reExposures.com

Vigilance

noreply@blogger.com (Rex) — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 15:52:00 +0000

ORIGINAL IMAGE: FoundPhotos 10 Eastern > DSC00452.jpg

Saturday Salticidae: Tiny Tiger

noreply@blogger.com (Rex) — Sun, 22 Jul 2007 04:49:00 +0000

Photographed at Fort Bragg, North Carolina by Lynette Schimming.

tiger. ROWR!

Smithereens

noreply@blogger.com (Rex) — Sun, 22 Jul 2007 03:36:00 +0000

Moving in for a close encounter at two football fields per second.

In perhaps their most widely seen test, Sandia National Labs mounted a McDonnell-Douglas F-4 Phantom jet — sans crew — onto a rail rocket sled and propelled it at 480 mph into a large reinforced concrete block 3.66 meters thick. Why?

The purpose of the test was to determine the impact force, versus time, due to the impact, of a complete F-4 Phantom — including both engines — onto a massive, essentially rigid reinforced concrete target (3.66 meters thick). Previous tests used F-4 engines at similar speeds. The test was not intended to demonstrate the performance (survivability) of any particular type of concrete structure to aircraft impact. The impact occurred at the nominal velocity of 215 meters per second (about 480 mph). The mass of the jet fuel was simulated by water; the effects of fire following such a collision was not a part of the test. The test established that the major impact force was from the engines.

What happens when an irresistible force meets an immovable object? I'll put my tax dollars where they have the biggest impact — on that 12 feet of concrete:

Watch SNL's streaming video for different angles of view and super slo-mo playbacks.

Small Faces

noreply@blogger.com (Rex) — Sat, 21 Jul 2007 13:01:00 +0000

Henrietta Anne, Duchess of Orleans (1660-61). Watercolor on vellum by British portrait miniaturist Samuel Cooper [high-res, watermarked].

Until the advent of inexpensive photographic carte de visites, locket-sized hand painted portrait miniatures — typically executed in watercolor on vellum (mounted on playing cards) or thinly-sawn sheets of translucent ivory (for luminous skin tones) — were de rigeur personal gifts among European royalty, nobility, and the comfortably well-off from the 16th to 19th Century.

The best small paintings came from Britain, and Samuel Cooper (1608-1672) is regarded as the finest artist of the genre: more of his beautiful work is here, here, and here. Other British portrait miniatures can be seen at the Victoria & Albert Museum, including excellent examples by:

Richard Cosway (1742-1821)
Richard Crosse (1742-1810)
Richard Gibson, (1615-90)
Nicholas Hilliard, (1547-1619)
John Hoskins (1590-1665)
Anna Mee (1771-1851)
Jeremiah Meyer (1735-1789)
Isaac Oliver (1560-1617)
Andrew Robertson (1777-1845)
William Charles Ross (1794-1860)
John Smart (1742-1811)

A superb self-portrait in watercolor on ivory by John Smart (1797).

Brief biographies of the artists are here (sorted by last name): A-E, F-L, M-Z.

Most patrons (and many miniaturists) turned to photography in the 19th Century because it quickly captured a "better" likeness at less expense. Until color film and paper arrived, black & white photographic miniatures were printed on ivory substitutes, then hand-painted with watercolors to add life to the image.

Unfortunately, a camera never sees the whole truth. OTOH, the eyes and hand of a good painter can reveal what their subject should look like.

Pics in Space

noreply@blogger.com (Rex) — Sat, 21 Jul 2007 01:39:00 +0000

NASA enhanced* image of Grey Glacier [high-res] in Chile's spectacular Torres del Paine National Park. The original image was taken through the International Space Station's optical WORF window with a digital Kodak DCS 760 camera and 800mm lens, June 4, 2007 (exposure data).

The above photo is part of the Earth Observatory collection at The Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth (GAPE), which contains over one million images shot by NASA astronauts:

Beginning with the Mercury missions in the early 1960s, astronauts have taken photographs of the Earth. Our database tracks the locations, supporting data, and digital images for these photographs. We process images coming down from the International Space Station on a daily basis and add them to the 726,535 views of the Earth already made accessible on our website. These images include 282,936 from the International Space Station.

Other GAPE image collections include Mission Highlights, Earth from Space, Cities, Earth Disc, and the Weekly Top Ten. A clickable world map lists all photos in a particular grid location.

Talk about a tripod to die for: the current orbital position of the ISS can be seen in real time.

*The image enhancement process is explained here, along with a slide show of the Photoshop steps used to transform a camera photo into a final image.

There's No Beatin' Keaton

noreply@blogger.com (Rex) — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 15:53:00 +0000

Buster Keaton silently takes the fall in Steamboat Bill, Jr. (1928)

As big Hollywood stars are paid ever more astronomical sums, no production can risk losing a leading actor, and cast/completion insurance is as vital as a camera in making a movie. Risky scenes are planned and performed by professional stunt men and women, and truly dangerous scenes may be created entirely out of whole CGI cloth.

In Hollywood's early days, stunt work frequently fell directly on the star's shoulders. Silent film star Buster Keaton — the deadpan Great Stone Face — was intimately involved in the production of his films. Besides acting and directing, he planned and performed dangerous stunts himself, and it's that extra edge of reality behind the screen illusion that makes Keaton's films enjoyable even today.

One of his most memorable stunts starts about 57:20 into Steamboat Bill, Jr. (1928) [full YouTube movie]. Hiding in bed from a windstorm that wrecks the town of River Junction, he's blown down a street and stops in front of a house. Its front wall blows down, and the open attic window falls precisely around our unsuspecting hero. Had Keaton moved a few inches in any direction as the wall fell, he could have been seriously injured or killed.

Humor is a close relative of tragedy: as TIME magazine essayist Pico Iyer once said, "Comedy is nothing more than tragedy deferred." When it comes to slapstick screen comedy that hits the mark just this close to disaster, there's no school like the old school to keep us entertained.

Many classic Buster Keaton films can currently be seen in their entirety on YouTube: there's a list of links here: make some popcorn and enjoy.

Peace, Noun

noreply@blogger.com (Rex) — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 14:16:00 +0000

ORIGINAL IMAGE: FoundPhotos 10 Eastern > img_0018.jpg

Saturday Salticidae: She Just Glows

noreply@blogger.com (Rex) — Sat, 14 Jul 2007 16:03:00 +0000

Come hither, she said. Image from National Geographic News.

To the eyes of entranced male jumping spiders, the pedipalps of some females glow green under ultraviolet light. More enlightening details in the National Geographic News article, Spiders' Glowing Key to Courtship, Mating.

No glow, no go, baby.

Go Figure

noreply@blogger.com (Rex) — Sat, 14 Jul 2007 00:46:00 +0000

Watch and listen as Chladni figures change on a speaker-driven metal plate. Another video shows figures created manually with a cello bow.

Chladni figures are symmetrical patterns generated by acoustically vibrating thin, flat metal plates. The patterns change with the frequency at which the plates vibrate, and are affected by the plates' size, shape, and thickness. Invisible to the eye, the figures appear when the plates are sprinkled with sand, salt, rice, or other fine particles.

They were discovered by their namesake, German physicist, inventor, and 'Father of Acoustics' Ernst Florens Friedrich Chladni (1756-1827). Ink drawings of his figures were published in his 1787 book, Entdeckungen über die Theorie des Klanges (Discoveries of the Theory of Sound), and can be seen online on pages 87 through 115.

Modern versions of Chladni plates are set directly over frequency modulated speakers, but they don't have the charm of 19th Century brass and wood Chladni plates.

If you're glued (or chained) to a computer screen, there's an online Java applet at Chladni Figures and Vibrating Plates that creates nicely colored patterns. Choose the Rect or Circle option, enter values in the m (diametric nodes) and n (circular nodes) fields, then click the Plot button. Values in the 1-100 range seem to work best, and note that the Freq(uency) field doesn't seem to be working.

Here's the results of using nodal values of m=5 and n=3 for a rectangle and circle:

Simulated Chladni figures: red is high amplitude, blue is low.

Metal plates with similar Chladni figures. Note that the sand gathers in areas of lowest amplitude.

If you have the wherewithal and the right tools, you can make your own plates [Coral cache] and play them with a bow (scroll down the page to see the English version.)

Cymatics is the study and production of visible sound wave patterns in various physical media: there are several fascinating examples on YouTube. Imagine if we could naturally see (and not just hear) sound waves rippling through the air around us.

Perp Walk This Way

noreply@blogger.com (Rex) — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 21:42:00 +0000

Prisoners in lockstep at Sing-Sing Penitentiary, New York, pre-1900: their right legs are chained together and must be shuffled along the ground. The inset shows another group of men starting to walk by high-stepping with their free left legs. Images from Walking in History — Lockstep.

Lockstep and prison stripes were leading-edge correctional methods at the end of the 19th Century, but were discontinued because of their dehumanizing effects on the penitentes.

Thankfully, our 21st Century takes a much more advanced view:

~~Detainees~~ Prisoners at Camp X-Ray, Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, Cuba, 2002. Image from Wikipedia.

Blaze orange jumpsuits, arm and leg restraints, and blindfolds make it much easier for guilt (and justice) to be administered immediately.

As the Stomach Turns

noreply@blogger.com (Rex) — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 02:36:00 +0000

Prilosec OTC's main NASCAR page. Maybe the ad on the back end of the car subtly reminds whoever is following that they're losing. The cutoff tagline to the right is "Take your own victory lap."

In one of the stranger co-branding efforts, Prilosec OTC (Over The Counter) stomach medication and NASCAR have teamed up once again to beat heartburn and excessive gas. With POTC sponsorships like the Girl's Guide to Nascar and Richard Childress Racing (with driver Jeff Burton) this ad campaign is headed for a checkered ~~reputation~~ flag.

Off the Wal-Mart shelf boxes of Prilosec OTC — emblazoned in the upper-left quarter panel with a 'Proud Partner of NASCAR' label — contain a nifty free 3" mini-DVD entitled Legendary NASCAR Moments, Volume 1 (currently being resold on eBay for $9.99, plus shipping). As you might expect, woven among timeless moments of racing history are more than a few moments of POTC purple and prose, including:

Prilosec OTC knows that your dedication to racing is just as strong as its dedication to help outrace frequent heartburn.

The mini-DVD is like finding a prize in a big box of reflux-inducing Cracker Jacks, but only after you've (regretfully) eaten all of them. With POTC on your crew, though, there's no worries on your way to the winner's circle. As Kip Olmstead, Prilosec OTC's Brand Manager, says:

Over the last two seasons, we've engaged thousands of NASCAR fans, educating them on how Prilosec OTC can treat their frequent heartburn and get them back to enjoying racing to the fullest.

Our partnerships with NASCAR and Richard Childress Racing will allow our consumers to enjoy racing without worrying about frequent heartburn and have the opportunity to win some unprecedented NASCAR experiences in 2007.

Fewer beers and less overpriced, overcooked hot dogs and greasy pizza might do more for the pit in race fans' stomachs, Kip, but why get petty? If the old acid pump is in high gear, give 'er a shot of Prilosec OTC and you'll be back in neutral in no time:

QuickTime video link on POTC's About page.

Everybody loves a winner, but watch for yellow flags. Before putting any additives in your tank, see what other crew chiefs say and check the performance specs. And if you're looking for speedy relief, POTC's small print at the bottom of their About page hits the brakes: "Use as directed for 14 days for treating frequent heartburn. Not for immediate relief."

YMMV, but after several hours of earsplitting NASCAR laps, just give my aching head a couple of aspirin instead.

Pencil Clock

noreply@blogger.com (Rex) — Wed, 11 Jul 2007 23:52:00 +0000

A screen shot of Yugo Nakamura's animated Pencil Clock.

Of all the dynamic online clock/calendars I've seen, Yugo Nakamura's hand-written, Flash-animated Industrious Clock — better known as the 'Pencil Clock' — remains the most watchable. There's something hypnotizing about a computer-synchronized human hand pushing a pencil and eraser around in continuous write-erase-write time cycles.

The full changeover on New Year's Eve is impressive (it also reloads fully when the page first opens). In the spirit of true Web interactivity, perhaps the next version might be a live webcam, with a real hand updating things in real time.

Until that day, the clock and many more enjoyable digital designs can be found on Nakamura's jampacked MONO*crafts site.

Preserve Your Memories

noreply@blogger.com (Rex) — Wed, 11 Jul 2007 22:51:00 +0000

Time it was, and what a time it was, it was
A time of innocence, a time of confidences.
Long ago, it must be, I have a photograph.
Preserve your memories; they're all that's left you.

Paul Simon, Bookends Theme

ORIGINAL IMAGE: FoundPhotos 10 Eastern > DSC00034.jpg

O Say, Can You See?

noreply@blogger.com (Rex) — Sun, 08 Jul 2007 17:34:00 +0000

In August 2005, 140 Jeeps lined up at a rally in Mt. Pocono, PA to create an American flag (it helps if you squint.)

Promotional photos don't always turn out quite like the Marketing department hoped they would. In 2005, Jeep (owned, ironically enough, by German corporation DaimlerChrysler AG), the National Association for Music Education, and other sponsors began the National Anthem Project.

The mission of NAP (unfortunate acronym, that) was to: increase the public's awareness of The Star Spangled Banner; make sure we get the lyrics right; and, via just a smidgeon of borrowed patriotic interest, advertise Jeep SUVs.

If you look a little closer, the photos have a few rough edges. The ground under the star field is covered with blue fabric, and the stars are on poles held up by Jeep owners. Red, white, and blue tarps were used atop some Jeeps for more uniform colors, but, as seen in the following photo, tarps were in short supply and didn't fit very well.

You shoot a photo op with the Jeeps you've got.

Shoot it from a few thousand feet up, and nobody will know the difference. When it comes to waving big flags, perhaps Jeep should have consulted the experts (and their original customers): the U.S. military.

Another eye-opening NAP opportunity arose in July 2006 when over 300 DaimlerChrysler employees spontaneously lined up (more or less) on the company lawn:

What it lacks in typography, it makes up in spelling.

For the NAP's Grand Finale in June 2007, kids wearing Jeep caps and t-shirts formed a somewhat thin outline of the continental United States:

Did we mention that Jeep® was the sponsor? Note corporate attorneys at work: the '®' registration symbol is completely illegible but still had to be included.

The images aren't perfect, but in the end a little NAP may have refreshed DaimlerChrysler a bit: see the recent article Jeep keeps sales at Chrysler from sinking deeper. To boost those international sales, are flag-waving events for European Jeep fans being run up the pole? At least for le French, the old reds, whites, and blues can be recycled.

Is it unAmerican to suggest that improving poor Jeep products might be worth more to car buyers (whatever their stripe) than wrapping them in national symbols?

Saturday Salticidae: Sticky Feet

noreply@blogger.com (Rex) — Sat, 07 Jul 2007 12:13:00 +0000

Jumping spiders can walk on glass and other smooth surfaces because their foot pads are covered with thousands of nanoscale hairs. Cautious climbers, jumpers always secure a silken safety line. Spider photo by Luciana Bartolini.

Ever wonder how jumping spiders casually stroll about upside down, even on glass?

Although they have tarsal claws to grab rough edges, what really makes jumpers' feet sticky — without any glue — are foot pads (scopula) of paddle-shaped microscopic hairs (setae), each fringed with still smaller hairs (setules). These are electrostatically attracted to surfaces at a molecular level: with eight feet and hundreds of thousands of setules, the spider's weight is easily supported. They detach their feet by rolling them forward as they walk and peeling the hairs off a few at a time.

There are more SEM (Scanning Electron Microscope) images of these structures in the paper Adhesion measurements on the attachment devices of the jumping spider Evarcha arcuata.

The tips of the larger hairs (setae) are covered with smaller hairs (setules), shown here at x8750 magnification.

More details in the journal Smart Materials and Structures from the international Institute of Physics:

There is a tuft of hairs on the bottom of the spider’s leg, and each individual hair is covered in more hairs. These smaller hairs are called setules, and they are what makes the spider stick.

...the force these spiders use to stick to surfaces is the van der Waals force, which acts between individual molecules that are within a nanometre of each other (a nanometre is about ten thousand times smaller than the width of a human hair). The team used a technique called Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM) to measure this force. The flexible contact tips of the setules are triangular, and they have an amazingly high adhesive force on the underlying surface.

Andrew Martin, from the Institute of Technical Zoology and Bionics in Germany, said, “We found out that when all 600,000 tips are in contact with an underlying surface the spider can produce an adhesive force of 170 times its own weight. That’s like Spiderman clinging to the flat surface of a window on a building by his fingertips and toes only, whilst rescuing 170 adults who are hanging on to his back!”

What makes the Van der Waals force an interesting form of adhesion is that, unlike many glues, the surrounding environment does not affect it. The only thing that affects it is the distance between the two objects.

More about the Van der Waals electrostatic force.

Gecko lizards also use setae (albeit many more of them due to their far greater weight) to crawl up walls and across ceilings: all the better to catch a few tasty Salticids with.

Time Lapses

noreply@blogger.com (Rex) — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 05:54:00 +0000

On the left, divers film starfish moving around in real time. The time-lapse movie on the right represents about 45 minutes of real-time movement (click > to play). Source: PBS NOVA.

From our normal point of view, starfish move slowly and randomly about. However, time-lapse movies show them crawling over the seabed in patterns and interacting with other starfish. (Imagine being able to head off in any one of five directions without turning around.)

In the 21st Century, perhaps we need a time-lapse visual memory — like a bionic TIVO recorder — that would let us store our life's images and review them in fast-forward fashion. We might discover something new about ourselves, but would we want to see everything?

That's the intriguing premise of an otherwise lifeless Robin Williams drama, The Final Cut (2004). Visual memory is stored from birth in an implanted chip, but only skilled 'cutters' — combination film editors/morticians — can download, view, and 'rememorize' one's images into a fitting video eulogy.

Robin Williams as life editor in The Final Cut (2004).

Robin, bubeleh, show the best and burn the rest, OK? Otherwise, Alan Smithee might start getting a lot more screen credits.

Illusions of Disbelief

noreply@blogger.com (Rex) — Thu, 05 Jul 2007 03:31:00 +0000

Eisenheim's mirror illusion with Duchess Sophie in The Illusionist (2006).

How many illusions, real or perceived, are used in this scene from The Illusionist (2006)? Here's my count thus far:

The mirror (as a normal dressing mirror).
The mirror (as a specially constructed magician's device).
The hooded robe (like those worn by religious initiates).
The robed figure's reflection in the mirror.
The robed figure standing in front of the mirror.
Eisenheim the Illusionist (and one's confidence in his abilities*).
Eisenheim's suit, tie, and shined shoes.
Eisenheim's distance from the mirror (as a co-observer).
The stage, framed by the theater's proscenium arch.
The stage's painted backdrop, suggesting a temple.
The stage's 'fourth wall' (invisible, between the stage and audience).
The theatrical audience's perception of Eisenheim.
The movie audience's perception of Eisenheim.
The theatrical audience's perception of Duchess Sophie.
The theatrical audience's perception of who is actually in the robe.
The theatrical audience's perception of whose reflection is in the mirror.
The movie audience's perception of Duchess Sophie.
The movie audience's perception of who is actually in the robe.
The movie audience's perception of whose reflection is in the mirror.
The arrangement and dressing of the set for this scene.
Edward Norton's concept of who Eisenheim is.
Edward Norton's concept of who Duchess Sophie is.
Jessica Biel's concept of who Duchess Sophie is.
Jessica Biel's concept of who Eisenheim is.
The author's vision of the scene.
The screenwriter's vision of the scene (and its characters.)
The director's vision of the scene (and its characters.)
The cinematographer's vision of the scene (and its characters).
What appeared in the camera's viewfinder.
What was captured on the film in the camera.
What was developed on the film negative.
What was added or subtracted to the scene with computer graphics.
The film editor's concept of the film, and their placement and timing of the scene.
What was developed in the final prints of the movie.
What appeared in the projected image of the movie.
What was reflected from the screen into the moviegoers eyes (at 24 frames per second.)
How the movie audience — each person with slightly different vision — saw the scene.
What the movie audience remembers about the scene (and its context).
What ended up on the movie's DVD after a film transfer.
The appearance of the DVD's image on my computer screen.
The appearance of the scene as I captured the screen image.
The appearance of the captured image after reworking it.
The appearance of the compressed JPEG image file.
The appearance of the JPEG image on each computer screen that displays it (in individual RGB pixels, at different resolutions, and with different refresh rates.)
Your computer screen, framed — like the movie's stage — by its plastic bezel.
Your eye.
Your brain.
Your imagination.

For suspension of disbelief to work well, perhaps the last illusion is the most irreplaceable of all.

*In David Mamet's film House of Games (1987), Mike the con artist (Joe Montegna) explains the basics to psychologist Margaret Ford (Lindsay Crouse). From the transcript:

"The basic idea is this. It's called a confidence game.

Why? Because you give me your confidence?

No. Because I give you mine."

A good movie (and a good illusionist) works the same way: after the house lights go down and the curtain opens, do you trust them?

Oh Say You Can See

noreply@blogger.com (Rex) — Wed, 04 Jul 2007 05:48:00 +0000

Prevent eye injuries from fireworks.

Finding Our Way

noreply@blogger.com (Rex) — Wed, 04 Jul 2007 02:47:00 +0000

Reproduction of a stick chart from Kwajalein in the Marshall Islands. Shells represent islands, straight sticks are routes, and bent sticks are ocean swells.

Simply elegant in design but highly complex in meaning, stick charts made of palm fronds, shells, and other natural items were used for hundreds of years by Polynesian mariners to find their way across the seemingly trackless Pacific Ocean. More details from the Mariner's Museum:

As Captain James Cook was conducting his voyages of exploration and discovery, Polynesian navigators had already successfully explored and settled the islands from New Zealand to Hawaii. Remarkably, the Polynesians had developed a sophisticated and reliable means of wayfinding based not on science and mathematics, but rather on their innate knowledge of the seas and sky.
By using the sun, stars, sea swell patterns, cloud formations, and seamarks such as bird flight habits, Polynesian navigators were able to steer their canoes over distances that amazed European navigators – including the two thousand miles between Tahiti and the Hawaiian Islands.
...
Beyond navigating by the sun and stars, the Polynesians used their extensive knowledge of the sea to successfully guide them through their voyages. By careful observation of sea swell patterns, wind direction, cloud formations, and patterns of bird flight and flotsam, traditional Pacific navigators pieced together the course they chose to follow.

More about stick charts at Jane's Oceania: some labeled examples are shown at Digital Micronesia. Although wayfinding methods are not used much any longer, the 62 foot Hawaiian canoe Hokule'a has made several long voyages since 1976 using traditional navigation techniques. Accompanied by another voyaging canoe, the Alingano Maisu, they recently completed a trip to Micronesia and Japan (Google map) of over 9,000 miles: see more at the Polynesian Voyaging Society.

Without all of their highly technical navigational tools — sextants, chronometers, and magnetic compasses — European discoverers (who mostly discovered that other people got there first) would have been hopelessly lost. Perhaps we Westerners wouldn't need so much gadgetry if we were a little more observant, a little wiser.

Now that we have 24 Global Positioning Satellites orbiting like a swarm of waggling bees around the planet, it's hard to get lost as long as you've got the right hardware (and the electrons to power it). Lacking either, and lacking enough awareness of your surroundings, even the most technically astute can still lose their way.

Keeping in mind that its driving force was military, there's always good arguments in favor of enabling technologies like GPS. Yet, isn't there something disillusioning about being able to measure the entire planet down to a few meters?

Graven Images

noreply@blogger.com (Rex) — Tue, 03 Jul 2007 12:34:00 +0000

'Mona Lisa of the Galilee', 3rd Century, and Kate Winslet on Vogue (Britain), January 2007.

'Mona Lisa of the Galilee' is a 3rd century CE mosaic of a young Roman woman in the upscale town of Sepphoris (aka Zippori) in northern Israel. It's part of the decorated floor of a luxurious Roman villa that was discovered and excavated in 1987. Apart from obvious eye appeal, the mosaic is unique for several reasons. Archaeologist Eric Meyer explains:

...she's really an extraordinary depiction in stone of a beautiful woman of Roman antiquity. She might be one of the Four Seasons. But one has the feeling that behind that face was a real woman and a real figure. Because the artistry that depicts it in stone is so delicate and so exquisite and so painterly. And so she has become kind of synonymous with the site even though she's from the 3rd century, the high point of Hellenization at the site. She has now become synonymous with the Romanization of the site and Hellenization....

The discovery of these scenes of the mythology of Dionysus on the floor of a public house in a banquet hall in a Jewish town certainly blew most everyone's mind. And made us think for the first time that there was a much more liberal attitude towards the second commandment banning pictorial images in Judaism and that Jews in general were much more flexible with respect to image making and artistic presentation and activity, in the very period where the Mishna, the first major Jewish body of law to be codified in Palestine at Sepphoris in the third century, was being produced side by side with this great piece of work.

How are you gonna keep them down in the Torah, once they've seen? To human eyes, images are more attractive than words (verse 4).

Actress Kate Winslet, shown on the January 2007 cover of British Vogue, was (re)discovered after her starring role in the Titanic-ally expensive and popular 1997 movie. Although Kate doesn't like Photoshop, not even her face — little or no makeup notwithstanding — can make it into the public eye without having a few electrons reshuffled. And this is done only after the considerable ministrations of hair, makeup, wardrobe, and photonic artists (here is Regan Cameron's celebrity portfolio, Kate included).

For celebrities, a major photo shoot must be like a resurrection. As they get older, their old self must die, then they are reborn through the camera lens (and subsequent manipulations) into glorious youth one more time. The trick is, how many times can they return to the Fountain of Youth before their followers transfer their worship to another?

About 1700 years of history, culture, and technology separate the two women. On screen, Kate the Anglican is made of pixels of light, and Mona the Dionysian is made of pixels of stone. Creating a mosaic required much skill, and the process was long, tedious, and expensive. Each stone was selected, hand-cut, and laid in mortar: a copy would have meant as much work as the original. With her image literally set in stone (and later buried under rubble), few people — apart from the villa's residents, visitors, or slaves — would have ever seen Mona.

Any good image requires skill, but more and more, specialized imaging techniques are built into the software. That's a good thing: imagine the Sisyphean effort of creating a Gaussian blur out of bits of colored stone. Digital imaging now lets us transform the mortal into the godlike. It still takes a while, but someday the miracle may be all in-camera:

HP digital cameras' built-in slimming feature.

Unfortunately, pounds aren't shed quite as easily as bits, so we'll all stay at home and send our 3D holograms to work instead.

On an information network reaching across the globe, millions of images are requested and delivered hourly. We constantly see perfect pictures on the Web, on TV, in movies, and in the grocery checkout lane. Beautiful people — however illusory their image-based lives may be — are everywhere we look.

How will this flood of images change us? Will we get bored with the gods of beauty, or, like any addiction, will we just want more of them?

Flying High

noreply@blogger.com (Rex) — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 15:42:00 +0000

ORIGINAL IMAGE: FoundPhotos 10 Eastern > g004_04.jpg

Saturday Salticidae: Vision

noreply@blogger.com (Rex) — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 12:31:00 +0000

Genus Maratus from Australia: a nice photo by Shane Walker.

With their large anterior median eyes — accompanied by six smaller eyes spaced around the upper rim of their cephalothorax — jumping spiders have the best vision of any insect. To process what they see, the 5,000 species of Salticidae also have large brains in proportion to their body size.

Jumpers produce silk like any spider, but they don't spin a web and wait for a meal to fly into it. Instead, they patiently stalk their prey and leap upon it, seizing it with their strong front legs and biting it with their fangs. Aptly so, they've been called "eight-legged cats" (they'll even chase laser spots.)

Those big baby greens (at least on Maratus above), coupled with their gestures and inquisitive behavior make jumping spiders fascinating to watch.

I think they like to keep their eyes on us, too.

Tool Users: Flickr Cameras

noreply@blogger.com (Rex) — Fri, 29 Jun 2007 14:37:00 +0000

Using the Exif data attached to uploaded image files, Flickr's Camera Finder has a wealth of information and graphs about the most popular brands and models of cameras their users are shooting with.

The numbers, they are a-changin', but they may also be skewed by changes in the online photo storage community. See the recent C/Net News Blog post, Flickrites: Why your camera isn't so popular anymore.

Photographic manufacturers, are you paying attention?

Last Man Standing

noreply@blogger.com (Rex) — Fri, 29 Jun 2007 13:11:00 +0000

Boulevard du Temple, Paris 1838 by Louis Daguerre.

Louis' daguerrotype exposure took so long that all of the moving horses, carriages, and pedestrians on the bustling street failed to register on his photographic plate. The only person who stood still long enough is a gentleman getting his shoes shined (in the lower left corner of the image). More at Capturing the Moving Figure.

I've always wondered who he was and where he was going.

You can achieve the same effect by using a neutral density filter to reduce the amount of light coming through your camera lens. To make cars disappear, the overall exposure time needs to be about 5 to 10 minutes. In Dan Heller's Golden Gate Bridge photo, No Traffic, no cars are visible: just a few people pausing at the railing can be seen.

Campbell's and Cyrtoidea

noreply@blogger.com (Rex) — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 13:34:00 +0000

What's on the outside matters as much as what's on the inside.

Question: What does Ernst Haeckel's influential book Art Forms in Nature (AFIN) and a can of Campbell's Soup have in common?

Answer: They'll always have Paris. Let's go back about 100 years and walk through the connections:

In AFIN, open Plate 31 and note the middle row of Cyrtoidea radiolaria engravings. Here's a cropped image:
French architect and Art Nouveau designer René Binet was a contemporary of Haeckel's, and greatly admired his AFIN illustrations. Binet used the tiny Cyrtoidea radiolaria in Plate 31 as the design concept for his grand entrance into the Paris 1900 World Exposition.

The Exposition was a celebration of 19th Century industrialization and manufacturing, and the exhibits were arranged around Gustave Eiffel's iron Tower. The entrance's three-cornered dome, over 35 meters tall, was framed by twin minarets and topped off with a woman's statue (the "Parisienne") welcoming visitors into the City of Light.

Note the entrance's similarities to Haeckel's Cyrtoidea illustration above, particularly the two outermost drawings. Dubbed the "Porte Monumentale" (aka "Porte Binet"), walking through the entrance into hall after hall of the world's latest achievements would have been a once-in-a-lifetime experience.
But enough about style: let's go back to the good old USA. The original business behind the Campbell Soup Company was founded in New Jersey in 1869 by Joseph Campbell and Abraham Anderson. Their products sold well in the States, and did even better after they introduced condensed soups in 1897. Wanting to expand their markets, Campbell's had an exhibit at the Paris 1900 World Exposition and won a food industry Gold Medallion for their efforts:

There's a larger image of a Medallion (awarded to another participant) here.

In retail, everything is location, location, location, and Paris was a great spot. According to official attendance figures, over 48 million (!) international visitors walked through Binet's gate in less than a year. In the days before radio or television, Campbell's couldn't have asked for a better opportunity to market their soups (and hand out samples, no doubt) to women from around the world.
Since 1900, Campbell's has printed a simplified version of the Exposition's Gold Medallion on their classic canned soup labels. On the "Just Heat & Enjoy" Chicken Noodle Soup shown above — a modern version of Campbell's original uncondensed soups — a small, coin-like Gold Medallion lays over the red and white border, immediately above the words "Chicken Noodle".

The Medallion is also displayed at the bottom of the company's "About Us" web page.

It may seem quaint now, but the cachet of the Gold Medallion was something worth advertising, especially when Campbell's was trying to win the pocketbooks of wives and mothers used to cooking home-made soups over a hot stove.

Over 100 years later, the company's concept of fast, cheap, and convenient food — presented to consumers in an appealing way — has worked very well. Campbell's Soups have grown into one of world's best-known brands with over $7 billion in sales.

So, the next time you slurp a hot meal out of a Campbell's can, contemplate that Medallion on the label and recall how much creativity and hard work lies behind it.

A little gratuitous nod in Cyrtoidea's direction wouldn't be out of place, either.

P.S. — Digital Deli (it opens with audio) has a nice history of Campbell's ads from 1869 to 1962 with pictures of their soup can labels. America's Greatest Brands also has a PDF document with more history and images.