photography

It has been previously established that I travel a good deal for work. I find myself in some exotic location like Cleveland, but almost always after dark is the first free time I have. It breaks my heart to see folks taking flash pictures at night of beautiful architecture or scenery, knowing that they will get home and just have pictures of nothing, or blown out faces surrounded by shadow. In the case of architecture, you get highlights and uneven contrast.



However, sometimes without a flash and without support, or even with intentional movement, you can get a truly incredible result. This shot has not been altered aside from the image size (click images for a larger view):



This is why I have gotten into the practice of taking night shots with a tripod, no flash and a timer. But since I don't carry a tripod everywhere I go and quite honestly, I wouldn't do that, you need to find a tripod, or camera support, wherever you can. A flower pot, table, railing, pylon, traffic sign or even the side of a building can not only be the first step towards a decent night shot, but lend some interesting angles that you might not otherwise consider.

Once you have found a way to lock down your camera, and sometimes you need to hold it at a slight upward angle, just using the stability of the surface, you have to set your auto timer. You see, the very act of pressing the shutter button especially on a small point and shoot camera, is enough to cause a slight movement in the camera and thus a blurry shot. If you set the timer, you just hold your breath and hold the camera in position and let the timer run out, and take the shot with the least movement possible considering that you are a human being and your body has a slight movement to it.

And of course with a digital camera, you can immediately know if the shot is good. Sometimes the focus is not perfect, but certainly better than the alternative. And sometimes, when I see a young couple posing in front of a beautiful scene, and they take a cruddy flash picture, I offer to take another shot. Actually I demand it and tell them to trust me, I'm a professional. Since all digital cameras work the same way, I turn off the flash, set the timer, find a free traffic cone or planter and have at it. They are usually impressed and thankful. I'm not looking for thanks, just doing my job making the world a beautiful place.
Enjoy.





A long exposure can make night into day - I think black and white with a contrast tweak makes this shot work even better:



And here are a few from our trip to Miami Beach:



With a flash, this shot of the Fontainebleau lobby would have lost all its allure:


Same goes for dark restaurants. If you like devil eyes and white skin, use a flash. The macro mode created an interesting effect, enhancing my wife's allure ;)


I thought this bench outside an old photo shop in Delray Beach, FL looked especially lonely, yearning for the days when we took pictures on film and didn't need technology to take pictures.



Thanks for viewing. Now go outside and get shooting.

Mike Cohen

A short while ago, Ron Lindeboom posted some beautiful pictures from National Geographic.
http://blogs.creativecow.net/blog/943/interpreting-national-geographics-bes...

These got me thinking, that there is some inherent beauty in the human body...and I do mean IN the human body. Especially closeup.

Danger Will Robinson, Danger...Pictures of the inside of the human body ahead...Danger.


An operating room is full of interesting textures, colors, sights, sounds and smells (sorry, but it's true).

Seriously, I often find myself noticing either symmetry or other beautiful scenes in the landscape of human anatomy. Sometimes I zoom in with the video camera, thinking I'd like to see these images again later. Who knows when such an image may come in handy for a background, a texture...or for a blog post (bonus).

Sometimes the images are not as I remember, other times one can find something that was not there originally. And sometimes you just like to have some fun....

scroll down for more...








Sometimes a simple drape can be a useful background



The natural folds and wrinkles in a surgeon's gown are interesting:



Now this is better - not so useful but fun to look at:


Sometimes it is not so much the shapes as the colors that can be inspiring. I think I might hang this one on my office wall:

Before


After


We all have some fat in our bodies. Those of us who eat a lot of donuts especially.


Sometimes when you look inside yourself you see a different world than you thought:


There is a reason we don't wear our own clothes in the OR:


Now it just looks like some digital noise - I may have another pass at this one


Same goes for our hands (well, not my hand in particular)


Now it looks like a tapestry I might hang in my living room (my wife would love that!)


Sometimes the actual image is very nearly just what you need. This is the bottom of a mesh tray for instruments.


Amazing to think we all have entire landscapes inside our bodies. Different surfaces have different functions. The omentum, or abdominal fat pad, may be sized differently in different people, but we all have one. Its rich blood supply and bulk protects our valuable population centers beyond its pastoral hills (ok, maybe that's pushing it):


Remember the part about having fun...This is an homage to Bob Ross. See my happy little sailboat?



I'll start collecting some even better images - ones that need no modification to truly show the inner beauty of the small intestine.

Thanks for reading (or vomiting as the case may be)

Mike Cohen

Back in the late 90's I was always the guy to take a stills camera on a shoot, or to various travel destinations. The result was usually a few snapshots, such as of our exhibit booth setup or a group shot after we wrapped.

As the 21st century took hold I continued the tradition with a range of semi-pocket sized digital still cameras. Our first one was a Kodak 1 megapixel unit - for video resolution it was actually pretty good. I got the camera suggested by a colleague who did a doc about the Shroud of Turin.

While the resolution and size of digital cameras has increased, the ease of taking snapshots in everyday situations has not.

Enter the camera phone. Now it is commonplace to grab your phone and take a pic of anything and everything. Since the phone is always with me, I find myself taking pictures of the mundane to the interesting to the merely useful. A phone that takes stills is certainly more useful than a DV camcorder that takes stills. Although a still camera that takes video is another story for another blog. Although the videos from the phone, while low res, are high on convenience and add to the magic of easy access image collection.

Thus, over the past few years, my phone cam has become an extension of my own short term memory. Indeed, I find myself snapping pictures of things that seem interesting at the time, but which I will A not remember and B not have time or inclination to take with a better more obvious camera. And sometimes C you get something just by happenstance that becomes an unexpected treasure.

So take my hand, walk with me, down the road of days gone by.
The places I know, the dates I don't, the phone it does not lie.
I barely knew 2006 the time it really flies.
2007 was the year we had to say goodbyes.
But through it all my trusty phone,
Recorded calls and friends I've known.
And always will I cherish what my brain has not remembered.


Chicago - 2006. Our big medical convention of the year. Love the architecture.

One last visit to Boca Raton - where we spent 20 years of school vacations.

Happy times spent with those we now miss.

Childhood memories embraced by adults!

I always send my wife an action pose before my next trip.

Who could possibly remember a parking garage location a week later?

Making good use of time away.

Landmarks...

Unknown, but worthy of admiration...

Good meals (this is fondue before the fondue)

Not so good meals.

No explanation needed - but seriously folks, who wouldn't want a hot Kosher snack at any time of the day?

One of my old 2 megapixel images wound up on this book cover!

Conventions

Circa 1997

Circa 2008

________________

More Action Shots









Office Renovations





So long VPR-80 - I hardly knew ya!






The Unexpected




This would have been nice at higher quality, but I just don't carry a camera everywhere I go, such as to the Costco parking lot where this was taken!


And of course, everyone takes lots of pictures of their pets. Right? Anyone? Oh well.



Now with the memory clear (on the phone and in my cerebral cortex) I can head off into the sunset knowing that my future memories will be captured for safekeeping.

Thanks for sharing.

Mike Cohen

While growing up, my dad was always the guy with the SLR or the Super-8 camera. Actually he still takes the most pictures at present.

As a result, we have volumes of photo albums, boxes of 35mm slides and a couple hours of grainy color film footage, luckily transferred to VHS back in the 80's before it disintegrated.

Around 1994 I took the opportunity to follow in Pop's footsteps, and start archiving every major and minor family event. When I met my wife a year later, I was pleased to learn that my future father-in-law had also developed a lifetime collection of media.

Acquisition

Starting around December 1994, I had a video camera in one hand, and a stills camera in the other. These days you can shoot both with one unit, such as a D90 or D5 Mark 2 (in my dreams) or more likely a digicam and a camcorder. Lately I have been choosing one or the other. For example, in 2005 when the Christmas Pudding nearly burned the house down from too much rum and a backdraft situation, I got that on DV tape. Then I shot stills in '06 and then HDV in '07, and back to stills in '08.

Most of what I remember is based upon my view through the viewfinder. This is my general appearance at a family gathering.


I have to say, the Sony Hi8 camera I bought in 1998 was extremely durable. Old faithful!

They don't make 'em like that anymore.

Distribution

From 1994 to about 2001, the best way to distribute new pictures or video was via US Mail. Certainly Grandma didn't have access to e-mail until 2005, but given slow internet speeds in the late 20th century, prints and videotapes fit the bill.

Around 2002 I secretly borrowed Dad's 35mm slides and scanned about 50% of them and gave him 3 CD-ROM discs complete with HTML photo galleries for Father's Day. Secrecy is an important part of these projects.

From about 2004 to 2008 I was making DVD compilations of the classic family films and the new events. In 2005, in honor of Grandma and Grandpa's 60th Wedding Anniversary the tour de force of family DVDs was released, featuring the best productions and film clips going all the way back to about 1974.

Back in the day, people liked being on film. These days I get a lot of shots of people covering their faces.

Now, as time rolls on and inevitable milestones that we do not look forward to have transpired, we luckily have these memories for posterity. However one must keep track of everything, and let me tell you, stuff is everywhere.

I have had numerous home computers since 1994. I make sure to back up data before retiring a PC, however there are still multiple hard drives and stacks of CD and DVD discs, not to mention boxes of photos and Hi8 tapes.

Social Networking

The evolution of social networking for family members has gone from telephone to letter writing to e-mail to limited website linking to today's best-so-far solution, Facebook.

Telephone was of course limited to voice. It was great telling someone about a trip or event, but without visuals.

Back in the early 80's when long distance was still expensive, we had a system. One ring, call Franny. Two rings, call Rita. Three or more rings, ok to pickup - could be grandma. I think we invented Caller ID!

Then of course was the signaling system. Used after a long car ride, such as from Massachusetts back to Iowa. Hit 0 for operator, and place a collect call to Buster, the dog. When Grandma said Buster wasn't available (in reality, Buster had died years ago), we would say "Operator, just tell them to tell Buster that we arrived safely" knowing that Grandma could hear us say this. This was a way to avoid paying for a 1 minute phone call. Sorry Ma Bell - you've been punk'd.

Letter writing was never much of an enjoyable activity, aside from post-cards and the odd thank you note.

Jump ahead to e-mail. With 28.8k modems, sending more than one photo at a time was out of the question, and files had better of been under 100k. This continued until AOL started allowing multiple attachments. Then came broadband, around the same time as free web photo galleries. So photo sharing became easier. However this still involved multiple websites to juggle. Still not great or easy.

Finally social networking sites were invented. I admit I hesitated before accepting my Dad's friend invite. But now that I have, along with cousins and relatives who I have never even met, it's truly one big happy family. Now one can post a picture or video, and without any effort or stamps, everyone can see it, and if they desire, comment or pass it along to their own group of friends. Brilliant.

What I am getting at, is there is now - finally after all this time - an easy way to share your memories with a large disparate group of people.

Looking Ahead

So this week I started compiling my treasures, 1994-present, not only into a more organized offline fashion, but also bit by bit into my online family network. While it gives me joy to watch my Grandpa Morris talk about working in the shipyards during WWII or how he was arrested for selling hot dogs on Coney Island, it gives me even greater joy to share that video with my uncle, who had never seen video of his father, and with my mom, dad, brother any extended family. It's not that I did not have the ability or inclination to send my uncle a copy of this video in the past, it is just so easy now that we are all connected and communicating on a daily basis.

Last week I did a Skype video chat with my mom and dad in Florida. Now that is something all of my grandparents would have loved to see. But, you are thankful for the memories you have, knowing that you are always creating new memories for the future.

Thanks for reading. Now go get those shoeboxes from the attic and get scanning!

Mike Cohen