Governor's Island

Last weekend I took a ferry to Governor's Island to see the progress being made to turning the former army post into a preservation/park. Being an urban island undergoing environmental change, I immediately began to compare it to Treasure Island in SF. Like Treasure Island, a large portion is man-made out of land fill. Also, both islands played host to military posts. However, the big difference I immediately discovered between the two islands is how each city plans to transform them.

San Francisco is in the middle of environmental clean up of Treasure Island including demolition of most of the military buildings (mainly due to hazardous waste and cheap construction). Currently, most buildings are out in the open and deteriorating, which made for easy documentation. After the clearing and clean up, the city will begin constructing an ideal eco-friendly community with marshes, a farm, buildings constructed out of sustainable materials and a ferry to give residents the choice to go car-less.

From what I have read about Governor's Island, New York has turned most of it into park space with a free ferry ride. There are events hosted there during the summer and it is only open on the weekend during the warm months. Most of the buildings are being preserved as a spot for tourists to see the history of the island. The man-made section is currently fenced off. Part of some of the fenced off buildings are being reconstructed into a school and another cluster of buildings are being used by the fire fighters as a practice space. I am curious to see how this island will become fully redeveloped. There seems to be several groups interested and with it's limited hours of "operation", I am also curious to see how a school is going to function properly when it is completed.

I was disappointed to learn that Governor's Island is only open a limited amount of the week and season. You can only visit it from 11:00am-7:00pm during the summer, which means that the opportunity for interesting photography is very slim. Also, most of the buildings are locked up and roped off. I bypassed a few ropes for the photos you see here. I may contact the parks service to see if I can get into the more restricted areas. I would like to document the interior of the fort before it's turned into a glossy museum.

The planned redevelopment and restrictions for Governor's Island has really given me an idea of the cultural ideology in New York. How the two islands are being handled shows the difference between the histories of the two cities and the ideologies that exist.

Are Pricey Monitors the Answer to Good Prints?

One of my good photo friends emailed me today with a question about whether or not "people without access to pro-level gear are more or less fucked" when it comes to making decent prints of their photographs. My answer to this is yes and no. Yes, if you don't want to learn how to print. No, if you are open to learning certain techniques in Photoshop that will help you bypass the lack of fancy equipment.

The article which he was referring to can be found here. In this article, the author describes why LCD monitors make photos appear to be brighter and suggests some equipment to purchase in order to correct this problem. First, I would like to applaud this author for bringing up one, very important, truth about LCD monitors: Most (and I mean like 95% ) of them are absolute shit when it comes to color. Unless you are willing to spend $1k or more on a monitor that is specifically made for serious photographers, you are not going to be able to rely on your monitor for printing. Cheap monitors need tweaked. That's where the calibration hardware and software come in (and to be honest, they only really work on monitors that have color controls).

So, the author is right about the monitors and calibration. However, it's all about how educated and experienced you are when it comes to printing. The more experienced you are, the shittier equipment you can work with.

How you avoid spending 1k on a monitor and $100s on various software and calibration hardware is knowing how to color correct by numbers in Photoshop. Using the info palette and knowing a thing or two about color numbers will get you good color even on a laptop monitor. In terms of brightness/darkness? Use your histogram people! Create a curves layer and go from there. All this information is in the actual file itself. So, I guess, what I am saying is, you don't need your eyes. When it comes to making good prints from a crappy monitor, it's like using braille. It takes practice and is a bit of a pain in the beginning, but after some time, you won't need fancy gadgets to get good prints. You will be able to print from anything!

Also, the actual out-put is important. You need paper profiles that are made for the type of paper and printer you are using. I have a very fail-proof technique for applying these profiles that I may flush out in another post if there is enough interest.

Don't forget maintenance. Maintenance, Maintenance, Maintenance. Always run a nozzle check before you begin printing. Make sure that your POS printer is in good running order before the first print goes.

Test print! Make small prints.This is all about getting precise color, so you need to really get to know how your printer is printing in order to get a good grasp on the color in your prints.

I have an Epson 2200 that is about 4 years old. It has survived several moves and been banged around quite a lot (it was bought second hand). I still get prints out of it that blow people away. In a critique I had with Lind Connor, she told me my print quality was great. I printed that portfolio on my 2200 from an Apple Cinema Display I bought off of craigslist and, as we know, has no color controls built into the monitor.

Regardless of how much technology comes out to make printing easier for people, in the end, it's an art. Printing is an art and every art takes practice.

4th and 12th

4th and 12th, Brooklyn
©Corinne Schulze

I'm In Brooklyn

View From My Back Window
©Corinne Schulze

For anyone who doesn't know yet, I have made the voyage across the middle of this vast country to the other coast in order to pursue my MFA in Photography at SVA this fall. So far I am liking it a lot. I'm not missing being gainfully employed and I have settled into reading some of my summer books. I'm in the middle of reading A New History of Photography and also Modern Art And The Object by Ellen H. Johnson. Both books have very interesting parts. One that comes to mind is a funny fact about Muybridge. He had to clear up some legal and marital issues before he could fully run his galloping horse test because, apparently, he had killed his wife's lover. Ooo la la! It's stuff like that that keeps me reading these, sometimes tedious, books.

Hopefully sooner, rather than later, I will be updating this blog with all the interesting photography happenings that I will be experiencing during and around my schooling.