Fotofusion 2012: The 17th Annual International Festival of Photography and Digital Imaging
Where Creativity and Technology Fuse
John Reuter Presentations
Wednesday, January 25, 2:30-5:00 PM
My first semester of grad school at the University of Iowa was an exciting time. I was in transition from silver based photography to alternative techniques and Polaroid SX-70. In the fall of 1975 I was invited into the lab of the Intermedia Program run by Hans Breder. They had a device called the Video Quantizer whose technical purpose was to compress colors to fit into various video formats.
As Wikipedia describes it, “In computer graphics, color quantization or color image quantization is a process that reduces the number of distinct colors used in an image, usually with the intention that the new image should be as visually similar as possible to the original image.”
We of course came to see how we could turn the dials and make art. I put several black and white images on the copy stand and turned on the camera. Tweaking the Quantizer forced color into black and white tones. It was pretty exciting but how could I print this out? I decided to render the images off the monitor to my Polaroid SX-70 camera. I was just beginning to make my SX-70 constructions, stripping off the negative and removing dyes and replacing them with acrylic paint. These images not only represent my earliest foray into digital imagery, but my first digital/analog experiments. I only worked one day with the Quantizer, not sure if it fit into where I was going. It would be almost a decade before I combined video imagery with painting in my 8×10 transfers, but these few images remind me of the those exciting times in the 1970s when everything seemed possible and boundaries between mediums were there to be violated.
Where Creativity and Technology Fuse
John Reuter Presentations
Wednesday, January 25, 2:30-5:00 PM
Creative Photoshop with John Reuter
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For those who feel comfortable with Photoshop’s tools but want to go to a higher level of creative exploration, this is for you. Explore powerful image control through Selections, Channels and Layers. These Photoshop essentials are misunderstood and underused by many. You will explore multiple approaches to the uses of Layers, from specific image enFhancement, through b & w conversions, faux infrared effects and complex image combinations and composites. Adobe Bridge and Camera Raw basics will be explored and creative effects possible within this tool set. Also learn the use of Smart Objects within Photoshop, not only with placement of Raw files but with existing Layers in your compositions. The History Palette will be explored, not just as a great way to keep track of movements in Photoshop but its many creative possibilities that users don’t take advantage of, particularly with Photoshop’s creative filters. Be prepared to produce images you never thought you were capable of.
Friday, January 27, 2:30-4:00 PM
Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3 and DSLRs with John Reuter
Friday, January 27, 2:30-4:00 PM
Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3 and DSLRs with John Reuter
Adobe Lightroom 3 provides the toolset that every serious digital photographer should consider. Quick performance has been dramatically accelerated in Lightroom 3, saving you time from first look to final image. With fast image importing the import interface is easy to set up and navigate, with clear visual indications of where your photos will be located and how they’ll be organized after import. Quickly and easily perfect images by automatically reducing lens defects like geometric distortion, chromatic aberration, and vignetting with single-click profiles. Even images from the best lenses will be improved with new lens profiling tools. Lightroom 3 offers a vast improvement in the de mosaic process as well as new sharpening and noise reduction tools and The Develop Module has become extremely powerful.
Saturday, January 28 8:30-10:00 AM
Take the Leap into Creative Video with your DSLR with John Reuter
Are you one of the many photographers with newer generation DSLRs that have amazing video capabilities, intrigued with this feature, but just don’t know how to get started with the numerous options the cameras provide? Leap into creative video as Reuter shows you how to get started by setting the video up in camera preferences. He will discuss realistic accessories to get the best footage, and alternative lens choices to make your videos even more unique. Explore time-lapse footage to still image slideshows set to music to full-blown narrative movies and everywhere in between.
Once you see how easy it can be, you will wonder why you waited so long to get started. For video editing, you will utilize Adobe Premiere Elements 10, a solid cross platform entry-level program that is easy to learn and produces professional quality videos, and can import video directly from your camera without the confusing choices of transcoding. You will explore simple editing techniques to get started, using transitions and how to work with audio. Imaging’s future will lie in video, and you will enjoy extending your skill set into the moving image.
Once you see how easy it can be, you will wonder why you waited so long to get started. For video editing, you will utilize Adobe Premiere Elements 10, a solid cross platform entry-level program that is easy to learn and produces professional quality videos, and can import video directly from your camera without the confusing choices of transcoding. You will explore simple editing techniques to get started, using transitions and how to work with audio. Imaging’s future will lie in video, and you will enjoy extending your skill set into the moving image.
Image from Visual Alchemy
As Wikipedia describes it, “In computer graphics, color quantization or color image quantization is a process that reduces the number of distinct colors used in an image, usually with the intention that the new image should be as visually similar as possible to the original image.”
We of course came to see how we could turn the dials and make art. I put several black and white images on the copy stand and turned on the camera. Tweaking the Quantizer forced color into black and white tones. It was pretty exciting but how could I print this out? I decided to render the images off the monitor to my Polaroid SX-70 camera. I was just beginning to make my SX-70 constructions, stripping off the negative and removing dyes and replacing them with acrylic paint. These images not only represent my earliest foray into digital imagery, but my first digital/analog experiments. I only worked one day with the Quantizer, not sure if it fit into where I was going. It would be almost a decade before I combined video imagery with painting in my 8×10 transfers, but these few images remind me of the those exciting times in the 1970s when everything seemed possible and boundaries between mediums were there to be violated.
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Heading down New York’s West Side Highway on a late summer afternoon, the thunder storms kicked up and I was worried that my planned Impossible photo shoot would be a washout. After I parked and left my bags in the studio, the rain stopped and the sun started to peak through the clouds. I grabbed my SLR 680 and 4 packs of Impossible PX600 and headed towards the river. It was hot and humid and I was worried about the film’s sensitivity, given my past experience with earlier versions of the film. I knew I needed to protect the film upon exit, so I made sure I had plenty of black cards from previous PX film packs. To my pleasant surprise, the heat and humidity did not adversely impact processing, it was very consistent. If anything, it may have moved the tone to the warm side, but I have never minded that. I wound my way down the river and headed east to City Hall Park. The fountain and gaslights make you feel like you are back in the 19th Century. I showed some of these images to my friend Elsa Dorfman and she commented that this was the “Atget” film. With the right subject matter, it seems as though Eugene Atget is making the images. Maybe Paris should be next.
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When I began working on my SX-70 constructions in the early seventies collage was one of my main interests. Over a decade before Photoshop was born I was always looking for ways to combine images and images with paint. In returning to these techniques with the new Impossible films I cannot turn back the clock on my knowledge of Photoshop and return to those blissful days. As I always did with my images in the Polaroid days, I try to throw nothing away. Test exposures can become your best pieces if you combine them with the right elements. Two of these three images were overexposed and would not really work well with painting. While the dyes are thin, the frame contains an image structure as well as interesting textures that come from taking the film unit apart. Full size collage elements are added and glued in from behind with acrylic gel medium. In some instances a bit of paint is applied first to render some areas opaque or only semi transparent. The layering effect looks as if it is straight out of my Photoshop imagery and I imagine my digital collages certain influence these. I don’t think they would have quite turned out this way thirty years ago.
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Continuing my exploration of the manipulative qualities of PX-680 Color Shade film, we look at adding paint. When this image emerged from the SX-70 base of my Daylab, I stripped the negative away from the positive in the first several minutes, once the image had appeared. Later, when it was dry I rinsed off the titanium dioxide residue, being careful not to disturb the dyes. You are left with a transparent image. I later added acrylic paint, establishing a broader color palette. It has been 30 years since I painted inside such a small image. When painting from behind, your strategy of laying down color has to be different. Any small details are added first, middle ground next and broader background last. I am sure I will get a better grasp on it as I paint more, I am a little rusty. The scans show the stripped PX680 on the left with the Titanium dioxide still present, the center scan is the paint from behind and the right scan is the image viewed from the front.
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