A nicely done, technical but clear guide to working with RAW images and supporting software to create b & w images. Built around examples of finished photos, with the various steps and software manipulations itemized. Finished style worth learning for starters.
Other books to find again:
Camera Raw 101 - Jon Canfield - thorough but software references may be a bit outdated
Compete Digital Photography - Ben Long
Monday 28 March 2016
Camera Raw 101 - Jon Canfield
A focused guide to working with RAW images and the software you use. Thorough but a bit dated. (2009)
Blood of the Celts - Jean Manco
A look at the origins of celtic languages and peoples. A bit of a confusing narrative, I suppose because it is hard to pin anything down definitely in such remote periods. The book does confirm the link between the bell beaker people/culture and the ancient celts. Also their link with metal working, as you the the bell beaker culture jump from one locale to another, each locale a source of minerals for iron working in particular, rather than cover an entire large home area. There does seem to be an original movement from the east, perhaps north of the Balkans to a homeland around Hallstat in southern Germany, but then the culture pops up all over Europe, even down into Italy at times. There also seems to be some later movement from Spain back towards the original homeland. Apart from that, it is hard to really get anything clearer from this book.
One surprising thing is that the genetic sequence of the European copper age population influx seems to originate around Lake Baikal in Siberia. This genetic group is also related to North American native populations that seem to have spread across Beringia around the same time.
One surprising thing is that the genetic sequence of the European copper age population influx seems to originate around Lake Baikal in Siberia. This genetic group is also related to North American native populations that seem to have spread across Beringia around the same time.
The Nature of the Beast - Louise Penny
Latest mystery novel by Louise Penny. Her best book yet from a structure and stylistics point of view. She finds the most intriguing forgotten histories in the Eastern Townships to weave into the plots of her books.
Sunday 20 March 2016
Adrift on the Nile - Naguib Mahfouz
Another more political short novel. Rather than being a larger chronicle of a vast array of characters, it is a deeper look at a small group of middle-class friends and how they go adrift after the Egyptian revolution tears up the former social fabric and accepted norms of life. An exploration of nihilism and social withdrawal through drugs, sex and social frivolity.
Karnak Cafe - Naguib Mahfouz
A short novel very different from Palace series - less human drama and more a novel of ideas. And as such less of a compelling read. Looks at the social and political changes and also the political repression after the Egypt revolution with Nasr. It is partly an exploration of how the young middle class became disaffected through unjust repression and persecution of social and political groups.
Fifteen Dogs - Andre Alexis
An intriguing book on several levels.
First, the encounter between the modern world and the world of the Greek gods - a wonderful flight of imagination.
Second, the imagining of the life of dogs with a human intelligence. It is interesting that self-consciousness is the primary effect, a disabling kind of self-consciousness. Another primary effect is the development of trickery, deception and violence. There is also the dog who becomes religious as he can imagine a great Pack Master in the sky mirroring his own role on earth. Also, the dog who becomes a poet, who develops an self-conscious awareness of language as something to play with. Interesting mirror of early human development? Also, the way he weaves language and consciousness into the the daily lives and activities of dogs.
There is also a lot of reflection on the nature of love and relationships. Alexis uses this to pull us in finally at an emotional level in relationship to the character Majnoun (interesting choice of name - a Persian character in a love story who is driven divinely mad by thwarted love).
I must search out the rest of his "philosophical novel" series.
First, the encounter between the modern world and the world of the Greek gods - a wonderful flight of imagination.
Second, the imagining of the life of dogs with a human intelligence. It is interesting that self-consciousness is the primary effect, a disabling kind of self-consciousness. Another primary effect is the development of trickery, deception and violence. There is also the dog who becomes religious as he can imagine a great Pack Master in the sky mirroring his own role on earth. Also, the dog who becomes a poet, who develops an self-conscious awareness of language as something to play with. Interesting mirror of early human development? Also, the way he weaves language and consciousness into the the daily lives and activities of dogs.
There is also a lot of reflection on the nature of love and relationships. Alexis uses this to pull us in finally at an emotional level in relationship to the character Majnoun (interesting choice of name - a Persian character in a love story who is driven divinely mad by thwarted love).
I must search out the rest of his "philosophical novel" series.
A Perfect Spy - John le Carre
A reread (multiple). I wonder at le Carre's obsession with the duplicity of those who spy for our own good - the thin line between crime and spying for a higher cause. Why does that theme pull him back again and again?
Saturday 12 March 2016
Orhan's Inheritance - Aline Ohanesian
A story set in the time of the Armenian genocide and also in modern L.A. Interestingly, it is not just a compendium of the horrors of the genocide (though there is some). It is actually a story of how the lives of the Turks, Armenians and Kurds were interwoven in complex and human ways, and how the genocide tore that interweaving apart. A shift in perspective.
Thursday 3 March 2016
Umut Yarına Kaldı - Yavuz Özkan
A strange little film from Turkey made in the 80s. An artsy film in the sense of Ingmar Berman - not much happens, lots of moody atmosphere - but a lot more awkward and a bit amateurish.
What is interesting about this film is you can see it as one of the last calls from a time and an era that has been lost in Istanbul, from a time before the Anatolian flood.
There is a level of sophistication, a sense of cultured people fallen on hard times. All of the music is either European classical music or opera. The whole film takes place in a yali along the Bosphorus. The owner, short of cash perhaps, and from an old moneyed family, rents out rooms in his yali to artists. There are some lovely views out windows over the Bosphorus as ships and ferries glide by. In the background there is also a continual symphony of boat horns, seagulls and waves. There are several scenes in the yali garden right on the edge of the Bosphorus - quite charming. The yali owner even swims in the Bosphorus! From another time....
Unfortunately the sound is bad and the dialogue is very hard to follow.
What is interesting about this film is you can see it as one of the last calls from a time and an era that has been lost in Istanbul, from a time before the Anatolian flood.
There is a level of sophistication, a sense of cultured people fallen on hard times. All of the music is either European classical music or opera. The whole film takes place in a yali along the Bosphorus. The owner, short of cash perhaps, and from an old moneyed family, rents out rooms in his yali to artists. There are some lovely views out windows over the Bosphorus as ships and ferries glide by. In the background there is also a continual symphony of boat horns, seagulls and waves. There are several scenes in the yali garden right on the edge of the Bosphorus - quite charming. The yali owner even swims in the Bosphorus! From another time....
Unfortunately the sound is bad and the dialogue is very hard to follow.
The Real North Korea: Life and Politics in the Failed Stalinist Utopia - Andrei Lankov
A well-written, interesting account of the rise and nature of the North Korean State. Lankov lived there as a foreign exchange student at some point and still seems to maintain contacts there, as well as in other diplomatic circles that share their views of North Korea with him. Both a factual and personal account from what I would think is one of the better placed people to discuss this secretive regime.
Lankov explains the crazy international relations that Korea follows - attempts to bribe unsupervised aid from other countries that it can use to reward and maintain the Kim family support system within the country.
He also looks at their crazy economic system - or complete lack thereof currently. Most of the country seems to survive in some kind of economic anarchic state without rules or supervision - anarchic in the sense where everything is negotiable and has its price, both objects, services and dispensations from "rules".
The last two chapters look at various scenarios and issues around what he sees as the inevitable collapse of the current regime.
As an aside, there are also some interesting little bits of information and observation around the fall of communism in Russia and other satellite states from an insider's perspective.
Lankov explains the crazy international relations that Korea follows - attempts to bribe unsupervised aid from other countries that it can use to reward and maintain the Kim family support system within the country.
He also looks at their crazy economic system - or complete lack thereof currently. Most of the country seems to survive in some kind of economic anarchic state without rules or supervision - anarchic in the sense where everything is negotiable and has its price, both objects, services and dispensations from "rules".
The last two chapters look at various scenarios and issues around what he sees as the inevitable collapse of the current regime.
As an aside, there are also some interesting little bits of information and observation around the fall of communism in Russia and other satellite states from an insider's perspective.
Penguin Lost - Andrey Kurkov
Another book by the Ukranian writer, Kurkov - a sequel to Death and the Penguin. Quite a subtle writer. He manages sharp social criticism while at the same time having his characters hover between being despicable and being buffoons. The politicians are all totally corrupt, venal, (any "democratic" country that has a law protecting sitting politicians from criminal prosecution is just a kleptocracy is disguise) yet at the same time they can do things that benefit some people almost by accident. Most of the characters seem lost at sea without any kind of compass - except perhaps vodka and cognac....
Tuesday 1 March 2016
The Milkman in the Night - Andrey Kurkov
Another book by the author of Death and the Penguin.
A crazy funny dark look at Ukranian society pre-recent revolution through a cast of unusual characters. Kurkov manages to run the stream of characters on separate tracks right until the last pages of the book, which is quite an accomplishment.
The book encompasses the rich mafia elite that passes for government, the myriad security/criminal forces both public and private, the poor run-of-the-mill citizens, the corrupt church officials who bless anything for a drink and a few dollars, everyone on the make for every little advantage they hold, and a main character who wanders through all three worlds.
There is the member of parliament who stays young by drinking the expressed breast milk of one of the less fortunate characters (great image for sucking on the teat of the country's poor), the somnambulist who leads a double life as a member of a secret nocturnal society, a strange new medicine that makes you a champion of morality and social good... Simple portraits of the poor and narrow life many people lead on the margins.
Brilliant social criticism - funny, yet at the same time depressing, sobering. Images from a world where you would not want to live.
A crazy funny dark look at Ukranian society pre-recent revolution through a cast of unusual characters. Kurkov manages to run the stream of characters on separate tracks right until the last pages of the book, which is quite an accomplishment.
The book encompasses the rich mafia elite that passes for government, the myriad security/criminal forces both public and private, the poor run-of-the-mill citizens, the corrupt church officials who bless anything for a drink and a few dollars, everyone on the make for every little advantage they hold, and a main character who wanders through all three worlds.
There is the member of parliament who stays young by drinking the expressed breast milk of one of the less fortunate characters (great image for sucking on the teat of the country's poor), the somnambulist who leads a double life as a member of a secret nocturnal society, a strange new medicine that makes you a champion of morality and social good... Simple portraits of the poor and narrow life many people lead on the margins.
Brilliant social criticism - funny, yet at the same time depressing, sobering. Images from a world where you would not want to live.
The Book of Revenge - Dragan Todorovic
A very personal account of life in the former Yugoslavia before and during the break-up of the country. Particularly interesting, as the author is basically my age. For me, it was interesting to compare the account of his childhood life with my childhood - it underlines the poverty and constant struggle of most people's lives in Yugoslavia at that time.
In the author's various incarnations and struggles as a journalist, you can see how ability and merit had little to do with success - your position was far more dependent on toeing the party line and on party connections (Why Nations Fail - a system gamed to reward incompetence; focus above all on maintenance of power).
The story of the life of the author and his intellectual, artistic, thinking friends during the country's break-up and successive wars is quite sad and depressing. Raised as a generation to believe in a Yugoslav identity, and reaching across ethnic lines within their arts community, the rise of the ethnic nationalists, and their rhetoric and actions, must have seemed like the return of some kind of monster from the depths of an evil fairytale. There is a real sense of shock, of incomprehension, of the true ugliness of these kinds of movements. And a shock at how stupid and sheeplike, how easily manipulated the mass of people can be.
Not only this goes, but also their whole economic system falls apart - people suddenly become a lot poorer and a lot less in control of their situation.
So in the end, the thinking, the educated, the intelligent, those with a larger world view, leave the country to the megalomaniacal egotists and the sheep.
A general vision here of where society can go when everything breaks down. I am reminded of the book, Riddley Walker.
In the author's various incarnations and struggles as a journalist, you can see how ability and merit had little to do with success - your position was far more dependent on toeing the party line and on party connections (Why Nations Fail - a system gamed to reward incompetence; focus above all on maintenance of power).
The story of the life of the author and his intellectual, artistic, thinking friends during the country's break-up and successive wars is quite sad and depressing. Raised as a generation to believe in a Yugoslav identity, and reaching across ethnic lines within their arts community, the rise of the ethnic nationalists, and their rhetoric and actions, must have seemed like the return of some kind of monster from the depths of an evil fairytale. There is a real sense of shock, of incomprehension, of the true ugliness of these kinds of movements. And a shock at how stupid and sheeplike, how easily manipulated the mass of people can be.
Not only this goes, but also their whole economic system falls apart - people suddenly become a lot poorer and a lot less in control of their situation.
So in the end, the thinking, the educated, the intelligent, those with a larger world view, leave the country to the megalomaniacal egotists and the sheep.
A general vision here of where society can go when everything breaks down. I am reminded of the book, Riddley Walker.
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