Category: Photos & Art

It took the spacecraft just nine hours to pass the moon. That baby was moving (75,000 kmh).

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was born on this date in 1832. The following is from an exhibition at the National Gallery of Art — Edouard Manet and His Influence:

It is hard to image a time when Paris was without broad, tree-lined streets or when the life of the city did not interest French artists. Yet this was the case in 1850 when Edouard Manet began to study painting. Young artists could expect to succeed only through the official Academy exhibitions known as Salons, whose conservative juries favored biblical and mythological themes and a polished technique. Within twenty-five years, however, both Paris and painting had a new look. Urban renovations had opened the wide avenues and parks we know today, and painting was transformed when artists abandoned the transparent glazes and blended brushtrokes of the past and turned their attention to life around them. Contemporary urban subjects and a bold style, which offered paint on the canvas as something to be admired in itself, gave their art a strong new sense of the present.
…

Several artists had begun to challenge the stale conventions of the Academy when Manet’s Olympia (now at the Musée d’Orsay, Paris) was accepted for the Salon in 1865. Never had a work caused such scandal. Critics advised pregnant women to avoid the picture, and it was rehung to thwart vandals. Viewers were not used to the painting’s flat space and shallow volumes. To many, Manet’s “color patches” appeared unfinished. Even more shocking was the frank honesty of his courtesan: it was her boldness, not her nudity, that offended. Her languid pose copied a Titian Venus, but Manet did not cloak her with mythology. She is not a remote goddess but emphatically in the present, easily recognized among the demimonde of prostitutes and dancehalls. In Olympia’s steady gaze there is no apology for sensuality and, for uncomfortable viewers, no escaping her “reality.”

Manet’s succès de scandale made him a leader of the avant-garde. In the evenings at the Café Guerbois, near his studio, he was joined by writers and artists, including Monet, Bazille, and others who would go on to organize the first impressionist exhibition. Manet’s embrace of what the poet Charles Baudelaire termed the “heroism of modern life” and his bold manner with paint inspired the future impressionists, though Manet never exhibited with them.

Click image to enlarge and learn more.

Click image to enlarge and learn more.

In Where I Was From, Joan Didion gives us this wonderful takedown of pop artist Thomas Kinkade:

The passion with which buyers approached these Kinkade images was hard to define. The manager of one California gallery that handled them told me that it was not unusual to sell six or seven at a clip, to buyers who already owned ten or twenty, and that the buyers with whom he dealt brought to the viewing of the images “a sizeable emotional weight.” A Kinkade painting was typically rendered in slightly surreal pastels. It typically featured a cottage or a house of such insistent coziness as to seem actually sinister, suggestive of a trap designed to attract Hansel and Gretel. Every window was lit, to lurid effect, as if the interior of the structure might be on fire. The cottages had thatched roofs, and resembled gingerbread houses. The houses were Victorian, and resembled idealized bed-and-breakfasts, at least two of which in Placerville, the Chichester-McKee House and the Combellack-Blair House, claimed to have been the models for Kinkade “Christmas” paintings. “There’s a lot of beauty here that I present in a way that’s whimsical and charming,” Kinkade allowed to the Placerville Mountain Democrat. He branded himself the “Painter of Light,” and the postcards Media Arts provided to his galleries each for a while bore this legend: “Thomas Kinkade is recognized as the foremost living painter of light. His masterful use of soft edges and luminous colors give his highly detailed oil paintings a glow all their own. This extraordinary ‘Kinkade Glow’ has created an overwhelming demand for Thomas Kinkade paintings and lithographs worldwide.”

This “Kinkade Glow” could be seen as derived in spirit from the “lustrous, pearly mist” that Mark Twain had derided in the Bierstadt paintings, and, the level of execution to one side, there are certain unsettling similarities between the two painters. “After completing my recent plein air study of Yosemite Valley, the mountains’ majesty refused to leave me,” Kinkade wrote in June 2000 on his web site. “When my family wandered through the national park visitor center, I discovered a key to my fantasy-a recreation of a Miwok Indian Village. When I returned to my studio, I began work on The Mountains Declare His Glory, a poetic expression of what I felt at that transforming moment of inspiration. As a final touch, I even added a Miwok Indian Camp along the river as an affirmation that man has his place, even in a setting touched by God’s glory.”

Affirming that man has his place in the Sierra Nevada by reproducing the Yosemite National Park Visitor Center’s recreation of a Miwok Indian Village is identifiable as a doubtful enterprise on many levels (not the least of which being that the Yosemite Miwok were forcibly run onto a reservation near Fresno during the Gold Rush….

Not to mention that the Kinkade paintings available are all mass-produced reproductions.

This photo was taken by Astronaut William Anders 37 years ago today. Click image to enlarge and learn more.

It’s official: Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa was 83 per cent happy, 9 per cent disgusted, 6 per cent fearful and 2 per cent angry.

Nicu Sebe at the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands tested emotion-recognition software on the famous enigmatic smile. His algorithm, developed with researchers at the Beckman Institute at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, examines key facial features such as the curvature of the lips and crinkles around the eyes, then scores each face with respect to six basic emotions.

New Scientist Technology

Some things are just better left unanalyzed.

You know what to do — click on image to enlarge and learn more.

The Norwegian artist Edvard Munch was born on this date in 1863. The Web Museum has information and a number of his paintings, including, of course, the most famous, The Scream, or The Cry, 1893.

Click image to enlarge.

You know what to do — click on the image to enlarge it and learn more.

Nikon has issued a recall on some of its battery packs for the D100, D70 and D50 cameras.

The battery pack can experience a short circuit causing it to overheat and possibly melt, posing a potential hazard to consumers. There have only been four confirmed reports of incidents of the problem worldwide, and while no injuries have taken place, Nikon Inc. has initiated this recall of the affected lot numbers as a reflection of its commitment to safety and product quality. We are asking that owners of the affected battery packs return them to Nikon Inc. for a free replacement.

Fair enough, things happen.

But there is one big problem. Nikon wants the camera owner to register on the internet, wait for packing and postage to be sent, then return the defective battery before Nikon sends the new battery. Only once Nikon has the old battery will they will send a replacement — “within approximately 7-10 days.”

Excuse me! What if you want to use your camera in the next few weeks while all this shipping back and forth is going on — say for Christmas photos. No luck — unless you buy a new battery at retail ($40 or more) in the meanwhile. Nikon warns you (in bold), “If you have an EN-EL3 battery pack with one of the lot numbers listed above, you should immediately stop using it and remove the battery pack from the battery compartment.”

If I have a camera registered with Nikon (I do) and I claim to have one of the potentially dangerous batteries (I do), I think they should send me a new battery as soon as I sign-up for it, along with the packing and postage to return to old one.

Here’s the list of recalled batteries.

Update: Nikon will charge your credit card for the new battery ($49), send it with the return packaging, and then credit your account when the old battery is received. That seems reasonable, though I will leave my rant above as written.

Do you wish you were a better photographer? All it takes is a little know-how and experience. Keep reading for some important picture-taking tips. Then grab your camera and start shooting your way to great pictures.

1. Look your subject in the eye
2. Use a plain background
3. Use flash outdoors
4. Move in close
5. Move it from the middle
6. Lock the focus
7. Know your flash’s range
8. Watch the light
9. Take some vertical pictures
10. Be a picture director

From Kodak, which has brief details on each of the tips.

Click on photo to enlarge and learn more.

Another fascinating Astronomy Picture of the Day.

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This is mesmerizing. Takes a couple of minutes (no sound).

Link via Boing Boing

Take a look! Read the instruction at the top.

You will see dots after for a few seconds.

For your convenience, NewMexiKen has added a button in the sidebar to take you directly to the Astronomy Picture of the Day. It’s right below the button you can use to access Amazon.com. Any purchase you make after accessing Amazon through that gateway generates a little kickback for me at no additional cost to you.

Anyway, be sure to take a look at today’s Solar Prominence photo.

Speeding toward pale, icy Dione, Cassini’s view is enriched by the tranquil gold and blue hues of Saturn in the distance. The horizontal stripes near the bottom of the image are Saturn’s rings. The spacecraft was nearly in the plane of the rings when the images were taken, thinning them by perspective and masking their awesome scale. The thin, curving shadows of the C ring and part of the B ring adorn the northern latitudes visible here, a reminder of the rings’ grandeur.

Image taken October 11, 2005.

Source: NASA

From 43 Folders:

Your mobile phone camera can be more than a fast way to send your kitty photos to Grandma Pearl. Like a lot of people, I use mine as a ubiquitous capture device, recording ephemeral information and visual documentation wherever and whenever it’s needed.

Some of the ideas:

• Remember where you parked
• Record the hours of a new store
• Carry your To-do list

Click on photo to enlarge.

NewMexiKen needs to purchase filters to protect my Nikon lenses. I understand 81A is recommended. Is this true? How does one determine the size? Is there any brand to seek out? Any brand to avoid? What’s a fair price (ballpark)?

Leave a comment, or email newmexiken at gmail dot com.

Update: A professional photographer recommended 81A multi-coated Hoya warming filters. In fact, he uses them to protect the lens and does not use bothersome lens caps. They’re about $35 each online.