The question for today is: “why can we see movies,” or more accurately put: “why can we perceive movies?” You will often see this answered by the phrase “persistence of vision.”  Persistence of vision refers to the fact that an afterimage of what you see persists for approximately 1/25th of a second after you see it.  This is a purely physical answer akin to saying that every instrument has a measureable response time.  It’s been clear, however, for a century, from neurophysiological and neuropsychological studies that persistence of vision is not the cause of motion perception.  The bottom line, before we go any further is that the human eye, for many many reasons, some of which we have previously discussed, is not a camera. Perception of image and perception of motion are brain phenomena.

In a sense, this is really all that we need to know. But it is fun to explore this a bit further.  The perception of motion appears to be more closely related to what is called the “phi phenomenon” first defined in 1912 by Max Werthheimer (1880-1943), one of the founders of Gestalt psychology.

The phi phenomenon is often demonstrated to a viewer by projecting two images in succession. The first image might be a ball on the left hand side of the screen.  The second image may be a ball on the right hand side of the screen.  If you project the two images with sufficient time in between and hold the images for sufficient duration, the viewer sees first a ball on the left and then a ball on the right.  However, with certain times in between and certain durations of holding the images steady, the viewer perceives a sensation of motion of the ball between the two sides.The same is true of music.  If you play the notes too closely they will blur into a squeal.  If you play them too far apart, they become separate and disembodied from the music.  I mention this because the music that we launched into space on Voyager may or not be interpretable by some alien civilization that discovers it.  That will depend on the way that the alien’s brain operates.

Of course, a great example of this phenomen is that of the zoetrope (see Figure 1), where a rotating drum with a set of images, of for instance a horse running and a lion jumping,  is viewed through a slit.  Actually, the slits are also rotating.  The brain interprets the set of images as the horse running and the lion jumping.  This is, needless-to-say just like the successive frames in a movie.

A  cool example of the phi phenomenon is shown in Figure 2.  It is an optical illusion called the “lilac chaser” and really illustrates the dominance of brain function in image interpretation.  In the lilac chaser we observe twelve blurred lilac (aka magenta) disks forming a ring.  One of the disks is made to disappear for about 0.1 seconds, then the next about 0.125 seconds later, and so on in a clockwise direction.   Now the trick is to stare at the cross in the center, and you may want to click on the image so as to maximize its size..  Don’t cheat keep starring at the cross. When one stares at the cross for about 20 seconds or so, one sees successively three different phenomena.  First, a gap appears to run around the ring of magenta disks.  This is the so-called beta movement.  Second, the gap becomes replaced with a green disk.  This is  an adaptation of the rods and cones of the retina.  The brain is working and interpreting.  There is no green disk.  Finally, again the brain interpreting, the magenta disks disappear and you have a green disk running around against the grey background.

So the bottom line, or lines, is that:

• the eye is not a camera but part of the eye-brain system
• once the between image timing and the duration of images become fast enough the brain no longer interprets the images as separate
• because of the phi phenomenon there is a sweet spot of image duration and between image timing that the brain will interpret as motion

It is the second of these points that, we will next consider as a further mode of creating additive color from multipile images.  And, as I promised yesterday our view of the early twentieth century will no longer be one of subdued black and white, but rather of vivid Technicolor.  That will be discussed in tomorrow’s blog.

 

 

 

 

We began our exploration of early color photography from a discussion of Edward Steichen’s (1879-1973) “false color” image of the Flat Iron building in NYC.  So it is fitting to include Figure 1 an image from Camera Work # 15, 1906, which shows an early experiment by Edward Steichen in color photography by the three-color method.  I just cannot resist also including two more of Prodkudin-Gorsky’s three color images from the Library of Congress.  These are “Peasant Girls, 1909” and “Nilova Monastery, 1910.”

It is surprising to discover that with these additive methods coupled with photo-lithographic techniques not only was color photography possible in the first decade of the twentieth century, but it was magnificent.  Both the Autochrome and the three color techniques were appealing in that they did not require any more, from a chemical standpoint, than standard silver halide development.  This meant that any amateur could develop them.

Such was not the case with ultimate subtractive processes such as: Kodachrome, Kodacolor, and Ektachrome.  These required not only a complex slew of nasty chemicals to develop, not to mention complex tweaking of color filters on your enlarger, but also very precise temperature control.  This made these processes largely inaccessible to most home darkrooms.

Autochrome and three-color are interesting variants in methodology.  They both involve geometric separation of the different primaries.  In the Autochrome process this is microscope and local, much like the modern computer LED or LCD monitor.  In three-color three separate images are projected separately into registration.

You can see the fundamental problem with this additive color approach, at least to analogue photography.  Both methods are awkward and require special equipment and methods to visualize.  They were stunning, but inventors, at the time, soon realized that subtractive color was the way to go.

However, before we go on to discuss subtractive color, we need to realize that there is one more approach to additive color that we have not considered.  We’ve spoken about local separation and projection (Autochrome) and global separation and projection (Three-color).  But we have yet to consider the very significant method of temporal separation, the rapid project of serial images.  However, first we need to consider the phenomenon of visual persistence, or what it really is.  We need to consider why we can see movies.  And by the time we are done with that, we will have to abandon our misconception that the first two decades of the twentieth century were black and white.  In the immortal words of Jacques Brel

“It was the time when Brussels could sing 
It was the time of the silent movies 
It was the time when Brussels was king 
It was the time when Brussels brustled 
Pick out a hat so dashing and gay 
Go take a walk, it’s a beautiful day 
Put on your spats and your high-buttoned shoes 
Get on the tram, get the gossip and news”

Yesterday we  discussed the role played by James Clerk Maxwell in the invention of additive three color photography.  The first example produced by Thomas Sutton in 1861 of a tartan ribbon left much to be desired and, in a sense, left tangibility to the imagination.  As mentioned, this work lay largely dormant for three decades.  It was resurrected and taken to wonderful and beautiful heights by the Russian photographer Sergey Mikhaylovich Prokudin-Gorsky (1863-1944).

From 1909-1915 Produkudin-Gorsky set out, as photographer to the Tsar, to document the Russian Empire through photography, using the three color method.  This work has been brought back to life through digital scanning of the 1,902 original colr images  by the Library of Congress.  As exemplified  by Figure 1, which shows the Emir of Bukhara, Alim Khan these images are simply stunning.  The side panel illustrates the three color positives taken with red, blur, and green filters and then reconstructed by additive  projection to create the composite color image. Note again how the three color planes can be distibnguished at the borders.

Figure 1 is a simple addition of the color planes.  The Library of Congress contracted with digital imaging specialist, Blaise Agüera y Arcas, to scan and digitally render these images.  It is truly worth some time to explore the website at the Library of Congress dedicated to exhibiting these images – or should I say e-exhibiting?

The most famous of Produkin-Gorsky’s work today is his portrait of Count Lev NikolayevichTolstoy (1828-1910) taken in 1908.   While producing actual color photographic prints at the time was challenging, Produdin-Gorsky’s studio did use photomechanical –  photoengravature methods to reproduce his color images.  Most famous of these was this image of Tolstoy issued both as post cards and prints.

As promised, today I want to discuss the darker side of fashion photography.  And also as promised, I’m going to get up on my high horse.

The fashion industry, and by default much of fashion photography, is selling sex.  Ok, there’s nothing wrong with sex.  Often this kind of fashion photography is designed to provoke.  We are bombarded with women’s breasts, women’s falsies, men in women’s dresses, and both men and women’s genitalia.  This world is a crotch fest.

Ok, at most levels even that doesn’t bother me, and it is certainly an improvement over the fashion magazines of the seventies and eighties when there were invariably women about to be dismembered by doberman pinschers.  I’m not quite sure what they were selling then – certainly not the much maligned doberman.  Now we only have Tom Brady being attacked by a doberman or wearing its collar.

There is taste and there is bad taste.  Yes, it’s a relative thing, and yes I’m even ready to forgive bad taste. I’m ready to accept the fact that bad taste can sell and that’s ultimately and unfortunately what it’s all about.

But the relativity and commerciality doesn’t alter the fact that you know when the limit’s been crossed.  It’s been crossed when things get degrading and therein lies the fundamental problem.

I’m a child of the sixties and the seventies.  Those were very turbulent times, and in the safety of retrospection, exciting times.  A great off-shoot of those times was the women’s movement.  We’ve seen women make great strides since then, and we’ve watched them take it all for granted and slip perilously backwards in the intervening years.

Frankly, there is nothing more beautiful than a beautiful woman in beautiful clothes.  But the darker side of that industry, and the photographs that promote Darth Vader’s view, objectivize and exploit women.  Worse many of the women involved are really young girls, essentially children.  And young girls seek to emulate this view of themselves, thus perpetuating the worst of this mindset.

It is perhaps the ultimate irony to see a young business woman in the airport studiously reading one of the glamor and fashion magazines.  In so doing she has become complicit  in the world that she claims to hate.  That, one man’s opinion, is what troubles me about this darker side of photography.

 

I guess that I need to begin today’s blog with an apology.  A week ago I visited the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston to see the exhibit of fashion photographer Mario Testino.  Actually, this was two exhibits “British Royal Photographs,” and “In Your Face,” which highlights his work for fashion magazines.  My apology is that these splendid exhibits of this Boston born photographer are scheduled to close today.

These exhibits are the handiwork of museum curator Malcom Rogers.  Rogers has swollen the ranks of museum visitors by expanding audience appeal with such exhibits as “Speed Style and Beauty“, which exhibited vintage cars from the Ralph Lauren collection and “Fashion Show: Paris Collection 2006“.  What these exhibits do is legitimize what we already viscerally recognize as art.

As for Testino, there can be no question, that this is art and that this artist is a master.  The art-form is the heavily staged world of the fashion shoot.  The artist is assisted by a large crew of aids and assistants.  The set and the image are finely constructed.

Perhaps the best way to say this is to explore some of my favorite images from the collection. First and foremost “Sienna Miller, American Vogue, 2007.” This is a photographer’s photograph.  Almost the entire scene is in a pale blueish white except the figure, who explodes from her dress in color.  The statues all reach outward creating a sense of motion, while the model bends forward just slightly in contrast.  Do I have to mention the rule of thirds organization?

Then we have “Gweneth Paltrow, Paris 2005.”  The trick of having your subject jump is famous.  A lot of portrait artists use it to take away inhibition.  The subject suddenly concentrates on the jump and reveals themselves.   Actually, one of the interesting observations I had as I walked about the exhibit was that among all the celebrities photographed Paltrow invariably seemed spontaneous and herself.

Next, I was amazed by “Aston Kutcher Gets Real, 2008” for the cover of VMan.  We find Kutcher in a white suit his hands clasped together.  But wait!  His right arm is not connected to his right hand, and his torn jacket reveals,  not sinew and muscle, but a mechanical mechanism.  This is simple, genius, and compelling!  Well, maybe not so simple to execute.

And then there’s this, simply beautiful black and white portrait of  “Emma Watson Wearing White Gloves, 2010,”  It is just wonderful and perfect.

Just think, I made it all the way through this blog without showing you Tom Brady with a growling doberman or anybody’s genitalia.  Mario Testino is a talented artist and has contributed some magnificent and iconic images to our culture.    There is however, a world of saprophytic mutual exploitation in fashion, which also comes out in this exhibit.  Indeed, Testino played a major role in designing the exhibit and one of his stated intents, or so the entry text to the exhibit states, was to provoke. So tomorrow I’d like to climb up on my highest horse and discuss  this darker side.

Well we’ve been talking about and looking at a lot of early twentieth century photographs and I came upon this one and couldn’t resist posting it.  The picture from supposedly c. 1900 shows Theodore Roosevelt riding a swimming moose.  It is said to be from the archives of Life Magazine.  I am a little skeptical.  First, I’ve read a lot of books about Teddy and I’ve never seen this before.  Second, his hands rather than being onto the sides of the moose or holding onto its fur, appear to be holding non-existing reins.  Third, what’s that funkiness in front of Teddy.  Fourth, if you blow the thing up and play with the contrast you start to see a halo of sorts around Teddy but not the moose.  Fifth, there’s a shadow of the moose but not of the president. And finally there’s a strange tonal/texture change behind Teddy’s left pants leg, which by the way isn’t wet.  One way or another “It’s Bully!” ’nuff said.

When I work my way through magazine contest portfolios, I am always looking for the picture that grabs me, the one that makes me say wow.  So I was making my way through the February contest issue of Black and White Magazine #95, when I came across a photograph by painter and photographer Sonja Hall entitled “Reflective Silverback.”  And I said, “Wow, that’s a great photograph!”

Suprisingly, when I visited Ms. Hall’s website I found a color version of the image and I liked that even more.  The shades of gold on the gorillas fur and the shades of green behind the boy really make the image.  What we have here is a gorilla reflective in the sunlight and reflective in demeanour, perhaps dreaming of Africa.  A young boy his hand pressed against the glass of the enclosure is behind the gorilla.  The story is right there, at so many levels.  The  eyes, of both, tell everything and the hand, albeit perhaps unintentionally, is held in a sign of trans-species peace and greeting.

This is one of those pictures where timing was everything.  Usually when you photograph at the zoo, you try to eliminate the zoo aspect from your pictures.  You try to pretend that you took the picture in the wild.  Here however, the zoo is the whole point.  The smudged and scratched glass rather than detracting from the image adds a story to it.

Go and have  look at this picture at Ms. Hall’s website.  While you are there spend the time to look at the other photographs and paintings of this talented young artist. It’s worth the adventure. And don’t forget to watch the slide show on her homepage.

In my November 17 blog, I mentioned a new biography by Tim Egan entitled “Short Nights of the Shadow Catcher”  This is a new biography of photographer Edward S. Curtis, who over the course of thirty years in the early twentieth century, documented native American populations.  In that blog I discussed Curtis’ prodigious and magnificent work; so here I’d like to focus on the book. And I have to say that I found the book somewhat disappointing.

I should, perhaps, mention that I was simultaneously reading historian Paul Johnson‘s new biography “Darwin,Portrait of a Genius.”  Johnson is one of the greatest living historians and a master at biography.  His biographies emphasize what should be an obvious point.  This is that understanding the life of a man like Darwin, a scientist,or Curtis, an artist, is to understand their work not a series of events in their lives.

From Egan’s book I did learn a lot about Curtis that  I did not previously know as well as about the difficulties that he faced, and also about the ferocious and evil prejudices that the native populations of North America faced in the late nineteen and early twentieth centuries.  It is just that I would have liked to better understand the evolution of Curtis’ view of the American Indians and I would have liked Egan to take on the enormous complexity of the issue of native peoples in America.  It is too easy to dismiss the terrible chain of events to self righteous prejudice, without a deeper exploration of the economics, religious, and even inevitable causes of cultural conflict.

From a photographic perspective, this book is really disappointing.  We are used by now to glorious reproductions of Curtis’ orotones.  Houghton, Mifflin, Harcourt’s choice of paper  doomed the images from the start and online reviews indicate that ebook readers found them even more pathetic.  I should personally have like to learn more about the technical processes that Curtis used, particularly his gold toning.

I hate biographies that inevitably march with time and lead us down the path of the subject’s death.  Whenever, I read such a tale, the words of Longfellow’s “Victor and the Vanquished” ring through my head:

“Wounded and weak, sword broken at the hilt,
  With armor shattered, and without a shield,
  I stand unmoved; do with me what thou wilt;
I can resist no more, but will not yield.
  This is no tournament where cowards tilt;
  The vanquished here is victor of the field. “

Egan, happily does not fall into this trap.  His concluding chapter describes the ultimate triumph of Curtis’ opus and the resurrection of the noble races of North America.

 

Before we get further into the New Year I thought that I should mention that, based on all of the feedback that I have received from readers, the clear favorite of everyone is not Ansel Adams “Moonrise,” but Edward Steichen’s “Flatiron Building, 1904.”  When choosing this image I very carefully sought out one of the colored ones as a opposed to the straight black and whites or the sepia toned ones. Take a look at each of these variations by clicking on the hyperlinks.  I suspect that you will agree with my selection.

When I first saw these bichromate gum colored versions, I thought that they were true color photographs.  But the fact is that 1904 predates the first true color photographs by three years.  Rather they are part of a long tradition of hand-colored photographs.  As early as daguerreotypes you can find examples of beautiful hand coloration.

While experimentation with color photography dates back into the nineteenth century.  The first practical and commercial color process was Autochrome. This is an amazingly clever process, which really deserves a blog of its own. There was a recent exhibit of autochromes at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City..

From an aesthetic perspective, I think that colorization adds to the mood of Steichen’s image of the Flatiron building.  It creates a dramatic sense of mystery.  There is a light level or moment at night when your photopic (color sensitive) vision starts to fail you  and your scotopic (black and white) vision takes over.  At that point you are not quite clear whether you are seeing color or not.  I think that the hand coloring achieves the sense of that moment.

Also, I think it profound that just as we demand and devour the latest technical advances, people of Steichen’s time felt that the spectral dimension of the image was missing.  And they needed it.  They developed hand coloration to an art form, in and of itself, and they pushed their technical innovators towards the solving of a very hard nut crack, how to go beyond the limitations of the silver halide monochrome process to create true and pleasing polychrome.