"Non-standard" graffiti

"Non-standard" graffiti - now there's a contradiction! After all, the heart of graffiti is to be creative outside the norm, to go beyond (or around, over, underneath...) the traditional formats. Graffiti artists are the non-conformists of the art world! So what in the world do I mean by "non-standard" graffiti?

Most graffiti consists of spray-can art: pictures, tags, etc. We'll call that "standard" graffiti. Then there are "variations" on the theme: tagging with markers, painting with acrylics, even using stencils. And there are the targets: walls are pretty "standard". But some of the best graffiti consists of drawing on other surfaces and objects i.e. lamp-posts, billboards, etc. Some terrific graffiti is created by marking up statues and the like!

I find myself increasingly drawn to "non-standard" graffiti. I've recently seen entire books of the stuff!

One of the more interesting concepts is what I call "collage" graffiti. The idea is to use 'stuff' in place of 'paint'. The image up top is a great example. Created by Swoon, (and of course available at www.graffitipix.com) it basically consists of a paper illustration pasted onto a wall. It is simple, creative, and captivating, hallmarks of all good graffiti.

It also amazing how much of the stuff is out there. Once you start thinking about, you begin to see it everywhere!

So, seen any neat "non-standard" graffiti? Taken pictures of any?? Send 'em in, and I'll post them on the site!

Molly

Another word on cameras

As you might imagine the paradigm shift from traditional film-based photography to digital is rapidly creating new opportunities to learn and grow. The photography industry is moving at an incessant pace, and digital cameras sales have surpassed their film-based cousin at an alarming rate each year. On January 16, 2004, Eastman Kodak announced it would end its sales of film cameras in the United States and on June 15, 2005, Kodak announced it will discontinue production of black-and-white photographic paper by the end of the year as it continues its transition to digital photography. Soon digital cameras will hit critical mass and film will only represent a minute segment of the industry.

What are the main differences?

The differentiator between a traditional 35mm film camera and digital cameras is how the pictures are captured, processed, and stored. A conventional camera exposes an image on a roll of silver-halide coated film. A digital camera captures an image on a photosensitive silicon computer chip called a charged couple device, also known as a CCD. The camera converts the image captured by the chip into digital data and saves it in a camera's memory as a digital photo. These photos can then be copied onto your computer's hard drive where you can email, edit, and save them.

CAMERA SELECTION

Just as with traditional film cameras, digital cameras come in two offerings: point and shoot, and digital single lens reflex (DSLR).

Both types of camera use flash memory cards (“digital film”) to store images and are immediately available for viewing through the camera’s rear liquid crystal display (LCD).

Point and Shoot

Point-and-shoot cameras are extremely affordable and remain the most popular in current market conditions. These cameras are easy to use, give outstanding results, and for all practical purposes are compact. Point-and-shoot cameras mainly offer a limited feature set, offering mostly automatic features such as: auto flash, auto exposure, and the camera selects the shutter speed and aperture for you. Cell phone cameras are low-end point-and-shoot.

Digital Single Lens Reflex (DSLR)

Digital SLR cameras offer photographers the ability to use interchangeable lenses and accessories, which give the photographer greater artistic control and flexibility. DSLR cameras allow photographers to visually check image sharpness and composition. The effects of changing lenses, changing exposure values, and viewing the camera's hisogram are immediately visible in the LCD viewfinder and/or eye viewer. There are many advantages of using DSLR digital cameras. They can handle a variety of lighting and focusing situations unlike point and shoot cameras. DSLR cameras offer optical zoom as opposed to just digital zoom, which essentially crops pixel data and will add unwanted noise to an image.

IMPORTANT TIPS

• Look for cameras that can save files in RAW. Saving your image as a RAW file will provide you with a higher quality image to work from in post processing. Images shot in RAW remain uncompressed, unlike JPEG images. Through repetitive opening/closing of JPEG files image -- image degradation occurs.

• Equally important is finding a camera with a minimal amount of shutter lag. It can be rather frustrating with some of the point and shoot cameras available when there is a long lag between clicking the shutter and the camera taking the shot. Choose a camera with a large buffer memory. This allows a number of images to be continually snapped before stopping to allow them to be downloaded and processed.

• Digital camera quality and the size of the created images are continually rising. As a general rule you will need at least 1800 x 1400 pixels (2.5 mega pixels) to print up to 6 x 4 inch with good quality. To date recommendations include the Canon Rebel XT (8.0 Mega Pixels), Canon EOS 20D, Nikon D70 and so on.

DIGITAL FILM: FLASH MEMORY

Manufacturers of cameras, namely Canon, Olympus, and Sony use memory cards that are usually not compatible with one another. Canon uses compact flash cards and/or IBM micro drives. A micro drive is similar to a compact flash card, but it was formerly recognized for its larger capacity. Olympus uses an xD Picture card and smart media card, and finally there’s Sony. Sony uses a memory stick. File formats generated by flash memory for digital cameras are RAW, TIFF, JPEG. RAW being a memory intensive format uses several megabytes of data on a memory card and does not compress the image at all.

Both RAW and TIFF are known as ‘lossless’ file formats because compression algorithms are absent, thus giving the photographer more pixel data and better image quality. However, since RAW is not as widely recognized as JPEG in the photography marketplace, special conversion software is necessary to convert images from RAW to TIFF or JPG. Some camera manufacturers include RAW conversion software with their higher end point-and-shoot and DSLR cameras, but it is not as great as some RAW applications developed by cutting edge companies such as PhaseOne, a Danish company that markets an outstanding product called Capture One DSLR. It is made specifically for photographers that wish to process RAW files.

One peripheral that will save battery life on your camera is a compact flash card reader. It plugs into your USB port and permits you to download your images by inserting a memory card in it. This is preferred over downloading from your camera/cable because your camera’s battery juice will quickly render your camera's battery dead, especially if you are downloading several hundred photographs. The memory card reader acts as an auxiliary drive. Just make sure you get a memory card reader specifically made for your type of memory card and that it can handle a high capacity card such, i.e. 4GB (Gigabyte) flash card.

At graffitipix.com, we use mainly a 10-megapixel Canon camera and save in RAW format. That's why our prints look soooo good!

Molly

Taking good pictures

I'm old. 45 to be exact. Old enough to remember when "Instamatic" camera's came into being. In fact I can remember the very christmas (ok, it was Hanukah...) that I received a Kodak Instamatic camera.

I was perhaps 8 or 9, but old enough to understand what I was given and be thoroughly awed! Back then, "Instamatic's" were a big deal for a number of reasons: they were inexpensive, small, and usable by just about anyone. This was the birth of "point and click".

As with the advent of desktop publishing many years later, it put the ability to create and record into the hands of the masses. And just like with desktop publishing, it spawned hordes of terrible, 'creating it because I *can* create it' junk.

The problem, again as with the desktop publishing phenomena, is that just because you can do something, doesn't mean you're gonna do it well. If you are old enough or were involved with computers at the time, you well remember the newsletters that had 19 different fonts, random rows & columns, etc. Pictures were the same way, and for the same reason. In order to produce something decent, you have to follow some basic should-be-obvious-but-isn't-always rules.

I take pictures for a living. Or more accurately, I sell prints made from pictures, many of which I take myself. My site, graffitipix.com, sells graffiti pictures that I and my partner have taken. But I also solicit and buy pictures that other people take. And I cannot begin to tell you how many unusable pictures could have been terrific if those basic tennets of good picture taking were followed.

And so I've posted the 'top 10' suggestions for better pictures from Kodak. They may sound very intuitive, but when you're standing there, eyeballing a terrific tag and getting ready to point your digital camera, it's worth pausing for a moment and running through a mental checklist:

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

Thanks Kodak!

Molly

Collaborative online graffiti fun!

I came across a neat little time-waster... ok not so little, I just spent over a half-hour before I even knew it. A very interesting idea: collaborative online graffiti.

Here's the premise- you enter a "room" that basically looks like a subway station platform. You get a spray can and a pick-box for spray type and color, and a few different brush types. Using your mouse, you tag away. Here's the neat part: you are not alone!

Each room has some number of fellow taggers. You see what they are doing, and they see what you are doing. As might be expected, there are the annoying "ruin everyone elses stuff" riff-raff, but you can click on their names and they are subsequently ignored! Now you see only your stuff and whomever you aren't ignoring!

Needless to say, there's lots of garbage, childishness, vulgarity, etc. But there's also some wonderful stuff!

All in all, a neat little diversion and a very clever idea for a few minutes of rec!

Even the name of the site, Graffiti Playdo, is suggestive of what you will find. But don't just listen to me, check it out!

Molly

Are copyrights on graffiti illegal?

Let me first say I believe strongly in copyright, and Intellectual Property (IP) protection in general. I believe an artist's work is their work. In an earlier post I talked a bit about copyright issues on graffiti art.

But what are the boundaries on copyrights when it comes to graffiti in a public access public space? (If you're reading this, you know I run graffitipix.com, a site that sells pictures of graffiti. We are careful to use photographs that we took directly or acquired the rights to.)

I recently had the opportunity to talk with an IP expert, and he said something very interesting - for the most part, graffiti is illegal. That is, tagging the side of a building is illegal without express permission from the building owner, and even then most states and municipalities make it illegal anyway. But here is the interesting part: under US law (and many other jurisdictions), you cannot profit from illegal activity. And as J.D. Lasica of "Freedom To Tinker", points out, it is unclear whether you can copyright an image created illegally.

Most would agree generally that the artist owns the rights on the art, the photographer owns the rights to their own photographs.

I've discussed with this with a government legal expert. It's not at all clear whether you can or would want to claim copyright over an image that you've created illegally.

My opinion, based in part on my own research into copyright law as well as my own personal feelings is that that when a graffiti artist tags a building, they are intentionally putting their work into the public domain. You cannot copyright public access public spaces. If you take a picture of the Statue of Liberty, you own the rights to that photograph.

What do you think? Can you - and would you want to - claim copyright on graffiti if it is illegal? And does that invalidate the copyright?

Molly

A graffiti glossary...!

If you're reading this, you no doubt know that "bomb", "tag", "paint", and "spray" are different ways to describe creating graffiti. We probably understand that a "tagger" is "tagging up" when he/she does their "tag".

But unless you're an active tagger - or reading this blog! - most of us wouldn't know the terms "Icy Grape" or "Jungle Green" (old, discontinued Krylon spray-paint colors that are prized by taggers when the odd can turns up.).

Well, thanks to Zimbio and 149st.com, we can all learn the vernacular. I came across a graffiti glossary, and just had to pass it on...

Molly

A (brief) word about digital cameras

One of my recent posts talked about scanners and scanning technology. While a good scanner does an amazing job with flat art, obviously you cannot take your scanner downtown to scan the side of a building!

Once upon a time, you had to use a film camera to take a picture, and even up until a couple of years ago, you still needed film for high-quality pictures. At graffitipix.com, we make hi-end prints, and in order to do that you *must* start with a high-quality original.

Today's "good" digital cameras are now capable of creating high-quality original images. What constitutes a "good" image, or for that matter a "good" digital camera?

Just as with scanners, quality revolves around three criteria: spatial resolution, color depth, and optics.

Digital cameras, like flat-bed scanners, use CCD (Charge-Coupled Device) chips to "see". These are light-sensitive chips that convert an image into digital information.

CCD's are tiny matrixes of silicon that react to light. The size of the matrix i.e. number of rows and columns determine the spatial resolution of the image. A 2000 x 2000 matrix results in a 4,000,000 pixel (4 megapixel) image. Some cameras use software to create higher resolution, but basically thats how it works.

Color depth refers to how many shades, or gradations each pixel can be (most CCD's are 24-32 bit, meaning they can create millions of shades for each pixel).

The optics, of course, refer to the lense and the mechanics used to focus the light on the CCD.

Though decent CCD's are increasingly put into cel phones, you still need one of the 'better' digital cameras to create a good-quality original.

More on this shortly...

Molly

L.A.S.E.R. Tag - how cool is that...?

I stumbled across this video on a Zimbio blog, and was blown away! Imagine using one of those laser-pointers to tag the side of a building 10 stories wide and half a block across?!?

Well, thats not exactly possible (yet!), but these guys at Graffiti Research Lab have combined some neat technology to simulate just that!

L.A.S.E.R. TAG video

Basically, they've outfitted a pc with a camera and software that tracks the light from the laser pointer and superimposes it over what the camera is looking at. Pointed at a building, the camera displays that image on the pc. Someone with a laser-pointer "tags" the building as if the laser-pointer were a paint brush or spray can. The camera then "paints" it onto the building!!

Whomever wrote the software really nailed it: the "paint" from the laser-pointer even drips after its applied!

Molly

Creating good prints Part II - Scanning

So, you have these *awesome* photographs you took while meandering down the streets of Toulouse France, Sao Paolo Brazil, or NYC - incredible shots of an abandoned building tagged with incredible spray painted images - and the shots came out pretty good - now what?

Well, for this post, we'll assume your pictures are photographs, ya know, the traditional "chemical" process prints that you have developed and get back as prints. Now what?

Well, in our case, you must digitize the images - get them from the physical prints into digital format that can then be cleaned, cropped, maybe enhanced, and then printed. So the gist of this post will be scanning.

SCANNERS

There a few types of scanners available, notably drum scanners and flat-bed scanners. Used to be, in the pre-press and art world, drum scanners were the first and last word. They were technically superior to the flat-bed scanners of those days - and they were prohibitively expensive! A good drum scanner could top $50,000!!!

(FWIW- the term "drum scanner" referred to a cylindrical drum that the picture to be scanned was mounted on. This drum then spun at high speed, while a light was focused on it, and read through a shutter.)

Oh, how times have changed! You can buy a flat-bed scanner at Staples or CompUSA for less than $100 today that surpasses the performance and speed of a $20,000 drum scanner of just a few years ago!

Still, if your objective is "museum-quality prints" such as those we sell at graffitipix.com, then you still need something beyond an "all-in-one" printer-copier-scanner-fax machine!

One of the chief differences between a drum scanner and today's flat-bed scanners is how they acquire the image. Drum scanners use something called PMT (Photo Multiplier Tubes), whereas flat-bed scanners use CCD (Charge-Coupled Device) technology. CCD's are essentially chips that convert light into data, and are what made camcorders, digital camera's and the like possible. Just like other chips i.e. memory, CPU's, etc., CCD's came in a wide range of "sizes" and capabilities.

Optical scanning via a flat-bed scanner is measured by a number of criteria: bed size, spatial resolution, and color-depth. Bed size is just what it sounds like, namely how large a picture it will take. Most can accomodate 8 1/2" x 17" (ours is a larger bed that scans up to 18"x24"). Next is spatial resolution, which is basically like the dots-per-inch of a printer. The higher the spatial resolution, the more data the scanner sees, the better the resulting image file. 600 dpi x 1200 dpi is common on low-end scanners. Higher-end scanners can go as high as 4,200 dpi and higher. Last is color depth, a measure of how fine gradiations the scanner sees. 24-bit is a functional minimum, the scanner we use is a 32-bit scanner.

Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, are the optics. Just like on a 35mm camera, the higher quality of the lenses, the better the picture. And, again like camera's, this is what seperates the good from the great. Once again, like with camera's, this is where the majority of the cost comes from.

Ok, thats the 5-cent scanner lesson; next we'll look at what happens once you scan, or acquire the image.

Molly

Giclee... Huh? What is "Giclee"??

One of the terms used in the art world, particularly regarding digital fine-art, is "Giclee" (pronounced "Zee-clay").

Giclee comes from the French word "giclée" and means a spray or a spurt of liquid. The term is specifically used to indicate prints created typically using professional 8-Color to 12-Color ink-jet printers. Among the manufacturers of these printers are Epson, MacDermid Colorspan, & Hewlett-Packard. These modern technology printers are capable of producing incredibly detailed prints for both the fine art and photographic markets. Giclee prints are sometimes referred to as Iris prints, which are a printer pioneered by Iris Graphics, and now owned by Scitex.

I use a Scitex Iris printer to produce the prints on graffitipix.com.

The quality of the giclee print rivals traditional silver-halide and gelatin printing processes and is commonly found in museums, art galleries, and photographic galleries.

Numerous examples of giclee prints can be found in New York City at the Metropolitan Museum, the Museum of Modern Art, and the Chelsea Galleries. Recent auctions of giclee prints have fetched $10,800 for Annie Leibovitz, $9,600 for Chuck Close, and $22,800 for Wolfgang Tillmans (April 23/24 2004, Photographs, New York, Phillips de Pury & Company.)

More about printing next post...

Molly

Creating good prints Part I

I spend my days creating prints of graffiti. I term them "museum-quality prints". Prints of graffiti? Huh??

Yeah, my business sells art prints, the kind you put on the wall in your living room, dorm room, bed room, waiting room... and they happen to be of graffiti.

Basically, I take, or acquire, photographs of graffiti art that I like. That's the easy part. Turning them into "museum-quality prints" is a little more involved. I'll start Part I of this by defining "museum-quality prints":

First, what constitutes a print? In art-land, a print is usually actually a "re-print", meaning it was created from the original, it is not the original itself. There are lots of different types of prints i.e. lithographs, photo prints, canvas prints, etc. Generally though, a print is a reproduction of an original.

Now, a 75 cent color copy from Kinko's qualifies as a "print". It would not, however, qualify as "museum-quality"! In the art-world, the term "museum-quality" generally refers to the quality of the medium, whether it's photo paper, canvas, etc., the quality of the ink or pigment, the quality of the process i.e. lithography, photography, etc., and the "fastness" or longevity of the piece.

Without going into each and every possibility, I'll focus on photo prints, the most popular prints we carry. First, the medium: the paper itself. While the term 'photo' is misleading in this case as they are not done using a photographic process, the paper is termed photo paper. As you can imagine, there are varying grades. To qualify as museum-quality, the paper should be at least 240 g/m - this the weight of the paper. Higher numbers indicate heavier paper, lower numbers lighter, flimsier paper (we use 270 g/m paper). Next, the fastness, or longevity. As with the ink or pigment, the paper is rated on how long it keeps it's original characteristics i.e. resistance to fading, yellowing, etc. Museum-quality would be considered "archival", meaning under normal circumstances, it will look the way it did the day it was produced for at least 40 years.

Ok, to sum it up, creating "museum-quality prints" means they are produced on high-quality, heavy media, and using media and inks, that are "archival" - they will look the same way after hanging on the wall for at least 40 years.

Next entry: the mechanics, or how a photograph of graffiti is turned into a print you can hang.

Molly

$$ for your graffiti photographs

Hello! As the owner of graffitipix.com, I would like to buy any photographs you have of interesting or unusual graffiti. I sell prints of graffiti art on my site, including Miss Van, FAFI, Banksy, DAZ, Camille, and others.

If you own any photographs of graffiti that you think would look good as prints, I am willing to buy them from you, or make them available on my site and split the proceeds with you.

Just drop me an email.

Molly

Copyrights on graffiti art

As you already know, I run www.graffitipix.com, which sells graffiti prints. Prior to launching graffitipix.com I sold these same prints on ebay. I was often asked about copyright issues, namely do I have permission to reprint and sell the work of another artist.

Well, as you might imagine, I've done some very extensive research on the matter prior to launching the business. Here's how it works:

Graffiti artists intentionally put their work into the public domain when they create something on public access public spaces. Public spaces are not copyright-able. If I draw something on the outside wall of a publicly accessible building, anyone can take a picture of it. Whomever took that picture owns the copyright on that picture, and may do with it what they may.

For instance, papparazzi take pictures of stars. They are free to sell those pictures to sleazy tabloids because they own the copyrights on those pictures, not the stars they took the pictures of.

Let me say I am a strong believer in copyrights, and the rights of artists. But when a graffiti artists tags a public space, they are putting those images into the public domain. That is afterall what they are after. When you see a book or mag of graffiti art, the money paid for those pictures went to the photographer, not the graffiti artist. And in the case of graffitipix.com, these are all pictures I or my partner took, or that we acquired from the original photographer.

Molly

The very first graffitipix post!

Hello! My name is Molly and I run a new website, http://www.graffitipix.com. The site, graffitipix.com as it is known, offers museum-quality prints featuring graffiti from Miss Van, FAFI, Camille, Banksy, DAZ, and others. The purpose of the site is to offer graffiti as ''serious art"!

The prints we produce are truly museum-quality, and are made on photo paper and canvas. Currently, most prints are either 19"x13" unframed prints, or 8"x10" framed prints.

I plan to use this blog to talk about some of the artists I like the most, background on the graffiti scene, and post some pictures. I invite you to post anything related to graffiti. If you have a graffiti site, I'd like to add your link, and maybe you can link to this blog, and to graffitipix.com also!

Molly