Sunday, October 24, 2010

Photokina (Part 3)

I've left the two big guns til last, Nikon and Canon. When I worked at Atlantic Photo, everyone would come in the store and see the display cases that we had and ask, so which is better, Nikon or Canon. To which I would always reply, 'It depends on the person and the camera' I would also always encourage people to check out snapsort, to compare and contrast features of different cameras in point form. I personally, and a Canon fan but this is due toafewreasons,The first (and only so far) DSLR camera that I bought, is a Canon. I like their range of lensesand the colors that the sensors come out with. I also don't mind that the sensors tend to 'work' the image a bit because I honestly don't do much photo editing at all so thats fine with me.

In the first pavillion that you walked into in Photokina Canon had escalators taking you up to the color and intensely lit canon floor, not shared with anyone else and occupied by the variety of cameras and lenses as well as all the other consumer products like printers and scanners. I had my photo taken and printed on one of their new at home 4x6 printers which claims to have the photo stay good for 100 years. I would like to see something that is not chemically based last that long but anyway, the guy seemed to like my photo, probably because of the dirty great big (and very worn) Canon camera strapped around my neck. He did although ask me to put down the Nikon bag which was given to me at a very early stage to carry all of my freebies in.

Me, with a mighty fine piece of glass..

Taken with EF800 F5.6L IS USM

Taken with EF400 f2.8L IS USM

Newest in the series of my favorite point and shoot cameras.

By the time I made my way to the Nikon floor, to be honest I was getting a little tired so I didn't take as much time to walk around as I did at the Canon floor but I did like how they were personalizing the products for everyone, I am telephoto, I am sharp, I am precise, I am imagination.. On of my faves, I am marco polo.. Which had a double page spread in the Photokina times and I took a photo of it while in my hostel in Berlin and I like the wallet with the map on it sitting with my ear buds and phone.

Impossible Project weere of course there and although they are only relatively new on the scene, to me they are another of the big players. At their modest stall they had Beppe Bolchi doing creative techniques on impossible instant films and there weren't many people there so I got to ask him lots of questions and get up close to look. I'm still keen to try it out but the thing is, with instant film, If you take a photo and decide to play with it then that is it. It is like deleting a raw file or scratching a negative, but sometimes that is the way to get the best out of your work..

The last place I visited at photokina before running off to kind a post office to send all my goodies home was the gallery, with various different methods of hanging and loads of different styles and series I was in my element because in the end, that is what the whole show is about, coming out of it with the equipment and knowledge to make these beautiful photographs, not how many free things you can give away or how great the lighting is on your models.

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Photokina (Part 2)

Kicking off where Photokina Part 1 left off, but with less criticism about the flamboyancy of the event, and more about the fun of it!
So as I briefly mentioned when I first got there I headed straight for the Lomography stand, I knew that Lomography were giving away free cameras to anyone who came to them with a good enough proposal for a new LomoLocation to put on their map and I had the perfect addition, The other London. When I found out about the giveaways while I was still in England I had a arts and crafts extravaganza and cut and paste my way to winning a new Colorsplash camera! After I finish my series of blogs on Photokina I'm going to do one on Lomo, coz it deserves one all to itself..
Fujifilm were also there with a both their consumer products and their professional products, I made a softcover book that they were trying to sell the new machinery to vendors and the products out of the machines to the consumers and so i took my chance to do it for free and basically how the new machinery differs to others is that you input 100 images, it uses 'smart technology' to then put the images in order and group them how it thinks they should go. I asked the woman doing it if it used the date of the photos at all but she said it didn't but I don't know how much I believe her to be honest but it did do a good job, however it did it and so I got a little booklet of Oktoberfest photos.
Next up the as I call 'Luxury' camera manufacturers were there, Leica with their giant lenses and Pro photographers doing shoots behind glass..
Hassleblad, another of the luxury camera manufacturers, had Pro Gunther Raupp using the just released at Photokina, Ferrari branded medium format camera doing a car interior workshop. On a Ferrari, of course!
Also at Photokina they had an Underwater imaging world, where you could get into a diving pool and try out the latest underwater cameras, to be honest I didn't really take too much notice of what was going on down there because, other than Fuji, I didn't recognize any of the other manufacturers names. When I think underwater, I think Olympus because I have had for the past four years one of their Shockproof, waterproof cameras which treated me very well being dropped deliberately into peoples beers at the club, smashed on the cement outside clubs and taken swimming in various chlorinated pools and salt water at the beach, and it wasn't until it got a light bump from a coffee table that it decided to stop working and I invested in a Canon D10- which I think had far superior image quality and is extremely quick compared to any of the Olympus cameras on the market that I've seen.
Panasonic were also there with new technologies including the 3d tv's and cameras. It was quite a sight seeing a bunch of people standing around with 3d glasses on. In my opinion, out of all the new technologies that I saw at Photokina that this is going to be the one which will develop and grow and eventually convert a great deal of the market into wanting to see everything in 3D.

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Photokina (Part 1)

As I began talking about in my Starting at the End blog, in late September I went to Photokina, The major photography conference which brings 180,000 visitors to Cologne, Germany for 1,251 exhibitors from 45 countries to present a huge range of new products, technical innovations, and future trends to visitors from more than 160 nations. I'd like to say I represented two of those nations (being Australian but most recently working for Atlantic Photo Supply in Halifax, Canada) and with the one day ticket that i had bought to the show I tried to experience as much of it as I possibly could and I'll be sharing a bit with you over the next few blogs..

Following the many men in their black suits, I walked my way towards the conference centre, a HUGE pavilion not too far from my wonderful hostel, for day two of the conference. I followed Nikon's yellow step road and got my copy of the Photokina Daily and after being blinded by the display that Canon had put on I quickly made my way to Lomography (I'll be talking about that venture in my next blog) and along the way I began to realize a few things, the first one being what a surreal environment it was, everyone there was doing it for real, models, world famous photographers, big displays of all of the gear that they carry and revealing new products, trying to make their face be brighter than the next with the amount of space they took up, the gimmicks they had and what free samples they could give you.
Wildlife shooting anyone?
Sony, Keepin it real..
Fuji trying to convert me to their attempt to revamp instant photography. Fail!
The largest photoglobe in the planet... Not that I've ever really wanted to see one but whatever..
Me, posing in an Amy Winehouse wig for Kodak, they gave me free (TERRIBLE) instant prints of this..
Crumpler bags, with such catchy slogans as "Everytime a laptop gets dropped a baby deer dies" I have no idea why they aren't selling more laptop cases..
Some of the random fun free things that I picked up along the way..

Sunday, October 17, 2010

Fallin' Beginnings

The Museum London are having a juried art show and sale and (JASS) and I'm entering in my first series I have made using my Impossible Project film called Fallin' Beginnings- I chose the title because the series consists of 9 instant photos of my first impressions of Londons Fall season and because it is my 'beginner' series with the new impossible silver shade medium.
Here are the details of the individual Instant photos.
And here is what they will look like framed