San Diego Harbour Skyline by Douglas Stockdale

If this photograph appears a little soft, it’s because it was 1/30th of a second from a slow moving ship, made from our stateroom as we backed out of the slip. A photograph that is more about catching a memory as we left with my entire family and some really good friends on a short cruise out of San Diego. Saw this cliche, but what the heck, why not, eh?

Best regards, Douglas

A little over a year ago I started to publish my photographic book reviews on The PhotoBook and now some 75 photobook reviews later, I have started to co-publish a few of my reviews in conjunction with photo-eye’s online magazine, which they publish in conjunction with their book store and gallery, located in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

This has been an interesting journey, from writing an occasional book review on this site, then realizing that I had a lot of books in my library and creating The PhotoBook, a separate blog focused on just photobooks that dealt with projects, series or monographs. There seemed to be enough photographic technical book reviews available and these books were not interesting to me (not that I had not accumulated enough of those books as well over the years). So thanks to those who endured my basic criticism & writing skills early on, which I have found is much akin to photography itself, you need to practice, study, think, reflect and be open to feedback, achieve a certain level of competency, then work like hell some more.

The first of these photobook reviews is Deanna Templeton’s 17 Days, which can be found on photo-eye here and on The PhotoBook here. For Templeton’s review, the only difference between the two sites are the selection and size of the photographs to illustrate the article. And not too surprising, the photo-eye article is hot linked to their book store to enable a quick purchase. For Templeton’s 17 Days, I believe that photo-eye also has some signed copies.

Best regards, Douglas

Ocean-scape 11-13-09 by Douglas Stockdale

We recently did a little 4 night trip to Cabo this last weekend to celebrate a birthday or two. Having recently reviewed the book by Debra Bloomfield for The PhotoBook about her ocean-scapes, I must have been open to my own versions of atmospheric & interpretative ocean-scapes. Since I had to immediately catch a plane after we returned to port, posting a photo or two from this trip will take a few extra days (or more!). 

Meanwhile since I am passing through Paris CDG airport, it is an excellent opportunity to work on my fashion portfolio.

Best regards, Douglas

Merry-go-round, Roma, Italy 2009 by Douglas Stockdale

As I prepare to return to Rome again, one of the images from the week before that I captured in the late afternoon was this Merry-go-round (I don’t know the Italian name for this), which still haunts my memory. I have also tweaked this in a Black & White version, and I am not sure which version works the best for me. There are the expectant, but empty chairs, and no children hanging on the horses or waiting patiently for their turn to ride. Everything is in place. The image and this place has a bit of saddness to it.

I know where this Merry-go-round is, so I may try to work on this composition and explore these feelings again later next week.

Best regards, Douglas

Colosseum Gelati by Douglas Stockdale

The rain did finally clear just after 1pm yesterday, which was good enough to catch the bus into downtown Rome. I did not want to eat lunch inside the hotel, so by the time we arrived in town, I was a hungry puppy. Remembering the cafes lining the nearby Plazza Navona, I found a nice table outside with a protective umbrella (still some quick drizzles) on the edge of the Plazza and enjoyed a plate of very nice pasta, slightly andante, and a glass of local red vino. very nice.

Then a short walk around down a pedestrian walkway to the Pantheon, but could not find one of  my ubiquitous rolling diners to compose my photograph with, so I quickly moved on. The goal was to get to the Colosseum before sunset. Made it with some time to spare. Also saw the Arch of Costantino and some of the surrounding archaeological digs going on. All in all, a nice afternoon. I even worked a little on my fashion portfolio. nice.

I bet the Roman Senators would have loved to have this wonderful diner available back in the day, grab some pizza to watch the gladiators duke it out, and the gladiators could have run out for a quick Gelati during the half time intermission.

So some things to think about when I am back here in a couple of weeks, although my plans to spend a day in Milan that week are falling through.

Best regards, Douglas

Vatican Hot Dog by Douglas Stockdale

Egads, another rainy day in Rome, so I hope that it clears a little by this afternoon.

So I had some time this morning to check out my earlier images of Rome when I was investigating the fine Italian restaurants, and I recalled this little Vatican diner, above. I am not sure if this serves the Pope’s favorite hot dog, but it sure is close if he needed to run across the plazza from St Peter’s to grab a quick snack.

This was a very high contrast situation, probably best if I had the HDR set up on a tripod, shooting into the late afternoon setting sun, unlike the photo below, where I had the option to compose the photograph oblique to the setting sun. I had opted to capture the details of Vatican’s Hot Dog stand and lose the sky. If I feel that this image still has potential, I will need to add a few more adjustment layer tricks to save what I can of the sky for a color version. On the fly working with Photoshop on the portable computer, I think that this image looks pretty decent in the black & white mode. With the black & white adjustment layer, I can create a little more separation between the hot dog stand the St Peter’s dome in the background.

Below is the Vatican’s Panini stand, probably another papal favorite.

hmmm, looking out the hotel window, I can see a faint glimmer of lightness in the clouds, so perhaps there is some chance of the rain clearing this early afternoon.

Best regards, Douglas

Vatican Panini by Douglas Stockdale

Yamamay by Douglas Stockdale

With a little free time in Rome yesterday afternoon, I figured it would be a good opportunity to work on my fashion portfolio, since Rome is considered the number 4 fashion city after Milan, Paris and NY. I mean Rome, Milan what’s going to be the difference in fashion photography? But I had guessed wrong, because Rome does not seem to have the same fashion infrastructure like that of Milan. I don’t know, maybe I was in the wrong neighborhoods in Rome, or perhaps I was too close to St Peter’s Basilica?

Either way, if the rain lets up tomorrow, I hope to investigate Rome a little more and continue to work on my fashion portfolio. Okay, maybe it might be investigating the fine eating establishments here in Rome.

Best regards, Douglas

As of late, I think I can safely say that I am not an animal/nature photographer, but while sitting adjacent to Plazza Cavour in Rome, sipping a nice glass of local red wine, I could not help but notice the huge flock of birds flying directly above, usually in random patterns, but then occasionally flying in close formation and creating these floating, dense masses in the overhead sky. It was amazing, because the flock kept getting larger and larger and these fast-moving and odd-shaped patterns kept rapidly occurring. I  recall a photobook that is/will be published (sorry, the name of the photographer escapes me) about just this, photographing flocks of birds and the resulting patterns that they had created en mass.

So I found myself trying to photograph some of these bird pattens, but it is a lot harder than it appears, especially with a limited field of view. I guess that I had found it hard to believe that birds would/could do this, and was thinking that perhaps a little photoshopping was going on, but I saw it occur with my own eyes. Amazing.

And to prove that I only had one glass of wine, I have this one photo to show, not by any means the best or most intricate of the patterns, but probably the best one I was able to capture.

Best regards, Doug

Welcome to Milano: Fashion Week! by Douglas Stockdale

In a bit of a marathon today, I finished posting my photo project Milan Fashion Week. I just hope that I really don’t need to explain that it may be a social-cultural satire, but you can never tell.

Another aspect of this project is how it is shared, sans formal gallery, nor a self-published book that few, if any will ultimately purchase. Constructing and designing a blog that allows the project to unfold is about a democratic and open distribution. This is also about what we do with a completed project, that provides some underlying structure and accessibility.

The implications are that if this is a better means of sharing access to a project, then I have some work cut out to restructure my prior projects. But first things first, which is to determine how well this particular experiment works.

Best regards, Douglas