Category Archives: Photography

These are blogs about things photographic.

Panoramic cameras and images, Part I

Posted on June 3, 2017 by Brian Lawler

The first true panoramic camera was patented by William J. Johnston in 1904. Century Camera Company brought that camera to market in 1905 as the Century Cirkut Camera. The company later became a part of the Eastman Kodak Company, which … Continue reading →

Posted in Art, History, Panoramic Photography, Photography, Photoshop techniques, Scanning, Software, Technology | Tagged Brian Lawler, Century Cirkut, Cirkut, Cirkut camera, Graflex Cirkut, Kodak Cirkut, Panoramic photography, rotating panoramic photography | Leave a comment

Ink is a terrible thing to waste

Posted on May 17, 2017 by Brian Lawler

I’m teaching this semester in Munich, Germany, at the Hochschule München, or more correctly, Hochschule für Angewandte Wissenschaften München. It’s just a few blocks from the city center on Tram route 20. We have about 20,000 students on several campuses. … Continue reading →

Posted in Color Management, Photography, Printing and Printing Processes, Technology | Tagged Brian Lawler, clogged ink-jet nozzles, color management, Epson 9900, Epson ink-jet, Hochschule Munchen, idel ink-jet printer | 4 Comments

The Bishop Peak Portrait Project – complete!

Posted on May 15, 2017 by Brian Lawler

Thank you all for your patience while I built the Bishop Peak Portrait Project, a series of thousands of photos of San Luis Obispo’s most prominent mountain. I started the project in November, 2015 with the construction of a weatherproof … Continue reading →

Posted in Art, Photography, Photoshop techniques, Printing and Printing Processes | Tagged Bishop Peak, Bishop Peak Portrait Project, Brewster, Brian Lawler, Cal Poly, Derek Gragson, Eric Johnson, Phil Bailey, San Luis Obispo, time-lapse project | Leave a comment

Street Art provides an opportunity
for repositioned panoramas

Posted on May 9, 2017 by Brian Lawler

My wife and I traveled today to see a neighborhood in Munich that is famous for its street art. It’s called the Tumblingerstraße area, and it features some very sophisticated works of graffiti – much better than graffiti – that … Continue reading →

Posted in Adventures, Art, Panoramic Photography, People, Photography, Photoshop techniques, Software | Tagged Adobe Photoshop, Brian Lawler, Graffiti, Munich, Photomerge, sequential panoramic image, Street Art, Tumblingerstraße, urban art, urban fine art | Leave a comment

Van Gogh’s Père Tanguy in perspective

Posted on May 5, 2017 by Brian Lawler

Museums often have no-photography rules, depending on their policy about allowing visitors to take photos, or the legal arrangements they have with art owners, copyright holders and other things that go beyond my pay grade. In the Galleria dell’Accademia in Florence, … Continue reading →

Posted in Art, History, Photography, Photoshop techniques, Printing and Printing Processes | Tagged Brian Lawler, fine art photography, off-axis photography, photographing paintings, Rodin Museum, Van Gogh | Leave a comment

270° of the Alps in one panoramic photo

Posted on April 9, 2017 by Brian Lawler

Yesterday my wife and I ventured south from our temporary home in Munich to the German Alps. We traveled by Deutschbahn trains, and a bus (construction on the rails required this) and then another train to the town of Garmisch-Partenkirchen. … Continue reading →

Posted in Panoramic Photography, Photography | Tagged Alps, Austrian Alps, Bavaria, Brian Lawler, cog railway, Deutschbahn, Germany, Munich, panoramic photo, Zugspitze, Zugspitzebahn | Leave a comment

The Bishop Peak Portrait Project is very nearly up!

Posted on March 19, 2017 by Brian Lawler

For the next five months I’ll be living in Munich and teaching at the Munich University of Applied Sciences. I arrived here a week ago and I had my first classes this week. But, last week, before leaving San Luis … Continue reading →

Posted in Photography, Photoshop techniques, Printing and Printing Processes | Tagged Bishop Peak Portrait Project, Brian Lawler, Cal Poly, COSAM, Doug Brewster, Phil Bailey, Rob Brewster, time-lapse project | Leave a comment

Once a bitmap, always a bitmap

Posted on March 4, 2017 by Brian Lawler

In my recent series of blogs about reproducing line art from 19th century copper engravings (and similar line art) using modern digital technologies I showed how scanning as grayscale and converting to bitmap format (with the 50 percent dither option) … Continue reading →

Posted in Art, Photography, Photoshop techniques, Printing and Printing Processes, Scanning | Tagged adding color to line art, Brian Lawler, colonizing comic book art, colorizing line art, copper engraving reproduction, digitizing line art, line art scanning, Multiply mode | Leave a comment

The Bishop Peak Portrait Project comes to a close

Posted on February 17, 2017 by Brian Lawler

Last year about this time I was preparing to install my remote camera on the roof of the Kennedy Library at Cal Poly. I built a weatherproof box, designed and built a circuit board, tested the system, and then carried … Continue reading →

Posted in Photography, Photoshop techniques, Printing and Printing Processes, Technology | Tagged aluminum printing, Bishop Peak, Bishop Peak Portrait Project, Brian Lawler, Cal Poly, dye-sublimation, San Luis Obispo | 1 Comment

Line Art – colorizing engravings

Posted on February 4, 2017 by Brian Lawler

Each year I create a ticket. It’s a personal project, and in recent years it has become something of a personal challenge. I recently read a book about security printing. It was simply awful. Bad illustrations, meaningless text, too much … Continue reading →

Posted in Art, Photography, Photoshop techniques, Printing and Printing Processes | Tagged Brian Lawler, Colorizing engravings, high-resolution scanning, Photoshop Multiply mode, Scanning engraved art | Leave a comment