Hammer Museum - Aperture Panel: Abstraction in Photography

From the beginning, abstraction has been intrinsic to photography, and its persistent popularity reveals much about the medium. Artists Susan Rankaitis and James Welling and UCLA Associate Professor of Art History George Baker debate a host of approaches to the abstract photographic experience in this panel discussion moderated by Lyle Rexer, the author of The Edge of Vision: The Rise of Abstraction in Photography.

Program date, July 8, 2009 at 7:00pm.

ALL HAMMER PUBLIC PROGRAMS ARE FREE. Tickets are required, and are available at the Billy Wilder Theater Box Office one hour prior to start time. Limit one ticket per person on a first come, first served basis. Hammer members receive priority seating, subject to availability. Reservations not accepted, RSVPs not required.

Parking is available under the museum for $3 after 6:00p.m.

Free For All - Pariah Burke

Pariah Burke (www.iamPariah.com) is a design and publishing workflow expert bringing creative efficiency to studios, agencies, and publications around the world. He is a principal at Workflow: Creative (www.WorkflowCreative.com). He is also the author of more than 250 published articles and the technical lead for InDesign, Illustrator, Photoshop, and Acrobat to Adobe’s own technical support team.
In 2008, Pariah wrote two articles for CreativePro.com about handy tools that are online and free. The reader's response was so strong and there is so much good free stuff online, Creativepro made it a monthly column.
The latest column features free Illustrator brushes, a Photoshop brush viewer, free Faxing and a Utility that never forgets?

Link to current column.

Assignment of the Week

'The Prairie Dog School of Photography'. Shoot 36 different images with your camera resting on the ground. Sometimes a change of view is all it takes to spark creativity.

Quote of the Week

"Making the simple complicated is commonplace; making the complicated simple, awesomely simple, that's creativity". ~ Charles Mingus

David Maisel - Library of Dust

Library of Dust depicts copper canisters containing the cremated remains of patients from a psychiatric institution. Vibrant minerals bloom on the urns’ surfaces, as the copper reacts with the ashes held within. The New York Times calls Maisel’s Library of Dust monograph “a fevered meditation on memory, loss, and the uncanny monuments we sometimes recover about what has gone before.”

David's website.

GridIron Flow - Become organized without organizing anything.

Flow is the world's first Visual Workflow Manager, built from the ground up to keep creative professionals streamlined and informed. Flow gives you a total understanding of your project, visually and intuitively. In one simple interface, you'll see all your project files, how they're related to each other, and where they're located - on a local drive, on a network volume, even on a DVD you burned a few months ago.

Read more.

Guided Tour.

Digital Asset Management for Photographers

Peter Krogh is a commercial photographer in the Washington DC area. He is part of Microsoft's Icons of Imaging program, and an Alpha Tester for Adobe, helping with Photoshop and Lightroom.

In this second edition of The DAM Book: Digital Asset Management for Photographers, Peter updates his ground-breaking book on creating and managing digital photography collections. He guides you through the entire digital photography landscape, showing you how hardware, software, file formats and workflow practices can work together to keep your images safe.

Read more at Peter Krogh's blog.

Kodak Retires KODACHROME Film

Eastman Kodak Company announced on Monday that it will retire KODACHROME Color Film this year, concluding its 74-year run as a photography icon.

Sales of KODACHROME Film, which became the world’s first commercially successful color film in 1935, have declined dramatically in recent years as photographers turned to newer KODAK Films or to the digital imaging technologies that Kodak pioneered. Today, KODACHROME Film represents just a fraction of one percent of Kodak’s total sales of still-picture films.

Read more.

Slideshow of Kodachrome images.

Digital Tip of the Week

Give yourself an assignment list. Before you head out on your next photo walk, create a shot list. Give yourself some techniques or themes to concentrate on while out shooting. Having pre-planned a few themes (door knobs, fences, reflections) or techniques (peak of motion, decisive moment, camera movement), you will never be without something to shoot.

Quote of the Week

"Problems cannot be solved by the same level of thinking that created them". ~ Albert Einstein

What are you going to do this month to make yourself a better image maker?

• Paint a canvas backdrop.
• Find a new location to shoot.
• Shoot a test for your portfolio.
• Create Photoshop actions to speed up your workflow.
• Go on a PhotoWalk.
  

Sending Large Files

YouSendIt is the tool I use most often when I need to send large files. It's quick and it's easy.

YouSendIt is free if you ned to send a file of 100MB or less. After registering, you're presented with an upload page that allows you to send files up to 100 recipients. Uploads are quick and once complete, the service stores that file for seven days and e-mails a download link to all the recipients you added prior to the upload.

The best part for me is that YouSendIt offers plugins for Photoshop, Acrobat, Aperture, Final Cut Pro, Corel Draw and Microsoft Office so you can send file directly from those programs.

There are not a lot of bells and whistle like many other programs, but I like the simplicity of the plugins.

Upcoming APA events

DATE: Thursday, June 25, 2009
TIME: 7:00pm - 10:00pm
WHERE: HELMS DAYLIGHT STUDIO 3221 Hutchison Ave. LA 90034
APA/LA Presents Mindful Marketing with Deanne Delbridge - The Evening

DATE: Saturday, June 27, 2009
TIME: 9:30am - 1:30pm
WHERE: HELMS DAYLIGHT STUDIO 3221 Hutchison Ave. LA 90034
APA/LA Presents Mindful Marketing with Deanne Delbridge - The Workshop

Delbridge presents a fresh perspective on creating up-to-date imagery, formatting portfolios, designing websites to include an important trend towards 'animatics' and motion, and innovative email campaigns that get work. Whether you shoot advertising, corporate, fashion, editorial, or stock, this evening and workshop is for you.
Please visit our site: www.apa-la.com for more information and sign up.

Born On This Day

Irving Penn (June 16, 1917) American photographer noted for his sophisticated fashion images and incisive portraits.
Beginning in 1945, he photographed fashion for Vogue Magazine (for which he produced over 100 covers) and began making portraits of writers, dancers, wrestlers and others.l These photographs are noted for their formal qualities, which are enhanced by elegance of line, simplified lighting and radically minimal settings.
In 1950 he began photographing his Worlds in a Small Room project. This work was initially concerned with portraits of tradespeople in Paris, London and New York, but later included gypsies and the peoples of Dahomey, Cameroon, Nepal, New Guinea and Morocco. Penn worked in rented studios and in a portable canvas studio that was erected on location, photographing individuals and groups against blank backgrounds in natural light, with an almost ethnographical directness.

Camera of the Week

The Olympus E-P1 is the world's smallest 12.3-mexapixel interchangeable lens system camera. A still photo, video and audio recorder in one, the E-P1 creates exceptional photos, slide shows, and remarkable videos. It delivers professional quality images without the bulk of a conventional DSLR, thanks to its slim body and advanced high-speed imager AF (Live View) technologies. The lens mount diameter has been reduced, enabling the use of smaller, lighter interchangeable lenses that perform at the same level as larger DSLR lenses. The camera fits easily in many pockets and purses. Read more.