Do your images end up looking soft when you resize them and export them for the web? When you resize an image, it loses some sharpness. With a 24 MP image measuring 6000 px you need to resize quite a lot to downsize it for optimal web use which is often around 800 px wide. That is why a set-once-and-forget Continue Reading
The post The Secret to Getting Tack Sharp Images for the Web appeared first on Photodoto.
[ By Steph in Art & Installation & Sound. ]
There’s a good chance that no one, other than an errant worker, will ever even see these highly symbolic (not to mention illegal) installations hidden far beneath the streets of Paris. Tucked into tunnels that have been disused for decades, Radouah Zeghidour’s sculptural creations have a furtive feel, each one requiring hours upon hours of investigative preparation as the artist slinks around the subterranean spaces to find locations that will be undisturbed as long as possible.
“I place cigarette butts inside door locks, wedge things underneath the door, and place objects along hallways and passageways,” Zeghidour says. “Then I come back later to see if they’re moved, and when. I also research the locations extensively, and try to see if any construction work is planned along the subway lines. I try and find out workers’ hours and those of security as well. I also plan an emergency exit, in case something goes wrong.”
The Paris-based urban explorer maps out these ideal spots and enters them at dawn, spending around ten hours at a time building his installations in place. Most are made using materials he finds within the tunnels, like branches, pallets, pipe, string and the remains of old structures. Most of his locations aren’t disclosed, but Zeghidour says 2014’s Radeau échoué (Sunken Raft, below) was placed along a subway line, while Désenchantement (Disenchantment, above) occupied an underground room beneath the contemporary art space La Maison Rouge.
There’s definitely risk involved – the artist one spent three days in jail after he was caught in a restricted area, and has been escorted back above ground on other occasions. But Zeghidour finds the whole process to be healing and restorative, telling the Creators Project, “I explore underground when I feel blue. It soothes me.”
The secretive nature of the process is a fitting complement to the work itself, which often evokes images of camps for refugees and the homeless. Accessed and utilized without permission, these often wasted spaces are temporary homes to surreal architectural creations, if not to the humans who could actually use them.
The myriad abandoned subway stations of Paris are full of hidden potential – and one current candidate for mayor is working with architects to show the …
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Under a quiet field in Hamburg, Germany, a tiny city has appeared. Its temporary existence is thanks to a street artist who is turning his talents underground.
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A series of abandoned subterranean spaces in Milan have been transformed into tiny living rooms, dining rooms, bedrooms and kitchens, complete with furniture …
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[ By Steph in Art & Installation & Sound. ]
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[ By WebUrbanist in Art & Installation & Sound. ]
A series of abandoned subterranean spaces in Milan have been transformed into tiny living rooms, dining rooms, bedrooms and kitchens, complete with furniture and fixtures.
Designed by Italian artist Biancoshock, these small dwellings are rendered especially surreal thanks to bright colors and attention to detail. The project has a social dimension as well, inspired by the actual people forced to live in extreme spaces thanks to unfortunate circumstances, including the hundreds that live in the sewer systems of Romania or places like Las Vegas.
Whatever your own interpretation, the next time you pass a sewer grate, manhole cover or set of maintenance doors on the streets of Milan, it might be worth taking a closer look. More about the artist and his philosophy: “Ephemeralism has the purpose of producing works of art that have to exist briefly in space but limitlessly in time through the photography, the video and the media. He has realized more that 650 interventions in the streets of Italy, Croatia, Czech Republic, France, Germany, England, Hungary, Lithuania, Malesia, Malta, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Singapore, Slovak, Slovenia and Spain and he is not thinking about stopping.”
In some cases the discovery of a secret room is a wonderful find but it can also be a twisted nightmare.
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Pieces of graffiti that have been chipped off a wall are offered up in a box like a conventional puzzle in an exhibition that provokes thought on who street …
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Hidden rooms and secret passageways are no longer only found in ancient castles and fantasy books. Beautifully subtle hideaways can now be purchased by anyone.
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[ By WebUrbanist in Art & Installation & Sound. ]
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[ By WebUrbanist in Destinations & Sights & Travel. ]
The Forbidden City in Beijing, China, is one of the most-visited landmarks in the world, but now its secret garden, closed to the public for close to a century, is scheduled to open its gates.
Built in the 15th Century, the Forbidden City was a center of power for hundreds of years, a vast and sprawling complex of residential, cultural and political spaces. While tourists are welcome to explore much of the complex, the Secret Garden within its walls was shut off from view after the last emperor was deposed.
Current conservation efforts are underway, aimed at making the space historically accurate down to the last detail. For better and worse, the Secret Garden has been largely untouched for hundreds of years, closed off and left theoretically intact but also subject to decay. The first stage of the project was completed in 2008, and the final phases are scheduled to finish by 2020, at which time visitors will be able to enter once more.
More details from Hyperallergic: “The Qianlong Garden Conservation Project is a joint initiative between the Palace Museum, which manages the Forbidden City, and the World Monuments Fund (WMF). Last month WMF Senior Advisor Henry Ng discussed the project’s progress at a gathering of WMF’s Moai Circle at the bar Lumos. ‘Many of the threads were lost for how this place was built,” he explained, adding that the major challenge is retrieving traditional Chinese crafts that vanished in the country’s 20th-century cultural upheaval.’” (images via Si Bing/Palace Museum, the Palace Museum/World Monuments Fund and David Stanley via Inhabitat).
From a mile-long strip of land packed with over one million corpses just off the shores of New York City to a floating fortress in England used by a developer …
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There are box and kit solutions, sure, but these creative alternatives preserve your views and limited sill space while providing green growth and unique …
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Don’t tell anyone, but that copy of “The Shining” on the shelf might not be what it appears. Pull on it and see what changes in the surrounding room…
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[ By WebUrbanist in Destinations & Sights & Travel. ]
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[ By WebUrbanist in Art & Street Art & Graffiti. ]
A set of mathematical processes developed for use in crime-fighting and disease-tracking indicates that one already-suspected individual may indeed be the infamous graffiti and installation artist known as Banksy.
The approach of “geographical profiling” is often used to track down repeat offenders, serial criminals whose strikes began to form patterns that can be productively analyzed by experts and run through models by mathematicians.
The findings help paint a picture of probable places of residence and areas of everyday operation, criminal or otherwise, sometimes narrowing the search to an area as small as a few hundred square feet.
Steven Le Comber, a biologist at the the University of London, learned of geographic profiling from Kim Rossmo, a criminologist at Texas State University, growing interested because of potential applications for disease vector studies. The two then began teaming up to find both pathogens and people.
In this case, their modeling shows clusters of activity in London and Bristol based around 140 data points, specifically: sites of known or alleged works by Banksy. Their findings, reported in the Journal of Spatial Science, suggest a handful of addresses in London (a pub, park and residence) all associated with one Robin Gunningham.
Already suspected of being Banksy, Gunningham may yet be a ruse or a plant, but science suggests the individual is very likely connected with the artist, one way or another. As to the question: who is Banksy? We may never really know for sure.
From the abstract: “The pseudonymous artist Banksy is one of the UK’s most successful contemporary artists, but his identity remains a mystery. Here, we use a Dirichlet process mixture (DPM) model of geographic profiling, a mathematical technique developed in criminology and finding increasing application within ecology and epidemiology, to analyse the spatial patterns of Banksy artworks in Bristol and London. The model takes as input the locations of these artworks, and calculates the probability of ‘offender’ residence across the study area. Our analysis highlights areas associated with one prominent candidate (e.g., his home), supporting his identification as Banksy.”
Well known for polarizing political artwork, the infamous street artist Banksy recently returned to the Middle East and filmed a short video about his new work …
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Who is Banksy? No one knows for sure but many have speculated about the identity of this mysterious urban street artist – learn more about him here.
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The following seven examples illustrate the fascinating range of Banksy’s life and works through his most controversial and compelling projects, stories and …
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[ By WebUrbanist in Art & Street Art & Graffiti. ]
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[ By Steph in Design & Fixtures & Interiors. ]
If you don’t have a Narnia-themed playroom hidden behind a wardrobe, a zombie-proof shelter accessible via your kitchen island or a gun safe under your 900-pound bulletproof couch, you just aren’t living. Some of these hidden rooms, secret passageways and cleverly concealed storage spaces are probably a bit excessive, but who doesn’t wish their house contained at least one of these cool features?
In San Francisco, where private parking spaces are just as rare and precious as affordable housing, one house in Haight-Ashbury took the situation into their own hands in a way that wouldn’t upset the city council. The base of the Haight-Ashbury house is indistinguishable from the rest of the historical Victorian facade, but at the push of a button, it reveals a hidden four-car garage.
When building a new house, the parents of one particularly lucky nine-year-old girl realized there was some extra space next to her bedroom and decided to have a bit of fun with it instead of just using it as storage or sealing it up. A tiny doorway concealed in the back of a wardrobe leads to the small Narnia-themed playroom complete with a mural that stretches up onto the ceiling.
In some parts of the country, having a storm shelter is just as essential as having a bedroom. A company called GFS Storm Shelters came up with a brilliant way to fit one into a home – by placing it under the kitchen, with the entrance hidden under an island. While its actual usage might be a bit mundane, it’s fun to imagine it functioning as a hideaway during the zombie apocalypse or just a fun secret. Hopefully there’s another exit that leads directly outdoors in case a real tornado takes the entire house down on top of it.
A circular porthole that blends right into the faux wood floor of this modern home spits you out onto a slide that curls down into a colorful playroom.
Anyone searching your home for valuables probably wouldn’t think to check the usually-decorative panels on a wooden fireplace surround, making this a pretty safe place to keep items you’d like to conceal.
Is that glass of orange juice hiding something from you? A student project demonstrates how even the most innocent objects can conceal plenty of secrets.
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In some cases the discovery of a secret room is a wonderful find but it can also be a twisted nightmare.
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Prohibition, otherwise known as the Volstead Act or the Eighteenth Amendment, barred the manufacture, transportation, and sale of all alcoholic beverages in …
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[ By Steph in Design & Fixtures & Interiors. ]
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[ By Steph in Culture & History & Travel. ]
Thousands of people who lived and worked in Oak Ridge, Tennessee during the 1940s had no idea what they were actually doing every day, performing their tasks as directed without asking questions, surrounded by constant reminders that they needed to keep their traps shut or else. It wasn’t until the United States bombed Hiroshima in 1945 that they learned they were processing uranium as part of The Manhattan Project, many of them exposed to radiation for years.
Nicknamed the Secret City, the Atomic City and the City Behind the Fence, Oak Ridge was developed by the government on 56,000 acres of former farmland and remains a center of nuclear research and development today. In photos from the World War II era, published by the U.S. Department of Energy and taken by Oak Ridge’s only authorized photographer Ed Westcott, we see the many signs reminding residents that their discretion was paramount, even if they didn’t exactly know what they were keeping secret.
While part of the city was open to the public, all visitors were required to go through military checkpoints on their way in and out. Other areas were strictly restricted. If anyone asked too many questions, they were out of a job and a home.
In the decades that have passed since then, some workers have spoken publicly about their experience, talking about the strange clicking instruments they had to wave over all sorts of objects, including uniforms. That instrument, of course, was checking for radiation.
In addition to its many official facilities, Oak Ridge became home to ten schools, seven theaters, 17 restaurants and cafeterias, 13 supermarkets, 17 churches, a symphony orchestra and enough prefabricated modular homes for its 75,000 residents.
Two years after World War II ended, Oak Ridge transitioned to civilian control, but retains the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, where the supercomputer Titan was developed in 2012. Tours of the original facility are offered, but there’s so much interest, you have to add your name to a waiting list if you want to get in.
These seven secret architectural wonders house weapons facilities, bunkers, anonymous societies and dazzling temples in hidden spaces just out of sight.
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Just beyond all of the noise and activity of daily urban life is a secret world of forgotten spaces which are nearly always dank and dusty, but often …
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New York has a long history of hidden and illicit venues – one that did not stop when prohibition was lifted. For instance, this now-defunct venue inside a …
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[ By Steph in Culture & History & Travel. ]
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[ By WebUrbanist in Travel & Urban Exploration. ]
Throughout the rolling hills of rural Switzerland, tucked inside idyllic works of regional vernacular architecture, lie disguised fortifications of a country always ready for war. Some of these bunkers conceal gun caches, communications infrastructure and even anti-aircraft artillery.
The camouflage is incredibly convincing: a worn wood-sided barn, countryside home with cracking paint or a cute small-town cottage could all house militarized surprises.
The public is not privy to precise numbers, but estimates suggest the country contains 250 or more such structures variously disguised as buildings or parts of the natural landscape.
The Swiss are world-famous for their perpetual state of military preparedness, but few outsiders (as well as many citizens of Switzerland) are unaware just how much they are surrounded with infrastructure of war.
Christian Schwager’s relatively recent book on Fake Chalets helped make these buildings an open secret, in turn aiding preservation efforts for many of these facilities that no longer serve an official purpose.
Reporter Anneke Bokern has also delved into the history of these buildings, many of which date back to the 1930s and 40s: “Theatre painters were in charge of the paint jobs, supplying each bunker with a customised skin inspired by the local chalet style.”
“As the results prove, they went about their job with Swiss precision – although the bunkers only had to deceive at a minimum distance of 20 metres. They painted realistic window shutters, created perfect imitations of wood grain, and even took the position of the sun into consideration.”
Prohibition, otherwise known as the Volstead Act or the Eighteenth Amendment, barred the manufacture, transportation, and sale of all alcoholic beverages in …
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Over 100 bunkers and other structures left behind on the Aleutian Islands off Alaska after World War II still dot the remote countryside, crumbling into ruin.
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Sports stadiums can be contentious, particularly when located in the heart of a city, but this design works in various ways to reduce disruptions to urban …
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[ By WebUrbanist in Travel & Urban Exploration. ]
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If you’ve been around the photography world for a short time, you probably have at least a basic grasp of the technical skills. You know how to manipulate depth of field with aperture, where to focus in a portrait, and how to compensate your exposure for extremes in shadows and highlights. Even knowing things like that, you’ve probably stumbled across some incredible portfolios or magazine spreads and asked, “How did they do that?” Or even “What’s their secret?”
The secret to a great photography portfolio is simple. It isn’t even a secret at all, although it’s not often talked about in photography communities. Simply put, the secret is:
Master the technical skills until they’re automatic, then go out and endlessly make photographs, a lot of photographs. Only a handful should ever be shown to anyone.
Photography is easy; at least the technical side. Yes, that’s a quite a contentious statement, but I’m not the one who said it. It was David Bailey being interviewed by Rankin and answering the question, “What makes a good photographer?” His answer was:
“You can learn to take pictures in three months. You can learn to draw in three months, but only technically. It’s where you go from there.”
The critical point is that it’s not the technical skills that make good photography. They’re vital ingredients but it’s how they’re put together with your subject to create an end result that is most important.
Think of it like cake. If you’re digging in to a piece of cake and you actually notice any of the individual elements of eggs, flour, butter or sugar, something’s gone horribly wrong in the baking process.
There are two elements to consider when thinking about what to do next:
In an article, that I read a few years back, a National Geographic photographer said that they use to go through 1500 rolls of film to create a single set of 10 to 20 images for an article.
To translate that, assuming they used 120 film in a 6×9 medium format camera; that yields eight frames per roll of film. That’s 12,000 photographs. Also assume that those photographers would have bracketed one or two stops on either side. (Bracketing is the practice of taking a normally exposed photograph, then taking two more – generally one overexposed, one underexposed. This was useful in the days of transparency film which offered very little in terms of exposure latitude.) That brings the number to 4000. Finally, say 50% of those weren’t good enough to show the editor.
That leaves 2000 photographs that most people would probably be more than happy to have taken. The final spread used about a dozen of the very, very best or 0.6% of all of the images taken.
To apply this concept to your own portfolio, you have to learn how to be ruthless. If it isn’t your very best, scrap it. It can be hard work, especially considering the emotional connections we, as photographers, have with our work, but if you can learn to turn that off then your portfolio will be better for it.
Back to dissecting National Geographic, my favourite article is one that covers the glamorous topic of caffeine. This one is a large spread and is made up of 23 photos.
Breaking it down: nine images are environmental portraits, six are classical reportage, six are still-lifes, and two are landscapes.
The set of photos also covers five countries and five US cities; all within 23 photos.
To cover every possible aspect associated with caffeine, the photographer for that piece documented several facets of the human element of the topic, from production workers, to scientists in labs, as well as the consumers. The landscape images in the article showed the environmental impact of caffeine.
Hopefully you’re starting to see what comprehensive means in this context. Of course, very few people have the kind of resources to approach a subject so thoroughly, but if you take the extra time to consider and follow through on other possible aspects of your subject matter, you may be surprised with the results.
To return to the cake metaphor: when you’re at a bakery, you only see the shop floor, with the well presented finished products. You don’t see the chefs slogging through hours of batter and hot ovens. You don’t see the logistics of bringing chefs and ingredients together in the right place. You just see cake.
Hopefully, you now have a little more insight on what may have gone on behind the scenes, albeit a simplified interpretation, when you look at a photo that you admire, and what steps you can take to push yourself in that direction.
Just remember: get the technical skills mastered and out of the way, then go wild.
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The post The Secret to Great Photography Portfolio by John McIntire appeared first on Digital Photography School.
[ By Delana in Design & Fixtures & Interiors. ]
Prohibition, otherwise known as the Volstead Act or the Eighteenth Amendment, barred the manufacture, transportation, and sale of all alcoholic beverages in America from 1919 to 1933 – but for some people, the appeal of the “forbidden” remains today. Despite the illegality of drinking establishments during prohibition, hidden bars could be found in just about every major American city if you knew where to look. Today, speakeasies are making a comeback in a very big way.
The name of this establishment may sound like a cruel joke or even an anti-advertisement, but it’s all part of a brand that has come to represent a simpler time. Past generations have enjoyed gathering and socializing in barber shops, and even today customers trade gossip as they get a haircut and enjoy a glass of wine in upscale salons.
This type of community gathering place is recreated in Blind Barber. An old-timey barber shop up front provides a bright and friendly place to sit and shoot the breeze as you enjoy a shave or a trim. Take a little walk through the secret door in the back and you’ll enter an a very different type of space.
The bar is outfitted in rich wood, low lighting, and period-appropriate black and white tiles on the floor. The owners wanted to create not only an enjoyable drinking establishment, but a place where people could get together to socialize, relax, and maybe pretend for a bit that they are part of a small crowd of those who are “in the know” about a secret club.
It might be surprising to learn that there is an American-style speakeasy in China (although if you’ve been there you will have seen quite a few), but it’s even more surprising to witness someone actually entering the bar. The building’s front contains a bright, cheery sandwich shop with a classic Coca-Cola machine on the back wall.
Pulling a lever on the soda machine reveals a “secret” passage that leads to Flask, an intimate and delightfully mysterious bar designed by Alberto Caiola. An eclectic mix of furniture calls to mind the furtive nature of assembling these establishments during prohibition.
A floor-to-ceiling display of 25 liter jugs filled with whiskey is a visually stunning detail which may or may not be historically accurate – speakeasies were generally designed to be easy to disassemble if the cops came sniffing around, after all. Regardless, it is still a charming deviation from the loud, crowded urban bar.
The first thing that will strike you as unusual when you walk into the small Denver “bookstore” called simply Williams and Graham is that it’s only open from 5 pm to 1 am. Good news for insomniac bibliophiles, perhaps…or maybe there’s a little more to this story.
At the back of the shop, a heavy curtain swings open to reveal a very cozy little space with scarce seating, low lighting, and vintage furnishings. One can imagine the hoodlums and society folks alike lining up in the 1920s for a tasty libation while always keeping a wary eye trained on the door.
The bar serves cocktails straight out of the prohibition era – though admittedly, not with liquor made in clandestine basements distilleries or delivered only under the cover of night. The establishment emphasizes its mission to replicate the speakeasy with its fancy drinks, relative exclusivity (reservations are recommended), and general air of mystery.
You’d never guess that there’s anything amiss at ‘The Press,’ a sandwich bar in Shanghai, unless you actually witnessed the surreal …
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Secret rooms and hidden passages in homes are all the rage in architecture today. But the practice of sneaking around in concealed places has deep, dark roots.
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You’d never guess that behind these ordinary-looking bookcases, wine racks and wardrobes are entirely undetectable hidden rooms and passageways.
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[ By Delana in Design & Fixtures & Interiors. ]
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