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News & ArtsThursday, June 3, 2010
Visual Art Unsettling
Posted by Mary Traverse on Thu, Jun 3, 2010 at 5:21 PM
- Matt Logue
1
i think they are cool but not really unsettling. maybe i'm not that nervous about early morning photos of pavement. :)
4
And your point is?
I'll bet I've shot a whole hell of a lot more long time exposures than you have, Fnarf. In the early morning, a two- or three-minute time exposure through a neutral density filter would certainly be enough to "erase" cars whizzing by at 60 miles an hour, while still making everything else (including the clouds) look quite normal.
Don't try to teach your grandmother to suck eggs.
I'll bet I've shot a whole hell of a lot more long time exposures than you have, Fnarf. In the early morning, a two- or three-minute time exposure through a neutral density filter would certainly be enough to "erase" cars whizzing by at 60 miles an hour, while still making everything else (including the clouds) look quite normal.
Don't try to teach your grandmother to suck eggs.
5
Nice shots.
I find it hard to believe those freeways are ever naturally empty.
He's being cryptic about his methodology: "I will say that it required a bit of patience..." -http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/77…
Long time exposure doesn't exactly require patience, nor does going there when the roads are closed.
I'm guessing he took a hundred or so photos over the course of a few minutes, then shopped all of the "empty" shadowless pieces together and normalized the lighting (if he even needed to).
I find it hard to believe those freeways are ever naturally empty.
He's being cryptic about his methodology: "I will say that it required a bit of patience..." -http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/77…
Long time exposure doesn't exactly require patience, nor does going there when the roads are closed.
I'm guessing he took a hundred or so photos over the course of a few minutes, then shopped all of the "empty" shadowless pieces together and normalized the lighting (if he even needed to).
6
@4, I have no doubt as to your ability to suck eggs.
If you click on the link you will see birds in some of them. Perhaps they have magic birds in Denver that can hang motionless in the air for two or three minutes. Clouds and shadows, also: sharp as a tack. You're wrong.
W7ngman might be right, but I think the patience is about waiting for the moment. (At dawn, he would have had a lot of trouble "normalizing" the light, as it changes so rapidly).
If you click on the link you will see birds in some of them. Perhaps they have magic birds in Denver that can hang motionless in the air for two or three minutes. Clouds and shadows, also: sharp as a tack. You're wrong.
W7ngman might be right, but I think the patience is about waiting for the moment. (At dawn, he would have had a lot of trouble "normalizing" the light, as it changes so rapidly).
7
I'm with w7ngman.
Tripod. 100 pics snapped in a minute or two. Photoshop.
Done.
Cool and weird looking. But not especially difficult. And yes, I expect it would take hours and hours of Photoshop to accomplish.
Tripod. 100 pics snapped in a minute or two. Photoshop.
Done.
Cool and weird looking. But not especially difficult. And yes, I expect it would take hours and hours of Photoshop to accomplish.
9
That process is how they did one of the first shots in this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tpx6o4gvm…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tpx6o4gvm…
11
@6 Photoshop is real.
I was intrigued, but I sure as hell am not paying 80 bucks for a book of pictures.
I was intrigued, but I sure as hell am not paying 80 bucks for a book of pictures.
12
I guess, I don't know-I've spent lots of time walking/driving around LA at all times of the day and night and ended up in relatively empty parts of town. I usually spend part of thanksgiving day driving around LA, it's a good time for empty streets & places.
I'd wager empty freeway shots wouldn't be too hard if you took the right stretch of freeway at the right angle and waited at the right time of day. Empty downtown shots is like shooting fish in a freaking barrel. Empty street shots would only be tough because of the prevalence of street parking-I still see parked cars in several of those shots (not complaining, just saying it'd be nigh impossible to avoid in some places).
I like the photos, but I feel like they're not inspiring in me the right sense of awe or the feelings that they're meant to.
I'd wager empty freeway shots wouldn't be too hard if you took the right stretch of freeway at the right angle and waited at the right time of day. Empty downtown shots is like shooting fish in a freaking barrel. Empty street shots would only be tough because of the prevalence of street parking-I still see parked cars in several of those shots (not complaining, just saying it'd be nigh impossible to avoid in some places).
I like the photos, but I feel like they're not inspiring in me the right sense of awe or the feelings that they're meant to.
18
My very first day in America was a July 4th, spent in downtown LA. It looked just like that. And this was before photoshop was invented.
20
Hey Fnarf, here's how it was done- and yup, it's photoshop, though it's not nearly as cool (or hard) as the artist would have you believe. (and the clouds and birds are easily expained in the example)
Sorry to burst your bubble...
http://lifehacker.com/5549135/take-a-peo…
Sorry to burst your bubble...
http://lifehacker.com/5549135/take-a-peo…
22
this is pretty much exactly what masataka nakano was doing in tokyo about 10 years ago.... http://www.artunlimited.co.jp/nakano/tn.…
really cool stuff. he didn't photoshop anything. rather, he got up and went to shoot at times where places were likely to be empty - like 5 am on a Sunday in the business district. Maybe this guy did the same?
really cool stuff. he didn't photoshop anything. rather, he got up and went to shoot at times where places were likely to be empty - like 5 am on a Sunday in the business district. Maybe this guy did the same?
23
This is one technique using extremely long exposures (over 20 minutes, generally)
http://photos.bahneman.com/tricks/articl…
Also, you can get the same result using a pinhole camera, also with very long exposures:
http://www.nyclondon.com/blog/archives/2…
http://photos.bahneman.com/tricks/articl…
Also, you can get the same result using a pinhole camera, also with very long exposures:
http://www.nyclondon.com/blog/archives/2…
24
5280, sorry. Fnarf edges this one. This is, at a minimum, a tripod-mounted composite of several shots over a short period and blended in Photoshop to exclude any content where, say, a car obstructed the road. Others in Logue's series shows parked cars on urban streets are still there, which makes sense because they'd be there through every exposure in the production series.
Having done plenty of very long, 15+ minute time exposures using ISO1 (yes, 1) infrared film at midday, Fnarf is right when one considers that over time, there is still evidence of some motion blur of fast-moving objects, however faint, and clouds would look smudged and unnaturally smooth.
It's basically, as W7ngman said, a frankenshot. But this is hardly post-apocalyptic. Having people camped out on the freeway and looking ragged like those a few months after WWIII in the 1983 film The Day After? That would be eerie. This just looks austere.
Having done plenty of very long, 15+ minute time exposures using ISO1 (yes, 1) infrared film at midday, Fnarf is right when one considers that over time, there is still evidence of some motion blur of fast-moving objects, however faint, and clouds would look smudged and unnaturally smooth.
It's basically, as W7ngman said, a frankenshot. But this is hardly post-apocalyptic. Having people camped out on the freeway and looking ragged like those a few months after WWIII in the 1983 film The Day After? That would be eerie. This just looks austere.
26
Here's a guy who took the idea and made a very cool (and unsettling) video:
http://rossching.com/running-on-empty/
http://rossching.com/running-on-empty/
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