The cameraphone merges the most important communication devices in the history of the planet—the telephone, the camera, and the internet. The camera phone or smartphone concept has dramatically reshaped expectations of photography and the look and feel of the camera. Camera phone conventions appeared in 1988, and the first wireless camera phone prototype appeared in…
Category: Travel Photography
Relics, In A Gold Country
That the past is different from the present is its foremost attraction. We know about the past through history, memory, and relics. Photography is critical in shaping our knowledge of the past, as a physical record of the past, as a stimulus to memory, and through the creation of visual artifacts of the past.[1] The…
Experimenting with Lens Blur: the Burnside 35mm Lens
Humans see binocularly, whereas a camera lens records light with only one light source—monocularly establishing a single point of focus. The photographer chooses a single point of focus, giving emphasis and meaning to the image. By adjusting the focus in the image, a photographer can establish a hierarchy of focus and attention over the image….
British Cemeteries in the Ganges Valley, India
The British East India Company was formed by royal charter in 1600 for the profitable exploitation of trade with India and Asia. Acting as an agent for the British government and through monopolies on the importation of cotton, tea, silk, and other fabrics from India into Britain, the company became a catalyst for British expansion…
Northern Lights, High ISO
Northern Lights are always occurring, however, they are only viewable when lower levels of light pollution occur, and typically on clear nights in September through April in the Northern Hemisphere. The aurora borealis and aurora australis, the northern or southern lights, are caused by particles escaping from the sun, a phenomenon known as solar wind into space. The…
Matching Color From a Vintage Stereo Card
The stereo camera coupled with the stereoscope is one of the 19th century’s most unique inventions. The stereography extended the visual reach of photography and unlike any other photographic process or invention, through the vivid illusion of three-dimensionality, “captured the visual essence of nature.”[1] In the presentation above, I demonstrate how to use Photoshop’s Match…
Portraits, Jesuit-Guaraní Sculptures
After first establishing a mission at San Ignacio Guazú, Paraguay, in 1609, the Society of the Jesuits would go on to build 30 mission settlements called reductions among the Guaraní people in the fertile river valleys of the Parana and Uruguay Rivers, a region today spanning the countries of Southern Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, and Paraguay. [1]…
Downieville Cemetery: Portraits of Gravestones
Situated at the bottom of a deep narrow canyon at the confluence of the Downie and Yuba Rivers, Downieville, California prospered from the gold taken from the fast-moving alpine rivers and streams. At the peak of the Gold Rush, about 5,000 miners worked extensive hydraulic diggings and deep rock mines in the area. Then, Downieville…
A Point of Historical Interest—Toys Left for Julius.
About 7 miles east of Nevada City, California, and just off Highway 20 is a Point of Historical Interest, the burial site of Julius Albert Apperson, a two-year-old boy who died on May 6, 1858. In 1971, the Native Sons of the Golden West erected a monument at the site for “A pioneer who crossed…
Experimenting with Infrared Digital Capture
Constructed in 1955, MS Aurora was the first ship wholly made in German shipyards following World War II. MS Aurora began service as a day cruiser named the MV Wappen Von Hamburg, serving the ports of Hamburg, Cuxhaven, Heligoland, and Hornum in the North Sea. Later the ship was sold to new owners who converted…