jennyapples
Looks like they did a pretty simple edit job. I’ve done more retouching on basic portrait work.

ToHelenBackAgain
Then you’re a crap photographer.

jennyapples
lololol colour balance, brightness, levels, these are all totally normal things to alter.

ToHelenBackAgain
You can’t get a good shot in the first place, you’re the problem. Photographers did not always have retouching to fall back on, and they got some pretty damned good shots without it. You are advertising that you are unable to do that.

jennyapples
After spending 15 years as a photographer and countless hours in the darkroom, I am authorized to say you don’t have a fucking clue what you’re talking about. Dodge and burn, fool. Dodge and burn.

ToHelenBackAgain
Argument from authority, which tends to be problematic in the first place (look it up, fool), and also pre-invalidated by the very subject.
Dude, this is Annie Freakin’ Leibovitz. You’re not a better authority than she is, and she screwed up massively here.

jennyapples
Have I personally offended you? I’ve seen you on here before and know you’re not a troll. Are you just a massive fucking asshole, or what is your deal? My point was that these aren’t particularly edited shots and that they were fairly true to the original photos, so the bounty on the pictures did not serve any purpose because there was almost nothing to reveal. And when I said I’ve done more editing on basic portrait work, I clearly, to anyone who isn’t you, was saying that these were edited with such a light touch that even regular old portrait work requires more editing (i.e. not much).

ToHelenBackAgain
You’re just wrong, that’s all.

{ Jezebel | Continue reading }

{ Chino Otsuka superimposes her adult self into childhood photos }

{ How To Make Your Face (Digitally) Unforgettable | NPR | MIT | PDF }

{ Magyar was immersed in a long-running techno-art project called Stainless, creating high-resolution images of speeding subway trains and their passengers, using sophisticated software he created and hardware that he retrofitted himself. | full story }

Being bored has just become a little more nuanced, with the addition of a fifth type of boredom by which to describe this emotion. […]

The study builds on preliminary research done by Goetz and colleague Anne Frenzel in 2006 in which they differentiated between four types of boredom according to the levels of arousal (ranging from calm to fidgety) and how positive or negative boredom is experienced (so-called valence). These were indifferent boredom (relaxed, withdrawn, indifferent), calibrating boredom (uncertain, receptive to change/distraction), searching boredom (restless, active pursuit of change/distraction) and reactant boredom (high reactant, motivated to leave a situation for specific alternatives).

The researchers have now identified another boredom subtype, namely apathetic boredom, an especially unpleasant form that resembles learned helplessness or depression. It is associated with low arousal levels and high levels of aversion.

{ Springer | Continue reading }

photo { Robert Carrithers }

{ Westinghouse demonstrates an electric razor using x-ray technology, May 1941 | Helmut Newton, Van Cleef + Arpels Diamond Necklace X-Ray, Paris 1979 }

The explosion in music consumption over the last century has made ‘what you listen to’ an important personality construct – as well as the root of many social and cultural tribes – and, for many people, their self-perception is closely associated with musical preference. We would perhaps be reluctant to admit that our taste in music alters - softens even - as we get older.

Now, a new study suggests that - while our engagement with it may decline - music stays important to us as we get older, but the music we like adapts to the particular ‘life challenges’ we face at different stages of our lives.

It would seem that, unless you die before you get old, your taste in music will probably change to meet social and psychological needs.

One theory put forward by researchers, based on the study, is that we come to music to experiment with identity and define ourselves, and then use it as a social vehicle to establish our group and find a mate, and later as a more solitary expression of our intellect, status and greater emotional understanding.

{ EurekAlert | Continue reading }

photo { Olivia Locher }

Animals living in marine environments keep to their schedules with the aid of multiple independent—and, in at least some cases, interacting—internal clocks. […] Multiple clocks—not just the familiar, 24-hour circadian clock—might even be standard operating equipment in animals.

{ EurekAlert | Continue reading }

photo { Thomas Prior }

Singapore is inequality on steroids, as you might expect from a high human capital, high information tech, growing financial center.

Seventeen percent of the population are millionaires, and that is not counting real estate wealth, which is substantial.

The H&M in the shopping district is closing, because the rent was doubled and it is being replaced by luxury retailers.

{ Marginal Revolution | Continue reading | Part 2 }

photo { Thomas Prior }

{ Robin Black }

{ Nicolas Menu }

As newborns, we encounter our first microbes as we pass through the birth canal. Until that moment, we are 100 percent human.

Thereafter, we are, numerically speaking, 10 percent human, and 90 percent microbe.

Our microbiome contains at least 150 times more genes, collectively, than our human genome.

{ Mother Jones | Continue reading | via Sunday Reading/TNI }

photo { Matthu Placek }

By exploiting some exotic acoustic techniques, researchers have built a window that allows the passage of air but not sound.

{ The Physics arXiv Blog | Continue reading }

photo { David Slijper }

“You know in a mental institution they sometimes give a person some clay or some basket weaving?” he said. “It’s the therapy of moviemaking that has been good in my life. If you don’t work, it’s unhealthy—for me, particularly unhealthy. I could sit here suffering from morbid introspection, ruing my mortality, being anxious. But it’s very therapeutic to get up and think, Can I get this actor; does my third act work? All these solvable problems that are delightful puzzles, as opposed to the great puzzles of life that are unsolvable, or that have very bad solutions. So I get pleasure from doing this. It’s my version of basket weaving.”

{ Woody Allen/WSJ | Continue reading }

photo { Lonneke van der Palen }

{ Thomas Jackson }

If there are negative feelings gnawing at you, do you know the cause, and is there anything you could do right away to solve the problem? If it’s just a negativity bias kicking in, try the exercise that worked so well for me. Get a piece of paper and spend two or three of minutes writing down anything you’re especially grateful for in that moment. See what effect it has on how you’re feeling. […]

Here’s the paradox: The more you’re able to move your attention to what makes you feel good, the more capacity you’ll have to manage whatever was making you feel bad in the first place. Emotions are contagious, for better or worse. It’s your choice.

{ NY Times | Continue reading }

photos { Edward Steichen, Landon Rives as Melpomene, 1904 | Studio Manasse, Woman Smoking, 1928 }

Risk compensation is an interesting effect where increasing safety measures will lead people to engage in more risky behaviors.

For example, sailors wearing life jackets may try more risky maneuvers as they feel ‘safer’ if they get into trouble. If they weren’t wearing life jackets, they might not even try. So despite the ‘safety measures’ the overall level of risk remains the same due to behavioral change.

This happens in other areas of life.

{ MindHacks | Continue reading }

photo { Gert Jochems }

sonder.— n. the realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own

adronitis.— n. frustration with how long it takes to get to know someone

{ The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows | Continue reading }

photo { James P. Blair }

photos { Hank Willis Thomas | Guy Bourdin }

{ Miroslav Tichý, The City of Women Series | Tichý had been taking pictures of women furtively in his Czech hometown of Kyjov since the 1960s, with cameras he built himself | Wikipedia }