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Found a link to Polaroid Photography International today in an online discussion forum. This is an online magazine from Polaroid and features the work of fine art photographers who work in the Polaroid film medium. There are also sections on techniques like image transfer.
Unfortunately issue 28 is the last issue and I haven't yet figured out where the archives are but it is worth checking out.
Reuters photographer Jim Young has posted a really nice slide show taken during his time in Crawford Texas covering U.S. President George W. Bush. You can read his blog post and get a link to the slide show on the Reuters Blog.
Last week, Google and LIFE announced that LIFE's catalog of photos will be available on Google Images.
According to the press release, over 10 millions images will soon be made available on the site.
In addition to that, LIFE will be launching their own site which apparently will be in conjucntion with Getty Images.
So what we now know is that polapremium.com is run by unsaleable.com and will be a place to buy cameras and accessories related to Polaroid. Nothing new about that. However, the exciting part is that it looks like unsaleable have struck a deal with Polaroid to make large quantities of film before the factories shut down in Mexico and Enschede in Holland. The following statement is from the Polanoid website.
We are very proud to inform you about the fact that we could persuade the Polaroid management to produce an outstanding amount of breathtaking film, before closing down their factories. Many of these films are completely new products, never produced before, high quality material, hand assembled during the last production runs in Mexico (last packfilm factory) as well as in Enschede (last integral film factory). All these film as well a a wide selection of Polaroid cameras, books and accessories will be presented and celebrated at www.polapremium.com, the new home of Instant Photography.
This is an exciting turn of events for people who's Polaroid film stocks are dwindling or have disappeared altogether.
My only fear is that when the site launches (in 547,954 seconds according to the website), there will be a rush on the film leaving those who are not online for the opening in the same boat they are now.
Maybe this is a time to go into the refrigerated storage business.
Time will tell so stay tuned.
http://polapremium.com/ coming 11.27.08 See also the PolaPremium flickr group
Update: Some internet sleuths have tracked down the owner of the website to the same company that owns Unsaleable.com. Hopefully it's not another attempt to pass off the PoGo digital printer (aka Zink) as a Polaroid film replacement. More likely Unsaleable have gotten their hands on a new run of film. The excitement is building.
Update (11-20-08): I got an email from Unsaleable today confirming that this is from them.
Picnik.com is an online photo editing website. You can upload the photos from your computer or pull them in from Facebook, Flickr, Photobucket etc. The site is free to use but there is a "premium" version that costs $24.95 a year for some extra features. I had a quick browse this evening and was immediately drawn to "Create" section. Being a user of both Holga and LOMO cameras, I was very interested to see a "Lomo-ish" and "Holga-ish" button. It takes a lot of skill to create a good looking vignette and this programs fails at that (although the "Holga-ish" fakes didn't look too bad I suppose.)
However, I then noticed a "HDR-ish" button and said to myself "I have to give that a try".
Five seconds later after I bumped up "strength" to 600% I had the most hideous HDR photo imaginable.
OK, so it's not the most hideous HDR photo imaginable. There are way more hideous ones that this in Flickr Explore right now along with hundreds of views and loads of "Wow - awesome HDR" comments. But this one is pretty well up there in the hideousness scale.
Of course, this isn't real HDR. Even if I knew what I was doing, I couldn't create a real HDR photo using any tool. But based on what I see on Flickr, this effect seems to meet the requirements for what a lot of people think HDR is.
Anyway, I'm not sure I'll ever have the need to use Picnik but for people with no Photoshop or other editing software, this could be useful.
Posted on Lightleaks Magazine's website, there is a a PDF version of the interview with Mr Lee, the inventor of the Holga. It is worth a read. Out Of My Imagaination
During the week I saw on DVD the documentary "War Photographer" about the work of James Nachtwey. It is a fascinating and at times moving film and well worth renting. Here is an extract from the movie.
Links
Here's a really nice way to display your Flickr photos on a website or blog.
It's called PictoBrowser and it is a free application. You can get more information at http://www.pictobrowser.com/.
My Tags, originally uploaded by Dave Dunne.
OK, so this application is not really necessary in the grand scheme of things but I have to admit it makes a nice picture representation of my Flickr tags.
You can make you own here.
Found a link on Flickr to a very interesting article today by "security guru" Bruce Schneier called "The War on Photography". In it Schneier talks about how terrorists from Timothy McVeigh to the IRA to the 9/11 hijackers weren't known to photograph their targets yet there is now a culture where photographers are seen as a threat to world security. Schneier's conclusion is that the reason for this is "Because it's a movie-plot threat" that can be "vivid in our minds".
Read the article at http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2008/06/the_war_on_phot.html. The comments after the article are also worth checking out.
Reuters Year In Review 2007 Some great photos from 2007 from Reuters.
My Diana+ gallery was blogged today at Lomography.com
Wish You Were Here A line written on many a postcard, but interpretation is the key. A desire, a temptation, a burning question, or a bit of irony? Maybe you like to tease and are a little tongue-in-cheek? Or full of longing and sincerity-with a shot to make us weep?
That was the “mission brief†for last months Lomography Lomo Mission. This photo was one of the runners up.
