A User’s Guide to the View Camera

“Superb in every way” is the only phrase that will adequately describe this latest book on photography Award-winning cameraman and educator Jim Stone brings all his expertise to bear in this comprehensive guide to the selection and use of view cameras.

But the contents of this excellent work doesn’t stop there. Stone covers exposure, developing and printing in a language that is easily understood by the beginner, yet detailed enough to be of benefit to any darkroom veteran.

Highlight of the book is his section on lenses and shutters. To acquaint the reader with photography photography tips lower antelope canyon tips gopro this important part of a camera, Stone starts his discussion with a description of the earliest lens. made from one piece of glass. He outlines the defects of this “simple” lens, as it was called then shows the development through the years to the present multi-lens elements which today give such excellent results. These chapters alone are worth the price of the book.

Equally rewarding his illustrations-clear, adequate, and easy to understand. He describes reflex cameras beginning with 35mm, which, in their way, are also view cameras, though his emphasis is on the large format. He even includes a picture of the biggest view camera on record. Its film size was 4 1/2x 8 feet, yes FEET. It was made and used by the Lawrence Company in Chicago.

The author does not belittle any camera, recognizing that even the 35mm has its own purpose for existing and its special job to do, but it is easy to see that he feels the large view camera, with its many controls and adjustment and its resulting contact print, cannot be compared with anything less. His illustrations include pictures of all the major camera designs since photography began. Interesting is the shot of photographer Reinhart Wolf using a 1000mm lens on an 8×10 view camera. The bellows was some six feet long!

Many a reader will find new terms described: “minimum coverage of a lens,” “field angles,” “circle of coverage,” “circle of illumination,” “image distance vs. object distance,” and what occurs when the image distance and the object distance are equal.

Modern photographers may say the view camera is a thing of the past, but anyone wanting photography tips headshots to do serious photography will find this volume proves otherwise. View camera are still being made and still being sold. Any new owner will find this book to be his bible, with every question answered, every practice described, and every point clearly illustrated. It is, in every way, an outstanding book on photography.


MOBILE PHOTOGRAPHY TIPS

Now the funny thing with Morgan silver dollars, I mean it doesn’t really make that much of a difference but if you place it in your hand, I can see it just there, you close your hand up, make a nice, tight fist. The thing is, I believe there’s a button somewhere, I’m not exactly sure where the button is, but if you press it, the coin disappears completely. That’s, I’ve always found that interesting.

It’s Two Minute Tuesday, let’s go. (upbeat rock music) What’s up, everybody, Peter McKinnon here and welcome back to yet another Two Minute Tuesday. It’s so great to have you here and see all of your, all of your smiling faces. Today’s gonna be a fun one. You see, over the past weekend, I attended a wedding for one of my oldest friends, not oldest in age, just I’ve known him for, I’ve known him for a long time.

Anyways, finally got married, and I was in the wedding party, so I wasn’t actually shooting the wedding. Because, as some of you may know, I used to shoot weddings way back in the day when I first started my photography business. I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again and I’ll continue to say it that, if you are looking to make money with photography and you’re just starting out, beginning to shoot weddings is a great avenue for that skill. You can make good money, you can learn a ton. During the week you can work on booking those gigs and honing that craft, making your website, building your portfolio, then on the weekends, you can actually shoot those weddings and get experience from that. It is amazing and I’ve said this before that it’s both product photography, photojournalism, food photography, portraiture, street photography, it’s all of these things wrapped up into one event in one day, so you really learn on your feet. It’s a true run-and-gun style, so if you haven’t tried shooting a wedding before, I highly recommend it. You can start very, very small and offer your services at a good deal, at a discount so you can get your foot in the door.

Then as you work your way up the rungs, you can polish that skill, turn it into a viable business, and actually make a living from shooting weddings. So, that’s something I used to do, way back in the day. But this weekend, I was in the wedding, so I didn’t actually get to shoot it, I was apart of it. So because I was in the wedding, I couldn’t actually photograph the wedding, so I actually just took my phone around and followed the photographer and my friend, I’m sure my friend liked it, the photographer probably not so much, but I was just doing my own thing with the phone. Bare bones, no lenses, no extra, nothing. I was editing the photos with a couple apps at my seat at the head table during dinner and I just mass-texted them all to my friends before I left and it got me thinking on the way home, this would be a really great video to just talk about a few of the photos that I took, show you the apps that I used to get the results that I got and then just kind of encourage everybody out there that has a camera that you can do this, too.

So that’s today’s video. I’m going to try and keep it to two minutes, but we all know that’s pretty much impossible, but I’m feelin’ good today. Let’s throw two minutes on the clock. (imitates explosion) Let’s go. Okay, let’s start with the ten photos that I took this past weekend, they look like this. (upbeat electronic music) Alright, so first things first, that’s not bad for a phone, with no extra lenses. Like, that’s a cellphone. That’s the phone in your pocket and you’re able to shoot photos like that. When I first started weddings, I don’t even think I was taking photos that good. Mind you, it’s a calculation of both the light and having an eye and knowing what to look for and what to shoot for, and I’d love to get into that in a little more detail in further videos.

If that’s somethin’ that you think you’d like, leave that comment below and let me know. But those ten photos, from a phone, crazy. I attribute a lot of that to the apps that I use. Now, both apps that I used were Lightroom and Lens Distortions. So I’m gonna grab one of those photos, one of those raw photos, and we’re gonna edit it together onscreen so I can show you exactly what I did so you can kinda get a feel of how easy it is and how you can actually take banger shots, crazy good photography with your phone using these apps and you can start doing that today. Okay, so the first photo I started with we shot at Golden Hour, so that was step number one, finding the right light. If you don’t have good light, it doesn’t matter what gear you’re using, be it that’s a cellphone or a $10,000 camera, it’s not gonna look as good as it could. So this shot was taken just as the sun was comin’ down over that treeline, just rim-lighting her hair.

It looked perfect, the sky was a little blown out, so to compensate for that, I snuck behind a pine tree so I could have some of those pine needles framing the shot. You guys know I love always shooting through something, that’s why you’ll notice a few of these shots, I always have some leave hanging in front, be it that I’m actually behind a tree or I’m just taking leaves off of a tree and holding them in front of my phone. I did that many times, this is a perfect example of that. So I pretty much moved through these three or four effects: light, color, effects, and detail.

photography tips leading lines

So if we start with light, you can mess around with the exposure, maybe bring it down just a little bit, to bring back some of that highlights that are blown out in the sky. To compensate for that as well, we can actually drag this highlight slider all the way down, but you’ll notice it doesn’t really do much, it actually just pixelates the image a little bit more. So I’m gonna leave that where it was. It’s also important to say I shot this on Apple’s portrait mode to try and get as much depth of field as I can. And that mode doesn’t always work very well, but in the right light, with the right background, sometimes the portrait mode of this phone just blows my mind, okay. So, with that being said, continuing down, playing with the shadows, I lifted the shadows just slightly so we got a little bit more detail in their clothes, in the suit and in the dress.

photography tips iphone xr

And I’m fine with that, I think it’s exposed fine as it is, so moving on to color. This is where I play around a lot. Now, just like the HSL tabs within Lightroom, you can do that on your phone. Just hit this little button up here that says mix, that’s a little color wheel. Now you can go through and individually select the colors that you wanna tweak.

So, with the greens, they’re a little bit too green, I wanna make them more earth-y, which actually means making them a little bit more brown. But you might think, “but, Pete, dead grass “doesn’t look good”. But in this context, it does, so we’re gonna hit the green slider right here and then we’re going to change that hue. So you’ll notice going to the left makes that a little more gold, whereas going to the right makes it way too green, looks like the PGA tour, that’s not what we’re lookin’ for. So I’m gonna bring that down, further to the left, almost all the way. Now we can mess with our saturation. Too high doesn’t look good, too low gives me no color, so just below center is where I’m gonna leave that. And then I’m gonna turn the luminants up a little bit just to brighten those greens, that color that we just added.

Following that, yellow would be the next closest color that I’m gonna manipulate, doing the same thing, moving that yellow around to find where I like it the most, closer towards the warm side, bringing that saturation a little bit and then, of course, orange we’re gonna move that slider left and right, see where we like it the most. It’s pretty much good as is at this point. We’re gonna hit “done”. Now I’m gonna move over to the effects tab. Clarity, dehaze, and vignette.

You don’t wanna go too crazy on these, but because it’s your mobile phone, to pull out some of that detail, I do need to raise that clarity a little bit and watch what it does. So if we go too far, it looks too far. But if we just go 25%, that looks so much better. And then I just wanna bring a vignette in to kind of compensate for how bright and blown out the sky is. So I’m gonna just drag that vignette, not this way, that’s the wrong way, we’re gonna drag that in just to focus in on that couple a little bit more.

I’m happy right there, detail maybe a little bit of sharpening, not too much overkill. I could go back to the light tab now and maybe just raise the whites a little bit so her dress just stands out. And now I’m happy with this shot. It’s very moody, it’s my style. I’ve brought down those greens, we made sure that rim light on her hair is really popping, so that looks great. Now we’re gonna save this to our camera roll and we’re gonna open it in Lens Distortions. Hit this button, save to camera roll, maximum available, saved successfully to camera roll. Now we’re gonna go ahead and open up Lens Distortions. Once you’re in Lens Distortions, this app is really great for adding those extra tweaks and enhancements. A lot of people might say, “how did you get “that sun flare, how does that fog look so good, “how were you able to get those out-of-focus elements “over top of that photo, that doesn’t make any sense”.

This is the app that I do it with. Now I taught you guys this way back, it’s probably like a year ago now, but since then, there’s plenty of new people here, so if you’re looking to take photos on your phone and make them a little better, this app is highly worth investing in, checking it out on the app store. I’m not sponsored by them, but it is one of my favorite photo apps, so check this out. We’re gonna open up light hits and we have a whole list of different light hits that we can choose from here. So, I’m going to go with… I’m gonna go with this orange one right here, because I love the bottom ring of that. But I’m just gonna raise that ring up around halfway, so it kind of sits at the top of the photo where it looks like the sun might actually be shining in and we got that nice ring along the bottom and I’m pretty much done.

So now I’m just gonna hit save, I’m gonna choose where I wanna save that, I’m gonna save the image. It’s done, and now it looks like this. (laid-back rock music) So how great does that look? Also, using this app to add other effects that just make your photos look incredible. There’s a setting called “shimmer” that I really like. So when you open up that shimmer menu, you’ll see down here we have a lot of out-of-focus elements that add big, kind of bocce balls, boko balls, however you like to say it.

I’m not the biggest fan of that, sometimes they look great and I have used them, but I like the ones that have streaks, that almost looks like a meteor shower is happening. So I throw that on and you can change the angle, you can make them a little bit bigger if you want and then you can go over and change the opacity so they’re not as offensive, not as huge.

Just drag that down a little bit. But now, when we look at this photo right here, it just adds so much drama to a photo for a day that should have lots of emotion and feeling to it. So doing this all from your phone, while sitting at the head table or wherever you’re sitting, it just shows you the power of being able to capture this type of content with something that you have in your pocket. So those are the two apps that I like using, Lightroom and Lens Distortions. So, my tips for you would be try to find things that you can shoot through, be it that that’s through a fence, be it that that’s through a tree.

If you have to grab some leaves from a tree and hold them in front of your lens, do that. I don’t limit this to anything. I find whatever I can shoot through. I’ll take my hat off and shoot through the back adjustment strap just so that I have som unique shadow play around the photo, creating its own vignette.

These are things that I find are super valuable and make your phots look 100 times better because, let’s be honest, most people who aren’t photographers or who aren’t interested in this, if you were to hand them a camera and say, “hey can you take a picture of this real quick?” They’re just gonna stand exactly where you hand the camera to them, they’re gonna point it at you, take the photo, and hand it back. There’s no creativity, there’s not thought process at all. So if someone hands me a camera, one of the first things I do is I look around, what can I grab, is there something close? A napkin, I’m gonna bunch that up, can I shine a light through the napkin and just hold it over the corner of the lens to kinda get a unique lens flare or some kinda softened effect that’s gonna make this photo look better? Is there some tall grass, is there something I can shoot through, can I borrow your hat, can I use that flashlight? All of these things, combined with some of the apps that you might already have on your phone, are gonna give you incredible images.

Mobile. And the reason I titled this video “I Shot A Wedding with My iPhone” was because I did. The couple then took those photos and posted them everywhere to thank everybody for their special day and those were the first photos that anybody saw from their wedding, but they were passable. They were acceptable. And it just goes to show you, if something like that can be done, think about the opportunities that could be out there for each and every one of us, using any type of equipment. So, I hope that helps you out. I hope you like those apps. If you haven’t seen them, I’ll leave the links to them below. Thank you so much to Adam and Kristy for letting me use these photos in this video and kinda talk about your wedding day and how I was able to capture something from it. So again, congratulations, and guys, thanks so much for watching.

Hit that like button if you liked this video, smash it if that’s somethin’ that you’re into. Subscribe if you aren’t already and, and I will try next week to nail two minutes. I really want to, I really want to be able to nail that two minute mark. It’s just, I would have to cut out so much valuable information that I’m not willing to do to make that two minutes. But one of these days. Like, I’ve done it, like five times. If you guys have been here since 100K, you know, I’ve done it, like, a handful of times.

This is the exact reason I can’t do it. I don’t know when to stop, I just keep talking, we just gonna– (laid back electronic music).


How Much Does A Family Portrait Painting Cost

This query is frequently asked over the internet since it is an important one.

The expense of a painting depends on the dimensions and number of people to be painted. A huge canvas will definitely cost more than a small canvas. A four-person family portrait will cost more than a two-person portrait.

Paint My Photos has been in the customs photography business since 2002, and we are an artist-based company, which means you buy directly from artists. Ordering from us can save you at least 50% of the cost. Trust me, you don’t deserve to pay that much money. Moreover, you don’t need to worry about the quality; paintings are done by professional portrait artists. Our artist team is a secret source behind many top art galleries. They commission art from us and sell it for thousands of dollars.

Having Your Portrait Painted Is Fashionable Again, and It’s Simply Cost You $150

Once considered a relic of the photography era, the art of portrait painting is generating a comeback. Think of it as a selfie that can take weeks to complete.

The expense of a painting or a portrait largely depends on the fame of the artisan as well as the quality of his work. For this reason, providing a precise quote is complicated. However, you can go with online services like Paintmyphotos.net, which takes your digital pictures and turns them into hand-painted portraits based on your specifications. It’s an acceptable price for the service, particularly if compared with traditional artists. Moreover, it is hassle-free and high-quality, and the portrait is delivered right to your doorstep.

_by_Hans_Holbein_the_Younger.jpg/391px-Henry_VIII_and_Henry_VII

Most people acknowledge the importance of a fully custom-made painting or portrait. They are aware of how precious it is to present some other person or you with a surprise that will last not just an entire life but a lifetime and beyond. Whatever your reason for thinking of commissioning a custom portrait, you might have considered how much it will cost you financially.

How much does a custom-made family portrait cost?

References: price for portrait painting


star wars artwork

If you’re following a group of Star Wars ever since its first part, then perhaps you’re an serious fan of several figures in the story. Why don’t you then use a canvas paintings which has your stars therefore you’d always have their particular inspirations to locate to? This kind of product is exclusively manufactured for you! It could result in a different kind of feeling in the family room since it draws the viewer’s attention. You can even have it associated by various decorations with the exact same topic. It’s super easy to set up. The fee is reasonable. Yet still it features an excellent value to your office or house.

The Star Wars picture of your decision is encased in a strong frame along with other supplies used in the full product have good quality. They come in a protecting layer against sun or damage from water. As well, you do not need an excessive amount of effort to hold it in shape. The product or service is demonstrated to last a longer time of time beneath normal conditions. You can buy a range of Star Wars pictures all of which are shown in this websotre with certain information. You could search each and every group to seek other products that can likely match your needs.

The web shops at present contain an array of multiple piece paintings, however , nothing compares to the gorgeous appeal of star wars canvas artwork in the eyes of Star wars admirers. Certainly, it’s a must-have décor piece for followers. They don’t seem to be restricted to a couple of styles; you will find lot many, each one of these will make a fantastic effect in the fans’ eyes.

Cheapwallarts.com is definitely the best website to purchase star wars art pieces. Our star wars works of art are offered in various size ranges, colour combinations, and styles. Customers can readily find the a lot of beautiful design for their room, front room, living area, cooking area, bathing room, inn, and place of work too. You are able to hang these star wars paintings on your wall behind the computer or behind the bedroom inside your bedroom. You will be thankful to find out that these star war canvas choices are surprisingly easy to hang with their modern style finish.

The star war collection is among the finest films on this whole world; it gained numerous hearts throughout the world. The combating spaceships, inter-family feuds, sci-fi explosions, and quirky alien figures; there are lots of wonderful things to learn about the star war selection. Perhaps, the awesomeness of this design can’t be conveyed in words and phrases; this is the reason we produce hand-painted star wars canvas artwork for enthusiasts.

Star Wars is seen as a cultural phenomenon that’s spanned decades which has a lot of lovers around the world. The epic stories and characters are part of a sci-fi mythos which has attained world famous status. In the event that you have been a fan, or perhaps you might be trying to find a present for any person particular, then cheapwallarts.com is the most perfect place to look. Their collection of canvas paintings features everybody’s superheroes, ships, and even more, if you decide to like Darth Vader hanging on your own living room area wall, or maybe you would like to include Yoda for the workspace, you’ll find everything that you require.

epic star wars art


A way toPaint a Pretty Design on the Black Canvas Baggage

If you love to take flight much like I do, you fully understand how large of a hassle it could be to search for your bag in baggage claim. Black canvas travel suitcases frequently comprise over 80 % of the suitcases that come off a plane in international airports across the globe. I have tried personally colorful bag tags, rubberized bands surrounding the handle as well as colorful straps to keep my personal black bag closed. Our very last traveling experience I made a decision to paint an enhancing design and style on the front and rear of our travel suitcases and so we could

effortlessly recognize them as they came off the plane. Adhere to these easy instructions to paint your very own customized design on your black canvas travel suitcase.

The step one using this method is to determine your design. Go for a design featuring a decent outside line for example a comic character or even a collection of letters. My best design was a set of three cats and kittens on one side with a mouse on the back. Once you have confirmed your design, sketch or locate the outside lines of the design on a black canvas with a graphite or disappearing yellow/white sewing pencil.

Paint inside the lines with gesso or perhaps a white fabric base paint. Allow this layer of paint to dry totally before continuing. Each gesso and fabric base paint take longer to dry than acrylic paint because of the thickness. The gesso or fabric base paint hardens and produces a covering that will accept a layer of coloured paint by utilizing only 1 layer. You’ll need to paint approximately 10 layers of light colored paint on brown canvas to obtain the lightness of the paint to appear.

Soon after the gesso or white fabric base paint is dry, draw the inner lines of your design. Color every one area together with the right shaded acrylic or perhaps fabric paint. Let the paint to dry entirely before moving forward.

Include whatever element that appeals to you at this moment including covering, minor styles such as spots, circles, flora or anything else. Shake glitters over the wet paint to add new one more dimension once you desire. After all smaller designs together with glitter are utilized, outline every area utilizing black paint. Utilize a liner brush to do the detailing. A liner brush has the paint longer and helps to create a prolonged line of paint than a smaller round brush.

Heat set the style after a last drying. Set a brown piece of packing paper on the design area. Turn on your iron and heat on the cotton setting. Set the hot iron in the upper left hand corner of the wrapping paper and carry in place for Just a few seconds. Move the iron to the right one iron’s size and do it again. Persist shifting the iron and heat the artwork until the entire location has become heat set. Take away the brown packing paper and you will be ready.

This post first appear on: http://www.paintmyphotos.net/blog/


Francoise Nielly Modern Artist

She will get her sensation of construction and space from her daddy, who has been a designer. Being raised in the south of France, exactly where she existed among Saint and Cannes-Tropez, she is rarely far away from light, colour perception, and the ambiance that permeates the southern part of France. This is certainly along with her research on the beaux artistry and elaborate artistry,  her humorousness, and also her get-together.

Its abstract with funky colours. That’s my first impression of this piece of work. It reveals dark areas where more dark shades are and light-weight areas where lighter-weight hues are. In my opinion, its too colorful, however. I prefer just a few colours. Alternatively, just dark colours.

Francoise Nielly lives in the field of photos.

She has looked into the various elements of “appearance” all her daily life, via pieces of art, roughs, illustrations, photography, and virtual, laptop- or computer-produced computer-animated visuals. It really is very clear since artwork is her route and her enthusiasm.

Because you can see the brush strokes and the rough colour blocks, the piece of work looks rough-textured. Its various to a lot of musicians who sleek out their remember to brush cerebral vascular accidents and who combine their colors. I enjoy the abstract outcome it provides.

In a personal way, Francoise Nielly paints a person’s experience in every one of his artworks. And she paints it over and over once more, with slashes of color over their deal with. Occasions of lifestyle that come up from her artwork are delivered from your clinch together with the fabric. Shade is unveiled, just like a projectile.

Francoise Nielly’s piece of art is expressive, displaying brute power and an intriguing essential vitality. knife and oil blend shape her graphics, coming from a substance that is simultaneously biting and incisive, sensual and carnal. Whether or not she paints our bodies or portraits, the musician requires a danger: her piece of art is erotic, her hues free of charge,surprising and exuberant, even intense, the reduce of her blade incisive, and her shade palette stunning.


Francoise Nielly paintings meanings

Francoise Nielly is definitely an artist seen as having complicated skills that convey captivating and essential energy and strength.

Artworks by creator Franoise Nielly have an apparent vividness that originates from every composition. Having improved palette knife painting techniques, the painter utilizes solid strokes of oil on canvas to combine some abstraction into these figurative portraits. The art pieces, which are based on quick black-and-white photos, feature excessive light, shadow, depth, and energetic neon coloring. Depending on her biography on Behance, Nielly carries a risk: her art work is sexual, her colors are free, contemporary, amazing, even intense, the cut of her knife is incisive, and her color selection palette is beautiful.

Nielly indicates a protective study of feeling and ends up being an intuitive and wild goal of expression. If you close your eyes, you can’t imagine a face that contains colors, though if you contemplate it directly, everything acquires a form through our needs and desires. The most bothered soul will surely have colors, which are covered but always alive. A lot of people believe in a portrait; there’s always an equilibrium that escapes; however, in my estimation, every meaning is impressed in their face. Eyes find out sins and passion, a smile finds happiness or maybe a decisive lie, and vibrant shades show decisions without far too much movement.

Don’t you like Francoise Nielly’s artwork? Would you like to buy a portrait painting from the artist? I am not sure if Francoise will take on a commission job. But if she does, I bet the cost should be very expensive, as the majority of her art is selling for $10,000 to $30,000. Thus, pretty much, it is nearly impossible to let Francoise Nielly create your portrait, although, you know what, our experienced artists can! We could paint your portrait in the same way Francoise Nielly does!

In this way, Francoise Nielly delivers an individual’s face in each of his art pieces. And then she paints it continuously, with slashes of paint over their faces. Experiences of life that appear in her art pieces are developed using a clinch with the canvas. Color selection is introduced much like a projectile.

Francoise draws lines to discover elegance and passion while focusing on memories. Nearly every portrait embodies a sense of joy and disappointment. Once we learn these kinds of sensuous, significant, and tremendous drawing, we know that particular attention can move seriously in any look, at an action, or in a position that defines one’s method of being. The shades are the reason Nielly’s art is so true and natural, and it is particularly hard not to love her ideas. Countless would be the inspirations, which often grooving inside of this kind of sensibility, and several perhaps be the definitions that you’ll find portrayed. ?Have you ever asked yourselves how crucial francoise nielly livre crucial it can be for getting colours? Have you ever questioned how important it really is to tame this kind of style?

In Francoise Nielly’s paintings, she will never use any modern tools and utilize only oil and a palette knife. The shades are spread roughly on the canvas and turn into a really energetic work. Her portraits encapsulate the energy of colouring as an outstanding method of viewing life. The belief and form are simply starting points.


Given: A 32 X 32 Grid

Allowed: Any element of the grid to be black or white

Shown: Every Icon

Can a machine produce every possible image? What are the limits of this kind of automation? Is it possible to practice image making by exploring all of image-space using a computer rather than by recording from the world around us? What does it mean that one may discover visual imagery so detached from “nature”?

Every Icon progresses by counting. Starting with an image where every grid element is white, the software displays combinations of black and white elements, proceeding toward an image where every element is black. In contrast to presenting a single image as an intentional sign, Every Icon presents all possibilities.

exhibition at Outpost Art

The grid contains all possible images. Any change in the starting conditions, such as the size of the grid or the color of the element, determines an entirely different set of possible images. When Every Icon begins, the image changes rapidly. Yet the progression of the elements across the grid seems to take longer and longer. How long until recognizable images appear? Try several hundred trillion years. The total number of black and white icons in a 32 X 32 grid is 1.8 X 10308 (a billion is 109). Though, for example, at a rate of 100 icons per second (on a typical desktop computer), it will take only 1.36 years to display all variations of the first line of the grid, the second line takes an exponentially longer 5.85 billion years to complete.

the NAFTA effect/NAFTA Effect

While Every Icon is resolved conceptually, it is unresolvable in practice. In some ways the theoretical possibilities outdistance the time scales of both evolution and imagination. It posits a representational system where computational promise is intricately linked to extraordinary duration and momentary sensation.

Every Icon (1996) is a project by John F. Simon, Jr. A working version of Every Icon has been implemented as a Java applet and is located at: http://www.interport.net/jfsjr.

Special thanks to Tim Druckrey.


Rapture

The word “rapture” is meant to cannote an emotional state of intense joy and love possessing the mind to the exclusion of every other emotion or consideration. To begin to describe Alan Dunning’s installation Rapture-Scattered Bodies (1996) from the perspective of joy seems appropriate. Dunning’s sitespecific installations elaborate on the viewer’s senses and her/his immersion into environments incorporating the minutiae of physical reality as well as the enmeshing of complex structures, relative associations and ordered delirium.

Upon entering Rapture, the sounds of an echoed breathing can be heard and this rhythmically, strategically orchestrated soundtrack follows the viewer throughout her/his visit. The breathing, which at first seems almost natural, becomes increasingly irritating, constricting and finally claustrophobic. The exhibition space, in near darkness, disorients the viewer while also requiring that s/he take a leap of faith and step forward to look. In the centre of the room, drawn between two pillars, hangs a thin projection screen. A computerdriven video projection, which displays the reappearing image of a deep-sea diver, can be circled and seen from both sides of the screen while illuminating the room with a shimmering iridescent glow.

At the invitation of the Outpost for Contemporary Art

Scattered on the walls, directly across from the screen projection, and covering the two adjacent walls, are a series of colour laser printed transparent labels representing approximately fifty different smell molecules. They are placed on a horizontal or vertical axis and are connected by their similar physical components: the little knobs and stems touching or overlapping in order to create clusters. The smells represented by these molecules include roses, rotten eggs, wood and almond, with various levels of toxicity, comfort or repulsion could they be genuinely inhaled. This agglomeration of approximately 4,000 labels is a significantly labourious component (it took the artist and a technician over a week to complete it) and imbues the installation with the physical evidence of the body at work.

Like the scent molecule labels, the video images have been collected and regrouped. They have been culled from television programs, filtered through a computer and recorded; or they are photographs and computer images enlarged and manipulated. Images of dancing, banquets, jungles, 3-D computer representations of fields, as well as the recurring deepsea diver, are looped and mixed throughout the five-hour-long projection. A text is layered into the sequence, sometimes bleeding into a scene and at other times standing alone on a coloured background and reading both frontwards and backwards. The script, similar to a long poem, is descriptive and acutely nostalgic for lost moments and feelings. It can be read in a trancelike rhythmic form – “the scent of oranges, the sound of water dripping, an inner ring of iron railings, dirt covers the walls and shelves, two mirrors” – and attempts to evoke the symbolic importance of objects.

Dunning has been working on these texts for an extended period of time, which could be more accurately described as one text expanded and modified. It is much like a “soup” (the word he uses to describe his pieces) which is constantly replenished yet never depleted, and over the course of years retains a trace of the original broth. These texts are carried about from installation to installation much like Walter Benjamin’s cherished book collection which he carried until the end of his life. The words seem to be a kind of talisman and function to contextualize the author within the symbolic realm, while feeding the story line. Because Dunning uses numerous quotes and intermixes them, their origins are scattered and difficult to identify. Authors possibly utilized in this work include Alain Robbe-Grillet, Umberto Eco, Hannah Arendt, Marina Warner and Anna Kavan. To further confuse, the quotes have also been processed by computer software that rearranges, shuffles and translates parts of them into French. The result is surprisingly poetic and human, and weighs on the reader while giving the installation a sense of grounding, history and conscience.

Outpost Art Page

It is said that deep-sea divers will sometimes lose their senses (due to a lack of oxygen and increase of nitrogen in the blood) and remove their masks in an attempt to merge with the aquatic environment. This is what Dunning refers to when he speaks of rapture, the breaking down of the ego, the desire to become entwined with the environment in a delirious communion.

This democratization of information – the scattering of words, images, patterns and stories that neither begin nor end – can be linked to recent theories of technology. The combination of sound, visual and olfactory association and general “sense” experience in Rapture can be described as a critique of virtual reality modes of construction. Certainly, what differentiates it from pure technological idolatry is its insistence on the physical manipulation of the elements such as the “real” stickers, and the viewer’s required physical displacement through the space, translating it into a very different experience. Furthermore, the projection and texts insist on a perverse sentimentality of the senses, of emotions and a distinctly embodied experience of the whole of its content.

Dunning’s work must be charted as lying somewhere on the threshold of “new” technologies, of the disembodied, computer-driven abandon of the ego, and that of craft, poetry and traditional, contemplative, non-technological types of art. Rapture, by bridging this chasm, and creating a co-habitable space for these two modes of expression, better equips us to find our way back to the surface when we do remove the oxygen mask.


Living off the Museum

For “Living off the Museum,” the now defunct Acconci Studio (Vito Acconci, Luis Vera, Jenny Schrider, Charles Doherty) conceived five installations (which included previously exhibited work) in response to the building designed by the Portuguese architect, Alvaro Siza.

Siza’s sleek design for this lightfilled, seven thousand square meter museum features several nicely proportioned galleries but also includes architectural elements which can hinder flexibility in exhibition design. For example, in each largescale gallery, Siza installed an “inverted table” — a rectangular plane connected to the ceiling with short, squat legs. Aside from the tables’ decorative function, in some cases they serve to diffuse the light from skylights or ceiling-mounted fixtures. They also hang low enough to effectively prevent us from seeing what lies on the galleries’ far walls. But the Acconci Studio seized upon Siza’s obstructive architectural detailing to brilliant effect. To “use the inverted table as a base for projected light instead of the other kind of light, the natural and artificial light, that Siza intended,” they created a veritable forest of differently-scaled inverted tables, then used these tables as supports for video monitors and film and slide projectors. Coloured strobe lights whirled around the darkened room, over a dozen monitors played Acconci’s early videos from the 1960s and 70s, and images and phrases were projected at skewed angles onto the walls. (The images were stills from unfilmed performances. The phrases were also extracted from Acconci’s performances, although he has never projected texts before.) Entitled (with deadpan humor), Early Work Room, any clear reading of Acconci’s prior production (and Siza’s intentions) was scrambled; what we got was Vito clubland, Siza on drugs.

In the adjacent gallery, one of Siza’s inverted tables served as a lid for Acconci’s Under History Lesson. First exhibited in 1976 in P.S.1’s gritty basement boiler room and now in the collection of LA MOCA, Under History Lesson has been converted into a bunker-like cinder block room, equipped with a narrow ledge from which the viewer can look down at a few rows of wooden stools and long plank tables. From a hidden speaker, Acconci’s gravelly voice insists, “We’ll keep a good thing going,” absurdly emphasizing some of the words. This may be a cleaner, brighter version, but Under History Lesson is nevertheless effective. It remains a chilling theater of indoctrination (although viewers can descend into the space to sit down, it’s significant that most people choose to be witnesses, to look down at the scene). Acconci’s sinister phrase speaks the unspoken: the hidden, coercive message of the propagandizing instructor who assumes that history’s on the right track.

In the museum’s largest gallery, Siza’s massive hanging table served as the support for The City that Comes Down from the Sky, two huge (16′ x 32′ x 32′ each) “flying machines” (originally shown as three machines at the Portland Center for the Visual Arts in 1982). From a technical standpoint, the work is probably one of the most ambitious of Acconci’s viewer-activated pieces made at the time, such as Mobile Home, Instant House, High Rise (all 1980) and Community House (1981). A seat dangles by straps from each machine; sitting in them makes the wings flap or (conceivably) unfurls the roll of fabric inside each wing’s frame. When I was there, one machine was shown with the fabric rolled up; the other had its fabric unrolled and fixed into place. The wings featured a giant black hand flipping the bird, set against a background of blue sky and clouds. The implications were several. If we take the work’s title at face value, this could be a hostile city dweller’s gesture from above. But given the context, the flipping fingers could just as easily be interpreted as a giant extension of the museum spectator’s arms, or for that matter, of the artist’s (as Acconci later stated, he didn’t want to address art viewers anymore — maybe this was his fond farewell?). This would be a nastier attitude than that of Acconci Studio’s wacky photomontaged invitation for the exhibition, showing the manned apparatuses (with the fabric rolled up) soaring through the air in front of the museum, as though they were part-human-birds of prey, part-flying museum recreational vehicles. In any case, a certain psychological risk that the viewer assumed by engaging the work was accentuated by the way Siza’s low hanging table contained the machines within the space. Somewhat like viewing a helicopter indoors, its potential airborne power could be sensed.

In the museum’s lobby, Walls of Ground, consisting of twenty-two large architectural models of urban projects by Acconci Studio, was installed as though climbing up the principal wall, two side walls and the face of a hidden wall (a dropped ceiling over the information counter suddenly opens upwards as you approach the main galleries). A continuous line of plumbing conduit traced the shape of each project and acted as a connecting thread for the entire installation. Grouped by themes (written in bold type on the wall), the goofiest projects (for which some former Acconci fans won’t forgive him) such as Peels of Earth, Landslides, and Signs of Land, included sunken and raised airplanes, people-shaped islands, an indented and stacked face, a ramp shaped like a plane situated in the meridian of a wide boulevard.

Like Early Work Room, any serious contemplation of the works was rendered impossible. Walls of Ground reacted to the building (not the viewer), by clinging to its walls “like a leech or parasite,” an idea Acconci is fond of and used to describe his work for the museum’s exterior, Housing/Park. Made of two separate structures of metal grating, Housing/Park was suspended directly in front of the building’s walls by telescoping supports hooked onto the roof. Park, which took up one wall’s entire height and breadth, consisted of a stairway with niches which alternately provided seating or a space for a young tree. It zigzagged up the building from the ground level to its upper extremity, and although somewhat steadied by suspension cables, it took some daring to climb it. Housing, which wrapped around another corner of the building, could also be climbed via a stairway. Intended to represent a transition from the public to the more private space of a house, its modular rooms were fitted successively with seating, a table, chair, range, refrigerator, shower, toilet and bed. Overlapping panels of corrugated roofing protected the structure from the rain.

My Own Artistic Roots

Minerva Cuevas

Aside from the obvious (and successful) intermixing and reversals of public and private spaces, Housing/Park recalls prior Acconci works emphasizing the properties of suspension (Middle of the World, 1976), tension (VD Lives, TV Must Die, 1978), and balance (Decoy for Birds and People, 1979). Yet perhaps because of the gleaming materials and Siza’s handsome building, Housing/Park seemed oddly formal. It was by no means poetic (except for Acconci’s own appraisal of Siza’s building “as a mountain, like the stones and slopes of the region.”) More to the point was Acconci’s political agenda, perhaps related to his complaint that the museum is a pseudo-public space. Was Housing/Park an extension – or maybe an affirmation – of the museum’s coopting power? It seemed a piece for artists; after all, as the exhibition’s title suggests, artists really are “living off the museum.” As the show’s key work, Housing/Park could very well be Acconci’s most literal piece to date. I could not help but imagine him setting up house then and there.