Memory / Vintage

time

Creating a sense of space in a photograph constructs an environment in which your viewers can spend time. Once you have this, you have the potential to present evidence of past events in this location. Or the possibility of future events can be hinted at. Or even the absence of time, aka timelessness, can be the point. In this way nothingness can be something. [refer to Zen Philosophy]

In all of these instances we are using time as the main variable. Time stretches in both directions. Time in the past resides in our memory. Future time is in our dreams and imagination. Timelessness can be a strong emotional state if one feels suspended in it.

The Vintage Effect in photography is becoming very popular with Smartphone and Lomography photographers. But first we must understand the meaning of the word vintage. 

Some definitions of the word Vintage include:

• representing the high quality of a past time; classic: e.g. vintage movies.

• of, imitating, or being a style or fashion of the past; retro: e.g. vintage clothing.

• old-fashioned or obsolete.

• too old to be considered modern, but not old enough to be considered antique.

memory

The word has both good and bad connotations, but since this all has to do with images from the past, it all has to do with memory. When organizing the content in your photos you have to think about how we remember things, places, events, people, etc.

It is also said that we only remember the good sides of things. Then maybe vintage implies some kind of positive emotional attitude. But there are also nightmares – bad memories. You could follow this course of thought as well in making photographs.

For example, I had a student who went back to the sites where significant and usually traumatic things happened in her life. Then she shot self-portraits there. Another student went back to her high school steps and superimposed a current self-portrait over a shot her friends had taken before they graduated. Each photograph was made translucent (by lowering the opacity of each image) so neither really seem ‘real’.

 Another way to create translucent people is to shoot with a long shutter speed and have the subject person move, or stand still for half the exposure time and then move quickly. There are smart phone apps available they will control your shutter speed to make long exposures possible. But that is another topic for the next round...

legacy

In the photographic world, vintage is often used to refer to photographs shot on film that are usually at least 20 years old so the prints are now fading and the colors have shifted. One variation of the vintage look is the Instant Film look a.k.a. Polaroid. These prints also have their own peculiar color balance and the color of these prints shifts through time in a different direction from that of conventional film. Another variation is a technique known as cross-processing. This is when positive color film (for slides) is developed in the chemicals for negative film (for prints), and vice versa. Other photographers have found old film that has been damaged and have made prints from these negatives. I had a student who would boil her film and then freeze it, producing a 'damaged' or broken look. This gets into the territory of ‘marks made from process’, aka intuitive, or improvisational, or unintentional, all of which are part of another conversation that we will get back to...

The key point in all of these examples is that the colors are not “normal”. There is a precedent in the amount and direction of the color shifting because all this came from chemical film processes. In digital photography we often try to emulate chemical processes. After all, this is our legacy. This is where the vocabulary of photography comes from. Digital technology now gives us the power to push things a little bit further and in directions that were not previously possible. But you have to be careful. If you push things just enough, you get really interesting looking photographs because they are within the realm of believability. If you push it too far you get photos that just look weird or worse, fake, aka unbelievable.

vintage / retro

We return to the question: What is the vintage look and why would one want to use it? If you answered, "Because it looks cool.", then you are missing the point. Vintage means photographs that look old. What are the attributes of old photographs other than the technical described above? Well, the colors are faded, the edges are bent, the saturation is reduced, the details are unclear, and so on. How do these attributes line up with potential content? The form of any piece must reflect or support the content. So if you are making photos that deal with the past, then you should have a specific memory or type of memory of a kind of situation in mind when shooting. If you're making photographs about faded memories where the details are less clear, and the feeling has gotten softer and fuzzier, then maybe the vintage style supports this content.

You should go through the list of fx that are attainable with various Smartphone apps and experiment with them to see what visual modifications they produce. When you have some of that under your belt, just stop and think about what photographic content would be best be expressed using these appearances. Then make those photographs. And you may not be able to just walk around and wait for the world to hand you photographs. You may have to make them happen. 

Remember to share your experiments with your classmates. Please let the class know early if you find any other apps that work well. Share any discoveries and how you have used these tools by posting entries to the Smartphone Recipes blog site. 

Vintage/ Retro fx APPS

There are so many apps available and each has sometimes thousands of fx and presets possible. It is very easy to see that this is where things get out of hand. It is impossible to write a tutorial on his. In order to give you a head start however, here are some lists of the fx available with several very good Camera Apps: SnapSeed (by NIK), Photo fx (by Tiffen), and Vignette. Each app has a tutorial section built into it and a web site to accompany it. You should run through those first, and then start playing.

APPS of choice:

SnapSeed (Apple + Android)

By Nik Software, Inc., respected maker of computer photo filter fx software

home site: https://support.google.com/snapseed/

for instructions, video tutorials, etc.

• Black & White: neutral, contrast, bright, dark, film, darkened sky

• Vintage: 

• Drama:

• Grunge:

• Center Focus:

• Tilt-Sift:

• Retroflex: 

• Frames: 

This app retains the full resolution of the camera and does not reduce file size!

Photo fx (Apple)

by Tiffen, Inc,. respected maker of optical camera filters.

home site: http://www.tiffensoftware.com/products/iphone-ipad-apps/photo-vex

and there is a tutorial page in a drop-down menu

http://www.tiffensoftware.com/tutorials/photo-fx-tutorials

In Photo fx, you can choose from 76 filters containing 878 presets organized in 8 different filter groups. 

Some of the filters in their respective categories are:

• Film Lab: Bleach Bypass, Cross Processing, Faux Film, Grain, Three Strip, Two Strip

• Diffusion: Black Diffusion, Black Pro–Mist, Bronze Glimmer–Glass, Center Spot, Cool Pro–Mist, Diffusion, Glimmer Glass, Gold Diffusion/FX, HDTV/FX

• Grads/Tints: 812 Warming, Color Spot, Color-Grad, Dual Grad, Mono Tint, ND–Grad, Nude/FX, Old Photo, Strip Grad

• Image: Black & White, Fluorescent, Haze, Levels, Sharpen, Sky, Temperature

• More: Close-Up Lens, Depth of Field, Vignette, Wide Angle Lens

This app retains the full resolution of the camera and does not reduce file size!

Vignette (Android)

Vignette is also a full-featured camera application, featuring digital zoom, time-lapse, self-timer and more. It has more than 70 customizable filters and 50 frames useable in any combination to create many photo effects. 

Examples: http://vignette.neilandtheresa.co.uk/filter-examples

 • Retro/Vintage styles
• LOMO/Diana/Holga toy camera styles
• Instant camera styles
• Cross-process, duotone, charcoal, tilt-shift and much more
• Photo-booth and double-exposure
• New: Touch to focus
• New: Share your personalized saved effects with other Vignette users
• Take pictures at your camera’s full resolution, even with effect (paid version only)
• Use the flash and front-facing cameras on most devices
• Self-timer, time-lapse and steady-shot modes
• Digital 10× zoom
• New: 21× optical zoom on Samsung Galaxy Camera EK-GC100
• Store location data in pictures (geotag)
• Use the volume rocker as a shutter button
• Edit imported photos
• On-screen controls for exposure, zoom, flash and switching camera
• Launch from the lock screen in Android 4.0+
• Remote shutter with Bluetooth remote, wired headset or Sony Ericsson LiveView
• Time- and date-stamp pictures with adjustable size, color and format
• Rule-of-thirds and golden ratio composition guides
• Optimized for taking pictures underwater
• Share pictures via third-party apps

 The paid version of this app retains the full resolution of the camera and does not reduce file size!

Some other possibilities:

Vintage Camera: (has only 1 camera, 20 effect presets, no post-processing one saved, saves at 1280 x 1280.)

Retro Camera Plus: has 6 cameras, but saves at only 512 square

XnViewFx: a reasonable number of fx, including retro, color and texture, etc.. Allows saving presets. Saves at full resolution.

Photo Toaster: reasonable collection of modifiers but no radical style or retro fx. Good for subtle, tasteful photos. Saves at full resolution. 

Camera 360 Ultimate: also has a reasonable collection of adjustments, fx, and borders. Saves at full resolution.

You also have to keep track of what you're doing. It is easy to start working intuitively until you get just the look you want. Then you realize that you have no idea how you made it. This is part of the craftsmanship that we are seeking. We need to know how to duplicate specific looks. This is what the photo recipes all about - knowing how to do what we want to do, knowing how to repeat it, and then sharing this knowledge with others.

Some apps keep track of what you've done and allow us to save those fx actions as a preset. If you have that available you can apply a similar effect to other photographs to retain consistency within a series of shots. You can then create a recipe from these presets.

Passive / Active Shooting

Photographs of things are not really that interesting. Photos that just show the appearance of things are passive. They ask you to look at the subject and say, “That looks cool.” But they say nothing of how the photographer thinks or feels about the subject. Therefore they are passive and objective. 

What is interesting are photos of the photographer looking at something. This means photos that show an interaction with the subject- photos that could only have been made because the photographer looked at something in a certain specific way. These photos are active. They reveal something about the photographer, not just the subject in the photographic frame. i.e. they are subjective, not just an objective observance of things in the world- not just mere descriptions of appearance.

This is sometimes known as ‘point of view’. There are several ‘tools’ to achieve this.

            [proximity] It can be approached in a visual way by getting close to your subject, to shoot in a way that fragments the subject, making a painting of its form. This is a unique viewpoint.

            [angle of view] A similar method is to shoot from an unorthodox angle of view, again presenting your subject with a unique viewpoint.

These terms can also be considered in an emotional or intellectual framework, extending beyond the physical/ visual aspects of the photos . Proximity can be how closely related the photographer is to their subject. Angle of view can be the sociological or political attitude of the photographer.

Other ways of achieving this are to use strategies that are unique to your personal vision, such as shooting through obstacles, or waiting for people to pass through a scene that you have structured to have a compelling geometrical sense (see Cartier-Bresson). [obfuscation / previsualization] (see also, Minor White, Ansel Adams)

That is the bottom line of looking at photographs anyway. It is not to appreciate the things in the pictures. It is about finding some person (photographer or photo-artist) who sees the world in a way that is similar to how you see things. Then, when you find this person through some of their photographic inquiries, you become intrigued enough to go out and find out even more about what they do, and how they do it, and maybe most importantly, why they do it. At this point you realize that you share some portion of their life. This is called interaction and is the result of communication.

RESONANCE

The recognition that some artist shares some sensibility of the world with you is called resonance. This means that the sphere of their life’s experience overlaps your experiential identity. This overlap is where your personal energy and theirs vibrate at the same frequency. [collective unconscious] (see Carl Yung)

After you become familiar with that photo-artist and their work, you carry their images around inside you, You absorb them into your sphere of experience. This means their work has changed your life. When a photo-artist can create a resonance and change the lives of their viewers, then they have achieved success. 

Exhibition Prints for Smartphone Photos

Since we are part of the Tyler Photo community we need to exhibit our photographs in the Tyler Photo Gallery. The optimum way to exhibit Smartphone photographs would be to hang 20 smartphones on the wall. Unfortunately, we do not have the resources to do this.

The next logical option is to hang some prints. This seems sort of counterintuitive, however, since this class is about smartphone photographs that are meant to be shared with other smartphones and on the web. Putting them on paper doesn't seem quite right. But we still have to show this work somehow so the rest of the photo people know what we are doing. 

[The original idea was to make small prints on paper in a traditional format. But even then, resolution becomes an issue. Screen resolution is only 72 pixels per inch. That is very low. Printed images are 300 pixels per inch. That is more than four times larger. To put even a 4" x 6" photo on paper you need to have a resolution something like 1200 by 1600 pixels. That is bigger than many of the smartphone photos, especially after they have been processed by various apps that tend to reduce resolution.]

Here’s the plan for making something that is in between: 

We will print pictures of your phones displaying your photographs on the screen at exactly life size. 

The problem with doing this is that we cannot just scan our phones. There are a couple of reasons for this. When scanning a phone that is not brand new, every nick and scratch shows up. This is not optimum. Plus, the scanner cannot capture both the body of the phone and the picture on the screen at the same time. Scanners work differently for scanning flat objects (reflective) vs. scanning backlit film (transmissive, equivalent to scanning a back-lit screen). 

The solution is to take each person's POW photograph and superimpose it on a product shot of the actual phone that was used to make it, and then print that image on paper at exactly life-size. We will use a metallic-base paper that will give it a sheen like the glass front of the phone. This way it will be clear where these images are coming from, how they are made, and even why they look the way they look. 

The other benefit is that the resolution only needs to be the size of the picture on the screen of the phone. (The phone shot needs to be about 500 x 960 pixels, depending on model, and the photo image is about 400 x 600 depending on the phone model and the aspect ratio of the final photo. The body of the phone of like a black border that we are used to seeing on traditional darkroom prints, just in a completely new and different way.  

MAKING SMARTPHONE PRINTS

Here is a recipe on how to overlay your photo onto a product shot of your phone in Photoshop. Watch the video tutorial for more detailed instructions. [posted at the end] 

go online and find a product shot of your exact phone

find a good clean, flat, straight-on shot, not on any angle, 

against a white background. 

if there is a little cast shadow at the bottom, that is okay

the shot needs to be is large enough so it can be resized down to exactly life-size 

this means look for pictures that are at least 500 x 900 pixels

 

resize the smartphone picture to exactly life-size

use image> image size [cmd] [opt] i

set the resolution to 300 ppi (or at least 200 pip if the source image is small)

you have to know the real size of the phone, 

either by measuring it or looking up the specs online

set the width of the phone to match the actual width of the phone

save this file with a new name 

use file> save as... [cmd] [shft]  s

save in the tiff format with lzw compression, macintosh byte order

give it a new name like: phone_Master.tiff

resize your POW photo to match the size of the window in the phone picture

measure using the ruler tool

the narrow dimension is the most important

use image> image size [cmd] [opt] i

set the picture size to match the smaller dimension of the screen are as measured

add padding to the POW photo

if the photo has been cropped or resized by a phone app 

it may not be the same size as the phone window

use image> canvas size to add black space to the photo

save this file with a new name 

use file> save as... [cmd] [shft]  s

save in the tiff format with lzw compression, macintosh byte order

give it a new name like: your_name_C1_Phone.tiff

overlay your POW photo into the window of the phone shot

use the move tool on the toolbox [v]

drag the POW photo on top of the picture of the phone

the photo will appear on its own layer

align the two photos

save the composite photo again

use the same tiff options

upload the finished photo to OWLbox

there will be a folder, e.g. phone pix - crit 1 

When it is time to prepare the Exhibition Photo for the next crit, you can rescale and pad the new photo and drag that on top of this same Master file. You will end up with a separate layer for each critique photo. These can be individually turned on and off allowing you to print just the newest crit picture. This will leave you with one single file that will have all of your critique photos on it.