Hanami, 4/23/10

After a hectic work week I managed to get to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden and get some photos of the cherry blossoms before they drop and before the crowds descend on the esplanade for Sakuri Matsuri, the BBG’s annual Hanami festival.

Winter Reconnaissance

Somewhere in the title there’s an anagram with Wisconsin in it, which is fitting because these photos were taken on the short flight from Appleton to Milwaukee. The window in my favorite seat (2A) was a little scuffed, so these are not the clear shots I would have got if Midwest Airlines still had it’s new Boeing 717s. Nonetheless, the shortness of the flight (20 minutes) means we never get too high, so it’s easy to make out all lots of detail on the ground. The snow helps too, adding lots of contrast and making it easier to pick out the larger features.

Excitement, euphoria (Stage 1)

Disenchantment (Stage 2)

Search for the guilty (Stage 3)

Punishment of the innocent (Stage 4)

Distinction for the uninvolved (Stage 5)

Go Humans Go, 3/11/09

On average, my Atomische photoblog gets about 600 page views per day, reflecting about 200 unique visitors, who look at an average of 3 photos each. That doesn’t include robots, like Google, Yahoo and others, who visit the site every day looking for new posts.

Yesterday around 10am I noticed a huge spike in traffic and peeked under the hood to see what was up. Following through the chain of referrer links I discovered that the lovely Mrs. Mudskipper posted a link to my photo over on the social bookmarking site reddit. A handful of visitors there voted the image “up” which kept it on the list.

So, by the end of the day my site had 4759 page views, made by 4066 unique visitors. That photo “Go Humans Go” received a total of 3833 views. (Take note that without the reddit bump, my site would have had traffic far below normal.)

To Mrs. Mudskipper, whoever you are, I say thank you for helping bring my art to the people!

Trevor Brown: Stripping the Familiarity from the Everyday, New York Times, 3/7/09

The opening for Trevor’s exhibit “Ordinary Wonderful” was a huge success. He wowed them with his presentation–and presence–and got a nice write up in the new New York Times blog “The Local.”

I’m thinking of selling my macro lens and ring light flash, and perhaps even the 30D and 10-22mm wide angle zoom lens. I have only used the macro lens twice, and while the photos are impressive the technique itself doesn’t really interest me very much. I think part of the problem is that the focus needs to be excruciatingly precise for the images to work, and I just don’t have the patience.

Many more macro photos here

Saw some bulbous bollards yesterday in the Meat Packing District. Don’t know why I find these things so compelling. The people eating brunch in all the surrounding cafes thought I was a little odd.

Next in the series of photographers I admire is Shen Wei. I first noticed him when coming across photos from a recent project of his called Almost Naked, a series of amazing intimate portraits, with a few interesting environmental/still life photos mixed in. As with the Jesse Burke, the emotional frankness of Shen’s photos really speaks to me.

Today while checking out the shows at Humble Arts Foundation I came across the photographer Jesse Burke.

I don’t often do portrait photography, mainly because I’m not naturally comfortable with people in general. The process of getting to know someone takes me a long time. Even with people I know very well, the photo shoot itself becomes awkward and unproductive. But see a lot of potential there, and really hope that with a lot of practice I can eventually get good at it.

Jesse Burke’s photos really speak to me. Partly because it’s familiar: the faces and scenery remind me a lot of my time in Wisconsin. But also because the emotions he brings out in his subjects are those that often stay hidden.

I have three photos hanging in the group show “As We See It” currently on display at The Center. The show runs all summer, but the opening reception is Thursday, June 12th at 6pm and you are invited!

Visit my profile on the NYCPhotoClub web site to see my artist statement and other information.

As We See It
Fourth Annual Photography Exhibition
June 9 – August 21, 2008
Opening reception: Thursday, June 12, 2008, 6-8 pm
The Center, 208 West 13th St, 2nd Floor, NYC

My friend Henry is having a solo exhibition of photos from Friday, May 9, 2008 to Saturday, May 31, 2008, called “Reslience”. Check it out!

Dear Giebel Thomas:

Thank you for your inquiry regarding the software for your EOS 5D.  We
value you as a Canon customer and appreciate the opportunity to assist
you.

Unfortunately, there currently is no Canon software available for any
64-bit Windows Operating System, only the 32-bit versions of these.  At
this time, whether any 64-bit software will be written for your EOS 5D
or not is unknown.  We apologize for any inconvenience.

Please let us know if we can be of any further assistance with your
EOS 5D.

Thank you for choosing Canon.

Sincerely,

Michael
Technical Support Representative

My friend Trevor is having a solo exhibition of photos on April 19th, called “Brooklyn Rises”. Check it out!

Atomische photo of the day for March 4, 2008. This was taken in Gowanus (Brooklyn) New York City, on the future site of Whole Foods (if they can manage to extract and clean up all the toxic waste in the soil).

I’ve become totally addicted to the collaborative image bookmarking site FFFOUND! It’s a constantly changing lightbox of images: photos, diagrams, bookcovers, art, design and anything visual. Although some users get heavy with the cheesecake, overall it’s really interesting. If anyone there is reading this, please invite me!

Atomische photo of the day for February 26, 2008

Spent a Sunday at one of my favorite places in the city: the Brooklyn Museum. Here is a view of Untitled, by Michael Richards (1963-2001), from his Tuskegee Airmen Series, 1997.

My copy of New Photography in China from 3030 Press arrived yesterday. I’m still digesting the fascinating introduction, but a quick leaf-through shows some great images from a few favorite photographers like Chi Peng (left) and Lin Zhi Peng, plus samples from many more photographers to watch. Highly recommended!

In a nutshell, the device is a GPS receiver that attaches to your camera via the flash hot-shoe. Every time you snap a photo it saves location coordinates. Later you can update all your photos’s EXIF data with geo-tags.

I want!!

The New York Times is interested in any photographs readers may have taken of the disruptions or damage caused by the heavy rains. Readers are invited to send to e-mail their photos (in JPG or TIFF format) to cityroom@nytimes.com.

While this sounds like an efficient way to gather a huge number of photos, I wonder how the staff photographers feel about this? Also, I’d hate to be the editor who has to look through hundreds of cell-phone snaps of garbage-clogged sewer drains.

As the Times inches closer and closer to being a blog (albeit with better writers) perhaps they should just create a Flickr group like Gothamist and other sites. For example, this photo below (by Flickr member Bill Leahy) would do a much better job illustrating the story “Transit System Crippled by Flooding” than the one currently on the Times‘ front page.

Bayside LIRR Station August 8, 2007 by bill leahy on Flickr