Larger than Life
It isn’t often that I blow up a macro shot to be 52 inches (1,321 mm) high, and a simple monarch butterfly becomes that much larger than life. In this case, a client requested this image as part of a larger layout scheme for a upcoming install at the St. John’s medical center in St. Louis.
In some ways, the subject becomes somewhat surreal since it is so much larger than you are exposed to in reality. This seems like a contrast to viewing a grand landscape print that always seems to pale in comparison to being there. It made me think about how there probably isn’t a kid in the world who hasn’t wanted to ride on the back of a butterfly.
As far as some details about this print, the exposure was actually some time ago, way back in 1997, so the original was from 35mm film (Velvia 50). Since I don’t have the capability to print this large myself, it needed to be outsourced. However the file I sent was fully preflighted (already sized and color adjusted). I will use Alien Skin Blow Up or just Bicubic Smoother in Photoshop to uprez the file. Both methods are pretty close in the final results, but sometimes one has a slight edge over the other on certain images. I don’t actually recall which I used for this print. I will then sharpen while viewed at 50% magnification until the image just looks “slightly crunchy.” Since this was film, grain tends to get in the way a little, even with Velvia, so I had to back off just slightly than I normally would with a digital capture. Grain is certainly visible up close, but quickly disappears at reasonable viewing distances for this large of a print.
Handling prints like this can be a pain. They are very fragile. One person shouldn’t lift them alone, and they should only be lifted by the opposite corners to avoid any kinks in the paper. I actually have to unroll and sign these on top of my jacuzzi tub – it is the only place large and flat enough to work on them.
Hopefully I will be able to post some final install shots in a couple of months.
Read MoreI have been working on a website redesign steadily for about the past 2 months or so. I finish off little bit by little bit. When anyone works on web design, you are likely to go out and see what’s out there lately. One thing I noticed is that a lot of photographers use Adobe Flash on their websites. Whether you love Flash or hate it isn’t really what I care to debate here. I have seen some pretty cool stuff done with Flash and have little bits of it on my site now. But one thing that is soon going to bubble over is this ongoing spat between Apple and Adobe on support of Flash on Apple’s mobile devices.
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Henry Ford Detroit
Health care centers are increasingly looking to nature photography to help add some color, warmth, and serenity to normally visually cold, sterile, bland environments. This is one of the latest installations of my work at a hospital in Detroit in one of those environments. This is the radiology corridor at Henry Ford Hospital Detroit, where three 36×48 inch panels of landscape photographs from Michigan hang. There is certainly an interesting paradox going on between the display environment and the photographs.
While one could say that the environment and lighting doesn’t flatter the imagery, (as in most “gallery” situations), the flip side of this is that the imagery allows an escape from the environment. This hallway didn’t offer much for those that have to walk it everyday. For an often stressful environment like a hospital, this can only be a welcome addition. There has been an ongoing shift in health care facility design towards changing the old ways of looking at these places.
Nothing could be a better example of this than the newly designed Henry Ford West Bloomfield hospital that took advantage of evidence based design concepts in a new construction.
It was good to see the pieces finally up and many, many people walking past them. It seems like a high traffic corridor. As my wife Lisa wisely pointed out, “it looks like the hospital’s gift to the employees. All in all, it was a nice visit to Detroit, followed up with a great dinner at Small Plates in the Broadway district.
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Punxsutawney Phil
I am pleased to have a groundhog image of mine appear in Sierra magazine for January / February 2010 (pg. 18), along with some good biology information about this little guy predicting how much winter may be left in February. Let’s hope he sees his shadow in advance ok? You can read the story online at the Sierra Club website here.
This was from my first DSLR the D2H at only 4.2 MP, but still more than enough quality for magazine use. Despite how such a camera may be “shunned” today, I continue to get great use (and sales) out of these files. The image runs in the magazine about 1/3 the page, is cropped just below the front claws, and looks just fine.
Sierra Magazine
The issue also has some of Clark Little’s incredible wave imagery. I have seen a lot of his great work in the press lately. If you have never seen his work, you can see more of it at his website.
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Turquoise beaches
Something I have made somewhat of a tradition is paying attention to Pantone’s color of the year for the past couple of years. I find it interesting to see what they will pick next, the explanations they offer behind it, and to see if I have any photographs that might make some good matches. From the business side of things, I can’t say it has drawn much of a business increase because of these colors, but I find it an interesting exploration of my photo archive by color if nothing else. I rediscover new images that I haven’t looked at in awhile, and perhaps even some common themes relating to color. For 2010, they announced recently that it will be Turquoise, or PANTONE® 15-5519.
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