Art & Photography by Virgil C. Robinson

05/10/2022

"Photographer, artist, and printmaker Tom Leighton captured Dubai and Abu Dhabi architecture in surreal photo series that masterfully blend design and photography. Leighton, based in the United Kingdom, trained at the Royal College of Art in London where he learned how to expertly layer and manipulate photographic pieces. The central theme of his work is the environment, be it “the nightlife of foliage” in his “Variegation” series or powerful, modern structures devoid of surroundings, featured in his latest project “Loci.”

"Loci” was developed following Leighton’s experiments with isolating and removing the context of these large structures in his photos. As he started to manipulate, multiply, and color them, “they became a less direct representation of the places and more of a distorted memory.”

"It was the hazy gradient backgrounds that added a surreal and disconnected quality, that Leighton wanted to explore further in the series. For this project, he chose buildings from Dubai and Abu Dhabi."

Architecture photos removed from their context.

03/18/2022

The Science + Media Museum : A Short History of Color Photography

Learn about the development of colour photography—from the very first experiments with hand-colouring to the mass production of commercially viable colour film. Today we take colour photography for granted. Taking pictures in full, natural colour is so easy that we don’t pause to consider how it all came about. Yet the search for a cheap and simple process of colour photography was a long and difficult quest. This story explores the different approaches early inventors and entrepreneurs took in the race to develop a successful colour photographic process, from hand-colouring and the Lumière brothers’ autochrome to the first commercially successful ‘integral tripack’ system, Kodachrome.

Learn about the development of colour photography—from the very first experiments with hand-colouring to the mass production of commercially viable colour film.

03/10/2022

Learn about the development of colour photography—from the very first experiments with hand-colouring to the mass production of commercially viable colour film. Today we take colour photography for granted. Taking pictures in full, natural colour is so easy that we don’t pause to consider how it all came about. Yet the search for a cheap and simple process of colour photography was a long and difficult quest. This story explores the different approaches early inventors and entrepreneurs took in the race to develop a successful colour photographic process, from hand-colouring and the Lumière brothers’ autochrome to the first commercially successful ‘integral tripack’ system, Kodachrome.

Learn about the development of colour photography—from the very first experiments with hand-colouring to the mass production of commercially viable colour film.

11/06/2021

As an award-winning photographer based in Lagos, Nigeria, Victor has some words of wisdom for anyone interested in the field. “My advice to young photographers like myself or aspiring photographers,” he tells My Modern Met, “is to stop chasing money and fame, those are the rewards of creativity.” He urges young creative to focus on refining their creative voice to build a portfolio. “All you need is consistency to make your craft more beautiful and bring your imagination to reality.”

Nigerian photographer Ibor Edosa Victor reveals what his magical photos look like when he’s shooting them.

08/31/2021

From the very first selfie in the world to the first official digital photo of a U.S. President, it's clear that photography has come a long way.

While the term photography was coined in the early 19th-century, Greek mathematicians had been making pinhole cameras since the 4th century BCE. The history of photography has always been filled with innovation, as imagery has continued to develop along with the technology photographers have on hand. With such a long history, it's no surprise that photography is full of important firsts, from the world's oldest photograph to the first photo uploaded to Instagram. Most early photos used the daguerreotype process invented by Louis Daguerre, but technical inventions have created endless possibilities for photographers. Let's take a stroll down memory lane to learn about some of the famous first photographs that have changed how we view the world.

08/07/2021

Photography "outsources" memories
That process of "offloading" our memory is aptly called the photo-taking impairment effect. How does it work?

"When people rely on technology to remember something for them, they're essentially outsourcing their memory," says Linda Henkel, a psychology professor at Fairfield University. "They know their camera is capturing that moment for them, so they don't pay full attention to it in a way that might help them remember."

Research shows that snapping too many pictures may harm your ability to retain memories. But selfie addicts, don't despair! There are techniques to make photography enhance memory, not undermine it.

07/20/2021

[befinitiv]’s latest project handles this conversion by swapping in a Raspberry Pi Zero where the film cartridge would otherwise be inserted into the camera. The Pi is attached to a 3D-printed case which mimics the shape of the film, and also houses a Pi camera right in front of the location where the film would be exposed. By removing the Pi camera’s lens, this new setup is able to take advantage of the analog camera’s optics instead and is able to capture images of relatively decent quality.

The digital camera revolution swept through the world in the early 2000s, and aside from some unique situations and a handful of artists still using film, almost everyone has switched over to digit…

06/25/2021

The drive to miniaturize optical systems has led to the design of many new devices, from Fresnel lenses to metamaterial wave-plates. However, most optical systems still contain empty space between components – think of the empty barrel between the lenses of a telescope or the camera bump on the back of a smartphone – that could be further reduced. Now, researchers in Canada have tackled this issue and designed three different “spaceplates” that effectively compress space, reducing the size of optical devices and paving the way towards extremely compact optical systems.

Material layers compress empty space between optical components

06/25/2021

"Jeff Lundeen: We considered what would happen if you manipulated light based on the angle rather than the position of a light ray. Lenses act via the position of the ray. Angle is a completely novel domain, and no one had shown that it could be used to make something particularly useful. We identified a useful application, compressing space. And then we showed that we could actually design and experimentally demonstrate plates that do exactly that."

"Orad Reshef: This is exciting because this device will let us shrink down all sorts of very large devices that we thought were impossible to miniaturize in optics. In order to design it, we need to come up with a new set of rules that is incompatible with that used in lens design. Nobody knows what they are, it's like the wild west."

Can you imagine one day using a telescope as thin as a sheet of paper, or a much smaller and lighter high-performance camera? Or no longer having that camera bump behind your smartphone?

05/23/2021

While these 15-second ads aren't breaking any new ground in the vast world of marketing, they do communicate the intended message quickly and effectively. Both spots start out with the tagline "Your phone upgrade shouldn't be a downgrade." The Galaxy S21 is equipped with a 108MP primary camera that allows it to capture much more gooey details than the measly 12MP lens of the iPhone 12 Pro Max. But maybe even more than that, colors on the S21 look bolder, more saturated, and dare we say — much more appetizing.

The second spot highlights the cleverly coined Space Zoom feature that lets the S21 Ultra zoom to 100x as it captures a perfectly serviceable closeup of the moon. After comparing the S21 Ultra's photo with that of the 12 Pro Max's (which 'maxes' out at 5x optical zoom), it prompts viewers to "upgrade to epic zoom." 😎

Apple has been having a bit of a rough time over the past couple weeks. First it was dealing with the legal challenge brought by Epic Games, and now the

03/31/2021

"The 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a 2019 ruling from New York’s federal court finding that Andy Warhol had made fair use of Goldsmith’s 1981 photograph of Prince when he created the “Prince Series.” Goldsmith appealed that verdict, arguing that the Warhol artworks were not a transformative use of her image."

"The Warhol Foundation plans to appeal the ruling, reports ARTnews. The lower court had cited the circuit court’s 2013 ruling in Cariou v. Prince, which controversially found that appropriation artist Richard Prince had not violated Patrick Cariou’s copyright by altering photos from Cariou’s 2000 book, Yes, Rasta, for the 2008 series “Canal Zone.” (Cariou appealed the verdict, and the two artists eventually settled out of court.)"

The Andy Warhol Foundation, which oversees the artist's legacy, plans to appeal, adding that it "strongly disagrees" with the ruling.