bright-field

before afterEntirely too many How-To books around here. With enough time and dedication I'm going to become an expert at HTML, Javascript, Snow Leopard, video Color Correction/Grading, photographic lighting, motion picture lighting equipment, Cinematography, Soundtrack Pro, Final Cut Pro, CSS, Microstation, Autocad, etc. etc. Pretty much all of them are hard copy print editions, overflowing the shelves, only a few of them current.

Tellingly there are no Pop Psychology titles in the lot. DIY should not be confused with Self Help. I can't find a breakdown in the categories, but the Educational Book Publishing market in North America is worth something like $4-5 billion a year, most of that in secondary and university textbooks.

DIY is probably only a small fraction of that, but it seems I'm doing my part to keep publishers busy with new titles all the time. This work with "bright-field" strobe photography is from the inappropriately titled Light: Science & Magic - An Introduction to Photographic Lighting.

a matter of timing

The internet is a fine place for the restatement of the obvious. Obviously. Consequently, mental midgetry is given vocalism:

Video editorial technology still has me in its thrall. The ability to simply duplicate a scene - without duplicating the original media on which it is based - and then recut the material with an adjustment for pauses between reactions of performers, or a different ordering of the pieces of imagery, is a fabulous advancement. This, possibly more than any other reason, is why the world of nonlinear editing has taken over the editorial world. Only archivists still use flatbed editing machines. Even large features shot on film originals have moved away from literally cutting work print film copies. Why would you when the tools to do this electronically are so ubiquitous, so subtle, and so relatively easy to use?

This adjustment to the timing of images is something that can't be attended to with still images, unless you're working with a slide show. But certainly not within the realm of a book or a gallery of online images. These media have their own aesthetic appeal, and rarely depend upon the performances of actors to impart their power of expression. Many recognize the importance of captions for still images, which becomes something of a narrative device. But there is still no way of shaping the meaning of a sequence of images through the prominence given by their timing, meaning the specific amount of time that each image is presented, and the pauses between vocal interactions.

As this pertains to my current editorial activity, as I create alternative versions of scenes, the earliest are the most leisurely, the most contemplative. The later versions are faster, more to the narrative point. But I feel nonetheless that I'm falling victim to the ever increasing insistence upon the need to sharpen and propel the narrative, something I'm decidedly conflicted about. The question becomes at what point to leave alone the awkward pauses and mispronunciations in order to impart a feeling of awkwardness.

The quest continues for the correct balance between the non linear animal brain gut feeling of here and now, and the delineation of a thematic concept. Wish me luck.