Tag Archives: France

Getting the Perspective Just Right

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In the olden day of photography, you know – before Photoshop and digital cameras, you had to get it right the first time. Sure, you could go back and try again once you saw the result, about a week after getting back home, but there were times when that was just not feasible. It always was an exciting time when the envelope with the developed slides was in the mailbox.

Sometimes the excitement went away quickly, but more often than not it was then, the following evening, after all the mishaps had been sorted out and discarded, that the slide projector was set up, aimed at the silver screen and everybody gathered in the darkened room to relive the time a few, or at least one, weeks back.

Slides and the silver screen were the best means to watch pictures at that time, much less expensive than prints and a lot bigger. That is why slides had always been my medium of choice when I took photos as my artistic expression.

Slides and the silver screen went out after I moved to the US and it became very difficult to actually buy a slide projector. Slide projection was replaced by – really nothing. Until about now. Now I am using a 32 inch monitor which is located much closer to me than the silver screen had been, so the apparent size of images viewed on that monitor is comparable in size, maybe even bigger. Additionally this is an active light source – not reflective as the silver screen – so the luminance is much higher, and I don’t have to wait to the evening or darken the room.

So, yes, we have come around and caught up with the size of the slide show in the evening and surpassed it in convenience and speed. Now I can take the picture and view it pretty much right away.

Slide scanners have also given me the opportunity to view these old slides on the new display medium. I never had noticed the grain in the images when viewing the slides natively, but with some creative filtering we can reduce this shortcoming over the film emulsion.

On looking through some old slides taken in Paris, France in the Tuileries (the gardens surrounding the Louvre) I ran into one image that prompted me to write this post…

It’s one where, if I had the chance, would go back and take it at a slightly different angle so that the hand would be really exactly above the head of the statue. With a lot of Photoshop work I could probably fix it after the fact but I decided to leave it as it is and just enjoy the charm of “missing it by that much” (quote Maxwell Smart.)

As for some newer pictures that get it just right, here a little collection of photos that made it into my mailbox (thanks, Beverly!)

The Big Bang in your Backyard

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What is the image you get when you think of a scientist?

I bet it’s usually a middle aged guy, most likely wearing a lab-coat, probably classes and definitely not cool.

But we all know by now that TED does not promote the ‘normal,’ so, when they have somebody on to talk about the Large Hedron Collider (LHC) in Geneva, Switzerland we do not necessarily expect a guy in a lab-coat.

I still was positively surprised by Brian Cox’s talk. There is a cool guy who not only makes it interesting to show what the LHC does but also represents a new breed of scientist that seem to be in awe of creation and taken by its extent.

When I turned my back to physics after I was all done with my degree, the scientific scene was immensely more arrogant. So, listening to Brian Cox made me happy because I think that science will succeed when it develops the right amount of humility and recognized that it, itself, is part of that creation and is searching for itself.

You want to know where the LHC actually is? Glad you asked because it has a some fascinating facts about its location. CERN, which is also the mother of the World Wide Web, is located in two countries, Switzerland and France. The Conseil Européen pour la Recherche Nucléaire (CERN) is located close to Geneva, Switzerland and stretches across the Swiss-France border. So, you might cross the border between the two countries many times during the day while remaining in the CERN complex. Nowadays that has not much of a significance, but when I was there it was a fascinating fact, that you could go across the border without showing your papers.

So, here it is…


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Paris, Texas versus Paris, France

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I had heard about the Wim Wenders movie “Paris, Texas” but never attempted to see it. It came out at a time when I had been very busy moving my life around and there was just not time enough to sit down for two hours to spend on a movie. It took many years to sink in that the title actually referred to a town named Paris, located in Texas. I had never nurtured the idea before that there was any other than THE Paris, the capital of the country right over there.

But now that I have seen these two pictures…

Paris, Texas

Paris, Texas, and …

Paris, France

… maybe I should see the movie.

Joking! – Obviously the movie has nothing to do with the subjects of these images (just a cheap hook.) The movie it’s about Travis, an amnesiac who has been lost for four years and is taken in by his brother. He later tries to put his life back together and understand what happened between him, his wife Jane (Nastassja Kinski), and his son Hunter – I mean, give me a break, it’s a Wim Wenders film!