Nashville, A great place for photographers.

With Nashville being rich in history as it is. It is also full of photographic oportunities in many other ways. It's rich architectural downtown has some world famous buildings ( The Ryman, Printers Alley, Tootsies Orchid Lounge and of course "The Batman Building", the only one of it's kind. In truth, for the size of Metro Nashville (around 500K +) there are way too many 'professional photographers', or should I say "self proclaimed" professional photographers. I simply do not believe that a great photograph coming from a program like Adobe, or the person that altered "fixed" it, should not label themselves as photographers, it takes away from the pros that use their camera to obtain the image in all it's glory. Some don't understand this, but if you've ever worked in a darkroom and developed and processed your own work, you would understand. I believe strongly believe their titles should be "graphic photograper" but certainly not "PROFESSIONAL PHOTOGRAPHER". Just my thoughts for the day, if you have anything you'd like to add, all comments are welcome. Sincerely, Marc Bell

Photography in todays world.

The introduction of digital photography has changed many things not the least of which is professional photography. In the past it took several weeks from the time of a sitting to the time a customer was actually able to receive professional photographs. Part of this process involved waiting a week to see the proofs from which a customer would choose the finished photographs he wished to purchase. Today with digital photography, it is just a matter of days until the customer can view the photographs on the computer. Then he can choose the ones he wishes to purchase.

The age of digital photography has made a huge impact on the world of professional photography, not just for the photography studio but also for those who take professional photographs for various events as well. For example, it means those who wish to have a professional photograph from a prom or graduation can take the photograph home with them in many cases. With the smaller digital printers it is possible for a photographer to print pictures at an event rather than asking those wishing to have pictures to wait to receive them in the mail. This, of course, depends on the space allotted to the photographer and the number of people who are attending the event in question.

Another way digital photography has impacted professional photography is the smaller size of the digital camera and the ease of use. The professional cameras that were used in the past tended to be rather large and were often complicated to use. Film processing alone was an expensive and complicated process that required special courses if one wanted to pursue a career in professional photography. That doesn't mean photographers no longer need to go to school to learn about the field, but it is certainly not as complicated as it once was. The cost of expensive processing equipment is also eliminated and has been replaced with digital photo printers and a computer. The initial cost is much lower in comparison to buying all of the darkroom equipment that was once necessary for film processing.

We have seen many changes in digital photography since it was first introduced in the 20th century. These changes have had a major impact on the photography industry as a whole and will continue to do so as technology changes and new and better digital photography equipment enters the market.

Ethics of Digital Photo Manipulation

DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHY

A Question of Ethics

Photo manipulation is not just about using the technology--it is about understanding our society. While walking down a street in a big city, a newspaper cover caught my eye. From 100 feet away I said to myself, Somebody's been using Photoshop. The picture on the front page was of a noted personality all dressed up in the latest grunge-----not her usual style. What caught my eye was not the celebrity but the obvious use of photo manipulation. The hair was drawn on with bilious yellow and of a texture that was not real. As I got closer I could see that the artist who made the cover of this weekly paper wanted you to know that he had tampered with the original photo. It was very obvious.

I snatched up a copy of the paper to use at my next lecture on imaging. I now had a perfect visual example of badly executed, very clumsy photo manipulation. But why did I want such a bad photo? Because this cover, especially juxtaposed with a skillfully manipulated photo, raises two of the most important questions about photo manipulation. Why are photographs edited, anyway? Does it make a difference if you can tell that a photo has been edited?The Importance of Reading Images

Computer-edited photographs are ubiquitous. Even if we weren't teachers we have to know the issues surrounding imaging. We live in an increasingly visual world. As individuals and as a culture, we need to know how to read and interpret visual images. As teachers we need to help our students be aware of the uses and abuses of imaging. Photo manipulation is not just about using the technology --- is about understanding our society. We have to prepare our students as users of the technology because they will become adults who will be working in the newsrooms, laboratories, and graphic studios. They are also going to be on the receiving end of all this manipulated visual information. We have to help them navigate through it all so they can become thinking adults. All this raises more questions. How do we tell what's real and What's not? How do we keep from believing everything that is printed? How do we keep from believing nothing?Manipulating Photographs I will probably raise more questions in this article than I will answer. I can, however, give you a good idea of why people edit photographs. All of you who read this publication already know that computers are wondrous machines. When it comes to photography it seems even more magical. I can redecorate my whole house, loose ten pounds or even ten years, and leap tall building at a single bound all while sitting at my Mac. As an artist I am entranced by the creative things I can do. I can make a visual landscape replete with icons and symbols. I can stretch reality to create new meaning by mixing images that don't normally appear together. I can make reality unreal and, conversely, make fantasy seem real.

Artists sometimes need to work with the mundane. We have to take the bad photographs that our clients give us and make them printable. I recently received a newsletter that had a picture of a group of board members on the front page. I don't think it was an editorial comment that the members of the board were gray and faceless. Whoever was responsible for putting the newsletter together didn't know that a photo can be made lighter and brighter, be given more contrast, and have the image sharped. With a computer and photo manipulation software, the contrast in the photo could have been adjusted turning this photo into a nice group portrait instead of a faceless blob.

Family pictures that are so faded that you are afraid that the image won't last until next year, much less the next generation, can also be made more visible with imaging. Even after all these years of working with enhancement software, I am amazed at how much can be made visible with the right techniques and, of course, software. Grandma's features reappear! And speaking of family pictures, what about the one in which you look really cute but it appears that a parking meter is growing out of your head? Aunt Sally could never master the view finder! Again, photo imaging software comes to the rescue. Not only can you erase the parking meter but you can extend the rest of the background to fill in where the meter stood. It used to be that you needed zillions of dollars worth of hardware and complicated software to accomplish these feats.

Now, however, our fourth grade students can achieve these miracles with even LC's and low cost software like Color It!The Ethics of Manipulation. Why do you think that Oprah Whinfrey's head on Ann Margaret's body appeared on the cover of August 26, 1989 issue of TV Guide? Try to imagine a final production meeting in which an editor might have tried to explain the decision to use that photo: I need a picture of Oprah, a new one now that she is thin but we don't have one and we go to press too soon to get one. What shall we do? Let's see, we have an old picture of her. Let's but her head on a thin body. We can do that now, right? Who will know? We just have to match the direction of the head and the body. We don't even have to worry about color. We can match any skin tone. We need to do this now.

Is a deadline a good enough justification for this solution? Is laziness a good enough reason? Is cost a good enough reason?The Oprah example may seem rather trivial---Unless, of course, the picture was of you. The intent may be different, but is there any difference in the editor's solution and painting a mustache and beard on a poster? Both are violations of the person pictured. Does it matter that in one instance the attempt was made to make the person look good while the other was made to discredit the person? Answering the questions begets more questionsThe matter of intent must be discussed. In the Oprah example, we have surmised that "truth" may sometimes be distorted because of laziness. But there are other reasons images are manipulated. The two headed goats on the cover of the supermarket tabloids are made to deceive. Can a can of pop be removed electronically from a table without being deceptive? Should a person ever be added or subtracted from a photo? Again we must consider intent. Is the photo of people going to be used at a trial? Is it for a newsletter or class picture? Does it appear in a reliable newspaper as a news item? What makes the difference between a positive use of photo manipulation and an abuse of it?Even positive intent can lead to distortion.

A person editing photographs must always be aware of the way our soviet reads symbols. You have seen the June 27,1994 covers of Newsweek and Time with two different versions of the same mug shot of O. J. Simpson. The Time cover make Simpson's face darker, blurrier, and unshaven. Matt Mahurin, the illustrator at Time Magazine who manipulated the police photo of O. J., at his word, he said that he "wanted to make it more artful, more compelling." He forgot to ask the following questions: Should a police photo be manipulated? A news photo be manipulated? Are certain kinds of images symbols for complicated attitudes and issues. Are certain symbols or images understood differently by different ethnic groups or segments of society. Will my intent be misinterpreted? Will I be unsuccessful as a visual communicator?

We are left asking ourselves the question: Was Mr. Mahurin a racist, an unthinking person or a bad artist?

Newsweek published the same mug shot without altering it. It was the juxtaposition of both the Time and Newsweek covers that really points to the issues. No other example of photo manipulation gives us as much to talk about as these two covers. The issues are present with other examples from the media but they aren't as clearly defined.Student Awareness The question you are probably asking at this point is, What can I do? One way of helping students to understand the issues surrounding photo manipulation is to have them ask questions. Make them aware of all the issues involves when they create images for the school newspapers, art class, term papers and other school work. You can start with Where? When? Why? How? and What? Where did I get this photo? Is it mine to use? When can I use a copyrighted photo? Why am I changing this photo? How will the readers interpret this photo? How would they have interpreted it without editing? What is the context of the photo? Is this photo supposed to be truth (journalism) or fantasy (art)?

For those of you who don't teach imaging the same questions can be asked of newspaper and magazine photos, TV advertisements, and even mail. The idea is to enable your students to observe, analyze, evaluate, and yes, think critically about the tons of visual material that come their way.The manipulation of photographs is not new. In 1903 Edward Steichen said . . . In the very beginning, when the operator controls and regulates his time of exposure, when in the dark room the developer is mixed for detail, breath, flatness or contrast, faking has been resorted to. In fact every photograph is a fake from start to finish, a purely impersonal, unmanipulated photograph being practically impossible. When all is said, it still remains entirely a matter of degree and ability. Adobe Magazine 6(3), 104) It is also true that photographers touch up photographs, but it was a long and arduous process. Digital editing is faster and easier. The tools are within economic reach for institutions and individuals. Thus more photographs can be and are manipulated. My intent in writing this article is to make you aware of the issues--to get you to ask questions--to stimulate discussion and to encourage debate with your students and your peers. Some questions can't be answered easily. Others can't be answered at all. But to not ask the questions is to miss a great opportunity.

Reprinted with permission from Learning And Leading With Technology, vol. 23 no. 4, published by the International Society for Technology in Education ©1996. All rights reserved.

Ansel Adams: A bio of his life and work.

Charles and Olive Adams gave their son, Ansel, the freedom to grow and become whatever his intellect and talents would allow him to be. At twelve, unable to stand the confinement and tedium of the classroom, he utterly disrupted his lessons with wild laughter and undisguised contempt for the inept ramblings of his teachers. His father decided that Ansel’s formal education was best ended. From that point forward, the boy was home-schooled in Greek, the English classics, algebra, and the glories of the ocean, inlets, and rocky beaches that surrounded their home very near San Francisco. He also made a serious study of the piano, which he thought was to be his avocation. Another rich source of learning was the Panama-Pacific International Exposition, which celebrated the opening of the Panama Canal, and contained exhibits and displays from around the world that fascinated young Ansel for a full year.

In 1916, during a family vacation in Yosemite National Park, Ansel was given another gift from his parents...a Kodak Box Brownie. It allowed him to record the wondrous images that he already perceived in the natural beauty around him, a process that would continue all his life. Given the position of Custodian of Yosemite’s Leconte Memorial (Joseph Leconte was an eminent geologist and conservationist.) in 1920, Adams wrote to his father that “...I want you to see what I am trying to do...the representation of material things in the abstract or purely imaginative way.”

After a prolonged and sometimes painful courtship, Ansel Adams and Virginia Best were married in January 1929, and for the first two years of their marriage, he wavered between his two possible career choices, music and photography. After viewing the wonderful work of a new friend, photographer Paul Strand, Adams decided on his course. Happily for all those who would enjoy his work in the future, he would be a professional photographer. A short time later, he joined Willard Van Dyke, Imogen Cunningham, Edward Weston, Henry Swift, Sonya Noskowiak, and Jon Paul Edwards to form “f/64”, a group dedicated to the concept of photography that looked like photography, not like an imitation of other art forms. Their exhibitions excited much comment, a great deal of which was negative, as their more simplistic, high realistic work was in stark contrast to the overdone photos in vogue at that time.

March 1933 was an important time for Adams. It was then that he met the renowned photographer and patron, Alfred Stieglitz, husband of Georgia O’Keefe, owner of An American Place gallery, and a powerful influence on artists of that time. Stieglitz was favorably impressed with the young photographer and his work, and mounted an exhibition for him in November of 1936. Adams wrote in his 1985 autobiography “Steiglitz taught me what became my first commandment: “Art is the affirmation of life.”

The photography of Ansel Adams is virtually synonymous with the Sierra Nevada, the four hundred mile long, ten to fourteen thousand feet high mountain range that inspired the Sierra Club. John Muir, the Sierra Club’s first president and one of the greatest of America’s environmentalists, led the group to become a powerful force that influenced the United States government to establish the National Park Service. Yosemite, Sequoia, Mount Rainier, and Glacier National Parks are all found within the Sierra, and their splendid beauty was recorded with enormous dedication and brilliance by Ansel Adams. Both the grandeur of the canyons stalked by gigantic looming thunderclouds (Tenaya Lake, Mount Conness, Yosemite National Park, c. 1946), massive rock formations shrouded with fragile morning mist ( El Capitan, Winter, Sunrise, Yosemite National Park, 1968) and the intricate composition and wonderful design of pine cones and eucalyptus leaves were recorded with painstaking and crystalline clarity for anyone to witness and enjoy. Adams said of his work: “My approach to photography is based on my belief in the aspects of grandeur and minutiae all about us”.

Adams also worked in the commercial field, taking pictures of everything from raisin bread to glassware to bathrobes for a Christmas catalog. It was not his favorite work, but it paid the rent and allowed him to continue his more artistic pursuits. Even his commercial work produced some powerful images (Worker and Turbine, Pacific Electric and Gas, 1939).

Adams established a working partnership with another great photographer of the time, Dorothea Lange, with whom he collaborated on several magazine pictorials for Fortune and Time. The Fortune piece concerned the struggle between small family farms and large conglomerates over water rights in California’s San Joaquin valley; Life magazine contracted them for a study of the Utah Mormons. But Adams, though he admired the work done in that field, was not a proponent of documentary photography. He wrote to Lange in 1962 that he “...resent(ed) being manipulated into a politico-social formula of thought and existence....Is there no way photography can be used to suggest a better life-not just to stress the unfortunate aspects of existence...?”

In 1943, anxious to contribute in some way to the war effort, Adams sought and received a commission from Ralph Merritt, then director of Manzanar War Relocation Camp, to illustrate and record the lives of the Nisei, American-born citizens of Japanese descent who were interned there. He was tremendously impressed by the spirit of those people as they patiently awaited to return to their lives. “Born Free and Equal”, a compilation of photos of the camp with text written by Adams himself was released in 1944, but was badly received by those who only wanted to see the Japanese as the enemy. In 1949, Adams received another camera as a gift. Edwin Land, brilliant inventor of the Polaroid Land camera, invited the photographer to become a consultant. Adams was impressed by the camera and by Land’s determination to make photography an artistic form accessible to all. Although other professionals considered the Land camera to be little more than a toy, Adams continued to test the camera and promote its use by providing boxes of the film to his associates. Ultimately, he sent over three thousand memos to Polaroid.

Ansel Adams wanted his work to be seen by many, not just the few who could afford to purchase it. He chose three images...Moonrise, Winter Sunrise, and the vertical of Aspens...and arranged for them to be printed as easily affordable posters. This went so well that, in 1984, production begun of Ansel Adams calendars (still a favorite over desks and on kitchen walls everywhere). In 1979, Adams published his very successful book, Yosemite and the Range of Light, which was to sell over two hundred thousand copies. And in 1980, The Ansel Adams Conservation Award was established by the Wilderness Club, and Adams himself named as the first recipient. The citation read “...Ansel Adams-for your deep devotion to preserving America’s wild lands and to caring that future generations know a part of the work as it has been...”

The work of Ansel Adams serves as a guide to what we once had, what still remains with us, and what we must not lose in the future. As he reminds us in his autobiography.

Nashville Network Music Industry

Breakaway Original Blues & American Rock n Roll Breakaway: Consists of Lou Carrollo - guitar & vocals, Howie Haber - guitar & vocals, Evan Davis - harmonica & vocals, Joey Gennosa - hammond organ, Dustin Hickey - bass & A. Michael Canon - drums & vocals. Formed in the early 80's they were called "one of the more creative bands in their field" by The Island Ear. Breakaway specializes in their own original music encompassing many styles of music, including blues, rock n roll and acoustic styles.

"Mulcahy's became the house of Blues as Breakaway began their set. The six man unit turned heads immediately with opener "Look Around". Breakaway were perhaps the most seasoned and accomplished musicians in the line-up, as heavy Les Paul leads, sharp harmonica solos and three part harmonies put them someplace on the rock scale between Led Zeppelin and The Band"Good Times Magazine, December 2005.

Breakaway has played numerous festivals and Venue’s including BB Kings-NYC, The Riverhead Blues Festival, Warwick Valley Winery Blues Festival and The Soul of the Blues Festival in Greenwich Village. They have graced the cover of Goodtimes Magazine, been featured in Martin Guitar Magazine, and have shared the stage with Hubert Sumlin, Albert Castiglia, Nicole Hart, Alexis P. Suter and many more. They were Finalist’s in the 2005 Long Island Music Festival, and The 2005 International Blues Challenge in Memphis, TN where over 200 bands competed.

In 2007 Breakaway performed on The Long Island Blues Warehouse which was broadcast live worldwide, the performance we so good a limited run CD was created, here is what Midnight Special Blues Radio said about the CD......... “Every song hides inside it, the best way to perform it. To feel and follow these hidden "instructions" requires a great and special talent. Elvis had it, the Beatles had it, all the true "greats" had or have got it... You've got it in this take of "Everybody's Talkin"!"Paul - Midnight Special Blues Radio 2007

Check the web site for gig schedule, samples and news of upcoming events.http://www.breakawaygroup.com or www.myspace.com/breakawaygroup or direct email Howie@breakawaygroup.com Contact: Howie Haber 32 Ostend Rd, Island Park, NY 11558 Tel: 516-770-7382

(Click the link below to watch "Breakaway's" YouTub Video) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwGDmZe60Ko

Photography an art form.

It's apparent to me that photographers now are more on the lines of "graphic artist". When I say this I mean that true photography is captured with the photographer and the camera (which is an art form). I often wonder why people now buy camera's and get behind a computer to correct them in various and many ways (does this sound like a true photographer to you?). Maybe it's just me, but when you start off shooting with film and developing your own photography, that my friends IS a true "professional photographer". I would also like to bring up the fact that there is an actual fee scale on a per job, per geographic area. So, the "graphic artist" please remember that should you be lucky enough to be contacted for a photography session.