Electric car

This Toyota Celica is not what it seems, as it has been converted to electric A/C propulsion with regenerative braking. Another outstanding project by Peter Sewell. www.steamlaunch.co.nz

Night watch Blue Coffee Mug from Zazzle.com

Do check out my funky online gifts for Fathers Day or the Sailor in your life.

Here's my latest addition to the range of cards mugs and Tee's in my store.

Night watch Blue Coffee Mug from Zazzle.com

Where will the oil go?

These images show that this catastrophe is in effect contained and therefore potentially disastrous to all the shorelines in the Gulf of Mexico, and the approaching Hurricane season will soon be the potentially the predominant force at play.

The leak must be stopped.!

S.O.S Save our Seas BP 's oil slick from space.

Mayday Mayday Mayday ! What May day ?

The emergency call that rang out, said that there was a diminishing head count of P.O.B.'s , in this case it was `Photographers on Board' .The question is, should that be a Securitae Securitae, Pan Pan, or a genuine Mayday ?

Well this May day, the 25th /2010 with the overheated and shifting market for images proving elusive even to the young and savvy and baffling to the established players, the question is a fair one.

The digital democratisation of photography, global dominance of the image stock market by Getty and Corbus, the proliferation of micro stock and royalty free imagery, has started to severely impact the established model and methodology of making a living as a professional photographer.

Litmus tests that I have logged, have seen package image deals from these major players dominate local editorial content, the news that Getty were trawling Flickr for stock really sounded the beat of the new drum to me.

Local specialist photographic magazines stopping print, photographic blog list owners abdicating with notice of their new ways of finding income, and every tertiary institution turning out a flood of talented media smart players into a traditional market model that is wallowing in uncertainty and direction but exploding with potential.

The Digital Democrotisation of Photography -TDDOP- what does that mean?, well in my view its the `Kodak Moment' reincarnate, but on a level that challenges the void that separated the snapshot album from the professional's portfolio.

Powerful digital capture powered by increasingly intuitive and customizable software is putting high end photographic imaging into the hands of tyros, bringing into question rightly or wrongly the place of trained skilled photographic practitioners in the market place. Or Does it ? Certainly in this period of transition it is being challenged and championed by our graduates entering and revolutionizing the face of visual media.

Questions to ask.

Does the ubiquitous plethora of visual imagery that surounds us, devalue its punctum (impact) ?

Are we therefore, less critical of established quality judgements over raw input and processing, within accelerated and compressed attention spans ? .

Is this shifting attention span no longer devoted to lingering over and devolving the still image's message?

How can this medium compete on paper against the multi layered digital platform.

By this I mean, are we using and interpreting visual (still) imagery as devalued currency in a changed digital environment.

Consider the merge of HD video capable still slrs , utube, phone cams, web app's and 3d TV into our visual indexing of instantaneous world events via the web. Print news media have been sending photojournalists out with HD video and frame grabbing the front page for some time in the US and beyond.

Media rich web content and fluid transfer of this multimedia across the digital landscape will redefine the palette and interpretation of the creative output as we knew it.

I say knew as apposed to know it , because photographic imaging has come out of an unusually stable period of capture on silver emulsion on a flexible acetate backing and liquid chemistry, defining its presence from a previously relentlessly shifting platform of support capture and stabilisation.

So what separates this shift to pixels and software in its evolution as a visual medium ?

Automation,flexibility, cost, image manipulation and the ability to contain the full process to a common home user platform. This combined with high speed transmission and access by a huge audience in cyberspace have been the defining shifts.

That describes the process and environment, what then of the content and values apportioned to this capture medium and its status in commercial and fine arts contexts ?

Does the content receive less kudos amid these quicksands of perception ?

Or are fashion style, and period the only immutable signposts to reinterpret.

Institutions are faced with the shift in allocating facilities , with the purpose built infrastructure of wet darkrooms competing for space with vastly more flexible digital workstations. Some that were scraped early have been partially reinstated, and decisions on preserving elements of surviving facilities are being hotly debated.

The ability to cross platform so many references to traditional media digitally has seen a shift in boundary's within established art practice. Not surprisingly this has been debated and defended by traditional practitioners.

An overview of process and familiar context, point toward the preservation of the silver gelatin process within the stable of Print, already hosting a catalogue of historic and signature processes that have remained active within the larger print family, and so perhaps will the silver gelatin photographic process be adopted into its fold for its distinguishing qualities.

Indeed recent trends have seen a return to retro processes, perhaps as a reaction to the perceived homogenous nature of binary digital representation.

The question remains , will there be sufficient demand to send bulldozers out and trucks to deliver raw materials to dedicated mechanized plants devoted to the `old' process. Economic indications are not favourable.

So then, what of the business captured through the viewfinders rectangle.

Well if it's to be the message, not the medium then truly its the concern of the most flexible and powerful tool in our arsenal .

Ultimately its `the two inches behind the viewfinder' that all before is manipulated ,interacted with and diminished by.

The challenge at hand is the adaptation and application of excellence to the emerging creative palette and the transmission of concept emotion and authenticity that will define the road forward.

Some things simply don't change.