Archive for the ‘Advertising Photographers’ Category

Art photographs emerging as a potential investment avenue

Sunday, July 20th, 2008

Fine art photographs are fast emerging as an alternate and more affordable option for art collectors and investors. From a medium that was used exclusively for the purpose of documentation, photography has now evolved into an art form that showcases creativity and imagination.

Interest in contemporary photography has grown phenomenally over the years and the number of exhibitions showcasing photographs and prints by artists and photographers has increased dramatically in the country. Images of wildlife, architecture, interiors, landscapes and people are some of the commonly-seen themes. Mood, emotion, spontaneity, originality, light and shade effect, and composition are some of the factors that make a good photograph.

Dedicated galleries and portals have now sprung up solely for fine art photographs. With an increase in demand, photojournalists and fashion photographers too are now busy organising exhibitions of their works. In fact, mainstream art galleries have also turned to photographic prints.

This shows the interest levels in the art fraternity for this medium. Painters and sculptors are willing to experiment with this genre. However, despite all the activity, the market is still considered to be at a fairly nascent stage, especially here. It is only the discerning collector who invests in photographs.

The professional and artistic background of the photographer is an important criterion, which you must consider when buying a photograph. An edition size that is less than 15 is a good idea. It is also important to check the quality of paper used to print the photographs. Photographers generally use a good quality archival paper or sometimes directly print on canvas.

As prices of paintings and sculptures spiral out of bounds, this is a good time to consider alternatives, and photographs are still affordable at least now.

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Everyone Will Be Lonely Eight Months From Now

Monday, July 14th, 2008

A while back, a friend of mine a guy who does a lot of directing work—was asked to shoot some rather odd film footage. It was all brief scenes of people ignoring each other. Families talking on cell phones, couples tapping at adjacent laptops, everyone looking in opposite directions.

These vignettes were commissioned by a company that sells stock photos and video to various clients including, in large part, advertisers. The hope was that footage like this would appeal to customers who need to visually convey a mood of modern disconnectedness. Leaving aside the bleak and omnipresent nature of the subject matter they could have just put a tripod on a random street corner I was startled to realize that stock photo and video purveyors actually create material in anticipation of demand. These suppliers of the world’s commercial imagery are making bets on what life will look and feel like in the near future.

“We had a bad day when Dolly was cloned,” says Denise Waggoner, vice president of creative research at Getty. “We hadn’t been studying biotechnology, and suddenly everyone wanted a shot of 25 sheep on a seamless white background. So now we try to keep our toes dipped in the water in lots of different fields, so we can be ready.”

Part of the challenge is guessing which abstract concepts clients will want to illustrate and then determining how best to illustrate them. “We recently did a big Nascar shoot,” says Waggoner. “Stock car racing can convey teamwork, speed, power, professionalism. But you have to get everything right for the imagery to really resonate.” Getty expects that this material could be used in marketing for a range of clients, including insurers, banks, pharmaceutical companies, and credit-card brands. For maximum versatility, the shoot was carefully orchestrated so that no logos would appear on the cars or tracks, with all models and locations signing releases.

While it’s fun to ponder which future trends Getty’s seers are banking on, it can also be illuminating to learn which sorts of images have been most attractive to their clients in the recent past. Getty’s Web site gets more than 3 million unique users each month, all scouring it for purchasable content. Getty gave me lists of the most popular search terms on their database for 2006, 2007, and the first half of 2008. Only three entries showed up in the top 10 on all three lists: business, people, and woman.

Other terms fade in and out. Soccer makes a single top-10 appearance in 2006 a World Cup year. In a development that may be of no surprise to you, Christmas has been showing up earlier and earlier. “It hit the top 10 in June last year,” says Waggoner. “We usually don’t plan for it until August.”

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WB to launch report on poor women’s health

Wednesday, July 9th, 2008

The World Bank (WB) will launch its report on poor women’s health in the South Asian Region on Thursday.

The WB has carried out the study as part of its efforts to assist countries in meeting the gender and health-related Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), said a WB press release.The report will be simultaneously launched in five countries covered by the study through a networked video-conference.

The countries are Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. In all the five locations, the WB has invited officials, experts and media persons to interact with each other and with the study team, it added.

This year’s World Population Day reaffirms the right of people to plan their families. It encourages activities, events and information that will help make this right real especially for those who often have the hardest time getting the information and services they need to plan their families. When people can plan their families, they can plan their lives. They can plan to beat poverty. They can plan on healthier mothers and children. They can plan to gain equality for women. This year’s theme is to beat poverty and gain equality.

The matter would be discussed at a meeting to be held at Railways Headquarters, Lahore, on Saturday, July 11.Abdul Ghaffar will be the convener of the sub committee while other members are Senator Rashid Ahmad Khan and Senator Nawab Muhammad Ayaz Khan Jogezai.

The sub committee will also review issue of grant of ownership to the residents of slums on railway land.

The sub-committee will submit its report to the standing committee for further discussion.

NICS offers photography, ceramics courses: The National Institute of Cultural Studies (NICS) has started month-long photography and ceramics courses.The objective of the courses is to tap the talent of the students by providing them with an appropriate channel to use their creative ideas, an NICS official said Wednesday.

Zamir Mirza is conducting training in still photography that includes the basics of the anatomy of camera, understanding video and other techniques. Aftab Ahmed from Institute of Ceramics Technology, Gujrat, is conducting a course on ceramics and terracota pottery making.NICS is envisioned as an institution of higher learning meeting international standards of instruction and accomplishment.

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Plastic cameras give artists added edge of unpredictability

Tuesday, July 1st, 2008

You could just grab a digital point-and-shoot if you’re weary of always having to set the aperture and shutter speed on your real camera. After all, sometimes you just want to snap a quick photo without having to actually think.

The solution just may be a plastic camera: not the disposable, one-use ones but the light little reloadable toy cameras originally designed for children but adored by a surprising number of grown-up photographers. Two plastic camera aficionados, Lora Brueck and Nancy Eng-berg, are showing their work at ARTSWorcester’s gallery at the Hanover Theatre, 2 Southbridge St. The show, called “Keeping It Simple: Art From a Plastic Camera,” opened Friday and runs through Sept. 5.

There are several types of toy cameras available, but the most storied is the Diana, a Hong Kong mass-produced inexpensive toy from the 1960s. Dianas are getting harder to come by, though, and let’s face it, they were never built to last.

The gallery-hours issue is something ARTSWorcester and the Hanover are still talking about. Someone from the theater needs to be available to let people into the gallery and there is not always someone available yet, especially with reduced summer hours. “For the time being it’s fine the way it is,” Seymour said. “It’s like any new place. We’re still working a few things out.”

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Michael Eastman and Chris Gustin transcend photography and ceramics

Wednesday, June 11th, 2008

Palladium prints are beautiful and exotic entities not unlike the succulents in Michael Eastman’s images. Palladium prints are characterized by their beautiful, soft, velvety shades of gray.

According to gallery owner Sherry Leedy, Eastman shoots in color, using a medium-format camera Eastman says color film conveys three times the visual information as black-and-white then creates a high-resolution scan of the negative. He then digitally enlarges the negative for printing. Almost 200 years span the distance between the two technologies that Eastman combines.

He created this series to draw attention to the need for a Desert House at the Missouri Botanical Garden and to demonstrate the beauty of some endangered species of succulents and cacti. Palladium photography’s gorgeous tones provide the perfect vehicle. “Untitled Cactus #9″ is one of the most enigmatic images. The plant’s curly fronds create an abstract and dense forest of shapes it feels as if we could enter this mysterious realm of texture. Eastman also capitalizes on the beauty of light as expressed through the chemical process: Tiny strands of fiber on the cactus seem to be slivers of light itself.

New work using an old technique also characterizes the ceramics of Chris Gustin, whose work makes an excellent companion to Eastman’s. A Kansas City Art Institute graduate now working in Massachusetts, Gustin makes vessels that similarly suggest his happy embrace of the past.

The vessels in this exhibition are hand-built coil forms. Employing this slow and deliberate process, Gustin forces attention to the hand of the artist and the body his and ours. The pots are large, in some cases more than 3 feet tall. They slump and shrug and feel weighed down by their own bulk. They have dimples that suggest belly buttons and other geographies of the body, meant to provoke a physical reaction or even an emotional one.

The interiors of these open vessels are as important as their exteriors. “The skin of the clay holds the invisible interior of the vessel,” Gustin notes in his artist’s statement. “How I manipulate my forms ‘around’ that air, constraining it, enclosing it, or letting it expand and swell, can allow analogy and metaphor to enter into the work.”

He uses delicate and subtle glazes, mostly grays and browns and blues that seem to match the feel of the palladium prints. Many of the vessels have a matte finish that makes them feel even more natural and plush, also like Eastman’s work. Both artists use antiquated methods to gorgeous effect.

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Kodak to Lift Prices as Much as 20% on Material Costs

Friday, May 30th, 2008

The photography company reshaping itself in the digital age, said it will raise prices as much as 20 percent on products including paper, film and printing plates to counter higher raw material costs.

The prices take effect July 1 and will vary by product and region, the Rochester, New York-based company said in a statement today. The increase will help ease the effect of higher costs for silver, aluminum and oil, spokesman Chris Veronda said.

Chief Executive Officer Antonio Perez is trying to restore profit after a first-quarter loss. The increases hit products at the core of Kodak’s historic business, which dates to 1884 and was built on the idea that photos were taken on film and printed on paper. Such products slipped to about 19 percent of sales last year as Kodak sold more digital cameras and inkjet printers to consumers who record life’s events on pixels instead of paper.

It makes sense financially that they need to raise prices,” said Ron Glaz, program director with Framingham, Massachusetts based research firm IDC. The entire world is facing situation where everything is costing more, especially anything to do with manufacturing.

Higher food, fuel and metals prices helped boost U.S. consumer prices 3.9 percent in the year ended in April as companies tried to maintain profit margins. Dow Chemical Co., the largest U.S. chemical maker, said this week it will raise prices the most in its 111-year history. Caterpillar Inc., the world’s largest maker of construction equipment, lifted prices to counter rising steel costs.

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Chris McCaw’s scortched photography

Sunday, May 25th, 2008

Chris Mccaw chalks it up to the effects of a late night in the wilderness topped off with a whiskey nightcap. While camping in Utah in 2003, he planned to make an all-night exposure of the night sky. Using a 7-by-17-inch homemade view camera, he hoped to capture Earth’s rotation, tracing the path of the stars. The key was to close the shutter before sunrise. “Well, I woke up a little late,” he admits. “The camera was positioned due east, focused on infinity.”

In short: “The lens effectively becomes a magnifying glass. Sort of like a kid and a leaf,” he says. “When I was changing the film, I saw that it had solarized into a positive image” the sun so hot it burned a “path,” an actual hole onto the film plane. Later, he made a contact print from the negative. But in the translation, “I lost everything the scorching. Instead you got a black line.”

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Pick up a penguin at photography exhibition

Thursday, May 15th, 2008

Stunning photographs of the Antarctic are on show in a new exhibition at Cambridge University’s Museum of Zoology. Antarctic: An exhibition of photographs by Roger Slade opens on May 22 and runs until June 28.

To complement the photography exhibition, the museum will also host an Antarctic Sunday Funday on June 15 as well as a free public talk by Roger Slade on June 19.

Each Antarctic summer, Slade works as a photographer and lecturer running specialised tours to the region.

The astonishing photographs were taken over the course of five years and 11 expeditions and include locations such as the South Shetland Islands, South Georgia, the Falkland Islands as well as the Antarctic Peninsula.

All of the work exhibited will be available to buy.

“I am lucky I can combine my love of travel and my work,” said Roger Slade. “I am an unashamed Antarctic anorak and I have never lost the excitement and enthusiasm I felt when I first set foot on the frozen continent.

“It is probably the most beautiful place any of us are ever likely to see in a lifetime of travel and exploration.”

The difficulty of visiting the continent is one of the alluring features of photographing it, admits Slade.

He added: “We have all seen a few penguins at zoos, but landing on one beach I stood by a colony of around 400,000 King Penguins and chicks. The colony has been dated by scientists as older than the oldest city in the world.

“As well as the visual impact, the noise and smell was incredible. The birds are very tame and curious; you really feel as if you are visiting their land.”

Meanwhile, the Antarctic Sunday Funday on June 15 runs from 11am-4pm and will feature trails, crafts plus the annual public exhibition of the Cambridge Natural History Society.

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RHS students earn Times scholarships

Monday, May 12th, 2008

Gloucester High senior Cecely Nutting has a wide variety of interests, from art and photography to horseback riding, antique sports cars and hockey.

A resident of Rockport and the daughter of Cheryl and Phil Nutting, Cecely said her mother encouraged her to apply for the scholarship — formerly the Eagle-Tribune scholarships.

“I got a letter in the mail” informing her about the scholarship and “it was a little bit of a surprise,” said the B student with a broad smile.

Cecely, who has a 15-year-old brother, said she’s always been into design and art for as long as she can remember.

“I also started taking pictures this year,” she noted, adding she prefers landscapes and seascapes to portraits. “It’s easier,” Cecely added.

Of course, there are plenty of subjects to shoot in her hometown of Rockport, which she loves.

“I’ve been playing hockey since middle school when I played for a town team in Rockport, but they don’t have a girls’ hockey team at the high school,” Cecely said. So, she decided to become a Fisherman. Yes, Cecely said, they even refer to the GHS girls’ hockey team as the “Fishermen.”

“I’ve played every position but center and goalie, and my favorite is defense,” she said.

Cecely said she got into hockey because of her dad. “He got everyone into it,” she said. “Now he’s the chauffeur and he carries all the bags.”

The active young woman, who also baby-sits to make extra dough, said she doesn’t have any favorite hockey player, explaining, “I’d rather play than watch.” But she does have a hero — her grandmother, Beverly Spofford of New Hampshire.

“I admire her because she’s so active and full of life,” Cecely said. “She lives with a great amount of passion even though she lost both her first husband and her sister.” Spofford is her mother’s mother.

Despite her other interests, her favorite subject this year in school was psychology.

But she’s certainly that interested in horseback riding, which she does at a private farm in Essex. She even has a favorite horse: “Munchy. I’ve been riding him for six or seven years. But he’s getting old.”

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Miley Cyrus’ photography flap seems overblown

Wednesday, May 7th, 2008

For those who don’t live with young daughters, the television show “Hannah Montana” and its 15-year-old star, Miley Cyrus, are probably vaguely familiar names, but fly a little below radar for popular-culture awareness.

But for many girls and their parents, Cyrus has been a steady companion on the Disney Channel since March 2006. And, yes, it’s true. Cyrus not only wants to grow up, she is growing up. That’s why her revealing photos in the June issue of Vanity Fair are causing her Disney bosses so much grief.

Cyrus, the daughter of country music star Billy Ray Cyrus, is the face and voice behind Disney’s billion-dollar-a-year moneymaking machine, “Hannah Montana.”

The franchise is built on Cyrus’ All-American wholesomeness. The Photography genius behind Cyrus’ success is her appeal to girls as young as 4 and as old as a 15-year-old, just like her.

But Cyrus rocked the boat when photographer Annie Leibovitz took a provocative photo that showed Cyrus’ bare back and a sheet wrapped around her body.

Disney and many parents who have cheered their daughters’ enchantment with the Photography cutesy Cyrus weren’t happy.

Once it became painfully obvious that this photo shoot was a mistake, Cyrus quickly apologized, saying she believed the Vanity Fair photos were going to be “artistic.”

This is delicate ground for parents who don’t want their daughters to get the wrong idea about what is considered proper behavior for 15-year-olds.

The view from a handful of girls at a local bus stop was they didn’t know their heroine was in trouble, and they didn’t seem to care a whole lot.

All of us can make too much of what young actors and actresses do in real life.

Cyrus has always seemed like she knew she was one lucky show-biz kid. But this kid has become a teenage girl, who is clearly trying to figure out how to make the transition from child star to Photography adult actress.

Cyrus isn’t really Hannah Montana, of course. She is a 15-year-old child actress who wants a grownup career. That is why she posed for Leibovitz and Vanity Fair.

And girls don’t seem too upset about it.

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