In December of 2009, I surprised my man-friend with a trip to Las Vegas. Vegas is total spectacle and if you’ve ever been, you know that even the airport is full of glitz, glamour and slot machines. Norman Klein has written a history of special effects entitled The Vatican to Vegas – you should check it out. During this trip, we were lucky enough to visit The Neon Museum, also affectionately called the neon boneyard. And that is is – just piles of old neon signs, as if Scorsese used them up and dismantled them right after filming Casino. If you’re ever out in Vegas, I highly recommend checking out The Neon Museum – but make sure to schedule a tour in advance because they book up fast!

Being that the man-friend and I are total font geeks, the mix of typography and bold graphics was truly exciting.

I couldn’t help but adjust these for that slightly-desaturated, sepia-toned look that just screams desert. Too much?

In the right side of the photo, you’ll see a piece from the original Stardust Hotel and Casino sign. The way you see it in this image, the piece is laying on its side. The entire Stardust sign takes up about one entire mile of the boneyard. How cool is that?

What is Foto Friday? I post a photograph (or a bunch of photographs) every Friday.  Let me know what you think!

Tank Man 20 is a collaborative project I organized last year at Tyler School of Art. Over 90 first year students enrolled in Foundation Computers participated in the creation of the piece. 2009 marked 20 years since the events at Tiananmen Square took place. I thought it fitting that a new generation of students should reflect on the role that the media played in the creation and proliferation of such an iconic image – that of the tank man. Also, I wasn’t surprised to learn that many of my students were unaware of the events at Tianenmen Square. They did recognize “tank man” as an important cultural reference.

The first step was to screen a really great documentary created by PBS for Frontline in 2006. The entire program is available to watch online and it’s really fascinating! After the screening, it was up to the students to remix and remake the tank man image in whatever way they saw fit. The students were aware of the ultimate goal, that their single image would be chopped up into a grid and presented in an ever-rotating online presentation of all 90+ images.

The end result is an ever-changing flash animation in which over 1,800 images are pulled to reformulate the tank man image. The online project can be viewed at www.TankMan20.com. Each student’s individual piece can also be viewed under the credits section which links to every complete image. Jessica Lee, a student enrolled in one of my Fall 2009 courses created one of my favorite remakes. Her simple technique of erasing out of the tanks and the unidentifiable tank man to an all-but ghost image is really effective. It makes me think of events and how they are remembered and reinterpreted through our later understanding of them. Tatyana Grechina, also enrolled in one of my courses, remade the image using a beautiful mix of three-dimensional and two-dimensional textiles.

I was walking the dog today and thinking about how exciting it is that more and more people are using the technology they have available to them to create and share digital images and video. Then I got depressed thinking about how despite having access to more and more technology, not many people understand some of the basic concepts of digital imagery. Clearly, I’m easily depressed. The main concept that I don’t think most people outside of the design/art/education field understand is that of resolution.

As an adjunct instructor (I don’t meant to brag, really) of electronic media and foundation level computer classes, I lecture for about 3 hours each semester to every class on resolution. I somehow make up for this painstakingly meticulous process by watching funny YouTube videos afterwards. Understanding what pixel resolution really is and how to manipulate and manage it is an extremely important tool for artists and designers, but even more so for amateur photographers and also, my Mom – who continues to print images directly from Facebook.

Resolution Myth #1: Low Resolution = Bad Quality

This idea could not be more wrong. And yet, people like to say “oh, the resolution is too low” as if that’s the same as “oh, that’s just a crappy picture”. Every image I have posted on this blog so far has been set at a low resolution, because screens (and therefore the interwebs and its browsers) don’t NEED a lot of information. Screen resolution requires the smallest amount of pixels (72 pixels for every inch of the image), so that’s why web graphics and our Facebook images pop up quickly while still looking great! Low resolution can therefore imply low quantity (of pixels that is), but not necessarily low quality.

Resolution Myth #2: Online Images Can’t Be Printed

So the interwebs doesn’t need that much information (again, think quantity of pixels) but we’ve already countered the first myth that low resolution images (e.g. web images) are lower quality. The problem with trying to print most web images is that while screens/the interwebs need a small amount of pixels to show great-looking pictures, desktop printers that you have at home need more information. If you try to print out someone’s picture from Facebook, it’s going to look crappy. But that doesn’t mean that ALL pictures online can’t be printed. It really comes down to the question “how big can I print it?”

Let’s break down some image sizes. The image below is a scan of a painting of my Grandmother; wasn’t she gorgeous?

The ORIGINAL image size breaks down as the following:
Dimensions in inches: 8″ by 10.667″
Dimensions in pixels: 1200 px by 1600 px
Resolution: 150 ppi

For resolution newbies, ppi stands for “pixels per inch”. Learn it, live it!  150 ppi is a good starting point for printing images yourself. You don’t want to go any lower than 150 ppi. So I can print out this image 8″ by 10.667″ and it will look stunning.

General Myth #1: Lady Gaga is Avante-Garde

Now let’s move on to this image I found on the web.

I’ve resized the Lady Gaga image for posting on this blog, of course. Many of my students are crazy-obsessed with Lady Gaga and this is something I’m still trying to figure out… but I digress. If you’d like to get the original image and use it as a wallpaper on your ‘puter, you can find it here.

The ORIGINAL image size breaks down as the following:
Dimensions in inches: 16.667″ by 22.222″
Dimensions in pixels: 1200 px by 1600 px
Resolution: 72 ppi

So the pixel dimensions of both images are the same!! The only thing that differs between these two images – other than taste and personal preference of course – is the inch dimensions and the resolution. What this all basically means is that the Lady Gaga image can be resized to 150 ppi for printing, but in doing that, the inch dimensions much decrease. We can’t print her at the original inch dimensions which were slightly larger than 16″ by 22″.

Resolution is determined by the amount of PIXELS PER INCH; so if we distribute the pixels across fewer inches (e.g. from 16.667″ by 22.222″ to 8″ by 10.667″) we produce a higher resolution. So regardless of the origin of an image, the thing that really matters is the pixel dimensions and not necessarily the original resolution.

So in conclusion, I too cry pink tears over the misuse of the term “low resolution” and dream of a future world in which everyone – including my Mom – will understand how to manage their image resolution correctly! Also, if you’ve managed to find this blog post, I’d be happy to help anyone resize their images – just send me an email.

The title of this post means “I can’t speak German”.  I was fortunate enough to travel to Germany TWICE in 2009. I am a lucky, lucky girl. This photograph was taken inside an S-Bahn (subway) station in Berlin. The weird turquoise tile reminds me of kitchens in America during the 1950s; plus the advertisements are amazing!

What it is about transit maps that are so graphically beautiful?  I can’t remember the exact station, but it was somewhere in this general area, near the Zoologischer Garten station:

What is Foto Friday? I post a photograph every Friday.  Let me know what you think!