation Americans who strongly believed in progressive political and social causes. Few were aware of the political origins of the movement of the communist "Workers as Photographers" (Arbeiterfotografen) in Berlin. This had in fact little to do with what the organization did as it evolved, but helped its downfall after the war, when it was accused by the FBI of being communist and "subversive and anti-American." In 1947 the League was formally declared subversive and placed on the U.S. Department of Justice blacklist by Attorney General Tom C. Clark. At first the League fought back and mounted an impressive This Is the Photo League exhibition in 1948, but after its member and long-time FBI informer Angela Calomiris had testified in May 1949 that the League was a front organization for the Communist Party, the Photo League was finished. Recruitment dried up and old members left, including one of its founders and former president, Paul Strand, as well as Louis Stettner. The League disbanded in 1951.By chance however I discovered that there was an exhibition at the Jewish Museum of New York, witnessing how much the European migrants had made for the city, between the two WWars. Robert Frank was one of the most notable, although he would end persecuted himself:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgb-UWOsMFmHLmrFIOfA8bAoNJ1IoiMUzbe_u24nz511Mk_fGmIVnNwIkBiyVVYi2xLK36UcQc9jp1Ay75RUe-ZxjvagAnp44B2y-TGEI1IQbAYfnxLdMGButWZqbknUBcT-gm6wi5UdJ0/s1600/med_33_001-jpg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgb-UWOsMFmHLmrFIOfA8bAoNJ1IoiMUzbe_u24nz511Mk_fGmIVnNwIkBiyVVYi2xLK36UcQc9jp1Ay75RUe-ZxjvagAnp44B2y-TGEI1IQbAYfnxLdMGButWZqbknUBcT-gm6wi5UdJ0/s1600/med_33_001-jpg.jpg" height="640" width="410" /></a></div>
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by Robert Frank</div>
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Now can witness that in just one century the direction of photography changed completely: From social sensitivity to unbridled fantasy and reprophotography of Postmodernism. The question that matters, methinks, is if there is any advantage in going back to simpler times, where people mattered for what they did, for the useful work they did, and not the money of the equipment they manipulated.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiM7vRYb0HoSH5Bh2y7FAmMTtf17TMBuU1ExOUUsmCxflJdJafMgf6BGW4-XFEujZ6AR008P9pDAPIBdciIRY8qewzPzkbGA1CCbjYY-kMnup3HtPhpSQoXhswYDpcOT3aPbgWS_aHSZVo/s1600/robert-frank-_belle-isle_-1955-dia-no-t2008-821.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiM7vRYb0HoSH5Bh2y7FAmMTtf17TMBuU1ExOUUsmCxflJdJafMgf6BGW4-XFEujZ6AR008P9pDAPIBdciIRY8qewzPzkbGA1CCbjYY-kMnup3HtPhpSQoXhswYDpcOT3aPbgWS_aHSZVo/s1600/robert-frank-_belle-isle_-1955-dia-no-t2008-821.jpg" height="412" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 22px;">by Robert Frank</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3P2bY8k-um8i865nO1rS_aCslyetvp-jy0O5co0X9L6dDT8NFSxKBJzzWQg_qsR9DitnHVygyCXBUyoCe3N5QzzUPXLG_W3fCz6Eb4aVXRNXAIzBT7TKQ-8xbCHJlRPYRMHXgT7SD2Xo/s1600/robert-frank-_drugstore-detroit_1955-dia-no-1999-71.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3P2bY8k-um8i865nO1rS_aCslyetvp-jy0O5co0X9L6dDT8NFSxKBJzzWQg_qsR9DitnHVygyCXBUyoCe3N5QzzUPXLG_W3fCz6Eb4aVXRNXAIzBT7TKQ-8xbCHJlRPYRMHXgT7SD2Xo/s1600/robert-frank-_drugstore-detroit_1955-dia-no-1999-71.jpg" height="640" width="422" /></a></div>
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by Robert Frank<br />
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<i>PS </i>check the Paul Strand exhibition just opening at Philadelphia, an anthology not to be missed:<br />
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<a href="http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2014/oct/13/paul-strand-photography-masterworks-philadelphia-retrospective-in-pictures">http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2014/oct/13/paul-strand-photography-masterworks-philadelphia-retrospective-in-pictures</a><br />
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amalrichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04787357625026281058noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5211952230715117251.post-16471930775847138392014-09-07T11:37:00.000+02:002014-09-09T16:39:29.307+02:00The Pen Light Saga<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_BEjYjbiPT026mhGsj1RcSq4IZPTDSjVqBnqn9QoPH3k5unRXbBGXfqtgGhtGgJzVAoaLbx9NVVIXz61tyav5CnDzV1Skur9ieEL-f0ERP0EMOp7IwQhuxTu9qWW6_p_d8khmIpNmFKE/s1600/Olympus-PEN-E-PL7-coming-im.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_BEjYjbiPT026mhGsj1RcSq4IZPTDSjVqBnqn9QoPH3k5unRXbBGXfqtgGhtGgJzVAoaLbx9NVVIXz61tyav5CnDzV1Skur9ieEL-f0ERP0EMOp7IwQhuxTu9qWW6_p_d8khmIpNmFKE/s1600/Olympus-PEN-E-PL7-coming-im.jpg" height="300" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Detail of the Olympus E-PL7, with the lovely 17/2.8 pancake.</span></td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 22px;">The first annoucement to anticipate the coming Photokina is the E- PL7 by Olympus. It has been dubbed the Selfie Pen, for its tilt down screen, allowing an optimal, plunging angle of view. The sensor is the by now unremarkable, but excellent 16 Mpx sensor that has been gracing Oly for the last three years. It has almost 13 stops of Dynamic Range, 25600 sensitivity limit, and a per pixel sharpness that rivals Full Frames like Leica.</span><br />
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Please see two excellent reviews here:</div>
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- <a href="http://robinwong.blogspot.it/2014/09/olympus-pen-e-pl7-review-extension.html">Robin Wong</a></div>
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- <a href="http://www.dpreview.com/previews/olympus-pen-e-pl7?utm_campaign=internal-link&utm_source=features&utm_medium=sidebar-block-Forums&ref=features">Hands on by DPReview</a></div>
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However the real news is for the Europeans. While the PL7 with kit will cost $ 700 in the US, ilt will be only € 499 in the EU, this reflecting the true exchange rate - a first however for Olympus.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjv8A7DVAy_o0Eno76yzoROIZJd-c_hsiRoTaH9vbNXprGhL8hvNqH4DFKJwgrLfuTSJPxunHq386LUHkibim1RKH6g36-kEUfoQhnlxuq1FvGwy4iIdgMM7RyutwN3WB3gfYLaeYjhMMo/s1600/E-PL7-selfie-inline-660x488.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjv8A7DVAy_o0Eno76yzoROIZJd-c_hsiRoTaH9vbNXprGhL8hvNqH4DFKJwgrLfuTSJPxunHq386LUHkibim1RKH6g36-kEUfoQhnlxuq1FvGwy4iIdgMM7RyutwN3WB3gfYLaeYjhMMo/s1600/E-PL7-selfie-inline-660x488.jpg" height="472" width="640" /></a></div>
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The E-PL7 with selfie screen. Note the pancake zoom, and the second wheel around the shutter button, under the index. Body only the camera is € 399!</div>
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This reminded me that the PL1, the first of the saga, was my first buy into m4/3 and mirrorless, some 4 or 5 yrs ago (how time passes!) for € 350. Before that the Pen line had been an unapproachable € 900!</div>
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Additionally it had a plug for an EVF, which changed completely the useability of the little one. Yes it was also much smaller, it came only in black like the Ford T, and it was with it that I began the joys of Street Shooting, nobody taking any notice of the little 'toy' sized camera.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgEciUwxUjZW-UHVNGPZ_HGs88hOJ-B1Vx8ld-1_52YfR5-ZRYRXU9Fni20cQdv2f7A98MdgvkBJPffV1r6c6g163cDJpglVRXCSOXQAESuxq2o_uF4Vum-ISsTfbqZTbnKr7s5HEqcys/s1600/CC+Benoit+Marvhal_PEN_E-PL1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgEciUwxUjZW-UHVNGPZ_HGs88hOJ-B1Vx8ld-1_52YfR5-ZRYRXU9Fni20cQdv2f7A98MdgvkBJPffV1r6c6g163cDJpglVRXCSOXQAESuxq2o_uF4Vum-ISsTfbqZTbnKr7s5HEqcys/s1600/CC+Benoit+Marvhal_PEN_E-PL1.jpg" height="480" width="640" /></a></div>
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the E-PL1. CC by Benoit Marvhal. The Ugly Duck, now in Silver :)</div>
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The PL1 was a big success, followed by the PL2, PL3 (I had that one too) all 12 MPx, and then followed by the 16 Mpx PLs.</div>
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The Pen Lights rested on a paradox. Designed for P&S, thy had a secret software switch, which made them serious second cameras, by showing the full configurability of the camera in the menus.</div>
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They rested on another paradox. While marketed in the West as Volkscameras, Cameras for the People, they were bought by adventurous males - but in fact they had been designed in Japan, especially for Camera Joshi, the Girls with A Camera!</div>
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I tried to divulge the notion but it was v. poorly received by Western machos at DPR :)</div>
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Whatever, today the Pen Lights are the mirrorless top sellers in Japan, and by now I can hardly walk in Rome without seeing a Camera Joshi tourist with one!<br />
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A couple of months ago I bought an E-PM2 (for a paltry 150 Euros!) which is the smallest of Oly, not even having a tilting screen, although it has a touch one.</div>
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In the recent Pen Lights you can also focus in any point of the screen, and focus/shoot by touch. Priceless! (E-PM2)</div>
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Fact is that it has the same 16 Mpx of my Queen, the E-M5, but it is really pocketable, therefore I use it much more!</div>
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Even, the PLs suggested me a series called 'Citizens of Rome', based on my shooting blindly from the hip with one of them, and thus becoming the Invisible Man.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJG66WNvKezeE7jMVqHDUUt1_eUp2urn7AjrMmSSdMFMMQOmmA3kgXZFvdC7L3S0Xo4wG_VaEqDcooUrDN3V37F8RUI0lk2-V2hWgNvwbrFbUvGuY5A5JbiXbN97KhwXJuhY6GIt6Vl4U/s1600/Ponte+della+Scienza.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJG66WNvKezeE7jMVqHDUUt1_eUp2urn7AjrMmSSdMFMMQOmmA3kgXZFvdC7L3S0Xo4wG_VaEqDcooUrDN3V37F8RUI0lk2-V2hWgNvwbrFbUvGuY5A5JbiXbN97KhwXJuhY6GIt6Vl4U/s1600/Ponte+della+Scienza.jpg" height="450" width="640" /></a></div>
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Behind its desultory, but shiny appearance, the E-PL7 is a dragster of a camera. It has the fastest AF in the Industry and a pancake 12-42 which is prodigy of design. It has 3 axis IBIS stablization, meaning that your old adapted MF lenses will be stabilized too. It shoots at 8 fps. It has good movie speed at 30 fps, with 3-axis stabilization making it a breeze even without a tripod.<br />
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And last but not least it has an array of Art Filters that will allow you to pre-program the camera in all the crazy ways that photographic ingenuity has designed over time.</div>
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My favourites are the Pin Hole, like the piccie above, and the Dramatic Tone B&W:<br />
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The two new filters the PL7 adds to the array are Partial Colour, and Vintage, resembling Snapseed and Instagram.<br />
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In the next episode, I'll review the GM5, which is the Panasonic equivalent of the Pen Light.<br />
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It will have the big advantage of a built in EVF, and silent electronic shutter. We'll see however how big and expensive it is. People around the Web are protesting that it might be a replacement for the well loved but bigger GX7. Unfortunately GX7 sales were spoiled by the OM-D series by Olympus. But Panny might still take a vengeance with the diminutive GM5.</div>
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This leads me to a last consideration.</div>
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Smartphone sized, WiFi, connected little cameras are replacing the old dSLR paradigm. Size is not anymore a guarantee of quality. Even, smallish might become not only the trendiest, but also a synonym of the best quality: the true Leicas of the XXIst century.<br />
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Camera Joshi discovered it years it ago: Light comes from the East :)<br />
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<i>Settings</i><br />
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Here is how I set a Pen Light. First <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_DI8uT6daA">I activate the Super Control Panel </a>(SCP) from the Menus:<br />
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This gives me a matrix of controls that I can activate by touch. In P like Program, I leave the defaults, except that I choose Auto ISO, and Center Focus.<br />
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Secondly, I usually set the camera for high or low contrast days. This entails correcting EV for Brightness, and/or setting Auto Gradation, instead of 'Norm', for relighting plugged shadows.<br />
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I also made a preset B&W with high contrast and orange filter.<br />
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If I want to go into WoW! territory I use B&W Dramatic tone, or if I am moody, Pinhole or other Art Filters.<br />
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Oly's colours out of camera are extraordinary, and I was regularly losing them when doing RAW, so I went back to Jpeg. I am told the same happens with Fuji, and its Film Simulation modes.<br />
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I can now activate or not the 'Keep Warm Filter' from the Menu, according to the season. And I can fine tune the WB according t the light, if it's warm or cold: there are may presets, and you can devise yours.<br />
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So as you see there's a lot of interpretation allowed even by using the camera controls. You can do all at the scene, and compare with your eyes, if they fit.<br />
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Of course I aim to maximum resolution, and can consider increasing brightness to the limit to lighten up shadows, but basically I am after quick content, so I usually rely on auto exposure (ESP), and change settings only <i>after</i> a set of shots, not to create tone or colour discrepancies.<br />
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I usually shoot in Jpeg Super Fine, but of course many will be happy to use RAW, or both.<br />
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If you are into landscape, don't forget that you can add a <a href="http://asia.olympus-imaging.com/products/dslr/accessories/optical_adapter/vf4/">VF-4</a>/3 to any Pen:<br />
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This 2,36 Megadots beauty should cost you around $ 250 (€ 200?), but you can carry it across bodies when you change cameras. It will show you all the tone subtleties and details of a Landscape. Note that in the menus there is a Tone Control Curve, that can be split in two, for better effect.</div>
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Don't forget that by activating the built in WiFi you can duplicate the camera picture, and use some same controls in your smartphone, as if the camera was tethered to it.<br />
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And you can instantly send a Jpeg from the Artic to your friends, if your ship has WiFi! Think a Selfie in front of an Iceberg :)<br />
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Enjoy!</div>
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amalrichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04787357625026281058noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5211952230715117251.post-72180991155880936932014-08-16T16:58:00.000+02:002014-09-09T21:52:07.077+02:00Adventures in the Western Desert (2)<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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The forgotten civilization, and the birth of hieroglyphs.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhU5rAmkXm7SHDe2_dhqN_PMwRSyIRIGSlZMIZZ980JV1eeckY4JCU_Rs5i9UAQ-QRRZtXCzHa1I9xxBgg-SbofXf5So_fxOf0rcNLCYqDl478NH4PrBnpG6rL3yOPQLxlC3FyRb4lCIuU/s1600/sglass_area100.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhU5rAmkXm7SHDe2_dhqN_PMwRSyIRIGSlZMIZZ980JV1eeckY4JCU_Rs5i9UAQ-QRRZtXCzHa1I9xxBgg-SbofXf5So_fxOf0rcNLCYqDl478NH4PrBnpG6rL3yOPQLxlC3FyRb4lCIuU/s1600/sglass_area100.jpg" height="426" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 22px;">Landsat satellite picture of the dunes of Saad Plateau, resolution 100 m.</span></td></tr>
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As you can see from the satellite the Northern part of the Gilf is totally engulfed by the Great Sand Sea. This is a formation of dunes between 50 and 100 m. high which is near impassable by an offroad. For better or worse all 12 of us had to push our cars on scales, and follow them on foot, till we reached an interdune corridor: it had taken the best of a day to do some 15 km.</div>
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The GSS is the largest extention of dunes in the world, with the Taklamatan desert in China. For centuries the GSS had prevented exploration of the remotest reaches of Egypt, giving rise to legends such at the Lost City of Zerzura.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgalcnSV5Q8kr-sn46ADW0Z75Qx7aDYj2Zckvo2f0uE8YPqeEMc-gHIJsM_zMQu7m7dVV8w5b4rz_T28ecrqEfjmWYf6Y67Z0fiHR6pTGQpVslsxoayn4MCodap37t-fN-lTQqiAYfNch8/s1600/Georg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgalcnSV5Q8kr-sn46ADW0Z75Qx7aDYj2Zckvo2f0uE8YPqeEMc-gHIJsM_zMQu7m7dVV8w5b4rz_T28ecrqEfjmWYf6Y67Z0fiHR6pTGQpVslsxoayn4MCodap37t-fN-lTQqiAYfNch8/s1600/Georg.jpg" height="402" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Exiting the Gilf - Picture by Georg Zenz</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGX7qkio3LohzKoiROsPSqyDtpuqEmIiz7-ZOSnAfKSOF8diKsZvjQKPcGa6eUIITHUjs6R1N03qSw7pU4r6MSNwVfSya6Z_Z9W5y-EPqmwKcJLBDzr9LWCcgiJGU9zPy2IGkN8u3IgBg/s1600/Marc.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGX7qkio3LohzKoiROsPSqyDtpuqEmIiz7-ZOSnAfKSOF8diKsZvjQKPcGa6eUIITHUjs6R1N03qSw7pU4r6MSNwVfSya6Z_Z9W5y-EPqmwKcJLBDzr9LWCcgiJGU9zPy2IGkN8u3IgBg/s1600/Marc.JPG" height="426" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Marc trying to keep abreast with our Landcruiser, by me.</span></td></tr>
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The day after our departure from the Gilf, I showed Andras on the map the old coordinates of where Patrick Clayton, and Dr. Spencer some 70 yrs before had discovered the glass strewn fields. </div>
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In fact Andras steered the Landcruiser convoy by the readings of the GPS receiver only, with no need of maps. </div>
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Suddenly there we were, in an interdune corridor, all spread with pebbles of the most various colours. The glass pebbles, if any, seemed lost among them. But by walking in rows, in a scanning mode, never leaving eye contact with the ground, Georg and I soon begin to score, with findings of the precious glasss that had graced Tutankhamun's necklace. </div>
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Green-yellow, extremely viscous, and yet clear and hard, with wisps of dark dust trapped inside, it is clearly a matter generated in a cosmic explosion. I later discovered in the evening that if you hit two chunks together it will make sparks, i.e. it is triboluminescent, a feature that must have caught the imagination of the early stone splintering cultures, thus giving it a magical aura. </div>
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One day later by the remnant of a thermal lake, I discovered a lovely arrow head in sculpted glass, that might have had a ceremonial role in the Propitiation of the Hunt - as a vector of the sun arrows (See <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leo_Frobenius">Leo Frobenius</a>).<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj64mIi7BSTfSGZYkxiCg-xAxDXPAP6SnEFybE9Ir2NJ45lVnzcUS47NE-zn1Ry2j6yPwW5y9kOMQDtzzns19LPYqnhPGsn3BfgSTP2-ok5-rgnAdnWJkes51eqQdeKCP5o1Vy-MkT_p00/s1600/9+hannah+on+mud+lions.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj64mIi7BSTfSGZYkxiCg-xAxDXPAP6SnEFybE9Ir2NJ45lVnzcUS47NE-zn1Ry2j6yPwW5y9kOMQDtzzns19LPYqnhPGsn3BfgSTP2-ok5-rgnAdnWJkes51eqQdeKCP5o1Vy-MkT_p00/s1600/9+hannah+on+mud+lions.jpg" height="428" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Hanna on top of a Mud Lion (Thermal Lake)</span></td></tr>
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Note that to this day an ejecta crater for the glass has not been found. Farouk El Baz of NASA's remote sensing facilities detected in 2007* a v. large one between the Gilf and Libya, he christened the Kebira crater, and made the assumption LDG might have come from there. Indeed nearby the glass is strewn for 6500 sq. km. Later analysis by samples collected at Kebira showed however that the signature between the crater matter and the glass is different.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 22px;">A Kebira Crater's picture, seen from man's height</span></td></tr>
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According to Wallis-Budge 'Egyptian Magic' the scarab over the heart of the Pharaoh had a protective aim. The heart was the seat if the Ka the soul that transmigrated into immortality. The Egyptians might have considered that a green-yellow stone of cosmic origin was a good candidate to protect the Ka, and to sculpt the scarab with. Again a solar symbol, since the scarab rolling its ball of dung is a symbol of the resurgent Sun, and thus of the soul of the immortal Pharaoh. (W. Budge, 'Egyptian Magic')</div>
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After having spent a night by a prehistoric circle of stones, we reached the next stage on our return trip, Abu Ballas, Pottery Hill as it had been dubbed by English explorers in the 1920's. </div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Our Landcruisers at Abu Ballas, one of us is on top.</span></td></tr>
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The conical hematite red hill is entirely surrounded by jar fragments, going from Pharaonic to Roman times. This shows that it was a staging post for caravans. The jars were still in one piece at the beginning of last century when the Caliphe decided to have them destroyed so they couldn't act as a water depot for raiders coming from the South (Tibesti raiders, Libyans) who had preyed on the oases, up to Dakhla.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 22px;">Abu Ballas in the 1930s. Jars are still whole.</span></td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 22px;">Abu Ballas today, everything is broken.</span></td></tr>
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Indeed one of the remarkable findings at AB is a Libyan warrior of Pharaonic times, next to some hieroglyphs. There is also a little cave whose entrance is prevended by a seal of the German Henri Barth Institut, which is doing research there. To them is also due the exploration of the so called Abu Ballas Trail (more about it later). One of them, Kuhlmann, speculated that King Tut's glass might have been traded there by the fellows of the Libyan warrior. </div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 22px;"> Libyan Warrior at Abu Ballas</span></td></tr>
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It dawned on me that from times immemorial the road of Libyans invasions might have gone from Khufra Oasis to the Gilf and hence to Abu Ballas by making use of the last water sources, and depots of jars.<br />
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Keep in mind that at the Uweinat three borders meet: Chad, Libya and Egypt - as shown there by some ruined iron military structure - but we had crossed the borders, various times insouciantly.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 22px;">Picture of Zayed and Salama at Wadi Bakht,</span></td></tr>
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I climbed to the top of Abu Ballas, with other fellow travelers to have a breath taking view of the road behind us, and of the receding dunes of the Great Sand Sea. Next to me was Salama, fumbling with something on the ground, with a large smile. He presented to me what looked like a long piece of wood and encouraged me to touch it, without releasing it.<br />
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I complied, and I felt it was alive. At the same time I saw that Salama was holding a head with eyes and a wispy tongue. A snake! A long beige body made of scales, with a white belly. To this day I don't know it it were a local adder, of the same kind that bit Cleopatra! Salama broke in one of this neighing laughs, as if it were a good joke.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 22px;">Salama and the snake he is offering me.</span></td></tr>
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On our return way, along the military tar road to Dakhla oasis, nothing remarkable happened, except that we were caught by a khamsin while we were dining between the calcium formations of the White Desert. It was ending badly, as it had begun. By dinner time, looking for camp with no possible fire, I would have lost my way in the sand blizzard, if energetic Andras had not caught me in time. </div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 22px;">Our Toyotas in the White Desert, as the khamsin is beginning to blow.</span></td></tr>
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Where is the camp do you know? - he asked with a little unassuming smile. I pointed into the deep haze. He laughed at me. 'rather it's there' he pointed in the opposite direction. By going into nothingness, I could have died, such is the Khamsin. Nothing is ever far in Egypt from the Desert, the Land of the Dead, as it is called.</div>
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The morning after, still shuddering at the risk incurred, I looked at the jerrycans on the rooftops of the Toyotas, and asked Andras: 'They look all empty, is that what they are?' 'Yes, he answered, all we have left is a box of mineral water bottles'. </div>
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This is a testimony to the exact planning of the expedition leader, which I hadn't suspected. Chapeau!, as they say in French.</div>
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I enjoyed all the more a couple of iced cold beers, with the group in Dakhla Oasis, the same afternoon.</div>
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For some years after this foray, I tried to keep abreast with the other expeditions, progressively shifting my interest from Geology to Archeology.<br />
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Information trickled slowly, the main issue being how far Pharaonic expeditions had pushed into Africa. It was known that from time to time they had procured precious minerals, and Elephant tusks for the ceremonial needs of the Pharaoh and his court. </div>
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But these could be temporary things, no Pharaonic inscription was known in the Gilf or the Uweinat. </div>
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I even discussed what might have happened with Barbara Barich, head of Archaeology at Rome, Uni and former head of mission at Dakhla. </div>
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She mantained that nomad Saharans had fluctuated between the deep wadis of the Sahara and the Valley of the Nile, according to climate and water fluctuations.<br />
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The Henri Barth Institut, the German mission there, however remained far more dismissive. One thing were the (savage) Libyan tribes, another the Egyptian civilisation on the Nile. The only way to allow intermittent contact had been the fragile Abu Ballas Trail. The posits of classical Egyptology didn't suffer to be revised. Pharaonic Egypt was the son of the Nile.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 22px;">Foerster map. Abu Ballas Trail, and archaeological sites. </span></td></tr>
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The real discoveries came after a few years. While Sahara specialists were still discussing how LDG, that precious mineral might have reached the Pharaoh, Carlo Begmann a self taught archaeologist, was exploring with his camels during a decade the many parallel paths connecting Dakhla to the Gilf Plateau. He did it on foot, and I can only refer you to his <a href="http://www.carlo-bergmann.de/">findings</a>. </div>
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Among the most extraordinary is his discovery of a military and trading post established by the Pharaohs deep in the Sahara. </div>
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In what he dubbed Djedefre Water Mountain (DWM) Carlo Bergmann found 'Watercastle' pictograms, and posited that those were the first hieroglyphs ever. I'll let him speak, Please help yourself to a map of Egypt like this, and look at the bifurcation, DWM is at the beginning of the Northern branch:</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Map from Zerzora Expeditions</span></td></tr>
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I took some notes from Carlo:</div>
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"Among the many proofs that are emerging of an African origin of Egyptian Civilisation is the matter of how hieroglyphic writing was born. Carlo Bergmann, the German explorer, claims he has an answer. By following a line of cairns that departed from the pharaonic police station south-west of Dakhla he found a stone temple, a conical hill about 30 metres high and 60 metres in length. “On its eastern side there is a natural terrace with an average width of 3 metres and a length of approximately 35 metres, about 7 metres above the ground and fenced by a dry wall of stone-slabs... </div>
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"When setting my foot onto the terrace my eyes glanced over a breathtaking arrangement of hieroglyphic texts, of cartouches of Chufu (Cheops) and of his son Djedefre, of short notes from stone-masons, of two figures of a pharaoh smiting the enemies and of enigmatic signs ("water mountain-symbols") evidently placed on the rock-face in willful order. All these engravings were depicted in the midst of representations of animals and human figures from Prehistoric and Old Kingdom times... In one cluster of "water-mountain symbols" closed vertical double lines with numerous horizontal strokes are incorporated...In two cases, the mysterious pictograms are connected with a "water-mountain symbol" respectively a double waterline. "</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 22px;">Animals and Watermarks, by Bergmann</span></td></tr>
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"After a second thought I interpreted the arrangement as a map. Dating most probably to Late Neolithic period the "map" shows 10 wells and a number of irrigated fields, two of them connected with a water-source.</div>
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"This map led me to Biar Jaqub where I (on two expeditions) identified the locations of all the wells. They and the surrounding area comprise an ancient "lost" oasis (Wilkinson´s 2nd Zerzura). The map, therefore, is the oldest one in the world...” Bergmann claims. Not only he boasts having found an ancient oasis which might have fed the myth of Zerzura, but also he detected there the origin of hieroglyphic writing: </div>
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“As proved by similar finds at Abydos (symbols of irrigated fields on tiny clay- or ivory-palettes) the representations used by pre-dynastic people for artesian wells and irrigated fields were, later, incorporated into the hieroglyphic language. Their being depicted at Djedefre´s Water-Mountain and at Biar Jaqub, therefore, is striking evidence that the Western Desert of Egypt was one of the places where the development of the early stages of the hieroglyphic language took place... "</div>
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Hence, the area of Djedefre´s water-mountain and Biar Jaqub can be considered as one of the possible birth places of the hieroglyphic writing system. The author believes that at the end of the Neolithic wet-phase (with the influx of drought-striken desert dwellers) these early roots of hieroglyphic writing were transferred from the desert to the Nile Valley.<br />
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We now have some very good proof that the first language must have been pictographic, at the very beginning of our Western languages, 7000 yrs ago when there were still hunting-gatherers roaming the steppes of the then verdant Sahara, and the Pharaonic civilization was still in its cradle.</div>
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Explorer Carlo Bergmann has done an impressive work of mapping the extent of penetration of Egyptian expeditions towards the Gilf, and the traces they left, thus providing an explanation about how LDG might have reached the Pharaoh (see below). But he also documented Egyptian penetration by donkey in the farthest reaches of the Sahara, by an accumulation of Water Depots along the Abu Ballas trail, and parallel trails.</div>
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All very remarkable, considering that even today, because of the hard conditions (30mm of rain/Year only) no deep expedition can survive for more than 15 days, since it must bring with it its own jerrycans of water and gasoline on the roof, and is therefore is limited by weight. That was the reason why research was delayed by decades, while most mysteries remained such.</div>
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Instead, by dropping transportation by car and reverting to the traditional desert animal, the camel, Bergmann multiplied autonomy, and at its slow pace, chances to spot archaeological features that had been missed by earlier car expeditions.<br />
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<i>Warning: technical part. You can safely skip to the conclusion, if Egyptology leaves you cold, or you find the tale too long.</i><br />
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Below some interviews I had with Carlo Bergmann in 2005-2008:</div>
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Q: how did you come to discover the Abu Ballas Trail ? - the ancient highway connecting the Nile to the extreme reaches of Southen Egypt, the Abu Ballas Trail, in short ABT. Did your traveling by camel make any difference?</div>
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A: I came to discover the ABT because Abu Ballas had been found in 1917 by Ball and Moore and, later, the pottery there had been analysed and age-checked by a French archaeologist. He dated the pottery to Middle Kingdom times. This is a period where camels were not yet used as beasts of burden in Egypt. If donkeys were used there must have existed water-depots between Abu Ballas and Dakhla. These I wanted to find. As I found traces of the road itsself, there was the need to follow it further to the southwest up on top of the Gilf Kebir Plateau and into the vicinity of a mine-field. This is the place how far I got.</div>
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The travel by camel has the advantage of slow movement and precise observation of the surroundings. One can "read" the landscape and stick to the faint traces of old trails much better than travelling by car. </div>
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Q: how did you begin your explorations?</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 22px;">Begmann at DWM with neolithic inscription and a Watermountain one</span></td></tr>
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A: I began travelling by camel in 1982, after having graduated as an economist. [Note: he was a Ford's representative in Egypt] but I decided to change my life by taking post doctorial studies. I got in contact with an egyptologist by travelling to Sudan and Jordania to Sudan with camels and once there I got the Desert Fever… Now every year I spend 6 months in the desert, this is my life, you know.</div>
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I changed my job, what I wanted to do was more fulfilling and I could not believe from the beginning this Egyptologist idea that the Western desert of Egypt was empty land, the land of the dead and so on... I travel alone. It is impossible to do otherwise, you can get in such troubles otherwise, so I decided to do it on my own. I started my exploration from Dakhla.</div>
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Q: I am amazed that you could reach the edge of the Gilf Kebir from Abu Ballas alone on camel: more than 440 km!</div>
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A: I had portable water, sacks of beans... One travels slowly because when one finds out ancient remains, one cannot pass them. Often I wouldn’t get anything to eat from eleven in the morning to three or four o clock until the sun is low, and then one can see the profile, the shadows of the old trails. On the other hand you cannot see them at all traveling by car.</div>
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When not researching my average is 40-42 km per day on foot, with the camels behind me. If I see something then it is only 4 or 5 km per day, sometimes less. If I see the remains of a track, it is a privilege to find it, and one has to stay in the corridor and look for further remains. So one has to 'bite' into the track and stick to it.</div>
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Q: what do you mean by trail, what is there to see? Is there pottery?</div>
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Along the ABT I foud more than a thousand jars altogether, about a third were still complete, in different depots. (By comparison At Abu Ballas the archaeologists claimed there were between 2 and 4 hundred.)</div>
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Q: this means the there was a Middle Kingdom trail to the Gilf?</div>
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A: Yes, yes. At Abu Ballas they claim there is 6th dinasty material. At Bir Jakub, half way between Dakhla and Abu Ballas, there is some 6th dinasty pottery.</div>
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To the West instead it’s Middle kingdom and some is from Ramses the Second. There is also roman pottery.</div>
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Q: what is your assumption, a caravan to Libya or to Tibesti?</div>
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A: Well, Tibesti is the most probable place. Close to Peter and Paul craters there is a semi precious stone that could have been mined. It was used in old kingdom times to make beads. Abu Ballas trail could lead to it...But I have to continue my search behind the minefield.</div>
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At any rate one can see in part the trail (ABT). It is still there, not in the sand, but in the hard gravel...And it is 4000 years old. And you can see its beginnings at Superintendent Mery’s rock. </div>
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You see alamats (cairns), as road signs, they are all over the trail, at a hundred meters’ distance each. I found more than 7-900 alamat on this road. I got their GPS waypoints for some of them, but I couldn’t stop for all of them. </div>
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But the trail could lead to Chad for trade reasons as well, for elephant tusks.</div>
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Q: do you believe that the first Zerzura was in the Gilf as Almasy thought?</div>
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A: Well, Some say there are many Zerzuras... I called mine, the one I found (at Bir Jaqub) the second Zerzura. Wilkinson mentioned it as at two days’ marches, while the first one, at Wadi el Melik, is at seven days’ marches’ distance, in the Gilf.</div>
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Almasy’s one in the Gilf is OK because I saw trails leading to it from Dakhla oasis. There is no doubt for me that Almasy’s is Wilkinson’s first Zerzura, at the moment [at Wadi el Melik]. </div>
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A: From Biar Jaqub there are about 5-7 roads leading to the West. One of them I followed up to the western fringes of the Gilf. It is marked by a few alamat and at places of rest one finds "Clayton Rings" (pottery devices to hold water in water jugs) which have been dated to late predynastic period. Because of these finds the road I followed must be very old.</div>
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I have not the financial means to explore the 5-7 roads further to the west. I would like to perform this work and I am in a position to obtain a permission for it, but I lack the money. </div>
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Most certainly, one of the roads will lead to LDSG-area. About 40km west of DWM I already found a windscreen filled with charcoal and some small fragments of LDSG. </div>
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Q: I thought it interesting if you could find a direct route from Dakhla to the Saad plateau. You mentioned a piece of silica glass found by archaeologists at Djedefre Water Mountain. Would this point to a road west to Saad Plateau - where the glass strewn fields are - from there?</div>
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A: Yes. it would lead from Dakhla to Dedjefre to the windscreen and then continue to somewhere, more to the northern part of the Gilf. </div>
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Q: Kuhlmann made two separate assumptions about Silica Glass: either it was prospected by the Pharaohs, or it was traded by the nomads with them.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">King Tut's necklace, with a Silica Glass scarab at its center</span></td></tr>
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A: The latter could have happened at Bir Jakub because there are [ancient rock drawn] calendars there, and a water supply, or it could have happened at Abu Ballas. </div>
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You see it is my aim to find Pharaonic traces in the Gilf. I am looking for inscriptions there. Andras found what he considers a Libyan figure (in 2003) on the western side of the Gilf. It shows two naked persons, one has feathers on his head, which typical of Libyans. </div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 22px;">the 'dancers' found on top of the Uweinat By Andras Zboray</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 22px;">(you can find his most complete collection of rock art <a href="http://www.fjexpeditions.com/frameset/RA_CD.htm">here</a>)</span></td></tr>
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Now this is in contradiction to what egyptologist think. They used to think the Libyans were in the coastal district, not so deep to the south in this remote area of the Gilf.<br />
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If there are chances to detect settlements of them and charcoals, and one can date the material near the rock pictures, it would give a new fantastic insight. </div>
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One could get closer to an answer if the desert dwellers like the Libyans were supplying the pharaonic civilisation with the desert glass.</div>
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I would like to emphasise a point, however. That the Abu Ballas Trail consists of 4 different roads. One of them has been used recently, since camel bones have been found on it. But we also we have old representations which have been dated as Old Kingdom times. </div>
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So the road has been used for a long time. It does not lead to Khufra, as Almasy speculated when he found Abu Ballas, but further to the south west. </div>
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On the other hand DWM is situated at the northern end of Wilkinson´s 2nd Zerzura. In the German text on my website I have outlined why the Chufu-expeditions went there to fetch pigments. Because there was water available! </div>
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A line of alamat (cairns) is leading from DWM towards the West. And as shown in the film - 2nd German TV, 2001 "Unternehmen Cheops - Die Seidenstraße der Pharaonen" - archaeologists have found a piece of Lybian Desert Silica Glass - LDSG, at DWM. It has been checked by scientists. So there is no doubt about its quality.</div>
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Q: and then there is the question of the prehistoric ‘map’ at Djedefre WM. Did you retrace all of the wells? Weren’t they covered with sand?</div>
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A: The wells are gone. You find playas on the lee side of hills. It’s a land of thousand hills. In this area the playa was up to nine meters high. Because of the region having dried out, maybe around Middle Kingdom, or New Kingdom times, the playa has been swept away by the wind. And the wells have been put - this is my hypothesis - into the playa, into the ground. And when the wind swept away the playa, it swept the boreholes of the playa as well. You only see a sign with a watermark symbol.. I checked the hill but I am not a geologist, and I don’t want to dig. One would want to get debris and find wells that are close to the signs on the flanks of the hills and drill into the sandstone, but I cannot do it.</div>
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Q: so the main proof are the playas corresponding to wells on the map?</div>
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A: not only playas but the water mountain symbol on the rock faces of the hills. At Djedefre WM you find eleven WM symbols in a certain order. Two of them connected with camels and irrigated fields. I had the idea that this was done on purpose on the rock face at Djedefre WM. And this could be a map. And so I went and Kuhlmann said: no, you are crazy, you’ll never find any. So I went around with my camels on 2 trips and found all these signs. It is a land of thousand hills between which you find small wadis with the remains of the playa, up to 9 meters high. And at the rock faces of ten of these hills you find the watermarks symbols. </div>
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I have talked to Miroslav Lama, a professor in Prague, egyptologist. He has analysed the WM symbols as a root of the old egyptian language. As Kuhlmann says it is a combination of mountain and water. It is a pictogram but it might be the root of a hieroglyph. The French have found one in Dakhla combined with hieroglyphic text from a person called Supervisor Mery.</div>
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Archaeologists from the Henri Barth Institut went at Djedefre WM and they found pottery sherds, ‘kitchen pottery’, and rock pictures of the oasis dwellers there - the Sher Muktar culture from Dakhla. These people were living in a symbiotic relationship with the first Egyptian people coming from the Nile valley, up to Middle Kingdom times. They could have been the [first] Oasis Dwellers. </div>
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Thanks to the pottery finds you have the first proof that the Oasis Dwellers were out there at the time, because they were in a layer where you found Old Kingdom pottery, of Djedefre and Cheops pharaohs. In Bir Jakub we were lucky that in addition to pictorial remains we had pharaonic text.</div>
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Q: but you say that the WM pictogram is found in asssociation with hieroglyphs also in Abydos, on the Nile?</div>
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A: Yes it was Dreyer's expedition digging there, at Umm el Kab, and he went trough all the rubbish material and found a small pieces of pottery and ivory tablets where you have these roots, before the pharaonic language began. And you among them thisere this irrigated field system, the same you have on Djedefre WM rockface.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">By Bergmann</span></td></tr>
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The sign with parallel, crossed lines, is associated with a Sa Wadjet sign. Did Sa Wadjet (the Son of the Cobra) attach his name as a traveler to an older pictogram? If he had done it on purpose and drawn the irrigated fields perhaps it would mean that he was a peasant, doing agriculture at the time of the Middle Kingdom in Bir Jakub. This would be fantastic, but we should find organic material to date it in order to prove it, and I can’t do the digging myself.</div>
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Q: The origin of hieroglyphs begining at the very start of Pharaonic Civilisation was rather a mystery, was it?</div>
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A: yes but Dreyer with his work brought some insight in it. He found a list of king names of the First and Second dynasty in Abydos, on the Nile. The fields symbol is the same there and in Abydos. He found the root of a hieroglyph, a field's symbol, not the water mountain one. In Djedefre we have already a combination of different signs.</div>
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In Dakhla oasis you have the water-mountain sign without the ears on top. You have this kind of bucket with the waterwaves in it. And buckets like this are along the watermountain symbols as well at the different sites. </div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 22px;">Photo of Watermountain with ears - the mountains. By Bergmann.</span></td></tr>
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Q: how did you do 440 km from Abu Ballas to the North of the Gilf?</div>
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A: In fact I did 1040 kilometres in a row the first time I was looking for the Abu Ballas trail, from Sudan to Abu Munhar. The camels then were very strong ones, and I conditioned them, in wintertime, not to drink and work hard for 18 days.</div>
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And I did about 43 km per day, in the average. I went from Bir Oju in north western sudan to Bur Tojur, then to the Djebel Uweinat, then to Abu Ballas, Regenfeld and Abu Mungar where I got water. It is I believe, a world record."<br />
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To recap, the discovery of the Silica Glass at the heart of the Pharaoh focussed the archaeologists' attention to the means that Ancient Egyptians might have used to connect such a distant region like the Gilf to the Nile.<br />
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From pottery shards with the drawing of a donkey, they guessed that they had used donkey caravans. Meanwhile Bergmann was discovering the staging posts of the caravans, with water depots and the hierogyphic roots inscribed there.<br />
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By checking the superposition of pharaonic signs and the Desert Dwellers' animal drawings, Bergmann realised the influence that the Desert Dwellers of the Sahara might have had on the early kingdoms of the Nile.</div>
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This led to the thesis of the recent book <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Black-Genesis-Prehistoric-Origins-Ancient/dp/product-description/159143114X">'Black Genesis</a>' (2011), that Ancient Egypt had its roots in African communities. Suddenly it was all the buzz for African internet navigators, feeling proud about the contribution of their black countries might have given to the oldest civilization, and the longest lasting, of the African Continent.</div>
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The book mentions Bergmann's pioneering work, but it's not all. In 2011 Bergmann went to an Egyptology meeting in Prague, where he published his results about these proto-hieroglyphs in a <a href="http://www.carlo-bergmann.de/download/CARLO%20BERGMANN%20-%20On%20the%20Origins%20of%20the%20Hieroglyphic%20Script-Prague%202011.pdf">PDF</a>, among the papers of the meeting.<br />
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Even before, his discovery of Djedefre Water Mountain had been published by a German academic review in 2003. It was at last public recognition for more that 20 years of solitary exploration.<br />
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His conclusion?</div>
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"Contrary to the prevailing opinion in Egyptology, it was not bureaucratic needs which facilitated the invention of a written language but rather, necessity per se (that is, the vital necessities of life itself). This event was triggered off in the Western Desert of Egypt by gradual degradation of environmental conditions which slowly began to take effect at the beginning of the Predynastic period, circa 5.000 BC.<br />
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[i.e. water signs were created by the need of Sahara Dwellers to label surviving water sources]</div>
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"Thus, the precursor writing of the Pharaonic script which had resulted as a consequence of an adaptation process to climatic change, had already come into existence in the Western Desert of Egypt more than 1000 years before tribes, societies and/or (unknown) bodies of people, had developed their bureaucratic procedures & structures [in the Nile area]."<br />
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According to egyptologist Herman Te Velde, in a PDF at <a href="http://www.jacobusvandijk.nl/docs/VisRel_6.pdf">Groeningen Uni</a>, the evolution of hieroglyphs was not unlike that of modern news. First Egyptians combined drawings of animals and people in a composition, then they added signs of sounds, resulting in what was a a relatively simple rebus to interpret.</div>
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Egyptians didn't invent the alphabet but a syntax of images, with labels. Exactly like we do with photographs today, when putting together a reportage.</div>
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One can also see an evolution from rock drawings depicting social ceremonies in the Sahara to the hundreds of hieroglyphs of the Nile that were needed to keep accounts of agricultural produce belonging to the Pharaoh. </div>
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The earlier animalism however never left the hieroglyphic writing, pointing to an earlier African origin.</div>
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Let me conclude, with a vision of what might well have been the Queen of Zerzura, taken more than 30 years ago in Timbuctu, on the southern edge of the same Sahara.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 22px;"> The Queen of Timbuctu, a Touareg nomad, playing a welcome song for her guests.</span><br />
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To the nomads of the Sahara the desert has never been impassable.</div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Where not otherwise stated, pictures are by me. The Interview with Carlo Bergmann is copyrighed to Giles Stanhope-Wright.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Here you have a quick course in hieroglyphs, a <a href="https://ia700805.us.archive.org/34/items/EgyptianLanguage/Budge-EgyptianLanguage.pdf">PDF</a>, by Wallis-Budge, the early curator and father of Egyptology at the British Museum. Very easy to understand!</span></div>
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amalrichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04787357625026281058noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5211952230715117251.post-7271596814444548272014-08-10T07:52:00.002+02:002014-08-18T06:30:39.512+02:00An Adventure in the Western Desert of Egypt (1)<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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(1) The 2002 expedition and the pharaoh's jewel</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">The March 2002 expedition</span></td></tr>
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'The Desert is the skeleton of the Earth' I kept hearing this sentence of Theodore Monod, a naturalist and explorer of the Sahara, when our convoy of three 4x4 Toyotas left suddenly the military tar road, 700 km from Cairo, and made a wide arc into into flat yellow nothingness. It was March 2002, and two years before I had written a feature for New Scientist about the most mysterious mineral of all, Libyan Desert Silica Glass. The purest glass on Earth, that I had found resulting from a mighty meteoritic explosion. (see article below)</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqWcz1V0FARwKrQpioZ6pJnCpMT7hlPBNDoVMRMV9xslagWaGuqDcGFdyb_G_4YQNagvD0FcHWlxfsAl_O7i1AZTYJfsomLJjwoIWKM81MnVlCwexalC8n6McxXGuQIUm_wqwHWs_Td78/s1600/chianticamp.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqWcz1V0FARwKrQpioZ6pJnCpMT7hlPBNDoVMRMV9xslagWaGuqDcGFdyb_G_4YQNagvD0FcHWlxfsAl_O7i1AZTYJfsomLJjwoIWKM81MnVlCwexalC8n6McxXGuQIUm_wqwHWs_Td78/s1600/chianticamp.JPG" height="426" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 22px;">Chianti Camp, Almasy's breakfast place. Tins and bottle are still there, in the crack of a rock. (all photos, unless otherwise stated, by me)</span></td></tr>
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In the scorching heat, in the three bumping Landcruisers, there was a mixed European crowd, with different aims, from birding to archaeological exploration. Andras Zboray, our expedition leader, had as a task to find and catalogue new rock paintings in the Uweinat Mountain, and in the Gilf Plateau. I had to check the strewn fields of Libyan Desert Glass, a cosmic material that had been found at the center of a King Tutankhamen necklace.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">A sample of Libyan Desert Glass (yellow dominant)</span></td></tr>
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According to achaeologists between 7000 and 5.000 yrs b.C., before the last general dessiccation, those barren lands had seen the first men and the beginnings of a civilization, at the end of the hunter-gatherer phase, as documented by one the largest collections of Prehistoric Art in Africa found in shelters and caves. Mind you, if you look at the Michelin map, the most detailed yet in Africa, you'll draw an absolute blank, there are no roads, and not even paths. Just sand and geological formations. The lines drawn retrace just earlier explorations.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTGc8tkRBO8ZBpzbrG1O0nNSPoMhny09ltTUVMT03dKeh9fhDe7K1vo6tUveV6CFe-3qxT378InGMEPEJTFwUM9OqBVROgaVwUDJNEHiGyWW95v1-kdrKtSQnff2eG8ke953JP0aiY2cs/s1600/SE500k_Uweinat1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTGc8tkRBO8ZBpzbrG1O0nNSPoMhny09ltTUVMT03dKeh9fhDe7K1vo6tUveV6CFe-3qxT378InGMEPEJTFwUM9OqBVROgaVwUDJNEHiGyWW95v1-kdrKtSQnff2eG8ke953JP0aiY2cs/s1600/SE500k_Uweinat1.jpg" height="640" width="528" /></a></div>
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Andras and I also shared an Arab legend about the place: where was the legendary kingdom of birds, the Lost City of Zertura which had for so long mesmerized the explorers of the 1930s?<br />
People like Arabist Wilkinson and Count Almasy, the explorer, had been drawn to this forgotten, superarid corner of the World, just for this reason.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiC5_0nstKAaTxdBSo2KlZn8hn1er-dAScbso9wZ3uKWgiZPYny7XLUpK_5lMIVkUwAnQq5MJO02dtU7qLIyhY1ZJFFimpbkQGfkhpIfBzF6JaXe33-51sn5liBxyBkrwY-SiOexq-8zMk/s1600/almasy'scar.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiC5_0nstKAaTxdBSo2KlZn8hn1er-dAScbso9wZ3uKWgiZPYny7XLUpK_5lMIVkUwAnQq5MJO02dtU7qLIyhY1ZJFFimpbkQGfkhpIfBzF6JaXe33-51sn5liBxyBkrwY-SiOexq-8zMk/s1600/almasy'scar.jpg" height="297" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Almasy's car trying to cross a Dune of the Great Sand Sea, circa 1930.</span></td></tr>
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The city of the Black Queen and King, who owned the greatest treasures of the Ancient World. A Lost City, the rarest mineral in the World, and a long forgotten civilization, were motivations enough for us to travel for two weeks, making a periple of 2000 km, all off road.</div>
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Note that we were bringing everything with us, water in jerrycans, never to waste, other jerrycans of gasoline, but also food. As for spares we were ready to cannibalize one of the Landcruisers, which had been bought second hand in Cairo.<br />
The Toyotas seem to totter at times, so oberburdened were their roofs. The duration of the stay was calculated, on the basis of the weight the three Toyotas could carry, never to exceed 15 days, based on each of us' personal water consumption, some 1,5 liters per day each. Not enough to wash oneself with!</div>
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Nobody could reach us easily 700 km from the Nile, although we had a satellite phone, which batteries must be spared. In case of an accident, our only hope of rescue was an Egyptian military helicopter, that we had paid for in advance.</div>
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Temperatures went between 40 C and -5 C, ideal for the Sahara. If you have been there you know that it can be done, due to the lack of humidity. In March however the deadly desert wind, the Khamsin, blowing from the South, can rear its ugly head.</div>
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Accordingly, the first two days as we began exploring the reliefs in the outer reaches of the Gilf Plateau, we were caught in a Khamsin. A running yellow, stinging fog of particles so strong that it obliterates everything, from one meter onwards. All you can do is bury yourself fully dressed in your miserable tent, which shakes as a living beast. </div>
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Cameras of course need special care. Knowing my customer, I had brought a tank built Praktica BC1, with a 35-70, and an additional 28 mm, that I kept always wrapped in a plastic bag. Sandstorms can also make your batteries suddenly flat. The BC1 however has also a mechanical shutter at 1/60, and is sturdy enough to stand the incessant bumps of the Toyota. The digitals of our group instead went flat, but there was also a spray of mechanical Leicas. Those, like my Praktica, kept working flawlessly. </div>
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If I think in retrospect, I should have brought at least a lens shade, and a 300 mm or even a 600 mm lens. Innocently I believed that a Wide Angle would have been all I needed, but the desert is so vast, and in places so featureless, that a WA is completely redundant. Teles are welcome, the longest the best. Distances are so vast that they flatten the features, and details vanish in the horizon flare. Lenses don't need to be fast anyway: there is so much light that you'll always be shooting in the vicinity of f/16, with a 100 ISO film!</div>
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Seen from some relief the Toyotas' convoy must have looked to progress slow as snails, across the imposing landscape of rocky flats and dunes.. But in fact our beduin drivers, Salama, and Mahamud, pushed the Landcruisers as frenzied camels, taking long curves to avoid the most cutting rocks that would have made our tyres explode. They did so with ease, to the sound of Arabic party dances, yelling as if they were running some beast.</div>
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In a bag separate from the camera, below the seats for freshness, I kept a ten pack of Ecktachromes 100 and some 400 ASA. I later duplicated the BC1 slides with a Digital body and a macro tube. After colour correction in PhotoShop, they are not too shoddy all considered, even ten years later. Some still have an orange dominant though. At any rate the expedition was far more than what they show, you will find an objective account by Andras here:</div>
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<a href="http://www.fjexpeditions.com/frameset/mar02_1.htm">the 2002 expedition</a></div>
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We really did some intensive exploration, never spending a night in the same place. Our dozen tents had to be raised each evening and broken again each morning. Then, with the setting sun came the ritual of a sundowner, and then eating some tastless rice boiled on the fire, with a tin of nameless Hungarian things. You are not there for the cooking anyway,there went the saying :)</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgulMaL6NNTBh9nCsSEMe7VzNf3h0pkINEUH3DmbUYjr8TqW4fuSjsnTKlal_lO4wnRXXy_U47g2dTLNrQVfE0BTCLR0bg9d3pLu0VgKgwZjtE7m7D8YyZ1suk0M9eo5ObS6w4kcPrU_ms/s1600/talh.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgulMaL6NNTBh9nCsSEMe7VzNf3h0pkINEUH3DmbUYjr8TqW4fuSjsnTKlal_lO4wnRXXy_U47g2dTLNrQVfE0BTCLR0bg9d3pLu0VgKgwZjtE7m7D8YyZ1suk0M9eo5ObS6w4kcPrU_ms/s1600/talh.JPG" height="426" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Karkhur Talh</span></td></tr>
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But how could I ever describe my arrival at the end of the day to the foot of the mighty Uweinat Mountain, all covered with feather like Zilla Spinosa, light green Acacia leaves, inhabited by the Zerzura bird, that was rumoured to guard the Lost City?</div>
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I have seen the swallow-like black and white birds jumping from branch to branch, but they are so tiny and fleeting that I could never make anything of them with a 35-70. Again the need for a 300mm.</div>
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Note that the place had only been discovered by the Egyptian Crown Prince Kemal el Din in the 1910s, with his mixed retinue of camels and Citroen half tracks. Before him, nobody even knew that there was this 1000 m. mountain! And at a rate of exploration of a couple of explorations a year, lasting two weeks each, no wonder that there is still so much left to explore.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdlJYoQaI8CHhLSE9hVTjhQKSXCcR2q-av-cuPBSF8tuTYKOrAhe0l8hnQ3fUgULOz62Aj9wdZ8Ij2XtSMuXayUsM8rq6S_o_VcMiUfIcxB_lFlm3smlB9ujnAHHVPr8AybihQaGG9Lq0/s1600/elDincitroen.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdlJYoQaI8CHhLSE9hVTjhQKSXCcR2q-av-cuPBSF8tuTYKOrAhe0l8hnQ3fUgULOz62Aj9wdZ8Ij2XtSMuXayUsM8rq6S_o_VcMiUfIcxB_lFlm3smlB9ujnAHHVPr8AybihQaGG9Lq0/s1600/elDincitroen.jpg" height="400" width="377" /></a></div>
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However you can also enjoy just being there, in one of the last places untainted by Man. Sometimes contemplation and utter inner happiness floods everything, so one forgets even to shoot!<br />
In that mountain made of cyclopean granite boulders we were to discover an old artesian well that might well have watered the last camels of the Warriors of Zerzura, or one the last Tebu tribes that were seen there by an old camel guide at the beginning of last century. </div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDr7prWcXI0L8gkAqK0sf0ShKczUsCXFMINpw8UmP3uTWsQJ4D10ELuZ9idjMipZLTrLFyPRQtfMhBqZSrAHICu_KlVx6oBsfyO03DjftoYFrv9Uiq6rP7x9aza_rJzLTy8mokiYQVNpw/s1600/shaw'scave.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDr7prWcXI0L8gkAqK0sf0ShKczUsCXFMINpw8UmP3uTWsQJ4D10ELuZ9idjMipZLTrLFyPRQtfMhBqZSrAHICu_KlVx6oBsfyO03DjftoYFrv9Uiq6rP7x9aza_rJzLTy8mokiYQVNpw/s1600/shaw'scave.JPG" height="426" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">The expedition from Shaw's Cave</span></td></tr>
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We advanced through the rocky flanks in a row, so not to miss anything, and accordingly we discovered the mountain was as covered by rock drawings, like a cathedral covered by frescoes!<br />
The Uweinat must have been a high place for the covens of Prehistoric Saharans, being one of the rare places to still have water a century ago, as related by the witings of the early explorers.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-IX5l5R0qWFjliuGqFzs6UlSuJZr_IpDDqyghl0H2TFQeAzAGh9Js6WtRgm9YAhVLpvXSIL-OKLojRChwGYYVgn9dLGLeEz0xrtdXJQDCy2igyrEa2fYdR14JsjJoXDSG-qK4jFAG32g/s1600/IMM035.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-IX5l5R0qWFjliuGqFzs6UlSuJZr_IpDDqyghl0H2TFQeAzAGh9Js6WtRgm9YAhVLpvXSIL-OKLojRChwGYYVgn9dLGLeEz0xrtdXJQDCy2igyrEa2fYdR14JsjJoXDSG-qK4jFAG32g/s1600/IMM035.JPG" height="426" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Claire Spottiswoode at rock paintings</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEie9ysoNZj_Tuy1Vz5PhoZa1Wf9PKsi5V-Ojp4mlrWq_8v5glc7pE_h9vXIoyn19uV9Cqwcq4bEnJ17_EYU_281huORr6mpa50shtbVJNecw9ccqWkGW0zXTogn99hprDBu6hw6i79tzbU/s1600/4+kharkur+talh+cows.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEie9ysoNZj_Tuy1Vz5PhoZa1Wf9PKsi5V-Ojp4mlrWq_8v5glc7pE_h9vXIoyn19uV9Cqwcq4bEnJ17_EYU_281huORr6mpa50shtbVJNecw9ccqWkGW0zXTogn99hprDBu6hw6i79tzbU/s1600/4+kharkur+talh+cows.jpg" height="428" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Picture Hannah McKeand</span></td></tr>
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Andras was taking pictures and GPS readings simultaneously, documenting the first messages at the dawn of humanity. Some might have been as old of the Palaleolithic when the Neanderthals still roamed uncivilized Europe. They showed horned gods of goddesses, in shamanistic dealings, and even human sacrifices.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh68pctvXK_BDatCqie6Iqotrb0jXnbt7isiKhmtidFQCXl1Y-rhyphenhyphenOQ5vGZEP5SxXz1H7Mn8KLUTpMnDu-JrcqI8giapPG5EU_QSn5JuSrpXBAp289dgZ4kJnoaG442jmQSct2vqisAjsg/s1600/goatdevilow.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh68pctvXK_BDatCqie6Iqotrb0jXnbt7isiKhmtidFQCXl1Y-rhyphenhyphenOQ5vGZEP5SxXz1H7Mn8KLUTpMnDu-JrcqI8giapPG5EU_QSn5JuSrpXBAp289dgZ4kJnoaG442jmQSct2vqisAjsg/s1600/goatdevilow.jpg" height="448" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Shaman making a charm to an addax</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiUayjlrBUuGz3pPTVPxy2YIYZ2H4KOJOKOFQ7jB57mRmoEX5wkysfvqOJObSghFuSWGaCmdjjQWjRKTUQVxuFlXHAfZF98GecjLSr9PNKdFizXJBs3EU7n6IQbzpveK1RYELQOkzcGf0/s1600/grindingstones.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiUayjlrBUuGz3pPTVPxy2YIYZ2H4KOJOKOFQ7jB57mRmoEX5wkysfvqOJObSghFuSWGaCmdjjQWjRKTUQVxuFlXHAfZF98GecjLSr9PNKdFizXJBs3EU7n6IQbzpveK1RYELQOkzcGf0/s1600/grindingstones.jpg" height="640" width="426" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Two prehistoric grinding stones</span></td></tr>
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In a shelter, called the Cave of Swimmers, and discovered in 1930 by Count Almasy, we found the celebrated swimmers, in somehow foetal positions! </div>
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Water must have literally flowed there at the end of the last Glaciation, some 7000 yrs. ago. Represented in other caves there were pregnant cows and gazelles, and scenes of hunting with spears. But there were also hand prints, made by blowing ocre over the hands. Those have been interpreted as trance devices to make contact with the Other World, across the stone wall!<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQm5aI82h5HjXtyHlLFYplU9w4QcciOAi-ppilLYQhBMpeG_kbsULqmMx6DBdUxllUX5Oj5X2upE5hdlu7FTFHXskVPifkc3FSfvbcr3Ad6k4l9qDsQOdAzzFLFiPtkNCpt5j3O0gTmsw/s1600/Lalmasyatswimmers.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQm5aI82h5HjXtyHlLFYplU9w4QcciOAi-ppilLYQhBMpeG_kbsULqmMx6DBdUxllUX5Oj5X2upE5hdlu7FTFHXskVPifkc3FSfvbcr3Ad6k4l9qDsQOdAzzFLFiPtkNCpt5j3O0gTmsw/s1600/Lalmasyatswimmers.jpg" height="440" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Count Lazlo Almasy at the Cave of Swimmers, 1930</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFAgHuwA-mug0RLD2XQ8t-MUnnATW6eUzRtLopKJhZcw8e0STAuR3u8u-P8OqA0x93viEC5I5uSZeLa3VJgy97mteFEMSQOV4q4uN9Mz1wT1gIkJ9u4l97AzuygxLj1P27uHHj996Z8P8/s1600/swimmers.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFAgHuwA-mug0RLD2XQ8t-MUnnATW6eUzRtLopKJhZcw8e0STAuR3u8u-P8OqA0x93viEC5I5uSZeLa3VJgy97mteFEMSQOV4q4uN9Mz1wT1gIkJ9u4l97AzuygxLj1P27uHHj996Z8P8/s1600/swimmers.JPG" height="426" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">The Cave of Swimmers</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3645eY_zHD8QE2yHimD6izWD6vI3nTBA2E8JE2YX7jhBM4cs2dPqk7C-5mQZUpvfbdiTSip-7rtVlkglBBlUkk4vg-ngYyqGWnc-e1v92RMjUbYxnfFVCKm3hoGqgFQPnlPs6PJn-iD4/s1600/Hands.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3645eY_zHD8QE2yHimD6izWD6vI3nTBA2E8JE2YX7jhBM4cs2dPqk7C-5mQZUpvfbdiTSip-7rtVlkglBBlUkk4vg-ngYyqGWnc-e1v92RMjUbYxnfFVCKm3hoGqgFQPnlPs6PJn-iD4/s1600/Hands.JPG" height="426" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Hand Prints by blown hematite dust</span></td></tr>
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It was then that in dawned on me that we were discovering the first pictographic language of humanity, born in the Desert from the need of marking the water sources (see Part Two) by a society of hunters-gatherers, whose resources were dwindling. </div>
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Rock paintings indeed convey information as much as photography. They are simply associated with the relevant features, like marks.</div>
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Climatologist and archaologists alike tell us that this Saharan culture was born while the waters where retreating from the then verdant Sahara. With the dwindling waters those herds and populations reatreated towards the Nile, more or less at the rise of the first Egyptian kingdoms. Was that a coincidence that their pictographic language was later to be found superimposed to the hieroglypic language of the Pharaohs? Did the animal gods come from the Sahara?</div>
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Meanwhile we were going to look in one of the valleys of the Gilf Plateau, so huge that it can be observed from space, where Count Almasy situates the first City of Zerzura, mentioned by Arabist Sir Gardiner Wilkinson in one of his ancient manuscripts.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGX7bLzeXQlGJvPdOOiOYooF9ScBYT5VcxFnQUIAGi8yIRYNMled9FFeudFbViuN_l4hM6AI7saMqXhbdnG-i6m_p-FezWmm8RKhH8YtO3vzR0x506RypU5uNR4ZxB49g79UbN78OYCw8/s1600/view+from+the+edge+of+gilf.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGX7bLzeXQlGJvPdOOiOYooF9ScBYT5VcxFnQUIAGi8yIRYNMled9FFeudFbViuN_l4hM6AI7saMqXhbdnG-i6m_p-FezWmm8RKhH8YtO3vzR0x506RypU5uNR4ZxB49g79UbN78OYCw8/s1600/view+from+the+edge+of+gilf.JPG" height="404" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">The flanks of the Gilf Plateau</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh79mrTgDe7q5M45iSkCBFAuV0pu0qD-aVEedRsVO1N37K-BT9IBaZQpusH4xY-3whfFXnN7PclXNF-TRD59-o4lPShf8V30f8QYLabMIiMl67XI95lUQ-JpQ9_8fVQ9P3MZPVEuEYhAJE/s1600/IMM025.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh79mrTgDe7q5M45iSkCBFAuV0pu0qD-aVEedRsVO1N37K-BT9IBaZQpusH4xY-3whfFXnN7PclXNF-TRD59-o4lPShf8V30f8QYLabMIiMl67XI95lUQ-JpQ9_8fVQ9P3MZPVEuEYhAJE/s1600/IMM025.JPG" height="426" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Salama checking our engines in the morning</span></td></tr>
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It was not so easy to climb with the Toyotas the craggy and steep flanks of the 300m tall plateau, as huge and steep as Switzerland. Once on the flat top we could push at 60 km/h for hours, and Salama flirted with the ravines.<br />
However it was harder to descend between the narrow passes to the mysterious valley, described by Almasy They are precipitous descents among rock flanks, with a sandy bottom. The Toyota must be cranked at full speed and enter the rock walls of the pass at full blast to avoid getting stuck in the sand, by keeping exactly in the middle - or get shattered - to safely reach the floor of the valley, if luck is with you. </div>
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I got a seat next to Salama, feeling I couldn't leave him alone at the moment of danger.</div>
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I thought I would die in a tremendous blast, but with a swift turn of the wheel, and a graceful curve, we were at last on the sandy bottom of the hidden valley, with Salama laughing like a madman. </div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEFfI4HGsWrjHuAnhonL0n1UrM11WJH8x6lPr0cnidxwBJISSwvqTd5eOur5gTEL6oUpiEa5wxKEjf_tuZxeFrUjTFb9NZZYTBoL9aC5S7P1Z9ybST_-46-XK6JWbjuwntC7P38MYT1z8/s1600/Img00161.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEFfI4HGsWrjHuAnhonL0n1UrM11WJH8x6lPr0cnidxwBJISSwvqTd5eOur5gTEL6oUpiEa5wxKEjf_tuZxeFrUjTFb9NZZYTBoL9aC5S7P1Z9ybST_-46-XK6JWbjuwntC7P38MYT1z8/s1600/Img00161.jpg" height="426" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">The Wadi el Melik pass - Photo Marc Bovym</span></td></tr>
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Allow me an anticlimax. No we didn't find the Mysterious Kingdom, only a horned skull and bones, attesting that the last inhabitants had pushed there from Libya at the beginning of last century, before the valley dried up completely. The Zilla Spinosa and the Zerzur birds were nagging us again, exactly like Almasy, and the legend, had described.<br />
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In this valley Almasy was even told a tale by an old camel herder, el Melik, who had said before the Caliphe christened it with his name, among the tribes of old it was known as the Zertura valley.<br />
So if there had been a kingdom it must have vanished long beforeAlmasy's time. </div>
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More to the point, as the second leg of the expedition, we still had a mission to find the site of the strewn fields of Silica Glass, a material so power yelding that it had been incorporated at the heart of a necklace belonging to King Tutankhamun! </div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">The Pectoral of King Tut with LDG at the heart. Cairo Museum.</span></td></tr>
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How could it have reached his court from a site so remote that had completely dried up before his time, some 7000 yrs. ago? </div>
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That was an even deeper mistery than the origin of the glass that I had clarified with top geologists and astrophysicists, as having a cosmic origin.</div>
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More would come about how the glass had reached King Tut, by the camel expeditions of explorer Carlo Bergmann. Thanks to him we would have insights, not only about the travels of the glass, but also about the dawn of Egyptian Civilisation, and the origin of hieroglyphic writing in the desert.<br />
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I was extremely happy of having hit one of the main leading pieces of evidence in the cosmic glass.</div>
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But first things, first: what created the Desert Silica Glass? See below.</div>
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( I have inserted some images, not originally in the text, to ease the reading.)<br />
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The Riddle of the Sands</div>
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10 July 1999 by Giles Wright</div>
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Magazine issue 2194. </div>
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BUFFETED by the might of the hot Khamsin wind that sweeps across the Egyptian Sahara, the mountainous dunes of the Great Sand Sea are the stuff of legends. Here, ancient armies lie buried and the fabulous wealth of lost cities awaits discovery. But in the 1930s, these myths came under threat. Explorers arrived with camels, cars and flimsy biplanes and criss-crossed the blistering sands, searching for a legendary oasis called Zerzura. Though they never found Zerzura, Patrick Clayton, a surveyor with the Egyptian Geological Survey stumbled upon something almost as fantastic.</div>
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In December 1932, he was bumping across the dunes towards the high, wind-swept red rocks of the Saad plateau when he felt the tyres of his car crunch across chunks of glass. It was an incredibly clear, green-yellow glass that glittered like gems in the bright sun. Over the next few years he returned on expeditions to collect samples with LJ Spencer, curator at the British Museum.</div>
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When in winter 1934 Spencer and Clayton combed the dunes and the interdune corridors they found that the glass was strewn for an area of some two hundred square miles, later figures being 3500 km2 , and that a mass above ground is 1400 tons. Another proof of how large the phenomena must have been is how varied the glass was: color went from yellow to light, sometimes dark green. Some chunks were so clear they could be used as lenses, some had streams of bubbles, whitish inclusions, pointing to a tumultuous origin. Others yet had dark layers or black swirls, looking like ink dropped in water. Many were layered and could be easily splintered. Indeed Spencer noticed clusters of LDG chips that looked as debris of prehistoric workshops. An archaeological mistery was added to the geological one. </div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>By analysing the samples Spencer discovered that it was the purest natural glass ever seen, with 98-99% silica, a composition which had never been observed in impact glasses formed by meteorites, nor in glass spewed by volcanoes, which is 75% silica at most. He also discovered that he could heat the material to 1700°C before it began to melt, more than 500°C higher than other natural glasses. It could be dropped into cold water even when it when red hot and it didn't disintegrate. What was the mighty event that had created such a tough substance? Sadly, five years after his trip in the GSS, in 1939, L.J. Spencer wrote "publication of the... notes has been delayed now for five years in the forlorn hope that some clue might turn up to help solve the mystery of Silica Glass of the Libyan Desert" <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> </div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Searches for LDG did not resume until 1971, when US geologists Barnes and Underwood, prospecting for oil reached the Saad plateau from the Kufra oasis, finding on their way a fallen aircraft with the corpses of the unfortunate passengers.They collected 26 samples of LDG, but stayed only a few days, not enough to find conclusive geological evidence about the origin of the glass. <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>A decade later, in 1981, French naturalist and Sahara doyen Theodore Monod, journeying towards the Gilf Kebir, reported numerous LDG artefacts in the glass dispersion area, and gave his samples to some of the best French labs and universities.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">A piece of LDG on location. See the signature of meteoritic dust inside</span></td></tr>
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In 1983, having noticed some extinct lakes (playas) in the neighbourhood of the glass dispersion area, University of Koln's Ulrich Jux, a geologist who was there with a German arcaeological mission, proposed a hydrothermal origin for the glass. Silica glass may have formed at the bottom of a warm, volcanic lake. Over millions of years, water trickling through hot underground channels close to a volcano could have dissolved silica from the surrounding rocks. When this warm, silica-rich water collected into lakes and cooled, pure silica glass would begin to precipitate out. It would become a gel, that would solidify with time, becoming glass. According to Jux this formation process is demonstrated by the presence of organic remains such as diatoms trapped during the precipitation phase. Such remains supposedly produced macroscopic dark streaks in SG, which were attributed by the american geologists Murali, Underwood, and alii (1989) to inclusions of ET matter. A controversy ensued.</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Dating the glass was important to solve the issue. Previously to 1987 no technology to date events older than 10,000 years had been available: it was a matter of putting the glass samples into an expensive nuclear reactor and bombarding it with neutrons. In that year German geochemists dated the glass at 28,5 million years old, by a process called fission track, that measures the rate of decay of radioactive elements trapped in the glass. This was a time, the Oligocene, when the elephant and the hippo still roamed in Europe, and where Homo Sapiens was still a dream in some monkey's mind. Clearly it could have nothing to do with the catastrophe that had destroyed Zerzura. Nor had it to do with the dried-up remains of the ancient lakes that Jux had spotted near the site. They turned out to be far too young, just 9000 years old. </div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Thermal Lake by Saad Plateau.</span></td></tr>
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In the universities round the world the LDG question was coming to a head: more than a hundred and forty papers had been published without conlusive results, when in 1985 Sahara explorer and archaeologist Giancarlo Negro, heading for the rock paintings of Gilf Kebir, found Clayton's bottle among the chunks of Silica Glass. "I found Clayton's camp in 1985, with petrol and water tins still constellating the sand. I was amazed to see that whisky bottle full of sand with a message sticking out, carrying the message 'March 1934. Spencer, Little, Clayton' I was shocked at the sight of a bottle dating some 50 years before, also because that meant that nobody had been there, in Camp 10, in the interval." He was so intrigued that he decided to carry their torch; after making four expeditions researching Silica Glass from 1991 to 1996, he organised the first international meeting on LDG at the University of Bologna: 'Silica 96'. It was high time to assess the post-war expeditions made by German, French, American and Italian research teams. More than 170 papers had accumulated.</div>
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Could the material have been spewed by volcanoes? Robert Rocchia from the environmental sciences lab at the French national agency for scientific research (CNRS) in Gif Sur Yvette, who inherited the collection of Monod's LDG samples.There are at least two ancient volcanic craters in the area (Abu Ballas, El Baz crater), says Rocchia but they are hundreds of kilometres away from the site of the glass, probably too far away to have been involved. Moreover, these volcanos have a typical basaltic composition (rather poor in Silica). And Horn and Christian Koeberl, a geochemist at the University of Vienna identified whitish inclusions in the glass as minerals such as cristobalite,and baddeleyite which form at temperatures far higher than those found in volcanic lava. </div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The best clue to the origin of the glass lies in the swirling black marks resembling drops of ink found in some fragments. Rocchia bombarded these samples with neutrons in a nuclear reactor to trigger gamma-ray emissions from elements trapped inside. The energy of these emissions can help identify elusive trace elements locked up in the glass. They made an intriguing discovery: the dark samples are very rich in iridium. Now, high iridium levels are typical of extraterrestrial bodies such as meteorites and comets. The proportions of other elements such as ruthenium, cobalt and iron told the same story. The only explanation, says Rocchia, is that the glass formed when a meteorite crashed into the desert . </div>
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This suggestion seems to make good sense. The local Nubian sandstone is rich in silica and should you want to melt thousands of tonnes of the stuff, there is no better way to do it than with a large meteorite travelling at several kilometres per second. Smash it into the ground and the explosive impact would vaporise a huge area of the desert, melting rocks and sand at temperatures easily high enough to form minerals like baddeleyite and cristobalite. And as the molten rock cools, it turns to clear, green-yellow coloured glass.</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>A neat explanation, but peppered with holes: photographs taken by the Landsat and Discovery satellites showed no sign of an impact crater at the glass site. NASA's X-SAR radar imaging camera and The European Space Agency's ERS radar satellites both swept the area, this time probing beneath the surface of the sand with microwaves. They drew a blank, says geologist Farouk El Baz, head of the center for remote sensing at Boston University. </div>
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"We have plenty of impact craters on the Earth," says Koeberl, "but this is the only known occurrence on the whole Earth of such glass. Why did it form here and nowhere else?"</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Vincenzo De Michele, keeper of minerals at the Museum of Natural History of Milan and Romano Serra, an astrophysicist at the University of Bologna believe they know the answer. During their expedition in 1996, Serra and de Michele made a thorough search of the site and discovered that the glass is concentrated in two areas: one oval shaped, and the other a ring 21 kilometres across and about 6 kilometres wide. The area at the centre of the ring is empty, says de Michele. Since a geological upheaval couldn't create a feature that small, de Michele and Serra have another theory. </div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Imagine that a chondritic meteorite--a brittle lump of stone and organic matter about the size of a house--is crashing into the atmosphere with the energy of ten thousand express trains. The friction and massive shock wave this creates compresses and heats the atmosphere, shattering the brittle meteorite in mid-air. The heat from this explosion would toast the rock and sand beneath. Scientists call this huge blast a "soft" impact and most believe something similar happened above Tunguska in Siberia in 1908, flattening thousands of kilometres of forest .</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>A soft impact might just explain why the centre of the ring in the desert is free of glass: "The ground could have responded in an elastic way to the blast wave and rebounded, leaving a ring and a central peak which was later eroded" says de Michele. From the size of this ring, Serra calculates that the meteorite must have been 10 to 12 kilometres above the desert when it exploded.De Michele is particularly impressed by the size of the glass chunks: "This points to a thick mantle of glass and to an enormous amount of heat," he says. "Molten silica is highly viscous, yet the streaks in some samples show that it was flowing like a river."</div>
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Picture of Kebira crater, a candidate for meteor impact, next to the Gilf, and South of Saad plateau.</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>According to Mark Boslough of Sandia National Labs at Albuquerque in New Mexico, a meteorite 30 metres across could create an explosion equivalent to a 3-megatonne nuclear bomb --easily hot enough to melt thousands of tonnes of glass. And when this meteorite hits the atmosphere, a plume of air would rocket outwards into space like the splashes thrown up by a rock as it drops into water. </div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>As the plume came down, its kinetic energy would heat the atmosphere to more than 2000°C, says Boslough. At this temperature, the hot air would have sprayed infrared radiation onto the desert, melting the sand like sugar beneath a blowtorch.</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Serra believes that this thermal blanket might have kept the glass sizzling at thousands of degrees for over a week. During this time, bits of meteorite would have mixed with the silica and after the glass had cooled and solidified, it would have begun to break down into chunks.<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Not everyone agrees with this view: "Airblast melting alone would not work," objects Koeberl. "To melt thousands of kilometres of desert, you need a big body. But big bodies don't make airblasts, unless you make unrealistic assumptions about their density and composition. They make impacts on the ground." And because the glass is contaminated, he says, it suggests the meteorite made contact with the glass.</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Koeberl believes that a large meteorite raced through the Earth's atmosphere at a very shallow angle and skimmed across the surface of the Sahara like a stone skipping across a pond. In the moments the meteorite spent in contact with the desert, friction would have created enough heat to melt the sand and rock. This process could create far more melted silica than a meteorite smashing straight into the ground. And it wouldn't leave a very deep crater: "In 28 million years a lot of sedimentation and infill can happen," says Koeberl. "The crater might still be there, covered by hundred of metres of sand." </div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>But there may be a simple way to overcome Koeberl's objections to a soft impact yet still account for the huge amount of melted glass at the site. According to calculations made by Boslough, massive amounts of heat could have come from an impact involving multiple simultaneous soft impacts--when more than one piece of meteorite dropped into the atmosphere and exploded. Much the same thing occurred when pieces of Comet Shoemaker-Levy smashed into Jupiter in 1996. "Close-packed arrays of soft impacts lead to dense plumes, generating higher temperatures," he says. </div>
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a meteorite crashes on jupiter.</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Even without a crater, Rocchia prefers to stick with the hard impact theory. Researchers have found shocked quartz grains inside silica glass, he says: "They are unlikely to result from an atmospheric explosion." But the arguments look set to continue: Koeberl plans to return to the Great Sand Sea to hunt for signs of his crater. Meanwhile, Serra is devoting much of his efforts to studying Tunguska in the hope of strengthening the air blast theory. </div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> Even if we never learn exactly what created the beautiful desert glass, it is helping us to appreciate how vulnerable our planet is to meteorite impact. "Events like this or Tunguska are much more frequent than previously thought," says Serra. In fact, estimates suggest that impacts caused by objects 30 to 40 metres across happen once every one or two centuries. Smaller events, caused by 10 to 20 metre objects, may even occur once a month, says Serra. "But soft impacts leave no trace in the geological record and may easily pass unnoticed" says Boslough. This may change as increasing numbers of sensors, orbiting the Earth on satellites, keep watch for their fiery signatures.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">our three drivers watching the Gilf</span></td></tr>
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I'll give you in the next instalment the second leg of the expedition, and an insight on the prehistoric origin of the hieroglyphic language, derived from ordinary rock drawings - a notion I will develop with a multiple interview with explorer Carlo Bergmann.<br />
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He discovered what he called Zertura 2, one of the fabled lost cities, along the lost desert paths that Silica Glass might have taken to reach the court of King Tut.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Our camp at Abu Ballas, the Hill of Jars - Picture Hannah McKeand</span></td></tr>
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amalrichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04787357625026281058noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5211952230715117251.post-58036948055383239932014-08-06T09:26:00.001+02:002014-08-13T16:38:46.666+02:00A Message for Navigators<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Since there is little happening at the moment on the Gear Front, waiting for the Photokina I am thinking about a couple of episodes about travel and archaeology called 'Adventures in the Western Desert' (of Egypt) based on an expedition I went with more than ten years ago, in one of the emptiest and driest corners of the Planet.</span><br />
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Communication being so difficult with that place that was once a cradle of Egyptian Civilisation, the science part is still very actual.</span><br />
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Suffice to know that it is about a mysterious glass found at the heart of King Tut pectoral, and the origin of the hieroglypic language.</span><br />
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There will be some pictures too of that remarkable adventure, to dispel the notion that I was your sedentary intellectual :)</span><br />
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It is one of the most difficult places to get meaningful pictures, both for environmental and out of scale reasons. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">I used a mean Praktica BC-1 to resist the sandy khamsin, and yet those few pics still make me most happy, meaning that gear only comes distant second.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhn8kEtQvzZTQOGkoF8i8ECQzbmBmThCxyPR3fXjV0umxcvbCJvk5Eli7CxRCNboFwWs5Q1UqpQCzDIiyz3X0c1MdWxNMYYZaFup2GjmxoxiLumAge4bTsT6YBqj0-RTP9cYirUMQhktzA/s1600/4+giles+top+of+aquaba.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhn8kEtQvzZTQOGkoF8i8ECQzbmBmThCxyPR3fXjV0umxcvbCJvk5Eli7CxRCNboFwWs5Q1UqpQCzDIiyz3X0c1MdWxNMYYZaFup2GjmxoxiLumAge4bTsT6YBqj0-RTP9cYirUMQhktzA/s1600/4+giles+top+of+aquaba.jpg" height="428" width="640" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Your Servant at Aqaba, Gilf Kebir plateau, Western Desert 2002. Picture Hannah Mc Keand</span></td></tr>
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If nothing shows up before the end of August, I'll follow up with a 'Return to Realism: the Photo League of New York, Paul Strand and Tina Modotti'. Is retracing steps a way out of the excesses of Postmodern?</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"><br />Gearwise, there are rumors about the Sony 50 Mpx sensor finding new bodies; about the Olympus Pro series, long awaited m4/3 lenses, notably the 9mm and a fast 40-150; and a new 24 Mpx camera from Fuji.</span><br />
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We'll see what comes up. Photokina is never a let down, although these are hard times for camera sales, except perhaps for mirrorless.</span><br />
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Meanwhile, enjoy your holidays, or just keep on reading :)</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"><br /><i>Note</i></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"><i><br /></i></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">A smartass </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">marriage </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">beautifier </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">at DPR </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">keeps flaming me advising to worry about poetry, instead of photography.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">I must restate here for the uneducated that I take poetry in the original greek meaning of poiesis, to <i>create</i>.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">The pair photo/poetry also hints at the origins of written language, when icon and sound first converged in a pictographic language such as Ancient Egyptian.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">I deem it self evident, that it helps understanding the very powerful tool that we have in hypertextual blogs, where image helps text as a bridge across cultures, but still requires the creative urge.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">So Photo <i>and Poetry.</i></span><br />
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amalrichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04787357625026281058noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5211952230715117251.post-49164427857977756642014-07-28T15:10:00.000+02:002014-08-05T05:51:18.713+02:00Sigma Quattro: just like a View Camera<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Long ago there was a time when no pro would do without one, a View Camera, with its black cloth. Then a format de-escalation began in the 1940s, 6x6 became the dominant format, and finally the 35mm.<br />
With digital we are going even smaller, with APS becoming the dominant format..<br />
I would never have seen an old style view camera if my cousin, a good woodcarver, had not built one in wood. It took a big prime lens with a Compur shutter, it focussed on its large plates by moving an optical bench, and you could even make collodium plates for it, by painting the emulsion on a glass plate. The camera had its own tripod, it needed poses, it took time to change plates, but it had v. good resolution and was good for all sorts of experiments.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">A Lotus view camera from Linhof</span></td></tr>
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In the Digital era, the Sigma Foveon cameras take more or less the same niche although they have an APS-C sized sensor and weigh only half a kilo instead of the 10 kg of view cameras! They also have a double resolution to their nominal photosites, compared to another digital camera.</div>
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The difference is in the structure of the sensor. Instead of a flat matrix of blue, green and red photosites, they have three layers that convey the full colour information.</div>
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See here:</div>
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In the Quattro Sigma improved on its older sensor so that only the top one, the blue one carries the luminance information. Therefore the structure is called 4-1-1, instead of 4-4-4, and hence the Quattro.</div>
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With the new arrangement there are less photosites in the colour layers below, but bigger ones, hence they produce less noise. The advantage of the Foveon indeed is not in the number of photosites, but in their pixel sharpness.<br />
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The new arrangement is better than the old in that it now offers a 36 Mpx image equivalent, instead of the Sigma Merrill's 30 Mpx. on the same APS-C sized sensor.<br />
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This is yet another proof that resolution nowadays doesn't depend on the size of the sensor and even less from the size of the camera.<br />
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For the technical savy, see the discussion about the new sensor between the Sigma engineers and the <a href="http://www.imaging-resource.com/news/2014/04/08/sigma-qa-part-ii-does-foveons-quattro-sensor-really-outresolve-conventional">Imaging Resource team</a> is here.</div>
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There have been other improvements in respect to the old Merrill. Although the camera still takes some 4 secs to be initialised, it records faster (2.8 seconds/shot), it focuses better (less than 1 sec), battery life however is still short, at 140 shots. Sigma provides a second battery.<br />
It has no video, so you must know what you buy it for :)</div>
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But the real progress is in the sensor, which now offers 25% more resolution than the earlier dp2 Merill, and one stop more useable sensitivity, up to 800 ISO.</div>
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I would say this is the consensus, although the level of appreciation varies wildly across reviewers.</div>
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<a href="http://www.imaging-resource.com/news/2014/07/12/sigma-dp2-quattro-first-shots-posted">Imaging Resource</a></div>
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<a href="http://www.lesnumeriques.com/appareil-photo-numerique/sigma-dp2-quattro-p20343/test.html">Les Numeriques</a></div>
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<a href="http://www.aps-photo.com/2014/07/sigma-dp2-quattro-high-resolution-niche-camera/">APS-Photo com</a><br />
<a href="http://www.dslrmagazine.com/pruebas/pruebas-de-campo/sigma-dp2-quattro-muestras-y-manejo.html">DSLR Magazine</a></div>
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These are early times, but I decided to try a review (of reviews!) after seeing a double blind test at Les Numeriques comparing the Quattro, a Sony A7r, and a Leica S. There is no doubt, according to the users' vote, that at base ISO the quattro beats the Sony and leaves the Leica far behind! See <a href="http://www.lesnumeriques.com/sigma-dp2-quattro-vs-sony-alpha-7r-vs-leica-s-vos-preferes-sont-n35097.html">here</a></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">From the Sigma gallery</span></td></tr>
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As soon as the ISO is increased though, the Sony is far better.</div>
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Yes but it also costs twice the price of the Sigma, the latter being € 850 or $ 1000 (note that Sigma uses a more sensible exchange rate for the EU than other brands). Note also that an APS-C sensor, can beat a FF one: a first.</div>
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Among the Cons, apart from the slow reactiveness of the camera, there is some colour smearing (between blue and yellow), which will probably require a firmware tuning, and a loss of detail in the red - see the Imaging Resource's samples. RAW however gives better results, proving that these are teething problems of the Jpeg processor.</div>
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One of the most contentious issues is the camera shape itself.</div>
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It is oblong, absolutely in a shape of itself, with its general thinness but fleshy grip. Sigma was daring and I don't know how much it will be liked by reactionary audiences of the kind dSLR-or-Death :) One needs to be eccentric from time to time.<br />
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The fact is that it is a 36Mpx equivalent camera, and if you don't hold it properly, they are going to be entirely wasted by handshake.</div>
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So here is a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTLTSjvbF04">uTube video</a> which might convince you of the good sense of the revolutionary shape.<br />
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My take is that this is a Landscape perfectionist's camera, and one will use a tripod most of the times. Note that the button layout and the menus are very rational. You have a focus button on the grip. As you see there is no EVF, and some have complained that the LCD is too reflective. Sigma however provides a 45mm optical VF. On a View Camera you had to watch the image on a layer of glass in the back of the camera, so again there is something in common.<br />
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The Quattro has been called a niche camera, and is very simlar to a View Camera in that it offers beautiful, ultra detailed panoramas. In my setup it could probably supplement theOlympus E-M5 for the most taxing landscape views. Note however that the Quattro is a daylight camera, contrary to the E-M5.</div>
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I invite you now to see what a landscape artist can do with the older Sigma Merrill and the foveon sensor, here at THE.ME<br />
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<a href="http://www.the.me/japan-autumn-leaf-viewing-mount-fuji-the-sony-a7r-and-lots-of-legacy-lenses/">http://www.the.me/japan-autumn-leaf-viewing-mount-fuji-the-sony-a7r-and-lots-of-legacy-lenses/</a><br />
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I am quoting Karel Van Wolferen and its Japanese Mountain views, which offer an unheard level of detail in foliage. Note the Fuji mountain in the background.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">copyright Karel van Wolferen (fair use)</span></td></tr>
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The article was written to illustrate the Sony A7r, and the Foveon was used only for comparison, but IMHO it beats the Sony A7r, for its 3D effect.<br />
Of course if you need the higher sensitivities there is no match with the Sony, which can also change lenses. But as a niche camera the Quattro is probably unbeatable! Its Sigma 30mm, an outstanding lens for resolution which I use with the E-M5, is clearly optimised for the Foveon sensor.</div>
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As you see Van Wolferen has also a taste for composition in Landscape that can rival the Japanese masters. I am not surprised that the uses a Sigma. I am tempted too! That foliage is extraordinary. The more you magnify, the more detail surfaces up from the background. It's like having many pictures in one.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times;">copyright Karel van Wolferen (fair use)</span></span></td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">In some cases it makes more sense to have separate cameras for different uses, instead of having a jack-of-all-trades.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">So will you, or did you buy a Quattro? The camera is just out. Let me know what you think about it, in daily use. </span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwahTU54XpErPJlo8EIP-IyDGKho3KnumdDRkrSzk8uYxy87n3mrwd27xiIAeTOZn5k2FKqDFwi_6TnkRTGXAfs71prKzpY05aV09JN14zQkEs11NwOl8hpbrK1kUGJLoyaNHFWtNU6X0/s1600/Sigma.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwahTU54XpErPJlo8EIP-IyDGKho3KnumdDRkrSzk8uYxy87n3mrwd27xiIAeTOZn5k2FKqDFwi_6TnkRTGXAfs71prKzpY05aV09JN14zQkEs11NwOl8hpbrK1kUGJLoyaNHFWtNU6X0/s1600/Sigma.jpg" height="480" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"><i>Note</i></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">As always if you want the original resolution, control-click and open the picture in a new page.</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">For some reason just clicking on the image opens a smaller image.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Check also the video at the <a href="http://www.mirrorlessrumors.com/sigma-dp2-quattro-hands-on-field-test-video-by-thecamerastoretv">CameraStore</a>.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">They don't like the grip, but at the end of the video they do some prints showing a comparison with the Merrill to advantage.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Also Sigma has just announced a FW upgrade.</span><br />
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amalrichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04787357625026281058noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5211952230715117251.post-32358287305682818652014-07-20T07:44:00.000+02:002014-08-18T05:47:34.926+02:00PostModernism: is Beauty in the eye of the beholder? <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 22px;">Shop window in blue, Rome, by me.</span></td></tr>
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(Warning! Intellectual stuff. Stop immediatly reading if you don't trust Art, or demean intellectual endeavours.:)</div>
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In a debate on experiments in Photography, when I remarked that basically people are re-doing things that were already made, and that pictures need to be deconstructed, instead of using some bland Positivism, someone objected to me, that we are in post-positivism, that reality can be 'triangulated' from different <i>Positive</i> worldviews. So yes, but what about using some more serious tools, and not triangulate ignorance?</div>
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If one keeps in mind David Bate cronology of photography in <a href="http://amalric2014.blogspot.it/2014/05/globalization-last-stop_16.html">Globalization</a><br />
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1870-1910 Pictorialism</div>
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1920-1930s Avant-Garde/Modernism (Formalism)</div>
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1945-1960 s: New Realism/Humanist Photography</div>
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1960-1979: Minimalism, Conceptualism/late Modernism</div>
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1980-1990s: Postmodernism/Neoconceptualism</div>
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One will indeed see that Photography was born in that era were the belief in Progress was indeed absolute, what we call Positivism, and that is indeed still the main implicit belief of DPR American readers, perhaps because they never experimented wars on their own soil. </div>
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In Europe because of the two WW very little of that optimism remained after the Second WW. But even before that any trace of Positivism had been destroyed by the Irrationalism that fed fascist movements, but also by Psychanalis, Marxism, and Surrealism in the Arts. Critique of Society and its myths had therefore become paramount.</div>
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After the 2WW an ethnologist with a long field experience, French <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_L%C3%A9vi-Strauss">Claude Levi-Strauss</a>, proposed that despite all the differences there were some invariants in all human societies, including the primitive ones. and that was called Structuralism. It replaced Positivism very well in Academia, until a new generation of French thinkers began to show that the latter couldn't account for the hidden repressive instances of modern society, so that European i.e. French poststructuralism began to destroy the idea of a shared reality from the 1970s.</div>
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I am naming Guy Debord and his 'The Society of Spectacle', Deleuze and Guattari, 'The Anti-Oedipus', Jacques Foucault, 'Surveiller et Punir,' Julie Kristeva's semeiotics and Lacan's Psychanalisis. Without forgetting 'Mythologies' of Barthes, who would later carry his deconstruction to Photography.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 22px;">The Society of Spectacle book, courtesy JulieAnnAshcraft, flickr</span></td></tr>
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In a decade they dissolved all idea of a positive reality, Photography and the arts could lean on. Nothing was known of all this across the Pond, however, if one excepts Susan Sontag's 'On Photography', a first attempt to deconstruct the myths behind mass photography.</div>
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The Theory of the Fetish, the totalitarian Golden Veal of the merchandise, the central concept in Consumerist Societies, was posited by Jean Baudrillard at Montreal University in a number of essays on Cinema and the Visual Arts, and from there it spawned to the best East Coast universities. </div>
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Such central concepts like Deconstruction and Narrative have entered day to day language from there. Semeiotics is still an empty word for most, but that's what we use as a method to disentangle Visual Meaning. Have a try <a href="http://faculty.washington.edu/dillon/rhethtml/signifiers/sigsave.html">here</a>:</div>
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Yes but what about Photography? you will ask. As I showed Conceptual Art, Art as Idea, removed any relation to a positive reality. Art self-referentiality however could not bear the weight of Globalization. Too many worldviews were clashing all of a sudden.</div>
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That was what David Bate meant by Post-Cinceptualism?</div>
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That was the difficulty I faced, how to illustrate this plurality, until I found this: <a href="http://www.arthistoryunstuffed.com/postmodernism-in-photography/">Arthistoryunstuffed</a></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj63HvmV_qleaHL8VjUtCkvcIK44g7_WB_GWVLlLVW0766_uJm3O7F9bJyWoghjM1hLK4JkDX8FgpOCkA5WpErSRsPtJDulWZJuKQRirDHcNgNmJ9oXV4bUn9iWNfbE2LNVL84ZFHNudo4/s1600/Jeanne-Willette.crop_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj63HvmV_qleaHL8VjUtCkvcIK44g7_WB_GWVLlLVW0766_uJm3O7F9bJyWoghjM1hLK4JkDX8FgpOCkA5WpErSRsPtJDulWZJuKQRirDHcNgNmJ9oXV4bUn9iWNfbE2LNVL84ZFHNudo4/s1600/Jeanne-Willette.crop_.jpg" height="320" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 22px;"> Jeanne Willette</span></td></tr>
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This is a wonderful essay by Dr. Jeanne S. M. Willette of the Orange County Museum of Art, California, from which I will largely draw the next paragraphs. This will help me facing my largest midbrow audience, the American one, with no need of further 'exotic' arguments.</div>
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This is what you find when you dial in Google '<a href="http://www.google.it/search?q=postmodern+photography&safe=off&client=safari&rls=en&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=TDXXU9u3KYqBywOtiICoAw&ved=0CAgQ_AUoAQ&biw=1257&bih=630">Postmodern Photography</a>' Quite a jumble! Just try: it changes all the time!</div>
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"Photography became the postmodern art form par excellence, taking the place of painting when the Modernist precepts of European art became exhausted by the 1960s. Unlike painting, photography did not have to grapple with, and overcome a high art past, nor was it touched by high art theories. Because photography was, as Pierre Bourdieu would say, The Middle Brow Art, it was ideally suited for Postmodernism to occupy the practice. Even in its virginal state, photography was also impacted by the fact of the “Image World.” As Guy Debord explained it in The Society of the Spectacle,the world had become a “spectacle.”</div>
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In societies dominated by modern conditions of production, life is presented as an immense accumulation of spectacles. Everything that was directly lived has receded into a representation… The spectacle is not a collection of images; it is a social relation between people that is mediated by images. The spectacle cannot be understood as a mere visual excess produced by mass-media technologies. It is a worldview that has actually been materialized, a view of a world that has become objective. "</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 22px;">Andy Warhol image: Campbell's can</span></td></tr>
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"Therefore, contemporary visual culture was, by definition, a spectacle disseminated though photographic forms, reproductions of reproductions, simulacra of a reality that never existed. Through photography, visual culture had become part of the spectacle of popular culture that fascinated its audience and hypnotized them from critiquing society and created a certain kind of social relation. As Debord said, “In a world that is really upside down, the true is a moment of the false.” When Debord’s influential book was published in France in 1967, the vernacular photography of Robert Frank, Diane Arbus, Garry Winogrand, and Lee Friedlander had exhausted itself. The innocence that had allowed photographer or the audience to assume that direct photography was a reliable form of “truth” was crumbling on the disillusionment of the Viet Nam War."</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 22px;">Warhol image: 2nd Campbell's can</span></td></tr>
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"In an Image World overflowing with images and stuffed with history, it is impossible to “take” pictures with a fresh and innocent eye: all pictures are seen only through other pictures–pictorial intertextuality. Photography is no longer about capturing realism, as it was in the days of Robert Frank and his followers, but was concerned with re-creating images of images. Without the possibility of reality, postmodern photographers are not photographers in the historical sense and they cannot photograph objects in the traditional sense. They can only fabricate simulacra or record the hyperreal of the Postmodern world. It would be correct to question the term “photography” in the context of Postmodernism. “Photography,” as a direct and immediate capturing of reality takes a certain amount of naïvité, no longer available in the Postmodern era. All photography has already been done. The term “re-photography” would be more precise to describe Postmodern photography."</div>
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As a visual example of what a PostModern photog. can do nowadays let me recall a picture by David LaChapelle, for didactic purposes.<br />
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Again dial his name in Google Images and see what comes up,. It's quite breath taking, One seems to be carried in the World of Oz. Fantasy with no relation to reality whatsoever. From Warhol's Pop Art, to hyperrealism, and then Dreamland, or Pseudorealism with LaChapelle.</div>
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But it's no surprise, such has always been the realm of Commercial Photography and Adverisment for years: simulacra with no reality, i.e. the Fetish. Notice that some even wink to sadomasochism. But it's of the babydoll kind.</div>
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It's nice seeing an American like Dr. Willette's getting into the European frame of mind of critical thinking. Sexuality and social awareness having for so long being banned from the American scene, the positivist worldview is just another version of bourgeois quiet living and idealism. LaChapelle mocks it, but without really debunking it</div>
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Long before this standstill, in 1971, with her book 'On Photography', Susan Sontag had attempted something similar to deconstruction of the Fetish. I quote from <a href="http://www.the.me/aesthetic-consumerism-and-the-violence-of-visual-culture-the-susan-sontag-guide-to-photography-in-the-age-of-digital-culture/">THEME</a>, which recently dedicated a post to her.</div>
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"Sontag calls the photographic image a control mechanism we exert upon the world — upon our experience of it and upon others’ perception of our experience. What makes this insight particularly prescient is that Sontag arrived at it more than three decades before the age of the social media photostream — the ultimate attempt to control, frame and package our lives — our idealized lives — for presentation to others, and even to ourselves. The aggression Sontag sees in this purposeful manipulation of reality through the idealized photographic image applies even more poignantly to the aggressive self-framing we practice as we portray ourselves pictorially on Facebook, Instagram and the like:</div>
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"Images which idealize (like most fashion and animal photography) are no less aggressive than work which makes a virtue of plainness (like class pictures, still lifes of the bleaker sort and mug shots). There is an aggression implicit in every use of the camera."</div>
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Thirty-some years after Sontag’s observation, this aggression precipitates a kind of social media violence of self-assertion — a forcible framing of our identity for presentation, for idealization, for currency in an economy of envy. She goes even further in asserting photography’s inherent violence:</div>
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"Like a car, a camera is sold as a predatory weapon — one that’s as automated as possible, ready to spring. Popular taste expects an easy, an invisible technology. Manufacturers reassure their customers that taking pictures demands no skill or expert knowledge, that the machine is all-knowing and responds to the slightest pressure of the will. It’s as simple as turning the ignition key or pulling the trigger. Like guns and cars, cameras are fantasy machines whose use is addictive."</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 22px;">Susan Sontag</span></td></tr>
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If you look at DPR gear debates, and the weak tentatives to make a more general discourse on Photography, you'll see how Middle America is still fully immersed in the consumerist fetish of the omnipotent camera.</div>
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To recap, the pioneering work of the French in semeiotics allowed to deconstruct the myths of popular culture. Some 30 years later the Theory of the Fetish and its uses spread to American Academia and Photographers.</div>
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Remember when I said 'no image is innocent?'</div>
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As Dr. Willette <a href="http://www.arthistoryunstuffed.com/postmodernism-in-photography/">writes</a>:</div>
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"By the 1970s, photographers were beginning to explore three issues in the discipline. First, “straight photography” and its corollary documentary photography were played out. Second, the “truth” value of photography had been undermined and the role the medium was playing in constructing a particular kind of society—of spectacle and of complacent citizens—was becoming clear. Third, it “straight photography” could be manipulative of society then it would seem that it was once again permissible to manipulate photography. Postmodern photographers would confront these particular conditions during the eighties in a knowing and often highly theoretical fashion."</div>
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Cindy Sherman's a Film Still - Final Moma (for didactic use only)</div>
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"Postmodernism is characterized by self-conscious and deliberate intertextuality. One of the best-known photographers who played with simulacra is Cindy Sherman. Sherman should be termed a performance artist who restages images from mass media. Concentrating on how women were represented by movies, she had herself photographed in a series of small black and white photographs called “Film Stills” during the late 1970s. None of these theatrical re-presentations can be traced back to any actual movie but all remind the viewer of movies they have seen or have heard of and evoke the construction of women in the 1940s and 1950s. </div>
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"Sherman is what can be called a “post-feminist,” or an artist who takes up feminist concerns, not from a political and activist perspective but from a theoretical stance. Because society manipulates the social being who is proved to be infinitely malleable, Postmodernism no longer believes in the Modernist possibility of evolution towards a goal. There is only arbitrary change, determined by the dominant class for its own purposes.</div>
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Willette: "All Postmodern theory can do is to point out that gender is constructed by the culture and by mass media. Unlike early feminism of the 1970s, post-feminism is not essentialist but is constructivist, maintaining that there is no such thing as a “women” only an image that is created by ideology and is named “woman” by the culture. Sherman’s Film Stills are pure simulacra: there is no “woman,” there is only the image of woman. A film is an image of an image of a woman. A film still is an image of a woman of an image of a woman of an image of a woman. Simulacra is a “third order” of “reality,” meaning that a simulacra is three moves away from a reality that never existed in the first place. Because Sherman performs a variety of female roles, playing the woman for a male audience, she should be considered a performance artist who photographs her work, rather than as a traditional photographer."</div>
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BTW the same deconstruction has been applied by Dr. Eva Rus to Francesca Woodman's work. She was probably going to move from Surrealism to Postmodern, and it's a pity that she put an end to her artist's life so early. Note how important was Photography for the Female Liberation movement. Suddenly there were a lot of women photographers who were playing with their identity on stage.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhInJUZsUXOmMwfjgURGYf4RQxNTLGkvtDdqo0sCBWhBgqFmbB1U_gWYseNoIZIJQJE-6A5HifBetRSOYs9W2zOwg0-H1T-GhDa5K0G_HYvQs_3w6CxSmBqifB4fY4osanenCUIagtitIw/s1600/woodman-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhInJUZsUXOmMwfjgURGYf4RQxNTLGkvtDdqo0sCBWhBgqFmbB1U_gWYseNoIZIJQJE-6A5HifBetRSOYs9W2zOwg0-H1T-GhDa5K0G_HYvQs_3w6CxSmBqifB4fY4osanenCUIagtitIw/s1600/woodman-1.jpg" height="640" width="611" /></a></div>
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There is another interesting author to explore as a 're-photographer': Jeff Wall. I am quoting again Dr. Willette, since I couldn't have done better.</div>
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"Sherman was not the only photographer to stress the importance of performance and artifice in Modernism, present in Western art since Édouard Manet. Like Sherman, Jeff Wall uses intertextuality by reenacting significant “major monuments” of Modernist art through the Postmodern art of manipulated photography. One of the early users of computer manipulation, Wall, like Sherman, is less a “photographer” in the classical sense, and actually works in the “directorial mode...” </div>
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"Because he is referring to invented works of art, in addition to staging and directing, Wall must manipulate photography. In A Sudden Gust of Wind, Wall uses the computer to throw white sheets of paper into the stiff breeze, combining postmodern technology with the past. Like most Postmodern artists, Postmodern photographers re-explore the past and revisit history."</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 22px;">Sudden Gust of Wind (Quoted for didactic purposes) </span></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 22px;">The original Hokusai picture, Brooklyn Museum.</span></td></tr>
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Wikipedia: "Based on Yejiri Station, Province of Suruga (ca. 1832) a woodprint by Katsushika Hokusai, A Sudden Gust of Wind recreates the depicted 19th-century Japanese scene in contemporary British Columbia, utilizing actors and took over a year to produce 100 photographs in order "to achieve a seamless montage that gives the illusion of capturing a real moment in time".</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 22px;">Pictures of women, by Jeff Wall</span></td></tr>
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This is an optical illusion whereby the photographer trades her place with you. It is a re-photography of a camera setting.</div>
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Another interesting Postmodern photog to consider is Andreas Gurtsky. In fact we already analysed one of his extraordinary pictures.</div>
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Gurtsky's Engadine picture, with the line of skiers betraying the sanctity of the perennial snow.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6fet4hZ1VIfpe8CJtinO5hQMyGgODS1Ay33Ux-PC20JqwQ7JQOJdZXaUBWL-H4d2Y-MZ2rF0rA8RI9jMlgXXoj0D4icvz4vkX_bCyh3ImEwGtm5CSwAPQ4mW1nlagCi-enellY5Sczlc/s1600/gursky_2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6fet4hZ1VIfpe8CJtinO5hQMyGgODS1Ay33Ux-PC20JqwQ7JQOJdZXaUBWL-H4d2Y-MZ2rF0rA8RI9jMlgXXoj0D4icvz4vkX_bCyh3ImEwGtm5CSwAPQ4mW1nlagCi-enellY5Sczlc/s1600/gursky_2.jpg" height="356" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 22px;">Engadine. </span></td></tr>
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Gursky is also the author the most expensive photo ever sold at an auction, $ 4.3 Million, which has a mesmerizing effect, suspended as it is between the flat plane and the depth. Call it romantic! </div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>"Justifying this manipulation of the image, Gursky said :"Paradoxically, this view of the Rhine cannot be obtained in situ, a fictitious construction was required to provide an accurate image of a modern river."(<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhein_II">Wikipedia</a>)</div>
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Here it is:</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 22px;">Rhein II Pic (only for didactic purposes) $ 4.3 Million!</span></td></tr>
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However good and even perfectionist they are, these photogs. can't hide the fact that what they are really doing are pictures of pictures, in the second or even third degree. Possibly any passers by were cloned out of the piccie.</div>
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So where are we now? In 'Globalization' I already mentioned that the <a href="http://blog.fotomuseum.ch/2014/03/i-is-photography-over/">Winterthur's Fotomuseum</a> is currently holding a debate, where some argue that Photography is finished, because curators can't fix any criteria f for selecting Photo Artworks anymore, since anything goes. It is the End of Photography as a social endeavour in other words. </div>
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Others have advised a return to realist, or neo-realist photography a' la Paul Strand, like Barcelona artist <a href="http://blog.fotomuseum.ch/2014/06/ii-paul-strand-after-margaret-mead/">Jorge Ribalta:</a></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 22px;">Paul Strand's Ghana portraits. Chief and Elders</span><br />
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In <a href="http://proof.nationalgeographic.com/2014/06/30/paul-strands-portraits-of-modernity-1960s-ghana/">Portraits of Modernity</a>.<br />
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I would rather agree and that is what I try to do, by shooting simple and trying to socialize with all walks of life, with the aim of showing common circumstances. But as I mentioned in my post about Wearable Glass and 360° I am afraid I am too late: a new technology is upon us which will sweep us into a kind of real/artificial augmented reality uneheard of before.</div>
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Perhaps we should accept the disappearance of the camera, and welcome a new degree of pictographic experience?</div>
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In fact, as Alan Kirby, Chair of Literature from Exeter Uni, UK writes we have probably entered a new phase one could call <a href="http://philosophynow.org/issues/58/The_Death_of_Postmodernism_And_Beyond">Pseudo Modernism</a>. Beware, there is scathing in his words:</div>
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"whereas postmodernism favoured the ironic, the knowing and the playful, with their allusions to knowledge, history and ambivalence, pseudo-modernism’s typical intellectual states are ignorance, fanaticism and anxiety: Bush, Blair, Bin Laden, Le Pen and their like on one side, and the more numerous but less powerful masses on the other. Pseudo-modernism belongs to a world pervaded by the encounter between a religiously fanatical segment of the United States, a largely secular but definitionally hyper-religious Israel, and a fanatical sub-section of Muslims scattered across the planet: pseudo-modernism was not born on 11 September 2001, but postmodernism was interred in its rubble. In this context pseudo-modernism lashes fantastically sophisticated technology to the pursuit of medieval barbarism – as in the uploading of videos of beheadings onto the internet, or the use of mobile phones to film torture in prisons. Beyond this, the destiny of everyone else is to suffer the anxiety of getting hit in the cross-fire. But this fatalistic anxiety extends far beyond geopolitics, into every aspect of contemporary life; from a general fear of social breakdown and identity loss, to a deep unease about diet and health; from anguish about the destructiveness of climate change, to the effects of a new personal ineptitude and helplessness, which yield TV programmes about how to clean your house, bring up your children or remain solvent. This technologised cluelessness is utterly contemporary: the pseudo-modernist communicates constantly with the other side of the planet, yet needs to be told to eat vegetables to be healthy, a fact self-evident in the Bronze Age. He or she can direct the course of national television programmes, but does not know how to make him or herself something to eat – a characteristic fusion of the childish and the advanced, the powerful and the helpless. For varying reasons, these are people incapable of the “disbelief of Grand Narratives” which Lyotard argued typified postmodernists."</div>
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Sorry for the long text and quotations, I can strike a deal with you and promise that from now on, there won't be anymore chronologies and Art movements involved, but only single excellent photographers brought up.</div>
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In my search for a solution of the actual catch 22 in Photography, between fake reality and unbridled fantasy, I am considering to go back to socially concerned photographers like Paul Strand and Tina Modotti, and watch what they brought to their honest and simple table :)</div>
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No it's simply not true that anything goes, otherwise we would end up with pretentious postprocessing like this <a href="http://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/54019647">"Ph-art" poster at DPR</a>.<br />
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By using painterly plugins they were proud to obtain impressionist women that were done by French painters one century ago. Is this progress, mere defacing and smearing of an image, like adding too much lipstick?<br />
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Or take the photoshopped, beautified images of Marriage hacks that seem to have become the standard for so many camera owners.All their suburb life will be beautified, including their visits to Disneyland. And if you criticize, you ll' be called an old fart, with pretentions to something they don't care a fig about.</div>
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OverPP plus lack of visual culture have perverted the course of Photography, and created true monsters, and general mediocrity. So beauty is NOT in the eye of the beholder, I would propose, instead it is the result of restraint, work and good intuition.</div>
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Art is very similar to Science. If you want to publish a new theory it must be Relevant to some aspect of the Physical World, and it must be Elegant, i.e. it must not waste means to get to its end. Nobody would publish sloppy Science, or a uselessly complicated theory. </div>
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Nobody would publish some Art just because it has been made with the best camera in the World, or overprocessed with the latest software, as the majority of people believe in forums.</div>
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Instead Artists will always do better with small but adequate means, if they have integrity, and some clear cut concepts about their work. Then it's a matter of testing these new concepts to the very end. It took Wall one year of work with actors and computers to arrive at the Gust of Wind picture! With Art you are at the forefont of the evolution of human thinking. Need any proof?</div>
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'Nihil fuit in intellectu quod non fuerit in sensu', said philosophers, from Aristotle to Berkeley.</div>
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In Art you start with the senses, but the end product is in the intellect. Photography is an intellectual endeavour, no matter how desultorily simple it appears. It is the most democratic of the arts, but this implies an even greater need for clarity, honesty and the elimination of dead ends. Although one might be happy with the Likes and Favourites of one's Social sites, there is always a more direct, unexpected way to tap the underlying reality.</div>
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And suddenly, as a relief to these questions without answer, it came to me out of nothing, from a sleepless summer night: just two words 'Bright Star', I was puzzled, then I remembered it was Keats:</div>
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Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art—</div>
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Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night</div>
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And watching, with eternal lids apart,</div>
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Like nature's patient, sleepless Eremite,</div>
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The moving waters at their priestlike task</div>
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Of pure ablution round earth's human shores,</div>
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Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask</div>
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Of snow upon the mountains and the moors—</div>
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No—yet still stedfast, still unchangeable,</div>
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Pillow'd upon my fair love's ripening breast,</div>
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To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,</div>
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Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,</div>
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Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,</div>
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And so live ever—or else swoon to death.</div>
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Appreciate the economy of means, the equivalence between the Star and the Beloved. It is a perfect picture, conjured from imagination. Like a perfect shot, if you wish. Likewise, there must still be room for intuition and poetry in Photo, beyond the artifices!<br />
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amalrichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04787357625026281058noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5211952230715117251.post-9753262848300134682014-07-11T15:49:00.000+02:002014-07-19T07:08:23.589+02:00Wearable Glass and 360° vision.<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Disruptive technologies have a way to get through from SciFi to market success in a few years, witness mirrorless cameras.</div>
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A few observers forsee the same for Google Glass, the wearable device getting mainstream this year : shall we kiss goodbye our smartphones? I would shed no tears. This is an preliminary article anyway: we'll see how things pan out. For the moment this is more an inventory of links, than an assessment, but I have no doubts that wearable technology is already taking long strides.</div>
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For the moment universal use seems hardly likely, except for the affluent, with Google Glass selling to a selected few at $ 1500 as part of the Google Explorer program. Google has just expanded to Britain the Explorer Program,selling the Glass for UKP 1000, offering in the meanwhile new glass frames that could be compatible with prescription lenses in the UK.</div>
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Here at Wikipedia the last specs:</div>
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<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Glass">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Glass</a></div>
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What drew my attention however is the appearance of a Chinese clone , the SimEye.</div>
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At $500 it seems far more reasonable. The difference is in the number of app offered, and the fact that it doesn't respond to voice controls like the original, and has no sound transmission through the skull bones like Google. But it can still take photographs and record movies with 4 times the definition of Google. And it can still download apps directly from Google Android Libraries.</div>
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Would that be able to interface with one of my cameras?</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Photo Wang Yin Hao</span></td></tr>
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<a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-27701933">http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-27701933</a></div>
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Looks a bit unsteady. Note that Google mentioned recently that the <i>final</i> price to consumers of the Glass would be close to your average smartphone - so better wait!</div>
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Meanwhile Olympus published a patent for wearable glasses, and I later discovered it is associated with Kopin company for development of a new device.</div>
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Olympus is known for its world dominance in endoscopes and medical devices, so Medical could be the first application. But it could also go consumer:</div>
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<a href="http://www.photogizmos.com/2014/06/10/olympus-patents-wearable-electronic-view-finder-device/">http://www.photogizmos.com/2014/06/10/olympus-patents-wearable-electronic-view-finder-device/</a></div>
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Note that the device can be disassembled, which is not true of Google Glass.</div>
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<a href="http://ir.kopin.com/Investors/Press-Releases/Press-Release-Details/2014/Kopin-Announces-PupilTM-the-Latest-in-Display-Technology-for-Smart-Eyewear/default.aspx">http://ir.kopin.com/Investors/Press-Releases/Press-Release-Details/2014/Kopin-Announces-PupilTM-the-Latest-in-Display-Technology-for-Smart-Eyewear/default.aspx</a></div>
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Imagine surgery with augmented vision, a thing that military jet pilots already have with their headup displays in their helmets. But here the device is much lighter and less intrusive.</div>
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It could also bring augmented reality to the operating table: a surgeon could see a heart in 3D:</div>
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<a href="http://www.bbc.com/future/sponsored/story/20140617-the-heart-of-the-future">http://www.bbc.com/future/sponsored/story/20140617-the-heart-of-the-future</a></div>
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Or could it go Consumer and Virtual? Virtual Reality quit consumer markets some ten years ago because it required some extremely fast and expensive computers to be credible. Therefore it was the preserve of training devices for the military, like jet plane simulation. </div>
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It is now making a comeback to consumer games, because of the fast increased computing power of miniaturised devices, and their high resolution screens. Also, Wi-Fi and Cloud can act as Storage.</div>
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There are out of the box solutions, making use of devices you might already have. Check this, the Oculus device for making a Samsung phone into a virtual reality device:</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqOzepgGCCnpj5LSsJnOxj4Z-6XgwjXphXCxMPLA_tlq3Tdk-AQwV2Ukwq8fvR4KpQlYAQTYkaSMv0jvl8czYL2WKKHpEkontwea9XkaaTSf24fHo_KsqYieB1qSkNLZLtqhPJyPNq_yg/s1600/sammyvrmock-2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqOzepgGCCnpj5LSsJnOxj4Z-6XgwjXphXCxMPLA_tlq3Tdk-AQwV2Ukwq8fvR4KpQlYAQTYkaSMv0jvl8czYL2WKKHpEkontwea9XkaaTSf24fHo_KsqYieB1qSkNLZLtqhPJyPNq_yg/s1600/sammyvrmock-2.jpg" height="406" width="640" /></a></div>
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<a href="http://www.engadget.com/2014/05/30/samsung-oculus-partnership/">http://www.engadget.com/2014/05/30/samsung-oculus-partnership/</a></div>
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By sliding a phone into with a wearable box with two magnifying lenses, you use the high definition Samsung screen to input software provided by Oculus, the Facebook funded company. </div>
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The built-in lens of camera phone also allows to superpose the artificial and the real. Remarkable!</div>
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The main reason reason however for me to take an interest, is that Olympus mentioned wearable glass a a future interface for cameras. Imagine a WiFi link between camera and Glass, instead of using a smartphone. Wouldn't it be more natural in the long run than sticking an odd, and expensive EVF to its Pens? </div>
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Google Glass was not born for Photography though. "It's a pretty crappy 5MP cell phone camera - there's not much else to say. It's ok when you have some sunlight and a muddled mess when you don't." says AndroidPolice</div>
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<a href="http://www.androidpolice.com/2013/06/17/google-glass-explorer-edition-review-a-beta-product-from-the-future/">http://www.androidpolice.com/2013/06/17/google-glass-explorer-edition-review-a-beta-product-from-the-future/</a></div>
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First you say "Show the viewfinder", then "Take a picture". Here are the main voice commands:</div>
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The most successful apps<i> at the moment </i> include a Moving Map indicator, which can tell where you are, and direct you through the road system. You input the data with your voice. "Get directions to..." will fire up the app and start navigation to your destination. Just like your phone on Android, you can direct it to a specific business, search for a type of business, or speak a whole address.</div>
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You also have the regular Google Search, although presentation of the results by Cards, makes it somehow messy and laconic, says AndroidPolice.</div>
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Certainly you can also dictate an e-mail and send it with a vocal command to Gmail. By the same token it is easy to send the images you took with the 5 Mpx Glass to Google Galleries (Picasa?). You can also do short bursts of 720p.</div>
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Another app being developed will help you speed up check ins at British airports, another will act as a guide to the Sixtine Chapel, the Egyptian Museum of Turin, and other Italian museums, by using facial recognition on the mummies, or the paintings! It is difficult to tell however what is already there, and what is just planned. Will it also be able to translate presentations and street signs? Or even pick up a conversation in Japanese and translate it?</div>
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Meanwhile Photography got me interested in a crowdfunding device that will soon hit the market: the Bublcam:</div>
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<a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/bublcam/bublcam-360o-camera-technology-for-everyone">https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/bublcam/bublcam-360o-camera-technology-for-everyone</a></div>
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This camera is the size of a baseball, and has 4 lenses that cover 360°. It was designed in order to allow iimage swipng across a smartphone. Proprietary software allows to stitch the 4 images in a circular image, which covers all of your surroundings. </div>
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If that was linked up to am Oculus device, imagine the immersive effect! Perhaps we are at the verge of blending natural vision and machine one, in high definition. Have a taste here:</div>
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<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/puNepKjwHJM?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
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To have a further idea yet look at these 360° pictures of the Mundial and its stadiums in Brazil, by photog. Henri Stuart. You can swipe to your heart's content. Here the post:</div>
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<a href="http://www.focus-numerique.com/images-360-coupe-monde-news-5481.html">http://www.focus-numerique.com/images-360-coupe-monde-news-5481.html</a></div>
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and here, choose one of his pictures, and swipe it !:</div>
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<a href="http://360photos.fifa.com/#!startscene=cmr_bra_stu_foster">http://360photos.fifa.com/#!startscene=cmr_bra_stu_foster</a></div>
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There is already a minor alternative to bubl, the CENTR:</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgV6LhHb0BJNEWWFXzAHmT0iCyzI4PBG4xsdfc6ZqXdk-vAdqPV8sdQO0H5xVmKBnHtfkg_SLIwPq0AxQ_5TLTCAvxIvva9rhQaQ9LPvnXP6cjcwBHP7yIziY173Kwc0CJoeoAayw0EBMo/s1600/centrcamera-6.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgV6LhHb0BJNEWWFXzAHmT0iCyzI4PBG4xsdfc6ZqXdk-vAdqPV8sdQO0H5xVmKBnHtfkg_SLIwPq0AxQ_5TLTCAvxIvva9rhQaQ9LPvnXP6cjcwBHP7yIziY173Kwc0CJoeoAayw0EBMo/s1600/centrcamera-6.png" height="273" width="400" /></a></div>
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<a href="http://www.gizmag.com/centr-360-video-camera/31886/">http://www.gizmag.com/centr-360-video-camera/31886/</a></div>
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So are we finally overcoming the limitations of the frame? Frames were invented in Europe just before the Renaissance to allow merchants to have their portraits made, bought and carried away. But long before that painters were paid by bishops and abbots to make frescoes of the Saints covering whole walls of Churches with visualizations of the Bible: far more immersive. With 360° cameras we are back to the beginning.</div>
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What will happen to Photography, as we knew it, will it stand a chance? It's rather traditional cameras that are in danger, I am reminded about Marcel Duchamp's words about the camera some day becoming as outdated as Painting. </div>
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Note that according to a specialised site, Optical Vision Site there are 39 companies flexing their muscles in the new Wearable Viewer market and that sales have doubled every year:</div>
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<a href="http://www.theopticalvisionsite.com/eyewear/39-smart-eyeglasses-of-the-future/#.U7leXSjg4y5">http://www.theopticalvisionsite.com/eyewear/39-smart-eyeglasses-of-the-future/#.U7leXSjg4y5</a></div>
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Meanwhile imagine to hold a Bubl ball in your hands high above your head, documenting your surroundings for your wearable glass, and uploading them by WiFi to the Cloud. In California a journalism course has been already lauched based on Google Glass.</div>
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It would certainly change holiday photography, and a lot more: it would be an experience akin to Life-Logging. You could blend your images of monuments and temples with those of other users.</div>
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Sometimes I am scared by such an intrusive future coming soon, and yet I welcome the Glasses as a more interesting viewing device than a smartphone. Imagine the prices were similar. If I had the choice, I would go for the Glass, since it can take and make calls too anyway. And you, what would YOU prefer?</div>
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Much of this bounty however will depend on available app in the Android ecosystem, and the development of more powerful batteries. So far Google has kept strict control on third party applications, but these are early times. </div>
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The Battery allegedly lasts 1-2 hours. Needs more juice, to become your permanent wearable computer. So far it just shuts down like an ordinary phone. But it wakes up if you nod 30° upwards!</div>
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Google Apps are updating at a monthly rate, so chances are that you won't recognize your Glass after a few months. it's a kind of Transformer thing.</div>
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Photokina is now looming: we'll see what comes up then. Or perhaps Photokina being more a more traditional camera show. the new consumer devices will emerge beginning of next year at CES in Las Vegas? </div>
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Will traditional cameras stand the attack, or is it the beginning of the End? Smartphones are already nibbling at a 20% yearly rate at camera sales each year worldwide, according to a preliminary Photokina's report. Glass might be the kiss of death, unless Olympus develops itself a wearable device specific for cameras.</div>
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Note however that mirrorless (ILC) is faring better:</div>
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There are however some no-nos about wearable glass. You don't wear it near restrooms, lest they take you for a voyeur. But if you want the full criticism, have a look at the 35 arguments against it:</div>
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<a href="http://www.edrants.com/thirty-five-arguments-against-google-glass/">http://www.edrants.com/thirty-five-arguments-against-google-glass/</a></div>
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Some arguments are quite wacky, and luddite. Other concerns are quite real, basically about privacy and the use that Google might do about your personal data, that you must input in the device in order to make it work. For instance there's a difference between using anonymously Gmail, and inputting your real name in Google+. Google would like to feed the Contacts side with real names, if only for the sake of brevity.</div>
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However petty criminals could use the device to blackmail unaware celebrities, although paparazzi did that already there with their plain cameras. But with Glass, how can people tell if you are shooting them or not? Also don't forget that you have Google Search at your fingertips in the Glass. You can actually be <i>guided</i> to a person or a shop!</div>
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So there are also etiquette concerns of all kinds - smart restaurants refusing use, and safety issues. Although freeing both hands you can't superimpose virtual reality to what you are driving through, without risking an accident, because of the different planes of visualization and attention. Is it why Googles is introducing automated driving? The application is there, but it is not yet legal. Both the US and the UK have prohibited driving while wearing the glass.</div>
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Glass will make the wearer feel like an omnipotent 'photographer' with the Third Eye, always at the ready for a shot, by a vocal command, or even a discrete tap on the touchpad of the frame. But will he/she be a <i>photographer</i> or just a camera wearer?</div>
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I am particularly interested in user experience. How often do you use it?Please feel free to use the e-mail module here affixed. Other users of this site could also comment if they find the new devices desirable or not.</div>
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More importantly, do you think that this mode of visualization, this mingling of the artificial and the real, will be the end of cameras, if not of Photography?</div>
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The Daily Telegraph just announced the opening of an Amazon shop in Britain dedicated to wearable technology, and it published the latest market forecasts:</div>
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"Wearable technology has already emerged as one of the top tech trends of the year. Deloitte predicts than 10 million wearable devices will ship globally in 2014, from sophisticated gadgets to smart textiles and skin patches.</div>
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In a recent survey of 6,000 individuals by consulting company Accenture, 46 per cent expressed interest in buying smartwatches, while 42 per cent said they'd be interested in purchasing internet-connected eyeglasses, such as Google Glass.</div>
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The global market for wearable technology was reportedly worth $2.7 billion (£1.6bn) in revenue in 2012 and is expected to reach $8.3 billion (£4.9bn) in 2018."</div>
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<a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/amazon/10953045/Amazon-launches-wearable-technology-store-in-UK.html">http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/amazon/10953045/Amazon-launches-wearable-technology-store-in-UK.html</a></div>
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Finally you could control Glass and shoot pictures, even by mind control, i.e. concentration, by associating Glass to an EEG reader through an app, called <span style="color: #333233;">MindRDR</span><span style="color: #333233; font: 19.0px Arial;">. </span></div>
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Don't believe? See this fascinating article here at BBC:</div>
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<a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-28237582">http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-28237582</a>:</div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #505050; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 19px;">"An EEG headset can be used to measure when certain parts of the brain show a greater level of activity.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #505050; font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 19px;"></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #505050; font-size: 18px; line-height: 19px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">In this case, the MindRDR software monitors when the wearer engages in high levels of concentration.</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #505050; font-size: 18px; line-height: 19px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Within Google Glass's "screen" - a small window that appears in the corner of the wearer's right eye - a white horizontal line is shown.</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #505050; font-size: 18px; line-height: 19px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">As a user concentrates, the white line rises up the screen. Once it reaches the top, a picture is taken using </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif;">Glass's inbuilt camera."</span></span></div>
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Please check the BBC video, to see how the thing works, it's amazingly simple. To send a piccie you just think the same thing twice, and the picture gets sent to a pre-programmed address.</div>
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The thing is meant for paraplegics and people 'walled inside' and it's really a hack, not recognized by Google.</div>
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But who knows, one day you could take a pic by thinking deeply about your mother in law. Never say never :)</div>
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amalrichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04787357625026281058noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5211952230715117251.post-10430998015948710452014-07-05T09:26:00.004+02:002014-07-29T04:51:40.047+02:00Shooting Simple - Jpeg instead of RAW<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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This should be a dead beaten horse but it isn't. The argument resurfaced in a couple of forums because of the demise of Apple's 'Aperture'.</div>
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So people started to compare alternatives in RAW development, and I mentioned that I didn't use RAW anymore. God forbid!</div>
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So they whined that I didn't know the advantages, the extended Dynamic Range, the prodigies at high ISO.</div>
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I countered by saying that respected reviewers like Pekka Potka had proved that there wasn't 1/3 of a stop difference between RAW and Jpeg in the new Olympus' 16 Mpx sensor, mostly due to Olympus' v. good in camera processing.<br />
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Then one of them said: you shoot Jpeg because you shoot <i>simple</i> pictures, making me feel like a dimwit.</div>
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Another had the kindness to say that I did mere snaps, and voyeuristic ones at that. Point taken, I share the dubious honour with <a href="http://amalric2014.blogspot.it/2014/02/art-is-not-politically-correct.html">Tichy</a>.<br />
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However I am used to shoot slides since I was an active freelancer, and hence to set the camera on the field. No wish to correct and fiddle in RAW after the fact. With a mirrorless I can actually see what I am doing in the EVF: for instance I can change to B&W and see how tones fit the scene. Priceless!<br />
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Since Olympus is so good with Jepgs I mostly archive my shots on flickr, and I don't need to upload files 5 times as large. It would be a terrible waste of time - for what?</div>
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Giulio Sciorio is with me here, and I value him: </div>
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<a href="http://discovermirrorless.com/hybrid-photography/top-5-reasons-why-i-shoot-jpeg-over-raw/">http://discovermirrorless.com/hybrid-photography/top-5-reasons-why-i-shoot-jpeg-over-raw/</a><br />
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The Phoblographer has also some good motivations:<br />
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<a href="http://www.thephoblographer.com/2014/07/26/getting-rite-camera-important-now-ever/#.U9cLuSj9Lao">http://www.thephoblographer.com/2014/07/26/getting-rite-camera-important-now-ever/#.U9cLuSj9Lao</a></div>
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BTW I am not anymore a paying slave to Adobe, and that's no mean advantage.</div>
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Let's get to the second part: yes I shoot simple, realistic things, even tasteless like the following. It's my antidote to the tics of postmodern photography, which is really a re-photography, overprocessing, mediocre surreal stuff, which has little to do with the original Surrealism and its social concerns.</div>
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So having to go to hospital for a series of heart checks I decided to act my old reporter self, and with my toy E-PM1 to document just that. One doesn't think of hospitals as photographic matter, and for a reason. If I had been caught at that, with the Privacy Panic running high in Italian Hospitals, I would have been hanged, drawn, and quartered. </div>
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Instead I succeded to take a few pictures, that I show below. They are nothing to rave about but they are important for me. I think one of those I shot on oxygen died, just one day later. Another had ruined his liver by drinking and his mother was desperate to convince him to stop. I couldn't document the fear of new viruses spreading in the emergency ward among the nurses. Next time.</div>
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There is a lot to learn in a large hospital, and mine were the first hesitant steps in an emergency ward. I add an old lady waiting at the dentist to lighten up. Yes I shoot simple things, and after reading about postmodern photography you'll understand that I do that by choice, and not only by accident. I soon hope to have here another photog. dealing with simple things :)</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">This appeared to me as 'The Entry to the Valley of Death', but it was just a fantasy.</span></td></tr>
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The aged must be part of photography. In many affluent countries we are the majority :)<br />
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<i>Note</i>:<br />
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I have affixed a Flag Counter, both for fun and feedback. Unfortunately some flags of the most faithful won't come up, like Russia or Turkey. I am very sorry about that.<br />
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By clicking on the App, however you can get your own Flag Counter, and verify if your country comes up. I have no way of setting it differently, and determine the countries that will appear.<br />
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Perhaps it's an IP matter? See <a href="http://www.flagcentral.org/questions">here</a> what Flag Central says.</div>
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amalrichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04787357625026281058noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5211952230715117251.post-24881125078641172252014-06-28T11:45:00.000+02:002014-07-16T04:35:04.112+02:00Two llttle known episodes about Cartier Bresson <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: large;">Cartier-Bresson has probably been the most influential photographer of the 20th Century, that is how the French and I see it anyway. :)</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">So there was recently this huge exhbition in Paris called 'Le Siècle de Cartier-Bresson'. And a documentary of the same name was released by ArteTV, which I encourage you to get <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fdoRuf0y9VE">here</a> (in French on uTube. Poor definition though). </span></div>
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<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/fdoRuf0y9VE?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Thirty years earlier, int the 1970s a seminal interview in English was taken by the <a href="http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/06/21/cartier-bresson-there-are-no-maybes/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=2">NYTimes</a>: 'There are no maybes'. It is perhaps even more interesting, because HCB, who had learned his English in Cambridge, probably gave a more succint but forceful version of his life events.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> I remember how he tells his encounter with Ghandi. At some point Ghandi pointed at HCB's book, at picture of a man looking at a corbillard, and adorned coach carrying a dead man. 'Why? What is it?' Ghandi asks.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> And HCB says: it is a picture ot the famous French writer Paul Claudel. 'He was a Catholic you know, so he was meditating about death.' Henri says.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">And so Ghandi shakes his head, and says: 'Ah, Death! Death, Death…' </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">A day later he was assassinated.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCdfJKUTSuasN6j4ZJbw0JnsDGePdLRFNXU4OlM-TfYVPnUs4azXfl_sPbBqAYQ-BCcekYpE8gLOWb4I6wIKEpNaGld47LUgkTB-CtKbnXskKoiOwv7eA9zc0QIrLOr0Ayut8_Bz_xA0k/s1600/Paul_Claudel(c)Henri_Cartier-Bresson.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCdfJKUTSuasN6j4ZJbw0JnsDGePdLRFNXU4OlM-TfYVPnUs4azXfl_sPbBqAYQ-BCcekYpE8gLOWb4I6wIKEpNaGld47LUgkTB-CtKbnXskKoiOwv7eA9zc0QIrLOr0Ayut8_Bz_xA0k/s1600/Paul_Claudel(c)Henri_Cartier-Bresson.jpg" height="418" width="640" /></span></a></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> Here you will find his portrait by HCB and below the announcement to the crowds by Nehru that the Mathama has died. Not a great picture, but a v. moving one. Just a day had lapsed between the two! Just the same, from portraitist HCB had become his reporter self again.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_PPmAABU6NHgcbwOvc5EV7VmLtptWVnZep-VutPxjiSpTJH_lFCl4MtAr1i0H__XppMJxOoLGRfadXe7i-eZaxn3qRgOLH4DanJRG4RVWvX9T1tzIzLiNomtkz7Z4htBIpA32aCJ0QaA/s1600/gandhi_henri_cartier-bresson_1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_PPmAABU6NHgcbwOvc5EV7VmLtptWVnZep-VutPxjiSpTJH_lFCl4MtAr1i0H__XppMJxOoLGRfadXe7i-eZaxn3qRgOLH4DanJRG4RVWvX9T1tzIzLiNomtkz7Z4htBIpA32aCJ0QaA/s1600/gandhi_henri_cartier-bresson_1.jpg" height="361" width="640" /></span></a></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh40mp7UEv1nHnwZxO3P8n0PSfKf3FK8ntlmYFZ3HEI6g0LHXoVK9FU8xO_mhJ7erH4k3wrscXdcghyq624w5lEQcUiOPxiOAV8uTKYqlhIoORE4RX3N_oyV8w6NXI9BC8BSaUlFMHqYXE/s1600/Cartier-Bresson-Nehru-Announces.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh40mp7UEv1nHnwZxO3P8n0PSfKf3FK8ntlmYFZ3HEI6g0LHXoVK9FU8xO_mhJ7erH4k3wrscXdcghyq624w5lEQcUiOPxiOAV8uTKYqlhIoORE4RX3N_oyV8w6NXI9BC8BSaUlFMHqYXE/s1600/Cartier-Bresson-Nehru-Announces.jpg" height="426" width="640" /></span></a></td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">It has been argued by Roland Barthes that photography is intrinsically, intimately connected with death. He makes the example in his 'Camera Lucida', of corpses recomposed by their families to look if they were alive. Those were the first commemorative photos, and among the first ever in the 1850s. Photography here is about embalming the dead, as if they were mummies.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">In his photobook 'the Decisive Instant,' that has just been reprinted in NY with its original cover by Matisse, HCB goes on that a photog must take a shot just before the actor vanishes and the moment is lost irretrievably.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Barthes goes on making his same point: a picture might be interesting by what it shows about the surroundings, and that is the Studium.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> But without the Punctus, the meaningul intstant, a picture will be just that… Interesting. How many millions of pictures do we know in social sites that are just that?</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">That is because every instant of life is intimately connected with ideath. This concept of the instant nature of reality is the same of buddhism.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Therefore it is no surprise, that HCB quoted the Zen and the Art of Archery by Herrigel. One can take one shot only and it must be the perfect one. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">And yet he goes on musing, for all your considerations about the scene, the geometry of it, the symmetry, and the way its characters relate to each other, you must let your intuition play in that single instant that is a shot. Never intellectualize. A photo lives and dies in a single heatbeat.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Fom the French interview Henri appears as an incredibly bookish character, like a true French Intellectuel. Son of a textile industrialist he went to Lycée Fénélon, the best of the best. See <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henri_Cartier-Bresson#The_Decisive_Moment">Wikipedia</a> about him. He was introduced to painting by his uncle, but then had courses by well known Lhote, an academic painter, but dropped him when he found him too stuffy.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">He describes how he followed the Surrealist first meetings at cafe' La Coupole to the point that he considered himself a Surrealist. It is a precious information because it allows to see his pictures under a different light, notably those strange compositions of people emerging from holes.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvQ2AKjfoBp0YlUaxaqi8xwo6QCIso-F9IH5JT2FRJwzwtf_W5utTrLjS-0vYlSd7V5qBAMV-lmgbX0mx9j7e8kbGNx5bUYIYJopLnOB5KGqtHw8XhkuZOLXq-UVDPA4IlKrGRvs9G8CM/s1600/cartier-bresson-seville-spain-1944-wall-hole-children-playing.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvQ2AKjfoBp0YlUaxaqi8xwo6QCIso-F9IH5JT2FRJwzwtf_W5utTrLjS-0vYlSd7V5qBAMV-lmgbX0mx9j7e8kbGNx5bUYIYJopLnOB5KGqtHw8XhkuZOLXq-UVDPA4IlKrGRvs9G8CM/s1600/cartier-bresson-seville-spain-1944-wall-hole-children-playing.jpg" height="428" width="640" /></span></a></td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> It also explains his stance against colonization, which the Surrealists abhorred. 'In Africa I have seen the 'Heart of Darkness' he famously said, about his first trip. And hence his stance in India and in China:</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">A Eunuch, by the Forbidden City, China</span></td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">But then came a day when his business partner at Magnum, Robert Capa, told him: 'you know, Henri you can't go on telling people that you are a surrealist photog. You will get no assignments. People will always confine you like a plant in a hothouse. You must introduce yourself as a photoreporter only.'</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">That explains also many of HCB later understatements, although there is no doubt that he was a great artist. Remember also that Capa had had his scrapes with death : take his picture of the Republican soldier hit by a bullet? Isn't it another decisive instant, if it were one? Again Barthes' Punctus.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Now the second episode. Before founding Magnum with Capa, HCB had been a prisoner in a Nazi camp, which almost killed him by exhaustion. He had evaded and then joined the Resistance as a photographer. Those were perhaps his true beginnings.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Some years later HCB had to take portraits of a famous poet, Ezra Pound. I have an immense respect for him as one of the few who was ever able to decode Guido Cavalcanti's 'Donna me prega' canzone, a 1350s poem with all the rituals of Courteous Love. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> 'Donna me prega' is one of the most complicated pieces in the Italian language. (Here's an <a href="http://babylon.acad.cai.cam.ac.uk/students/study/english/pound/pound4.pdf">essay</a> about it from Cambridge). A ray of Light carries the image of the beloved through the pupils of the eyes, and from there hits the intellect and the heart. It's a photo theory, from the 1200s.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Pound translated Cavalcanti in Old English in his 'Essays', but first he had to explain his choices and unlock all the secrets of the Medieval canzone, he an American, and a self taught at that! His own Italian Cantos are a thing of beauty.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Now HCB goes to the appointment with the poet and discovers a wreck of a man. Pound had been a prisoner of war too, but of a different kind. American soldiers, his fellow citizens, had put him in a cage for months as a wild animal, for his dealings with Mussolini, which he admired. Hence he had become a countryless man.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Now about their meeting, opinions diverge. Martine CB mentions that the interview lasted half an hour and HCB took only a few pictures, HCB recalls he spent two hours with Ezra, and he took only 6 pictures.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Both concur that nobody spoke a word. So you must imagine the scene: two prisoners of war meet, but their different sides prevent any comradesship, so they don't speak a word.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Imagine also Pound, a great poet, a very cultivated man, who according to HCB, seemed to have come to a point where by his silence he showed he despised everybody and everything.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAC-ZPITRv62OADaoomDX8L_6DNSD1243PQGjiyDCLN1j-VMX0pTmW_WO8YLyCuc3MovEtsT24P9fMuJsPQj1ketiCRjxYBv31ceTMT9WijPAk3Cwx8a-J9FQzt_4WijrWw1iIM5J7WB0/s1600/BressonPound.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAC-ZPITRv62OADaoomDX8L_6DNSD1243PQGjiyDCLN1j-VMX0pTmW_WO8YLyCuc3MovEtsT24P9fMuJsPQj1ketiCRjxYBv31ceTMT9WijPAk3Cwx8a-J9FQzt_4WijrWw1iIM5J7WB0/s1600/BressonPound.jpg" height="640" width="428" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Ezra Pound, one year before his death</span></td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">HCB must have registered this, and so made use ot the silence to jot the crevices of a destroyed man. One year later EP was dead. So instead we have those precious pictures of a great man.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> Note that in portraits too there are decisive instants. Note that HCB concern for geometry and symmetry is completely absent. A human face is death delayed.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">And now to lighten up. The booklet 'The Decisive Moment' was never called that! In the French original edition, it was called: 'Images a' la Sauvette' (stolen images), and that puts HCB in a long tradition of Paris strollers, flaneurs, including Lartigue, Doisneau and Brassai. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Certainly HCB had a typical Surrealist concern for sexuality. Imagine HCB's tall self looking with aloofness at the goodies:</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVRRdI39JW-xq4fgBSpywALurxqYkrFcwG86ZxDDxAiTxRK_8mS2IO8a7_STb_8iB0kwmfAPRJ24pc30ufXtuKP0atq05sG_eacTrXfeu519GcfZlWPI-qXP0B2JYlwJiJqQM21tbKMrg/s1600/martine-cartier-bresson.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVRRdI39JW-xq4fgBSpywALurxqYkrFcwG86ZxDDxAiTxRK_8mS2IO8a7_STb_8iB0kwmfAPRJ24pc30ufXtuKP0atq05sG_eacTrXfeu519GcfZlWPI-qXP0B2JYlwJiJqQM21tbKMrg/s1600/martine-cartier-bresson.jpg" height="430" width="640" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Martine CB's legs</span></td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">That particular school of ironic, unassuming but cosmopolitan street shooters, could never have existed without the streets of Paris, and their 'joie de vivre'. Ah, to simply take a walk along the boulevards and the winding cobbled streets of bawdy Monmartre! Their very strange topology and dead ends evokes <a href="http://amalric2014.blogspot.it/2014/02/psychogeography-in-two-words.html">psychogeography</a></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh311WFahmIyC8TQmksGxZRV61xB4KXSoIQR-h6DoJCwrsmebYb12euOYJnQEeGmKy1z99kTfUPx21nM5n_r3P77YczzlNfKl4KyaCfyrZ7S8CfwMQl7DlN0diF9k9RkSCT5aXskhSWQ2A/s1600/%25C2%25A9-henry-cartier-bresson.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh311WFahmIyC8TQmksGxZRV61xB4KXSoIQR-h6DoJCwrsmebYb12euOYJnQEeGmKy1z99kTfUPx21nM5n_r3P77YczzlNfKl4KyaCfyrZ7S8CfwMQl7DlN0diF9k9RkSCT5aXskhSWQ2A/s1600/%25C2%25A9-henry-cartier-bresson.jpg" height="428" width="640" /></span></a></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> Then the Nazi came and destroyed the very spirit of it, but HCB never forgot his light footed approach in the new kingdom he had been appointed by Magnum, Asia. 'You must understand the Chinese, he said, they are very traditionalist, but not unfriendly'. He took some *very* different aspects of Asia.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Sing-Song girl, China</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKvoX3yAYvotAB1avO-07r4JLCI-CUNtzGZyy2jvYN-pSeDRTA_XUkMZ-dqKHG4rNqQZ0Mb8SYglfUhYK8Hu9-W3xqr4QpCYt9QrwfapKa3p7crWz6OzvYFEB-W1ClHMt0nOdFVlNReVg/s1600/srinagar-kashmir-1948-by-henri-cartier-bresson.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKvoX3yAYvotAB1avO-07r4JLCI-CUNtzGZyy2jvYN-pSeDRTA_XUkMZ-dqKHG4rNqQZ0Mb8SYglfUhYK8Hu9-W3xqr4QpCYt9QrwfapKa3p7crWz6OzvYFEB-W1ClHMt0nOdFVlNReVg/s1600/srinagar-kashmir-1948-by-henri-cartier-bresson.jpg" height="428" width="640" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Women in Srinagar, 1949, India.</span></td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> In 1956, with Krutschev putting an end to Stalinism, HCB was also the first Westerner to be allowed to freely photograph in Moscow, showing that Russians where not bloodthirsty monsters, 'but people like you and me'. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">That reportage landed Magnum a LOT of money' he gloated. The first years of Magnum had been financed basically by betting on horses, under the advice of their concierge. Ghandi of course was another scoop.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Please enjoy the two video recollections here and fetch yourself <a href="http://theonlinephotographer.typepad.com/the_online_photographer/2014/06/can-this-really-be-happening.html">'The Decisive Instant'</a> with Matisse cover drawings, the first re-print in 60 years! (thank you TOP for pointing this up). If you buy it you won't regret it, it won't break the bank.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Now you can download the French interview 'Le Siècle de Cartier-Bresson' from ArteTV, full quicktime version, <a href="http://www.zone-telechargement.com/docu-spect-sport/documentaires/22723-le-siecle-de-cartier-bresson.html">here</a> (warning, some 250 MB). Worth having if you speak French.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Or see 'The Decisive Moment' in English, uTube version, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hyhMqDfmG9o">here</a>.</span><br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/hyhMqDfmG9o?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Mind you, they are different recollections, and they are both original versions. HCB was bilingual, another interesting trait. Research now shows that bilinguals have twice the language centers, and that the brain therefore ages less. His recollections are indeed very clear headed, and funny in both languages.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Sometimes it would be nice to do a deconstruction of HCB's more surrealist pictures. If you know about one, send the links in the comments or by mailbox. However I think we are breaking new ground here :)</span></div>
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amalrichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04787357625026281058noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5211952230715117251.post-33628939518761047482014-06-20T13:42:00.000+02:002014-07-11T16:15:23.175+02:00The Bridge of Science<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The Bridge of Science, Rome, by me. With the Panasonic 14/2.5, an inexpensive competitor to the PanaLeica 15/1.7.</span></td></tr>
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amalrichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04787357625026281058noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5211952230715117251.post-34670024867893824742014-06-20T13:34:00.000+02:002014-07-01T02:45:44.188+02:00Maverick lenses - the Panaleica Summilux 15/1.7 for m4/3<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZ3TY15tRaFIDqmR4RmAuZKHXxz51_pQJddPphDXTZ9TUzHQOg3AWzcs3Fepak-JbGIabxqRsS8SmWh2OwjEoIvXbba5r7Q-dPKTp0k9-W_fv4IQS61MrGaER87b9BXAJp4BNgVMHzyhI/s1600/Leica+15mm.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZ3TY15tRaFIDqmR4RmAuZKHXxz51_pQJddPphDXTZ9TUzHQOg3AWzcs3Fepak-JbGIabxqRsS8SmWh2OwjEoIvXbba5r7Q-dPKTp0k9-W_fv4IQS61MrGaER87b9BXAJp4BNgVMHzyhI/s1600/Leica+15mm.jpg" height="400" width="400" /></span></a></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">It is an Urban Legend among m4/3 users that no matter what, Panasonic and Olympus don't succeed in making a sharp lens around the the 17mm (35 mm eq.) focal.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">It seems that the legend is now hitting again the prestigious Panaleica 15/1.7.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">DPR readers complained that the Oly 17/1.7 was not sharp enough, and now a comparison at <a href="http://www.dxomark.com/Reviews/Panasonic-Leica-DG-Summilux-15mm-F1.7-ASPH-lens-review-Prime-performer/Panasonic-Leica-DG-Summilux-15mm-F1.7-ASPH-versus-competition">DxOmark</a> is showing that the Panaleica, while a bit better, is not by much. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Note that the lens is not exactly cheap: some 600 USD, and 620 Pounds in the UK! It does have a very pretty bokeh, a nice colour and tone signature, it is resistant to flare, but the</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> Sharpness or Death Gang </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">are deaf to these niceties</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">. OTH commercial sites are waxing lyrical:</span></div>
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<a href="http://www.ephotozine.com/article/panasonic-leica-dg-summilux-15mm-f-1-7-asph--lens-review-25677"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">ePhotozine review</span></a></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><a href="http://www.photographyblog.com/reviews/panasonic_leica_dg_summilux_15mm_f1_7_asph_review/">Photography Blog review</a></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">But, well, they are commercial sites.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Note that at the edges of the 17mm, the Panny 14mm/2.5 and the 20mm/1.7 have no such problems, they are considered very sharp by the same crowd.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">IMHO user samples speak for themselves. From a DPR user, Zilver, the 15mm at 1.7, and 4.0 respectively (<i>open the piccie in a new page to get the larger shot</i>):</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjafZlEzbrvqbj7JSjbRFKPSsfmzNs2NKq_o9gzm6Fx7zJK9BP6dLaQfp9a2jSTnY6qSBu_mWqBdpOE8IAM__kXkzk73AsSJudbw_3yWvPCKtX4y76LPvTaxpkT8NweFA5j6C2MxJaH_VU/s1600/15mm+1.7+zilver.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjafZlEzbrvqbj7JSjbRFKPSsfmzNs2NKq_o9gzm6Fx7zJK9BP6dLaQfp9a2jSTnY6qSBu_mWqBdpOE8IAM__kXkzk73AsSJudbw_3yWvPCKtX4y76LPvTaxpkT8NweFA5j6C2MxJaH_VU/s1600/15mm+1.7+zilver.jpg" height="425" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Check the foliage in the foreground and compare with the buildings in the backround, especially at the edges. There is a considerable difference between the two shots. </span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgR-VsE2eOkDx0zlQpWfU5KSwTM3K-i53guXjTjiDzllDcLPPuZj6XC8TMvLXynycEedxnppWnseE9TUwTT3bUSRpYBq2_ey67Nn_VQrlJL8_PUXkJcOUZra86rf_xjRrK83OHvbGZ-CXs/s1600/15:4.0+Zilver.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgR-VsE2eOkDx0zlQpWfU5KSwTM3K-i53guXjTjiDzllDcLPPuZj6XC8TMvLXynycEedxnppWnseE9TUwTT3bUSRpYBq2_ey67Nn_VQrlJL8_PUXkJcOUZra86rf_xjRrK83OHvbGZ-CXs/s1600/15:4.0+Zilver.jpg" height="426" width="640" /></span></a></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The problem seems to occur at infinity, less so at short distance. See this pipe pictures at DPR by Eastvillager:</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoObVTg-FwOQIVAynDYwyc05bM0FvBSdhp4ahjV1sLSBoKGg1cBbg-b8NM_M48X2bibMW2FsMnGq9T-JIDyxcPVjIQrZL7FdBFcO9gLCDAhVeKATeHpRE5Em7MsM7oUBzH1xwqPxNSo4w/s1600/15+1.7+Eastvillager.jpg" height="640" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="480" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">here f/1.7 is OK. Curvature is less important in the center, and at close range.</span></td></tr>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoObVTg-FwOQIVAynDYwyc05bM0FvBSdhp4ahjV1sLSBoKGg1cBbg-b8NM_M48X2bibMW2FsMnGq9T-JIDyxcPVjIQrZL7FdBFcO9gLCDAhVeKATeHpRE5Em7MsM7oUBzH1xwqPxNSo4w/s1600/15+1.7+Eastvillager.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"></span></a></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">So what happened? Both in the case of the Panaleica 15/1.7, and in the case of the Oly 17/1.7 curvature problems have been mentioned by the reviewers. That points a finger to firmware correction being insufficient.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Let me explain the general case. Lenses are curved, and thus give a curved image, but their projection on the sensor must be rectilinear, as in a Mercator Map, reflecting a Globe.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">You have two ways of doing that: to associate a concave lens to the convex main one - to simplify things. Or to use firmware correction, like you do when you want to straighten a fisheye. That is exactly what happens in my 14/2.5. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">I remember a reviewer showed that the FOV before correction is 11mm (in RAW) and narrows to 14mm after correction. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">That means that edges have been cut away by the manufacturer because they were fuzzy. See the m43photo <a href="http://m43photo.blogspot.it/2010/11/lumix-14mm-insufficient-distortion.html">review</a> of the 14mm.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">In m4/3 the problem is compounded by the short Distance to Flange, which gives less elbow room for correction, the geometrical problem being more severe.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Finally this gives me a cue about what might have happened. With its high optical standards Leica might have imposed to Panasonic to use as little firmware correction it could.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">As a result, to keep the lens small Panny left some geometrical distortion uncorrected. I say this because the same has been argued about the Oly 17/1.8. If you look at the edges, it's not that the pixels are distorted, but they are out of focus! That is to say that because of geometrical distortion in a WA you cannot have both the center, and the edges in focus!</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Now the ideal of the old 4/3 was always to be 'even across the frame', but the distance to flange was double what it is in m4/3. More restrictively, they never attempted to go below f/2.0. With a wider aperture, focus problems increase.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTM80W-EUBX4fiy4BxZB3gjNNFf2If5IJf7XLPjp23AR-MxKu-lsG9ZqfYmcxOKrh-NChYbcRaiU5ThXNa9-Cm9IBe5PgLjQJOk5naLvO5d6TIP6GvnhYtFgtkkW3Wfhd54Sv-mSSopPM/s1600/gx7.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTM80W-EUBX4fiy4BxZB3gjNNFf2If5IJf7XLPjp23AR-MxKu-lsG9ZqfYmcxOKrh-NChYbcRaiU5ThXNa9-Cm9IBe5PgLjQJOk5naLvO5d6TIP6GvnhYtFgtkkW3Wfhd54Sv-mSSopPM/s1600/gx7.jpg" height="480" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">The Panny GX7 with the new Panaleica 15/1.7. Yummy!</span></td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">To get back to the Panaleica 15/1.7 there is no sharpness problem at f/4, but there is one at 1.7, at the edges. Close range is OK. So what does it tell about the use of the lens? </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The 30mm eq. should be fine for Street Shooting. It should be fine for low light Interior Portrait shooting. Its good bokeh should be nice for the occasional flower, but it's not so good for Landscape, unless you stop it down.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">This in my view is a minor letdown, but certainly I won't sell my ultrasharp 14/2.5 (see shot in the post above), nor my Sigma 19mm/2.8 which is quite sharp full open. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">I bought both for a song, I am v. happy with them.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">If I didn't have them, then perhaps I would consider the Panaleica 15/1.7, but mainly for its lovely colour and tone signature. My lenses are less filmlike in their results, more digital, although I can use Olympus art filters to overcome the coldness of digital rendering.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Sharpness for me was never a fixation. Good to have, but not decisive. As HCB famously said:</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">"I'm always amused by the idea that certain people have about technique, which translate into an immoderate taste for the sharpness of the image. It is a passion for detail, for perfection, or do they hope to get closer to reality with this trompe I’oeil? They are, by the way, as far away from the real issues as other generations of photographers were when they obscured their subject in soft-focus effects." -- Henri Cartier-Bresson</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Reviewers say that the lens is well built in light metal, and that the aperture ring is a godsend, but only on Panny cameras. With Olympus it doesn't work. m4/3 is a Standard of sorts - oh well...</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><i>Post Scriptum</i></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><i><br /></i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> Jordan Steele whose opinion I value has a different explanation, <a href="http://admiringlight.com/blog/review-panasonic-leica-15mm-f1-7-dg-summilux/2/">here</a>, after looking at the differences between RAW corrected and uncorrected images, which I didn't do. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> He argues that indeed the lens has a lot of curvature and that the fuzzy edges are due to over-correction by FW. The conclusions are much the same, although the reason is different. Panasonic dealt with curvature, the same it did with the (now) much cheaper 14/2.5 pancake.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">I still think that Panny should have ignored bokeh requests, and make instead an f/2.8 outstanding lens.</span></div>
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amalrichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04787357625026281058noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5211952230715117251.post-74431100350891518082014-06-08T08:20:00.002+02:002014-06-16T12:13:30.322+02:00Message for Navigators<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">I have now completed more or less my short history of modern photography.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Necessity arose in order to suggest new ways of shooting, both in opposition, or in continuation to what has been done.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"><br />
New generations of shooters flood forums that clearly have little or no notion of it. Landscapes, portraits "pets & brats", rarely we see more than that, but I hope I showed there has been more to it in Photography, and its 'young' 170 years.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"><br />
In parallel, I tried to give an update about the cameras which offer more in new ways of shooting, aka mirrorless, without any brand preference.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"><br />
For personal reasons I must now leave for a couple of weeks.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">My intention is then to make a long deserved feature on Henri Cartier-Bresson, and some little known aspect of his photography, complete with two seminal video interviews.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"><br />
OTH another feature on technology will cover the budding wearable glasses, like Google Glass, the inexpensive Chinese clone, and an Olympus patent about it. Some forsee that it will be the next big thing in Photo, perhaps displacing other viewfinders. Certainly they will bring us closer to 'automated seeing'! How will we cope with it?</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"><br />
Photokina and new introductions will loom larger afterwards, so there will be new rumors to cover.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"><br />
<i>A poll in the right column</i> will let me know how things have gone until now. <i>Please help yourselves to it.</i></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"><br />
I suspect I am followed by a string of happy few, that weave a small web across the continents, notably from the East, and that reminds me to avoid the cardinal sin of being Western-Centric, or so I hope. East of where, indeed? Welcome, friends.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"><br />
A feature about the birth of pictographic languages both in the Egyptian Desert and in Asia, might clarify the ancestry of writing by images, and hence of Photography that, according to HCB, is 'Just an automated way to take sketches' :)</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Meanwhile the column on the right will keep updating itself, presenting you with what is cool, day by day.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">If you like what you see a small donation, or a sponsored buy through the Amazon search box on the right, might give me a seriously needed boost. You can also get <i>Lucy Lippard's Dematerialization of the Art Object</i> from there.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMpz5O3uJvbV8lh0I2u7WvHt3_K0OVkg6ac4LQMQoXxeu85qvtVuYajYcrLFRzDB0CO8qIB9K-LASbmUidnYzyydPjlaKk08ZOyV2e_oBPf9_cMQIOE2SzoZg0oDK1f9ByotmVn5tU9n0/s1600/per+speculum+in+enigmate.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMpz5O3uJvbV8lh0I2u7WvHt3_K0OVkg6ac4LQMQoXxeu85qvtVuYajYcrLFRzDB0CO8qIB9K-LASbmUidnYzyydPjlaKk08ZOyV2e_oBPf9_cMQIOE2SzoZg0oDK1f9ByotmVn5tU9n0/s1600/per+speculum+in+enigmate.jpg" height="480" width="640" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Per Speculum in Enigmate, by amalric in Rome.</span></td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"><i>Note</i></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Never say never. There is a big gap between Conceptual Art and today. As Photo became the main media for Art, people guessed that 'anything goes'. Responsible for this negative attitude, a falsely democratic one, was <i>Postmodern Photography</i>, which piggybacked on French postmodern philosophers to claim that 'Beauty is in the eye of the beholder'. You can see some examples at the Tate Liverpool where an <a href="http://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowUserReviews-g186337-d213956-r188225560-Tate_Liverpool-Liverpool_Merseyside_England.html">exhibition</a> of the same name was held as recently as 2013, Check the weird piccies.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Instead I'll argue with Umberto Eco, that there are <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/?tag=phpo01-20&link_code=w12&linkId=&_encoding=UTF-8&search-alias=aps&field-keywords=Eco+Limits+to+Interpretation">Limits to Interpretation</a> and that NOT anything goes in Photography, or the Arts.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">On the gear side we'll probably have the first user reports of the Panaleica 15mm for m4/3, and that Strange Beast with top resolution, the Sigma Quattro.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
amalrichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04787357625026281058noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5211952230715117251.post-75087688703941786272014-06-06T09:38:00.001+02:002014-08-18T05:27:03.682+02:00Photography, and the The Dematerialization of the art object<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">The latter is the title of the famous book by Lucy Lippard, by which in 1972 she gave the first intimation about a new movement in art which encompassed concept or idea art and such diverse labels as minimal, body art, land art.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">After Mark Rothko and Nyman's Field Colour painting, while Warhol was closing with hyperrealism the decade of Pop art, painting and the use of canvas seemed to have reached the bottom of the barrel.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> As Lippard mentions artists seemed to have the need to reach out of New York, out and away from the incestuous closed loop of galleries, critics and museum curators. Some headed to the Nevada desert, others did performances on roofs or in run down apartments, and others, like On Kawara started mailing postcards from every part of the world.</span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwDlL0idzHcFi62QrHh1s80r9t6DITLtSF78S6kalPkGDNnsTLJbl3fcT0NcE61YPqy2Qc4L26HDbcjmV_pNOiMh65YcmY2wqVrvSrAyWY9Sb14itoX65NAOQWGaJha3mGeFtKVAiD4xo/s1600/14-I-Got-Up_-November-1_-1969.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwDlL0idzHcFi62QrHh1s80r9t6DITLtSF78S6kalPkGDNnsTLJbl3fcT0NcE61YPqy2Qc4L26HDbcjmV_pNOiMh65YcmY2wqVrvSrAyWY9Sb14itoX65NAOQWGaJha3mGeFtKVAiD4xo/s1600/14-I-Got-Up_-November-1_-1969.jpg" height="261" width="400" /></span></a></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Where do cameras and photography fit in in such movements?</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">According to David Bate, the medium was so instrumental in documenting conceptual performances, that it opened the doors of the Tate Gallery in 2003 to content related photography.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiT_DfFMWHVTVi5BRBrL4KmBtXZmOr_HJYTM3T07ETUjRnORXsJJfFNyIY2VvvwIKbPGooKc4IX6UP3gQJHkIQWvzwQbfYuscUyWnBRLVs34RwIwUcP_TZSht5PBgc7KdS2a1xLP5E5PVI/s1600/2011_PSU_Lippard_960.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiT_DfFMWHVTVi5BRBrL4KmBtXZmOr_HJYTM3T07ETUjRnORXsJJfFNyIY2VvvwIKbPGooKc4IX6UP3gQJHkIQWvzwQbfYuscUyWnBRLVs34RwIwUcP_TZSht5PBgc7KdS2a1xLP5E5PVI/s1600/2011_PSU_Lippard_960.jpg" height="360" width="640" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Lucy Lippard in 2011</span></td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">But was there ever Conceptual Photography? In 1975 I was working as a shop assistant in one of the main conceptual art galleries, the Sperone & Fisher in Rome. I guess that Sperone had got affluent by selling Warhol's litographs to Count Panza di Biumo, who was assembling a mighty collection of postwar American artists in his castle in Turin. Sperone introduced him to a whole new stable of artists whose expressive means where ideas, and not canvas or scupltures.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Those of course had to be documented in order to be sold, and therefore the final work often took the aspect of photos. Of prices I had no idea, I was simply in charge of sending invitations for the openings, and allow visitors to take a tour.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Jan Dibbets'Sea at Fischer. You can see at the same time what you have in front of you as well as what you have in your back.</span></td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">By my personal recollection the artists that were more related to photography as content were Dutch Jan Dibbets, working on perspective illusions, Richard Long and Hamish Fulton, who were crossing countrysides in order to achieve some project. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"> Hamish Fulton pictures have a romantic flavour even if issued from an iron determination:</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTIe4wHVtc1BiGBxHEu2b3NKtcWa9uFSbX7ok_lD_sHZLi1nontzTolpSRrVPYv_ZDaNT0w38LxD4t788ciCnpBUtL3JzsnmzJCqzIyWwIeF5lXQAFFVyke5vfY1ThycHE9hcFja_ZASo/s1600/hamish-fulton-footpath.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTIe4wHVtc1BiGBxHEu2b3NKtcWa9uFSbX7ok_lD_sHZLi1nontzTolpSRrVPYv_ZDaNT0w38LxD4t788ciCnpBUtL3JzsnmzJCqzIyWwIeF5lXQAFFVyke5vfY1ThycHE9hcFja_ZASo/s1600/hamish-fulton-footpath.jpg" height="640" width="426" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Hamish Fulton</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Richard Long, Connemara.</span></td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">“The camera records something quite different from what we see. There are no rectangular formats in nature, only in art (paintings, sheets of music or poems, windows, ravioli), and only if we choose to look at it that way. For Perspective Correction, My Studio I, 1: Square on Floor, 1969, the earliest work in the show, Jan Dibbets drew an upside-down trapezoid (in relation to the camera) on his studio floor and took a photograph (the work) so that the trapezoid, distorted by perspective, appears to be a square. It’s difficult not to think of it as a square, and no reason not to, despite the inward-slanting walls. In a way it is a joke about the preeminence of the picture plane in contemporary art, whereas, of course, the perception of Renaissance perspective still prevails, or at least still resides, or better yet is still the place where we and the artist reside. Despite the square, our eyes take us into depth to the windows and their light. There are windows within a window presaged by another window. Without really destroying our illusions, the artist has interrupted reality, or intervened to almost imperceptibly create another reality, something in the back of the mind that forces us to accept both realities. The artist introduces himself (takes control?) by making a square out of a trapezoid in his own studio. The trick is an elementary one, a wan display of the human imagination. But it suggests something more elemental, in itself and in works to come.” - Donald Goddard</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">“Jan Dibbets’ series “Land And Sea Horizons” juxtaposes photographs of dunes and ocean, each mounted in different shapes and formats. The viewer sees simultaneously what would be in front of and what would be behind him in a real landscape. This experience is further stimulated by the fact that although the panels are pieced together in different ways, the horizon line always remains level and constant .</span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">What I found fascinating was the difference of approaches to 'Art' once the canvas had been left behind.</span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Gilbert and George usually portrayed themselves as romantic gentlemen in the search of Goddess Art: </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">"How can one be fully with art? In other words, can art be experienced directly in a society that has produced so much discourse and built so many structures to guide the spectator? Gilbert & George’s answer is to consider art as a deity: </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">“Oh Art where did you come from, who mothered such a strange being. For what kind of people are you: are you for the feeble-of- mind, are you for the poor-at-heart, art for those with no soul. Are you a branch of nature’s fantastic network or are you an invention of some ambitious man? Do you come from a long line of arts? For every artist is born in the usual way and we have never seen a young artist. Is to become an artist to be reborn, or is it a condition of life?” With a good dose of humor, “the human sculptors” suggest that art needs no mediation. Because artists refer to a higher authority, no curator or museum is to stand in the way. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Meanwhile Bernt and Hille Becher were achieving a classification of German Industrial Archaeology. I was never interested in morphological classification, but they certainly started a trend in Industrial Archaeology, while the Ruhr German industry of the 1950 was going to the dogs, furnaces and smelters. Method can be visually striking, and useful too.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">From these I learned the importance of having projects, even before starting to shoot. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Conceptual Art was never really the same thing of Photography. In the beginning it was an Art & Language thing, dedicated to clarifying which objects and activities might be defined as Art. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"> Joseph Kosuth and Lawrence Weiner were among the most proeminent in using writing and dictionary definitions to frame a definition of Art. </span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBNb5V_vL6_2clRZfURHL7Za_mEGksEP26c8nytxLLdVdo8Im2Nzw4go8Q8-H9w-PM6uf3M7UtazECC35VrKLeoO8jNkINNzW07wMdZmOpVFUjkUTkKy06hhkltWvUb8CkjiKaUaPd3FE/s1600/Kosuth+art-as_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBNb5V_vL6_2clRZfURHL7Za_mEGksEP26c8nytxLLdVdo8Im2Nzw4go8Q8-H9w-PM6uf3M7UtazECC35VrKLeoO8jNkINNzW07wMdZmOpVFUjkUTkKy06hhkltWvUb8CkjiKaUaPd3FE/s1600/Kosuth+art-as_.jpg" height="640" width="640" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Joseph Kosuth. Definitions.</span></td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">It was Kosuth, a squat blonde always dressed in black like a clergyman, who was to develop the theme of Art as Idea. It made my head spin, since it used high level formal logic:</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">"The nature of art should be the main concern of artists. Remaining within traditional categories of painting and sculpture, however, obstructs such inquiry since these artistic categories are conventional and their legitimacy is taken for granted. Thus these categories should be disavowed, regarded as anachronistic, useless, even detrimental, to artists."</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">This main line of argument leads Kosuth to reconsider the history of modern art as it is conventionally narrated, and to dismiss the relevance of artists such as Edouard Manet, Paul Cezanne, and the cubists, whose work as art he deems valid only on morphological grounds, that is, only insofar as they remained tied to the medium of painting. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Instead Kosuth champions an alternate canon of art—one that is characterized by the subversion of the old classifications—represented by his understanding of the legacy of Marcel Duchamp. </span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">J. Kosuth</span></td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Kosuth brackets off and expels any questions of a referential dimension from his theoretical model, concluding that “art’s only claim is for art. Art is the definition of art.” (Conceptual Art: A Critical Anthology, Alexander Alberro, Blake Stimson, MIT Press)</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">I admired Kosuth's consistency but I wasn't fully convinced of Art self-referentiality. Every time that painting or poetry had chosen such a way, l'Art pour l'Art, in the long history of Art there had been a loss or a defeat. OTH I agreed that Art could not be defined anymore by the use of the canvas.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Meanwhile Sol Lewitt and Carl Andre, made geometrical installations which dealt with space visualization of abstract or mathematical projects. I met most for dinner and they were a simpatico bunch despite their ambitious projects. A bolding bespectacled intellectual type of New Yorker the first, and a sturdy rail worker, as he had been, the second.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Carl Andre, installation.</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Sol Lewitt, installation.</span></td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">The one I sympathized most was fellow citizen Alighiero Boetti, making maps of World with flags and lettering tapestries, weaved in Afghanistan, where he had spent years. He had an Afghan butler and was living in a large empty flat facing PIazza Trastevere, a haven for dropouts and addicts. He himself was not above opium, and had an intelligent, dissolute air like some dropouts I had met in India.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">In fact he didn't make his tapestries but actually ordered them, from thousands miles away.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTOK2XrUaPn8dKB9stP59KYPjr8QPTTqQP70CbHg7KxDQiFInOgwyHGCJhn9c4t5p69aQDdCkdacgYhMlVyfuj2HKJ1pp5YvHlZ2-NyGthqVbguw7b7xJnsSZQwOsoHBRFSVrFrZNfpwc/s1600/Alighiero+Boetti.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTOK2XrUaPn8dKB9stP59KYPjr8QPTTqQP70CbHg7KxDQiFInOgwyHGCJhn9c4t5p69aQDdCkdacgYhMlVyfuj2HKJ1pp5YvHlZ2-NyGthqVbguw7b7xJnsSZQwOsoHBRFSVrFrZNfpwc/s1600/Alighiero+Boetti.jpg" height="636" width="640" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Two tapestries by Alighiero Boetti</span></td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">An Italian group around critic Germano Celant and Arte Povera had in some ways anticipated the American side of Conceptual Art.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">With Fabro, Zorio, Merz and Boetti himself, Celant had put together a nice group of artists who sold in Germany. In Italy abandoning the canvas was still considered in poor taste. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Differently from the Americans they always kept a tactile aspect to the works and refrained from purely verbal definitions. Unfortunately there was nothing for photography there, but to document the works.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5cM8Qr5KM_5Zpg4kPAHWABML5tFwg5QxZZI6kcr5fdQms9ftib-VEB73V4P7yZ4jgg423AfUSiO58d15mezJG27nuC7Zp35c7Nw3nkCuP9YTkKVWcOJ3xXZxmTU887DCcLpfYhJYA9Jo/s1600/Mario+Merz+513.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5cM8Qr5KM_5Zpg4kPAHWABML5tFwg5QxZZI6kcr5fdQms9ftib-VEB73V4P7yZ4jgg423AfUSiO58d15mezJG27nuC7Zp35c7Nw3nkCuP9YTkKVWcOJ3xXZxmTU887DCcLpfYhJYA9Jo/s1600/Mario+Merz+513.jpg" height="480" width="640" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Mario Merz, Fibonacci's progression.</span></td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">In fact the issue if the camera was a significant or indifferent addition to the artist has been adressed by Marcel Duchamp in NY 40 yrs. before, at the 391 gallery of Stieglitz and Steichen.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">M. Duchamp. Large Glass.</span></td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">"In a letter to Alfred Stieglitz (22 May 1922) Duchamp, having noted photography's displacement of painting, suggests that photography itself may one day be replaced: "You know exactly how I feel about photography. I would like to see it make people despise painting until something else will make photography unbearable". By 1922, the success of photography as a medium of mechanical reproduction was already challenged by the emergence of other media, such as cinema. Photography's "fidelity" and "originality" as artistic reproduction, however, will eventually face the greater challenge of its mass reproduction and circulation in print. Thus, while photography calls into question the autonomy of painting as a medium for artistic reproduction, it may fall victim to the reproductive technology that first made it possible.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">M. Duchamp, Hour</span></td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">It is this particular "fatality" of an artistic medium, its vulnerability to technical conditions, that fascinates Duchamp, particularly with regard to painting and sculpture. The viability and legitimacy of these media, identified with classical conceptions of art, are at stake in Duchamp's exploration of their putative "end," or rather, "death." - Unpacking Duchamp, Art in Transit, Dalia Judovitz, UC Press)</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Now let's see some early examples of this seemingly chaotic 'Idea' or 'Concept' movement, and their relation if not to photo, to visual art. It might help in this very moment mass photography by the billions seems to obliterate any structure or intention.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiP-YhCupfhH-c57HvXnozx8y4GPWaFo6THTjWvStjoEFO2d96BlmThip0mLVP0rteaTB_D1tjRx6IG8htRiFwDHTS6rB8JEOMz1eSrwhxR1c2uwvyVxi2Z6Hb-zsRE3hPUbO1OLT5fypE/s1600/SL+coceptual+artist.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiP-YhCupfhH-c57HvXnozx8y4GPWaFo6THTjWvStjoEFO2d96BlmThip0mLVP0rteaTB_D1tjRx6IG8htRiFwDHTS6rB8JEOMz1eSrwhxR1c2uwvyVxi2Z6Hb-zsRE3hPUbO1OLT5fypE/s1600/SL+coceptual+artist.jpg" height="400" width="383" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Sol Lewitt</span></td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Sol Lewitt (1967):</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"> "I will refer to the kind of art in which I am involved as conceptual art. In conceptual art the idea or concept is the most important aspect of the work. <i>When an artist uses a conceptual form of art, it means that all of the planning and decisions are made beforehand and the execution is a perfunctory affair. The idea becomes a machine that makes the art. This kind of art is not theoretical or illustrative of theories; it is intuitive, it is involved with all types of mental processes and it is purposeless. It is usually free from the dependence on the skill of the artist as a craftsman.</i> It is the objective of the artist who is concerned with conceptual art to make his work mentally interesting to the spectator, and therefore usually he would want it to become emotionally dry. There is no reason to suppose, however, that the conceptual artist is out to bore the viewer. It is only the expectation of an emotional kick, to which one conditioned to expressionist art is accustomed, that would deter the viewer from perceiving this art."</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Indeed Lewitt invited other people to draw lines for him according to plan, i.e. not touching.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDBUSU1TnVRROMS-MnSeCrp_xsZ7BmD0NPFebeFP5abN2GZmUgjSFHlVzJHnQ6zV3PuY8yp8OxYPVAqTURD9pYNikV4K22JTTS9i2ArsC9uOsk5wVooqSmHQCYA8vbGP79gp0rVF0IzXg/s1600/lewitt-880_002-2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDBUSU1TnVRROMS-MnSeCrp_xsZ7BmD0NPFebeFP5abN2GZmUgjSFHlVzJHnQ6zV3PuY8yp8OxYPVAqTURD9pYNikV4K22JTTS9i2ArsC9uOsk5wVooqSmHQCYA8vbGP79gp0rVF0IzXg/s1600/lewitt-880_002-2.jpg" height="331" width="640" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Sol Lewitt</span></td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">In this sense a preset camera is the perfect machine for making conceptual art while postprocessing is only a residue of painting.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Meanwhile On Kawara in 1967-68 kept sending from Brasil to Lucy Lippard dozens of postcards at regular intervals with his longitude and latitude - "a kind of reassurance that the artist does in fact exist. At the same time they are totally without pathos" L.L.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKSaeDSF9drXUpcn3ya20xqb_4Uhxf65O0oagItc0hNGDaM_gNekZnODmr0RC5TOI731pFbhFIv6R1hVN89fDWyoEJMdDTYVvEsyWtkY8JodpeGAzYRv-W6UJ1j6t_thQHISdEhkKEcSc/s1600/kawara-1+(1).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKSaeDSF9drXUpcn3ya20xqb_4Uhxf65O0oagItc0hNGDaM_gNekZnODmr0RC5TOI731pFbhFIv6R1hVN89fDWyoEJMdDTYVvEsyWtkY8JodpeGAzYRv-W6UJ1j6t_thQHISdEhkKEcSc/s1600/kawara-1+(1).jpg" height="606" width="640" /></span></a></td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">In those early years C.A. could easily be related to other genres, provided that they avoided the canvas, like Body Art or Land art. In an 1969 Interview </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Robert Smithson stated some interesting concepts.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 20px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Deborah Walter: </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">"By working wih different materials, Smithson challenged the artistic meaning and the artistic act. Since he stopped painting, he had shown preference for raw material – such as soil, minerals, and rocks – instead of anything refined such as oil or acrylic paint.</span></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggjDJ10jbTt9OOzSijIvAFn6_tOtVHkSHc2EdeT4SfCXh-wdaRC02_lHnzmOnXlYMT5iWpE1uDVU-CZ0I_0S4hR78Pd00MuxTgUBVK7-FGAepi7ZZjuMvF7oJtHJl7-bFdMSJR6S4Qc0U/s1600/robert-smithson-asphalt-and-mud009.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggjDJ10jbTt9OOzSijIvAFn6_tOtVHkSHc2EdeT4SfCXh-wdaRC02_lHnzmOnXlYMT5iWpE1uDVU-CZ0I_0S4hR78Pd00MuxTgUBVK7-FGAepi7ZZjuMvF7oJtHJl7-bFdMSJR6S4Qc0U/s1600/robert-smithson-asphalt-and-mud009.jpg" height="640" width="632" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">R. Smithson, Asphalt Rundown.</span></td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">"Perceptions of presence and absence, existence and non-existence, past and present are constantly being called into Smithson’s works. Not only in his sculptures but also in every other media he had used. He was interested in aspects of time, space and changes, natural history and geology. These were current in his texts and art, which actually could barely be separated. Smithson was concerned with habitual frames and limits of art. Though most his sculptures relied on documentation (photographs, maps and texts), there was no secondary media of presentation but they all existed simultaneously. </span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeNfh-BK60MKPY8mwxyV5i_rp9QcON0Txqs2pU1t_bfjyDqh5kTVKkXo6kuSwpgfLjIjCW3ANMdfiYfebwXXNuJXvAA9yk-Q-KfgfrE3bcKd1qTOWugz6llC47yD0esVdeNzCLxdUFkf0/s1600/Smithson's+Jetty.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeNfh-BK60MKPY8mwxyV5i_rp9QcON0Txqs2pU1t_bfjyDqh5kTVKkXo6kuSwpgfLjIjCW3ANMdfiYfebwXXNuJXvAA9yk-Q-KfgfrE3bcKd1qTOWugz6llC47yD0esVdeNzCLxdUFkf0/s1600/Smithson's+Jetty.jpg" height="424" width="640" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Smithson's Jetty</span></td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">His photographs, for instance, are an alert to the idea of constant changes, evidences of past, remaining pieces for the future. Smithson’s photographs registered and preserved a moment in time whilst the sculptures would eventually vanish. The photographs registered the sculptures, the ephemeral. As an artwork, the site-specific acquired the quality of what could not be maintained, kept, or sold. The art critic Craig Owens stressed that “the site- specific work becomes an emblem of transience, the ephemerality of all phenomena; it is the memento mori of the twentieth century”.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Unfortunately Smithson was to die young in 1976, so we have relatively few works of this interesting if ponderous artist. <i>Most of people never saw in person his works made in distant places, but only the photographs</i>. Again the forensic aspect of photography, giving proof of a reality which can't be seen.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Meanwhile Joseph Beuys was assurging to first magnitude, with its ecological Pieces, like Eurasia</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"> Interview with Willoughby Sharp:</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"> "The origin of the flow of information comes not from matter, but from the “I”, from an idea. Here is the borderline between physics and metaphysics: this is what interests me about this theory of sculpture. Take a hare running from one corner of a room to another. I think this hare can achieve more for the political development of the world than a human being. By that I mean that some of the elementary strength of animals should be added to the positivist thinking which is prevalent today. I would like to elevate the status of animals to that of humans".</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqPSE9SUPvzDJmYwmcYd4YdKC_bcINKto_44yBcCIYLROT2-IL9N3r5MYmscpl_y_LCwBQJ0wt-Iu-XycJv0u-T7oORsKhqentK8PEk6NMq0n4qMe3oX1ij-L4q9udaqIu0-m86t75W0E/s1600/beuys_coyote_21.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqPSE9SUPvzDJmYwmcYd4YdKC_bcINKto_44yBcCIYLROT2-IL9N3r5MYmscpl_y_LCwBQJ0wt-Iu-XycJv0u-T7oORsKhqentK8PEk6NMq0n4qMe3oX1ij-L4q9udaqIu0-m86t75W0E/s1600/beuys_coyote_21.jpg" height="426" width="640" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Beuys'Coyote</span></td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">No wonder that witnesses described Beuys as sweating, and exhausted at the end of his performances!</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">For me the work of Beuys has kept by far being the most enigmatic of all, perhaps because it had a shamanistic side dealing with animals and their energy, and therefore is not easily translated into words. Perhaps I am still wordcentric after all.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Meanwhile Lawrence Weiner kept publishing small books, with definition essays, at Aaschen, in 1970:</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">on the sea</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">from the sea</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">at the sea</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">bordering the sea</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">to the lake</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">on the lake</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">from the lake</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">at the lake</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">bordering the lake</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">They needed no art object anymore, and not a even photo reproduction.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"> I remember Weiner's country preacher appearance, due to a long beard and his shabby dressing, in funny contradiction with the exactness of his statements.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">As Deborah Walter comments about the use of words:</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">"Conceptual Art literature bears a thoughtful contribution on narrative, authorship and reception. Artists often refused the taxonomy of poets, for their literature was to promote new readings ahead of artistic demarcations. The presence of words emphasized the opacity of language in two ways: in both its plastic, solid characteristics and the amplitude texts could reach. Language in Conceptual Art also contributed to the questioning of the long-lasting art object; it suggested a less alienated social function of art and artists, and it turned viewers/readers into active participants in the reading of art. Thus, language became a revolutionary tool in Conceptualism having an important effect in the arts to come."</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">There was also room for non verbal and metaphysical action however, like in Peter Huchinson's Dissolving Clouds:</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">P. Hutchinson, Dissolving Clouds</span></td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">"Using Hata Yoga's technique of intense concentration and pranic energy it is claimed that clouds can be dissolved. I tried it on cloud (in square) in photographs. This is what happens. "This piece happens almost entirely in the mind"</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Photography plays the usual role of silent witness, as a proof of reality of a kind.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Meanwhile Hanne Darboven went on with her <i>writing</i> projects of covering notebooks, and even books, with permutations of numbers or letters:</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">A dizzying experience I can swear, but v. little for photography.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">A bit different William Wegman's Parrot-Crow, an image betraying expectations</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaET8bv8sgR-jbzZhtQ311msuFR1h_q384yseBfEXAUmLQ_35ufScyb0G4G-2Dl-LJpQGOwkCw8n7a9yOSlV7XbkcI-QDmZDlsBTCSz96piJ7tbAMU_eixlFHpGfy_1C48AMfjcmGouUg/s1600/william-wegman.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaET8bv8sgR-jbzZhtQ311msuFR1h_q384yseBfEXAUmLQ_35ufScyb0G4G-2Dl-LJpQGOwkCw8n7a9yOSlV7XbkcI-QDmZDlsBTCSz96piJ7tbAMU_eixlFHpGfy_1C48AMfjcmGouUg/s1600/william-wegman.jpg" height="640" width="640" /></span></a></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">"At first glance, this photograph appears relatively straightforward: a stuffed parrot is positioned on a pedestal, illuminated by dramatic, ominous lighting. Upon closer inspection, though, it becomes clear that there is a sight gag occurring in the background. The shadow cast by the parrot is not the parrot’s own, but rather that of a crow. The photograph functions, on one level, as a visual joke, delivered with William Wegman’s characteristic deadpan irony. At the same time, by demonstrating how a photographic image is not necessarily a “true” transcription of reality, Crow engages in a distinctly postmodern critique of traditional assumptions about the photographic medium." (Withney Museum of American Art)</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">As conceptual Art unfolded, so did the new interpretative techniques of semeiotics. Interestingly ithey are here applied to British photographer Victor Burgin, who was also a conceptual artist:.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">From: George Dillon, <a href="http://faculty.washington.edu/dillon/rhethtml/signifiers/sigsave.html">Art and The Semiotic of Images</a>:</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMybAxpP86QAn3vallUPgrzU-KbvgkuND6C9IrEV1nonJL2gs0M3dL_UpfxzqeUZbOqv-_nirpwLUrnixxxgrd9ZWBRqgRPUY3lNTPJYMYkMxFveTlqUrOBvWCdztzH7ay3lmMLvvXjuU/s1600/victor-burgin-zoo-78-1978.jpg" height="418" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="640" /></span></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Victor Burgin, Zoo</span></td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">"Though pictures are quite different from texts of natural language, they are not wholly different, and many have sought parallels between the two media. Like texts, most pictures are composed of parts, though the parts are bits of image (and perhaps words) arranged on a surface. When the various shapes in a picture wash and flow and blend into each other and the background, they do not seem very much like words, but when they have crisp edges, as for example in the Dada photomontage introduced here, they have attracted the term "word" and their arrangement likened to a syntax."</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">As for me, in a pictographic context such as this blog, I consider the whole as a Rebus, a puzzle which is to be decoded by relying both on image and word. Words can also be uncoupled from pictures in a détournement (diversion):</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwJosUKmIfiFIu0Lg_yNdfM-YVYb2nB81DbUdvW6mAM3Q703rhY9ILxSBo-bGVzrNAUYvitKLphhsmHJ1k7zaAjD5iKYL0TkYBjNaecrc3oAxZlpcGHQKgbTnyPHHn3oDN3SnJtzdMvhk/s1600/BurginV.OfficeatNight.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwJosUKmIfiFIu0Lg_yNdfM-YVYb2nB81DbUdvW6mAM3Q703rhY9ILxSBo-bGVzrNAUYvitKLphhsmHJ1k7zaAjD5iKYL0TkYBjNaecrc3oAxZlpcGHQKgbTnyPHHn3oDN3SnJtzdMvhk/s1600/BurginV.OfficeatNight.jpg" height="640" width="628" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Victor Burgin, Office at Night</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Note the interesting pictographic interpretation of the picture in the left side.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">This detournement of images (Diversion), the changing of the function of the image by text was also made in the same years by Internationale Situationniste, a political and art avant garde that led to May 68 in Paris. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">As for Photography it is difficult to know what it got from the Conceptual trend. Perhaps the need of consistency and the need of a project even before starting to shoot. Photography like Cinematography is lucky to have a direct link with reality, even if it sometimes seems fettered to it, I can always go back to it, while painting is always at the risk of being waylaid by abstract ideas.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">As a movement Conceptual Art cast a net much wider than I have described. There are tons of other interesting artists.We are lucky to have this, for further consultation <a href="http://emc.elte.hu/seregit/ConceptualArt.pdf">online</a>.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Conceptual Art was really an international movement, the last attempt at globalization by photographic paper, or by fax, before the WWW really began. It broke down the gallery-critic- museum closed circuit, but only to return to it as photos and videos. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">It was also the Art of the Vietnam War, in that it destroyed the idea of a Western-centric Art, and yet confirmed it again. Only the WWW has succeeded in making photo and Art acephalous and centerless, although Museums still exist. But are they <a href="http://blog.fotomuseum.ch/2014/03/i-is-photography-over/">relevant</a> anymore?</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEin2df7kDO-Ux-duwlkgcRRrQMCdXAafLaN_fh61SDmxqF3weU6OEAN8yTCyMMtSKiZKSMXCKdktQFyDIajG01JSpAq0NUaNT4Nd53NIgJ7_bjEfHG5cXyj7dSz8wkVX_GJbRs9mv77YHk/s1600/artworks-000024949878-mnx959-crop.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEin2df7kDO-Ux-duwlkgcRRrQMCdXAafLaN_fh61SDmxqF3weU6OEAN8yTCyMMtSKiZKSMXCKdktQFyDIajG01JSpAq0NUaNT4Nd53NIgJ7_bjEfHG5cXyj7dSz8wkVX_GJbRs9mv77YHk/s1600/artworks-000024949878-mnx959-crop.jpg" height="400" width="400" /></span></a></td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">A reconditioned comic strip by </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Internationale S</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">ituationniste</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> </span></td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Photography is a young art, in fact the youngest, with a fairly good nexus with reality, given by its non interfering, automated nature. Why waste it? Instead use it for controlled experiments, if you want to better understand the nature of reality. Self referential Art will never provide an answer.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Finally, for videographers </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">I would like to add this ingenious performance made by <a href="http://alternativeprojections.com/data/filmDetail.php?film=twocorrelatedrotationsdangraham1969">Dan Graham</a> in 1969, <i>Two Correlated Rotations.</i></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> Is it a way to overcome subjectivity, by presenting simultaneously two points of view, each performer having a camera.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">"2 super 8mm films. Two cameramen each hold cameras so that their viewfinders are extensions of their eyes and visual fields. They begin facing each other one foot way. They walk in counter spirals, the outside performer moving gradually outward while the inside performer walks inward approaching the center. Their aim, which is still in the sate of a learning process, is to as nearly as possible be continuously centering their cameras (and eyes) view on the forntal eye position of the other. Geometrically the rotation of the performers' encks and also of their path walked keeps the camera/eye sight lineof both cameras' images along the axis of the horizon line of the 360 surrounding space; the line of sight of both cameras' images when the cameras are facing each other passes through the center of the spirals and the interior of the 360 topological spatial enclosure."</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">I suppose that today you could repeat the performance in digital, and see what is happening in real time on a large video monitor split in two. Media get improved but good ideas live on.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">I can also see a surrealist scene where two camera holders meet on a country road, and start circling around each other, and sniffing at each other like dogs, with their zooms like snouts. A dialogue a' la Beckett ensues, and they end up comparing cameras and features, until one comes up with the idea of having a pint at a nearby pub. :)</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDn_OsDGuyCZceQBiNjHSgs4pVMkgHALFb8rpr8GV2Qlkyn7q1SLrBmbBVrEHfAXe1OR8NZnZBvVgN4wBWC84c1A3kCCNq9mf2sBh4-6Jb-_kzTt0rPikPeOtOCkFRt82NQxs3d5wmcuQ/s1600/Francesca-Woodman-1920.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDn_OsDGuyCZceQBiNjHSgs4pVMkgHALFb8rpr8GV2Qlkyn7q1SLrBmbBVrEHfAXe1OR8NZnZBvVgN4wBWC84c1A3kCCNq9mf2sBh4-6Jb-_kzTt0rPikPeOtOCkFRt82NQxs3d5wmcuQ/s1600/Francesca-Woodman-1920.jpg" height="400" width="396" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">F. Woodman, Self-Portrait talking to Vince</span></td></tr>
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You will find the first in the following movie, but not the second. The first also shows that she was blonde, not a brunette. The whispering of language introduces a moving element in the second shot - illustrating the concept of 'talking pictures'.</span><br />
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How much will we take discrete shots in the future, or rather record 'seeing things', with language added?</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> I want to explore this concept with a future post on 'wearable glasses' like Google Glass. Thanks to the Chinese, prices are falling and the wi fi device might start replacing viewfinders sooner than expected.</span></span></div>
amalrichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04787357625026281058noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5211952230715117251.post-73305747397803606452014-05-31T16:41:00.002+02:002014-08-18T04:49:21.896+02:00A docudrama about the short life of the photographer Francesca Woodman<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #020b00; font-family: Baskerville; font-size: large;">This is an interesting docudrama without a title put on air at Artè TV in 2007, and directed by Jérome de Missolz, true to Francesca's biography. It shows well how she shot some of her best pictures. The French actress looks very similar to Woodman, although she is a brunette, and speaks French in the film. Perhaps you can use a Skype live translator, when it comes, end of 2014</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">There are some factual inaccuracies, since she is using an old Exacta 6 x 6, instead of the Speed Graphic, or the Rolleiflex, she was known to use.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">It is not v. probable either that she went to bed with her Italian dealer , who is here represented as an old man, while he was almost the same age of her, and provided with a jealous fiancée :)</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The lesbian scene I don't know about it either, and the locations are rather abstract. Why make her a sexual maniac? Perhaps we might make one day a better follow-up, by looking in her motivations as an artist.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The docudrama was ordered and broadcast a long time ago by a public TV, so I am told that there is no harm in downloading it for private use. It lasts 70 minutes, and is some 250 MB, in the Mpeg4 format (Quicktime).</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Be aware that when you click on the <a href="http://vdownload.eu/watch/2117152-j-de-missolz-fiction-documentary-about-the-short-life-of-the-photographer-francesca-woodman.html">link</a>, the download page might be below a pop up Ads page, or in the page before that:</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Or you can try a direct download here: <a href="http://vdownload.eu/watch/2117152-j-de-missolz-fiction-documentary-about-the-short-life-of-the-photographer-francesca-woodman.html">360p</a></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Enjoy the movie!</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The opening quotation reads: 'Je est un autre' - Rimbaud. 'I is Another'</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Despite the interesting placements of the actress in front of the camera, I think that finding visual metaphors and making them into emblems, is still a matter of hard thinking - like creating a crossword, if you wish.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">I am told that the young actress was a beginner model, who enjoyed to stay on the other side of the camera. Francesca, liked both sides, but had to toil in order to achieve the right composition, since there was nobody in front of her.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">And now an original F. Woodman's contact shot to compare :)</span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDn_OsDGuyCZceQBiNjHSgs4pVMkgHALFb8rpr8GV2Qlkyn7q1SLrBmbBVrEHfAXe1OR8NZnZBvVgN4wBWC84c1A3kCCNq9mf2sBh4-6Jb-_kzTt0rPikPeOtOCkFRt82NQxs3d5wmcuQ/s1600/Francesca-Woodman-1920.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDn_OsDGuyCZceQBiNjHSgs4pVMkgHALFb8rpr8GV2Qlkyn7q1SLrBmbBVrEHfAXe1OR8NZnZBvVgN4wBWC84c1A3kCCNq9mf2sBh4-6Jb-_kzTt0rPikPeOtOCkFRt82NQxs3d5wmcuQ/s1600/Francesca-Woodman-1920.jpg" height="640" width="634" /></a></div>
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amalrichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04787357625026281058noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5211952230715117251.post-36540891408112494782014-05-24T19:58:00.003+02:002014-05-25T05:30:58.505+02:00At the photoshow. <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Yashica EZ F521 toy camera, by amalric</span></td></tr>
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amalrichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04787357625026281058noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5211952230715117251.post-13168607366610212092014-05-24T17:24:00.001+02:002014-05-30T16:38:07.163+02:00ToYZ!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Remember? This site is not about gear proper, but about ways of shooting, preferably innovative ways. Gear is just the means to it.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">For many, i.e. in the DPReview's forums cameras are toys they collect, hardly tools by the bad pictures they show in their galleries. Instead they are happy to shoot brick walls, or compare the fur of their pets, to show that their lenses are sharper than the Joneses', or have better bokeh.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">I read about people that have 30 cameras, others who changed them one after the other every few months, and yet those are the very people who will treat with contempt Lomo cameras, and other so called toy cameras.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">One day, because I was attracted by the Lartigue Effect</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">I decided to buy the Yashica EZ F521 directly from Japan, at <a href="http://www.japanexposures.com/">Japan Exposures</a> for just $ 89. Japan Exposures is a real treasure trove, where you can find some of the best film cameras, including medium format, and some of the most delightful toy cameras - in a very eccentric Japanese style.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Photographer and Gallerist Shimya Arimoto, courtesy Japan Exposures</span></td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Note their sophisticated taste in cameras <a href="http://www.japanexposures.com/shop/camera-lens/cameras/page-2/">here</a>:</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">The Yashica is a very simple affair, 5 Mpx, 2 focus positions, auto diaphragm, and an electronic shutter. When objects travel across the lens faster than the electronic scanning of the frame, they will be deformed, because the scanning of the bottom will come later than that of the top.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">The F521 also includes some 'art effects' like high contrast B&W, which will simplify greatly the image. And there lies the interest for the experimental artist: instead of adding it <i>substracts</i> image elements, and thus it allows *more* predictability. High contrast will flatten the image, giving more relevance with one plane only. Note that this Chinese camera can uprez resolution to 10 Mpx, by binning the pixels.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">The other advantage is that nobody you point the camera at will believe you can possibly have any serious intent.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Some F521 shots on <a href="http://www.google.it/search?q=yashica+ez+f521&safe=off&client=safari&rls=en&biw=1218&bih=664&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=izV8U8euDsr30gWXpoHACw&sqi=2&ved=0CCgQsAQ">Google</a></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Note the effect if you swipe the camera across tall buildings.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">See here an interesting review, by <a href="http://blog.americanpeyote.com/2009/11/08/digital-holga-yashica-ez-f521-review/">American Peyote:</a></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">In the end I sold it to a v. interested local photographer for the same price I bought it. There is some unspoken agreement among fans, that these are precious cameras., not to be wasted away.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">The same might be said of the Lomo cameras, originally from Russia, and made for the masses, but later to become collectors' items.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Now this is the Russian ancestor of all toyz:</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">I will hereby quote directly from <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lomography">Wikipedia</a>:</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">"The only automatic function offered by the LC-A is exposure. Film loading, winding, rewinding, focus are accomplished manually. Aperture can also be set manually, the shutter speed being fixed at 1⁄60 s (this ability was removed from the LC-A+).</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Exposure is completely automatic when the camera is set to "A"; the shutter speeds range from 2 minutes to 1⁄500 s. The aperture range is f/2.8 to f/16. The automatic exposure system compensates for changes in light levels after the shutter is opened by increasing or decreasing the shutter speed. This, in conjunction with the rear-curtain flash-sync, results in interesting effects with flash photography in low ambient light levels.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">The lens is focused by selecting one of four zones (0.8 m, 1.5 m, 3 m or ∞). Older versions of the camera feature viewfinder icons showing the currently selected focus zone, a feature omitted from later models."</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Courtesy Pedro Costa Neves. flickr</span></td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">"In 1991, a group of Viennese students discovered the Lomo LC-A and were "charmed by the unique, colorful, and sometimes blurry" images that the camera produced. The Lomographic Society International was subsequently founded in 1992.[4] After a series of international art exhibitions culminating in shows in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City">New York City</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moscow">Moscow</a>.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Lomography signed an exclusive distribution agreement with LOMO PLC in 1995 — thereby becoming the sole distributor of all Lomo LC-A cameras outside of the former <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_Union">Soviet Union</a>.The new company reached an agreement with the deputy mayor of St Petersburg, the future <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Prime_Minister">Russian Prime Minister</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_President">President</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Putin">Vladimir Putin</a>, to receive a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_break">tax break</a> in order to keep the LOMO factory in the city open.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Typical Lomography cameras are deliberately low-fidelity and constructed to make sure their mechanics are not too technical. Some cameras make use of multiple lenses and rainbow-colored flashes, or exhibit extreme optical distortions and even light leaks."</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">The ten Golden Rules of Lomography:</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Take your camera everywhere you go</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Use it any time – day or night</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Approach the objects of your lomographic desire as close as possible</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">You don’t have to know beforehand what you captured on film</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Afterwards either</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Although I use digital cameras only, I made these rules mine long before rediscovering them in the Lomography site. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">They make a *lot* of difference with the traditional way of shooting, and the camera's small size is part of it, the 'always with you' practical concept.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Ingenuity can go a long way, although I remember I had a Lomo in the film era, and I never did much with it :)</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">I suspect that the easiness of digital effects in PP might be a factor in their rediscovery.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Midbrow owners from the Canon and Nikon cult have often referred about mirrorless as toy cameras, because of their small sensor. In fact we mirrorless owners wear it as a badge of honour, considering that with a small sensor we can do as much as with a 24x 36 size, which was only justified in film.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">The toyish aspect I relish are Olympus' Art filters that allow such things as Cross Process, Dramatic Tone, Diorama, a miniaturizing effect, etc. It's like having a toy camera built inside a serious camera, when you have one of those creativity moments, or Total Recall :)</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Strolling at Piazza Vittorio with the Key Line Filter</span></td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Filters allow you that degree of *estrangement* that slows down perception of the image, and make you enjoy it more.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Lomography, which opened a shop in New York not long ago, has also a set of <a href="http://shop.lomography.com/us/lomography-experimental-lens-kit">lenses for m4/3</a> allowing not only colourful effects, but also double exposures:</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoiLvCc1B0Edbxhu7d_tAgzvKgazbkY9bwsgb_F4Rqfg6ccQiysiHdERylkzmmqm4UoOByXvcQ7MyotLP8-Uoq8C4f0NGW5sszym7IsgRe4s9_UQdrrbGkmrQ1o7h6XrevSHVEvRoi64E/s1600/diana_f_2b_experimental-lens_6.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoiLvCc1B0Edbxhu7d_tAgzvKgazbkY9bwsgb_F4Rqfg6ccQiysiHdERylkzmmqm4UoOByXvcQ7MyotLP8-Uoq8C4f0NGW5sszym7IsgRe4s9_UQdrrbGkmrQ1o7h6XrevSHVEvRoi64E/s1600/diana_f_2b_experimental-lens_6.jpg" height="426" width="640" /></span></a></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">The Phoblographer has a short review <a href="http://www.thephoblographer.com/2013/12/08/review-lomography-micro-four-thirds-lens-kit/#.U39QNyglU21">here</a>.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Doesn't seem to overly like the plastic lenses, but as I mentioned one must have a sense of humour or at least of understatement to enjoy these things. Plus you get 3 lenses for $ 96!</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Here is a more positive one, in the spirit one must have from the start. Judge for yourself:</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjS_vRM4axrfL-HGt5irVC17gcAD77MBjfmNgCIqiv4rB3NAIe8CtscBWs8ypwNdvC8sdbcV_8F1gZ5ecQ9uOyOVIptIszc3HROC1IE2I9_ApumwzAsU74FF3d2bX9Wl5GlZHAe7aWT5oc/s1600/IlyaReddy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjS_vRM4axrfL-HGt5irVC17gcAD77MBjfmNgCIqiv4rB3NAIe8CtscBWs8ypwNdvC8sdbcV_8F1gZ5ecQ9uOyOVIptIszc3HROC1IE2I9_ApumwzAsU74FF3d2bX9Wl5GlZHAe7aWT5oc/s1600/IlyaReddy.jpg" height="640" width="640" /></span></a></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">By <a href="http://www.stevehuffphoto.com/2012/07/11/holga-25-f8-lens-for-micro-43-review-by-illya-reddy/">Ilya Reddy</a></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">I would probably get only the fisheye to do crazy double exposures. My E-M5 has the feature, but its cumbersome to enact, while with the Lomo lenses you just cranck the shutter by hand, like in old film cameras of the thirties, the Compur shutter!</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">This lomography shop has two other beauties. The <a href="http://shop.lomography.com/us/cameras/konstruktor-super-kit">Konstruktor</a>, which is a Lego reflex camera that you assemble by hand. $ 59 only, but you have to sweat over it!</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">And the <a href="http://www.thephoblographer.com/2014/05/21/lomographys-latest-la-sardinas-will-match-equally-hipster-attire/#.U39h3yglU22">Sardinas</a>, sardine boxes with different *dresses* , which are the smart wacky NY reincarnation of the Russian Lomos for the proles !</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">I invite you to visit both the Japanese and the NY toy cameras sites for their eccentricity. Nothing better when one is suffering from one of those creativity black outs, than to use toy cameras, and be wacky!</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Note that there are some cameras with real potential like the <a href="http://shop.lomography.com/us/cameras/belair-city-slicker">Belair X </a>6x12 Medium Format:</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">By comparison the serious collectors of boring cameras will keep shooting their brick walls till the End of Time. Just get yourself one of those like the Japanese or Chinese frilly Camera Joshi who enjoy acting wacky and childish, and enjoy the ride.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">One of these days I'all also do a piece on how freestyle and compact cameras changed our photographic style. For now have a look at this American photographer, J <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/jddewitt">DeWitt</a>, working with a Lomo:</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">From J DeWitt's Lomo album, at flickr</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font: normal normal normal 22px/normal Baskerville;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Now the big question</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">: </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">NYTimes will Supply its Staff Photographers with Lomography’s Holga Cameras? </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Really? </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Read more <a href="http://www.thephoblographer.com/2012/04/01/nytimes-will-supply-its-staff-photographers-with-lomographys-holga-cameras/#HKAzSzgkrV8q0AMW.99">here</a> </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"><span style="font: normal normal normal 18px/normal Georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> LOL</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #163399;">, </span></span>ToYZ is getting mainstream!</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">PS I forgot about <a href="http://www.thephoblographer.com/2014/05/20/meet-otto-gif-camera-thats-programmable-hackable/#.U4LSSSjg4y6">Otto</a> the toy camera which is entirely programmable and hackable from your iPhone:</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">You can add special effects in its own social site, to the GIF uncompressed format it shoots with. Clever!</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">The Sun obelisk at S. Giovanni, came from Egypt by the sea under Augustus, 2000 yrs ago. First example of Globalization, by amalric</span></div>
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Although I have followed roughly a chronological order until now in my enquiry about photography, there are some gaping holes. According to David Bate it goes like this:</div>
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1870-1910 Pictorialism</div>
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1920-1930s Avant-Garde/Modernism (Formalism)</div>
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1945-1960 s: New Realism/Humanist Photography</div>
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1960-1979: Minimalism, Conceptualism/late Modernism</div>
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1980-1990s: Postmodernism/Neoconceptualism</div>
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(<a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/?tag=phpo01-20&link_code=w12&linkId=&_encoding=UTF-8&search-alias=aps&field-keywords=Bate+Photography">Photography: the Key concepts</a>)</div>
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What comes after goes under the name of Globalisation, rising with the spread of the Internet, the WWW and the Social Media.</div>
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To complicate things we might have a different perception on how and when Photography became Art on the different sides of the Pond. I recently had a quarrel at DPR with an American reader that supported the idea that this had happened very early in New York. I checked, acceptance of Photography started at the old MOMA in 1940 with Edward Steichen and Beaumont Newhall. </div>
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Indeed I am not very familiar with American Naturalism/Realism. The MOMA might have made Photo exhibitions very early , but was it considered High Art at all? Surely not in Europe.</div>
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In Europe, for all I know it happened less than 20 yrs. ago. David Bate reminds us that the Tate Modern Art in London didn't accept Photo as Art before 2003. He mentions that Conceptual Art was the Trojan horse, since it heavily relied on Photography. both for documentation, and as a means for the dematerialization of the art object.</div>
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So if you accept their photography, someone asked, why not accept photographers in the first place?</div>
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In my discussion at DPR many users were not interested in Art at all, for them Photo. to be a craft practiced with enthusiasm, is well enough. Although I concur, I hope I showed with Francesca Woodman and others that Art is much more potent vehicle of ideas and world views. It is really facing reality as adults, not children. It is not 'Pets & Brats', although that might be the main reason for people to buy cameras - if they don't use their phones at this point.</div>
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All this preface to explain that there is an important gap before Globalization, and it is Conceptual Art because that opened the Museums doors to what had been considered before a minor art, a low art. </div>
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Now the paradox is that the successive stage risks to plunge Photography again in the shapeless stage and the unmeasurable we experiment every day in the Social Media. Is Photography over? this what they are currently debating at the <a href="http://blog.fotomuseum.ch/2014/03/i-is-photography-over/">Winterthur Fotomuseum</a>. They are simply too many billions of images around, they note, and expanding. by hundreds millions every day!</div>
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In the beginning Globalizaton mostly coincided with the very History of Photography. The first reportage ever by Roger Fenton was from the War of Crimea in 1850, and after that there was no colony in Africa and Asia that was not documented for the metropolitan public by early explorers and administrators.</div>
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Roger Fenton - a British hussar in Crimea</div>
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Photography was thus an important medium for the occidentalizing of the rest of the World. By the same token these populations learned to see reality with Western eyes. This process is still going around, Western perspective being built in every camera, but world wide photo sites like Flickr or 500px are also showing different visual traditions emerging, as I showed in Chinese pictures<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: blue;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/chenshangkun/10850201963/in/photostream/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: blue;">here</span></a> </span>and <span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: blue;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/gzi24/4275768948/in/photostream/">here</a></span>.</span></div>
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Curiously the first self-conscious attempt at establishing a universal visual as part of a globalized culture was again at the MOMA, in 1946: The Family of Man, curated by Edward Steichen. 500 reportage pictures aimed at demonstrating that Men's lives were the same across the Planet: family ties, birth and death, the toil of work and other commonplaces that are effectively common. One glitch occurred when one black protested at the American embassy that blacks were misrepresented as the only ones shown famished and destitute - and so the relevant images had to be withdrawn! </div>
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The Family of Man.</div>
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So much for universal humanism. This was only the onset of some of the problems we are facing now despite de-colonization is completed (not in Russia, with Chechenya though, or in China, with Tibet).</div>
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Let's do a sudden jump to 2014. The digital revolution starting with the beginning of the New Century, and marrying the power of computer networks to the digital camera, spread a planetary web, which made the little world of paper of photography and newspapers pale in comparison. Or even irrelevant: we know that century old newspapers are firing their photographers, because they find more interesting the illustrated twitters of citizens' journalism.</div>
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Part of the revolution is Facebook, with its billions of images, But also stock agencies like 500 pix that has photographers from more than 200 countries, and 2 million of highly selected images. </div>
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All is well? The Advent of Photoshop has resulted in the majority being highly corrupted versions of reality. </div>
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Read <a href="http://blog.mingthein.com/2014/05/10/illusion-delusion-reality/">Ming Thein</a> gloomy article on 'Illusion vs delusion vs reality: commercial photography today'. Advertising customers want beautified images of their products that don't exist in reality.</div>
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Moreover can you ever hope that your images will be selected with such a million wise competition? In these social sites you must apply the principle: you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours, to accumulate likes, and 'follows'. OTH you have to tag accurately each of your images hoping that some computer looking for keywords will match exactly yours. </div>
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I dialed 'Rome' and lo, what an amazing lot of wacky images of the Forum, and dramatized Coliseums. Fake images that might have come from Las Vegas, or another planet. Worse: Fake lights and colored filters that were never there in the first place. Ancient monuments redesigned as lurid backgrounds for promotional campaigns.</div>
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Pantheon- courtesy Smok</div>
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Besides what control have you on your own images?I suspect that my piccies at flickr are regularly ransacked by travel agencies to show their customers what their destinations look like, because some days the Views count jumps up suddenly by the thousands, and travel companies have been caught red handed before.</div>
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Is it what makes some Museum curators say that Photo is dead? </div>
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Trevor Paglen, a visual artist from NY, has this to say at the <a href="http://blog.fotomuseum.ch/2014/03/i-is-photography-over/">Fotomuseum</a> site:</div>
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"In the first instance, the rise of digital photography and image-processing software has fundamentally altered the craft. Digital cameras are cheap and ubiquitous; image-processing software (whether on-camera firmware or applications like Photoshop and Instagram) has made it extraordinarily easy to produce an image-quality that was previously only possible with years of specialized training in equipment, shooting technique, and printing methods. The de-specialization of photography is an area of much concern among curators responsible for sorting out what’s worth paying attention to, and to practitioners who’ve seen their ability to make a living get much, much harder (witness the near collapse of photo-journalism as a profession). In this sense, perhaps the advent of digital photography and automated image-processing means that the traditional craft of photography is largely “over.”<br />
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IS PHOTOGRAPHY OVER?!?<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">A toy piccie, from Lomography, NY.</span></td></tr>
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Trevor Paglen:</div>
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"On the cultural side, the digital “revolution” has meant an upheaval in the photographic landscape. What is the place of photography in society when there are now well over 250 billion photographs on Facebook (with an additional 350 million added daily), where the average person sees over 5,000 advertisements a day, and where photography has come to inhabit the very core of our “technological a priori.” </div>
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"Photography has become so fundamental to the way we see that “photography” and “seeing” are becoming more and more synonymous. The ubiquity of photography is, perhaps ironically, a challenge to curators, practitioners, and critics. Why look at any particular image, when they are literally everywhere? Perhaps “photography” has become so all-pervasive that it no longer makes sense to think about it as a discreet practice or field of inquiry. In other words, perhaps “photography,” as a meaningful cultural trope, is over."</div>
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A Turner Prize photographer, <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2014/may/09/wolfgang-tillmans-interview">Wolfgang Tillmans,</a> proposes that picture taking is so pervasive that it is replacing words:</div>
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"Something interesting is happening: pictures are replacing words as messages," Tillmans says of selfies and restaurant Instagramming. "You could trace these elements to work I did 20 years ago, and obviously I am not responsible for that, but that sense that there is some significance in a piece of clothing on the floor. I cannot bitch about millions of people who photograph their food. But I didn't photograph plates or still lifes to show my friend: 'Look! I've just eaten this banana!'"<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4yeF9RSos2PMV4fzf24Dj5In0KvD6PGrUjuku8drB-rQz03Vti6lNhRdquLTKJZNVRsh6VEeVZZLmciEC8OSID3MMBo3M5SBPw-IaarvVTMBq5KTv9EyThajyDoKUpqEtdBc3jb8QtL0/s1600/falafelgiff+constable.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4yeF9RSos2PMV4fzf24Dj5In0KvD6PGrUjuku8drB-rQz03Vti6lNhRdquLTKJZNVRsh6VEeVZZLmciEC8OSID3MMBo3M5SBPw-IaarvVTMBq5KTv9EyThajyDoKUpqEtdBc3jb8QtL0/s1600/falafelgiff+constable.jpg" height="552" width="640" /></a></div>
Falafel - courtesy giff constable</div>
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This I find interesting but in a different sense: the advent of Pictograms, that William <a href="http://amalric2014.blogspot.it/2014/03/the-hieroglyphic-silence.html">Burroughs</a> had predicted. It is easier to connect across cultures and languages with images and movies. It is also the reasoning at the base of this blog.</div>
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In a further post at the FotoMuseum blog, "Seeing Machines" Trevor Paglen makes a daring <a href="http://blog.fotomuseum.ch/2014/03/ii-seeing-machines/">hypothesis</a>:</div>
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"Seeing machines is an expansive definition of photography. It is intended to encompass the myriad ways that not only humans use technology to “see” the world, but the ways machines see the world for other machines. Seeing machines includes familiar photographic devices and categories like viewfinder cameras and photosensitive films and papers, but quickly moves far beyond that. It embraces everything from iPhones to airport security backscatter-imaging devices, from electro-optical reconnaissance satellites in low-earth orbit, to QR code readers at supermarket checkouts, from border checkpoint facial-recognition surveillance cameras to privatized networks of Automated License Plate Recognition systems, and from military wide-area-airborne-surveillance systems, to the roving cameras on board legions of Google’s Street View” cars.</div>
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"What’s more, the idea of seeing machines I’m sketching out here isn’t confined to the imaging devices and systems I’ve described in broad strokes. The definition extends to include the images (or data) produced by such imaging systems, the digital metadata associated with those images, as well as additional systems for storage, archiving, search and interpretation (either human or algorithmic)". </div>
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The only comment that comes to my mind about automated vision is 'Life Logging' devices where an automatic camera you carry across your neck documents your life by taking a picture at intervals, according to some pre-programmed software and sensors, activated by differences in light and shadow. </div>
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Later a computer program then assembles the separate instants or angles in something meaningful - that is very close to some ideas of Conceptual Art. </div>
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Life Logging was originally a <a href="http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/cambridge/projects/sensecam/information.htm">Microsoft Project</a> in Cambridge, UK, for helping patients with Brain Injury to recover language and memory, but it also became an activity in itself. Total Recall you might dub it. </div>
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As you see a lot has been put on the table. We have just began to unravel a paradox, that we must leave the details for the next episode.</div>
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Is it the end of photography? I hope not.</div>
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I hope that you don't think I am over-intellectualizing. I think that Photography as Art and mass shooting are both a reality, so why avoid one for the other? </div>
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One of the contentions above however is that machines are replacing the act of seeing, by their own.</div>
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I am hardly there. In my simple daily life in Rome which I keep documenting, starting from my multiethnic neighborhood, it as relatively simple to have the pulse of globalization by doing environmental portraits of my neighbors. As the local saying goes, you hardly see an Italian in the streets, or on busses now. All the easier then for me to give an image of Rome as a global city or better, a global village. In the future the population will be an ethnic mix, hybridizing cultural traditions, so why not start now to document the fusion?</div>
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I wonder often how my Chinese friends see Rome without my remaining ethno-religious filters. Perhaps Rome will be reborn like when it was Pagan and accepted people from all parts of the Empire with their Gods aka cultures? A polytheistic Rome.</div>
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A Chinese friend, by amalric.</div>
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And then, is it true that picture is replacing word? That was my assumption about <a href="http://amalric2014.blogspot.it/2014/03/the-hieroglyphic-silence.html">Burroughs</a> pictograms. Certainly we can exchange pics more easily than words across the continents.</div>
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Also, with hypertextual blogs such as this one we are watching the onset of this pictographic culture. Does a series of words and pictures related to each other by links and hyperlinks constitute a poem? I once published a Visual book with Poesia Visiva's Adriano Spatola, and that was certainly his assumption. Pictograms do replace words, and that is how the hieroglyphic first language was born in the heart of the Sahara desert, more than 5000 yrs. ago. </div>
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The Swimmers' Cave, rock paintings in the Western Desert, by amalric. Messages about the presence of water were the first pictograms.</div>
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'Nadja' was only a first example of what could be achieved. It is a prose poem, not only for its links with the Unconscious but also in a formal way. Because words resonate in the pictures, and the pictures in words. This I would certainly like to explore further with your help.</div>
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Note</div>
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May I remind you that I welcome your contributions, both in words and pictures - especially in such wide ranging subjects? Please use the e-mail box to get in touch or to send material. </div>
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Last, David Bate, forsees that Photography might evolve in the direction of a New Realism, even of Italian <a href="https://www.academia.edu/612375/After_Thought_Part_II_Neo_Realism_and_Postmodern_Realism">Neorealismo</a>, which is certainly very close to my own photographical stance, therefore I wrote about poet and film maker PP <a href="http://amalric2014.blogspot.it/2014/02/pasolini-unforgotten.html">Pasolini</a>. Perhaps stepping back from overprocessing might be a first move. </div>
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amalrichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04787357625026281058noreply@blogger.com0