Splish Splash

I am reminding myself to do what I love. To try new things. That has brought me here, read on to find out my secret!

Yes the images are kinda neat. The idea of doing this has been floating in my head for a bit. I have always wanted to try it and the underwater housing for my Nikon D700 at PMA teased me quite a bit. I posted awhile about the dresses I bought... they were for this.

Well a little bit on todays story.... The water was beyond cold... Freeeeezing Cold. We only took 40 pictures total but overall it was a good test. I shot the images on a...

Canon SD630 and Canon Underwater Housing. This camera wasn't stock though, it was modified my me. I installed custom software on the camera called CHDK. A simple google search will reveal more than I would be able to tell you. The CHDK allowed me to shoot RAW directly from the camera to allow a bit more editing than the normal jpeg.

Just proves that you can create and be creative with whatever camera you choose :)

How big can we go?

Megapixels, resolution, dpi, RAW, bit depth... blah blah blah all things that are relevant to image size and quality. I am going to propose a question and a little activity. When printing images the viewing distance is one of the most important factors. Did you know that I could take almost any size image (4-5mp) and turn it into a billboard image? Kinda makes you think for a second why thats possible... if it doesn't make you wonder... well at least you have some silly images of buffalo to smile at! :)

This is possible because we are so so far away from the billboard. Proper viewing distance is key. 2010 will be a year of printing for me among other things. I am getting into what my camera and gear are capable of printing. I have been playing around with genuine fractals lately and have been amazed by its upsizing capabilities. Above is an image that full size is roughly 4000x3500.

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The Images attached are at a MASSIVE 12,000 x 8,000 which would print 40 inches wide and 27 inches high. The images are 281% larger than its original.

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I would like you (if you are up to it) suffer the wait of downloading the images and view them on your computer. Once the image is downloaded go ahead open it full screen. Now imagine your display as a print or framed image. The more you zoom in the more artifacts you see. One you zoom in a bit you can take a few steps back and see what I mean about viewing distance. So if 25% of the image is filling your entire screen it will give you an idea how a print would look 4x the size of your computer monitor. I have a 24" iMac so I smile at this.  The further you are away from the image more sharpness / clarity it gains. Once you find the right size you will know where in your house the image would fit based off of how far you will be viewing it from. Photo nerds like myself love to check out the image inches from my eye but this will be very few people who view this close.

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This is obvious to most but if I made a single person smile at buffalo or learn something about printing than my time has been well spent.

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Files:

Original Buffy 1

Original Buffy 2

Original Buffy 3

Xtra Large Buffy 1

Xtra Large Buffy 2

Xtra Large Buffy 3

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Side Note:

I really really love these big monsters. In a perfect world I would have one as a pet.

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Edit: Screen dpi isn't nearly as great as good quality print dpi. consider this.

Book ideas

This morning was spent looking at photo books, more specifically Blurb.com books. I read some reviews and began thinking about what to explore in my upcoming fifth year of photography.

I haven't spoken a whole lot to anyone about my fifth year and my personal plans for it, but I will say a little bit now.

This upcoming year, I am going to focus on me, by which I mean I'm going to focus on work I have already shot and then selling myself. I'm going to focus on getting my name out there and starting to print. In all the years I've been shooting, I've only printed twice. I printed one image, a 20x30 a few years ago (which no one has ever seen), and a 16x24 of the GWAR crowd.

Printing is a strange beast for me. Why? Because people don't understand how big of a deal it is to an artist — I feel the more I print the less and less my images are worth. Strange? Sure, yes, very. But, keeping that in mind, I'm also realizing, how am I supposed to find the right mount or frame if I don't experiment a little bit?

Truthfully, I wish I knew someone who thought like me (minus the crazy broken thought process) and who I could simply follow around copy.

Here comes the future and in it, I want to try a little bit of everything, including printing, framing, and books.

http://www.blurb.com/make/books

I have known about Blurb books for quite some time, but fear has held me back. Now, I want to attempt a book.

First, I look at the price and at my potential market. Will the book sell? Am I good enough for people to want to own my art? Or will they buy it only because I'm a friend and they want to support me? Well, hopefully it's a bit of both.

The book will probably cost me around $50 to produce, but I have no idea what size it will be or how many pages it will have or even what paper quality I'll use. Honestly, I can't see myself adding much more to the price, for now I'm more interested in seeing if people will want to own my blood and sweat than I am in making a profit off it.

After a break from searching and some talks with different people, I have come up with a near final idea. I am going to do a full photo book with detailed stories on a few selected images. But only on images that have a story worth telling; I'm a strong photographer, not a writer.