Tilt Shift Photography in the Civil War?

Click here to read about it

I noticed a long time ago, that, while looking at photos of the civil war, many of them would seem like they were photos of models. They didn’t look real and yet, they were! I never understood that. I figured that that was a property of the camera at that time. It was, after all, 1860 or so.

Then I read about Tilt-Shift photography and I think “ah HA!”. That’s it! That’s what they were doing. I read it and while it’s a hard topic, I think I understand it on a basic level, however, I’m now just as confused about the Civil War angle: Did the civil war guys deliberately do tilt-shifting? Or was their gear just bad?

Buried Treasure Review

Click here to read about Buried Treasure on Fox’ site in a new window

Buried Treasure, Fox 5 NY, Wed 8pm, w/ 2nd show at 9pm

My family, like a lot of others, is into collectibles and antiques. I have, along with my brothers, collected antique glass since I was in gramar school. I’ve literally dug antique glass out of 150 year old rubbish heaps as well as bought & sold it at shows, auctions, online and through magazine want ads. I’ve been a dealer at shows as well. So naturally, we like Antiques Roadshow. It’s a great show. It was one of the first reality shows. It made stars of the Keno brothers, the identical twins who do the furniture reviews on Roadshow.

In the last 2 years, you have seen several shows get into that space: Pawn Stars and Pickers namely, but there are several others that center around auctions and appraisals and even restorations. Apparently, PBS’s show just scratched the surface of the true demand in this space that they so expertly pioneered. Now, after over a decade, they have spun off the Keno’s into their own show. My first thought was “boy, was that late–they should have done this 7 years ago!”.

My mother and I watched the first shows and even though we were really fired up about the concept, we were scratching our heads as to how they decided to implement it. I don’t know a lot about TV, but I assume that the Producer or Executive Producer is the one who shapes the show’s final look and feel. Here is the blurb on the website as to who this is:

BURIED TREASURE is a production of ITV Studios America. The series is co-created by Joe Livecchi (“What Not to Wear”) and Tim Miller (“White House: Behind Closed Doors”), and executive produced by Livecchi, Miller, Paul Buccieri (“Eleventh Hour”), Leigh Keno and Leslie Keno. Tim Eagan (HELL’S KITCHEN) serves as co-executive producer.

So I guess our beefs are directed at one or all of these folks.

Anyway, our beefs are many. First off, we watch these shows to

(a) learn about the pieces and to
(b) see the pieces and
(c) then hear an appraisal with regard to condition issues.

In this show, we don’t learn much about the pieces. On Roadshow, which is the gold standard, we get a real concise but thorough education about a piece by an expert.
We don’t always see the pieces long enough or in enough detail. There are too many edits to the Kenos and to the people sitting there trying to ratchet up artificial drama. Treat it more like Roadshow. Put everyone in one big shot for the “payoff” moment. While we’re building up to it, let’s see the piece!

The single most annoying thing about the show is the producer attempting to build tension and tease the big price reveals. DON’T ABUSE your audience! We know you’re going to talk price so just do it and get ON WITH IT! For heaven’s sake, don’t have the Keno’s stutter in their sentences to build up phony tension! It’s annoying! Ask the Kenos if they would EVER treat a client that way in their biz–they wouldn’t DREAM OF IT! But you think nothing of doing that to your audience like we are idiots! Speak plainly like they do on Roadshow! Save it for last, ok fine, but don’t tease it so much and don’t have them try to add drama with spoken pauses! That’s just obnoxious!

There are other more mildly annoying things about the show. One is that they try very hard to inject some personal tales of woe into the narrative. Most of the time, it’s a reach. One woman was a borderline hoarder; one wanted money for a child’s education; one wanted to (get this) feel “closer” to his dead brother! These are thinly disguised and thoroughly manufactured premises. We see through them. Just reveal the items and educate us and appraise them. It’s nice that they might want the money for a child’s education, but it doesn’t materially change the item, what it’s worth and the appraisal. I honestly DO NOT care if someone will, or will NOT, sell their item. It’s moot. I am not all tied in knots because a guy won’t sell his Superman comic book worth 20 G’s. I just don’t care. It’s his book and his life. If finding out you have a 20 thousand dollar bill there is causing you conflict, I think that’s phony-baloney. I suspect the producer is TELLING you to act this way for his dopey vision of what a good show is, or is not. I smell a rat. It’s immaterial. The item, the history and the appraisal, are why I’m tuning in and the phony, ginned-up “drama” is why I probably WON’T be tuning in much longer.

Look, it’s a neat idea. Keep it simple. Some people have big jumbles of old stuff and may not know what they have. You want to bring in pros to sort through it and highlight the highlights, then great! That concept stands on it’s own merit. The teases and delays and repeating things after the break are just obnoxious and get in the way of a nice concept. You have something the other shows do not–the Kenos! Put them in the best light, doing what they do best and LET THEM DO IT! People LIKE them and what’s more, people feel they know them and trust them so let them lead in an uncluttered way.

It’s not too late for the show, but you have to be ready to really rethink some of the things you’re doing and simplify it. Force it less. Let it flow more via the Kenos, otherwise, why have them?

Good luck.

Life Size, Solid Wood Statue of Mickey Mantle for sale

Saw some search engine searches coming through that had the text string “Mickey Mantle statue” in them, so I figured I would put this out there.  This photo was taken at Mickey Mantle’s Restaurant on Central Park South in New York City way back in the mid-90′s.

I still have this statue in inventory–inquiries welcome!

He’s life size in all details and depicted in that classic Mantle left-hand hitting power stroke.  The foot print is about 5 feet in length by about 2.5 feet in width.

To see more: www.birrerart.com

The Making of Jackie Robinson: 10 min video

Click here to see video on youtube in a new window

I’ve finally gotten the time to edit the clips together and it came out fairly well.  I’m pleased.  We are in talks with some potentially big parties so fingers crossed.  Enjoy.

Click here to see the main website for the art/statues

Jackie Robinson In 3-D

With perhaps days/hours to go before the baby, I’m doing a big push on Jackie Robinson to see how far I can get before my life changes so much.  I had a big day in the shop yesterday and took these stereo photos.

Together, they can be viewed in 3-D.  If you were one of those who could left your eyes relax and see those old 3-D, computer-generated drawings, then you SHOULD be able to do this the same way.  I can do it.  But it takes a few moments to get it.

The trick, for me, is to get far enough away from the two photos, so that they are a little smaller than a postcard, held at arms length.  Then you stare, allowing your eyes to relax and not truly focus.  When your eyes are relaxed correctly, you should see double–that’s 4 images.  Keep trying different pressures on your focus until the two center photos become 1 photo and it will be 3-D.  It’s eerie.  When you get it, you will KNOW, so if you are wondering, then you don’t have it.  Remember: Try and make the middle two images merge into one, so that overall, there are 3 photos, and only concentrate on that middle photo–that’s the one that will become 3-dimensional.

How did I take this photo?  With a 3-D camera?  Nahh, with my own camera.  Since I’m working with a tripod, and nothing is in motion, the time lapse between photo1 and photo2 can be ignored.  You couldn’t do this trick with live action, because p1 and p2 would not match.  But in the studio, you just take one photo and then move the tripod 80mm to the right and take another one.  80mm is about the distance between people’s eyes.  The “interpupillary distance”.  Actually, in the population, it’s much smaller for most and is smaller for women and bigger for some ethnic groups.  It runs between 65 and 83 mm.  At 25.4 mm per inch, you do the inch-math.

With the two photos of EXATLY the same thing and yet from two slight different (80mm apart) vantage points, they are about what your brain takes in and processes into one, 3-D image.  The slightly different perspective means that the right eye sees a little further around Jackie’s left side, than the left eye can see.  That info is used by your wonderful brain to give you all sorts of depth and distance information.  Imagine trying to golf without it!  “How far to the pin?”  “Where’s the 150 yd marker?”

And for you Liberals out there, remember, the beauty of the eye and the brain and the depth is pure chance–we’re talking NO INTELLIGENT DESIGN, right?  Don’t even think those words in a public school.

Before you go thinking I’m some kind of techy person, realize that 3-D cameras and looking at “stereo-images” like we are here, originated at about the time of the Civil War.  Stereo view photos were all the rage from about 1870 to 1910.  They looked like this:

They were viewed in a viewer that looked like this:

The slides were available as canned, commercially produced photos of current events and famous places and landmarks.  Think GAF-viewmaster from the 1970′s:

I’m not sure why they fell out of favor.  Perhaps WWI, which destroyed so much of what good was happening in the world around 1914.

Anyway, they did commercially produce stereo cameras for the home-gamer and here is one:

All you need is the ability to take TWO images simultaneously, one interpupillary distance apart.  Now if you search for these things, you will only find, I believe, film cameras from yesteryear.  There doesn’t seem to be any digital stereo cameras available.  There are a couple of guys who have hacked together two digital cameras, but the hack is never simple and the mounting and alignment is never easy.  Both lenses have to point at the same focal point out in space, or the pictures will look hokey–like mine!

What I want to know is why doesn’t SOMEone produce a decent digital stereo camera?  WHY?  With PC’s bringing down photography prices and giving us all sorts of exotic ways to display them, it’s a perfect marriage!  I have searched, but not recently, so it’s possible that there is something out there now.  If anyone knows of a product, comment in please.

For Jackie fans, Jackie may be getting his first paint today on the lower legs and shoes and pants.  It’s always the single biggest, quickest change in the statue and for a medium that goes crawling by in the hundreds of hours, this is a welcome thing.

When you wish you had mice

Babe Ruth In The Papers

Click here to open the story in the Washington Post in a new window. You may have to register a username and password but it is not a big deal.

This is the photo that is currently on the front page of the Washington Post’s Sunday Metro section:

Before I go any further, let me make sure that I take time to thank the staff at the Gaylord National Hotel inWashington, DC for their tremendous professionalism and attention to every detail. These people are the standard for their industry. I have, in all honesty, never seen such elan in my life. It was a real treat. With the hotel slated to open in a few days, you could ride on the energy of these folks as they readied their jewel of a hotel.

I would also like to thank Michael Hudson of Gaylord Hotels. He is a throwback to a more civil time in America and in business. He is a true gentleman and a visionary in his field. You don’t run into too many people like him and it was my good fortune to have done so. Thanks Michael, for everything.

This is a shot someone took for me with my camera during the installation.

The Babe Ruth statue is now permanently on display at the Gaylord National Hotel & Resort in Washington, DC at the new National Harbor area.

I went down there on Tuesday and stayed until Thursday and The Babe was installed and well received. The Washington Post came by and did a story on the hotel opening and included a fair amount of interest on the statue. I was not sure how much would run on the statue but I was pleased to have folks in Washington DC call and tell me the good news.

The full story of the statue and everything surrounding it is on the Birrerart.com website:

Click here to open the Birrerart.com website up in a new window

Other things that were noteworthy while I was down there was the fact that the Nationals has declared the sportsbar in the Gaylord as the official sportsbar of the team. Because of this, they had sent over the last home plate used at RFK stadium so it could be permanently installed at the entrance to the sportsbar. Here are a few shots of that and the Washington Post getting their story at the time:

That’s Michael Hudson, Director of Brands at Gaylord Hotels, with homeplate from RFK Stadium.

And here is the laying ceremony while the PR folks take photos.

***
The Gaylord National Hotel is so immense that it is difficult to photograph it all in one frame. The atrium that overlooks the Potomac River and Old Alexandria, Virginia, on the opposite bank, is 18 stories high. There is a village of little shops and fountains and trees and restaurants all inside the enclosure. It is so big that you mostly aren’t aware that you are inside.

Here is a view of the upper part of the atrium. These gaslights are 20 feet high. The scale is just hard to fathom.

On the 24th floor, there is a state of the art nightclub and one of the unique features is, believe it or not, the men’s room. Here are the fixtures and the view is outrageous. The Washington Monument can be seen while you are, well…ahem, you know. It’s just one of a myriad of details that make this hotel one of the most amazing in the world.

Life Size Babe Ruth Statue Solid Wood

Just the facts.  He’s almost ready for delivery.  It’s down to touching up and a few hard-to-reach stripes and then deck work really.  Not much.  Maybe 20 hours.  Maybe only 10.  I have to call up some people now and get them to see it before he goes permanently to the Gaylord Hotel in Washington DC.  I understand that the Washington Nationals will be having a shindig there and Babe is sure to cause a stir.  I think the new park down in DC needs a life sized Walter Johnson, of Washington Senators fame.  Or Joel Hanrahan even?  Go Nats! 

Wooden Babe Ruth: The Hat Is Wood Too

Here he is on painting day (I’m sure he must have felt like this some days if the legends are true). A long day with the airbrush and things still aren’t right (to me). The eyes, of course, are not in yet. The eyeball paint, weighing perhaps a tenth of a gram on a 250 lb statue, is the  single most important thing on of all.

Not happy, probably horrified, really. It’s THIS late? And I have only done…? Before anyone asks: the hat is all basswood. Even the brim.  And any sheen you see will be sprayed with a window froster.  The top model guys online all fight about what is the best flattener out there on the market.  Hobby lines from Testors (Dullcoat) and Floquil (Figure flat) are debated endlessly (not kidding!), but I bought a spray can of window froster and it blows the rest away.  Fogs em.  No more Floquill for me.  And the beauty of it is it is half the price, maybe less.  Remember that all of these paints go on semi or satin and people’s skin, and certainly cloth is flatter than that.  It’s one of the last things I do however.  The eyes are also not right.  The balls are too small and there is no makeup in there.  That’s right, you use women’s makeup to darken the edges and corners of the eyes.  Adds 75% to the realism.  Look in the mirror: are your eyes a blinding white?  Not really.

George Herman, from the side. 3 views. A good looking guy? We’re getting there.

Tommy, Over The Muffins