First responder Francis from Hammonton Downtown Trick or Treat 2010
Past future cities, an empty circuit board land: Google Earth photos of Florida housing bust
The Shrine Down the Hall: a look at some of the bedrooms America’s war dead left behind. Link.
The PPA announced winners for the their photography contest. I didn’t win, but I was beaten out by some great pictures. Below are some, follow the link for all. My Quaker peeps should know that Jaime Cromartie is a member of Atlantic City Area meeting, so at least one of the family made it!
There is a Flickr group for “beater eaters,” how cool is that? I love the internet, I really do. A picture Julie took of Theo is the newest entry, thanks to an invitation from the Admin!
Shawn Rocco, the “Cellphone guy,” in the NYTimes:
Shawn Rocco, 37, is a professional photographer. He shoots a Motorola E815. Yes, that’s a cellphone. Not when he’s actually on assignment for The News & Observer in Raleigh, N.C., where he has worked full time since 2002, but in those situations when he doesn’t mind ceding some control to a medium that is idiosyncratic — to say the least — in exchange for the happy prize of serendipity; the image that doesn’t quite emerge as he planned and is therefore all that more meaningful.
Shawn’s blog is at “cellular obscura” and has funny commentary along with the photos. In the article he compares cell phones to Polaroids: “Wih Polaroid, it wasn’t a crapshoot, but you left a lot of things in the hands of the chemistry.” As a former Polaroid user myself, I love that. I’m currently using a six year old camera I had formerly given up for dead and it still takes some stunning pictures (I love this spring’s Atsion series).
Burnished Polaroids around Philly circa 1996: The New York Times is asking for reader’s old Polaroids. Thankfully Archive.org does a good job of keeping my old personal websites accessible and here are some burnished Polaroids from the late 1990s. From left to right:
The technique (written around 1998): This is a style of photography I got into a few years ago. It’s appeal is simple: it takes little technical expertise and the process itself is limited in time. Everything boils down to basic form: a successful photo depends on setting up a good shot and then bringing it’s potential out in the burnishing.
Anyone who used Polaroids as a kid will remember the wait. When the film comes out of the camera, it’s still black. Within a few minutes a ghost of the photo begins to appear, a image which is fleshed out in about ten minutes time. During this time, the photo is developing inside of it’s plastic casing. If you press hard on the plastic before the photo comes out, all sorts of effects can be achieved. Depending on the pressure and temperature, you can get colors to bend, scratches to streak across the photo, etc. If done well, the burnishing can take on the effect of brush strokes and create an impressionististic photograph.
A Flickr user name Oceanpeg just left a comment on one of my recent pictures to let me know that the Pinelands Preservation Alliance is holding a photo contest! I’m a big fan of the PPA and try to get to a few of their events every year but didn’t see this in part because the announcement is only a PDF on their site. Here’s the relevant information about the contest, download the PDF for full rules. The three pictures here are the ones I just submitted.
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Pinelands Preservations Alliance (PPA) is the only non-profit organization whose sole mission is to preserve and protect the natural resources of the New Jersey Pinelands. PPA is 20 years old this year and you can help us celebrate!
Have you ever paddled your way through cedar-colored water, hunted or fished, hiked on sugar sand, helped clean up the woods, waters or roadways, in the Pine Barrens? If so you probably have captured these moments in a photograph. We want you to enter them in our 20th Anniversary Pinelands Photo Contest.
Who can enter?
What to enter:
One photograph, taken within the last two years, in any or all, of the categories below:
How to enter:
You can submit photos from May 15th to June 15th.
Get the full rules in this two-page contest PDF flyer and find out more about the good work of the Pinelands Preservation Alliance through their website.
Tiltshifing works best in hilly areas where you can get up high and get a rolling landscape with good foreground and background. Which is to say it’s damn hard to find something interesting to shoot in South Jersey.
Nonetheless, here’s my favorite picture so far, of a mill race in the long-abandoned Ninteenth Century Weymouth factory. Note this was made with Tiltshiftmaker website, not with this new Adobe Air App, which I’m just trying out now. Via Lifehacker.
