Without the state

links for 2007-10-28

• DP&I.com
  a digital printing & imaging resource for photographers, digital/traditional artists and printmakers
  (tags: art artists digital photography printing resource digitalart)

On success...

Viktor Frankl survived four Nazi death camps, including Auschwitz. He was a psychotherapist who taught that humanity’s primary motivational force is the search for meaning:

Don’t aim at success - the more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side effect of one's personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one's surrender to a person other than oneself. Happiness must happen, and the same holds for success: you have to let it happen by not caring about it. I want you to listen to what your conscience commands you to do and go on to carry it out to the best of your knowledge. Then you will live to see that in the long-run - in the long-run, I say! - success will follow you precisely because you had forgotten to think about it.”

From the excellent Senscot e-mail bulletin produced by Laurence de Marco.

Subscribe here.

 

links for 2007-10-19

• Personal book printing - Blurb * Lulu
  On eof these days I'm going to follow this up!
  (tags: Books online publishing)

Seeking a US visa - Mat Frei

I just liked the quote

Some lawmakers are calling for a fence 10 feet high to be built on the US-Mexico border. That means the illegal migrants and their coyotes - or human traffickers - will just buy 11-foot ladders.

Personal publishing - Blurb * Lulu

As commercial book publishing crashes, personal book publishing is booming. Personal book making entails printing high-quality books in very small quantities, including quantities of one. New technologies permit anyone to print one copy of a softcover or hardcover book, including all-color photo books. These printed-on-demand books are indistinguishable from commercially printed books. In fact, some of the books you buy on Amazon are manufactured with this same technology. You just can't tell the difference.

A good review of the options.

[via Rebecca Blood]

The Extraordinary Case Of The Pagan And The Multicultural Prayer Room

From the National Secular Society site

An extraordinary — one might almost say unbelievable — industrial tribunal case in Manchester in March gave a rare insight into how attempts to accommodate “multicultural” religious needs at work actually appear only to apply to Muslims. It developed around a spat between Muslim employees at the Royal Mail and a member of the Odinist Fellowship (a group that apparently worships the old Nordic gods).

links for 2007-10-18

• strange maps
  One of those sites for which the Internet was surely made.
  (tags: archive design culture maps blog cartography history map mapping education blogging visualization)
• GrimReader
  thoughtful, libertarian leaning blog
  (tags: blog libertarianism)

New face of vandalism?

The Brooklyn Paper: New face of vandalism?.

A 6-year-old Park Slope girl is facing a $300 fine from the city for doing what city kids have been doing for decades: drawing a pretty picture with common sidewalk chalk.

Obviously not all of Natalie Shea’s 10th Street neighbors thought her blue chalk splotch was her best work — a neighbor called 311 to report the “graffiti,” and the Department of Sanitation quickly sent a standard letter to Natalie’s mom, Jen Pepperman.

The ire will no doubt be directed at the local council but what sort of idiot reports a 6 year old for chalking on the pavement?

And this, God help us, is one of the comments on the newspaper site!

Here's the deal, if it is your sidewalk, you own it outright, then chalk draw all over it as much as you please. If it is public property then it is unlawful to draw all over it and expect everyone to accept what you did. There should be an acceptable public place for chalk drawing, like in a playground or park. But kids just can't be allowed to draw all over public property, since that belongs to everyone and should be kept formal. Multiply this child by thousands and you can see the problem very clearly - the city would look like hell and there would be many angry and unhappy victims of this so-called art. Art is never supposed to victimize people or destroy a habitat - that is what graffiti is and that is what graffiti does.

Land of the free....

Brooks Jensen on Inkjet printing

For thirty-five years now, I’ve been a strong advocate of the virtues of gelatin silver photographic prints. Until 2005, all of my prints have always been fiberbase gelatin silver, archivally processed and toned in a traditional wet-darkroom. Even as the publisher of the LensWork Special Editions and LensWork Folios I’ve used language like "No inkjet compromises!" and "Nothing can replace the depth, tonality or presence of fiberbase silver photographic paper." We used such language to clarify that the LensWork Special Editions were not the “inferior inkjet prints” we feared people might assume they were. Our mistake was thinking that the inkjet technology of late 1990s was not going to evolve. Boy were we wrong!

Jensen goes on to argue that 'inkjet' is the wrong term in any case - the inkjet is the process not the medium - and settles instead on 'pigment on paper'.

I am now offering inkjet images – the correct terminology is actually "pigment-on-paper." I refuse to call these giclée – a term I’ve always thought was meant to disguise rather than to elucidate. Gelatin silver and platinum/palladium prints are so designated because they indicate precisely the nature of the imaging chemistry and/or substrate. Neither of these are defined as their mechanical means of production – "projection prints" or "contact prints" although these would both be technically accurate terms that are occasionally used as supplemental descriptions. Similarly, "inkjet" is an accurate term describing the mechanics of delivery used, but pigment-on-paper describes the material – chemistry and substrate – and is a better equivalent for comparison to "gelatin silver" or "platinum/palladium" prints.

He also has some interesting things to say about pricing and editions that chime well for me .

While I don't limit my prints, I do know that a clear and precise provenance is important to some people and may have historical importance long after I am gone. All of my prints now specify the date of their production, the source (negative or digital file), the precise number of copies I made that day, and which is the number of this print. Here is an example of that text.

A typical First Edition, First Printing will be three to five copies, sometimes as few as two, on rare occasions as many as thirty. Time marches, we change, our creative vision does, too. It is not uncommon for me to see new ways to interpret an old image. I am not opposed to improving an image when I see a need to. Each time I fuss with the digital file, usually to change it a bit to more closely match my creative vision, I call this a new "edition." It's a different interpretation of the raw data, so to speak - a new "performance" in Ansel Adams-speak. Sometimes that might be a little tonal adjustment, sometimes a contrast change, sometimes a dodge here or a burn there, sometimes I'll crop something or digitally remove a bothersome spot, occasionally I go all the way back to the negative and re-scan or back to the original in-camera file and start over. In one way or another, the new "edition" is a new artistic rendition of the image.

Contrary to the contemporary zeitgeist, therefore, the later editions are the ones I would generally consider the more valuable because I perceive them to be the more mature interpretation of the image. Having said that, additional editions may also be a result technology improvements.

The designation "Third Edition, Second Printing" would mean that this is the third time I've worked this image from a creative point of view and the second time I've printed a batch of prints from this third rendition. The print # is simply a count of how many prints I've made from that digital file on that day.

I produce and sell my prints on a first-come, first served basis. Orders are filled in Edition/Print Number order. Obviously, editions are not reprinted except where identified as a later printing.

I also reserve the right to withdraw from sale any image at any time.

links for 2007-10-17

• The Commodification of Poverty
  he caption/ad copy reads, “A Bag Lady in Times Square – 1965” and if one clicks on the image they discover that it is a photograph taken by Larry C. Morris and is part of the New York Times Buildings and Landmarks photo archive. Priced at $600 for a
  (tags: commodification baglady poverty fineart art photography)
• Making the Case for Markets in Cold, Hard Cash | Project for Public Spaces PPS
  Community advocates have long known how public markets become the heart and soul of a place, a spot where people naturally interact, where social and economic activities thrive. We also know that markets yield concrete economic benefits, both direct new
  (tags: markets economy Community costbenefit)
• Sirolli Institute Weblog: Blame is a primitive response - Entrepreneurship is a much better one
  "If journalists spent as much time studying the lives of the poor as they do gazing at the rich, it would help us all keep our heads on straight. We would marvel at a world economy strange enough to sustain such gaps. We'd learn not to blame the rich for
  (tags: economy enterprise entrepeneurship economicdevelopment)