1,000,000,000,000 fps
An entirely fascinating development… light travels at roughly 186,282 miles per second and we are now able to observe this through femto photography. I especially love the explanation of scale… capturing a bullet passing through a Coke bottle would take an entire year to watch at this frame rate. I genuinely hope I am still around to see wide spread application of this technology.
I’m definitely thankful and humbled by the minds and efforts of people like Ramesh Raskar who helped develop this new imaging technology. Check it out.
Significantly Small
Nikon sponsors an annual photomicrography competition, called Small World, where submitted images are all captured with a light microscope. The winners of the 2011 competition were announced earlier this month but the popular vote category is open until Oct. 31. Small World it may be but fascinating all the same.
The Pulse on Promos
If you’re a photographer/creative professional, developing and designing effective promotional material can either be an exquisite or excruciating endeavor. If you’re successful at your marketing, it’s likely a lot of both. Danielle Currier shares a ton of information about what’s going on in this area of the industry in her blog, No Plastic Sleeves. There is also a book with the same name… If you’re interested in self-promotion at all, check it out. Good stuff.
SKAAR Commercial Photography launches new website!
I am very proud to announce that my brand new website is now live. The site is powered by the folks at A Photo Folio (www.aphotofolio.com) A big thanks to Rob Haggart (of A Photo Editor fame – if you don’t subscribe to the blog, I highly recommend it) and his incredible staff. The site is big, beautiful, and super easy to maintain. A photographer’s dream come true. Please check it out at www.erikskaar.com . 
SKAAR Commercial Photography now represented by Sally Bjornsen!
As of last week, I am proud to announce that I have been added to the roster of talent represented by Sally Bjornsen. Sally began her marketing career over twenty years ago with NIKE Inc. as a brand manager. She has been representing photographers from Seattle, San Francisco, and New York since 2002. Sally and I are both excited about this new endeavor and are looking forward to what the coming months bring. Please visit Sally’s website below for booking information.
Phantom HD – The Beautiful Beast of Cinema
Fellow photographer and close of friend of mine, Inti St. Clair, and I had the pleasure of going down to LA this last week to get trained as technicians on the Phantom HD high speed cinema camera. The Phantom has been getting a lot more attention recently from those outside the conventional cinema community since the explosion of the 5D MKII onto the scene. For those of you not familiar with the Phantom (Chase Jarvis has blogged about this incredibly cool piece of gear in the past), it is a high speed stills camera capable of capturing 1000 tiff frames per second. What this equates to when slowed down to normal 24fps viewing speed is super slow motion. If you do the math, 1 second of 1000fps capture will take over 40 seconds to watch at 24fps. The detail in this footage is, well, unreal and the applications are infinite. The price tag of this camera is a little intimidating. At Around $250K + for the bells and whistles package, you’ve got to have some deep pockets to own one and the rental cost isn’t insignificant either. It’s no wonder why is been a tool mainly used by motion picture studios. However, as motion begins to constitute a more significant portion of our media diet, you’re going to see Phantom footage pop up more and more, and in more varied applications.
Stay tuned for an upcoming Phantom Project produced by yours truly and my partner in crime, Inti St. Clair. For now, here’s a clip done by schönheitsfarm for Pepsi to w[h]et your appetite.
Cheers.
new pepsi logo from schönheitsfarm on Vimeo.