and another thing....

I found an interesting (and obvious) comparison of digital vs analogue...

Essentially it's two similar images, one digital, one analogue, both cropped to show detail.



Film image, cropped



Digital image, cropped.

This is one of the more blatant disadvantages of digital photography, the fact that it is indeed digital, and built around pixels instead of a transformation resulting from light sources.

a couple of scans

i did finally unpack the scanner and scan in a couple of shots from the Chinon CM-4s, just to show the difference.

erm I think if you click them it goes full size. I could carry on uploading more and more but I think these give the general idea, the photos have a very different feel to them.....especially using black and white film, they often become an interesting image without any need for photo manipulation or anything like that.

I suppose it's just what you fancy though.

THE PROS AND CONS

DIGITAL VS. ANALOGUE.

I've been reading up a bit (and using my own basic knowledge) to determine what makes older, analogue photography methods better or worse than digital photography.

- The most obvious point to make is that the majority of people will gain better results from digital photography. Compact digitals, or Auto mode on DSLR's, reduce photography to a mere point-and-shoot activity; it is possible to offload all the hard work onto the camera's internal computer in order to produce a fairly decent looking shot. However, an well-skilled photographer should ideally be able to use a analogue SLR to produce a far superior looking shot; which goes some way to show that with a bit of determination, there are advantages in using classic, analogue cameras.

- A commonly-found problem is that Lab prints from a film often may not appear how the photographer intended them to appear. As a result of this many analogue photographers prefer to use transparency film, as this then makes it possible for the lab technician to view how the photographs were intended to look. This presents an advantage for digital photographers, who can spend a while tweaking their photographs on a computer and have them printed exactly how they want them to look.

- Convenience will always win against good quality. Of course, digitally, you are able to take hundreds of very good photographs at any level from a high quality DSLR to a lesser quality such as with an iPhone. Smartphones present an even greater advantage for digital photography, as it then becomes possible to share your images instantly with friends and family, or whoever. This is obviously as of yet impossible with a film camera.

- That said, film's analogue nature lends itself to many other applications where digital would inevitably falter, for example producing large exhibition prints which would need an incredible level of detail; for example a huge landscape image. For reasons like these, analogue photography will never disappear, as its applications lend itself very well to various situations, and as a result becomes a natural choice for many.

A classic

An absolutely timeless photo, demonstrating the value of photographs taken on cameras of that era.

some classic cameras

just ripped some pictures of some classic cameras, just to show how much nicer they look compared to todays jobs. the quality of print reflects this as well. I don't know a whole lot about them really, but that's the whole point of this project, really.

I do

have some prints somewhere from the Chinon CM-4s lurking about somewhere, although for the following reasons they won't be up on the blog for a while;

1. I've left all this way too late as usual
2. I haven't yet unpacked all my stuff in my new room
3. I haven't hooked up the scanner, as it's with all my unpacked stuff
4. They were taken at a time when I was slightly trying to rebel against this whole facebook situation of dumping hundreds of pointless photos, I thought that really I could just keep them for myself and perhaps occasionally use them or show them to people, that they'd be some kind of cool secret. Whereas in reality I should've scanned them there and then to at least have on my mac for situations like this. sad, i know.

I've also got a few films that I never got round to developing, usually due to financial reasons.

errrrrrr

I don't know what else to say on the subject..soz

Chinon CM-4s

An old camera that my mum owned when she was younger, I kind of adopted it and now it sits in my room, waiting for a time when I have some spare cash to buy and develop some films. When used properly it makes for some tasty shots, surprisingly it wasn't that difficult to get to grips with.



lovely.













easy eh? for a little more effort, the resulting shots are impeccable compared to your standard 21st century compact digital.

VINTAGE CAMERAS

for my object I have chosen vintage cameras. or retro cameras, old cameras, whatever you might want to call them. To me they hold some kind of charm of a time where photographic creativity required a greater level of effort, of course resulting in greater rewards.

What now?

Worryingly, with a relatively limited amount of research I have established why the Golden Ratio is good.

I suppose the only thing left to do is find some more examples to genuinely prove that The Golden Ratio is good.

I mean it's already been proved by maths, and unless you get deeply philosophical it is very hard to prove that maths could be wrong, or even simply suggest that it might be wrong.

Interestingly, the Golden Ratio is an irrational number; it goes on for infinity, there's no finding the end. Therefore, if the number represents perfection, and you can never get an exact number, perhaps you can never reach perfection? Makes sense in my head.

essentially

THE GOLDEN RATIO IS WHAT WE MIGHT THINK OF AS THE MATHEMATICAL DEFINITION OF BEAUTY

FOR THOSE WHO CAN'T FIND THE WORDS TO DESCRIBE IT

BUT WOULD LIKE SOME NUMBERS INSTEAD

THAT IS IT

so why is it good?

The whole point of this research is to figure out why the Golden Ratio is so particularly golden....

I mean, why is it good to use, what makes the number 1.618 so special?

"The Golden Rectangle has been said to be one of the most visually satisfying of all
geometric forms. We can find many examples in art masterpieces such as in edifices of ancient Greece."


says Yahoo Answers. 




I don't know what to say. For something so Golden there is really very little to say about it, apart from that it is Golden. Perhaps that is why it is so Golden. 


But actually, wait.....


http://www.experienceproject.com/question-answer/Why-Is-The-Golden-Ratio-So-Important-For-Mathematics-And-The-Arts/359317


On this page I found the most logical (to me) answer I have heard yet......
Well it makes a lot of sense...:


"Isn;t it that the human brain finds this ratio attrative because it indicates health in the human body if that body conforms to this ratio"


- Ketsan.


This makes SO much sense. Whether it is right or wrong, it is such a valid point, a healthy human's proportions equate to the Golden Ratio, so surely the human mind registers this ratio in other bodies and objects and makes a subconscious decision based upon how close towards this ratio the object may be....


As of yet I have not found a more sensible answer. WOW

imaginamexico

A logo design drawing inspiration from the Golden Ratio.







Here's what they have to say about it:

• This logo shapes the association of three concepts: a) the vision of the company, based on 4 corporate axes (resembling human axes: physical, emotional, intellectual and spiritual); b) the guiding concept oftransformation; c) the golden ratio, representing perfection, mysticism and beauty.
  
  Imaginamexico brand was achieved with a colorful symbol made with four stylized nautilus shells (one for each axis), designed with the Fibonacci spiral. The shells evoke growth, evolution and transformation. Furthermore, their arrangement also reveals a four-helix pinwheel, a traditional handmade toy. The pinwheel and the colors of the logo bring to mind the mexican culture.
  
  The name was developed with an original typography, resulting in a simple, rounded, monolinear lower-case type. The length of the name and the symbol were also based on the golden ratio proportions.

another example.

I was flicking through Behance, and thought I might as well type in 'Golden Ratio' to the search box to see if anything cool came up. I found this one guy called Luuk Vermeyden, who stumbled across this theory of the Golden Ratio in an Art History book whilst creating this artwork. He subsequently used the Golden Spiral to position the image of the girl in the theoretically 'correct' place.

Here's a link to the project:

http://www.behance.net/gallery/Golden-Ratio-case-study/333673

And here is the work he produced:



The final image.



The image with the Golden Spiral overlaid.

Interesting, eh? Perhaps so...but it's also interesting to wonder whether there might have been a chance that if he had not stumbled across this theory, would he have placed the image in an equally logical, or perhaps even the same position?

I best guess would be to say yes; placing the image dead centre would perhaps make for a dull and uninteresting display, and similarly placing the image right up to one edge may just look ridiculous...

However I may be wrong, perhaps every solution is equally as valid as each other, but this particular one  just happens to match up to an irrational ratio.

A few quotes

"The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science."
--Einstein, Albert (1879-1955), What I Believe.


"Without mathematics there is no art."
--Luca Pacioli


"[The universe] cannot be read until we have learnt the language and become familiar with the characters in which it is written. It is written in mathematical language, and the letters are triangles, circles and other geometrical figures, without which means it is humanly impossible to comprehend a single word."
--Galilei, Galileo (1564 - 1642), Opere Il Saggiatore p. 171.


"The human mind has first to construct forms, independently, before we can find them in things."
--Einstein, Albert (1879-1955)


"Where there is matter, there is geometry."
--Kepler, Johannes (1571-1630), (Ubi materia, ibi geometria.) J. Koenderink Solid Shape, Cambridge Mass.: MIT Press, 1990


"The good, of course, is always beautiful, and the beautiful never lacks proportion."
--Plato

the maths

The maths of this Divine Proportion goes incredibly deep, but to be honest I'm not really on a level to begin learning that kind of stuff.

Regardless, here is a website that is full of mathematical stuff that could be of interest to some people.

http://mathworld.wolfram.com/GoldenRatio.html

FIBONACCI

This guy clocked it.

We all know it, Fibonacci's sequence, it goes like:

1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89.......etc.

The ratio between these numbers, as the number gets larger, veers closer and closer to the Golden Ratio, which we consider to be 1.618. And somehow in this mad coincidence (or not) this is the number that links many many things in the world, and the universe. Strange, I'm sure many people are still trying to find an explanation for this.

A few examples of the golden ratio in logo design.

These are just a few examples I grabbed from a website, personally I don't think they are the best of examples, but it is still possible to see how the ratio is made use of to create logical and attractive design.

The again, they could just be logical decisions that landed on the golden ratio.

This is the interesting thing about the Golden Ratio;

It is there to use, but if you chose not to, you'd quite possibly subconsciously use it anyway.

Golden sections

You see. The rectangle that is a result of this equation:



and this ratio is used in countless situations, consciously or otherwise. I will research some proper examples.....

My apologies

When I say physics, I really mean maths, as that's where the crossover occurs.....

whereas the theoretical stuff in physics is quite inspiring, it is the maths that is used to generate images and graphs and diagrams. If you see what I mean.

I have decided I am going to focus this project closely on THE GOLDEN RATIO for this is something that links the two areas perfectly.

I am going to research examples of this, although it is possible to see it anywhere where logical thought in design has been applied. You would never have a square television screen, it's always going to be rectangular. It's just logic, and somehow all logical design points towards this number.

1.61803399


This is the Golden Ratio. Quite funny how much revolves and develops from this number.

WHAT COULD POTENTIALLY BE GOOD

some possibilities of what i may run this project on.

OBJECT:

drums/musical instruments
old cameras
calligraphy pens and brushes
electricity
Roland equipment

CONCEPT

atheism
time, what it really might be and not what we think it really might be
physics

OPINION

errr

ACTIVITY

errrrrrrr

PLACE

hmmmmmmmm......

okay i'm gonna do physics. I'm not sure whether that is really a concept or and activity or what, I mean it could potentially fit into all of these categories. There are places in physics, activities, concepts, objects and all sorts. It'll be less of 'why is physics good', but more of; why is it good to know about, what is good to know about it, and stuff like that. why it's really interesting.

It's kind of a shame because I've always been really interested in physics, but at school I always found it difficult to concentrate in lessons because I was not so good at the mathematical side of it, so it never really amounted to anything.

But then again that could be seen as a good thing, as it has landed me in this position today, where I am able to study graphics but still maintain an interest in the theoretical side of physics....I like knowing how everything works, from feats of engineering to gravity to why travelling in a certain direction will age us slightly more than the other.

Also what is obviously a particular interest to me is how physics can crossover and be if use in graphic design; it is possible to use equations to generate very visually appealing images......and also with music, it is possible to more effectively generate sounds if you are aware of how various waveforms work together.