Proj 1- Intro - (Due April 17)

zoe.m.rathbun
Posts: 5
Joined: Wed Apr 12, 2017 5:14 pm

Re: Assignment 1 Due April 17

Post by zoe.m.rathbun » Mon Apr 17, 2017 2:00 am

Emeric Szaboky - forgot to email for password - could not log-in - posting on Zoë's acct.

Loved learning about the camera obscura. I would like to build or climb inside a real model of one. What a wild phenomenon that a tiny pin hole could create. I wonder this physical phenomenon was discovered?

I enjoyed the TED Talk by Ramesh Raskar on imaging at a trillion frames per second. He discusses new phenomena which this is making possible and how it will impact what is possible in the act of taking a picture. Raskar introduces a new field of photography procured by this invention, called Femtophotography. Potential directions for femtophotography include slow-motion light photography, femtophotography for medical purposes like seeing in hard to view places inside the human body, cars with cameras which are capable of seeing and preventing collision around corners, and cameras for looking for survivors in hazardous conditions by looking at light reflected in open windows. The camera that is capable of seeing around corners. There are many practical and humanistic uses for the invention. What I am most interested in is how this possibility almost defies the laws of physics in a way. I can now understand from Raskar’s video and technical explanation how it would work. But what I mean is that the laws of physics might have to be re-written to accommodate this new phenomena. There is a physical law that suggests something exists only if we observe it. Now, when a picture is taken of something that cannot be seen, does it (yet) exist? Does seeing it on the LCD screen of the camera denote it coming into existence? Or will it exist only when you turn the corner to witness it’s physical form? I guess the answer to this question depends on personal philosophy even more than it does science. If you are in reality picking up fragments of light off of a wall/window reflected towards the camera to create an image, it could still be considered by physics to be observation. We are already accustomed to the idea of a reflection, but whether or not it is real is a stranger question that we might not always be thinking? Me personally? Reflections weird me out a little bit. I don’t like to look into mirrors that much.

Anyway, Raskar says the next dimension in imaging—time. I like that, because I always liked videos. And in my opinion, the time component came a long time ago with film, movies, TV, and the entire fabrication of a visual story. But I do see time becoming a more trippy component. We will really be able to zone in on experience and short moments which aren’t appreciated. In the video Raskar demonstrated of light “shattering” in a Coca-Cola bottle, light ripples on the table were shown be moving away from the viewer, when they should have be moving towards the viewer. Riskier explains this, saying that recording nearly at the speed of light produces strange effects which Einsten would have loved to have witnessed. The order in which the events take place in the world appear in the camera recording to be reversed. They correct the “distortion” by applying a corresponding space/time warp. I use “distortion" in quotations here, because I want to pose a question about whether or not this is a true distortion. First we need to ask, iIs the direction Raskar expected the ripples to move decided based on human perception? I am not sure, because I don’t know if human perception would be able to see those ripples. Once that is answered, my next question is, now that we have two witnesses to something, how do we proclaim its true nature? Are the ripples distorted in the camera? Or are they distorted to our perception? Or, maybe I’m completely wrong and Raskar means the direction of the ripples is mathematically proven to be wrong.

Something else: I was thinking that the idea of photo/image needs to be re-defined, just like when photography came to be, painting or other visual art needed to be re-defined. With new technology, norms cannot settle and keep becoming outdated. How do we imagine the world we will be living in? In analyzing sound or critical listening, we use the term aural image to describe the spatial, emotional and ephemeral picture painted by a group of sounds. Music or collections of sounds are in a sense the same as an image. Both are collections of data oriented for particular human sensory organs to convey meaning. So, if that’s what they are, we should just treat them as that and use them when we mean stuff. Joking around because so much imagery in society is wasteful and distracting and not meaningful. That’s whats happens when primal animals live in a capitalistically visual world. Anyway, images, seem to be something like a message. So, I would say whether it is an objective image of the external physical world or an image of the physical world manipulated to be perceived differently, they are still images. But, they are delivering very different messages. With illusive imagery, the deeper message occurs behind the image in its purpose or by its perpetrator. But, illusive images are often designed to not be seen past by the majority. So, if you’re not looking closely, you’ll receive the message you are meant to receive. Therefore, your mind is kind of controlled on a daily basis by visual imagery.

SO!
Pay close attention to what you see!
Don’t accept it as reality.
Or truth.
Cross reference the external world with truths from inside. That is how you will be able to see the world with a clear lens.

https://www.ted.com/talks/ramesh_raskar ... d#t-642658

mdanielyants
Posts: 2
Joined: Wed Apr 12, 2017 5:16 pm

Re: Assignment 1 Due April 17

Post by mdanielyants » Mon Apr 17, 2017 8:40 am

What amazes me is the multitude of applications photography can have within and outside of the art world. I think the use of cameras alone (has) revolutionized how we look at art and what we perceive as art. So for me to find out just how many variations on cameras and their uses and inner workings there are, only makes me wonder how we can further explore the area of digital photography to further use it as an art form.
I found very compelling Ramesh Raskar's ted talk on the use of light photography. To see how light passes through objects was absolutely breathtaking, and it blows my mind that cameras can capture so many nuances that our human eye can't process fast enough to detect. And while on the topic of the human eye, I definitely find the Fosera Camera interesting. Having the ability to capture multiple frames and giving the camera-wielder the option of choosing the focus of the photo makes it a lot more convenient to create compelling compositions.
Stanford's Multi camera Array is also something that interested me, at first, only because of the sheer size and power that the contraption holds, but also because of the interesting images it produces. It is a topic I want to do more reading about and seems like it will be utilized a lot more in the near future and be accessible to the general public on some scale.
http://www.cs.columbia.edu/CAVE/project ... ep_camera/
http://graphics.stanford.edu/projects/array/
http://web.media.mit.edu/~raskar/trillionfps/

anniewong
Posts: 4
Joined: Wed Apr 12, 2017 5:11 pm

Re: Assignment 1 Due April 17

Post by anniewong » Mon Apr 17, 2017 12:26 pm

Technology has advanced into the age of computational photography, relying much more heavily on digital image capture and processing than on the limited features of the mere settings of the traditional optical lens.

In its introduction, the "Multipixel" camera may look like a technical camera, but with two stepper motors, it allows the camera's embedded chip to capture the image in a 2-D landscape form, understanding more of the depth and intricacies of the image. With image outputs being constructed by 100 megapixels, it contains twice the resolution of the most advanced traditional digital camera.

In Montreal, a firm called Algolux works on "CRISP," Computationally Reconfigurable Image Signal Platform, taking image processing software one step further by absorbing RAW data and decreasing the likelihood of computational imaging errors such as noise, mosaic effects, colour fringing, etc. As opposed to the linear processes most image process software goes through, CRISP constructs the image compounding these filters simultaneously, reaching for a finalized image through a multitask compilation of balancing the features of image correction by holistically processing the image instead of daisy chaining them.

CRISP compounds the separate processes of the conventional camera pipeline. This allows CRISP to become a compilation of mdoels, solvers, priors, creating an interchangeable relationship between the optics and hardware. This relaince on digital image processing proves the current trends of computational photography, like the project of mulitpixel and others


http://www.wolfgangbittner.com/portraits/?page_id=3
https://pixsy.com/computational-photography/
https://algolux.com/the-time-has-come-t ... processing

cguijarro
Posts: 3
Joined: Mon Apr 17, 2017 10:56 am

Re: Assignment 1 Due April 17

Post by cguijarro » Mon Apr 17, 2017 7:54 pm

I'm really interested in working with the kinect in the future. It has an RGB camera, a depth sensor that consists of an infrared laser projector mixed with a monochrome sensor, and a multi-array microphone. The idea is that one can take images that show people's unique physical structure using different techniques which can be mapped to the motion sensor on the kinect. Audrey Penmen created a series of images that showed a number of lights that were arranged in a way that would be unique to every person. These lights were controlled by the kinect and carried depending on the person. I'm more interested in being able to use the kinect's motion sensor as opposed to its image processing abilities. One can create some pretty interesting images using it's infrared sensor, but using the full-body motion sensor can help make even more interesting videos and other projects. I've shared the link down below to a project that shows a 3D video sculpture of a person dancing. Using a sensor like the kinect one could map the movements of a real person and create a sculpture like the one in the video.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinect#Technology-> technical info on the kinect
https://www.cnet.com/news/artist-makes- ... ts-kinect/-> Penmen
https://vimeo.com/38840688-> 3D sound sculpture

christinepang
Posts: 4
Joined: Wed Apr 12, 2017 5:10 pm

Re: Assignment 1 Due April 17

Post by christinepang » Tue Apr 18, 2017 9:04 am

“New cameras don’t just capture photons; they compute pictures.” I have always found the concept of a camera amazing. A camera captures a moment in time and transfers it into something you can tangibly look back into. Newer cameras differ in that they put much more information into each pixel than ever before. Rather than just taking a picture, new cameras can “make” a picture. Pixels can combine information from multiple photosites. Sensors within them can also interpret patterns of wavelengths to process it into a sharpening algorithm. Photography has always been a play on light. That is also our world. We live in a time and space where our eyes see the rays of light arrive from every possible direction. It only makes sense that the most innovative and new cameras try to extract more information from this field. However, this information can be wasted when it is filtered through a lens and size of a pinhole. The interesting thing about composing a photo is that something has to always give. A shutter speed, aperture, or ISO are all balanced to yield an image you want to create in a certain way. Another approach to recording the light field of a subject or environment is capturing four dimensional images with a multitude of cameras where in the final photo, all the images’ information are stitched together. Angular differences are noted and can be adjusted for, being much more forgiving to the user in the case of focusing on the wrong thing. In regards to an image not being in focus, light is scared rather than concentrated on a pixel. Future cameras may be able to adjust for this by capturing more information and being fixed on a computer.
The concept of a photo has not changed much but the ways that they are generated has. The question I would like to also focus on as well is to pose the question of at what point is a photo not considered the photographer’s art piece? How do we define photography after all these new technology emerge and fall into the mass’s hands? It seems almost too easy for someone to create a “good” picture now. It seems effortless to simply point and shoot. How does the audience know if the photographer has thought about what he or she wanted to portray? How will they know the difference between that and a captured image of something with a more thought out gadget than the person behind it? I am not anti-innovative camera. However, I think it would be monumental to redefine photography, and photography generated with high tech mediums. I think amazing things can be created from both forms but as someone who really appreciates art, I want to be able to talk about it knowing that it was created in a certain way.

http://www.americanscientist.org/issues ... tography/5

hernando
Posts: 2
Joined: Mon Jun 05, 2017 10:54 am

Re: Proj 1- Intro - (Due April 17)

Post by hernando » Mon Jun 12, 2017 9:52 pm

Focal Sweep Camera
Nando Decima

There are limited functions that normal conventional cameras have that can inhibit a photograph from taking the next step in image and focal processing. Conventional lense cameras have limited Depth of Field which inhibit the image to extend its focal point beyond a specific point. They do not have the ability to focus on more than an area of the photograph, which can limit what you can do with the camera. Focal sweep cameras extend depth limitations that conventional cameras have. Focal sweep is known as an extended depth of field technique that overcomes the focal limitations and is able to have focus beyond just a certain point in the image. A focal sweep camera can be used effectively to “sweep the focal plane through a scene without the need for either mechanical motion or to be constructed with off the shelf components” according to O. Cossairt and S.K. Nayar’s award winning paper, Spectral Focal Sweep: Extended Depth of Field from Chromatic Aberrations. Focal sweep cameras (which are also known as fosera) can also have the ability to perform a focal stack. A focal stack enables the user to “capture a stack of images of a scene that correspond to different settings” according to C. Zhou, D. Miau and S.K. Nayar’s Focal Sweep Camera for Space-Time Refocusing.

This type of camera can be useful in overcoming obstacles in different situations. Fr example security cameras benefit way more if they are able to have a focus beyond a certain point in order to have a clear vision if something were to happen. On top of security measures, it can be beneficial in creating a work of art that goes beyond the limited conventional camera.

"Spectral Focal Sweep: Extended Depth of Field from Chromatic Aberrations,"
O. Cossairt and S.K. Nayar,
IEEE International Conference on Computational Photography (ICCP),
Mar. 2010.

"Focal Sweep Camera for Space-Time Refocusing,"
C. Zhou, D. Miau and S.K. Nayar,
Technical Report, Department of Computer Science, Columbia University,
Nov. 2012.

stephannilarsen
Posts: 3
Joined: Mon Apr 17, 2017 11:05 am

Re: Proj 1- Intro - (Due April 17)

Post by stephannilarsen » Tue Jun 13, 2017 7:06 pm

Stephanni Larsen

The photograph works as a protector of the self in many ways. Sontag talks about the act of photography “is to appropriate the thing photographed” (14). The photo is everywhere in our modern society, and with that is the image of the self, our self, her and his self. We are fascinated with the ability to revisit the moment of experience, and we have become dependant on the image to prove to other, and our selves in a way, that we exist. Appropriation is in some ways inseparable from the image capturing process, because it is within the nature of the viewfinder to see in a small frame of reference. Metaphorically the photographer is the view-finder as well, as the photographer is providing their point the view, offering the viewer a chance to see they do. Scholars have found the connection humanity has to the image worth studying, and Parsons talks about “the underlying point is that there is an inextricable link between knowledge and emotion demonstrated by our reactions to photographs” (292). I thought it interesting that the human ming has the need to know something on a logical and strategic level, like the integrity of a moments exact capture, and a simultaneous need to connect an image to how we feel when looking at; that the photograph is able to present to the viewer both integrity and doubt in both how we feel and what we see. The Degerratype was the original way of developing the moment of seeing into a tactile form of memory. In the early years of photography, it was so much about the being the original discoverer of this expansive new territory. I think it came as a shock when this captured moment would come to disturb the early, unfamiliar viewer.

The early photograph required a long exposure for the image to be captured, due to the low-light sensitivity of the Degarratypes. Benjamin article quotes Orlik, saying that it "is the chief reason besides their simplicity why these photographs, like well drawn or painted likenesses, exercise a more penetrating, longer-lasting effect of the observer" than modern day snapshots (Benjamin, 204). The article argues that it is within this element of time that the exposure turns into an image, where the snapshot doesn't respond to its environment (ibid). Benjamin's article validates the image as a more technical form of capture, and one that revoked the importance of a painter, because it developed so rapidly. Even before we were able to capture an image, we were trying to recreate what we see through our mediums of graphite drawing or painting. Humanity is seen making marking on a wall and story telling to be remembered. The image was a discovery that captured an accurate representation of the space it existed in. It is in this that the artist touch was simply the artist's way of seeing, though it is with time and the image's ability to exactly replicate a single second of life, that it is so impactful. The image is unlike any other medium because of this exact fact. While I can see the point that Orilik makes in, the image replacing some form of paintings importance, it has also provided the ability to reflect back on a moment. In some ways, technology has allowed caused the editing of what is seen in an image, but the still true fact is we can see the depiction of a person and reflect back to a moment, without the changing of it. Even what we remember of a moment is subject to our own forgetful mind, but the image is a way to remember with integrity. To revisit a space and focus in on its details unlike anything else we create.

Benjamin, Walter. “Little History of Photography.” In Classic Essays on Photography, edited by Alan Trachtenberg (New Haven, Conn.: Leete's Island Books, 1980), 199-216.
Parsons, Sarah. (2009). “Sontag’s Lament: Emotions, Ethics, and Photography. In Photography and culture, 2-3, 289-302, DOI: 10.1080/17514517.2017.1309777
Sontag, Susan. On Photography. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1977.

mfargas53
Posts: 6
Joined: Wed Apr 12, 2017 5:48 pm

Re: Proj 1- Intro - (Due April 17)

Post by mfargas53 » Wed Jun 14, 2017 1:42 pm

I was interested in the articles and discussions in class on the daguerreotype and camera obscura. I have previously taken Art History of Photography at UCSB and went into greater depth on the daguerreotype and how photography has evolved over time since the invention was created. Daguerreotypes were invented in the early 19th century and are some of the earliest forms of photography, consisting of a process that employed an iodine-sensitized silvered plate and mercury vapor. Daguerreotypes are very heavy and has a long exposure time in order to take a solid picture. In class, we were shown a picture of a city on a daguerreotype and the exposure time is so long, neither traffic nor pedestrians were shown in the picture. The exposure time is so long, all the moving elements of the picture were not captured except for a man who was getting his shoes shined. He stood so still his image appeared in the daguerreotype.

If images were to be seen, it would appear on a camera obscura. There is a pin in the dark box and when an image is projected through the small hole, the image would appear inverted and upside down.

These inventions innovated the way the world was seen and how we can capture moments in time. This led to an evolution of technology through the past 200 years, leading to the production of modern cameras. We continue to learn from these innovations and find new ways of capturing moments and manipulating the images technologically.


http://www.daguerreobase.org/en/knowled ... uerreotype
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camera_obscura

aaalarcon6
Posts: 2
Joined: Wed Apr 12, 2017 5:13 pm

Re: Proj 1- Intro - (Due April 17)

Post by aaalarcon6 » Mon Jun 19, 2017 11:03 am

http://www.americanscientist.org/issues ... issue.aspx

I really enjoyed the article on "Beyond Photorealism," because it challenges the notion of objective representation in photography as well as its interesting artistic applications. Photorealism did not seem to have to be defined until the field of non-photorealism emerged. Although it is more of a topic in computer graphics, Raskar and several colleagues (Kar-Han Tan of Mitsubishi, Rogerio Feris and Matthew Turk of the University of California, Santa Barbara, and Jingyi Yu of MIT) have been using the practices of computational photography to produce images from cameras that appear hand drawn. I am always intrigued when machines, made by humans, are able to challenge some to the skills that we accept as uniquely human. The concept of non-photorealism also reminded me of one of its neighboring practices: rotoscoping, where animators trace over motion picture footage frame by frame and it is then pieced together. Processes like these add an artistic layer to the reality captured in photography that I appreciate even though it has really no scientific importance. For me, anything that can distort or color an otherwise dull representation of reality is intriguing.

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