Big show this week as Bill and Jeffery question what happens when it’s the process used to create the art that’s interesting, not the result. Also, where do we draw the line between photo manipulation and photo journalism? Plus, questions from the OTP Google+ community and listener-suggested Alec Soth is our Photographer of the Week.

Show Notes

“Ice Cream Cait” by Bill Wadman on Vimeo

The Pen Addict Podcast

Growing Concern that News Photos Are Being Excessively Manipulated – SPIEGEL ONLINE

Hansen’s World Press Winning Photo Not Fake… Just Unbelievable — BagNews

Photo Manipulation on the Fashion Pages – NYTimes.com

Google+ completely redesigned | The Verge

Yahoo revitalizes Flickr with huge images | The Verge

Just Start | Ed Dale’s Blog

Projekt 50 on Behance

This Week’s Sponsors

Shutterstock – Use code ‘PICTURES5‘ for 30% off.

Squarespace – Use the coupon code ‘OFFMYLAWN’ at checkout to save 10% on your order and get a free domain name.

Photographer of the Week

Alec Soth

Magnum Photos Photographer Portfolio

National Portrait Gallery | Feature Photography

Books

Ping-Pong Conversations: Alec Soth with Francesco Zanot

Ryan McGinley: Whistle for the Wind

Tim Walker: Story Teller

Special thanks to Cait Callahan and Everett Cox for whom this would not have been possible.

“Ice Cream Cait” Vimeo Link

and for the less sophisticated of you: “Ice Cream Cait” YouTube Link

Bill battles severe back pain to discuss whether or not people know good from bad and how Steven Soderbergh’s observations on the state of cinema may also reflect the state of art. We also wonder how we should go about judging our own growth. Plus, voracious street shooter, Garry Winogrand, is our Photographer of the Week.

Show Notes

Steven Soderbergh’s State Of Cinema Talk – Deadline.com

Video of Soderbergh’s Speech

A Final Embrace: The Most Haunting Photograph from Bangladesh – LightBox

Petition | Adobe Systems Incorporated: Eliminate the mandatory “creative cloud” subscription model.

Bleak Beauty

Ralph Gibson

This Week’s Sponsors

Shutterstock – Use code ‘PICTURES5‘ for 30% off.

Photographer of the Week

Garry Winogrand – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedi

Garry Winogrand, Who Retreated from Editing – NYTimes.com

Garry Winogrand: A look back at one of America’s most prolific photographers

Leica M4 Garry Winogrand

Garry Winogrand / Biography & Images – Atget Photography.com / Books

Larissa Archer: ‘We Have Not Loved Life’: Garry Winogrand at SFMOMA

Books

Garry Winogrand (SFMOMA)

Bill Brandt: Shadow and Light

Lee Friedlander The Nudes: A Second Look

Bill and Jeffery discuss why content is no longer king and how you should focus on making (read: doing) something that’s important to you. Adobe kills individual software licenses. Are they doing the right thing with the new Creative Cloud? Plus, “Tulsa” photographer Larry Clark is our Photographer of the Week.

This Week’s Sponsors
Squarespace - Use the coupon code ‘OFFMYLAWN’ at checkout to save 10% on your order and get a free domain name.

Aeron Chair Cylinder Replacement
A legal victory for ‘appropriation art’ – The Verge
“One For Love, One For Money”
Ron Mart NEC PA271w monitor review
Adobe Creative Cloud
On Taking Pictures – The Good and the Bad of Adobe Creative Cloud

Photographer of the Week
Larry Clark – Wikipedia
LarryClark.com
Tulsa Book Video Walkthrough

Books
Tulsa
Nan Goldin
You and I
David Armstrong: 615 Jefferson Avenue

As one would expect, there has been some outcry on the interwebs because of this policy change. I completely understand the change from Adobe’s point of view. Not only will it make their software more difficult to pirate, but it will also smooth out their revenue stream so they don’t get big bumps when a new version comes down, instead they get a little all the time. It also ensures that all the paying customers (and shouldn’t that be all of them in their mind?) have the latest and greatest version running. The end of compatibility problems. Just like Apple with the iPad, there is no Photoshop CS7, there is only Photoshop CC and you’ll have the latest.

Unless you are a student, or acted like you were one, Adobe software has always been expensive, the top end ‘Master Collection’ costs over two grand. So is $600 a year to get access to all of it really that much worse? For professionals who are buying the software every year anyway, then no. In many ways is makes it easier. Much like buying your apps on the Mac App store makes it easier to reinstall your software on a new machine. For them $600 to have access to all those apps is the cost of doing business, already baked in. I pay about $150 for each annual version of Lightroom alone (now included in the Creative Cloud). I could argue that I certainly use Photoshop and a few of the other apps enough to justify $1.65 a day. I spend more than that on egg sandwiches. And the apps are still best of breed and remain up to date. As a bonus, Adobe is trying to smooth over their customers by offering the first year for $29/mo for current Creative Suite users. There is also a $20/mo for students and teachers.

The real people who are going to lose our are the hobbyists. The serious amateur photographer who likes to buy Photoshop for $600 and then use it for 6 years on their G5 tower. Or the gal who uses only Photoshop. Now they’ll have to pony up and pay the $20/mo for the single app (you can buy them one at a time if you only use one or two). So $240 per year for Photoshop, which is more than the $199 every 18 months that current upgrades cost.

Personally as someone who has been around computers for 30 years, I don’t like the idea of software as a service. There’s something unsettling about it. I like buying a piece of software and knowing that I can install it and use it for years without paying the company another cent. It’s ‘mine’ even though I know it’s only a license.

I’ll admit that when I first read the news I had that ‘ut oh’ sinking feeling. However it’s a brave new world and I don’t think any amount of grumbling and shaking of fists is going to turn back the hands of time. Maybe I can use my current status as an SVA Thesis Advisor to sign up for the discount…

Heroes aren’t just for children, especially when you meet them in person. Art for art’s sake, rather than investment. Plus, listener emails and Vancouver street shooter, Fred Herzog as Photographer of the Week.

Show Notes

Paris Photo

How The Print Medium Matters – Dye Transfer

Google Map of Kodak Factories

Dan Carrillo: Daclotype on Vimeo

Canon EF 40mm f/2.8 STM Lens

This Week’s Sponsors

Shutterstock – Use code PICTURES4 for 30% off.

Photographer of the Week

Equinox Gallery Vancouver – Works by Fred Herzog

Fred Herzog’s Early Color Street Photographs

Books

Fred Herzog: Photographs (Douglas Coupland, Sarah Milroy)

Fred Herzog: Photographs (Claudia Gochmann)

Saul Leiter

This Sunday morning in Prospect Park here in Brooklyn, I want to do something similar. Except my version will be much more planned and polished. I’m thinking of adding cracks to the sidewalk, flashes of light, maybe a shockwave. Generally pimping it out as a fun little experiment in compositing.

What I need are people.  At least 12 or so, but the more the merrier. If everyone brings an extra jacket or hat we could probably multiply the group as well.

The plan is to meet this Sunday at 10AM at the bandshell off of Prospect Park West and 9th street. There’s a large expanse of concrete and even an option for me to get up above the action.

We will meet right about here (Google Maps Link)

Should be pretty fast. I think 20 minutes, half hour tops. And you can be part of making some fun art.

Again, the more people who come, the cooler it’ll look, so join us and tell your friends. If you’re thinking of coming, please send me a quick note to bill@billwadman.com so I can get some idea of what number I’ll have to work with.

Who’s with me?!

Think about it, once you get home with the pictures you’ve taken, you copy them over to your computer and then start making decisions. Exposure, contrast, color, you know, all the important stuff that determines what your images will look like in their final form. Unfortunately, most people view their monitor as an afterthought even though they’ll spend far more time with their photographs in front of their computer than they did with a camera in their hand. It’s the modern day darkroom and should be treated with the same commiserate reverence. So where do we start?

Modern day monitors are LCD

Let’s get a few things straight. Nowadays everyone is using LCD monitors. I’m sure if you go searching around the internet you’ll find some article written in 2002 by some guy in a basement who refuses to give up his Sony Artisan CRT (in fact here’s one now), but that time has come to a close. Even within the field of LCDs, there are a number of factors to consider.

Size

The first thing people notice about a monitor is its size and resolution. If you’re serious about photography, don’t bother with anything under 24″ (or maybe 22″ if it’s that fancy Eizo 221) at 1920×1080 resolution. Personally, I find even that size cramped and would recommend a 27″ at 2560×1400 or a 30″ at 2560×1600 (That’s what I currently use). More pixels means that you get to see more of your images in your library or more of the image you’re currently working on in Photoshop. Plus, who doesn’t want more room for palettes. Some people are fans of dual monitor setup, with either their library grid or palettes on the second screen, but I find the break between the two distracting. I’d much rather have a single larger display than two smaller ones, but that is a matter of personal preference.

Panel Type

Unfortunately for you, not all monitors of the same size and resolution are created equal. There are two main types of LCD, TN (Twisted Nematic) and IPS (In-Plane Switching). They’re two different technologies to control the color of the pixels in the display. I won’t go into the guts of the differences here (that’s what wikipedia is for). What you need to take away are these two basic rules: TN = bad for photography, IPS = good for photography.

Now there are certainly exceptions to this, but as this is a primer and not a book, just trust me on this. IPS displays are far less washed out when you’re looking at the screen from an angle, they also tend to be more true and accurate when it comes to color reproduction. They also tend to use IPS panels in displays with better backlighting and fancy calibration tools. So if you’re serious about this stuff, invest in an a good IPS display. IPS panels also tend to have much larger color gamut (that is, they can display a larger range of colors). Some even come close to covering the whole AdobeRGB color space, which is pretty huge.

This is probably a good time to point out that almost all laptop screens up until recently were TN panels. Both because they were cheaper and because they don’t require as bright or power hungry backlight. Exceptions to this are the new Apple Retina Macbook Pros, the Thinkpad x220, and a few Acer models that I’ve seen. This is all to say that if you’ve only ever edited your pictures on a 4 year old white Macbook with an unprofiled screen, then you really have no idea what your pictures actually look like. Imagine trying to color correct while wearing rose-colored sunglasses.  Speaking of calibration…

Calibration and Profiling

Whatever monitor you end up getting, it will likely not be very accurate out of the box. At the very least get yourself one of those puck kits like a Color Munki or i1 Display Pro. Here’s how they work: The software displays a series of color patches on the screen while the colorimeter or ‘puck’ sits on the screen and measures the color.  Since the computer now knows both what color was supposed to display and what color DID display, it can create a curve to compensate for the error. It creates what’s called an ICC profile which is just a file that the operating system uses to translate and ensure that what the computer is asking for gets shown on the screen accurately.  This is the bare minimum when it comes to color accuracy.

The next step up are monitors with what are called Internal LUTs which stands for Look Up Tables. Basically it does a similar translation as the ICC profiles, but it does it in the monitor itself at a much higher degree of accuracy and independent of the computer it’s connected to. All of this is a good thing. Monitors with internal LUTs tend to be much more expensive, heavy, and geared toward pros, but man are they worth it if you can afford it.

The Future

Part of the problem with buying an expensive monitor is the worry that what you buy will be obsolete within a year or two.  Good LCDs have been consistant for the past few years, the latest models just minor upgrades from the previous, but there are some things on the horizon.  Top level screens still tend to use CFL backlights, that is, old-school florescent bulbs. Many cheaper screens now use LED backlights which tend to be more consistant over their life-time, use a lot less power, lead to thinner screens, and turn on almost instantaneously as there is no warm up period. For some reason however the high-end screens still use CFL. I’m sure there’s a good technical reason relating to color gamut, but keep an eye out for that.

Another thing that’s coming down the line is 10bit per channel color. More bits means less dithering between colors in gradients and such. Some screens can do this today via displayport, but only a few high-end workstation video cards will output 10bit, and as far as I have found in my research, only on Windows at the moment. Personally I’d love to have it, but I’m not going to spend $1000 on a workstation graphics card that’s slower than a $200 gaming card just to get it. They should really enable 10bit color channels on all video cards at this point.

Then there is resolution. 30″ displays have been at 2560×1600 since the Apple 30″ Cinema Display came out in 2004. With all this High-DPI ‘retina’ screen talk on mobile and laptop devices, it’s only a matter of time until desktop screens fly up to higher resolution. 4096px or 4k most likely. Whether this will happen in the next year or two is anyone’s guess. I have heard that making panels at 30″ with that many pixels is still really difficult. The manufacturers are getting very low yields (the percentage of screens that are defect free) at the moment. But again, only a matter of time.

Advice

So let’s say that you’ve been listening all this time and are interesting in upping your game. Here are a few recommendations. One thing to keep in mind is that while there are screens from 50 different manufacturers, the actual panels inside them are only made by a handful of companies. LG and Samsung alone hold over half of the total LCD panel marketshare. The differences between manufacturers and models are in the backlight systems, input circuitry, etc. Imagine the same engine in a VW Jetta and an Audi A4 Quattro. Same motor, very different car.

If you have a decent screen and can’t spend any money at all, but find that the prints coming out of your printer are way too dark, then your screen’s brightness is too high. Pull that brightness down and you’ll be more accurate, save yourself some money on electricity, and save your eyesight.

If you’ve got a decent screen and are not getting great results out of the box, buy yourself a colorimeter kit and profile that puppy up. This is bare minimum if you’re serious about seeing your images as they actually are. I’m personally a fan of the xRite products like these:

Xrite i1Display Pro

ColorMunki Display

If you’re coming from nothing and want to spend less than $1000, get yourself a quality IPS screen and a decent profile system. A lot of people really like the Dell Ultrasharp series of monitors. The main problem with Dell monitors seems to be that they’re WAY too bright when they come from the factory, but once you pull the brightness down they tune right up. These links are from Amazon, but keep an eye out for big sales at Dell.com. Be sure to profile with a colorimeter like the the ones listed above.

24″ Dell Ultrasharp U2410

27″ Dell Ultrasharp U2711

Some Cupertino diehards are going to demand an Apple Display. That’s too bad, because while they’re very pretty, they’re overpriced for the performance they deliver. Same panel as the Dell above for almost twice the cost, and that’s before Dell’s frequent sales. Also, many people dislike glossy displays. While blacks can tend to look more black and things are arguably a bit sharper, reflections can be a really serious problem and make it difficult at times to judge what’s really there on the screen. Again, be sure to profile with a colorimeter like the the ones listed above.

27″ Apple Thunderbolt Display

If you’re really serious and want to buy the monitor that’ll last you for years there are really only two choices. NEC or Eizo. Eizo are more expensive and cooler looking, but quality for quality they’re both in the same ballpark. These three monitors include their own calibration systems.

24″ NEC PA241w Spectraview

27″ NEC PA271 Spectraview

30″ NEC PA201w Spectraview

27″ Eizo ColorEdge CG276

Conclusion

Now some people will say, “What? You must be out of your damn mind if you think I’m going to spend $1000+ on my monitor!” Well that’s just fine, but think about how much you’ve spent on your camera. My $2000 30″ NEC that I bought 4 years ago has seen the coming and going of 4 camera bodies which cost about $12,000. Think of it as an investment in a great pair of glasses that let you read accurately and without strain. I’ve never heard of someone having buyers remorse after upgrading their screen.

Here’s the result. Click to see the bigger file.

With the CamRanger, you can remotely control your Canon or Nikon DSLR as if it were in your hands. At its heart, it’s a mobile wifi hotspot with custom firmware, but it’s that firmware which makes all kinds of exciting things possible. Once you’ve got the free sister app installed on your iOS device, you can fire the shutter, change settings like shutter speed/aperture/iso/mode/etc., all from a great distance away from your camera. Not only that, but you can use live view to see what the camera sees and even tap on the live view image to focus, just like it was the camera on your phone!

What’s happening here is that the pack of cards-sized CanRanger box plugs into your camera via USB. You then connect your iOS device to the CamRanger’s own WiFi Network. The network is protected by a password printed on the back of the unit. Personally, I think it could do without this feature,  or just use the password ‘camranger’ or something. I can’t imagine too many situations where people are going to be trying to hack into your camera, but maybe I’m too trusting. Once the network is set up, just open the app on your phone and it takes control of the camera. In the past I’ve used both the Canon software and Lightroom to tether my camera, and I’ve always had a hard time getting it connected without locking up (both my 5D2, 5D3, and 1Ds3). It typically takes a few tries. I’ve had none of these problems with the CamRanger. Somehow it’s a more solid connection than Canon’s own software.

So why would you want this? Well, I can think of a few scenarios. You can use it in a ‘client’ mode, so that as you snap away on your camera the pictures you take show up on the screen for immediate client review (personally my nightmare situation, but I know people who do it). If you are a landscape photographer, you could control the camera from the superior screen of your retina iPad to compose the shot, zoom in and check focus, and review. Personally, it doesn’t do much for me as a one-on-one portrait photographer, but it was VERY handy when I recently shot a bunch of my friends making snow angels in Prospect Park. I had the camera at the end of an extended tripod, cantilevered over the subjects with a wide-angle lens. Using the CamRanger (taped the the legs of the tripod), I was able to compose and shoot using live view from my iPhone. It worked perfectly and I’ll have to admit, it was pretty cool. Additionally, the software shows you a live histogram, has a built-in intervalometer, and will even program HDR image sequences when the camera is in Manual mode. The CamRanger does everything you could expect of it and does it well.

That’s a lot of ‘pros’, so what about the ‘cons’? I can only think of a few. First,  it has its own battery, so that is yet another thing to remember to charge. I know this is somewhat unfair because the thing has to power itself, but it did cross my mind. I never had the battery run out while I was using it, and my guess is that it lasts awhile, hours at least. Second, and more importantly is that there’s nowhere to put it when it’s connected. You’ve got this little box pig-tailed off your camera.  I would suggest  that they create a hotshoe mount for it, but then how would you trigger strobes? You might be able to figure out a way to mount it on the tripod socket, but sitting your camera down on top of an expensive plastic box doesn’t sound like a good idea. So that’s another problem. Next, there is the subject of cost: $299. Not crazy expensive, and if it fills a need you have, it’s downright reasonable. That said, it’s not at the price point where you’d buy it to have around just in case you need it. Lastly, the app, while fairly responsive and easy to understand, could benefit from a makeover by a talented designer. Right now it looks like it was designed by engineers (no offense to engineers), which is fine by me, but generally folks like slick-looking things.

So to wrap up, the CamRanger is a wonderful little piece of tech. While it isn’t cheap, it delivers as promised with little hassle once you get your head wrapped around how to get all the pieces talking to each other. For those of you out there who need to remote control your camera, I highly suggest you consider adding this to your kit.

Note: Dave at CamRanger was nice enough to send me a loaner unit to review.

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