On our last trip to NYC, we made a stop at one of our favorite buildings in Manhattan: The Fuller Building.
Stocked pretty full with some great galleries, a standout for us is the Howard Greenberg Gallery.
His sensibility speaks to us in the consistently high grade shows, and yes, we have purchased from them.
Chances are you won’t see the massive prints of Gregory Crewdson here, but you will see a Saul Leiter show. The classic are where they tend to go, so if there is a vintage print you’re after for your collection, we highly recommend this gallery.

OK, back to the iPad involvement.

The show is: BEYOND WORDS: PHOTOGRAPHY IN THE NEW YORKER
In the mid 90’s, Elisabeth Biondi became the visual editor at The New Yorker magazine ( you should get the iPad version. Probably some of the best writing in a magazine today) and she was charged with increasing the photographic presence in the publication.
And she did.
By working with a core group of some of the best portraitists, photojournalists, and editorial photographers the pages became punctuated with images throughout, surrounded by the brilliant writing. A perfect match.

Highlighted in this show are some of the portraits used in conjunction with feature articles on people of note.
There are iconic images, as well as photographs you most likely missed, unless you have been a subscriber.

Get ready to spend some time though, because the gallery has added a deeper experience with the images:
When you walk in the door, mounted to the wall on your left, is an iPad on an extendable arm.

They have downloaded each of the corresponding articles to the portraits, for you to read.
Each article is separately laid out on the iPad shelf, and you know, just a tap and a swipe will get you through.

It will truly enhance your understanding and appreciation of each image.
This use of the iPad, was the first we’d seen in a gallery, although on a recent trip to the Getty in LA, there were iPads and headphones all over the current Pacific Standard Time exhibition.

The New Yorker collection itself is well curated by the person who was in charge of that dept at the mag, Elisabeth Biondi.
Not to be missed, it goes till Oct. 22nd.

Maybe you’ll be tempted to pick out a gem for your collection, and leave your iPad out so your viewing guests will get that same experience.

The set of PDF’s are not available as a set, unless you go through and download them yourself, however.
hmmmm, maybe a new publication medium; on the wall and in your hands.
There is only one iPad at the gallery so read, but be polite to the other viewers.

Howard Greenberg Gallery
41 East 57th Street, Suite 1406
New York, NY 10022
Tel: 212-334-0010 Fax: 212-941-7479
info@howardgreenberg.com
www.howardgreenberg.com

Photo to the right:
©George Silk, Cartoonist Charles Addams, 1948

There have been recent discoveries of photographers work, which during the artists lifetimes, went somewhat unnoticed.
Like Vivian Maier, whose vast body of work was uncovered via an estate sale, or the personal work of Saul Leiter, who, although still with us, had found boxes of his old transparencies in recent years, causing a huge current interest in his personal fine art work.

We hope that we have found the work of Hadi Salehi, and can help present it to the world, before time marches on.

A few weeks ago, we spent some time interviewing him, in his cottage, which was filled to the brim with well organized print boxes, negative boxes, and a sweet collection of fine jazz albums.

A former instructor at Art Center in Pasadena, California, he has rarely showed his work, but a few early fans and collectors have now convinced him it is time. Of course the collectors hope to add to their walls before the prices skyrocket, which they will.

The interviews have been broken up into 3 parts: The History, The Work , and yes, The Gear.
At the end of the Gear video, this long time instructor and fine artist, give some sage advice to the new photographers.
Wise words from a gentle, talented, soul.

This is the Work video.
Please be advised that at the start of the video, he shows a very strong image of a ritual, that may be disturbing. About 53 total seconds.

The Gear:

The History:

Once you’ve watched the videos, visit his site for more.

Here are some of the images:

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One of the photographic jewels in Los Angeles is the Annenberg Space for Photography.
Funded by the Annenberg Foundation, and led by Wallis Annenberg, this unique edifice is dedicated to the art and power of photography, and remains a free place to visit for all.

We have been fans since before they broke ground, and want to do everything to celebrate and spread the word about their offerings.
Not only are there provocative, enlightening, entertaining, and thought provoking exhibits, both on the walls and on their massive 4k HD screens, but there are lectures in support of those exhibits.

Sure, if you are in LA as a resident or just passing through, you have the opportunity to attend one of these lectures, called Iris Nights, for free, live, and just $1.00 for parking.

OK, forget about the money part, you get the opportunity to hear from the artists themselves or perhaps in conversation with a journalist or associate.
From Neil Leifer to Nikki Sixx, Steve McCurry to Susan Anderson, Leonard Nimoy, Lauren Greenfield, Larry Towell, Jill Greenberg, Walter Iooss, Douglas Kirkland and a ton more.

A Ton more? How about this: Thursday they celebrate their 100th Lecture! Yes, that’s quite a photographic milestone.

Here is the best part: Even if you don’t live in LA, you can access the lectures online. An incredible collection of photographic insight.
Just go to the HOME page, click on the events/ groups tab, and select Iris Nights
Then click on any one of the previous exhibit names, and you’ll be taken to a viewing screen with all of the related lectures.
If you are passionate about photography on any level, you just can’t miss this stuff.

( Hmmmmm… I wonder if they’ll have cake to celebrate? )

The Space is open Wed-Sun: 11am – 6pm
2000 Avenue of the Stars
Los Angeles, CA 90067
tel: 213.403.3000

Well, not cover up so you can’t see it!

OK, you’ve gotta love CS5 as your best main digital darkroom, right?
There are so many tools at your disposal, that it boggles the mind.
Sometimes literally.
Now if you work in Final Cut Pro, you’ve seen keyboard shortcut covers before. Why go to the drop down menus every time you need a tool that you use all the time?
Yes, we know there are shortcut keys, but do you remember them all?
We don’t either.
So, as soon as we put this silicon KB Covers CS5 keyboard cover on, we saw all of our main working tools, right in front of us.
Plus the regular QWERTY keyboard functionality was all there.

It covers the keys, it doesn’t reprogram them.

First of all, they fit easily onto the keys, and have a good matte finish to them, making moving around the keyboard just like before: easy.
Each key has 2 CS5 functions, plus letter/number or symbol as usual, and the secondary Photoshop use is neatly spelled out in an italic font, off to the lower right of the keys.
It did take just a small bit of time to shift the thought process from drop down to keyboard, but it has sped up the general workflow.
Strangely enough, there are certain functions that we didn’t call on much in the past that have been explored.

And somehow they’ve figured out a good color scheme to separate the letters, so you do seem to get color coded rhythm.

We also checked out the Lightroom version, which while useful, was not as robust in functionality, but did cover our main workflow needs. Just the way Lightroom set out the shortcut keys determine key function.

It’s the more complex workings of a program like CS5 where you’ll see the true value of these covers.

You can see the full range on their site,

These are made for numerous programs and crafted to fit on your full desktop keyboard, as well as separate covers for your laptops.
Once you get used to them, you’ll either want to keep em on all the time , or travel them in the plastic it came in.
The prices are right, and they run between $30-$40 per skin.

Even if you just want to simplify your OSX shortcuts, or yes, get the shortcuts for Final Cut X ( oh, Apple, why? ), they can take care of you.

Plus you don’t have to worry about spills on your keyboard. ( Anyone remember the Pepsi Syndrome?)

PLEASE NOTE: It’s all for Apple computers

We are putting out a buy recco on this product.

Film is not dead. And it won’t be going away real soon.
OK, it may become a more expensive commodity, but it’ll be here. And honestly, I’d like to shoot it now and again.
But the labs are disappearing, and those jugs of chemical won’t be living in my house anytime soon.
This is a short story about how I came upon a film/digital solution, with little pain.

Re-Cap

I love panoramic photos.
Not necessarily for the landscape photography advantage, but the ability to use a wide format to tell another kind of story. Prefer being able to shoot on the street, and capture the urban landscape in one frame.
After spending a tedious afternoon on a certain sequence of images meant to be strung together, working the CS5 stitching plug-in again and again, it was time to think about alt solutions.

Maybe I should just be shooting panoramic to begin with., although I don’t have the $30,000 needed for a Seitz digital panoramic camera, and the gigapan is a bit to unwieldy for the streets. U2 loves em, but….

above shot with a Noblex 135 U

Years ago, I tricked out my Nikons with a panoramic matte, made by Minolta, that would crop my neg and allow the use of any lens in the arsenal.
It was time to have another look at those negatives and see what was really there.
The scanning began. Digging into the archives, brought out sweet wide format memories.

two shots above, made with a Nikon F3 and a matte in camera

Maybe now it was time to find a true panoramic camera and shoot some film, again.
Off to Ebay where a Noblex 135 U/35mm was fought for and won. 19 shots on a 36 exp roll. Sweet.
But where to get the neg processed? And then what? Were there still pro labs who did this kinda work?

After consulting with my hard core, old school, film shooting friends, the name that kept coming up was Richards Photo.
People from across the country would send them film for fine art, portraits, and weddings.
Going from a time of chimping, where you check your shots IMMEDIATELY after shooting, to the days of yore, when processing and waiting for contacts took a little bit of time, was going to be an interesting experience.
The timeline went something like this:
Drop off on a Friday, ready by 3:00PM the following Tuesday. As always, you can pay a rush fee.
Here is the beauty part though: Once your rolls/sheets are processed, they get uploaded to an FTP site so you have access to beautiful huge scan files.
Nice right? We were just in NYC when I got the email about a coupla rolls being posted and downloaded the images the old fashioned way. One at a time.
Never again. Too time consuming. Now I’m using Transmit FTP program, which is a much simpler way to go, and not too costly.
Freeware FTP programs are a bit complex, and I’d rather keep retrieving the files a simple task.
This is the rub: the files are so huge that you need to plan your download accordingly. Like start it, and go to a movie.
Or set the program to start at midnight and wake up to your photos in your specified folders.
It does take time. The files will be available for download for a month. you can’t use them for your cloud.
Now they will also burn you a DVD and ship that out to you with your negs. I went for both.

The cost is, of course, more than digital.
The film is about $4.00 a roll (forgot that number, right?)
and the full tilt processing/ large file scanning deal is about $26. per roll with tax.
Check out their full price list.

If you do a ton of work like a commercial or wedding shooter, you should invest in the RPL Color PAC which will create profile just for you and your work, insuring the scans are consistent through out the year.
Shoot one or two rolls in 6 months and it’ll be hard for any lab to match it all.

Have you’ve been itching to shoot some film, and then sit with CS5 for your digital darkroom?
Then we highly recommend Richard Photo Lab.
Good, friendly, incredibly knowledgeable staff. They treat your negs with tender loving care.
They are located in Hollywood, CA

Now if panoramic is something you’re interested in, here are coupla samples of the Noblex images and one of the Nikon with a matte, after the jump.
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