Going Big

It is always helpful to have the final use of a photograph in mind during the planning stages and during a shoot. For instance if images are destined to only be used on the web, simple compositions shot in landscape format often work better.

For a much larger size like a billboard some of the same considerations, like simplicity, are relevant. In addition, quality and resolution are important factors in producing a photograph for a billboard. Format and orientation are often prescribed by an existing layout. Billboards are large budget projects and the client will typically already have approved the final design by the time we get involved in the project.

For an on-going campaign we have photographed some of Saint Joseph's University's successful alumni. This billboard campaign, created by Articus Ltd. , features tight portraits of notable alumni.

Named as one of TIME Magazine's 100 most influential people in 2009, Sister Mary Scullion is cofounder of Project H.O.M.E.. Project H.O.M.E. describes itself as a program that "empowers people to break the cycle of homelessness, address the structural causes of poverty, and attain their fullest potential as members of society."

The most recent billboard shows Dr. Ray Washington, class of 1991. For Dr. Washington, playing for St. Joseph's demanding basketball team and simultaneously pursuing a pre-med major, made medical school easier by comparison.

Happy Birthday Photoshop

Webdesigner Depot is toasting Photoshop on it's 20th anniversary with a wonderful trip down memory lane that traces each of the many versions leading up to the current CS4.

Greg can fondly remember version 2.0 that came on a floppy disk and ran on a Mac with an 80MB hard drive.

For me the journey starts in 1998 with Photoshop 5 and 5.5 which was released just a year later and included the new "Save for Web" feature. This all coincided with my first year at Drexel University.

I had never owned my own computer until that time and Drexel's policy required all students to have one of their own. I jumped in headfirst and stumbled through many clumsy attempts at webdesign, inescapably leading to Photoshop, image slices, and the "Save for Web" function.

"Save for Web" was also part of ImageReady, a companion program to Photoshop that has since been absorbed by Photoshop itself. At that time it never would have occurred to me that my new passions would eventually lead me back to my childhood love of photography.

One fun thing that Webdesigner Depot does not cover is that each of the more recent version of Photoshop have shipped with the "About" screen Adobe used in-house during the development of that version. This easter egg can be seen if you hold Command+Option+Shift while clicking on "About Photoshop" in the menu (substitute Control for Command on a Windows machine). My favorite was always Venus in Furs from Photoshop 6. A short history of these hidden splash screens can be found here. The current version, Photoshop CS4, has the above Stonehenge hidden screen.

Google Books: Ancient Photo of Jesus Found

While reading news about Google Books proposed copyright settlement, I decided to check out Google Books. On their home page are covers of various books and magazines including the tabloid, Weekly World News. That prompted me to recall a Weekly World News headline from the past, "Actual Photo of Jesus Found". Searching Google Books with the phrase, "actual photo of Jesus Weekly World News", bingo I found it.

The article claims that a photograph of Jesus had been found that was taken by a primitive Roman "camera obscura."

Since it is established that the first known photograph was taken in 1826 by Joseph Nicéphore Niépce, it is a pure hoax to report that a photograph exists from Roman times. However the tabloid Weekly World News has never let facts stand in the way of a good story.

Just to see if Google Books could find high-minded material as well as low brow tabloid material, I searched for Eisenstein's Special Theory of Relativity and found the 1921 English translation of his work.

While writers and publishers debate the pros and cons of Google capturing and distributing their content, for the end user, Google Books provides a treasure trove of low and high culture to rummage through.

Gain by Sharing

Sharing costs can make photographing your projects more affordable. The community room pictured above belongs to an apartment complex that we photographed for the builder, the architect, and the property owner.

The typical costs of hiring a photographer for a project include the creative fee, assistant, travel costs, post-production costs, and the license to use those photographs for a specific use and a specific time period. Most often when a the project is a building or site there are multiple parties involved and all those entities may be interested in documentation of the work that they have done. All costs except for the licensing can be split.

These shared projects provide a great value to our clients as it allows some of the cost to be divided between them.

Even on a smaller budget, it is possible to have beautiful, high impact, professional photographs if two or more parties are interested in sharing the costs.

Books and Stained Glass

Originally part of a convent, this space was renovated to create a library for Princeton Academy. Photographing this library for our client, E. Allen Reeves was a challenge because it is a large space that is rarely empty. We were able to shoot during a lull in scheduled activities.