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AwkwardFamilyPhotos is a blog that posts just what it says.

An exhibition called ‘Sight Unseen‘ has opened at the California Museum of Photography which showcases the work of twelve blind photographers from around the world.

The curator of Sight Unseen, Douglas McCulloh, explains how visually impaired people are able to capture such beautiful images.

See the gallery, visit the virtual exhibition, or over at the BBC some (commentated) photos.

A friend sent me this link explaining very nicely the basics of photography. If you have always wondered what different focal lengths do, what an f-stop is and what a polarizer does, hop over to Bernie’s Better Beginner’s Guide to Photography for Computer Geeks Who Want to be Digital Artists. Don’t worry, you need not be a geek to learn from this nice write-up.

As a taste here is Bernie´s recommendation on how to spend your money wisely:

Here are two ways of spending three grand:

• Spend all £3000 on a 300mm f/2.8 IS lens: an object of beauty and arguably the finest lens Canon have ever made.

• Spend £300 on a 70-300 f/4.5-5.6 IS zoom: not as glamorous, but very sharp, 1/10 the price and only 2 stops slower. Spend the remainder on a 2 month-long holiday to an exotic location taking pictures and learning how to use your equipment well.

Guess which one will yield better photos?

If you need more convicing before indulging yourself into the learning curve, here’s a quick quote from a commentor about Bernie’s guide:

Great job showing what you are telling. I teach a 12-hour digital photo course at the Community College. You condensed most of it into a simple quick tutorial. Very good.

Heard a lovely quote that I wanted to share

You don’t take pictures, you deserve pictures.

Solargraph by Pekka Salminen

I’ve done some pinhole camera experiments in my younger days, but Justin Quinell is our age’s master in this technique. Have a look at his collection of multiple-month exposures, which he calls Solargraphs.

He also built a miniature camera, letting you expose from within the mouth. And he even sells those little cameras for next-to-nothing.

And do visit Junstins homepage, where you’ll find lots of other goodies, including instructions on how to build a 720-degree camera out of toilet rolls.

A histogram is basically the lightmeter of the digital age. It is a tool that helps you getting the most out of your camera.

Click here for a nice explanation of what they are and how to use them. You need Power point or similar. Alternatively, you can download a zipped pdf file of the presentation here.

David Griffin, who is the photo editor for the National Geographic, talks about the power of images.

Florian Andrei pointed me to a paper discussing a new approach to combining stills and video photography to get much better results. This leads to

• Higher resolution
• Higher dynamic range
• Enhanced exposure
• Easy removal/exchange of objects

Here is a video explaining the idea with examples

P.S. I do notice the irony that since my warning against posting on Vimeo I have only used Vimeo examples…

Thanks for trying to find out what the picture was.

It was from a leaking sprinkler system on our local football (soccer) field, with a very low sun backlighting, and a very short exposure time.

Well, you have almost guessed it last, but before I reveal the answer here is another photo from the same place. Again, click on the image to enlarge.