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By MICHAEL PERKINS
JUST AS THE TAKING OF A PHOTOGRAPH IS ACCOMPLISHED IN AN INSTANT, so too is the messaging that the resulting image conveys to the viewer. The impact of a picture is immediate, established within nanoseconds of the eye's initial contact with it. Additional viewing and pondering may, certainly, reveal deeper truths about a photograph, but I firmly believe that the main love it /don't get it choice about a photo is made by the brain at first glance.
That said, information must be arranged in such a way as to expedite this choice. That's the art of composition. What stays in, what is excluded, where the frame hits, and what its limits imply. The nature of the information is determined by the impact of light, which shapes and defines. That is in turn aided by texture, which adds dimension and context in how new or old, rough, smooth, substantial or ethereal things appear in the image. And finally, mood and aesthetic are established in the range of color or tonal data.
All of these elements are created by a series of decisions on whether "to do" or "not do". Which is to say that all photographs have an assembly process. Steps. Priorities. More of this, less of that. The fact that the best photographers learn how to navigate all these decisions instantaneously is really a kind of miracle. Take the truly fundamental choice of color, for example. Not only do a picture's hues have to be conceived in the mind before they're attempted in the camera: they must be refined enough for the shooter to choose how all the shaping elements described above work in conjunction with each other. Think of the graphic equalizers on our old stereos, each 'band" or part of the hearable spectrum trimmed or maximized to get a "mix" most pleasing to the ear. In visual terms, color is a key choice because it is an element that can shape so many other elements in turn. In the above image, color can resonate with memory and emotion. It can render what we term "warmth". It also aids in the perception of depth. Consider as well that color has only become the default option for our photography in about the last sixty years. Before that, due to technical challenges for film emulsions and printing processes, it was a luxury item, even a novelty for many.
"Going back" to monochrome, the original default option for all photography, means actively recognizing what kind of information is lost and what kind of impact is gained by eschewing color. Is the image strengthened or weakened with its removal? Is converting a color shot to b/w as an afterthought (as I've done here) less effective than intentionally shooting the original in mono? Are the remaining tones strong enough to convey your message? Is one tonal palette more reportorial or "authentic" than the other? And, above all, what if the choice you've made (color or no color) isn't the choice your viewer makes (in the case of this pair, for example, my wife prefers the color version, although "they're both nice")? Photography is about making decisions and learning to live with them. Or just canning the entire thing and trying again.
"We must remember that a photograph can hold just as much as we put into it" Ansel Adams once wrote, "and no one has ever approached the full possibilities of the medium". Which is a lot like God saying, "hey, don't get hung up on making just one kind of tree". The possibilities in making pictures are indeed endless, but each are rooted in our very purposeful choices.
By MICHAEL PERKINS
I WOULD ARGUE that most of the photographs commonly referred to as "self-portraits" are anything but. The tidal wave of daily images in which the photographer is also the subject are, in the main, merely our own cheery faces stamped onto whatever locale we choose as background. They are certainly recordings of us, but seldom much more. Portraiture, as painters came to use the word, is intended to penetrate, to comment, to reveal. Selfies testify that we were here: self-portraits attempt to explain why it matters.
Taking one's image is not merely about putting up an endless string of publicity releases to reaffirm to the world that we're still happy, healthy and young. It shouldn't merely be the latest opportunity to display our most practiced social masks. That's not revelation: that's camouflage.
I'm no less vain than the next person. I would love every photograph taken of me, by myself or others, to be flattering. But the photographer in me insists upon more: I need also to make images that show me as uncertain, bloated, fearful, tentative, even alienated from my own internal idea of how I appear outwardly. Moreover, I need to monitor the distance between that surface and what I feel, or, in the words of the old Steve Winwood song, when I am but a stranger to myself. No brave face, no "smile for the camera" can do that.
I'm not comfortable with image you see here. I chose selective focus and monochrome for it because I feel that way at present, just as my expression is one of someone in a transition, and a rather awkward one at that. I don't mind grinning for a snapshot, certainly. But a portrait should intend something different. And it's okay if, on any given day, I don't feel like pretending that life has is one big endless party. We are all the world's foremost authorities on who we genuinely are. Our photography should endeavor to give testimony to that truth.
By MICHAEL PERKINS
JUST A LITTLE SCROLL STROLL THROUGH GOOGLE will show just how long and how intensely the debate over color has raged in the photographic world……that is to say, whether color should be used at all, or whether, indeed, it was the spawn of Satan, turning the art of imaging into a crude carnival trick. Today, we routinely concede that both monochrome and color have distinct uses in the making of images, each bringing singular strengths to the process. But it was not that long ago that the two camps went at it like Hatfields and McCoys.
Many still feel that color should only be called on to help complete or "sell" a picture, a finishing touch of sorts. "In black and white you suggest", wrote Paul Outerbridge in Modern Photography. "In color, you state." Others, like myself, believe that there are times when color is content, complete in itself, regardless of the "official" subject of the image. Or, as Alex Webb writes, "Color is very much about atmosphere and emotion and the feel of a place."
The photos seen here show how, if color is a compelling enough messenger, most of the visual information in a picture can be pared away to let that color message breathe. The master shot of a street vendor at sundown (seen at directly above) might have worked out if I had done one or two things better, but upon later examination, I realized that the long horizontal string of neon-hued ukuleles at the top of the shot could work if cropped loose from the less effective uber-shot (as seen at top). Better still, the color in the cropped shot is not actually about "ukuleles", since a string of tropical fruits or a rack of hats with the same tonal palette would sell the image just as well. This is truly a case of color "just because", conveying Alex Webb's "emotion and feel" without assistance.
A lot of the photo world's resistance to color, which ended barely more than a generation ago, stemmed in part from a loathing for the limited printing processes which made it harder to predict or control results compared to monochrome. But there was also the fear that untalented shooters would use it as a sensational crutch to boost mediocre work. Now it seems clear that color, like any other technical element, lives or dies based on what it is called upon to do, and how well the individual artist makes his argument.
By MICHAEL PERKINS
VISITOR ATTRACTIONS CREATE THEIR OWN KIND OF PECULIAR GRAVITY, in that many of them develop an "official" way to take in their delights, pulling you toward what they believe to be the center of things. From the creation of tourist maps to the arrangement of signs on paths, many famous "places to see" evolve systems for how to "do" parks, recreation areas, even ancient ruins. Some hot spots have even been so obvious as to mount signage right next to the "Kodak moment" view that, of course, you will want to to snap, since everybody does. And from here, folks, you can clearly see the royal castle, the original temple, the stunning mountain vista, etc., etc.
But predictability, or an approved way of seeing a particular thing, is the death of spontaneity, and certainly a danger signal for any kind of creativity. Photography is the visual measure of our subjective experience. It's supposed to be biased toward our individual way of taking a thing in. Grading our reactions to visual stimuli on the curve, taking us all down the same path of recommended enjoyment, actually obviates the need for a camera. Just freeze the "correct" view on the gift store's postcard assortment, and, presto, we can all have the same level of enjoyment. Or the same low point of banality.
Recently I visited the amazing Butchart Gardens, a botanical bonanza on the island of Victoria in British Columbia. If ever there was a place where you'd be tempted to tick off "the sights" on a mental checklist, this cornucopia of topiary choreography is it, and you will find it truly tempting not to attempt your "take" on its most photographed features. But an experience is not a triptych, and I found my favorite moments were near the fringes or niches of the property, many of which are as stunning as the most traveled wonders along the approved paths.
To my great surprise, my favorite shot from the tour wasn't one of the major sites or even a color image, but a quick glimpse of a young girl hesitating in the narrow, arched portal that separated one side of an enormous hedge from the other. She only hesitated for a few seconds before walking into the more traveled courtyard just adjacent, which is, itself, recorded thousands of times a day. But that brief pause was enough. She had become, to me, Alice, dawdling on the edge of a new Wonderland. The arch became all mystery to me, but the picture needed to be simplified to amplify that feeling, relegating the bright hues to secondary status. And while it indeed seems counterintuitive to take a black and white image in the midst of one of the world's great explosions of color, I gladly chose the mono version once I had the chance to compare it to the original. Some things just work.
One thing that never works is trying to make your personal photographs conform with what the designer of a public place has recommended as the essential features of that place. Your camera is just that….your camera. Shoot with someone else's eye, and you might as well just frame the brochure.
By MICHAEL PERKINS
THERE IS, ALMOST CERTAINLY, A STORY BEHIND THE PHOTOGRAPH BELOW. Unfortunately, I don't know what it is. And probably never will.
Images often state or at least imply a narrative, allowing the photographer to relate a dimensional story within the confines of a flat, static frame. It's kind of a miracle when that happens, but there are also those pictures in which, although part of a story has been captured in mid-flight, the whole of the tale will never be revealed. Sometimes it's because I flat-out don't possess the skill to tell it properly. Sometimes it's because, although I set out to tell something in a coherent fashion, I mucked it up in execution. And, in the most interesting/frustrating of cases, it's because the photo simply contains too little content or context to make a story emerge.
Yet, these are the images that, perversely, I find myself returning to, as if staring at them multiple times will somehow solve the puzzle. It usually doesn't, but that's okay, since these "quandary" pictures also become some of my favorites. Maybe it's because they're orphans. Maybe I actually like that they defy explanation. It's like reading Ulysses. I don't get it, But then again, nobody else does, either.
This particular question mark of a picture was snapped in Boston on a day soaked in enough rain to chase my wife and myself off a local walking tour around the Commons, trading squishy sneakers for butt lumps on a bus that spent 10% of its voyage hipping us to the local scene and 90% gridlocked in Beantown traffic, which is about average, as I understand it. There was, as a consequence, plenty of time to snap things out of the windows, even though the rain played serious hell with both focus and resolution. After a while, however,even the doomed task of trying to shoot anything usable became a kind of pastime all its own, especially after the driver was forced to retrace the same circle of traffic hell for a second or third go-round.
The scene you see here is in front of a historic graveyard right in the heart of the commons, a "who's who" of honored dead, where, so say the locals, you can sit in a bar drinking a cold Sam Adams, and gaze out the window at (say it with me) a cold Sam Adams. What inspired the ragtag orchestra you see marching in front of the illustrious headstones, sans any insignia, uniforms, or sense of self-preservation is, and will remain, beyond me. What they were marching for, who their intended audience or cause might be….all of it is forever a befuddled "huh?". Bonus round: what with the light being so meager amidst the downpour, I had dialed down to a pretty slow shutter speed, so even basic sharpness was DOA for this particular frame.
Somehow, however, I love this picture, even more than if it made any actual sense. Unmoored from reality, I can make up a dozen might-be scenarios that explain it, and so it actually has more entertainment value than many of my so-called "successful" photographs. Or maybe I just like sitting in a pew at the Church of Weird every once in a while. And, on particularly dreamy days, I can stare at this band of gypsies and wish I could take up a tuba and head their direction for a bit.
After all, they know where they're going…
By MICHAEL PERKINS
IN REVIEWING YOUR PAST PHOTOGRAPHIC WORK, you are bound to find shots that you have, for lack of a better term, outgrown. Unpack that word, and what you're really seeing is the passage of time since you originally visualized a picture, along with the immense distance your eye and mind have traveled en route to the present day. Thus you are both benefitting and suffering from the luxury you enjoyed in being allowed to freeze time. You have not only immobilized a moment, but you have also preserved a record of what your "best practices" were at the time.
This painful but necessary re-assessment applies not only to the techniques used to create the initial image, but, in the incredibly speedy evolution of post-processing, all editing systems as well. Quite simply, if a picture is worth taking, it is worth fighting for…first by being as mindful and deliberate as possible in the taking, and then in a constant re-evaluation of how best to enhance its impact through editing. Therefore, if the first commandment of photography is Always Be Shooting, the second should probably be Never Stop Processing.
The above image is an example of this continuing dialogue. it was originally taken in 2012 and I have revisited it at least annually since then. At the time I first shot it, it was part of a three-shot bracket of exposures that were originally blended in an HDR program to try to get about the same degree of detail in both highlights and shadows….a look which can look great if done with a maximum of understatement, but which often winds up looking like an old Yes album cover under black light. From HDR, I moved on to a series of detail-enhancing programs which were more natural-looking, but still failed to deliver the punch I got from viewing the scene on-site. In one iteration, I added enhancement to a single shot alone, rather than a combination of all three bracketed images. And in 2016, I went back to the trio, mixed this time in an Exposure Fusion blender. And there's no end in sight.
Ansel Adams, of course, famously re-visited his master negatives with up to a dozen re-mixed versions of the same scenes over decades, re-thinking his own revolutionary "zone system" for measuring exposure for every single particle of a subject, then mastering its application in the lab via burning, dodging and other means of print manipulation. I don't work with those particular (and essentially film-based) techniques for several reasons, most of them economic. However, that still leaves me plenty of editing choices, with more gimcracks coming online every day.
Point is, pictures that are truly worth working for are also worth re-thinking, and a growing array of tools can give photographers endless ways to re-mix the hits. Of course, you will eventually come to a point where enough is enough. Historically, it's a good thing that the Pope gave Michelangelo a deadline, or else he'd still be up on that ceiling.
By MICHAEL PERKINS
THERE SEEMS TO BE A BIAS IN WHAT WE CALL STREET PHOTOGRAPHY that leans toward monochrome images, as if black and white were somehow more emotionally honest, maybe even more reportorially accurate as regards social commentary. I suppose this preference borrows a bit from the fact that journalism and photographic critique sort of grew up alongside each other, with black-and-white news coverage pre-dating the popular use of color by several decades. However, since color has become the primary, rather than the secondary choice for most photographers over the past forty or so years, there may be no leader or "winner" between bright and subdued hues, no real rule of thumb over what's more "real." Street, and the tones used to convey it, are in the eyes of the beholder.
There must be dozens of images that I myself take in color each year, that, upon later reflection, I re-imagine in mono. Of course, with digital imaging, it's not only possible but probably smart to make one's "master shots" in color, since modern editing programs can render more in the way of black and white than mere desaturation. Just sucking the color out of a shot is no guarantee that it will be more direct in its impact, and may actually drain it of a certain energy. Other times, taking out color can streamline the "reading" of a photograph, removing the distraction that can occur with a full range of tones. The only set answer is that there is no set answer.
In the film era, if you loaded black & white, you shot black & white. There was no in-camera re-think of the process, and few monochrome shots were artificially tinted after the fact. Conversely, if you loaded color, you shot color, and conversion to mono was only possible if you, yourself were expert in lab processing or knew someone who was. By contrast, in the digital age, there are a dozen different ways to reconfigure from one tone choice to another in seconds, offering the chance for anyone to produce almost limitless variations on an image while the subject is there is front of them, ripe for re-takes or re-thinks.
None of these new processes solve the ultimate problem of what tonal system works best for a given picture, or when you exercise that choice. However, the present age does place more decision-making power than ever before in the hands of the average photographer. And that makes street photography a dynamic, ever-changing state of mind, not merely an automatic bow to black-and-white tradition.
By MICHAEL PERKINS
CONTRAST IN PHOTOGRAPHY IS NOT JUST ABOUT A COMPARISON BETWEEN DARK AND LIGHT VALUES. The word contrast also applies to things placed next to each other in a composition that fight for dominance. Happy faces next to sad. Images of wealth and opulence juxtaposed with poverty and misery. Some of it can be a kind of forced irony, and, as such, can produce pictures that get a little preachy, or appear deliberately staged.
I love urban architecture because many of its design elements are enough to create a compelling image all by themselves….that is, without the larger context of what's around them. They don't have to be about anything; they just are. Contrast isn't needed in many cases, because I'm not trying to show mankind's place versus the space of a building…..I'm just seeking absolute patterns. No comment, no message.
Occasionally, however, it's great to invade all those clinical lines and angles with a bit of humanity, to break the geometry and inject something warm or whimsical. It doesn't have to be deliberate and it doesn't have to be amped up with busy staging. The best contrast shots between disparate elements are the ones that you simply witness.
In the above image, the boy on the scooter is neither a "bad" nor "good" subject, but he gains a little amplitude because of his odd placement amongst the more antiseptic surrounding textures. The shot also worked a little better in monochrome because, in the original shot, the boy's shirt was so vivid that it drew too much attention to that part of the picture.
Photographers benefit from a million tiny collisions between seemingly opposed subjects every single day. Learning which ones to isolate and massage into pictures can be an enjoyable detective game.
By MICHAEL PERKINS
ONE OF THE FIRST EDITORIAL TRUTHS THAT PHOTOGRAPHERS LEARN is that just pointing and recording is not photography. The marvelous device which was designed to arrest time in its flight and imprison it for future reference is truly effective for setting down the facts of a scene….details, textures, dimensions, etc. But, once the shooter is bent upon making any kind of statement…amplifying, clarifying, commenting….then the unadorned data of reality may prove to be a set of chains holding him earthbound. Every picture has it own terms, its own rules of engagement. And sometimes that means moving mere reality to the second chair.
Things that are only recorded are, to a degree, raw, in that they contain important information and extraneous data that might keep an image from being, well, a photograph. A deliberate act. Consider the purest form of "factual" photography, a reconnaissance flyover photo. Seen in its basic "real" state, the colllection of shapes, shades, and wiggles makes little sense to the observer. It needs the help of an interpreter to ferret out the pertinent narrative. Yes, this squiggle is a river. This grey smear is the warehouse. These scratchy cross-hatches are railroad lines. Photographs need to shaped so they can be interpreted. Sometimes this means, for lack of a more grammatical phrase, "including something out."
There are many ways to achieve this, but, in the interest of brevity, I often find that a simple switch from color to monochrome goes a long way toward streamlining an image. Hues can be distractions, slowing the eye in its pursuit of a picture's best impact. It prettifies. It luxuriates in tonal shifts, details, textures. Black and white can cut the busier parts of an image in half and convey a starkness (at least in some settings) that color can find problematic. Amping up the contrasts in black & white, eliminating many middle tones, can purify the image even further.
In the above comparison, a neighborhood in Seattle which is, in effect, its local Skid Row, is far more charming, far less gritty in the color rendering than in the mono version. Of course, the choice between the two approaches is made based on what you want to achieve. The same evaluation in a different situation dictates a different choice. Maybe.
Photography is not reality, and, if it were, it would never have flowered into an art, because reality is essentially dull. To make a picture, you have to determine the specific terms for that picture….what weight it wants to carry. Then it starts to become a photograph.
By MICHAEL PERKINS
THE SHEER NUMBER OF PHOTOGRAPHERS IN THE WORLD pretty much insures that not too many of us are artistically, um, unique. If there was ever a time in the history of the medium when it was nearly impossible to develop a style free of influence (good or bad), it's now.
That doesn't make originality impossible. But it does mean that, when one of us evolves a new way of doing things, the speed of adoption means there's about a half a global second before innovation becomes cliche. And the worldwide online community likewise switches its evaluation of an idea from "brilliant!!" to "hackneyed" within an ever shorter cycle.
One of the tricks that only really came to the fore in the early days of digital editing is the look of selective de-saturation of color. The technique was originally met with great enthusiasm, but to hear the wags that whine and howl around the web, you should now sooner be caught dead rather than use it.
Only, it's not a given technique, per se, that becomes a drag, only its over-use or abuse. Think of canvas art for a moment. No one ever complains that "everybody uses oils to paint!" because it ain't the pigment that separates the greats from the grunts. It's what you do once you pick up that brush.
I steer away from partially desaturated shots because, while they can be real attention -getters, I myself don't encounter many instances where I feel that they will actually help one of my pictures work better. The choice between monochrome and full color is, itself, fraught with a lot of mental measurement, meaning that you have a 50/50 chance in the making of an image to choose the wrong way to make it. Then there are color to b&w conversions, some of which really destroy the power of a photo. All this is before we get into the rather exotic decision of whether to make a picture "part" color.
Let's say that there's something to be gained by killing off all but the signature Manhattan cab yellow, as seen in the top image of NYC's Union Square. Okay. It's certainly technically easy to bring that off, but first you have to get beyond the initial "hey, that's cool" sensation and ask, very critically, "what else am I giving away to nearly eliminate all the color in this image? Is the color of the dusky sky worth anything? How about the red glow of neon, the amber of lit windows, the darkening skin and fabric tones of passersby?
Lots of techniques fall or rise on whether they add or subtract from the image's overall selling power. You have to learn when and where to do what…and to know why.
By MICHAEL PERKINS
FOR SOME, UTTERING THE WORD ABSTRACTION ALOUD is like saying bringing up politics at a family get-together, in that it forces people to take sides, or to account for their taste in front of others. And when you tie that scary word to art, specifically photography, people start to forget about making pictures, and begin wondering "what it all means", or, worse, what an image is "supposed to be about". We start making photos like regimented school children, all of us coloring the sun the same yellow and always drawing people with eyes in the same part of their face.
Instead of using the term abstraction to describe the idea of seeing something differently, I prefer the word extraction, as if we are pulling something different out of a subject. And it's really not that academic. When we abstract/extract something, we are changing the relationship between the object and how we typically view it. Can showing just part of its shape register in our brains differently than viewing the entire thing? If I interpret it in monochrome versus color, can I re-shape the way you look at its positive (light) or negative (dark) space?
In abstracting/extracting, aren't we really acting like designers, taking the familiar and rendering it unfamiliar to look at how it's made and how we interact with it? Just as a designer might decide to create a different kind of teapot, can't we take an existing teapot and change the way it impacts the eye? That's all extraction is; one more way to shuffle the deck.
The object at the top of the page, a rare injection-molded plastic saxophone from the 1940's, had already been "abstracted" by its designer, since we all have a traditional way of visually "knowing" that instrument. That is, it's supposed to be brass-colored metal, curve in such-and-such a fashion, and feature ornamentation of a set type. Prominently, the designer re-ordered the sax's features… in plastic, with browns and purples arranged in a fluid, stylized flow of elements. That means, that, as a photographer, I begin with my own set of expectations for the object already substantially challenged. Further, in photographing it, I can rotate the sax, compose it in the frame in an alternate fashion, reassign or intensify its colors, or, as in the small insert(which is a composite of a color negative, a monochrome negative, and a color positive), even change the relationship between surface and shadow.
There is a reason why even the police "abstract" a face into two interpretations, using both head-on and profile views in mug shots. Fact is, when you choose the viewpoint on an object, you change the interpretation of how the eye "learns" it. You extract something fresh from it . That's the nature of photography, and scary words like "abstract" shouldn't halt the ongoing conversation about what a picture is…or isn't.
By MICHAEL PERKINS
IT'S ENTIRELY POSSIBLE THAT MANY A WORKABLE PHOTOGRAPH HAS ONLY BEEN RENDERED SO BECAUSE OF SHEER BOREDOM. Face it: there are bound to be days when nothing fresh is flowing from one's fingers, when, through lack of anything else to do, you find yourself revisiting shots that you 1) originally ignored, 2) originally rejected, or 3) were totally confounded by. Poring over yester-images can occasionally reveal something salvageable, either through processing or cropping, just as they can more often lead one to want to seal them up behind a wall. Even so, editing is a kind of retro-fitted variation on composition, and sometimes coming back around to a picture that was in conceptual limbo can yield a surprise or two.
I'm not suggesting that, if you stare long enough at an image, a little golden easter egg will routinely emerge from it. No, this is where luck, accident, and willpower usually converge to sometimes produce…..a hot mess, and nothing more. But leaving a picture for a while and returning to it makes you see with the eye of the outsider, and that can potentially prove valuable.
In the above shot, taken a few months go, I had all this wonderful gridded shadow texture presenting itself, shading what was otherwise a very ordinary stretch of sidewalk. A thought emerged that the stripes in the woman's short might make an interesting contrast with the pattern of the shadows, but, after cranking off a frame or two, I abandoned the idea, just as I abandoned the shot, upon first review.
Months later, I decided to try to re-frame the shot to create a composition of one force against another…..in this case, the verticality of the lady's legs against the diagonal slant of the shadows. That meant paring about two-thirds of the image away. Originally I had cropped it to a square with her lower torso at dead center, but there seemed to be no directional flow, so I cropped again, this time to a shorter, wider frame with the woman's form reduced to the lower half of her legs and re-positioned to the leftward edge of the picture. Creating this imbalance in the composition, which plays to the human habit of reading from left to right along horizontal lines, seemed to give her a sense of leaving the shadows behind her, kind of in her wake if you will. At least a little sense of movement had been introduced.
I felt that now, I had the tug of forces I had been seeking in contrasting her blouse to the opposing grid in the master shot. I'm still not sure whether this image qualifies as having been "rescued", but it's a lot less busy, and actually directs the eye in a specific way. It will never be a masterpiece, but with the second sight of latter-day editing, you can at least have a second swipe at making something happen.
By MICHAEL PERKINS
ABSTRACT COMPOSITIONS AREN'T MERELY A DIFFERENT WAY OF PHOTOGRAPHING A SUBJECT: they are, in many cases, the subject itself. Arrangements of shape, shadow and contrast can be powerful enough to carry the weight of a picture all by themselves, or at least be an abbreviated, less-is-more way of suggesting objects or people. And in terms of pure impact, it's no surprise that photographers who, just a generation ago, might have worked exclusively in color, are making a bold return to black and white. For abstract compositions, it's often the difference between a whisper and a shout.
I find it interesting that the medium of comics, which has long been defined by its bold, even brutal use of color, is also experiencing a black & white resurgence in recent years, with such masters as Frank Miller (Batman: The Dark Knight Returns) rendering amazing stuff in the most starkly monochromatic terms. Likewise, the army of apps in mobile photography has reminded young shooters of the immediacy, the power of monochrome, allowing them to simulate the grain and grit of classic b&w films from Tri-X to Kodalith, even as a post-production tweak of a color original.
You know in the moment whether you've captured a conventional subject that sells the image, or whether some arrangement of forms suggestive of that subject is enough. In the above shot, reducing the mild color tonal patterns of a color original to bare-boned, hard blacks and loud whites creates the feel of a shaded door frame..a solid, dimensional space. The box-like enclosure that envelops the door is all there, but implied, rather than shown. As a color shot, the image is too quiet, too…gentle. In monochrome, it's harder, but it also communicates faster, without being slowed down by the prettiness of the browns and golds that dominated the initial shot.
There are two ways to perfect a composition; building it up in layers from nothing into a "just-enough" something, or stripping out excess in a crowded mash-up of elements until you arrive at a place where you can't trim any further without losing the essence of the picture. Black and white isn't just the absence of color: it's a deliberate choice, the selection of a specific tool for a specific impact.
By MICHAEL PERKINS
IT SEEMS UNGRACIOUS FOR A PHOTOGRAPHER TO COMPLAIN ABOUT AN OVER-ABUNDANCE OF LIGHT, since that's basically the currency we trade in. More typically we gripe about not being able to bring enough of the stuff into a shot. I mean, the entire history of the medium is one big let-there-be-more-light prayer. But that's not to say that light can't create annoyance when you're in a place where there is glorious, radiant illumination of….acres of nothing.
I'm not talking about sunlight on endless expanses of starched plain. I refer here to subject matter that is so uninteresting that, even though a bumptious bounty of light is drenching everything in sight, there is nothing to make a photograph of. Nothing that compels, inspires, jars or even registers. I recently made my annual return to a festival that, due to my frequent farming of it over the years, has now bottomed out visually. There is nothing left to say about it, although all that "nothing" is stunningly lit at this time of year.
In fact, it's only by shooting just abstracted shapes, shades and rays, rather than recognizable subjects, that I was able to create any composition even worth staying awake for, and then only by using extremely sharp contrast and eliminating color completely. To me, the only thing more pointless than lousy subject matter is beautiful looking lousy subject matter, saturated in golden hues, but signifying nothing. Kinda the George Hamilton of photos.
So the plan became, simply, to turn my back on the bright balloons, food booths, passing parade of people and spring scenery that, in earlier years, I would have been happy to capture, and instead render arrangements without any narrative meaning, just whatever impact could be seen using light as nearly the lone element. In the above picture, I did relent in keeping the silhouetted couple in the final picture, so that it's not as "cold" as originally conceived, but otherwise it's a pretty stark image. Photography without light is impossible, but we also have to refuse to take light "as is" from time to time, to do our best to orchestrate it, much as we would vary shadings with pencil or crayon. We know that the camera loves light, but it's still our job to tell it where, and how, to look.
By MICHAEL PERKINS
I TYPICALLY SHY AWAY FROM USING OR CREATING PHOTOGRAPHS as illustrations of work in another medium. Writers don't try to caption my images, and I don't presume, for the most part, to imagine visuals for their works. As both photographer and writer, I am sympathetic to the needs and limits of both graphic and written mediums. And still, there are rare times when a combination of events seem to imply a collaboration of sorts between the two means of storytelling. I made such an attempt a while back in these pages, in the grip of nostalgia for railroads, and so here goes with another similar experiment.
Last week, during a blue mood, I sought out, as I often do, songs by Sinatra, since only Frank does lonely as if he invented the concept, conveying loss with an actor's gift for universality. I stumbled across a particularly poignant track entitled A Cottage For Sale, which I sometimes can't listen to, even when I need its quiet, desolate description of a dream gone wrong. So, that song was the first seed in my head.
Seed two came a few days later, when I was shortcutting through one of those strange Phoenix streets where suburban and rural neighborhoods collide with each other, blurring the track of time and making the everyday unreal. I saw the house you see here, a place so soaked in despair that it seemed to cry out for the lyrics of Frank's song. Again, I'm not trying to provide the illustration for the song, just one man's variation. So, for what it's worth:
Is lonely and silent, the shades are all drawn,
And my heart is heavy as I gaze upon
A cottage for sale
Where you planted roses,the weeds seem to say,
"A cottage for sale".
But when I reach a window, there's empty space.
But no one is waiting for me any more,
The end of the story is told on the door.
A cottage for sale.
By MICHAEL PERKINS
IT WAS NEARLY A GENERATION AGO that Professor James Burke was the most admired media "explainer" of history and culture on both sides of the Atlantic, largely as a result of video adaptations of his hit books Connections and The Day The Universe Changed. Burke, trained at Jesus College in Oxford, was spectacularly talented at showing the interlocking linkages of events and human development, demonstrating the way they meshed together to act endlessly upon history, like gears locked in one large rotation. The result for viewers on PBS and the BBC was better than an ah, ha moment. It was more like an of course moment. Oh, yes, I see now. Of course.
In Universe especially, he examined the specific moments when everything we "knew" was altered forever. For example, we all "knew" the earth was flat, until we knew the exact opposite. We all "knew" that the sun rotated around the Earth, right up until that belief was turned on its ear. Our ideas of truth have always been like Phoenix birds, flaming out of existence only to rise, reconfigured, out of their own ashes. Burke sifted the ashes and set our imaginations ablaze.
As photographers, we have amazing opportunities to depict these transformative moments. In the 1800's, the nation's industrial sprawl across the continent was frozen in time with photo essays on the dams, highways, railroads and settlements that were rendering one reality moot while promising another. In the early 1900's we made images of the shift between eras as the horrors of World War One rendered the Victorian world, along with our innocence, obsolete.
I love exploring these instants of transformation by way of still-life compositions that represent change, the juncture of was and will be. Like the above arrangement, in which some kind of abstract artillery seems to have un-horsed the quaint army of a chess set, I am interested in staging worlds that are about to go out of fashion. Sometimes it takes the form of a loving portrait of bygone technology, such as a preciously irrelevant old camera. Other times you have to create a miniature of the universe you are about to warp out of shape. Either way, it makes for an amazing exercise in re-visualizing the familiar, and reminds us, as Professor Burke did so well, that truth is both more, and less, than we know.
By MICHAEL PERKINS
The White Rabbit put on his spectacles. 'Where shall I begin, please your Majesty?' he asked. 'Begin at the beginning,' the King said gravely, 'and go on till you come to the end: then stop.'
IN A SIMPLER WORLD, THE KING OF HEARTS, quoted above in Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, would be perfectly correct. All things being equal, the beginning would be the best place to begin. But, in photography, as in all of life, we are always coming upon a series of beginnings. Learning an art is like making a lap in Monopoly. Just when we think we are approaching our destination, we pass "Go" again, and find that one man's finish line is another man's starting gate. Photography is all about re-defining where we are and where we need to be. We always begin, and we never finish.
As 2014 comes to an intersection (I can't really say 'a close' after all that, can I?), it's normal to review what might be either constant, or changed, about one's approach to making pictures. That, after all, is the stated aim of this blog, making The Normal Eye more about journey than destination. And so, all I can do in reviewing the last twelve months of opportunities or accidents is to try to identify the areas of photography that most define me at this particular juncture, and to reflect on the work that best represents those areas. This is not to say I've gained mastery, but rather that I'm gaining on it. If my legs hold out, I may get there yet. But don't count on it.
The number twelve has become, then, the structure for the blog page we launch today, called (how does he think of these things?) 12 for 14. You'll notice it as the newest gallery tab at the top of the screen. There is nothing magical about the number by itself, but I think forcing myself to edit, then edit again, until the thousands of images taken this year are winnowed down to some kind of essence is a useful, if ego-bruising, exercise. I just wanted to have one picture for each facet of photography that I find essentially important, at least in my own work, so twelve it is.
Light painting, landscape, HDR, mobile, natural light, mixed focus, portraiture, abstract composition, all these and others show up as repeating motifs in what I love in others' images, and what I seek in my own. They are products of both random opportunity and obsessive design, divine accident and carefully executed planning. Some are narrative, others are "absolute" in that they have no formalized storytelling function. In other words, they are a year in the life of just another person who hopes to harness light, perfect his vision, and occasionally snag something magical.
So here we are at the finish line, er, the starting gate, or….well, on to the next picture. Happy New Year.
By MICHAEL PERKINS
I KNOW MANY PHOTOGRAPHERS WHO SUBJECT THEMSELVES TO THE DELICIOUS TORTURE, known to authors everywhere,as "publish or perish", or, in visual terms, the tyranny of shooting something every single day of their lives. There are lots of theories afloat as to whether this artificially imposed discipline speeds one's development, or somehow pumps their imagination into the bulky heft of an overworked bicep. You must decide, o seekers of truth, what merit any of this has. I myself have tried to maintain this kind of terrifying homework assignment, and during some periods I actually manage it, for a while at least. But there are roadblocks, and one of the chief barriers to doing shot-a-day photography is subject matter, or rather the lack of it.
Let's face it: even if you live one canyon away from the most breathtaking view on earth or walk the streets of the mightiest metropolis, you will occasionally look upon your immediate environs as a bad rerun of Gilligan's Island, something you just can't bear to look at without having a wastebasket handy. Familiarity breeds contempt for some subjects that you've visited and re-visited, and so, for me, the only way to re-mix old material is to re-imagine my technical approach to it. This is still a poor substitute for a truly fresh challenge, but it can teach you a lot about interpretation, which has transformed more than a few mundane subjects for me over a lifetime of shuttering (and shuddering).
As an example, a corner of my living room has been one of the most trampled-over crime scenes of my photographic life. The louvered shades which flank my piano can create, over the course of a day, almost any kind of light, allowing me to use the space for quick table-top macros, abstract arrangements of shadows, or still lifes of furnishings. And yet, on rainy /boring days, I still turn to this corner of the house to try something new with the admittedly over-worked material. Lately I have under-exposed compositions in black and white, coming as near a total blackout as I can to try to reduce any objects to fundamental arrangements of light and shadow. In fact, damn near the entire frame is shadow, something which works better in monochrome. Color simply prettifies things too much, inviting the wrong kind of distracted eye wandering in areas of the shot that I don't think of as essential.
I crank the aperture wide open (or nearly) to keep a narrow depth of field, which renders most of the image pretty soft. I pinch down the window light until there is almost no illumination on anything, and allow the ISO to float around at least 250. I get a filmic, grainy, gauzy look which is really just shapes and light. It's very minimalistic, but it allows me to milk something fresh out of objects that I've really over-photographed. If you believe that context is everything, then taking a new technical approach to an old subject can, in fact, create new context. Fading almost to black is one thing to try when you're stuck in the house on a rainy day.
Especially if there's nothing on TV except Gilligan.
By MICHAEL PERKINS
EVER SINCE THE ARRIVAL OF THE DIGITAL DARKROOM and its attendant legion of post-production fixes, the world of photography has been pretty evenly divided into "befores" and "afters", those who prefer to do most of their picture making in-camera and those who prefer to "fix" things after the shutter clicks. Most amateur photography, in the film era, was heavily weighted in favor of the "befores", since a lot of traditional touch-up technology was economically beyond the reach of many. In the Photoshop era, however, the economic barrier to post-production was shattered, resulting in a more even balance between the two philosophies.
I really see this quarrel as very sharply defined when it comes to black and white photography, with many shooters making most, if not all of their monochromes from shots that were originally color, then desaturated or otherwise manipulated as an afterthought. I prefer to shoot b&ws in-camera, however, for the very simple reason that it gets you thinking in black and white terms, from lighting to composition. It also allows you to benefit from digital's immediate feedback/playback strengths to shape your shot in the moment. If you've worked in mono for a while, and especially if you've ever shot on b&w film stock, you are used to seeing the 50 shades of gray that subtly shape the power of an image. More importantly, you realize that black and white is much more than color with the hues sucked out. It's not a novelty or a gimmick, but a distinct way of seeing.
When you conceive a shot in color, you are shooting according to what serves color well. That means that not all color shots will translate well into grayscale. Fans of the old Superman tv show will recall that, during the series' early b&w days, George Reeves' uniform had to be made in various shades of brown so it would "read" correctly in monochrome to viewers who "knew" the suit was red and blue. Cameramen had to plan what would happen when one set of values was used to suggest another. Tones that give a certain punch to an image may look absolutely dead flat if you simply desaturate for mock-mono from a color shot. And, anyway, there are plenty of ways to pre-program many cameras to adjust the contrast and intensity of a b&w master image, as well as the use of filters (polarizers for instance) that do 90% of the tasks you'd typically try to achieve in Photoshop anyway.
The mid-point compromise would seem to be to take both color and black and white shots of your subjects in-camera, allowing you the option of custom processing at least one image afterward. However, knowing what tonal impact you want before you click the shutter is just easier, and usually more productive. Do your shooting with purpose, on purpose. Making a b&w "version" of a color shot after the fact will likely bake up as half a loaf.
By MICHAEL PERKINS
I BELIEVE THAT THE SINGLE BIGGEST REASON FOR THE FAILURE OF A PHOTOGRAPHIC COMPOSITION may all boil down to the same problem. I call it "over-sampling", or, more simply, the presence of too much visual information in a frame. It can be as simple as including too many trees in a landscape or framing to include crowded sky clutter in an urban scene, but it's not always how many objects are crowded into an image. It can be something as basic as asking the eye to figure out where to look. And sometimes, the very fact that a picture is in color can diminish its ability to clearly say, here: look here.
Great photographs have their own gravitational pull and center. They draw people in and direct their gaze to specific places. This tends to be a single focus, because, the more there is to see in an image, the greater the tendency is in the viewer to wander around in it, to blunt the impact of the picture as the eye looks for a central nexus of interest. In my own experience, I find that the use of color in a photograph is justified by whether it helps keep things simple, creates readable signposts that lead the eye to the principal message of the image. Color, just like the objects in a frame, can explode with a ton of separate messages that defeat the main message, sending the viewer all over the place, trying to decode all that vivid information. Color itself can become clutter.
Sometimes the focus of an image is not an object, i.e., a building or a face, but an overall feel that is more emotionally immediate within a narrow range of blacks and greys. The kind of black and white makes a huge difference as well, and anyone who has spent a lot of time processing monochrome images knows that there is no one true black, no pure, simple white. As to actual shooting procedure, I will be so certain that only B&W will work for a given subject that I make the master shot itself in mono, but, more frequently, I shoot in color first and make a dupe file for comparison. This is another amazing advantage of digital imaging; you simply have more choices.
One of the by-products of color photography's adoption into mass culture through magazines and faster films in the mid-20th century was, for many people, a near-total abandonment of monochrome as somehow "limited" compared to those glorious, saturated Kodachromian hues. Thing is, both color and black and white have to be vetted before being used in a photograph. There can't be a general rule about one being more "lifelike" or "natural", as if that has anything to do with photography. Tools either justify their use or they don't. You don't drive a screw with a hammer.


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Insurance companies seeking to improve business performance are applying advanced analytics in new ways, creating a broader, more forward-looking view of risk and the customer journey. A variety of analytics techniques and multiple data sources are coming together to support innovation and automate processes across the value chain.
We are conducting this survey of the property & casualty insurance industry to gather insights on the future of advanced analytics relative to where companies are today.
All responses are confidential, and respondents receive a participants-only report based on analysis of the aggregated survey results, which we expect to be available in August.
By completing the survey*, you'll discover what your peers think about advanced analytics and innovation, including:
- How InsurTech will impact the future
- How fast change is expected to happen
- Which applications are perceived as most useful
- Which new modeling techniques are gaining momentum
- How claim management is likely to evolve
- How insurers expect to modernize customer experiences
To participate, please email firstname.lastname@example.com and request your unique survey link. The deadline is Tuesday, July 9.**
*Note: We request only one submission per company.

subset: commoncrawl


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RAF Uniforms - Men's RAF Jackets
Men's 1940s Wartime RAF Uniform Jacket Chest 38"
Gender: Male
Age: Adult
Chest: 38-38 inches
Description & Measurements
* Men's RAF jacket ideal for 1940s wartime events and reenactments
* Chest measures underarm to underarm and then doubled 42 inches but taken 4 inches from this measurement to allow for movement so would comfortably fit a 38" chest. Length measures from shoulder to hem 28 inches
* Length of sleeve from top of shoulder seam to bottom of sleeve on the outside measures 24 inches
* Blue shirt - 16.5" collar
* Costume hire includes jacket, blue shirt, black tie and cap. Trousers also available for hire so you can mix and match - please see related items below
Hire This Costume
Price: £30
Deposit: £40
Delivery: £8.99
Hire Period: 5-7 days


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Want to buy a secret hideaway? How about this old railway cottage for sale at auction?
PUBLISHED: 08:46 20 September 2018 | UPDATED: 18:32 20 September 2018
If you are looking to buy a secret hideaway, this intriguing detached, two bedroom brick and flint railway cottage near Norwich, tucked away and completely hidden from view, is for sale at auction for a guide price of £180,000-£190,000.
You could live here and no one would ever know as this two bedroom brick and flint former railway cottage is situated completely hidden from view and down a pedestrian track.
The property, 4, Railway Cottages, Old Lakenham, near Norwich is for sale at auction with William H Brown for a guide price of £180,000-£190,000
It is believed the cottage was built in the mid 1800s and was commissioned by the Great Eastern Railway Company for their workers who tended the tracks. Hidden from view, the cottage is located down a path and is set in approximately half an acre with a variety of fruit trees including apple and pear, together with soft fruit bushes and wild flowers, on the edge of the river Tas with idyllic views.
This enchanting cottage has so much character including a wood burning stove in the kitchen, pamment tiled flooring, a fireplace in the bedroom and a rolled top bath which all adds to its charm. Inside there is a hall, a kitchen, a living room, an inner hallway, a bathroom and and two bedrooms.
Outside is the garden including a summerhouse, and lawns. What an interesting lot!
The William H Brown auction is being held at the Barnham Broom country house hotel at midday on Thursday, October 11. To find out more, contact them on 01603 598975/7/8 or email: firstname.lastname@example.com
If you value what this story gives you, please consider supporting the Eastern Daily Press. Click the link in the orange box above for details.


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Antiques display boxes are perfect for showcasing pretty jewelry on your store in a suitable yet appealing manner to acquire extensions eyes wrapped on the gorgeous pieces.You might even purchase stands and trays to match your High quality jewelry boxes.
Luxury jewelry packaging with lavish cushioning and casing are all also crucial.They create jewelry packing a exceptional experience.An individual also can store private jewelry from those richly colored boxes.They adapt amazing jewelry and enhance the most beauty of costly off-the-shelf things.
They consistently include locks and security precautions and therefore are the sort which have demanding removable shelves in addition to non-slipping rubberized feet for simple movement.Particular boxes exhibit certain quantity of jewelry in one moment.
Therefore it's wise that you consult with the size in accordance with your requirements and also have them tailor made. They consistently arrive with back locks at the trunk side.High-impact and lucid oil is advised by the majority of jewelry shop-owners for showing their own products.
Frequently oil cases with UV protection are counseled for use for protecting certain substances in jewelry pieces.They're normally produced out of oil and so are always assembled using metal frames that are strong.Aluminum is principally utilized for holding the oil instance firmly as its a inexpensive alloy but is durable enough to get the business finished.


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Nine "P's" to a successful technology commercialization proposal
- Published: Sunday, Jan. 13, 2019
- Must address an identified need of a participating agency — identify the problem
- Significant societal, economic and technical benefits to solving
- Must be innovative
- Something new
- Something old made significantly better
- New combination of technologies
- New application of technologies
- Order of magnitude improvement over existing solutions
Product evaluation
- Answer the following questions:
- What does your product/service do?
- How is it different from others?
- Who will buy it?
- Why will they buy it?
- Where will you sell it?
- What are the environmental issues?
- Describe any new intellectual property (IP) being developed
- Plans for obtaining sufficient IP protection to build a sustainable business
- Patentability
- Intellectual property ownership
- Overcoming ownership challenges
- Licensing strategy
- Costs of IP protection/sharing
- Describe the marketplace environment
- Describe size of market and targeted customer
- Market growth rate
- The number of potential transactions
- Typical price per transaction
- Fully describe the competition
- Ability of market to support and sustain another business entity
- Specify companies identified for commitments
Market research resources
- Free sources (secondary): Internet or library
- Paid sources (secondary): Trade association reports or books
Independent research (primary):
- Interview clients and customers
- Other businesses
- Describe pricing strategies
- Describe competitor pricing
- Price relative to value
- Explain gross margin
- Explain "negotiated" prices
- Price should cover all costs (prototype, manufacturing costs and sunk costs)
- Estimate sales potential based on pricing strategy
- Reflect these numbers in the pro forma financials
- Describe where activities will be accomplished
- Show geographic location — small maps are good!
- Provide history, present status and future plans
- Describe the logic for selecting location
- Identify size of building and/or requirements
- List special equipment needed
- Address power requirements, if any
- Discuss environmental issues, potential/real
- Address legal issues with location
- Explain the distribution plan
- Explain how you will make target customers aware of your product or service
- Explain how you will get target customers to buy your product or service
- Processes for production, inventory, delivery and service after the sale
- Core technological competencies — equipment and infrastructure — ISO certification
- Required resources
- Record of commercialization success
- Environmental concerns resulting from manufacturing operations
- "Green" business
- Explain how the company will be managed
- Management team biographical sketches
- Board of directors/advisors
- Roles and responsibilities
- Management compensation
- Employee incentives
- Personnel policies
- Staffing requirements
- Outside professional services (accountants, consultants, universities, other businesses, etc.)
- Describe how you will make money
- Detail how much funding you need
- Describe where you're going to get funding
- Describe unique expenses
- Explain assumptions — line by line from pro forma
- Revenues and expenses
- Projections
- Income statement
- Balance sheet
- Cash flow statement
- Debt service ratio


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Join these free information sessions, hosted by Austrade, on the Free Trade Agreement Market Entry (FTA-ME) Grant. The sessions will provide potential applicants with the information needed to make an informed decision on applying for a grant under the FTA-ME.
Brisbane - 19 November
Sydney - 20 November
Canberra - 21 November
Melbourne - 22 November
Hobart - 23 November
For more information and to register click here
For potential applicants in remote locations details of a webinar will be circulated in the near future.


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- DisrupTV
DisrupTV is a weekly Web series with hosts R "Ray" Wang and Vala Afshar. The show airs live at 11:00 a.m. PT/ 2:00 p.m. ET every Friday. The audience can expect A-list guests, the latest enterprise news, hot startups, insight from influencers, and much more. Tweet questions to #DisrupTV or @DisrupTVShow. We broadcast live on Zoom.
Show link: https://ConstellationR.zoom.us/j/128043488
Or iPhone one-tap :
US: +16699006833,,128043488# or +16465588656,,128043488#
Or Telephone:
Dial(for higher quality, dial a number based on your current location):
US: +1 669 900 6833 or +1 646 558 8656
Webinar ID: 128 043 488
International numbers available: https://zoom.us/u/ab3NjAlcw9
Featured Guests:
Sharon Leu
Principal Executive Chief for the Committee Future Technology
U.S. Department of Education
Sharon is a Senior Policy Advisor in the Department of Education's Office of Educational Technology, where she leads postsecondary education innovation initiatives. Current projects include an exploration of education blockchains, the #EDU2030 Higher Education Ecosystem Challenge, and development of Federal open education and data initiatives. Sharon is the author of the Higher Education National Education Technology Plan (https://tech.ed.gov/higherednetp/) that focuses the themes of lifelong learning, equity, and accessibility to support the assertion that technology must serve the needs of an increasingly diverse group of students seeking access to high-quality education - all with differing educational goals, but who share a desire to obtain economic opportunity through postsecondary credentials.
Prior to joining OET, Sharon oversaw the design and implementation of the Department of Labor's $2 billion Trade Adjustment Assistance Community College and Career Training (TAACCCT) grant program, the largest federal investment in postsecondary innovation and systematic infrastructure change. Sharon is an aspiring park ranger.
Follow her on Twitter: @thesharonleu
Manoj Kutty
Founder and CEO
GreenLight Credentials
Manoj Kutty is a successful entrepreneur in IT and education. He is the founder and CEO of GreenLight Credentials, a blockchain technology platform that enables users to own and instantly share their academic records and workforce credentials.
Prior to GreenLight, Manoj was the founder-CEO of LoudCloud Systems, a leading SaaS LMS and Analytics platform that was successfully sold to and is currently part of Barnes and Noble Education. Prior to LoudCloud, he worked for the Tata Group as President of Tata Interactive and led its N. American business.
Follow him on Twitter: @yttukm
Phil Komarny
Vice President, Innovation
Highly social, entrepreneurial, award winning senior executive with a 25-year track record of delivering innovative, high value solutions by aligning existing problems with emerging technologies.
Experienced as a c-level executive that has leveraged entrepreneurial instincts, a broad technical skillset, and a very strong reputation for developing and motivating teams at all levels to integrate new technologies that create value for the organization.
Comfortable serving as the voice of the business and building a strong rapport with management, colleagues, vendors, stakeholders and technical specialists. Currently focused at the world of Blockchain and identity as they apply to the need for life long learning during the 4th industrial revolution.
Follow him on Twitter: @PhilKomarny


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Aleppo Artists Make Beauty Despite Pain
Presidential Media and Political Advisor Dr. Bouthaina Shaaban has stressed that the Syrian citizens' adherence to their history, civilization and identity is behind homeland's steadfastness.
On the sidelines of the opening ceremony of the exhibition held Saturday in 'Aleph Noon' gallery in Damascus under the title 'Aleppo is our destination', Shaaban told reporters that she heard from artists participating in the exhibition the secret of the steadfastness of the Syrian citizens and the city of Aleppo.
"The artists, who came from Aleppo, are making love and beauty despite pain. This is a world value which Syria can export to all world countries," Dr. Shaban said, indicating that the homeland's enemies are trying to destroy and burn Syria while the Syrians are enlightening the whole world.
The exhibition, held in cooperation with Ministries of Culture and Tourism, includes 20 paintings and it will last till November 19th.
Basma Qaddour


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AX Paris: 20% off new womens fashion
The AX Paris Promotion is on with 20% off new womens fashion. Shop online with promo code: "NEW20".
The promotion is valid online until 11 August 2017.
Source: AX Paris
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text: Belkin 2.1A Single Port Car Charger + USB Type C CableThe USB-C cable + car charger makes it easy to charge USB-C compatible smartphone or tablet in a car. The USB-C cable and robust charger offer 2.1 amp Output for charging that's up to 30% faster than 5 Watts. What's more, the car charger's USB-A port is Universal so it can be used with other cables to charge a variety of other devices, including smartphones, tablets, wearables or anything that charges via USB-A.Product Features:2.1A outputUniversalUSB type-A portUSB C-to-A


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With the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics predicting that STEM jobs will increase to more than 9 million by 2022, parents are looking for innovative ways to expose their kids to science- and math-based subjects.
The Toy Association has embarked on a multi-year undertaking to bring more clarity to the growing movement of STEM/STEAM (science, technology, engineering, and math, with the recent inclusion of "A" for the arts).
Our reports guide manufacturers in developing products that foster STEM/STEAM discovery and learning.
To learn more about The Toy Association's STEM/STEAM initiative, contact Janis Zegman, marketing project manager.
Just Released!
White Space Opportunities for STEM & STEAM Toys
The Toy Association has partnered with the innovation company Prodigy Works to explore potential gaps and uncover new opportunities to bring STEM and STEAM to toys and play in new ways. The focus of this research is on what can be devised, designed, and manufactured within the next 1-2 years, or adapted for the longer-term future. Click below to read the full report.
Download Report
To learn more about Prodigy Works, visit www.prodigyworks.com.
The Toy Association has a number of useful reports and resources to help toy manufacturers, parents, and teachers encourage children to use toys and play to grow and enhance their learning – and build lifelong skills.
Click below to access key reports and other assets.


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All the form in your life—the conflicts, the struggle, the emotions, the symptoms, the heartbreak, the crushed longing, the dying dreams… the falling apart of hope, the despair, the sense that something is wrong with you… this is the rich material you have to work with. While it may seem that the freedom and aliveness you long for will be found in the eradication of the dark, it is filled with spirit, magic, and meaning. Before you conclude that there is something wrong and that life has failed you, slow down. We are conditioned to find a problem where there is an invitation. Use your imagination and dream a new dream. Touch the earth. Place your hands on your heart. Attune to the aliveness of the inner body and listen.
It is this prima materia, as the alchemists called it, that is your connection with the sacred. You need not transcend your life, your problems, your symptoms, or your neurosis to know this. For inside the core of form is an intelligence that is found only there:
Sadness has something to show you that joy could never teach. Inside aloneness is a secret offering that can never be found in connection. Hopelessness, when held and entered into relationship with, holds meaning that hope is unable to reveal. Multiplicity is just as holy as oneness, matter just as consecrated as spirt.
It is pure and creative inside the symptom, but this is something our conventional world has lost contact with, in the overemphasis on becoming and loss of imagination. But the alchemists and tantrikas and the unseen ones and the moon, the sun, and the stars have come into form to remind us…
~Matt Licata
she's been gone 3 years…..she's part of all that is sacred now…..there is a sweetness to the promise of light surrounding all that we move through……
inquiry for today~ how will you be with this day? who is honored as a trustworthy guide today?
Gradually, you will learn acquaintance
With the invisible form of your departed;
And when the work of grief is done,
The wound of loss will heal
And you will have learned
To wean your eyes
From that gap in the air
And be able to enter the hearth
In your soul where your loved one
Has awaited your return
All the time.
~John O'Donohue


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How to create a patch to a game ? - Printable Version
+- RPCS3 Forums (https://forums.rpcs3.net)
+-- Forum: Support & Issues (https://forums.rpcs3.net/forum-17.html)
+--- Forum: Support (https://forums.rpcs3.net/forum-18.html)
+--- Thread: How to create a patch to a game ? (/thread-201091.html)
How to create a patch to a game ? - thebilalfakhouri - 12-25-2019
(12-05-2019, 06:44 AM)Asinine Wrote: GoW 3 uses MLAA so it doesn't work with RPCS3's resolution scaling setting. It's not really an "issue" since resolution scaling is technically a hack. But there was some work being done on trying to resolve that.
"So I can apply a patch to disable MLAA in GoW 3 then the resolution scaling will work ? like this game :
In general
Any explanation How these patches are created ? where to look ? where to start digging , any links please ?
How I can see PPU Hashes from a game ? it's something like overriding values at specific PPU hash (address) for making changes (patches) for certain things like FPS and blurring , MLAA , ... etc in a game , right ?
Anyone ?


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Who is an American and who is not, that is the Question. What does it mean to be an American and how does it sound to be an American. This question begs itself after an Iranian-American fashion blogger, Hoda Katebi, who was in an interview by Chicago's WGN News morning show was told that "she didn't sound American". After these remarks, the interview went viral and many felt the questions posted to her was unfair and inappropriate.
What exactly is the stereotypical image of an American? By definition, an American is a native or citizen of the USA. Does it really matter what your ethnic background is, what color you are, or what faith you follow? The original American spirit is based on the constitutional rights of having freedom and justice, as dictated in the Declaration of Independence, to enjoy life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That includes the freedom of speech, freedom of expression, and freedom of religion. Americans hold these truths to be sacred and undeniable; that all men are created equal and independent, that from that equal creation they derive rights inherent and inalienable. This is what makes America unique compared to third-word countries where basic human rights are not protected. Hence, many immigrants have left their homeland to come seek a life of opportunity, freedom, and to enjoy rights and benefits which are denied in their own home countries. To be able to entertain these rights even without being a citizen of the U.S. and to pursue goals and objectives that may not be easy, is what the common people understand as living the American dream.
Today, an American is one who discriminates against people of color and of other faiths, and excludes them from being considered an 'American'.
Today, an American is one who commits injustice or accepts injustice being committed by other fellow Americans, whether nationally or in foreign land and watches oppression silently.
Today, an American is one who condones the distribution of mass weapons to Middle Eastern countries to promote war and cause the killing of thousands of innocent Muslims and people of other faiths abroad.
An American is one who defends the American government at all costs regardless of the double standard policy being practiced left and right.
An American is one who dehumanizes Muslims while claiming to care about other humanitarian causes while Muslim blood is on their hands.
An American is one who labels Muslims killers as terrorists while dismissing White killers as mentally impaired or just needy of prayers.
An American is one who ignores victims of other color and faiths and intentionally fails to cover their stories in the media, while any hair plucked from the head of a Caucasian person becomes the headlines on the daily news!
Today, an American is one condones the travel ban of innocent people into the US with the pretext of maintaining national security, while the export of weapons of mass destruction is condoned and unbanned.
An American is one who supports and sponsors the apartheid Zionist state while watching innocent Palestinians being expelled from their homes and forced to settle elsewhere under a discriminatory government where they are oppressed.
An American is one who with all audacity claims a land to be the capital state of the oppressive regime, while ignoring the victimized people whose land has been seized against their will.
An American is one who blocks himself the freedom of formulating one's own moral opinion and position based on human conscience, and fails to stand up for truth and justice regardless of its implication and consequences.
An American is one who carries the US flag on one hand, while innocent human blood is dripping on the other hand.
An American is one who celebrates Presidents day as a national holiday even if the President of today has exceeded unimaginable limits and boundaries that none of his predecessors have ever done.
An American cop is one who targets and frisks people of color, arrests, beats, and kills them recklessly for no justifiable reason, and still expect to get away with it.
An American mentality is one that is self-centered and arrogant, leading to none other than oppression and injustice against others.
An American policy looks after its own interests while the interests of other citizens abroad is demeaned, overlooked, and belittled.
To be an American is to compile wealth and increase the gross net in bank assets at any cost and from any means, even if human beings are dying from starvation and malnutrition is on the rise in third-world countries.
An American who plays a deaf ear the victims of people from other ethnicities, race, color, and faith are marginalized intentionally, their blood wiped under the carpet, and their memories erased.
Yes, that is what it means to be an American, to sound like an American, and to smell like an American. As if the aim of life on this earth is adopt policies and mentalities that are unfair to others. The question is NOT whether we are American or sound like one. The real question is: Are we human and do we sound and act like human beings who carry a sound conscience?
Do we adopt and maintain principles based on human morality, humanization and respect of the rights of others even if we differ in opinion or color with other people? Do we care for our fellow human brothers and sisters like we care for our own biological siblings? Where are we from the great words of the Great Leader and Saint, Imam Ali ibn Abi Taleb who once said:
"Man is either your brother in faith or your equal in humanity."
How much ethical consideration do we give in our daily lives, at home, work, and school? And to what extent are we willing to sacrifice the materialistic gains of this temporal world, its money and glory, for the sake of defending human principles which is the essence of our existence and that differs us from other creations that are not bestowed with an intellect? Many questions to ponder over and we are the ones to answer, in front of ourselves, in front of our conscience, and in front of our Creator.
NOTE: The views presented here does NOT apply to every American living in the US, it merely represents a general growing mentality which have manifested itself in deeds and actions by some Americans who have unfortunately misrepresented their land, their values, and their people.
Author: Jerrmein Abu Shahba


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…The world is now open to help people around! Some people seem their problems as difficult but at the same time some others seem 'This is Easy'. You know what? This is amazing to solve problems, seriously! We are a couple of friends who were involved with 9 to 5 jobs in different companies having the same passions with different responsibilities!
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So, this is our passions to work with WordPress but the commitment is to solve your business needs.
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Federal Crop Insurance Corp. Cheated Them,| 142 Texas Farmers Say
AMARILLO (CN) – One hundred forty-two farmers claim the Federal Crop Insurance Corp. and other insurers cheated and deceived them by using bogus standards of "good farming practices" to deny or reduce Group Risk Insurance Protection claims. Also sued in Federal Court are Producers AG Insurance Group, Nau Country Insurance Co., Rural Community Insurance Agency, ARMtech Insurance Services, Rain & Hail LLC, and Crop 1 Insurance Direct. See complaint.


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Latest Job Vacancies In Bangalore For Freshers And Experienced.
Latest Jobs
Latest notifications regarding Central government / sarkari naukri , Banks, RRB, SSC, ... SSC, Other All India
Sports Authority of India Recruitment 2020 | 347 Vacancies| Apply Online Now
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Colouring Lives
Colouring Lives was created by a group of HCI students in order to help autistic kids in Singapore.
Colouring Lives was created by a group of Hwa Cheong Institution (HCI) students in order to help autistic kids in Singapore.
They have created a blog to serve as a platform for sale of resources that they create mainly for autistic kids. Thier project is mainly about communicating with kids with learning difficulties, helping them overcome their disabilities and teaching them new skills, most importantly, allowing their learning journey to be a fruitful, enriching and colourful one.
To achieve this, they conduct interaction sessions and create resources for autistic kids, to enhance their environment and learning, giving them a conducive place to learn and play in.
More importantly, all money from the sale of resources are donated to local non-profit autism organisations.
To find our more visit www.colouringlives.blogspot.com


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The Big Takeaway: If you're struggling with your finances, you may be someone who avoids even looking at your account.
Your money problems are not going to magically solve themselves.
There's only a couple ways to improve your finances.
Today that's what we are talking about.
Spending, saving, investing. All things you know how to do.
But why don't we?
Listen to this podcast and come over to The EDGY Facebook group and share how you are doing those things successfully and how your financial identity impacts your decisions.


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Marc Lynch of George Washington University recently debuted his arrival at the Monkey Cage with an analysis of 281 polling figures on American attitudes on Syria on The Monkey Cage (see "The Problem with #WithSyria"). Based on these survey results, he concluded that many Americans are following the situation in Syria, care about the situation but do not feel the US government has a responsibility to intervene in Syria, and want to help by providing humanitarian aid - but they don't support the US government taking more forceful action.
I agree with these conclusions, but wanted to highlight a few other findings as well.
At least earlier in the crisis, there was some American support for action beyond humanitarian efforts
Though not necessarily majorities, some surveys showed that earlier in the crisis, a substantial portion of the American public were willing to do something more than humanitarian efforts, especially if there was proof that the Syrian government used chemical weapons on its people. In a Pew survey conducted April 2013, more Americans favored (45%) than opposed (31%) the U.S. and its allies taking military action against Syria, "if it is confirmed that Syria used chemical weapons against anti-government groups" (23% didn't know). It's important to note that this question was also presented as a multilateral action, which is typically more palatable to Americans. A May 2013 CNN/ORC survey found that two in three (66%) Americans said that the US would be justified in using military action against the Syrian government "if the US were able to present evidence that convinced you that the Syrian government has chemical weapons and has used them to kill civilians in that country." And an ABC News/Washington Post poll from December 2012 reported majority (63%) support for military action in Syria if it used chemical weapons against its own people. A majority also supported US military involvement if Syria attacked neighboring US allies (69%) or lost control of its chemical weapons (70%).
The same December 2012 ABC News/Washington Post survey showed that six in ten (62%) of Americans supported the use of US military aircraft to create a no-fly zone, if no ground troops were involved. And while dated at this point, the 2012 Chicago Council survey found that Americans were willing to support sanctions against Syria, and possibly more. Even before the violence spread into Damascus in 2012, a majority supported increasing economic and diplomatic sanctions against the Syrian regime (63%). Nearly as many said they would support enforcing a no-fly zone over Syria (58%), though a majority opposed bombing Syrian air defenses (72% opposed)- which in this case, would likely be necessary to impose a no-fly zone. Despite this disconnect between supporting a no-fly zone and opposing strikes against Syrian targets, in my view, these numbers represented an underlying desire (at least back then) across partisan differences, to move a step in between sanctions and what it would take to enforce a no-fly zone.
Later, when possible military action became closer to a possible reality, public opposition toward forceful action increased. Though Pew did not repeat the same question they asked in April 2013 when a plurality supported taking multilateral military action, they did find that opposition to US airstrikes against Syria had increased dramatically from 48 percent in August 2013 to 63 percent in September 2013. In this case, the response was presented as a US unilateral response, which was being discussed at the time, and is always less popular than a multilateral initiative. In another example, ABC News/Washington Post surveys from August and September 2013 similarly reported an increase in opposition to US missile strikes (from 59% to 64%).
Some European support for similar types of engagement
The German Marshall Fund's 2013 Transatlantic Trends asked Europeans and Americans whether their countries should either intervene in Syria, where the government had been using military force to suppress an opposition movement, or stay out completely. Not surprisingly, when presented with just these two options, majorities in the US and Europe wanted to stay out. But when given a wider range of alternatives, there was some more variation in opinion.
CNN commissioned an online survey in the UK, France and Germany in August 2013, after accusations that the Assad regime used chemical weapons on its own people. While online surveys in Europe (as well as most in the US) are not yet up to the standards of a random, representative surveys, their findings can be suggestive. In this case, when prompted with the Syrian government's possible use of chemical weapons in the question, a majority in Germany (55%) and substantial minorities in the UK (46%) and France (39%) supported tightening economic sanctions. There was some support for "Western nations" establishing a no-fly zone (41% in Germany, 34% in UK, 31% in France). But as in the US case, fewer favored airstrikes against Syrian military targets (32% in France 20% in Germany, 16% in the UK). Three in ten in the UK (30%) and France (27%) and somewhat fewer in Germany (22%) preferred to do nothing. [Poll respondents were allowed to choose more than one option from a list of "most appropriate responses," which included tightening sanctions, establishing a no-fly zone over Syria, striking Syria with missiles, invading with a ground force, and doing nothing].
Americans supported the Russian-brokered deal regarding Syria's chemical weapons
While a slim majority of Americans in several surveys say they disapprove of the way President Obama is handling the Syria crisis, we can't tell whether this disapproval is because people think the US is not doing enough or whether it has done too much. No doubt, this assessment is also highly partisan in nature. Nevertheless, majorities in several surveys show overall approval for the deal to secure and destroy Syria's chemical weapons. A September 2013 Quinnipiac University Poll found that 71 percent supported a "plan to avert a United States military strike on Syria by having international monitors take control of the Syrian government's chemical weapons" (19% opposed). And a September 2013 CBS News/NYTimes poll similar found that 82 percent of Americans favored the plan reached by Russian officials "that would involve the government of Syria turning over all of its chemical weapons to international weapons inspectors" (15% opposed). That said, a majority (66%) thought it was unlikely that the Syrian government would turn over all of its chemical weapons to international inspectors.
All this to say that earlier in the crisis, when it was perhaps easier to differentiate the good guys from the bad guys, there was some segment of public support for perhaps doing more. Sadly, Syria seems to be off the public radar these days with more recent attention on Ukraine. Stay tuned for a posting on that topic next.