What the heck is "White Balance" anyway?

If you take pictures, you've heard the term "White Balance". Maybe you saw it in the instruction manual of your digicam, or in a post about photography. But what is it? Simply put, it is how white white is; if you pointed your camera at a truly white object, how accurate would the picture be? This is important if you take pictures of graffiti, which are often shot outdoors and sometimes at night. Amy Renfrey from www.DigitalPhotographySuccess.com
wrote a little piece about the subject which she has allowed me to post here:

Understanding White Balance

In digital photography terms, and traditional, you will most likely hear the term “white balance” quite a lot. It’s an important meaning because many digital photography enthusiasts concentrate on the lenses and digital camera without first learning about how light works.

In a nutshell, “white balance” in digital photography relates to the ‘temperature’ of light. If you notice when doing your digital photography indoors, the photo will have a bluish colour through out the digital photo. Then if you take your digital photography outside you will notice the photo then has a warmer tone to it. This is your white balance feature on your digital camera working to adjust the image.

To give you a direct example of how white balance works in your digital photography think of this; have you ever noticed how your colour pictures come out a more bluish tone in the shade? The problem is that because light has temperature, the camera has to analyze this change in its own limited way compared to the human eye.

You can help reduce the blue by altering the setting on the camera or adding a warmer color filter such as yellow. Some colour filters have different shades or hues of the same colour. Each warmer colour filter moves towards a warmer feel and increases in density.

Your white balance in digital photography also works when you walk into an office building. The fluorescent light might be different from that of the doctor’s or a drug store? Well, you’re not imagining things! The reason is there are over 40 different ranges of fluorescent lights and the problem for us digital photographers is that each one has its own colour temperature. It’s not to be avoided, please no! It just means you need to be aware that all florescent lighting is not the same and that you’ll have to consider this when shooting under this type of light.

You can work well with white balance by switching indoor shots to an “outdoor” setting to eliminate the bluish tone in indoor shots. And alternatively you can set the white balance mode to “indoor” when you are outside to reduce some golden/yellow saturation in your outside digital photography shots.

TAG - Graffiti Research Lab does it again!

Those ever-resourceful folks at G.R.L. (Graffiti Research Lab) have done it again! In an earlier post I talked about their Laser Tag system that allows someone to create building-size graffiti using a laser pointer.

The system uses a camera connected to a pc that tracks the laser pointer, then outputs what it sees with an attached LCD projector. The result is graffiti sprayed across, well, anything - buildings, bridges, etc.

Now they've constructed a TAG-mobile, building the entire system onto a large tricycle! You can see the TAG-mobile diagram here. Theres also a pretty cool video of the TAG system in operation here.

Of course, given the leanings of G.R.L., they are imploring users to write "Impeach Chainey" and other slogans, and well, maybe thats not such a bad idea!

FreeIQ Blog

Just a quick note; I came aacross FreeIQ Marketing, a blog dedicated to FreeIQ - and after searching Google, I found there are LOTS. Remember, you heard it here first: FreeIQ will be the Next Big Thing!

Molly

The NEXT BIG THING - Really!!!

Well, I don't often go off topic, but-

I just discovered (ok, someone pointed me to it...) what has to be the coolest, soon-to-be-bigger than YouTube and MySpace Web 2.0 thing... FreeIQ!

It's billed as a "Marketplace of Ideas", and has all this amazing free content, video, books, etc.-

It's MUCH easier to see it than explain it: sign up for a FREE ACCOUNT: www.freeiq.com/loginfree - then come back and tell me what you think.

Graffiti Research Lab

Pratt Institute, a well-known, well regarded art school in Brooklyn, NY (I was born in Brooklyn!), is the home of the Digital Arts Lab.

The Digital Arts Lab is a research facility dedicated to the interdisciplinary exploration, invention, study and creative inquiry at the nexus of the arts, technology, and culture through rigorous scholarly research and innovative thinking to establish new knowledge and forms of creative expression.

The Digital Arts Lab recently hosted a presentation by G.R.L., or Graffiti Research Lab. Now if you have never heard of G.R.L., you are in for a HUGE treat! G.R.L. has done more for moving the art of graffiti beyond traditional boundries than perhaps anything else ever has!

I posted an earlier entry on L.A.S.E.R. TAG - one of the absolutely coolest non-traditional graffiti efforts ever concieved -mentioning G.R.L. But the sheer number of projects going on under their umbrella is mind-numbing!

Some of the projects revolve around "Throwies", little self-powered colored LED's attached to magnets that are 'thrown' - hence the name - against anything magnets stick to i.e. doors, bridges, buses, etc. to create a whole new form of graffiti.

Do yourself a favor and visit G.R.L. - much of the inspiration for my site, graffitipix.com, comes from their. Just remember to come back up for air!

Molly

Bullied by Gallery Owner

As you know, I run graffitipix.com, a site that sells pictures of graffiti street art. I recently received a disturbing email from a French gallery owner claiming to speak for all these graffiti artists - who shall remain nameless for the time being - threatening all sorts of actions; going to far as to suggest even "bigger" consequences than legal actions! I dunno, maybe they plan to come to my apartment and beat me up...

This comes from some misleading (intentional?) notion that a gallery owner showing some pictures from an artist somehow 'owns' the rights to anything and everything that artist might have done!

Now let me say, I respect intellectual property. And an artists rights. But we're talking graffiti here! Art intentionally put into the public domain! First, unless you are the photographer, you can no more claim copyright to a picture of the side of a building than you can to a picture of the statue of liberty! Does Michael Jackson write to People Magazine when they publish a Paparazzi's picture on their cover??

Second, what copyright? - graffiti is illegal in most places.

Now in fairness, we inadvertantly posted pictures of some works that were not public access public space pictures. We apologized, and they are all in the process of being removed. But to knowlingly try and bully us away from something we have every right to do, suggesting some dangerous "big" consequences, flies right in the face of what graffiti is all about! Graffiti is about free expression, about transcending boundries, and yes, thumbing their nose at the establishment.

Now that the establishment is making a buck from it, all of a sudden greed kicks in - and worse yet, under the guise of "what the artist wants"! What the artist wanted, at least before the gallery owners got there, was free creative expression. What happened?

Molly

Miss Van and Fafi - different, yet...

Doing one of my frequent Google searches on Miss Van, I came across a blog that had comments on her work going a few years back.

Now, I have a *lot* of photo's of Miss Van's work, pictures that I've taken or acquired, and some of them are available for sale on graffitipix.com. Needless to say, I'm a true fan of Miss Van. I think her characters are sexy, sophisticated, and her work has evolved pleasingly.

I can say exactly the same for Fafi. And having looked at *so many* Miss Van and Fafi images, though similar in that they both paint girls and cute creatures, everyone is strikingly different.

Of course, not everyone feels the same way. I know this. Still, it was interesting to read some of the comments:

• "Her stuff looks like Fafi’s artwork. And thats not good to begin with."
• "I can see a similar inspiration in both Miss Van, and Fafi’s works, but one can see that Miss Van has a far better feel for the paint and her mark making…not to mention color. I wouldn’t even compare the two."
• "I knew of Miss Van before Fafi…I think it’s a case of great minds thinking alike."
• "i like em both, but yeah.. they get balled into the same person quite a bit."
• "Indeed Miss Van has been painting a bit longer than Fafi, and it shows. Miss Van’s linework has more of a sophistication to it, with a greater handling of the stylized characters and colors than Fafi."

'Course when you really consider...

• "Interestingly enough, both are from the same area of Paris, in Toulouse, so I’m sure that they know each other."

Opinions, they're like &%$#% - everyone's got one. Anyway you look at it though, no one can argue, that they both produce Serious Art!

Molly

Track tragedy ruled accidental

Just passing it along - sad!

Islington Tribune [London] - by PAUL KEILTHY
Published: 23 February 2007
Graffiti artist died on tracks

A graphic designer was electrocuted when he slipped on train tracks after drunkenly reverting to the graffiti lifestyle he had abandoned since the birth of his child, an inquest heard yesterday (Thursday). George Andrew King, 22, was hit by 750 volts of electricity when he fell on the live rail near Caledonian Road and Barnsbury railway station during a graffiti spree in the early hours of Saturday September 16 last year.

After a night at a media party, he had gone on to the rails with friend and fellow spray-canner Jason Edwards, who ended up trying to prise his convulsing body from the line with a plank of wood before calling for an ambulance.

Mr Edwards said he had been walking ahead of Mr King as they returned to the station after tagging a bridge.

He said: "I just turned round and he was lying on the rail. I know from before - it's instant death on that track."

Though they risked their lives and broke their own safety protocols by rushing to the still-live line, the paramedics could see instantly that Mr King was dead, Coroner Dr Andrew Reid was told. Katherine Ketchaev, Mr King's partner and the mother of his young son, said he had given up graffiti on the railways since she had become concerned for his safety - but had given in to temptation after a few drinks while she slept.

Police experts said there were no suspicious circumstances surrounding the death.

Verdict: accidental death.

No More Graffiti!

Have I lost my mind???

Surely the owner of a site that sells graffiti prints (www.graffitipix.com), and writes a blog on graffiti (you're reading it) can't be advocating the end of graffiti, right?

Right. I have not lost my mind - yet! You see, among other pastimes, I surf a lot of graffiti sites. I also manage my own, which included creating ads with Google Adwords. When I create my ads, they are based on keywords, as in what searches do I want my ads to show up for? The most obvious one, of course, is "graffiti".

And so, the ads for graffitipix.com (hopefully) show up on sites searched using "graffiti". Other keywords include "spray paint", "graffiti writing", "writing on walls"... you get the idea. Well guess what - those are the very same terms you might want if you were in the business of removing graffiti!

I mean, if I'm a city planner, property manager, builder, etc., and I wanted to have graffiti removed, these are some of the keywords I would search on: "removing graffiti", "removing spray paint"... you get the idea.

The ironic part is that the companies that perform these services and sell these products ("graffiti removal solvent") buy the same Adwords keywords. And so, their ads show up right alongside mine! "Beautiful Graffiti" right next to "Remove Graffiti"!

Next time you browse graffiti sites, pay attention to the ads. You might see mine. And right next to it, you might see one on how to undue all that beautiful art.

Perhaps most ironic of all, one can imagine, is that someone legitimately looking to rid their outside wall of graffiti may find "Graffiti Removal Experts" - and if they look close enough, an ad promoting graffiti!

(That picture up top is either a very sad picture of art gone away, or a pristine wall just begging to be tagged!)

Happy Passover and Happy Easter, one and all!

Molly