December 20th, 2011
Annie Leibovitz says go for the iPhone and she’s right.
Here’s what photographer Annie Leibovitz tells people who want to know which camera they should buy, NBC’s Brian Williams reports.
I agree with Annie. Though I love shooting with my DSLR cameras, or my antiquated Leica point-n-shoot, the i-Phone is always with me and the camera is flat out great. I find myself finally having the right tool for the job when the light is perfect and I’m driving or walking and those fancy cameras are in a backpack on the floor of my closet.
Enter, Instagram, the free social media app. I got interested after reading about the free filters available for photographers. It took a month of randomly playing around in my spare time, but I started assembling a photo portfolio and finding amazing photographs from other photographers all over the world. Instagram allows you to save great images by others and receive comments and feedback about your own work. It’s the visual equivalent of Twitter.
Here are some examples of my iphoneography. If you are on Instagram, please check out my images by searching the tag, stefangoot.
The first image is an old boat shot with iPhone in natural light. It gives you a sense of the iPhone camera, unfiltered. The second image is another iPhone shot of the Petaluma River. The final image, is that same photo with an Instagram filter applied.
The Instagram filters are fast and easy to use, so editing photos is fun. Whether you filter an image or not, it’s quick to post and share. Cultural institutions such as MOMA, both in SF and NYC, have Instagram accounts and post images.
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October 28th, 2011
Maria Del Camino “is a love poem to the car and Her demise,” in the words of artist/creator, Bruce Tomb. A 59′ El Camino was salvaged by Tomb and drilled with tens of thousands of holes, then mounted to a hydraulic tracked excavator. The myriad holes lighten the car body and create a stunning portrait of the false Maria, from Fritz Lang’s Metropolis. This iconic image can best be seen when the art car rises into totemic mode, with the long camino body tilted upright to nearly 18 feet tall, and iluminated from behind like a glowing idol.
Part junkyard transformer, part beautiful shrine, the car is wonderful to ride in. It glides along on massive tracks, elevating up to 8 passengers above the gritty streets of the Bay Area, or the playa of Black Rock City. Powered by bio diesel, Maria Del Camino, subverts the speed and grace implied in the elegant lines of the Camino body, as she chugs forward at top speed of 3 MPH. Yet the sense of freedom, of movement and grace, that the car originally possessed, remains in Bruce’s hybrid. photos by gutermuth.
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October 9th, 2011
As part of Santa Rosa’s Handcar Regatta, the Whiskeydrome paid homage to board tracks and traveling stunt shows of yesteryear. The track is 26 feet in diameter at the top and 18 feet at the bottom. For the price of a lovely t-shirt, the intrepid spectator could ride the drome, at his/her own peril!
Amid the commotion of shouting onlookers, numerous bikes in the center of the velodrome, and other velodrome riders, it takes great concentration to participate and not wipe out. Pictured below is my son, Tobin, on his own ride. He contemplated the scene for quite a long time before donning a t-shirt and successfully conquering the drome! photos © 2011 stefan gutermuth
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September 16th, 2011
I’m happy to post a selection of spreads from the newly designed Earth in Focus book, Oceans:Heart of Our Blue Planet, now at the printer in Shenzen. Photo credits in order:
Dwarf minke whale (Balaenoptera acutorostrata) off the Great Barrier Reef in Australia by Jürgen Freund
Brood of jellyfish found in northern British Columbia by Thomas P. Peschak
The giant Pacific octopus (Octopus doeflini) by Stuart Westmorland
Manta rays (Manta alfredi) and bait fish in a feeding frenzy in the Maldives by Thomas P. Peschak
Green sea turtle (Chelonia mydas) off Mabul Island, Sabah, in Malaysian Borneo, by Stewart Westmorland
A caretaker transfers live fish into fish pens in Tampakan, Kudat Bay, Sabah, Borneo, Malaysia by Jürgen Freund
The giant Australian cuttlefish (Sepia apama) found in waters up to 100m deep off the coast of Eastern and Southern Australia by Michele Hall
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September 1st, 2011
With the arrival of Fall, another recent design project has finally come to fruition.
The department of English at U.C. Berkeley came to me in 2010 with a very limited budget. Even with those constraints, I was able to create a stronger brand for their relaunched website. Darrend King Brown, technology specialist in English, did the coding, while I created new graphics and consulted on the color palette.
The banners were assembled in Photoshop from several photoshoots I did in the department library. While most of the banners in the rotation feature faculty books, this image is of the library itself. I like how it conveys the warmth of that beautiful old room.
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September 1st, 2011
Just finished designing the whopper book project of the year for my office. It’s the 252 page Oceans: Heart of Our Blue Planet, published by Earth In Focus editions, featuring 141 color photographs. As I transfer both the English and Spanish versions to the printer in Shenzhen, I’m excited to post about this book that has consumed me for the last 3 months. The magic and mystery of The Oceans becomes clear all over again when you look at these assembled photographs from around the world.
The “oceans” seem to be a hot media topic. That’s good because the resources of our oceans are very, very finite. The depletion of coral reefs, impending extinction of big species like tuna, increased pollution, and so many other threats, will change the seas we know today in many drastic ways.
A major challenge with this project, is that a Spanish edition has to be created in about ten days after months of work on the english edition. Spanish text runs longer than English, but the spanish version must fit exactly in the same pages as the english so that Legend Color can use the same color plates for both editions.
I like the Spanish cover better than the English, because the title typesets so nicely.
The cover photograph by Ralph Lee Hopkins shows a pod of long-beaked dolphins (Delphinus capensis) in the Sea of Cortez, Baja California, Mexico. © Ralph Lee Hopkins/ iLCP
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August 5th, 2011
My work days are spent in front of a computer, and when I am engaged with a big project, my neck suffers from long hours of staring straight ahead in one position. The longer the hours, the greater the pain. On a bad day, it feels like a brick has been inserted where my spine connects to my head.
Fortunately, acupuncturist, Ona Goodrich, works on my distressed body in times of need. Today I had a cupping session, followed by acupuncture, and the relief is wonderful.
Cupping is an ancient technique in which a special cup is applied to the skin and held in place by suction. The suction draws superficial tissue into the cup. Cupping brings fresh blood to the area and helps improve circulation. Traditional cupping, sometimes referred to as “fire cupping,” uses heat to create a vacuum-like suction inside of glass cups. In modern times, cups that use a small pump to create suction have also been introduced.
These photos were taken during a recent fire cupping session conducted by Ona. The red marks, where the cup has been placed, are used as a diagnostic tool. They can be dramatic looking, but then disappear after several days.
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July 31st, 2011
Petaluma has a fine new “alternative county fair” each year in July, the Rivertown Revival.
I love the free live music, Lagunitas beer, and spectacular people watching, all at a unique riverfront site under the benificent Petaluma sun. There are some amazing vehicles puttering around, too.
Enjoy a few photos and don’t miss the event next July!
And, I forgot to mention the baby goats, making it seem even more like a surreal county fair.
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May 14th, 2011
These new Polaroid prints are suddenly self destructing. The film is not stable and the angry crystals devour the prints. It leaves me in awe of the original Edwin Land film, so stable and rich in color. I have beautiful polaroid prints in perfect condition over 30 years old. Not so with the new Polaroid PX600 film by IMPOSSIBLE. Though they offer some solutions on the website, I put my photographs in a box in the closet and forgot about them. Checking in on them 2 months later, there are already signs of the film deteriorating. The big flaw in the top center is universal with the PX600, probably effecting 60% of the prints.
In the second image, the crystals are growing. After the crystals finish their work, I’ll post an image of what’s left of the original photo. After that, only the digital copied photos will remain, as stable (or not) as a heap of data, at the end of a power cord.
© stefan gutermuth 2011
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April 29th, 2011
Ai Wei Wei disappeared on April 3rd, 2011. He was detained by authorities as he waited to board a plane for Hong Kong. When the Chinese foreign ministry finally commented on his case days later, the primary accusation was suspicion of “economic crimes”. Mr. Ai’s 78 year old mother replied, “It’s ridiculous. They must tell the family why and where they are holding my son. They have no right to keep us guessing. Where is the constitution? Where is the law?”
There has been scant media attention in the U.S., yet Ai Wei Wei lived in New York for a years and still maintains an apartment there. Architect, sculptor, photographer, curator and blogger, Ai Weiwei is China’s most famous and politically outspoken contemporary artist. A BBC documentary tells his story, Ai Wei Wei, Without Fear or Favor.
These fliers appeared on the U.C. Berkeley campus this week.
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