Vesterbro, In Color and Without
Very much has happened since I moved from Vesterbro to Amager (both places are parts of Copenhagen). For one, it was a lot more work than I had expected. Secondly, I hadn’t anticipated that my allergies would be ablaze from remains of past inhabitants and/or creatures.
So much the more of a pleasure that I seem to have finally settled in. I’ve liked the new apartment from the start, but it is not until now, that it feels like home. What better way to celebrate this than to create a photo album of where I moved from? Here’s one way: make two photo albums!
Digging through past photo archives, I was reminded not only of how much I need a new camera, but also of how much I need practice. Out of a batch of maybe 70 pictures, only 5 or 7 were worthwhile.
Normally, I’d be very careful not to “touch up” the images in any way at all, being almost religious about preserving the “honest” taken photo. Point of note: This is entirely different from photos used in my Installments, where completely different rules apply. But photography, no no—that’s better left untouched. Only, not this time. Untouched simply wasn’t good enough.
So I decided to do a different photo album than I usually do.
I have made two photo albums. One is entirely monochromatic, and the other one is entirely in the color that came with the photos, which is a blue greenish hue. Both sets have had their brightness & contrast adjusted—massively, and stylish but fake photo borders where added.
I created two photo albums because I found it quite interesting to see how a boring and uninspired image could suddenly become instantly likable with the removal of it’s color. My immediate reaction when looking at the “new” photos was to explore shapes, contrasts and textures, rather than the motive which I’d do with color photos by reflex. On the other hand, some of the pictures (the 5-7 worthwhile ones), looked better in color. Thus, I present to you:
- Gedimo's Portfolio
- Vesterbro, In Color and Without
- Playlist Meme
- Minimize Thunderbird to Tray
Have you considered using Flickr for your photos? Not that I want to hijack your entry, but it struck me as I was walking through the photos, that Photostack (this is an older version I think), has some navigational and ‘communicative’ problems.
For instance, walking back and forth between photos means remembering which of the tiny, almost indecipherable thumbnails you last hit. I think the latest version fixes this, I have it in my ‘todo’ list, but I haven’t gotten around to trying it out yet.
Anyhoo, there was one of the images, I forget which of course (which is the point), that I wanted to comment on, but I didn’t want to bother with remembering it’s name or number, or copying the link and so on and so forth. Instead I’d rather just be able to throw a comment directly on the photo.
But yeah, about the photos themselves :)—Quintessential Copenhagen. That sort of sums it up. Though I do think a few of them could be weeded out. Love the strange ‘film’ stuff around the photos :D
I have considered Flickr, I’ve even gone so far as to open an account (I believe my login is “noscope”).
However, I have yet to try it out properly, I hope to do this soon.
As for commenting on each photo individually, about photostack, and the way it navigates I too have major problems with it. First things first—the latest version of Photostack requires GDLib 2.0 (their reason: because it’s waay cooler), something my old server ironically had, but this new one doesn’t. That means I can’t upgrade to the newest Photostack until I pull my act together, and tell the server guys to install GDLib 2. Once this happens, I’ll be able to upgrade to the latest Photostack, which upon inspection generally has better usability. For now, I’d like to point out that you do not have to navigate the photos using the thumnails above, you can just click the photo itself to go to the next one. (No, let’s not discuss the usability of that, you’d win—but still).
As for commenting on photos themselves, that’s an entirely different discussion, not only because the current Photostack doesn’t support it. As for Flickr, the commenting features are great, especially the ability to line out certain parts of the photos themselves.
However, I have two problems with Flickr. For one, and I believe I mentioned this before, I like to make photo albums. While this seems entirely possible with Flickr, the current state of design just doesn’t work for me at all. I’m having a hard time navigating through thumnails, and find myself not exploring the contents of one Flickr users photo album, but surfing without aim through several different users accounts, onlyl then to discover that I’m off track.
The second problem is related to the first, namely that it’s “not mine”. I wan’t to host it myself, design it myself, and have it “feel part of my site”.
With that said, I have heard of Flickr gallery, and trust me I’m looking forward to seeing it on your site.
Glad you enjoyed the photos :)
I like the photos alot. Great idea in making two differenet versions. The borders are certainly mostly unique, and look quite good. I disagree about editing with you though. I think it’s very reasonable to edit photos, and make them look uh, more as they should. It both offers the ability to give focus to the main subject, which is the obvioius reason for the photograph, and it allows it to seem cleaner, and without the minor problems real photographs occasionally have.
Also, on your live preview, for name it says undefined, and the link is to the current page. Also, flickr has albums, just in their design. I’m sure there’ll be some way soon to get it on your site, especially now that it’s coming out of beta.
Thanks Jeff.
About the editing of the photos, I’ve been meaning to write down a story about when it’s okay to edit photos, and when it’s not. Jumping to conclusions, it’s okay always of course, because they’re “your pictures”.
But knowing what can be done, I like to show the “honest” pictures. One of the main reasons being, that I nearly always use my photography in my installments. While I’ve not been good enough at it, I’d be able to link to an “honest” version of each of the photos used in such and installment. That way people would be able to compare “before and after”. But there is more to it, and I want to elaborate on that in a blog post in a while, when I get it all thought through.
As for the live preview, yes, it’s definitely broken in areas. I’ll get to that next year ;). There’s still also problems with WordPress URLs changing, and commenter info not being cookied. It sucks, but it’s my own fault for using a nightly.
Flicrk is beta? Hmm. I’ll wait for it to be final then.
I don’t get to Vesterbro very often, but it’s always fun to see pictures of stuff you’ve seen in real life online.
I spend quite some time trying to figure out which pictures match, that is which pictures in the black & white set that match which pictures in the colored set. So far I’ve found #14 in the b&w which matches #7 in the colored, and I must say, the difference is striking.
About the whole photography debate, for me it depends on the use of the pictures. A while back Dunstan wrote an entry on photo manipulation and although I was a little surprised at the extend of manipulation he uses, I cannot help feeling the pictures are better for it. Furthermore, it goes to show how much can be saved from a so-and-so picture.
However, if the photo is to be used professionally, fx. in news media, it is a completely different story. If the purpose of a picture is to convey or enhance a news story, I would want it to be as untouched as possible.
Just my 2cents
It is actually only a few pictures that do match. Originally, I didn’t intend to publish any of these pictures seeing as I had already used some of the pictures in my Vesterbro installment, and the rest were less good. It was only because they became somewhat more interesting in their black/white versions, that I chose to put it online.
But indeed there is quite a bit difference. I find that while the color versions are nice, I look at them differently. As I mention in this entry, I catch myself staring / studying more at B/W pictures (in general), due to their simplicity and contrast.
Agree completely. The essence of my leaving my photos alone (most of the time), is mainly rooted in a personal preference, i.e. “that’s how it looked when it was taken”. Plus, it’s not always a picture truly does get better after a Photoshop treatment.
[Off Topic] Hey Joen, nice work with the “favatars”! :-)
Merry Christmas my friend. I wish you all the best for 2005.