Here’s the second part:

http://www.seesmic.com/Standalone.html?video=m79827APII

Here are Roberts still shots

From Photoicon: www.photoicon.com

It’s rare for a professional photographer to give his work away for free, but five decades worth of Marc Silber’s images can now be downloaded in an ebook.

SILBER EXPLAINS: “I want to show others what I’ve seen, that’s my passion.”
However, he is quick to add, “I’m a working artist - I still retain all rights to my photos and of course would love for viewers to purchase my actual prints…but I decided to make it easy to get the feeling of my work by offering some of it as an ebook.”

He also says the idea of having the ebook released just ahead of his exhibition is a parallel to a musical artist releasing a CD and then going on tour.

The exhibition will show a variety of images from widespread backdrops such as Paris, Big Sur and Mexico.

Hyde Park walk, London. Marc Silber

Richard Sumner Gallery

Marc Silber:

Focus on Beauty

2 February - March, 2008

The ebook, also called Focus on Beauty, can be downloaded at www.silberstudios.com/focus_on_beauty

Rare shot of snow on Mt Hamilton above Silicon Valley, late this afternoon…

Full House at Smugmug 

For those who attended my workshop at SmugMug (and even if you didn’t) here’s what we need to do to move forward: Photography is a life-long learning process, if I can assist along the way that would be my pleasure. Here’s some steps to take to keep moving forward:

1. Be sure to subscribe to my blog (RSS on the right) so we can stay in touch, and see what’s on upcoming, etc
2. Download my ebook Taking Memorable Photographs it will help reinforce what you heard at the workshop.
3. Make your Framing Card and use it.
4. Come to my show Feb 2 at 3:30 and see my work live and let’s talk.
5. Come to our other workshops, stay tuned for details.
6. Stay in touch with me, send me any questions or comments.

What else would help?

Framing one of the senior elements in composing a great shot. You need to be able to take the frame of your shot and fill it properly and give the image a proper frame itself.

The best way to train your eye is to use this tool that Ansel Adams used to train his students, as you can see above. The black rectangle is cut out, giving you the same frame size of most digital and 35mm cameras.

Here’s the simple steps of learning to use this deceptively simple, yet powerful tool:

1. Click here to open framing-card.pdf

2. Print it on a white 3×5 card (or larger card and trim it)

3. Using an exacto knife or scissors, cut out the black rectangle, so you have a view-hole.

4. Now go out and practice, “getting shots” by looking through the frame.

5. You can get the effect of zooming in and out by moving the card closer or farther away from your eye.

6. Once you have a “shot” that you like, look at each corner of the frame and move around to adjust what is included in the frame.

7. Now, just continue doing this over and over until it is second nature.

Don’t worry about the zone system yet, we’ll cover that more later, it is a way to also look at the “shot” in terms of black, white and shades in between.

Remember to have fun with this and tell me how this goes for you.

You may have heard about Robert Scoble’s new TV Channel FastCompany.TV What you may not know is that PhotoWalking will be moving to FastCompany.TV too. This will greatly expand our coverage and add more resources to produce even better shows. You’ll see some great PhotoWalkings coming up soon, here’s just a few of the guests we have scheduled:

Ansel Adams’ grandson Matthew who is also the President of the Ansel Adams Gallery. We’ll be going to Yosemite to walk and talk along the trails that Ansel followed.

We’ll be doing the same with Kim Weston, the grandson of the great Edward Weston. We’ll visit Wild Cat Hill, the homestead of Edward where he had his darkroom and studio, and visit nearby Point Lobos where he shot many of his famous photos.

We’ll visit Jack Fulton the Chair of Photography at the San Francisco Art Institute (where I attended.) The photography department of the Art Institute was founded by Ansel Adams and Minor White and has been the hub of fine art photography on the west coast; Jack has been there since 1971 and has a rich history to tell, we’ll discuss his own work as well.

We’ll be building up to a weekly show, with many other surprises.

It’s gonna be a great show. Let me know topics/people/locations that you’d like us to cover?

Robert Scoble and I met with Steven Heiner, Nikon’s Senior Technical Manager

today to test drive the new D3, I won’t bore you with its details, but suffice it to say this is

the Ferrari of digital cameras. I had my “old” Nikon D2X and we wandered around getting a few shots:

The Ferry Building: “A famous city’s most famous landmark.” Herb Caen

This has been the jumping off spot for over 100 years (built in 1888)

t

irresistible…

We bump into Mark Anders, Adobe’s “Sr. Principal Scientist”

Robert does a Scoble Show on the spot

7 reasons why I favor love black and white photography:

1. I grew up with it, and it feels natural.

2. Doing color darkroom work was too expensive and too much hassle so I decided to master B&W in the darkroom and gain control over my final prints.

3. Playing with the zones from pure white (zone X) to pure black (zone 0) or as close as you can get, is fun and causes me to look at life differently. Funny how taking color out makes more of a shot.

4. It’s just cool.

5. I have to have a good reason to shoot color anymore. I love the “raw” look of B&W.

6. Taking equipment that is capable of the most amazing specturm of color and limiting it to B&W focuses all that power on the simplicities of the image.

7. Did I mention that it’s cool?

What are your thoughts?

No great shots but my first time out with the Olympus, like any new equipment there’s a learning curve, like not getting surf wax on the lens!

Surfer girl about to catch a wave

s

Paddling out

Learning to shoot while on a board

I’ve just completed a new ebook: Focus on Beauty, it’s available for download, here:

Click to download, also subscribe to my Blog RSS while you’re at it.

This ebook is made up of two Photo-essays I did for Gentry Magazine of the Silicon Valley and surrounding area. It actually covers bits of my work from 1964 to the present. Briefly, the story is: After showing my portfolio (with images shot from all over –Paris, Mexico, Vermont, etc) to the magazine’s publisher, she asked me if I could go out and capture shots of our area of the valley. My immediate answer was “of course!”

However, it’s sometimes easier to spot photo-worthy shots elsewhere than right under your nose, but I approached it with the idea of finding places as though I had landed in a foreign land. The results were, I believe interesting, and for me fun. For example, I thought it would be great to get the shot of the polo ponies in action right in a residential area and so went to the Menlo Circus club during a game; but on the same shoot I also found that disarming shot of the horse posing for me in her stall. I also added in some of my classics like the shot from 1964 of my 7th grade class room.

There’s real satisfaction in being able to summarize my view of this remarkable area and present it to you, I hope you l enjoy it as much as I did taking these shots.

Marc

In my workshops I like to cover the basics of photography, such as how to frame your shot as you can see here:

Here you see the illustration of two masters: The Ansel Adams card for training your eye to frame and the quote on the screen from Cartier-Bresson:

[Frame] “…a precise organization of forms which give that event its proper expression.”

Learning to frame is one of the keys to getting a great shot. Here’s the way to do it: Cut out a 3×5 card with a rectangle like you see me holding. Then go out and look for your shots. I want you to really use this card: Move it close to your eye and farther away to get the effect of zooming. Once you have the “shot” the way you want it, look at the whole frame — especially each corner Do you have that shot the way you want it? If not move around until you do!

Hey, you should come to my next free workshop at SmugMug 1/23 at 7PM! Click here to get the scoop and to RSVP. Here’s a shot from one of my workshops:

Learning about geometry of a photo from this shot called “7th Grade Geometry”

Not to get too geeky right off the bat…but let’s talk about the Zone System developed by Ansel Adams and Fred Archer in 1941—a very important concept that will help you to see light, which is the medium you’re working with in photography. Click on the link above and you’ll see that the spectrum goes from pure black (Zone 0) to pure white of the paper being printed on (Zone X). The “Grayscale values” are just another way of saying this: Again 0 is black, 255 is the white of the paper, 128 is gray in between, etc. The idea is to cover most or all of these zones in your final print. Its use helps you to visualize the final photograph with a dynamic range of tones, which really “pops.”

However, more than just a tool for developing and printing (or your digital exposure and Photoshop,) it is a way to really see the light you are writing with, remember that’s the etymology of photo (light) graphy (writing.)

Lesson

Open the scale above, print it and cut it out so you have small card to carry around.

Now start spotting zones even while driving or walking—“that snow is zone X, the dark, dark shade is zone 0, there’s a zone VI!”

We’ll cover the Zone system in more detail, but like the cut out card for framing (see Photowalking if you haven’t yet) it’s a great tool to get used to and play with.

This is the begining of what will become its own site of resources from the masters of photography. I’m putting up putting a few of my favorites to begin with. Please let me know if you have suggestions for content, we’re particularly interested in video or audio of masters talking about their work, or methods, giving classes, etc. ) Each of the masters contributed major advancements to photography and over the next few months we’ll be cover them in detail. Let’s start with…

Ansel Adams: “You don’t take a photograph, you make it.”

Listen to these great interviews with Ansel (real player is needed which you can download free)

Also watch this very informative multimedia presentation of Ansel from SFMOMA Ansel Adams at 100