"Gordon Moat" wrote in message
...
Bandicoot wrote:
[SNIP]
Thanks - I can certainly send them something and see what they say. My
usual people do accept pano.s, but I've thought for a while that a
specialist library might get more sales from them, especially those
rather
unusual verticals that I do.


Okay, I just sent you an e-mail with one link for you to explore. It is
coming
from my regular business e-mail. I will pass on some more, after I find my
list
again.


Have received that and replied offline - thanks (again).

[SNIP]

In truth I don't know the answer to that. In theory they would: if they
both focus infinity with their exit pupil 150mm from the film plane,
they'll
both give life-size with it 300mm out. But that assumes neither is a
telephoto (or retrofocus) design. Also, the exit pupil and mounting
flange
may not be in the same relationship to each other in different lenses,
and
there's probably other issues with modern non-symetrical lens designs
that I
don't know about. Basically, I think it is, as you say, a separate
scale at
least, and a separate mount if practical/affordable for every lens.

Get too complex, and then purchasing a ready made solution can seem to be
a
better idea. The point of doing something like this on your own is to get
a
simpler device at lower cost. Of course, another reason would be to
develop a
solution that does not exist, so something unique when finished.

Yes, I think my aim is something of a 'universal' wide camera - something I
can put a variety of backs on, and can use with any lens, shuttered or not,
that I want to play with. You seem to have a similar idea, but giving up
some of the 'universality' in return for the ease of handling that my
solution will certainly lack. I think for a slight difference in overall
objective, we're going to end up with very different cameras - which I
suppose says it all in terms of 'getting something that doesn't otherwise
exist', because no one would commercially make anything that satisfies so
specific, and possibly unique, a set of requirements.

[SNIP]

The food stylist for the shots I did, were actually chefs who worked at
those
restaurants. I think that might be the first best choice in some
situations,
since the client that hired you would be paying them. The downside of that
approach is when you get a chef that is not able to visually tweak a dish,
since some foods look better at a stage of preparation that might not be
palatable.

The simpler stock type shots that are effectively still
lives of ingredients, rather than portraits of finished meals, are
something
I do now and again, but I don't think I want to specialise in food
enough to
go further into it than that.

Never really thought of "nature mort" views of food ingredients, though it
could work well. Maybe I will do a set-up at the studio, just to get some
practice with small lighting again.

It's a very small market, but there'll always be some demand - I tend to do
it to finish up rolls anytime I have the 'small photography' lighting and so
on already set up. Of course, now and then I have a good idea to play with
too - like the fresh fig sliced through with a bright highlight on the knife
blade: I had set up the lighting for something else and was about to eat the
fig for lunch when I 'saw' that the lighting could make a good shot.

[SNIP]

Design friendly photography . . . you have touched upon one aspect
that
many
art directors and designers complain about with images: room for text
placement.

I'm always surprised how many people don't take this into account.
Especially for stock work, where you don't have a design director
breathing
down your neck and so have to be your own designer - "what would I need
if I was to use this shot for a cover/advert/background/whatever" is a
question too few people ask themselves, it seems. With your
illustration
background you must have something of a head start in this area.


I am trying to come up with a positioning statement that reflects my
approach
to photography. So far, the term design friendly, or even ad friendly, or
text
friendly, are some choices. Then the problem would be that my portfolio
needs
to emphasize and reinforce my positioning statement.

Something like 'design friendly' or 'layout aware' sounds good, but as you
say, you then have to prove it via your portfolio. This sounds like
something that is better demonstrated with tear sheets than with 'clean'
shots - but that can take a lot of time to build, of course.

[SNIP]

Yes, the 'everything sharp' school of work - a la group f64 - can be
hard to
keep interesting enough sometimes.

I rarely have used that approach, even when I was doing architecture
photography. Selective focus can emphasize focal points. When there is
little
visual information in an image, then an all things in focus approach can
be
effective.

Selective lighting is an alternative to selective focus, and I certainly
quite often allow shadows to block up deliberately. I think this all comes
down to the difference in the way the brain analyses a photograph from a
real scene: a photograph needs to work 'in a single glance' to a much
greater extent, and that limits how much information it is (usually) good to
have in it. Of course, there are exceptions that prove the rule, but often
these relate to the idea of masses of detail all saying the same thing, not
to lots of 'separate' things going on.

Have you looked at Galen Rowell's book "G.R.'s Inner Game of Outdoor
Photography"? It's not really your sort of photography, so you might have
passed it by, but the things he has to say about how the brain interprets a
picture are extremely interesting.


Increasingly I think you're right about how far painting has influenced
the
way I think about putting a picture together. Like so many things we
absorb
from an early age it is somewhat unconscious for me, though it is
probably a
good exercise to think about it more from time to time - one of the
reasons
I think I learn as much as my students do from the teaching I do.

Peter

Painting has been a huge influence on the way I photograph. It is such a
prevalent aspect of how I see, that I even notice painting references in
motion
pictures. My painting are somewhat removed from reality, and
representational, though I think some photographic aspects also appear in
some of them. In some ways, painting and photography are complimentary.


I wish more people could see that complementarity - there are still those
who cling to the long defunct divides between Fine Art & craft, and between
art & science, and think photography and painting live on opposite sides of
this imaginary chasm.



Peter