The Risks of Blogging

Can blogging be riskier than we think, or is truly an issue of understanding the limits? For one man, house arrest was the consequence of his blogging habits.

Kevin Cogill, a Los Angeles area blogger, was sentenced to two months on house arrests after leaking a Guns N' Roses album online. Cogill, a big fan of their music had commonly posted songs and shared music with those who read his blog. Cogill took it a step too far with the unreleased album, breaking federal copyright laws.

The conflict began in late June, as Cogill posted several tracks from the unreleased album Chinesse Democracy. These tracks were not due out for another five months. These tracks were the first recordings of the band in seventeen years, and highly anticipated by fans. The news of the postings spread like wild fire, and soon Axl Rose, the band leader, had to interfere.

Rose demanded that the tracks be removed. Cogill quickly followed his intrusctions, but it was already too late. He was quickly arrested and charged for the incident. Cogill's stance was clearly stated: "I never meant to hurt the artist. I intended to promote the artist because I'm a fan."

Many people fight this case, but those in the music industry believe that what these people are doing is piracy. For the past two days, "Lil Wayne No Cieling" has been one of the top ten searches. People are hungry to find the unoffical mixtape, searchign madly. These people are super fans, but is what they are doing illegal? If posting this music is illegal, should listening to it also be considered against the law?

(photo credit: user ctrl84 on flickr.com)

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Ralph Lauren Takes It A Step Too Far

Recently, an ad for Ralph Lauren has left many speechless. Blogs have been going crazy, asking its readers: is this normal? Is it healthy?



A long time model for the Ralph Lauren label, Filippa Hamilton-Palmstierna, has the appearance of a bobble head in her latest ad campaign for Ralph Lauren. One blog points out, "Dude, her head is bigger than her hips." The emancipated state of the model can only be answered by the work of the photoshoppers. It is rumored that the model has recently been fired for being too large in size (about 120lb at 5'10in). Even she is outraged, she told the Today show: "I saw my face on this super-extremely skinny girl, which is not me; it's not healthy, it's not right." This distorted image seems to be her final run with Raplh Lauren. This, however, is not slipping by without scandal. People are outraged by this altered idea of beauty and believe that the model and the public are all being hurt by this act of technology altering reality.



Recently, the company has released their versoin of an apology stating,

"The image in question was mistakenly released and used in a department store in Japan and was not the approved image which ran in the U.S. We take full responsibility. This error has absolutely no connection to our relationship with Filippa Hamilton."



Still, the effects of technology are begining to bring outrage to the fashion industry and demands for thinner and thinner models continue. The question to ask is this, will there ever be change?

(Photo property of Ralph Lauren)
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Volunteering and the Speed of Digital

About a week ago I spent the day traveling in a tiny car around the city. The heads of several departments, my camera and I went from site to site for the school's annual Volunteer Day. I documented everything I saw along the way. After about five hours I had seen an amazing amount of effort and time put in by hundreds of volunteers, all the while taking pictures of everything I found interesting. The school community did an amazing job in making a change, but what I found especially amazing was the speed that my images traveled at. Once I went home, I uploaded about two hundred photographs to my computer. I edited several, and broke it down to about twenty final images. I quickly emailed out these hours, and within two hours I was recieving emails of thanks and being told that they had already hit the internet. Just five hours prior, the event had still been taking place. I was shocked and impressed by how quickly media and information can travel in this new digital world. I feel that what I did by taking photographs allowed for news to travel more efficiently as it can be said that images speak a thousand words.

(Photographs are my property.)

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David Bailey's Nokia Experiment

Recently Nokia came out with its N86. THe N86 contains one of the most advanced cell phone cameras with a megapixel sensor, large-aperture (f/2.4) Carl Zeiss Tessar lens, mechanical shutter speeds of up to 1/1000th of a second, automatic motion blur reduction and built-in flash. Nokia soon commissioned David Bailey, a world class photographer, to use their new camera phone to produce an exhibition of photographs creating "Alive At Night". The results are surprising, as the quality of the photographs is extremely high.

Bailey's opinion on technology? Well, in a recent interview he jokingly comments on Flickr saying he doesn't even know what it is. Although this may seem like he opposes technology, in reality he finds it quite useful, "To me, digital is the best thing that's happened because it's made what I do more unique," says Bailey. "Everybody else's pictures look the same." These new excellent camera phones leave consumer the questioning one thing: Will camera phones take the place of the basic camera?

(Photo credit: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/gallery/2009/aug/27/mobilephones-photography?picture=352212260)

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The Photoshop Evolution

People may wonder why in this day and age the image of beauty is so twisted. The answer to me is simple, its because this image is not real and is completely unattainable. Many blame to media for causing young girls to develop eating disorders and feel as though they are never good enough. In part this is true, the media can be blamed, but without technology the media would have never been able to do what it has done. Below I have posted a short video of a photoshop "evolution". As you watch you see a perfectly normal woman transform into something fake but "beautiful". Whether this is fair to everyday people can be challenged. This is proof that technology changes the way people see and feel about themselves. I believe that this sort of high level of photo shopping should be banned from being printed, as it only causes harm. Photography should be shown in its true form, as should people's appearances. Technology is the root cause of this high standard of beauty.

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The Beauty of Adobe CS4

Ever wish you knew how to use every possible tool on Adobe Photoshop? I have, and have always found it aggravating when attempting to work on a photograph and barely knowing how to do a sufficient crop. Adobe Photoshop can be irritating in the sense that editing a photograph can be difficult. If one were to change the saturation of a photograph they would have to open to option, adjust the number, hit enter, and then repeat until the desired affect is attained. With Adobe C

S4 one can edit the saturation and watch how it affects their work as they do it. Not only does this speed the process, but it also makes it much more efficient. This theory is can be applied to several affects on both Photoshop and Adobe CS4. Posted are two photographs, one is the raw image and the other is edited using Adobe CS4, see if you can spot the improvements.

(Photos are my property.)

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Extreme ISO

Night time photography will never be the same. For years people who were looking to take photographs while on the go in the dark of night either had to carry a large and inconvenient tripod or find a makeshift area to lean their camera on. With the new ISO technologies (ISO is the equivalent of a roll of film's speed) one can make night turn to day. ISO affects the amount of light that enters the lens and affects the brightness of the photograph. Before digital technology a fast film speed would have been something around 800, but now with digital photography's advancements one can shoot with a 12,800 ISO. Recently, the Nikon D3S has been released. Its innovative ISO capabilities were seemingly unseen to most who have worked with different ISO levels. The range of this new camera is not only impressive but also expansive. One can use anything from a 200 speed to a 12,800 speed. This affect would allow one to shoot at night holding the camera, ridding the photographer of the need for a tripod and sturdy surface to place the camera on. The ISO capabilities are so reliable that risking producing a blurry or much too dark photograph are virtually gone, and losing a unique image to underexposure can be solved with these new ISO capabilities. Technology is assisting artists to further the convenience and ability of what the are able to produce, expanding the world of art and furthering the affect of technology in the arts.

(photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/marvos/3991262382/ "Black Cat" taken with Nikon D3S ISO capabilities)

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Goal of My Blog

I find the affect technology has on the arts, culture and social networking extremely interesting. I plan to explore and share what I find, whether that be in the form of text or media. Technology is changing the world around us each and every day, and documenting this change will open the reader's eyes to things they may have never heard of otherwise. This blog will help readers see technology through the eyes of someone who has never known what the world was like before technology became such a great influence. I plan to share opinions, media and interesting stories of what I experience and find in my daily life, along with what I read about on the news. Technology is changing how things in our world are done, and whether this is for better or worse can be argued.

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