For years, French photographer Ludwig Favre has been doing a series on the swimming pools of Paris. The first one he photographed (and the first photo below) was the Piscine Pontoise. Designed in 1933 by architect Lucien Pollet, Pontoise was one of four pools that he completed for the Piscines de France at that time. Another one of his designs was the Piscine Molitor (second picture below), which is the most famous of the bunch for a few reasons. It was the place to be seen in Paris when it first opened. It was where the world’s first bikini was apparently unveiled. And it was also abandoned and almost demolished, during which time it got filled with street art. If you aren’t familiar with the work of Ludwig, I would encourage you to check out his portfolio. He does an incredible job showcasing these pools, as well as many other aspects of our cityscapes.
Tag: photography
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Field of infinity
I am a big fan of the work of Reuben Wu. He is, among many other things, a landscape photographer. But he explores and documents his landscapes in highly creative ways. In one of his latest projects — Field of Infinity — he photographed the Bolivian landscape at night and used a modified drone (plus a slow shutter speed) to draw light objects in the night sky. The results are incredible. Here is a short video about that trip and his work. (Note: He is an ambassador for the XT Camera System.)
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Death of the standalone camera
I took the above photo on my Fujifilm X-T3 at the Museum of Contemporary Art here in Toronto. Obviously, it is a cast of David Bowie’s head. I’ve been using Fujifilm’s X cameras for exactly 3 years now and have already gone through 2 different models. I love them. But Om Malik’s recent post on why the future belongs to computational photography is, in my opinion, entirely accurate.
For most people, taking photos on a standalone camera and dropping them into Lightroom is not only far too much work, but also unnecessary. Here is a chart from Om’s post showing total worldwide digital camera unit sales (in millions). Sales have fallen off a cliff from about 10 years ago and now look to be on the verge of dying.
What is obvious is that we are all now just taking photos on our phones. Thanks to better chips, sensors, and software, the future of photography looks, again, destined to be computational. Apple is set to announce its new iPhone 11 (or whatever it will be called) this week and already the rumors point to a dramatically improved camera.
This change in hardware has also changed our relationship to the photograph. We now take photos for the purpose of real-time sharing, which is another point that Om makes. When I post photos of things that have happened in the past — as I often do — people are commonly confused: “Where are you? When are you back in Toronto? Wait, is this a #latergram?”
This has made photographic memories feel ephemeral. Once the moment has passed, we forget about them. They get drowned out in new real-time images and shares. As a society we are taking more photos than ever before. Not surprisingly, this lowers the gravitas of each individual one.
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Sunset in Malaga
Here are a few photos from last night’s sunset here in Malaga. (All unedited and straight from my iPhone.) It was one of the most beautiful sunsets that I have ever seen and seemed to go on for hours. But of course, the photos don’t come close to doing it justice.
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Out of office: Malaga
The above photo was taken on a walk up to the Castillo de Gibralfaro in Malaga, Spain. It was built by the Moors during their occupation of the Iberian Peninsula in the Middle Ages.
It is located on Mount Gibralfaro (~130m up) in the center of the city, overlooking the historic core, the waterfront, and its lower elevation sibling — the Alcazaba (or citadel).
In the Middle Ages, this is what it meant for a city to be defensible. High ground. Formidable double walls. And places to shoot from.
Thankfully, today, I think one could easily argue that “urban defensibility” tends to instead rely on things like knowledge, innovation, and diversity.
Here are a couple of photos from inside the fortress. It is always amazing to see what labor was able to build without the technologies that we have today.
Portions of it were built using a very elegant and elongated brick. Above is the bar area at the top. Presumably this was a later addition, though, supposedly the Moors did make and sell wine from the Andalucia region.
If you ever find yourself in Malaga, this complex is a must visit.
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Hello from Savannah
I’m in Savannah, Georgia right now. See above (iPhone) photo taken from River Street. My dad and I are road tripping from West Palm Beach to Toronto in order to bring his car back to the city. So why not check out a few, new, cities along the way? I have my Fujifilm with me, but I won’t be posting any of those photos until I’m back in Toronto. Happy Canada Day weekend.
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Golden hour cranes
I was out this past Saturday evening with my Fujifilm X-T3. I usually always have it on me when I’m traveling, but less so when I’m at home. It can be harder to be a “tourist” in your own city because things don’t stand out in the same way. And oftentimes it is that novelty which sparks the desire to take a photo. But that’s no excuse. So here are two photos that I took right before sunset from CityPlace, Toronto. The cranes you see in the first picture (mostly) belong to The Well.
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InfraScapes by Paolo Pettigiani
I just discovered the work of Italian photographer, Paolo Pettigiani. He specializes in something called infrared photography, which is photography that captures the wavelengths of light that generally aren’t visible to us humans.
Paolo shoots with a full spectrum Nikon D750. What this means is that the camera’s sensor is sensitive to, well, the full spectrum of light: UV, visible, and infrared. Using this photography technique, he has coined something he calls “InfraScapes.”
Here are a few of his photos from Dubai (source):
The reason these photos look the way that they do is because anything with chlorophyll — such as grass and trees — really reflects infrared light. The result is a generally muted landscape with pops of pink. Perhaps this could be used as a technique to visually evaluate the greenness of our cities.
All photos by Paolo Pettigiani
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10th annual
It is that time of year again.
For those of you who are regular readers of this blog, you’ll know that every year around this time I go on a snowboarding/ski trip with groups of friends that I went to grad school with and/or grew up with.
We have been doing this for a decade now. Last year we were in Jackson, Wyoming (my favorite place so far). And this year we are in Austria.
Here is a photo that I took — of paradise — this afternoon:
I’m not sure there’s anything to say after a photo like this. So I’ll leave it at that. See you tomorrow.