>> Show me your pictures! <<
Manu Schnetzler
I follow this group for a while and i have found some pretty interesting
discussions and advices. However, i can't help noticing that everybody
here (including me) talk mainly about technical problems: lenses, cameras,
films, aso.
This seems pretty strange to me since photo is a visual "art". How come
nobody ever thought about posting their own pictures to show them to other
fellow photographers?
I would be interested in seeing your pictures and showing you mines. gif
or jpg formats are pretty common and posting pictures doesn't seem to be
a big problem (uuencode, split and all that).
Am i missing something? Is there a good reason for not doing this? Is
this newsgroup reserved to technical discussions?
Manu Schnetzler - (415) 725-0581 (office) | "I don't want to do my homework,
(415) 497-6157 (home) | I want to have FUN"
Stanford University, CA | Calvin
ma...@pangea.stanford.edu | (and take pictures!)
--
Manu Schnetzler - (415) 725-0581 (office) | "I don't want to do my homework,
(415) 497-6157 (home) | I want to have FUN"
Stanford University, CA | Calvin
ma...@pangea.stanford.edu | (and take pictures!)
Ty Monson
(deletions)
> For quite a while there was a
>Snail-mail Theme Photoswap, but it just sort of died off.
Actually, I mailed a bundle of photos to the next person on the
list, and it was never heard of again.
When people fail to pass the photos along, it kills a photo swap really fast.
>
>Having said all of that, I think the mail photoswap was a great idea,
>although I never contributed to it ;-).
The photo swap could work at a frquency of 1 to 3 times per year,
if there were some way of getting all participants to keep the
photos moving from one participant to another. But I found
that the process of trying to define a new theme every month
was too much.
Do individuals ever swap prints among themselves as a result
of meeting in rec.photo? I personally am reluctant to show
a mediocre image, and I'm not inclined to risk losing
a fine image.
wolf tagger
>From: ma...@pangea.Stanford.EDU (Manu Schnetzler)
>Subject: >> Show me your pictures! <<
>Date: 6 Oct 1993 05:01:08 GMT
> Hi everybody,
>I follow this group for a while and i have found some pretty interesting
>discussions and advices. However, i can't help noticing that everybody
>here (including me) talk mainly about technical problems: lenses, cameras,
>films, aso.
>This seems pretty strange to me since photo is a visual "art". How come
>nobody ever thought about posting their own pictures to show them to other
>fellow photographers?
>I would be interested in seeing your pictures and showing you mines. gif
>or jpg formats are pretty common and posting pictures doesn't seem to be
>a big problem (uuencode, split and all that).
>Am i missing something? Is there a good reason for not doing this? Is
>this newsgroup reserved to technical discussions?
I guess that not too many people have access to a good scanner. Personally,
I'd be more than willing to show off my artwork, but I have no way of
digitizing my prints...
******************************************************************************
R. "Shrike" Tymowski, mad scientist (for hire)
(rgty...@chemistry.watstar.uwaterloo.ca)
"You mean I have to take classes??!!?! But I just came here for the beer..."
"Save the plankton; harpoon a whale!!!!"
(Dis)Claimer: The views expressed above are my own. If you don't like them,
I'll let you talk to my P.R. reps: Smith & Wesson...
******************************************************************************
Steve Gombosi
>
>How come
>nobody ever thought about posting their own pictures to show them to other
>fellow photographers?
It's been discussed a number of times. For quite a while there was a
Snail-mail Theme Photoswap, but it just sort of died off.
There are a number of technical problems with such postings:
1) Pictures take a *lot* of bandwidth and storage, even in lossy compressed
form. That's why many sites (including this one) don't get the
alt.binaries.pictures.* groups. We're a real, live, for-profit
business - we can't devote an infinite amount of resources to
USENET. If people start posting pictures to this group, I'm pretty
sure we'll have to stop carrying it. I'm going to be real pissed
if that happens.
Worse yet, some small sites get their newsfeed via dialup - sometimes
long distance dialup. A couple of GIFs could be equivalent to the
normal daily traffic on rec.photo. That's a pretty expensive
proposition.
2) Photographers who devote even a modicum of care to their work produce
pictures which are incapable of being reproduced with any accuracy
by any of the popular net graphics formats. This is especially
true of medium and large format photographers. We're not just talking
resolution here - there are a host of other factors at work. No mass-market
monitor is going to be capable of reproducing the range of tones in
a fine black and white print. That's just a fact of life. Why should
someone who has devoted countless hours of work to producing
*exactly* the print he/she wants present it in such a fashion?
What this means is that the *best* (or at least the most diligent)
photographers in the group probably won't post at all - we'll be
left with a few hundred megabytes of snapshots. I'll pass, thank you.
If you want to post some of your pictures, why don't you post them to
one of the alt.binaries.pictures groups and send a message to rec.photo
telling people where to find them? That is, after all, what the abp
groups are there for.
Having said all of that, I think the mail photoswap was a great idea,
although I never contributed to it ;-).
Steve
Steven E. Newton
>I follow this group for a while and i have found some pretty interesting
>discussions and advices. However, i can't help noticing that everybody
>here (including me) talk mainly about technical problems: lenses, cameras,
>films, aso.
>This seems pretty strange to me since photo is a visual "art". How come
>nobody ever thought about posting their own pictures to show them to other
>fellow photographers?
Most folks on this group seem to be techophiles. I was a member of the Photo
Swap in years past and I recall a lot of people not wanting to join for some
varation on the "I'm really not ready to show my pictures to other people yet"
reason. But these were the same folks would could discuss technical minutae
until your brain melted.
>I would be interested in seeing your pictures and showing you mines.
gif>or jpg formats are pretty common and posting pictures doesn't seem to be
>a big problem (uuencode, split and all that).
If you have access to gopher, try gopher to
oac3.hsc.uth.tmc.edu/computers/oac_staff/S_Newton/mygifs
Look, I take pictures to show to other people, and I'm not anal-retentive
about grain/tonal range/velvety blacks/resolution/Zones, but I'm good enough I
can do all that if I feel like it. So my scans aren't exactly like "real
PRINTS"? Isn't it the content that matters? Hey, we're talkin' communication
here, not chemistry.
>Am i missing something? Is there a good reason for not doing this? Is
>this newsgroup reserved to technical discussions?
Nope. In fact, if you ask me technical details about my work I'll probably
not answer. Tell me what you think of the _photos_, not my techinical skill.
s
+ + + + + + + |sne...@oac.hsc.uth.tmc.edu
If you meet the Buddha on the net, |Nobody else speaks for me,
put him in your Kill file. |and I speak for no one else.
| + + + + +
Steve Brown 402-473-3847
|> In article <28tjek$b...@morrow.stanford.edu> ma...@pangea.Stanford.EDU (Manu Schnetzler) writes:
|>
|>
|> Most folks on this group seem to be techophiles. I was a member of the Photo
|> varation on the "I'm really not ready to show my pictures to other people yet"
|> reason. But these were the same folks would could discuss technical minutae
|> until your brain melted.
|>
I too was a member of the Photo Swap in years past. What ever
became of our pictures? I lost several.
--
Steve Brown
br...@march1.centel.com
Ham KB5ULW
Steven E. Newton
Sitting in somebody's stack of forgotten stuff, I'm sure. I lost some prints
but so what? I can always reprint them.
fle...@aa.wl.com
If I understand correctly what you guys are talking about, don't you need
access to some kind of scanner for getting pictures on the net? In my
experience most people don't have such access, so that's an impediment. Also,
my admittedly murky understanding suggests that not everyone's net-reading
software can decode pictures. Is this true, do you know?
Steve
All opinions are my own
Steven E. Newton
[Please learn to *EDIT* your followups!]
>If I understand correctly what you guys are talking about, don't you need
>access to some kind of scanner for getting pictures on the net?
OK, granted there aren't as many scanners on people's desks as there are
printers, but finding someone who has a scanner shouldn't take too much work.
You might even find some lab or graphic design company that would do it for a
fee.
>my admittedly murky understanding suggests that not everyone's net-reading
>software can decode pictures. Is this true, do you know?
Mostly, if we posted pictures, they would be uuencoded, and uudecode is
available for every platform I've ever touched. Your newsreader might or
might not be able to automatically combined and decode multiple articles (I
like nn for this, btw) but saving them to a file and decoding after editing
out the headers isn't too much work. On the other hand, I've made my pictures
available via gopher, so you just need gopher and an image viewer for GIF
files.
Think of it this way, if all you folks who spend oh-so-much time getting these
"perfect" negatives and "tonally rich" prints would put half that effort into
putting your stuff out electronically, we'd be swimming in pictures.
Bruce White 619-597-3807
I recently obtained a copy of Xmosaic which allows access to multimedia documents
over the Internet. Instead of posting GIFs which would flood the net, someone
could set up a server for rec.photo images and Xmosaic would allow you to browse
through different photographers' portfolios.
Xmosaic is incredible. You can retrieve anything from "movies" to "radio shows" and
actually watch (or listen) to everything without typing in any cryptic UNIX commands.
The following article was retrieved online from Xmosaic, and outlines the World Wide
Web and some of Xmosaic's features.
Enjoy!
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Uniform Resource Locator for this document is:
http://pulua.hcc.hawaii.edu/guide/www.guide.html
Entering the World-Wide Web:
****************************
A Guide to Cyberspace
*********************
Kevin Hughes
++++++++++++
Honolulu Community College
++++++++++++++++++++++++++
September 1993
++++++++++++++
Table of Contents
=================
o What is the World-Wide Web?
o What is hypertext and hypermedia?
o What is the Internet?
o How was the Web created?
o How popular is the Web?
o What is Mosaic?
o What can Mosaic do?
o What is available on the Web?
o How does the Web work?
o What software is available?
o How can I get more information?
o General Web Information
o Information/Reports on Multimedia and Hypermedia
o Browsers Accessible by Telnet
o Obtaining Web Browsers and Servers
o Appendix A: A Hypermedia Timeline
o Appendix B: Interesting Places on the Web
o Appendix C: The World is Talking to Itself - Why Not Join in the
Conversation?
o About the Author
o Index/Glossary
What is the World-Wide Web?
===========================
For fifty years, people have dreamt of the concept of a universal information
database - data that would not only be accessible to people around the world, but
information that would link easily to other pieces of information so that only the
most important data would be quickly found by a user. It was in the 1960's when
this idea was explored further, giving rise to visions of a "docuverse" that people
could swim through, revolutionizing all aspects of human-information
interaction, particularly in the educational field. Only until now has the
technology caught up with these dreams, making it possible to implement them
on a global scale.
The official description describes the World-Wide Web as a "wide-area
hypermedia information retrieval initiative aiming to give universal access to a
large universe of documents". What the World-Wide Web (WWW, W3) project
has done is provide users on computer networks with a consistent means to access
a variety of media in a simplified fashion. Using a popular software interface to
the Web called Mosaic, the Web project has changed the way people view and
create information - it has created the first true global hypermedia network.
What is hypertext and hypermedia?
=================================
The operation of the Web relies on hypertext as its means of interacting with
users. Hypertext is basically the same as regular text - it can be stored, read,
searched, or edited - with an important exception: hypertext contains connections
within the text to other documents.
For instance, suppose you were able to somehow select (with a mouse or with
your finger) the word "hypertext" in the sentence before this one. In a hypertext
system, you would then have one or more documents related to hypertext appear
before you - a history of hypertext, for example, or the Webster's definition of
hypertext. These new texts would themselves have links and connections to other
documents - continually selecting text would take you on a free-associative tour
of information. In this way, hypertext links, called hyperlinks, can create a
complex virtual web of connections.
Hypermedia is hypertext with a difference - hypermedia documents contain
links not only to other pieces of text, but also to other forms of media - sounds,
images, and movies. Images themselves can be selected to link to sounds or
documents. Here are some simple examples of hypermedia:
o You are reading a text on the Hawaiian language. You select a Hawaiian
phrase, then hear the phrase as spoken in the native tongue.
o You are a law student studying the Hawaii Revised Statutes. By selecting
a passage, you find precedents from a 1920 Supreme Court ruling stored
at Cornell. Cross-referenced hyperlinks allow you to view any one of
520 related cases with audio annotations.
o Looking at a company's floorplan, you are able to select an office by
touching a room. The employee's name and picture appears with a list of
their current projects.
o You are a scientist doing work on the cooling of steel springs. By
selecting text in a research paper, you are able to view a
computer-generated movie of a cooling spring. By selecting a button you
are able to receive a program which will perform thermodynamic
calculations.
o A student reading a digital version of an art magazine can select a work to
print or display in full. If the piece is a sculpture, she can request to see a
movie of the sculpture rotating. By interactively controlling the movie,
she can zoom in to see more detail.
The Web, although still in its early years, allows many of these examples to work
in real life. It facilitates the easy exchange of hypermedia through networked
environments from anything as small as two Macintoshes connected together to
something as large as the global Internet.
What is the Internet?
=====================
The Internet is the catch-all word used to describe the massive world-wide
network of computers. The word "internet" literally means "network of
networks". In itself, the Internet is comprised of thousands of smaller regional
networks scattered throughout the globe. On any given day it connects roughly
15 million users in over 50 countries. The World-Wide Web is mostly used on
the Internet; they do not mean the same thing. The Web refers to a body of
information - an abstract space of knowledge, while the Internet refers to the
physical side of the global network, a giant mass of cables and computers.
The countries in black are connected to the Internet.
How was the Web created?
========================
The Web began in March 1989, when Tim Berners-Lee of CERN (a collective
of European high-energy physics researchers) proposed the project to be used as a
means of transporting research and ideas effectively throughout the organization.
Effective communications was a goal of CERNs for many years, as its members
were located in a number of countries.
How popular is the Web?
=======================
>From January to August 1993, the amount of network traffic (in bytes) across the
National Science Foundation's (NSF's) North American network attributed to
Web use multiplied by 414 times. The Web is now ranked 13th of all network
services in terms of sheer byte traffic. In January its rank was 127. Today there
are at least 100 hypertext Web servers in use throughout the world. Since its
inception, the CERN Web server traffic has doubled every four months - twice
the rate of Internet expansion.
World-Wide Web growth.
Statistics available by FTP from nic.merit.edu.
Honolulu Community College officially announced their opening of their
hypermedia server - the first Web server in Hawaii - at the end of May 1993.
By September of that year (after 105 days of service), they had received over
23,000 requests for documents and over 112,000 requests for assets from nearly
5,000 separate hosts on the network. From September 1 to 7 they received traffic
from over 600 separate hosts, an all-time high. It is expected that traffic will
increase further as the school year begins and student involvement in the Web
increases.
Since the site's opening, HCC has received virtual visitors from Xerox, Digital
Equipment Corporation, Apple Computer, Cray, IBM, MIT's Media Lab, NEC,
Sony, Fujitsu, Intel, Rockwell, Boeing, Honeywell, and AT&T (which has been
one of the most frequent visitors), among hundreds of other corporate sites on the
Internet.
Collegiate visitors have originated from campuses such as Stanford, Harvard,
Carnegie-Mellon, Cornell, MIT, Michigan State, Rutgers, Purdue, Rice, Georgia
Tech, Columbia, University of Texas, and Washington University, as well as
other campuses in the United Kingdom, Germany, and Denmark, to name but a
few.
Governmental visitors have come from various departments in NASA, including
their Jet Propulsion Laboratories, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories,
the National Institute of Health, the Superconducting Supercollider project, and
the USDA, as well as government sites in Singapore and Australia. A few dozen
Army and Navy sites throughout the world have browsed around as well.
Because HCC's server began operation when there were relatively few such sites
in the world, and in part due to its popularity, the growth in traffic has closely
reflected the growth of the Web. Further analysis of HCC's server logs indicate
the following breakdown in classifications:
Although it is impossible to know for sure, it can be guessed that the largest
segment roaming the World-Wide Web consists of four-year campus
populations within the United States.
What is Mosaic?
===============
Months after CERN's original proposal, the National Center for
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) began a project to create an interface to
the World-Wide Web. One of NCSA's missions is to aid the scientific research
community by producing widely available, non-commercial software. Another
of its goals is to investigate new research technologies in the hope that
commercial interests will be able to profit from them. In these ways, the Web
project was quite appropriate. The NCSA's Software Design Group began work
on a versatile, multi-platform interface to the World-Wide Web, and called it
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Mosaic.
In the first half of 1993, the first version of NCSA's Web browser was made
available to the Internet community. Because earlier beta versions were
distributed, Mosaic had developed a strong yet small following by the time it was
officially released.
Because of the number of traditional services it could handle, and due to its easy,
point-and-click hypermedia interface, Mosaic soon became the most popular
interface to the Web. Currently versions of Mosaic can run on Suns, Silicon
Graphics workstations, IBM-compatibles running Microsoft Windows,
Macintoshes, and computers running other various forms of UNIX.
NCSA's Mosaic for X windows.
What can Mosaic do?
===================
Mosaic running on every supported computer should have the following features:
o A consistent mouse-driven graphical interface.
o The ability to display hypertext and hypermedia documents.
o The ability to display electronic text in a variety of fonts.
o The ability to display text in bold, italic, or strikethrough styles.
o The ability to display layout elements such as paragraphs, lists, numbered
and bulleted lists, and quoted paragraphs.
o Support for sounds (Macintosh, Sun audio format, and others).
o Support for movies (MPEG-1 and QuickTime).
o The ability to display characters as defined in the ISO 8859 set (it can
display languages such as French, German, and Hawaiian).
o Interactive electronic forms support, with a variety of basic forms
elements, such as fields, check boxes, and radio buttons.
o Support for interactive graphics (in GIF or XBM format) of up to 256
colors within documents.
o The ability to make basic hypermedia links to and support for the
following network services: ftp, gopher, telnet, nntp, WAIS.
o The ability to extend its functionality by creating custom servers
(comparable to XCMDs in HyperCard).
o The ability to have other applications control its display remotely.
o The ability to broadcast its contents to a network of users running
multiplatform groupware such as NCSA's Collage.
o Support for the current standards of HTTP and HTML.
o The ability to keep a history of travelled hyperlinks.
o The ability to store a list and retrieve a list of URLs for future use.
What is available on the Web?
=============================
Currently the Web offers the following through a hypertext, and in some cases,
hypermedia interface:
o Anything served through Gopher
o Anything served through WAIS (Wide-Area Information Service)
o Anything served through anonymous FTP sites
o Full Archie services (a FTP search service)
o Full Veronica services (a Gopher search service)
o Full CSO, X.500, and whois services (Internet phone book services)
o Full finger services (an Internet user lookup program)
o Any library system using PALS (a library database standard)
o Anything on Usenet
o Anything accessible through telnet
o Anything in hytelnet (a hypertext interface to telnet)
o Anything in techinfo or texinfo (forms of campus-wide information
services)
o Anything in hyper-g (a networked hypertext system in use throughout
Europe)
o Anything in the form of man pages
o HTML-formatted hypertext and hypermedia documents
How does the Web work?
======================
The Web works under the popular client-server model. A Web server is a
program running on a computer whose only purpose is to serve documents to
other computers when asked to. A Web client is a program that interfaces with
the user and requests documents from a server as the user asks for them. Because
the server does a minimal amount of work (it does not perform any calculations)
and only operates when a document is requested, it puts a minimal amount of
workload on the computer running it.
Here's an example of how the process works:
1 Running a Web client (also called a browser), the user selects a piece of
hypertext connected to another text - "The History of Computers".
2 The Web client connects to a computer specified by a network address
somewhere on the Internet and asks that computers Web server for "The
History of Computers".
3 The server responds by sending the text and any other media within that
text (pictures, sounds, or movies) to the users screen.
The World-Wide Web is composed of thousands of these virtual transactions
taking place per hour throughout the world, creating a web of information flow.
Future Web servers will include encryption and client authentication abilities -
they will be able to send and receive secure data and be more selective as to
which clients receive information. This will allow freer communications among
Web users and will make sure that sensitive data is kept private. It will be harder
to compromise the security of commercial servers and educational servers which
wish to keep information local. Improvements in security will facilitate the idea
of "pay-per-view" hypermedia, a concept which many commercial interests are
currently pursuing.
The language that Web clients and servers use to communicate with each other is
called the HyperText Transmission Protocol (HTTP). All Web clients and
servers must be able to speak HTTP in order to send and receive hypermedia
documents. For this reason, Web servers are often called HTTP servers.
The phrase "World-Wide Web" is often used to refer to the collective network
of servers speaking HTTP as well as the global body of information available
using the protocol.
The standard language the Web uses for creating and recognizing hypermedia
documents is the HyperText Markup Language (HTML). It is loosely related
to, but technically not a subset of, the Standard Generalized Markup Language
(SGML), a document formatting language used widely in some computing
circles.
HTML is widely praised for its ease of use. Web documents are typically
written in HTML and are usually named with the suffix ".html". HTML
documents are nothing more than standard 7-bit ASCII files with formatting
codes that contain information about layout (text styles, document titles,
paragraphs, lists) and hyperlinks. Many free software convertors are available
for translating documents in foreign formats to HTML.
The current HTML standard (HTML) supports basic hypermedia document
creation and layout, but for current use it is still limited. The latest version of
HTML, called HTML+, is still under development but will probably be
completely defined by the end of 1993. HTML+ will support interactive forms,
defined "hotspots" in images, more versatile layout and formatting options and
styles, and formatted tables, among many other improvements.
HTML uses what are called Uniform Resource Locators (URLs) to represent
hypermedia links and links to network services within documents. It is possible
to represent nearly any file or service on the Internet with a URL.
The first part of the URL (before the two slashes) specifies the method of access.
The second is typically the address of the computer the data or service is located.
Further parts may specify the names of files, the port to connect to, or the text to
search for in a database.
Here are some examples of URLs:
o file://pulua.hcc.hawaii.edu/sound.au - Retrieves a sound file and plays
it.
o file://pulua.hcc.hawaii.edu/picture.gif - Retrieves a picture and
displays it, either in a separate program or within a hypermedia
document.
o file://pulua.hcc.hawaii.edu/directory/ - Displays a directorys contents.
o http://pulua.hcc.hawaii.edu/directory/book.html - Connects to an
HTTP server and retrieves an HTML file.
o ftp://pulua.hcc.hawaii.edu/pub/file.txt - Opens an FTP connection to
pulua.hcc.hawaii.edu and retrieves a text file.
o gopher://pulua.hcc.hawaii.edu - Connects to the Gopher at
pulua.hcc.hawaii.edu.
o telnet://pulua.hcc.hawaii.edu:1234 - Telnets to pulua.hcc.hawaii.edu at
port 1234.
o news:alt.hypertext - Reads the latest Usenet news by connecting to a
user-specified news (NNTP) host and returns the articles in hypermedia
format.
Most Web browsers allow the user to specify a URL and connect to that
document or service. When selecting hypertext in an HTML document, the user
is actually sending a request to open a URL. In this way, hyperlinks can be made
not only to other texts and media, but also to other network services. Web
browsers are not simply Web clients, but are also full-featured FTP, Gopher, and
telnet clients.
HTML+ will include an email URL, so hyperlinks can be made to send email
automatically. For instance, selecting an email address in a piece of hypertext
would open a mail program, ready to send email to that address.
What software is available?
===========================
World-Wide Web clients (browsers) are available for the following platforms
and environments:
o Text-only (dumb) terminal, nearly any platform
o UNIX, text-only using curses, for SunOS 4, AIX, Alpha, Ultrix
o VMS
o X11/Motif, for IRIX (Silicon Graphics), SunOS 4, RS/6000, DEC
Alpha/OSF 1, DEC Ultrix.
o NeXT, for NeXTStep 3.0
o IBM compatibles, 386 and above, under Microsoft Windows
o Macintosh computers, Classic and above
o Browsers written in perl are available.
o Browsers written for the emacs environment are available.
World-Wide Web servers are available for the following platforms and
environments:
o UNIX
o Perl
o Macintosh
o VM, VMS
For details on how to obtain Web client and server software, refer to the section
"How can I get more information?"
How can I get more information?
===============================
Most of this information is available on the Internet. In order to access resources
specified by in URL format, you may need to use a Web browser or connect to a
telnet site that provides a public-access browser.
General Web Information
Main CERN World-Wide Web page
http://info.cern.ch/hypertext/WWW/TheProject.html
Main NCSA Mosaic page
http://www.ncsa.uiuc.edu/SDG/Software/Mosaic/Docs/mosaic-docs.html
Information on WWW
http://www.bsdi.com/server/doc/web-info.html
The World-Wide Web FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) file
by Nathan Torkington
http://www.vuw.ac.nz:80/non-local/gnat/www-faq.html
A list of World-Wide Web clients at CERN
http://info.cern.ch/hypertext/WWW/Clients.html
The "official" list of World-Wide Web servers at CERN
http://info.cern.ch/hypertext/DataSources/WWW/Servers.html
World-Wide Web newsgroup
comp.infosystems.www
World-Wide Web mailing lists
For general discussion:
send email to list...@info.cern.ch, with "add www-announce" as the
body.
For developers and technical discussion:
send email to list...@info.cern.ch, with "add www-talk" as the body.
How to write HTML
http://www.ncsa.uiuc.edu/General/Internet/WWW/HTMLPrimer.html
How to write Web gateways and servers
http://info.cern.ch/hypertext/WWW/Daemon/Overview.html
HTML official specifications
http://info.cern.ch/pub/www/doc/html-spec.multi
HTML convertors
mail2html, converts electronic mailboxes to HTML documents
ftp://info.cern.ch/pub/www/dev
Word Perfect 5.1 to HTML convertor
http://journal.biology.carleton.ca:8001/Journal/background/ftp.sites.html
rtf2html, converts Rich Text Format (RTF) documents to HTML
file://oac.hsc.uth.tmc.edu/public/unix/WWW
latex2html, converts LaTeX documents to HTML
http://cbl.leeds.ac.uk/nikos/tex2html/doc/latex2html/latex2html.html
HTML+ Document Type Definition (DTD)
ftp://info.cern.ch/pub/www/dev/htmlplus.dtd
Information/Reports on Multimedia and Hypermedia
Index to multimedia resources
http://cui_www.unige.ch/Chloe/MultimediaInfo/index.html
"Network Access to Multimedia Information", June 1993
ftp ftp.ed.ac.uk, in directory /pub/mmaccess
This report summarizes the requirements of academic and research users
for network access to multimedia information.
"Computer Supported Cooperative Work Report", July 1993
ftp gorgon.tft.tele.no, in directory /pub/groupware
This is a comprehensive list of all known collaborative software packages
and projects currently in use or under development.
"Hypermedia and Higher Education", April 1993
gopher lewsun.idlw.ucl.ac.be, the /digests/IPCT menu.
IPCT, Interpersonal Computing and Technology, is an excellent journal
exploring the boundaries of education and high technology.
alt.hypertext Frequently Asked Questions list
gopher ftp.cs.berkeley.edu, on many other Gophers.
This list contains dozens of pointers to mailing lists, people, Internet sites,
groups, books, periodicals, bibliographies, and software related to
hypertext.
Browsers Accessible by Telnet
A comprehensive list of telnet-accessible clients
http://info.cern.ch/hypertext/WWW/FAQ/Bootstrap.html
telnet info.cern.ch
The simplest line mode browser.
telnet ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
A full screen browser "Lynx" which requires a vt100 terminal. Log in as
"www".
telnet eies2.njit.edu
Log in as "www". A full-screen browser.
telnet vms.huji.ac.il
Log in as "www". A line-mode browser.
telnet sun.uakom.cs
Slovakia. Has a slow link, use from nearby.
telnet fserv.kfki.hu
Hungary. Has slow link, use from nearby. Login as "www".
telnet info.funet.fi
Obtaining Web Browsers and Servers
ftp info.cern.ch, in directory /pub/www
Simple text-only browser, as well as the CERN HTTP server.
ftp aixtest.cc.ukans.edu, in directory /pub
Distribution for Lynx, a line-mode curses-based browser.
ftp ftp.ncsa.uiuc.edu, in directory /Mosaic
Mosaic distribution, as well as the NCSA HTTP server.
ftp oac.hsc.uth.tmc.edu. in directory /public/Mac
Macintosh server.
ftp fatty.law.cornell.edu, in directory /pub/LII/cello
Browser for Microsoft Windows.
Note: The alpha versions of Mosaic for Windows and for Macintosh are not
being distributed. To be on their alpha testers mailing lists, send mail to
mosai...@ncsa.uiuc.edu or mosai...@ncsa.uiuc.edu. Completion for
these browsers is scheduled for November 1993.
About the Author
================
For the last two years Kevin Hughes has been working as a student systems
programmer with Dr. Ken Hensarling, Honolulu Community College's Director
of Academic Computing. He designed and implemented HCC's World-Wide
Web site and is currently doing freelance graphics and programming work for
various companies and organizations in Hawaii. He can be reached through the
Internet as kev...@pulua.hcc.hawaii.edu.
Index/Glossary
==============
A
+
Archie
A network service that searches FTP sites for files.
B
+
browser
Software that provides an interface to the World-Wide Web.
C
+
CERN
The European collective of high-energy physics researchers (European
Organization for Nuclear Research).
client
A computer or program requests a service of another computer or
program.
client-server model
A structure in which programs use and provide distributed services.
Collage
Collaborative (shared whiteboard) software developed by the NCSA.
CSO
Central Services Organization. A service which facilitates user and
address lookup in databases.
D
+
Doug Engelbart
The inventor of many common devices and ideas used in computing
today, including the mouse.
F
+
finger
A service that responds to queries and retrieves user information
remotely.
FTP
File Transfer Protocol. A common method of transferring files across
networks.
G
+
Gopher
A versatile menu-driven information service.
H
+
Honolulu Community College
HTML+
The latest version of HTML.
hyper-g
A distributed hypertext system mostly popular in Europe.
HyperCard
A personal hypermedia/multimedia creation system for use on Apple
Computers.
hyperlinks
Connections between hypermedia or hypertext documents and other
media.
hypermedia
Hypertext that includes or links to other forms of media.
hypertext
Text that, when selected, has the ability to present connected documents.
HyperText Markup Language (HTML)
The standard language used for creating hypermedia documents within the
World-Wide Web.
HyperText Transmission Protocol (HTTP)
The standard language that World-Wide Web clients and servers use to
communicate.
hytelnet
A hypertext interface to telnet.
I
+
Internet
The global collective of computer networks.
M
+
Mosaic
A mouse-driven interface to the World-Wide Web developed by the
NCSA.
N
+
National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA)
A federally-funded organization whose mission is to develop and
research high-technology resources for the scientific community.
National Science Foundation (NSF)
A federally-funded organization that manages the NSFnet, which
connects every major research institution and campus in the United States.
NNTP
News Network Transfer Protocol. A common method by which articles
over Usenet are transferred.
P
+
PALS
A standard library database interface.
S
+
server
A program which provides a service to other client programs.
SGML
Standard Generalized Markup Language. A generic language for
representing documents.
Software Design Group
The group within NCSA that is responsible for designing computer
applications.
T
+
techinfo
A common campus-wide information system developed at MIT.
Ted Nelson
The inventor of many common ideas related to hypertext, including the
word "hypertext" itself.
telnet
A program which allows users to remotely use computers across
networks.
texinfo
A common campus-wide information system.
Tim Berners-Lee
The inventor of the World-Wide Web.
U
+
Uniform Resource Locators (URLs)
Standardized formatted entities within HTML documents which specify a
network service or document to link to.
Usenet
The global news-reading network.
V
+
Vannevar Bush
Originator of the concept of hypertext.
Veronica
A network service that allows users to search Gopher systems for
documents.
W
+
WAIS
Wide-Area Information Service. A service which allows users to
intelligently search for information among databases distributed
throughout the Internet.
whois
A name lookup service.
World-Wide Web
The initiative to create a universal, hypermedia-based method of access to
information. Also used to refer to the Internet.
X
+
X.500
A standard which defines electronic mail directory services. Mostly used
in Europe.
Thanks to Tim Berners-Lee for a better definition of the Web!
.............................................................
Fourth Edition: September 21, 1993
..................................
The opinions stated in this document are solely those of the author and in no way represent the views of the University of
..........................................................................................................................
Hawaii or Honolulu Community College.
.....................................
This document is Copyright (c) 1993 by Kevin Hughes. It may be freely distributed in any format as long as this disclaimer
...........................................................................................................................
is included and the textual contents are not altered. Copies of this document can be obtained by contacting Ken
................................................................................................................
Hensarling at (808) 845-9291.
.............................
Kunal Singh
>+ + + + + + + |sne...@oac.hsc.uth.tmc.edu
> If you meet the Buddha on the net, |Nobody else speaks for me,
> put him in your Kill file. |and I speak for no one else.
Well, as someone who comes from the geographical area where Gautama
Siddhartha became the Buddha, I'm always surprised by the various
perceptions of him floating on the net. There was a certain news
group called something like 'buddha.short-fat.guy.' I nearly died
laughing, I swear.
But then there was a really nice love poem in soc.culture.china with the
title 'I beseech the Buddha for a 1000 years'.
David Cormie
I for one would be unhappy about ``publishing'' my pictures electronically on the
net, if that meant I had effectively given up my copyright in those images.
How would one establish copyright?
David
donl mathis
|> Most folks on this group seem to be techophiles. I was a member of the Photo
|> Swap in years past and I recall a lot of people not wanting to join for some
|> varation on the "I'm really not ready to show my pictures to other people yet"
|> reason. But these were the same folks would could discuss technical minutae
|> until your brain melted.
Hey! This sounds like me! :)
And I *am* really ready to show my pictures to other people yet, it's just
that I can't seem to find time to put together a rational portfolio. But
I'm going to take care of that, Real Soon Now.
But with regard to doing this through digital media, having been
somewhere near digital imaging for a while now, I can state without
reservation that for photography, I am not impressed! It's good enough
to get the general idea across, but not good enough to convey the real
feeling of a really good print.
|> Look, I take pictures to show to other people, and I'm not anal-retentive
|> about grain/tonal range/velvety blacks/resolution/Zones, but I'm good enough I
|> can do all that if I feel like it. So my scans aren't exactly like "real
|> PRINTS"? Isn't it the content that matters? Hey, we're talkin' communication
|> here, not chemistry.
I must also be one of the anal-retentive people you have in mind,
because I care about grain/tonal range/velvety blacks/resolution/Zones.
And I take pictures that I like to look at, myself, and that I like to
show other people.
Technical skills are just a way of making better photographs. They're
important, if you want to make better photographs. They can't turn a
bad image into a good photograph, but a lack of skills can easily turn
a good image into a bad photograph.
- donl mathis at Silicon Graphics Computer Systems, Mountain View, CA
do...@sgi.com
James Mitchell (SE)
Hmmm... Not a bad idea really. I dont know why it didn't dawn on me earlier, I use
Mosaic everyday. Yeah, that would be cool to see peoples images, but there will have
to be a few things to think about.
1) Only those of us that are lucky enough to have access to scanners will be able to
easily and cheaply get our images onto the server. A way around this is to whack
your shots onto photoCD, but then you need a PCD player, or Mac Centris to get
the info down the line.
2) Our ambition would be to get the highest resolution images onto the server, but you
should think twice about this. If you want to maintian copyright on the image it
is definately not in your best interest to put it on the server, the moment you put this
stuff down it's free for all. A way around this is to make low res images, not
good enough to warrant a copy of the image, but good enough for us to see. But then
what do we really achieve, a collection of possibly great photos at lousy resolution?
What we could do is make it into a double headed forum. A collection of low res
images portraying peoples protfolios, where people from around the world can see
your images, get enough idea of what you can do and then contact you for hard
copies , contracts etc. This would be wonderful, a kinda rec.photo stock agency,
without all those agent fees. Or a good forum for stock agencies to come to you,
instead of you banging on thier door.
And secondly, the best resolution images obtainable for poeple
who are keen to have their photos shown, scrutinised, praised. Basically the photo-swap
idea. Or perhaps we could have monthly competitions, themes etc. A forum to exchange
ideas. The beauty of Moaiac is that you can annotate your images with your intentions
and technical speil.
I would be keen to see this happen, but it will require a fair bit of work, administration,
disk space, and time. I would assume that not all of us here have UNIX stations running
X, but I think all those PC users who run the PC version of Xwindows can still
run Xmosiac, so display should not be that limited. I would also assume that we would
probably need someone to administer the server and the images on it. rec.photo is
unmoderated, but with the inculsion of GIF and JPEG files there may be some need
for moderation - NOT THAT I WANT THIS, but the wonderful censorship laws
here will make it very difficult for me to access the server if there is anything mildly
naughty. I am sure I'll find a way around that problem ;-) It shouldnt be limited
to a clothes on forum, I believe that we all know what is art/photography as opposed
to pornography.
Just some ideas
James
---
| James Mitchell | jame...@iti.gov.sg |
| Information Technology Institute | |
| National Computer Board | |
| Singapore | "I hate Quotes" - Anon |
Jack Campin
> But with regard to doing this through digital media, having been somewhere
> near digital imaging for a while now, I can state without reservation that
> for photography, I am not impressed! It's good enough to get the general
> idea across, but not good enough to convey the real feeling of a really good
> print.
UK readers can see donl's point exemplified by the cover of Amateur
Photographer two or three weeks ago, when they did it digitally via Photo
CD. As an image it was nothing to write home about anyway (the usual
sub-Playboy lady-with-big-knockers-and-orange-skin) but the artifacts
introduced were revolting - some kind of vertical striations visible on all
areas of mid-tone, and black splotches that made her hair look as though it
was full of mouse shit. You could see the difference in tonal rendition at
a range of several feet; I stood back from the newsstand to compare it with
the cover photos on the current range of women's magazines and they *all*
looked obviously better than AP at a moment's glance. (AP also described
their timeline for getting that cover done: about a month. Not a winner
in that department either).
--
-- Jack Campin -- Room 1.36, Department of Computing & Electrical Engineering,
Mountbatten Building, Heriot-Watt University, Riccarton, Edinburgh EH14 4AS
TEL: 031 449 5111 ext 4192 FAX: 031 451 3431 INTERNET: ja...@cee.hw.ac.uk
JANET: possibly backwards BITNET: via UKACRL BANG!net: via mcsun & uknet
Stephen Mounsey
>do...@glass.esd.sgi.com (donl mathis) wrote:
>> But with regard to doing this through digital media, having been somewhere
>> near digital imaging for a while now, I can state without reservation that
>> for photography, I am not impressed! It's good enough to get the general
>> idea across, but not good enough to convey the real feeling of a really good
>> print.
>UK readers can see donl's point exemplified by the cover of Amateur
>Photographer two or three weeks ago, when they did it digitally via Photo
>CD. As an image it was nothing to write home about anyway (the usual
>sub-Playboy lady-with-big-knockers-and-orange-skin) but the artifacts
>introduced were revolting - some kind of vertical striations visible on all
>areas of mid-tone, and black splotches that made her hair look as though it
>was full of mouse shit. You could see the difference in tonal rendition at
So, you're saying that, not only is AP _full_ of shit, but covered in it
also.
>a range of several feet; I stood back from the newsstand to compare it with
>the cover photos on the current range of women's magazines and they *all*
>looked obviously better than AP at a moment's glance. (AP also described
>their timeline for getting that cover done: about a month. Not a winner
>in that department either).
Indeed, the issue in question did look oustandingly awful and stood out
like a sore thumb at every newsstand. Normally I'd expect a magazine
(photographic or otherwise) to present a grovelling apology for such
appalling printing, rather than crow about it on the front cover as if
it were some sort of breakthrough.
-Stephen (in more-than-usually-cynical mood)
Mike McDonald
|> In article <snewton.16...@oac.hsc.uth.tmc.edu>, sne...@oac.hsc.uth.tmc.edu (Steven E. Newton) writes:
|>
|> |> Most folks on this group seem to be techophiles. I was a member of the Photo
|> |> Swap in years past and I recall a lot of people not wanting to join for some
|> |> varation on the "I'm really not ready to show my pictures to other people yet"
|> |> reason. But these were the same folks would could discuss technical minutae
|> |> until your brain melted.
|>
|> Hey! This sounds like me! :)
|>
|> And I *am* really ready to show my pictures to other people yet, it's just
|> that I can't seem to find time to put together a rational portfolio. But
|> I'm going to take care of that, Real Soon Now.
Me too. I need to get serious about a few prints and get that prtfolio of mine
updated.
|> But with regard to doing this through digital media, having been
|> somewhere near digital imaging for a while now, I can state without
|> reservation that for photography, I am not impressed! It's good enough
|> to get the general idea across, but not good enough to convey the real
|> feeling of a really good print.
|>
I think things are rapidly changing with regard to digital imaging. I took a
Photo-CD image of the waterfall at Juia Pfieffer Burns State Park (California)
into the local camera store this weekend to try out their new digital system.
After removing the dust spots and the scratch, we adjusted the contrast a bit,
lighten up the waterfall, and made a 8x10 print on a Fuji Pictography 3000
printer. No one I've shown it to has been able to tell it was a digital print! A
few asked what brand of paper it was printed on but not how. Now, I wouldn't want
to make a 16x20 from it. (Although I'd be interested in see what it looks like.)
The print shows all the detail in the negative without any pixelization artifacts
showing. I wouldn't have any qualms about giving it to a customer for
commercial publication. It's not quite up to my standard for a fine art print
though, but then very few of my prints are period!
Mike McDonald Advanced Technology Dept.
Harris Corp.
Email: m...@trantor.harris-atd.com M.S. 16-1912
Voice: (407) 727-5060 P.O. Box 37
Fax: (407) 729-3363 Melbourne, Florida 32902
Steven E. Newton
>And I *am* really ready to show my pictures to other people yet, it's just
>that I can't seem to find time to put together a rational portfolio. But
>I'm going to take care of that, Real Soon Now.
Sure, but you have time to get your prints done? Hmmm....
>I must also be one of the anal-retentive people you have in mind,
>because I care about grain/tonal range/velvety blacks/resolution/Zones.
>And I take pictures that I like to look at, myself, and that I like to
>show other people.
Sounds like you take a lot of TIME making your photographs. Where do you find
the time to do that but not do a portfolio? And who said anything about a
portfolio? Just scan a couple of nice ones and stick 'em out there, takes a
an hour at *most*.
>Technical skills are just a way of making better photographs. They're
>important, if you want to make better photographs. They can't turn a
>bad image into a good photograph, but a lack of skills can easily turn
>a good image into a bad photograph.
I've seen tremendously more technically "perfect" pictures that just plain
stink than great pictures that lack something technically. Could it be that
it's easier to be technically competent than to be a good photographer? Could
it be that it's *really hard* to be a good photographer and technically poor?
Nah.
Bruce White 619-597-3807
>Hi,
>
>Hmmm... Not a bad idea really. I dont know why it didn't dawn on me earlier, I use
>Mosaic everyday. Yeah, that would be cool to see peoples images, but there will have
>to be a few things to think about.
>
>1) Only those of us that are lucky enough to have access to scanners will be able to
>easily and cheaply get our images onto the server.
True but scanner prices have come down in price; I guess that alot of rec.photo
readers could probably find one at work if they don't own one personally.
> A way around this is to whack
>your shots onto photoCD, but then you need a PCD player, or Mac Centris to get
>the info down the line.
Probably less expensive to borrow someone's scanner than pay $ to get a Photo CD made.
>2) Our ambition would be to get the highest resolution images onto the server, but you
>should think twice about this.
I think that lower resolution images would be fine to start (640x480, etc). The larger
image formats take rather long to transfer from the Mosaic servers.
>If you want to maintian copyright on the image it
>is definately not in your best interest to put it on the server, the moment you put this
>stuff down it's free for all.
This is not correct. You don't automatically lose your copyright by putting your photos on-line;
check the Berne convention.
> A way around this is to make low res images, not
>good enough to warrant a copy of the image, but good enough for us to see. But then
>what do we really achieve, a collection of possibly great photos at lousy resolution?
The spirit of the server might be more in line with sharing/teaching and bringing
rec.photo into the multimedia era. Your work is still copyrighted regardless of
resolution or format.
>
>What we could do is make it into a double headed forum. A collection of low res
>images portraying peoples protfolios, where people from around the world can see
>your images, get enough idea of what you can do and then contact you for hard
>copies , contracts etc. This would be wonderful, a kinda rec.photo stock agency,
>without all those agent fees. Or a good forum for stock agencies to come to you,
>instead of you banging on thier door.
>
> And secondly, the best resolution images obtainable for poeple
>who are keen to have their photos shown, scrutinised, praised. Basically the photo-swap
>idea. Or perhaps we could have monthly competitions, themes etc. A forum to exchange
>ideas. The beauty of Moaiac is that you can annotate your images with your intentions
>and technical speil.
>
>I would be keen to see this happen, but it will require a fair bit of work, administration,
>disk space, and time. I would assume that not all of us here have UNIX stations running
>X, but I think all those PC users who run the PC version of Xwindows can still
>run Xmosiac, so display should not be that limited. I would also assume that we would
>probably need someone to administer the server and the images on it. rec.photo is
>unmoderated, but with the inculsion of GIF and JPEG files there may be some need
>for moderation - NOT THAT I WANT THIS, but the wonderful censorship laws
>here will make it very difficult for me to access the server if there is anything mildly
>naughty. I am sure I'll find a way around that problem ;-) It shouldnt be limited
>to a clothes on forum, I believe that we all know what is art/photography as opposed
>to pornography.
>
I'm going to study what is involved with creating a Mosaic server. I don't think
that it is really that hard, but I'll get an understanding in a few days.
My guess is that administration of the server will require a moderator; that is, you
couldn't automatically and instantaneously publish your image to the server.
The administrator would create a home page for the different image types and organize
different portfolios. A photographer could optionally submit an audio track which
describes his experiences in taking the photo, or technical details involved
in the darkroom processing of the print.
Bruce
Jeff DelPapa
In thier catalog of the process, did they mention who did the scan,
and what output device did they make the final film on ( they had to
make monochrome separatory negs, to make plates from) and any other
intermediate steps they chose.
There is a definet hierarchy in the scan shops -- some just slap it in
and scan, others carefully adjust the scan until it looks right on
their gamma corrected monitor. The first folk are "saved" by the 12
bit dynamic range, the second sort charge more, and earn it.
<dp>
donl mathis
|> In article <l09...@zuni.esd.sgi.com> do...@glass.esd.sgi.com (donl mathis) writes:
[Editor's note: our author, usually known as a mild-mannered computer
programmer who blathers endlessly regarding certain technical aspects
of photography, is about to engage in an unusually snotty little
response, just brimming with emotion, and best of all, sarcasm! Please
forgive, in advance, any offenses that may find their way through these
words.]
|> >And I *am* really ready to show my pictures to other people yet, it's just
|> >that I can't seem to find time to put together a rational portfolio. But
|> >I'm going to take care of that, Real Soon Now.
|>
|> Sure, but you have time to get your prints done? Hmmm....
Well, yes, lately I've had time to get a few prints done, along with a
bunch of other projects. Most of my efforts of late have been related
to astrophotography, which is a whole nother kettle of fish. Large
parts of my life over the last few years have been decimated by certain
problems, so I haven't been able to do as much of *anything* as I've
wanted.
Things are changing in my life these days, though, and I expect to have
more time to devote to printing. But I will print for me, mostly, and
whoever I choose to show my images to, e.g. anyone who happens to stop
by my office, or my friends, or whoever. Some of these are mighty fine
images, if I do say myself, or if I listen to the opinions of others
who see them. Some are a little boring, but if I don't like the image,
I usually don't print it.
My printing gets better as time goes on. My technical skills improve
and give me more tools to work with. My vision improves, and I see
better when I'm out looking for subjects. But these are my images, and
if I choose not to spew them out into the great bitnet, nobody's going
to razz me into doing so, no matter how sarcastically clever and
caustic they think they may be.
You're messin' with the wrong hombre, pilgrim! :)
|> Sounds like you take a lot of TIME making your photographs. Where do you find
|> the time to do that but not do a portfolio? And who said anything about a
|> portfolio? Just scan a couple of nice ones and stick 'em out there, takes a
|> an hour at *most*.
Ew, yuck. I wouldn't subject my prints to that scanner under any but
the most unavoidable and carefully-controlled circumstances. :)
Pixels are just not such a great way of representing some images, in my
opinion. Here at Silicon Graphics, I've had a chance to see quite a
few digital images, and the only ones that work, I think, are the ones
that are fuzzed in some way. I prefer high resolution, not only for
the prints I make, but the ones I look at. Resolution is part of the
experience of looking at them; it's an important part of my images.
They would not feel the same if they were not sharp. It's the
difference between being able to see crunchy little grains of sand, or
some bland gray area. I can see those little grains of sand; they look
cold and wet. I can almost feel them. It would not be the same
photograph without them.
This is not true for all forms of photography, but for some, high
resolution is a vital part of the image. (Who was it that said "The
genius is in the details"? :)
And I'll choose how to spend my hours, thank you very much!
|> >Technical skills are just a way of making better photographs. They're
|> >important, if you want to make better photographs. They can't turn a
|> >bad image into a good photograph, but a lack of skills can easily turn
|> >a good image into a bad photograph.
|>
|> I've seen tremendously more technically "perfect" pictures that just plain
|> stink than great pictures that lack something technically.
I'm not sure this statement has a whole lot of meaning. I've seen lots
of pictures, too, good and bad, technically perfect or not. I much
prefer technically perfect, good pictures to any other variety. I've
seen a lot of images that would have been very effective if they were a
bit more skillfully made. Pictures that would have been nice if they
were sharp, or printed well, or whatever. But I don't really want to
play "My dad's bigger than your dad", so I'm even going to try to
declare that there are more of these than those.
If you're going to start quantifying, you're going to have to define
the ballpark. Are we including only "art"? Do we include news
images? Television stills? Magazines? Snapshots? Who defines
"great"? You've got your notion of what makes an image great, and so
do I. I have a sneaking suspicion that our notions are different. I
am not trying to take yours away from you; are you trying to take mine
from me? I just don't want to play that game.
|> Could it be that
|> it's easier to be technically competent than to be a good photographer?
Sure, I'd agree with that. Technical issues are much easier for most
people to master than the artistic ones.
Isn't it worthwhile to try for a balance between both of them, though?
Is there some advantage to remaining technically ignorant? Does
becoming technically competent somehow mean you can't be a good
photographer? Can't those who choose to try and improve their
technical skills go ahead and do so, to the benefit of whatever
artistic skills they may be working on or with?
|> Could it be that it's *really hard* to be a good photographer and
|> technically poor?
I don't get it. Are you suggesting that it's more difficult to be a
good photographer if you don't have mastery over the technical issues?
I would have to agree with that, but you seem to have been arguing the
opposite side of the issue for the most part, so that must not be what
you meant.
Let's see. Are you trying to say that being a good photographer, while
being technically underdeveloped, is more difficult, and therefore you
earn more respect for accomplishing it? It's more difficult to make
good photographs if you wear a beekeepers hood, too, but I don't think
that's necessarily an arrangement to strive for. Doesn't it make sense
for a good photographer to find ways to make his life easier, so he can
devote more energy to things that really count?
|> Nah.
Sarcasm! Hey, cool! :)
There. I feel much better now. (How'd I do, Mom? :)
[We now return you to our regularly-scheduled postings. Thank you
for your indulgance.]
Pete Pulliam
>I recently obtained a copy of Xmosaic which allows access to multimedia documents
>over the Internet. Instead of posting GIFs which would flood the net, someone
>could set up a server for rec.photo images and Xmosaic would allow you to browse
>through different photographers' portfolios.
>Xmosaic is incredible. You can retrieve anything from "movies" to "radio shows" and
>actually watch (or listen) to everything without typing in any cryptic UNIX commands.
To which Pete Pulliam replies:
I also have played around with this program. I think it would be a
wonderfull idea that is far superior to posting the pictures to
the *.pictures.* groups.
Incidentally, it is also possible to set up an index at one site that
only contains pointers to other sites. This "central index" could be
a list of photographers. This would have the advantages of taking up
very little disk space at the central site and allowing the
photographers involved to manage their own portfolios. It does have
the disadvantage of requiring a bit more technical expertise on the
part of all the photographers participating. I think that placing the
burden of disk resources on the individuals is a much more realistic
approach.
Barry Sherman
Steve Newton:
> Most folks on this group seem to be techophiles. I was a member of the Photo
> Swap in years past and I recall a lot of people not wanting to join for some
> varation on the "I'm really not ready to show my pictures to other people yet"
> reason. But these were the same folks would could discuss technical minutae
> until your brain melted.
During the previous incarnation of the Photo Swap, I was one of those not yet
ready. Now I'm ready and attempted to participate in the photoswap that was
attempted last January. All I got out of that was a lost print.
And yes, there's far more "techno-babble" in rec.photo than I prefer. Not
a big deal though. I partake of that which interests me and ignore the
rest. One of the gems that I read here a few months ago will stick withe me
for a long time:
Amateurs show their equipment. Professionals show their work.
donl mathis:
>But with regard to doing this through digital media, having been
>somewhere near digital imaging for a while now, I can state without
>reservation that for photography, I am not impressed! It's good enough
>to get the general idea across, but not good enough to convey the real
>feeling of a really good print.
I couldn't agree more.
> Look, I take pictures to show to other people, and I'm not anal-retentive
> about grain/tonal range/velvety blacks/resolution/Zones, but I'm good enough I
> can do all that if I feel like it. So my scans aren't exactly like "real
> PRINTS"? Isn't it the content that matters? Hey, we're talkin' communication
> here, not chemistry.
Isn't it the content that matters? Yes and no. This is true in a photo of
my dog that I might send to someone to show what she looks like. This is
true in a photo of a prisoner being executed by a bullet to the head. This
is true in a sports photo.
It would appear that the meaning of the word "content" here is actually
"subject" and in these styles of photography the subject is the content
and is what's important.
But this is only partly true in the "fine art landscape" school of photography.
In this type of photography the rendering of the subject is every bit as
important as the subject itself. Thus in this style of photography, "content"
means both "subject" and "grain/tonal range/velvety blacks/resolution/Zones".
And that content cannot be reproduced electronically at this date. Period.
Since that is the exclusive style of photography that I pursue as is true, I
believe, for donl, for us to display our photos electronically would be to
effectively eliminate half of their content in the reproduction. I will
not do this. It is not uncommon for me to work on a print for 10-40 hours,
until I'm so sick of it that I can't evaluate the final version for a
few weeks. After doing this much work I'm not about to eliminate half the
content of the print for the sake of showing other people that I'm not
afraid to show my work.
I do show my work in public and in private at every chance that I get. And
I'm starting to investigate ways to get into even more public displays such
as corporate offices, cafes and galleries. When the means of electronically
reproducing the full content of my photography becomes available I'll be one
of the first jumping up and down to display his work to the world through
electronics. Until then I'll stick to physical media, thank you.
donl:
>I must also be one of the anal-retentive people you have in mind,
Me too. 'Cept I *like* grain. In an appropriate style of photography.
donl:
>Technical skills are just a way of making better photographs. They're
>important, if you want to make better photographs. They can't turn a
>bad image into a good photograph,
Sometimes I wonder. I see a significant number of "fine art" photographs
which really are "made" by the technical skill of the maker. I think of
Ansel Adam's "Tenaya Lake". Dark water. Slab of granite. Puffy white
clouds. Perhaps somewhat trite by todays (and my) standards. Were it not for
his technical skill it's be just a snapshot. But the execution makes it
beautiful.
Or the photo of Carmel Valley by Morley Baer. Really there's nothing of much
interest in the photo. A valley, some grass, some buildings and some
clouds. Big deal. But his execution of "grain/tonal range/velvety blacks/
resolution/Zones" makes it wonderful.
donl:
> but a lack of skills can easily turn
>a good image into a bad photograph.
Mr. Adams was certainly right when he deplored "sharp execution of a fuzzy
idea". Personally I also deplore a fuzzy execution of a sharp idea.
The idea is to have a sharp execution of a sharp idea. Unless, of course,
soft focus is what you desire. :-)
Barry
--
|----------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| Barry Sherman, Amdahl Corp. | "It's much easier to go to exotic places and |
| b...@uts.amdahl.com | capture spectacular scenes than to take a |
| | spectacular picture of a really boring |
| | green pepper". - Anthony Tse |
|----------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| Amdahl, being a corporation, is a legal fiction. Therefore it is incapable|
| of holding, let alone expressing, opinions. Unfortunately, this has been |
| said of me as well. (I.e. My statments are mine, not Amdahl's.) |
|----------------------------------------------------------------------------|
Steven E. Newton
>And yes, there's far more "techno-babble" in rec.photo than I prefer. Not
>a big deal though. I partake of that which interests me and ignore the
>rest. One of the gems that I read here a few months ago will stick withe me
>for a long time:
> Amateurs show their equipment. Professionals show their work.
You couldn't have said it better. For the record (again) you can see my
pictures either with gopher as
oac3.hsc.uth.tmc.edu:/computers/oac_staff/S_Newton/mygifs
or WWW as
http://oac11.hsc.uth.tmc.edu/mygifs.html
I'm afraid you'll find precious little technical info about the images or how
they were made, but if you email me I'll tell you probably more than you want
about who or what is in the image.
>Isn't it the content that matters? Yes and no. This is true in a photo of
>my dog that I might send to someone to show what she looks like. This is
>true in a photo of a prisoner being executed by a bullet to the head. This
>is true in a sports photo.
>It would appear that the meaning of the word "content" here is actually
>"subject" and in these styles of photography the subject is the content
>and is what's important.
Call it content, subject, representation, whatever, it's what you see through
the 'window'. Anything else isn't content, it's technique. And I'll repeat
here what I told donl in email -- there are some techniques that lose
something in electronic translation. If that's the style you prefer to work
in, that's cool, and we'll have to wait to see your images.
> It is not uncommon for me to work on a print for 10-40 hours,
Eeek! Let's see, the other night I made about 40 prints in about 4 hours.
Granted some of these were multiple prints of the same neg, and they were work
prints, but still. If I work making the best possible print from a negative
for more than an hour it's only because it's a lousy negative that I
absolutely MUST get an exhibition print from -- I've got a handful like that.
Years ago, in net.time eons ago, back in 1989, I was in the original
photoswap. It was OK, but the problem I had was that each packet had lots of
prints, and it was overwhelming to try to evaluate them all in a short time
and send them on. If images were available electronically I could take a look
at a couple at a time at my own pace.
If you have problems look at my images, btw, send email and I'll try to help.
Jeff Spirer
>And yes, there's far more "techno-babble" in rec.photo than I prefer. Not
>a big deal though. I partake of that which interests me and ignore the
>rest. One of the gems that I read here a few months ago will stick withe me
>for a long time:
>
> Amateurs show their equipment. Professionals show their work.
I would be happy if this is true. But many of the professionals I have met
spend a lot of time talking about equipment. It is different talk than what
happens here in general, more about lighting equipment and darkroom stuff
than cameras (I have never heard an even semi-religious comment about a
specific brand of camera or lens from a pro), but it is techno-babble. I
had one guy spend two hours telling me about his new color meter. I only
stayed the whole time because I was buying something I needed from him.
I think quite a bit of the "techno-babble" is useful, since I may figure out
how to do something that will eventually help me to take the picture(s) I
want to take. I may even figure out how to use my light meter after mercury
batteries become unavailable :-). However, I find the "my camera is best" stuff tiresome.
> <Lots of stuff about fine art photography deleted>
I did find Barry's comments here very worthwhile - I think the rush to digital
will make it harder for people who do some types of photography. Also, there
is a strong bias towards "technical perfection" that bothers me - I had what
I thought was a great photograph get nothing in a contest, probably because of
the use of grain. The winner had a stunningly perfect print of an incredibly
boring bridge.
Jeff
The Seeker
and a vidio from National Geographic about digital imaging and manipulation.
The photo's they used in the articals look great, noon of these obvious
flaws mentioned in previous posts. All they used was a 300 dpi scanner,
Machintosh Quadra 900, Adobe Photoshop and a Color Thermal Printer. Not really
what you would call super high tech computer equipment. I guess my point
is that maybe these people that are seeing really bad images are not looking
in the right place because there is a lot of good quality digital images
out there. The video and article also pointed out that MOST major magazines
today use digital manipulation, so it is all over the place, including the
cover of national geographic!
Fred
robert.m.atkins
>
> I did find Barry's comments here very worthwhile - I think the rush to digital
> will make it harder for people who do some types of photography. Also, there
> is a strong bias towards "technical perfection" that bothers me - I had what
> I thought was a great photograph get nothing in a contest, probably because of
> the use of grain. The winner had a stunningly perfect print of an incredibly
> boring bridge.
>
Technical perfection is sometimes required. Would Ansel Adams' pictures
have been so widely acclaimed if he had used fast B&W film in a 35mm
camera? On the other hand, contest judging is a black art. Some judges
have a fixed set of rules and wouldn't know a good picture if it got up
and bit them on the leg! To get anywhere in my local photo club it seems
you must have the subject large, off-center and in agrement with the other
rules which are carved in stone somewhere. It also helps if the subject
is "nice". Go your own way - if you think your picture is great, it is.
Don't let others opinions shake you. I take pictures that please me. If
others like them, so much the better. If they don't like them, then that's
obviously due to their lack of taste!
Technotalk is interesting to me, because I'm a "techie". It doesn't mean
that you need it in order to take good picture, but a thorough understanding
of the equipment and materials you are working with can be a great help
in getting the shots you want. It most certainly does not guarantee you
great pictures, but at times it can be a big help.
* Bob Atkins AT&T Bell Labs r...@clockwise.att.com EOS FAQ maintainer *
* Get FAQ via anonymous ftp from moink.nmsu.edu as rec.photo/canon/faq22.asc *
Jeff Spirer
>Technical perfection is sometimes required. Would Ansel Adams' pictures
>have been so widely acclaimed if he had used fast B&W film in a 35mm
>camera?
I would agree with this, but I was really talking about art vs picture post-
cards in contests. Also, when it comes to photography that moves me, I prefer
Brett Weston, who was technically perfect, and Imogen Cunningham, who often
was not, to Ansel Adams. Just personal preferences, and not something I can
argue. But I think that Cunningham would lose in most of the contests I have
seen the results of.
>On the other hand, contest judging is a black art. Some judges
This is very true, I just wish the judges bios that you get with the contest
entry forms was more descriptive. "Images of the Bay Area" was a very
open title. If I had realized they were more concerned with technical
perfection than personal interpretations, I wouldn't have bothered.
>is "nice". Go your own way - if you think your picture is great, it is.
>Don't let others opinions shake you. I take pictures that please me. If
>others like them, so much the better. If they don't like them, then that's
>obviously due to their lack of taste!
I don't have trouble with this. I would like to see my pix on a wall
somewhere which is why I enter the contests.
>
>Technotalk is interesting to me, because I'm a "techie". It doesn't mean
>that you need it in order to take good picture, but a thorough understanding
>of the equipment and materials you are working with can be a great help
>in getting the shots you want. It most certainly does not guarantee you
>great pictures, but at times it can be a big help.
It can be very interesting to me too, like the mirror/shutter effects that
you and a few others discussed. Maybe I should rephrase what bothers me,
which is the endless feature discussion about cameras and how some feature
makes one camera better than other. Popular Photography does this more than
enough. And it completely ignores personal requirements - just as an
example, someone that always shoots handheld with a flash is probably not
going to get very excited about mirror lockup.
Jeff
Bruce White
you'd end up ftp'ing to another machine, into the photographer's archive directory.
Sounds good, it avoids the need for a moderator.
Bruce
Barry Sherman
>In article 34dJ02p...@JUTS.ccc.amdahl.com, b...@ruts.ccc.amdahl.com (Barry Sherman) writes:
>> Amateurs show their equipment. Professionals show their work.
>I would be happy if this is true. But many of the professionals I have met
>spend a lot of time talking about equipment. It is different talk than what
>happens here in general, more about lighting equipment and darkroom stuff
>than cameras (I have never heard an even semi-religious comment about a
>specific brand of camera or lens from a pro), but it is techno-babble. I
>had one guy spend two hours telling me about his new color meter. I only
>stayed the whole time because I was buying something I needed from him.
Good point. Actually when I think "professional" I think of my experiences
with landscape photographers such as Ray McSavaney or Charles Cramer. Large
format landscape photographers tend toward similar equipment and there's less
technobabble, I suspect.
>I think quite a bit of the "techno-babble" is useful, since I may figure out
>how to do something that will eventually help me to take the picture(s) I
>want to take. I may even figure out how to use my light meter after mercury
>batteries become unavailable :-).
Agreed. Honestly, without meaning to sound egotistical, I think that part
of my problem is that I'm reaching the point of having participated here
long enough that I've heard it all before so it's less interesting than
it once was. But there's no doubt in my mind that I've learned more about
the science and craft of photography here than I have from any other source.
And gotten more pointers to sources of equipment and other goodies than I
could possibly otherwise.
>However, I find the "my camera is best" stuff tiresome.
Good lord yes! To say nothing of the more generic "My way is best".
>I did find Barry's comments here very worthwhile - I think the rush to digital
>will make it harder for people who do some types of photography. Also, there
>is a strong bias towards "technical perfection" that bothers me - I had what
>I thought was a great photograph get nothing in a contest, probably because of
>the use of grain. The winner had a stunningly perfect print of an incredibly
>boring bridge.
I see this a lot in PSA-affiliated photo competitions. Judges whose main
concern is that no-one violates the "rule of thirds" or puts a horizon hear
the middle of the picture or has anything that's less than perfectly
focused. Personally, I consider the first two "rules" nothing more than
guidelines to be violated at the discretion of the artist. The latter,
though, (sharp focus) does strike me as important in some types of
photography. Namely classical landscape photography. Less so in other
types of photography such as photojournalism and sports. I'd hope that
judges and viewers take into account the type of photography being viewed.
Steven E. Newton
http://oac11.hsc.uth.tmc.edu/mygifs.html