IgersEastBay, Trey Ratcliff, and Google Glass on a Photowalk in San Francisco

I just returned from a Glass Photowalk in San Francisco organized by IGersEastBay (Instagrammers East Bay) in conjunction with Trey Ratcliff of HDR fame and Thomas Hawk. Wow. What a turnout. Over 1,000 people RSVP’d and hundreds attended.

If you showed up, and were over 18 and a resident of the US you could register to win a pair of Google Glass. Several people were wearing a pair. It was my first exposure beyond the occasional restaurant siting to an atmosphere of Glass.

It was odd to see someone look up at the right top corner of their glasses and press the glasses temple to take a picture. A bit like talking with you while reading mail on my phone. Some people wore masks, ranging from animal heads to Darth Vader, possibly to avoid overexposure. Many fewer women than men had a pair. While this technology is not pervasive yet, it’s easy to see how it will change our ability to feel unrecorded or anonymous. It doesn’t take much Glass to perturb the atmosphere.

I didn’t stick around for the drawing, thus remaining in the ranks of the un-Glassed. However, I did have a fantastic time editing photos on the train ride home. Despite the press of hundreds of other photographers, leaping with our characteristic abandon into unseemly as well as athletic poses to capture what must not be allowed to get away, I was able to isolate a few quiet moments.

Hotel Pickwick by Jennifer Hartnett-Henderson ©2013 (App List: Camera+, Perfectly Clear, Snapseed, DistressedFX, Laminar, Impressions and Blender)

There was something about the Hotel Pickwick font that shouted, “I’m from long ago.” in a winsome manner.

The City as Backdrop by Jennifer Hartnett-Henderson ©2013

I saw this wall first with no people walking by. It was a scrim for the shadows of the larger city and a perfect backdrop for human drama, such as this small woman, making her way through the city.

Man in the Play by Jennifer Hartnett-Henderson ©2013

This man seems trapped by the shadows of unseen architecture, eddied up under the lamppost on his way through the city.

Going to the IgersEastBay GlassPhotowalk with Thomas Hawk and Trey Ratcliff was a wise use of time for 2 reasons. It gave me exposure to the impact of Google Glass technology on how people interact in groups as well as the opportunity to make a few new images.

Related articles

• Win a google glass by participating in a free san francisco google+ photo walk! (google-plus.com)
• Largest Photowalk in History Set to Take Place Next Tuesday in San Francisco (petapixel.com)
• May Drink and Click™ US Photowalk Events (sarcasticmom.com)

Be Biased

Her words have been reverberating in my head for a couple of weeks now. “Be Biased“

I heard her talk, “Translating Science into Poetry“, at the first Write the Docs conference earlier this month. She did the unpredictable – applied principles from poetry to science. Daniya Kamran was her name.  I attended the conference to deliver Sketchnotes: Communicating Complex Ideas Quickly but benefitted most from listening.

She covered 6 techniques used in poetry that were applicable in science. One of those principles was “Bias”. There was a poem which she used to illustrate this principle. I’ve forgotten the name. Something about a glorious morning. Not a neutral, scientific dew-pointed morning, but a morning to make you dance. “Be biased” she said. People crave an opinion, they want an expert, they don’t want to have to do all the thinking required to come up with that opinion. Be a shortcut for them.

Be Biased, Sketchnote from Daniya Kamran’s talk Translating Science into Poetry, Write the Docs Conference, by Jennifer Hartnett-Henderson ©2013

I was guilty of what she charged – being professionally objective and….neutral.  I could see that I had withheld my greatest gift, my uniquely developed opinion from my experience and study. And it was making my life much less interesting.

Yet not so in photography. With a camera it is impossible not to have a point of view. You chose what you point the camera at and you chose how to compose the frame. The photographs I like most express personal vision through a unique voice.  Two quick examples:

• Aaron Ansarov thinks Portuguese Man O’ Wars are beautiful. You will too when you see his work.
• Natan Dvir thinks NYC billboards overwhelm people. You will see what he sees when you see his work. 

in her article on AppWhisperer titled, “What is Vision, What is Voice“ Cindy Patrick, an award-winning iPhoneographer and fine artist, writes:

All the artists and photographers I admire have one thing in common. They each have a unique style. 

She goes on to say that style has two components: what YOU see (vision) and how YOU communicate that (voice). Vision and voice together are a bias, a point of view.

Since this awakening to the value of bias, I’ve opined more generously, without strings attached. I’ve discovered that the short path to being influential is to express an opinion (I believe “X” because of 1, 2 and 3) and then to have a dialogue. I am both influencer and influenced. Be Biased. Have Vision and Voice.

Thank you Daniya.

Amy Brown did a fantastic job of capturing notes from her talk. You can see my sketchnotes here and here.

If you can find the video of her talk please let me know. I’d like to add it to this post.

Related articles

• Bias on the World Wide Web (kathleenmgallagher.wordpress.com)
• Write the Docs: Daniya Kamran – Translating Science into Poetry (andrewspittle.net)
• Those Algorithms That Govern Our Lives by Kevin Slavin (videos.liftconference.com)

Get the Best of Both: The Lomography Smartphone Film Scanner

Yesterday, I used my Kickstarter funded Lomography Smartphone Film Scanner and Lomoscanner app for the first time!

Lomography Film Scanner by Jennifer Hartnett-Henderson © 2013

The film scanner allows you to convert film to digital using your smartphone!  It’s great for resurrecting images from film whether old or newly made. This box arrived in March but required AA batteries which I finally got. I also waited for the free companion app Lomoscanner to also come out.  The menu looks like this:

Lomoscanner Menu by Jennifer Hartnett-Henderson © 2013

If you press the film canister button you can chose among film types from slide to negative as well as black and white.  The + and – buttons allow you to zoom in or out to fill the frame.

The Hair Bun – first scan from my Lomography Film Scanner using my iPhone

The result of my first scan has a very blue cast. I compared it to the print that Blue Moon Camera and Machine in Portland made for me and that I wrote about in Blue Moon Camera Delights.

The Hair Bun – Print by Blue Moon Camera, Photo by Jennifer Hartnett-Henderson © 2013

The gorgeous soft tones printed from the Kodak Portra film reminded me that there’s some skill involved to get from a negative to a pleasing image.  Rather than attempt to duplicate this result I decided to take the image in a different direction using the plethora of smartphone / iPhone apps available.

The Avante Garde Anachronist by Jennifer Hartnett-Henderson © 2013

I kept the sprocket holes from Lomoscanner and added a Polaroid border from Lo-Mob to redouble the references to old yet still popular films in a mobile age.  Then, recalling some advice from Cindy Patrick while we were in NYC at the MPA Photo Show, I experimented with the app Iris, renamed Laminar, adding textures and color to various versions before blending them in Image Blender.

The Lomography Smartphone Film Scanner adds an extra workflow input path with a distinct value proposition.  There’s value in printing images from film as well as scanning them into my smartphone / iPhone for more interpretations. The Lomography Film Scanner allows me to get the best of both.

All writing and images by Jennifer Hartnett-Henderson © 2013.  Reblogging perfectly okay with author attribution and link to original post.

Related articles

• Lomography’s Smartphone Film Scanner Creates Digital Images from Analog Film (laughingsquid.com)
• Lomography Announces LomoScanner App For iPhone (inventorspot.com)
• Digitize Your Old Film Negatives With The Lomography Smartphone Scanner (appadvice.com)
• Lomography Smartphone Film Scanner goes on sale for $59 (engadget.com)

 

Digital Daguerrotype with Hipstamatic’s D-Type Plate

Hipstamatic‘s D-Type Plate is a daguerrotype-inspired black and white plate film that when combined with the distortion of the Salvador 84 Lens lends a unique texture and patina to photos:

I am in love with this particular photo that I’ve titled “Flowering and Her Reflection”.  The sharp focus of the flowers on one stalk contrast with the hazy manifestation of the flowers on the other stalk reminding me of a shadow self, a self under creation, a self not yet manifested but near enough to hope.  The lack of overall sharpness and the leaning repose of the stem give this a tender and graceful feel. That same leaning salts the print with yearning.

Solo objects tend to work better with the Salvador 84 Lens simply because they are easier to understand once mirrored.

The Wonder lens with the D-Type Plate film gives a nice contrast without the distortion.  Here is “Vertiginous”.

Photographers routinely say that their black and white photos don’t get as many hits or likes or views as their color work.  Black and white does a fantastic job of revealing structure and of showing “the bones”. It is reductive since it takes out color.  But what it leaves is often ethereal and surreal.

Related articles

• Shooting from the Hipstamatic: how I wised up to my smartphone’s potential (guardian.co.uk)
• Weekly Photo Challenge: Love (jenniferhartnetthenderson.wordpress.com)
• Beauty in black and white (giadre.wordpress.com)
• The Oldest Known Photographs of a U.S. President (theatlantic.com)
• Weekly Photo Challenge: Beyond (jenniferhartnetthenderson.wordpress.com)
• Getting Hip to Hipstamatic (nomadicmainstream.com)

Fonts Finds in NYC

I kept my eye out for interesting fonts on a recent trip to NYC. I found the tried and true:

Detail: 81st Street Metro Station, American Museum of Natural History, Helvetica by Jennifer Hartnett-Henderson ©2013

The NYC Metro signage was created in the 1960s and while Helvetica was not originally the offical typeface according to the book Helvetica and the New York City Subway System, it became so.  Gary Hustwit‘s documentary film Helvetica portrays Helvetica as THE font of the NYC Metro, these days anyway, as well as the face of commerce worldwide.

Despite the pervasiveness of Helvetica in NYC, there are some very interesting deviations. The bold and new:

Grafitti O on Houston by Jennifer Hartnett-Henderson ©2013

This “O” looks like the eye of a snake or a cat with a vertical iris. The blue is dazzling. It takes four sets of lines make the shape. I also found a unique font in a printed pasted poster on Kenmare:

“V” in Nolita by Jennifer Hartnett-Henderson ©2013

This font looks 3 dimensional with the vegetal design appearing in haut relief over the black spaces.

Lastly, this one on Elizabeth or Mott in Nolita is the quietest but upon reflection, my favorite:

Moe’s Meat Market by Jennifer Hartnett-Henderson ©2013

This sign blends the reality of a man named Moe in cursive flourish with the commercial efficiency of a san serif font, possibly Helvetica, for the “Meat Market”. Sadly, the sign is in disrepair and the floor space below it is vacant, occupied only by a wooden ladder, one suspended light, and the reflection of a building.

Related articles

• Can You Tell the Difference Between Arial and Helvetica? (theindustry.cc)
• I Spy Helvetica (themaxbrettler.wordpress.com)
• New Brooklyn Nets Logo Pays Homage to NYC Subway Signage System (smartsign.com)
• Film Review: Helvetica (rosslangager.com)
• 7 Of The Biggest Lies In Graphic Design (fastcodesign.com)
• Default “Message font” in Mail changes to Helvetica (discussions.apple.com)
• Extensis Font Detective Thomas Phinney Reveals Secrets of Cracking a Forgery at WebVisions NYC and SXSW 2013 (prweb.com)
• Another Look at Helvetica (aapatawaran.com)

Highlights: 1197 Conference and Mobile Photo Awards

Last week I flew to the Big Apple for the second 1197 Conference and the Mobile Photo Awards because my work was in the show! Thanks to Robin Glasser Sacknoff from NYC and Sue Holland (also in the show) and her friends from Toronto for the photos below!

Thanks to Robin Glasser Sacknoff for this photo of me with my Honorable Mention in Architecture

The 1197 conference closed with the Mobile Photography Awards at the Soho Gallery for Digital Arts. Dan Berman (@reservoir_dan), organizer of the awards, produced a great video showing many of the photos that were in the show and the people there. You can see it here on Marty Yawnick’s site, LifeinLoFi.

Thanks to Sue Holland and her bevy of supporters for this photo of me with my 2nd Honorable Mention in Transportation.

The New York Times stopped by the 1197 conference for the Food Photo Challenge and published a great 3 minute video that includes the panelists (Megan Martin, Alejandra Ramos, and Nichelle Stephens), some of the photos and attendees (my 4 seconds of fame are :43 to :48!)

Another thanks to Sue Holland and friends for this photo of me with my 3rd Honorable Mention in Transportation

I was so appreciative of the opportunity to meet people in the flesh. I met people whose work I had admired on Instagram such as Cindy Patrick and Carol “Dogsitter” Smith and people whose work I wanted to get to know such as Tim Young and Cindi Hobgood. I had a fantastic time!  I hope you enjoy the photos and videos!

Related articles

• Big Apple Window Illustrations – Windows of New York Highlights the Designs From Each Avenue (TrendHunter.com) (trendhunter.com)
• Photowalking Manhattan with PureView (conversations.nokia.com)
• I’m in the Show! (jenniferhartnetthenderson.wordpress.com)

Monetizing Mobile Photography: Some Assembly Required

How do you monetize mobile photography?

“Getting Paid” panelists L to R: Tim Young, Adrian Salamunovic, Larry Closs, Brian Difeo, Kirsten Alana by Jennifer Hartnett-Henderson

The difficulty in monetizing mobile photography is causing anxiety and frustration for many photographers. During Social Media Week in New York City, the 1197 Conference at the Soho Gallery for Digital Art tackled the subject head on in a panel called “Getting Paid”. Each panelist had built a unique path to a working business model:

• Kirsten Alana is a travel diariest/blogger and teaches
• Larry Closs is the founder and editor of TrekWorld, a travel and trekking magazine, a Director of Communications for a non-profit, Next Generation Nepal and author of the book Beatitude
• Brian Difeo is the co-founder of The Mobile Media Lab, “a marketing agency for Instagram” and founder of Instagram NYC
• Adrian Salamunovic is the co-founder of CanvasPop the leader for mobile photography printing on canvas
• Tim Young is an illustrator and digital art director with 20+ years of experience

The stories of how a paid gig actually happens are almost brownian motion except with direction so it’s no longer brownian but perhaps vector motion. The place each person holds (in a social network, in an organization) serves as matrix of relationships that form a platform for broader reach.

Larry Closs’s photographs of Nepal (presumably taken while on trips with or for Next Generation Nepal) have been used by CNN, The Huffington Post etc. Brian travelled on a paid trip to the Middle East to photograph for a brand because his talents were known through connections at The Mobile Media Lab and Instagram NYC. Other stories were similar.

This motion variant closely parallels the top 3 actions that Saul Kaplan recommends for innovators in The Business Model Innovation Factory: How to Stay Relevant When the World is Changing (A shout out to Kathryn Welds for this concise summary):

1. Do more stuff
2. Use a different lens 
3. Enable random collisions of unusual suspects

Panelists throughout the day agreed that there was no one path. Advice to those looking to find their way included:

1. Be social. Spend time commenting and liking.  If you’re not social, nothing else you do will matter. Kirsten Alana
2. Find out what’s unique about you. Brian Difeo
3. The key to monetization is to solve someone’s problem. It’s all about them and it’s up to you to get that across. Jen Pollock Bianco, multimedia travel diarist, My Life’s a Trip
4. It’s the web you spin that really counts, not the authoritative channels.
5. Contact galleries, don’t be afraid to teach, make your own opportunities. Marty Yawnick, creator of LifeinLoFi and creative director of Type A Design.

While the tremendous difficulty in monetizing mobile photography is frustrating for many photographers, the good news is that change is more likely in times of high volatility. And the clarion call for change in photography business models is here. Indicator comments from the conference include:

1. “The way photographers are paid is changing. Maybe we need to rethink what compensation means for photography.” Jamie Goldenberg, photo editor at Bloomberg Businessweek magazine AND freelance editorial photographer
2. “Stock is dead.” Noah Rabinowitz, Art Editor with Guernica, portraiture and reportage commissions
3. Someone in the audience gave a stunning example of having his stock revenue plummet from $5k per month to $50 for the same volume of production.

In the midst of all this disruption, if you photograph, you have to make your peace, one way or another with the current circumstances and your ability to change them or cope with them. The most resonant meta conversation I had about this topic was with Tim Young.  At some point during a substantive commercial career Tim came to the personal decision that it’s about the relationships and nurturing those relationships.

This point of view is akin to what Lewis Hyde describes in The Gift: Creativity and the Artist in the Modern World. Nurturing relationships through the powerful gifts of support, connection, commenting, liking etc creates social bonds.  The dominant form of exchange is one of affection creating a matrix of relationships. This is in stark contrast to a commercial exchange or money-based transactions which discharge all obligations leaving both parties free of the need to interact further.

How to monetize mobile photography is a conversation that won’t stop until some new equilibrium is found. The prospects for change are the greatest now because of the size of disruption. In the meantime, practice your gift not only of photography but also of support and connection with those “unusual suspects” in your network

Related articles

• No Business Is Safe From Disruptive Innovation Anymore (businessinsider.com)
• 2013 Mobile Photography Awards (resourcemagonline.com)
• I Am in the Show! Mobile Photography Awards 2013 (jenniferhartnetthenderson.wordpress.com)
• 2012: The Year in Mobile Photography (connect.dpreview.com)
• From Passion to Paycheck – A Photographer’s Journey (hiscoxusa.com)
• Photography spurs online business growth in India (zdnet.com)
• Photographer’s MBA – Everything You Need to Know for Your Photography Business (pixiq.com)
• Marketing and Pricing Your Photography Business (powerhomebiz.com)
• 30 Things you Should Know to Help you Start a Photography Business (oxfordschoolofphotography.wordpress.com)
• Becoming a Dot-Com Founder (hiscoxusa.com)