Recently I had to defend my portfolio (most of it can be seen here) and a member of the jury asked me to separate digital photos from those taken on film. I did so, and then I explained the difference in paradigms of shooting on each medium. Not that film was expensive, the mistakes were! I would gladly spend three rolls of Velvia or Portra VC if I knew I had The Photo, but the price of failing was a bit to high to act this way. I had to think a lot more so I killed many ideas in the start. As a result certain subjects or approaches were considered unworthy of photographing. Not anymore on digital and that explains the explosion of diversity seen on Flickr and elswhere.
"But don't you think that rapid and thought-less shooting [common on digital] leaves you with photographs of lesser quality?" the jury asked.
"Perhaps," I answered. "Perhaps that is what happened to me in the first weeks after I made the switch from analogue to digital. But then one has to find a balance between the paradigms of film-like planing or contemplation and high-speed-intuitive action (believed to be common on digital)."
That is not a bad answer, however, it is not an accurate one. What I should answer is the following: Rapid shooting is just a technique. It has been popular in sports photography for decades (even on film) because it is the only way to ensure a good photograph. It doesn't mean sports photographers are careless, they need this technique. Often they do a lot of thinking and planing in advance (before the competition). They examine the light, camera angles, athletes' motion (etc) and set up their work flow hours before the actual exposure. Then they shoot their thing. This video might be a good example.
Rapid shooting is essential to get a good photograph.
In landscape or fine art photography rapid shooting is often no advantage. No matter what medium (digital or film), photos have to be well composed and properly lit. And there the "film paradigm" is still well practiced on digital.
A technique/medium should not be confused with the attitude! If one has a careless attitude towards the art and photography, one remains ignorant on film as well as on digital. But if one seeks for perfection, the medium doesn't matter.
Two days ago I had a talk here in Ankaran about the Internet, Creativity, Copyrights and how it is all connected. The talk is very much inspired by Lawrence Lessig, in the terms of the content and also execution. Unfortunatelly I have had a little bit of a cold, so my voice is not what it should be... Hopefully you will understand my English
Many thank to Joe Nicolosi for letting me use his awesome video
I renamed my compact flash cards after great thinkers of our history. With time (and new cards) other names will follow; Dante, Leonardo, Euler, van Gogh...
I could show you my last slideshow of photos from gymnastics world cup in Maribor (actually I'm doing it right now), but istead I'd much rather share with you my last talk from the conference in Olimje a week ago. The purpose was to present UMMI summer camps and our methods of working there, but in doing so also shine some light on the issues connected with giftedness and creativity, especially with children and youth.
Unfortunatelly for some of you, the talk is in Slovenian. If anyone is willing to make subtitles or translations I can provide source video file and the transcript in Slovenian. I lack time to do it myself. Those of you who understand it, thank you for watching and I'll be glad to recive some comments.
For the last two months I have been visiting Idrija on saturdays to teach perspective drawing and some basic graphic at their highschool. I must admit it was (and still is) a wonderful experience. People are very nice and the town is beautiful. Today I decided to stay a bit and hang around for there was some kind of eco-event going on (promoting recycling, green energy...) with demonstration of dog education program.
Some time ago I wrote about what resolution in media might be. Only later I remembered a xkcd comic in which the charachter contemplates how wide our options are and how we yet choose to live only a few of "day-types" over and over again. Imagine how it would be like if you could live every day anew, with different tasks and different people.
Something like that is happening to me last 10-14 days and it will go on for an other 5. I have no steady routine, each day is really something special. That is not to say it is spontaneous and improvised, on contrary, my activities are well planed, but still days are very different in comparison to eachother. And they are packed with work work work... From 7AM to 10PM. I could say that right this moment I live a very high-resolution life A lot of data in short amount of time.
One might think this is cool, and it is. But it is also very fatiguing. I learned that repetition is what keeps us fresh for the new stuff (to some extent). It quite hard to live like this for a longer period of time. I can't wait to slip back into a warm old daily routine. At least for a while, to get some mental rest.
So, what was I up to? I can give you a few things, there is lot's more, but I don't want to bore you
One of the things was a new creativity conference, organized by UMMI. It was really really cool. I opened the conference with a Keynote lecture of my own (video will follow), and then I was blown away by lectures of dr. Zadel, dr. Juriševič, Korado Korlevič and many others. This is me during the lecture (photo by Mojca Kukanja Gabrijelčič):
G33Ks might notice a familiar face on my t-shirt Moar photos.
This year I also went on Kras marathon for which I designed the main poster and some postcards. The postcards were designed with photos from Flickr via Creative Commons licence. It is soo cool to have that kind of colaboration across the world. This is a postcart for 4 events that will happen this year. Photos are contributed by Cobalt_sun, ((brian)), Randy Son Of Robert and Samo Onič, who is not on Flickr. The poster:
That is me with my design. Again - sharp geeky eyes might recognize bent corners on my number tag. This weekend Battlestar Galactica hit its final run and such an important event must be celebrated with every possible detail. I dedicated my 8.4 km run to this series finale. Moar photos!
So, as mentioned - Battlestar Galactica Series Finale happens only once in a lifetime, therefore it deserves a special party, full of geeks, pizzas (we even ordered one with BSG caption on it), computers and elaborated debates about things that exist only in our imagination(s). But it was great. I'm not giving you any spoilers though...
These past few weeks were really exciting. Beside graduating from college (not that I want to boast... but... woooohaaaa.. I'm a Jedi now ) I did a lot of other interesting stuff. There is a book design that goes to print on monday (an other one is on the way) and several educational projects as well. On top of that I did (and planned) a couple of photoshoots.
Tonight I work! I will make a presentational video for my masters work at Faculty of architecture. I figured it could be really easy to animate 3d stills of my project into a fancy flashy video. So I set up a small video studio in my room. Here's what I have for the night:
- one TV monitor for previews - one PC monitor for work (borrowed) - one video PC (borrowed) - one condensor mic for possible audio effects - one iMac for graphics and cool stuff - 750 GB of extra storage (that will not be used) - studio headphones - 0.5 L of fresh coffee (that will be very needed) - 0.5 L of fresh watter - a good chair - a lot of patience (not visible on the picture)
I am still alive and kicking In fact, I have so much work that I didn't have time to blog at all. The last four days I was on a trip to Côte d'Azur which was totally awesome! I will post more pics when I have time to process them, but for now this shall suffice.
Yesterday I came back from UMMI Summer Camp which was an incredible experience on so many different levels. I was responsible for the architectural workshop with 6 high-school students, who at the end presentet 3 excellent projects for the city of Ankaran. It is amazing how smart and creative they all are and I am so proud to be a little part of that process. Thank you guys for letting me work with you
"Vizita" is a traditional event in my town. Back in the days of Habsburg Monarchy young boys (of 18) had to serve about 7 years of army service (!!!) so they had to make a really big party before they went. That celebration was called "Vizita", even though the word vizita means the the physical examinaton at doctor's (the word might be related to english word "visit" or verb "visiting"). Military service was kept obligatory in all successive regimes [SHS or Italia (betwen WWI and WWII), and later on Yugoslavia (1945-1991) and even in independent Slovenia (1991 - present day)] so the tradition of vizita went on. But a couple of years ago, Slovenia discontinued obligatory service and the whole event came into question. Luckly enthusiasts from our local tourist bureau and others are keeping it alive just for the sake of tradition.
I remember my vizita from some years back. At that time we were still facing military service (unless you go to university, as I went) so there was a just a little bit more pressure for us. Today these boys don't have to go trough that. But the army, which is now professionalized takes the advantage of the event to promote their agenda and draft volunteers. Click for some pics below or visit the whole album.
If I only knew before that it is so easy and simple to make them...
Yes, they are very good. Much better than anything similar you can buy in the store. Not because I would be such a great chef but because industrial cuisine makes shitty food (why do you think it is so cheap?)!
Originally posted by Jeff Hawkins, On Intelligence, page 134:
To the cortex, our bodies are just part of the external world. Remember, the brain is in a quiet and dark box. It knows about the world only via the patterns on the sensory nerve fibers. From the brain's perspective as a pattern device, it doesn't know about your body any differently than it knows about the rest of the world. There isn't a special distinction between where your body ends and the rest of the world begins.
We can now draw at least two conclusions. Firstly, that would explain the dualism in religion about body and soul being separated. But I will not talk about that. Instead I'm interested in an other phenomenon. Perhaps there there is a degree by which you can separate the rest of the world from your body and the level of it depends on psyhological aspects of "skill". Maybe you are a skilled skier. Do skies feel like an object when you are "in the zone" skiing? I bet not! The same thing happens to me when I'm in the zone with my photo camera (Steve Taylor would say that my ego is in abeyance while by "inner game" model self1 would be in charge) I can no longer separate my camera from the rest of my body. It becomes a part of me. In the same fashion a conductor perceives his baton - just as an other part of his body. The more skilled you are, the more the object feels as a part of you. So perhaps very good pilots think of their airplanes just as a bigger body inside of which they slip to fly. And we all feel of our cars as a new and bigger body when we drive. If that is true, we can explain a series of things that occour in connection to cars:
- It can explain why people extend their ego to cars. Pimping cars is nothing else than bodybuilding with different means. - It can explain why it "hurts you" when a rock or something hits the car, - It can explain why people worry so much about scratches on their cars, - It can explain why people do all that nasty stuff inside their cars (like picking their nose). They are inside of the body, how could you see them?
"Maturantska parada" is a big event in Central Europe that started 7 years ago in Ljubljana (Slovenia) with an annual goal to break the world record in synchronised Quadrille dance that is traditionally danced by senior high-school students as a part of their official prom program (in Slovenia). And since there is exactly 4 years of our local high-school here in Ilirska Bistrica, it means that we have a first generation of our own senior students to dance. Our school joined this international event and contributed 42 dancers. They danced on the main city square where by pure chance was also a weekly fair going on, so there was a lot of people who watched it. The whole thing reminds me on how much fun it is to be 18 - just old enough to have everything legally and young enough to neglect all of the responsibility that goes with it. Being in senior high rocks!
) I did a lot of other interesting stuff. There is a book design that goes to print on monday (an other one is on the way) and several educational projects as well. On top of that I did (and planned) a couple of photoshoots.
I will make a presentational video for my masters work at Faculty of architecture. I figured it could be really easy to animate 3d stills of my project into a fancy flashy video. So I set up a small video studio in my room. Here's what I have for the night:
WIDGETIZE