Did the inventor of the Stanley Steamer car also build The Shining hotel and discover dry plate photography?

Well yes.

The Stanley brothers were geniuses. But I never knew about them until recently.

A few weeks ago I flew to Estes Park, Colorado, for a friend’s 40th birthday party. The location was beautiful– as was the hotel where the event was held. Does the historic Stanley Hotel ring a bell?

Well, if you’re a Stephen King fan or a devotee of the Sci-Fi channel you may recognize the place. It is infamous for being haunted and the inspiration for King’s book The Shining. One year the Travel Channel named it the most haunted hotel in America.

I believe it. I captured lots of ghostly orbs on my Nikon digital camera during my tour of the grounds. And I felt that freaky energy. Joshua, our tour guide, explained to us, manner-of-factly, his own dealings with the so-called “permanent residents” of the Stanley Hotel.

King claims his one-night stay at the place was full of other-worldly encounters and freed him from a writer’s block. Later, his popular book The Shining, inspired from his stay, was made into a movie starring Jack Nicholson. But to King’s chagrin, the location for the 1970s Stanley Kubrick film wasn’t the Stanley Hotel. And the movie wasn’t true to the book.

So, in 1995, King directed his own Shining version, an ABC mini-series that represented the book and it was filmed at the Stanley. Candid photos from the making of the film line some of the hotel’s walls, strangely juxtaposed to some other really large, old, beautiful black and white photos. That’s when I discovered the hotel’s rich history and its strong link to photography.

Like a beacon of hope, the stark white hotel stands on a cliff overlooking the picturesque town of Estes Park, surrounded by the snow-capped Rocky Mountains. It was built by Freelan O. (F.O.) Stanley, one-half of the famous inventor twins, for his wife. How’d he get all that money to charm his wife with a fancy hotel?

I learned F.O. and his brother Francis E. (F.E.) were the inventors of the Stanley Steamer car and dry plate photography, among many other things. They formed the Stanley Dry Plate Company to manufacture the dry plates in 1883. The twins received a patent in 1886 for inventing a machine for manufacturing the dry plates. They sold the company to Eastman Kodak in 1903 and made a bundle.

The Stanley Hotel is a monument to this process. Antiquated, but detailed dry plate black-and-white photos are peppered throughout the hotels walls, adding to the place’s mystique. Some believe the invention by the Stanley brothers was what prompted their little sister, Chansonetta, to become a talented photographer. The Stanley Hotel’s official story is that invention was born out of watching their sister’s frustration with the wet plate process—that the enterprising brothers wanted an easier process for their sister, an aspiring photographer.

The dry plate process, which involves a glass plate coated with a gelatin emulsion of silver bromide, could be stored until exposure, and after exposure it can be brought back to a darkroom for development at leisure. These qualities were great advantages back then over the wet plate process. Wet plates had to be prepared just before exposure and developed immediately afterwards.

Whichever came first, Chansonetta Stanley Emmons gained fame in her own right, as one of the first female photographers in the country. Her images depict rural American life at the turn-of-the-century. She also captured many landscapes and Maine life. Today, there are many books devoted to her and her work has been exhibited nationally.

Underneath the photo of Chansonetta below are two of priceless photos as exhibited on the walls of the Stanley and a picture of the Stanley Hotel today.

[Unfortunately, I had to contend with a significant amount of glare (or maybe it was the ghosts…) on the glass. But notice the details despite subjects having to stand still for at least 15 minutes until each photograph was fully exposed.] –a.s.

Photographers of all levels will soon be able to check out Photrade.com, a free new site (now in the private beta stage) where users can “share, protect, and make money.” Not only can you display your images, you can also sell stock, prints, and merchandise through the site’s Adcosystem, an ad-supported system that pays photo owners for every image view (unlike storage sites like Flickr, which allow you to maintain your galleries in cyberspace, but don’t pay you a penny for it).

Both amateur photographers and pros are invited to sell their images in a fully protected environment (all images are watermarked to prevent misuse or theft). If selling is your goal, photographers can pick a suggested minimum price, a suggested marked-up price, or a custom price. You can also earn money through an ad-revenue setup (either through banner ads in your gallery or in the images themselves, and from splash-screen ads). This ad-revenue service is similar to the newly launched Dimpls site, which allows users to place logos and ads next to relevant pictures to get click-through cash.

These two services (especially Dimpls) are obviously more geared to amateurs who don’t want to give away the photo farm for free (though isn’t sharing the real goal of posting your images online? I don’t even consider how much money I could be making off of the kids’ snapshots that I upload for Grandma and Grandpa to view in Florida). And how much money can I really make anyway?

I am curious to see if (and how many) pros would actually use Photrade.com (the site keeps emphasizing that it’s for professionals, too, though I’m hard-pressed to see why any pro would want to “compete” with your average Joe in selling his or her images here). Consumers and strapped-for-cash companies will likely be checking out sites such as these (and there will be more), instead of having to pony up their pennies for more expensive online stock houses.

Back from Yosemite, I thought I’d share a few more photos from my trip.

Hi all. Blogging from Yosemite National Park here in California. Posting some of the photos I shot yesterday. Today we’ll be taking in some classes with the renowned photographer Art Wolfe, courtesy of Canon USA and the company’s program to introduce free digital photography instruction to visitors in some of the national parks.
Diane

With the Nintendo Wii gaming system, gamers are able to mimic the movements of the characters on-screen, which is translated into movements of the actual computer generated characters. So whether its swinging a golf club, tennis racket or baseball bat, users holding onto a Wii controller simply mimic the swing to make the character move. The interactive Wii gaming system is much more fun to use over the joystick or button-filled controller that gamers needed with older gaming systems such as earlier Nintendo, Sony Playstation, Colleco Vision, or Atari systems. Remember the big rollerball that used to control the Pong game?

Well, I read a story recently on The New York Times website, about a couple of new products aimed at the gaming arena that I think also could be used to augment the computer peripherals that digital photographers use. Nowadays a mouse and keyboard are the norm, with many folks using a pen and tablet of some kind to retouch photos.

What if you didn’t even need to lift a finger in order to retouch your photos?

By the end of the year, gamers will be able to use thoughts and emotions alone to play video games. Science Fiction, you say? Nope, fact. There are currently a few companies who are developing usable headsets–similar in concept to the EEG testing equipment that doctors use to measure the electrical signals emitted by brainwaves–for gamers.

In layman’s terms, such systems work by picking up the electrical impulses that are emitted by the brain’s nerve cells or neurons. Its similar to the way bio-feedback works. Using non-invasive EEG or Electroencephalography, these electical impulses can be processed by the BCI or Brain Computer Interface, so emotions and thoughts and expressions can be processed to control or influence the game or application.

Emotiv, a San Fransisco-based company, is developing the Emotiv EPOC, a headset device that is non-invasive, wireless, and is worn on the head with the goal of, “introducing the immediacy of thought to the human-machine dialog.” In other words, technology developed by Emotiv will allow computer applications to be controlled and influenced by the users thoughts and feelings. [By the way, the photo at the top of this blog entry is of Tan Le, president of Emotiv and EmoBot. Take a really close look, they’re both winking!]

Future applications are also being developed, for a range of industries such as TV, research, medicine, security, and accessibility design.

Why stop there. Why not computer use in general. Think about the possibilities in photography alone. Retouching cramps your hands? No worries, just think about the changes you need to make on that portrait and watch the computer do the work. Talk about speeding up workflow! Hec, why not use such a device–incorporated within a camera–to get the shot that much faster. Photojournalists and sports photographers could capture images faster than the time it now takes them to see the action through the viewfinder and click the shutter button. You’ve now greatly increased your reaction time. Makes the idea of the “decisive moment” as Henri Cartier-Bresson termed it that much more intuitive.

It’s Affordable Too

According to Emotiv’s website, the company is planning on releasing its first Brain Computer Interface, (the EPOC) to consumers later this year at the affordable price of $299. The company is also embarking upon the development and creation of an online portal for EPOC users. The Emortal will allow social interaction, offer content for download, feature a virtual world that can be explored, have areas for user-based content to be uploaded so it can be experienced with the system, and more.

Another company, OCZ Technology is developing a somewhat similar device. The NIA or Neural Impluse Actuator, is designed to be used in conjunction with a mouse for an immersive gaming experience. Using bio signals, the company’s website says will give users the ability to hone their reflexes and become their characters. The OCZ unit is worn around the forehead like a headband and uses signals generated by the muscles, brain and eyes. According to the company, the unit can also be configured to work with current games as well as future releases. The price for this system: $169.

Pretty interesting…

The New York Times article can be found at: www.nytimes.com/2008/06/08/technology/08novel.html?_r=1&sq=emotiv&st=nyt&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&scp=1&adxnnlx=1213210966-OKVE4THHa9Nx41iEDpFWIQ

Best,

Diane

First there was Napster. Then there was that darn fashion over-statement that I like to call the “Che” effect, which is also known as the over-worn Che Guevara t-shirt movement. It was everywhere: Che Guevara at fashion week, Che Guevara at the “Hills” premiere, Che Guevara on a posing, peace-besmirched Paris Hilton—you get the picture… And what next you ask? What other life-altering innovation have the kiddies grandchilded into our youth obsessed world? One word: Facebook.

The brainchild of Mark Zuckerberg (24) who later enlisted his roommate at Harvard University Dustin Moskovitz (24), Facebook in its infancy was more of a dating “Who’s Who” for the Ivy League scene around the country, enjoyed by college students from Stanford to Columbia to Yale, and then to, well, you get the picture… It later expanded into what it is now the social-networking mammoth that the 60 million of us on the site, have all come to know and compulsively check behind our bosses backs (I’m 23—I’m not above it)…That’s why I was shocked when my boss, my publisher, sent me a link to none other than, dare I say, Facebook. Was this a setup? Was he trying to catch me in the act? Run for cover, the sky is falling!

After I got over my initial paranoia by walking past my publisher’s office several times with a “Yes, I’m doing my work smirk,” and receiving the “Yes you still only have a thirty-minute lunch break” return smile, I went back to my desk and opened the link. To my surprised relief, I uncovered that, well, Facebook isn’t just for shameless, self-indulgent stalking purposes anymore, and is in fact a pretty good way to connect with people within our own industry.

Profile after profile of photographers linking to their websites; retailers promoting their companies; and manufacturers plugging their products are just some of the findings I happened upon. When I asked my publisher, Ian Littauer why we—the imaging group—are on Facebook in the first place, he answered that it’s to expose Studio Photography, PTN, and imaginginfo.com to “photographers that might not be familiar with our brand,” which also includes younger photographers and retailers new to the industry scene, and who surely have a Facebook account. Indeed, the site has grown in the four years since it became a regular face on most of our computer screens, evolving from guilty pleasure to green light for new businesses and industries like our own, to expand our presence and influence in a community of likeminded people.

So in the end, I’’m happy to say that my music-file sharing, Che Guevara t-shirt wearing, Facebook surfing cohort got something right the only way we know how: without moving a muscle, just a couple of fingers…

Check out our Studio Photography, PTN and imaginginfo.com groups on Facebook!

On what is supposed to be a life-changing day for five couples and their families instantly evolves into a life-altering moment in history. Within a flash of Wang Qiang’s shutter, the Church of the Annunciation, the site where many brides are photographed with their grooms outside the antique seminary doors, was reduced to ashes. A relic built under the direction of French priests 100 years ago, the Church of the Annunciation, which is a Catholic seminary outside the city of Pengzhou, collapsed just ten seconds after the 7.9-magnitude earthquake that affected 15 million in central China, felt its first tremble on the morning of May 12th. The white, castle-like structure, spotted with acid-rain scars and bruised from the many landslides it outlived, an anomaly to the mountainous greenery surrounding it, stands as an ominous forewarning dressing the background of Wang’s first photographs documenting the disaster. “I shouted to people, ‘Run! Run!”‘ Wang said to the Associated Press Thursday night by phone. “The ground shook and we couldn’t see anything in the dust.”

He began photographing the couples, still in their fineries, speckled with dust from the rubble and wearing expressions of scared surprise. “When the dust had settled, everyone stood up and realized they were all safe,” Wang said. He captured images of residents escaping the avalanche of debris, relief workers driving people to safety, and the many buildings quickly crumbling into brown clouds of powder. The photographs can be viewed on the CNN website www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/05/22/quake.wedding.ap/index.html?iref=mpstoryview#cnnSTCText

And like his bleak surroundings, Wang too was instantly transformed from wedding photographer to photojournalist. “I shot these photos out of the instinct of a photographer,” he said.
An instinct that, in the face of danger, confusion, and personal tragedy, turns towards the disaster, and armed with little more than a camera and a pair of eyes, freezes that moment in the hope of enlightening the larger public with an empathetic awareness that can only be gotten through art and the human subject—a motivation that, inspiring all photographers, makes them an integral part of creating a collective memory, a personal history, and a cultural consciousness.

The need to capture and document a human experience as it is unfolding, lives within every photographer whether a portrait artist, a commercial shooter, or a photojournalist. I chose this item, because I think it defines what a photographer is: A storyteller who explains a process that took place in real time, and thus makes tangible the reality of our own time.
–Tara Propper

You can never have too many megapixels — or can you?

Ask the consumers who may soon get to test-drive the Gigapan, the world’s first 1-billion-pixel camera.

Yes, you heard correctly — 1 billion pixels.

Call it the Iron Man of imaging. A tripod-mounted robot commands the uber-camera to capture several hundred photographs of a single scene, all from a slightly different angle. This creates, in effect, a panoramic 3D experience that’s unmatched by any other camera on the market. An image taken with the Gigapan retains phenomenal sharpness even as you zoom in and out of different parts of the image (think Google Earth).

Not that the beta product is without its detractors — early grumblers are commenting on everything from the time involved (it could take 10 to 15 minutes to capture 350 mini-images needed to pull together the composite final) to how the camera deals with moving objects to the fact that less-glamorous prototypes with motorized mounts have been used for years (and probably for a lot less money than the Gigapan’s likely price tag — though the word is that the camera will be less than what existing current high-res panoramic cameras go for).

Who came up with this piece of technical wonderment? It may sound like something straight out of a Marvel comic book, but it’s NASA, Google, and National Geographic who receive the kudos in this case.

Now if they could only get Robert Downey Jr. to endorse it, they’d have an unstoppable sell. No official word yet on the Gigapan’s price or release.

Speaking of celebrity endorsements, I’ve caught a few of Nikon’s new TV spots starring easy-on-the-eyes actor Ashton Kutcher. Nikon’s products have always been hot in my book, but the heat just got turned up with the appearance of Mr. Demi Moore in the ad campaign hawking the stylish, fashionable COOLPIX compact digicam line.

Let’s just hope viewers don’t think they’re being Punk’d. If they can take their eyes off Ashton’s sexy stubble for 1/250th of a second, they’ll see that the underlying message is not just about the trendy COOLPIX colors — it also emphasizes the cameras’ performance, simplicity, and quality.

In other words, there is substance beneath the veneer — something that’s sometimes lacking in a world where anyone can buy Photoshop and go to town on a photo.

Ever hear of photographic profiling? Similar to the reprehensible action–street racial profiling–it concerns rousing suspicions over certain people holding cameras and taking pictures on the street. And it’s happening in the cosmopolitan city of London.

A recent article in the London Times described a poster in the tube (American version of the subway) asking commuters to call a special hotline “if they don’t like the look of a photographer.” I didn’t “like the look” of the cop who wrote me a ticket last week. Is there a number I can call? (couldn’t resist)

Anyway, this is an official, government-funded campaign sponsored by its Metropolitan Police department. The poster text states:

Thousands of people take photos every day. What if one of them seems odd?

The poster goes to say that terrorists use cameras for surveillance. It gives a number to call.

Besides perptuating a climate of fear, there’s another thing the organizers of this campaign don’t realize. That most of the great photographers were street photographers–Robert Frank, Robert Doisneau, Cartier Bresson, Brassai, Diane Arbus, among others. How many of the campaign organizers have a Doisneau print hanging on one of the walls of their home? I bet at least of few do.

In New York, street photography is very popular among both tourists and the pros. When I began shooting in the early 1990s, my “genre” was to be in a car, ride in the passenger’s seat and ride slowly though the streets of New York taking pictures of unknown strangers in unique or gritty surroundings. I was in my 20s then and was trying to capture a feeling solitude and lonliness. This technique, combined with movement, was my art at the time. None of my subjects ever suspected a thing or they really didn’t care. It didn’t hurt anyone or even bother anyone.
This style is still among my favorite work today.

In London, the campaign relates to “the look of” anyone, from global tourists carrying point and shoots, to pros carrying DSLRS and tripods. But I doubt someone will call the number when they see a gaggle of tourists all photographing the same London building. This is targeted at the pros.

In the article, New York street photographer Jeff Mermelstein, who has been snapping the streets of the city since the 1970s and published a well-received book Sidewalk on the subject, is concerned about the latest poster in London.

“I think that’s awful,” he tells the Times. “Street photography is an important part of the documentation of our time. If that’s discouraged, in the long term that will be a substantial loss.”

So three questions remain unanswered in my mind.

Did this “Big Brother-like” campaign within a U.S. democratic neighbor evolve because the paparazzi took it too far in regards to Princess Diana? If so, I don’t see Paris getting on that bandwagon.

Or was the conception of the new world we live in, and the fact that terrorists could be randomly hanging out with us on the streets and in the subways? I just don’t see them doing street photography.

Third, is this campaign likely to move across the ocean to the U.S.? I certainly hope not. Then we will have let our fear rule our lives. And New York city, so far, has not fallen victim to this.

Photography has become big business. From pricey ad campaigns by the leading camera manufacturers to get consumers to buy their wares, to the latest Vanity Fair/ Miley Cyrus debacle (does anyone actually believe that moralistic Graydon Carter’s motive was to exhibit Annie Leibovitz’s “artistic vision” – it wouldn’t have anything to do with luring consumers to the endcaps, would it?), manufacturers, media, and even photographers themselves can use (and sometimes abuse) photography to line their wallets.

Of course, that’s what business is all about, and no one faults anyone for trying to make a living. But for those toiling behind the lens, the effect of an artfully composed image often means so much more than a few thousand greenbacks, whether it’s an historic photograph of a natural artifact, or a photographic exhibit in a region of the world that is known more for suppressing the arts than promoting them.

Just ask the unknown photographer who captured what may be the world’s oldest photograph, as recently publicized in the U.K.’s Evening Post and the New York Times, among other newspapers of note. No sultry tween celebrities caught in compromising positions, or even a compelling photojournalistic shot in war-torn Fallujah – the possibly-200-year-old photo (once attributed to Henry Fox Talbot, but now cited as the possible creation of Thomas Wedgwood, 30 years earlier than Talbot’s photographic experiments) portrays a simple leaf, placed on light-sensitive paper and exposed in the sunlight.

Of course, even the discovery of such a momentous piece of photographic history can’t escape the money issue. A section of the Evening Post article is devoted to interviewing a Sotheby’s expert to determine how much the leaf photo went for in 1984, and how much it’s worth today if it is indeed the oldest photo (sky’s the limit, according to the auction guru). However, as historian Dr. Larry Schaaf explains, “”In the end, what is certain is perhaps the only factor that really matters in a work of art. This image of a leaf is extraordinary. It arrests our attention as much today as it has done for at least a century and a half, and just possibly for more than two centuries.”

In other news, the First International Photography Biennial of the Islamic World opened yesterday at Tehran’s Saba Art and Cultural Institute. The theme of the 150-photo Iranian exhibit (featuring photographers from 40 countries) is “The Muslim Family,” designed to showcase experiences and spiritual and cultural identity in the Muslim world. In our increasingly ethnocentric world, if photography ever had the opportunity to break down regional barriers and show the innards of a culture that may often be misunderstood, this is a start. Perhaps progress is indeed being made….