Tag: stanford

Now at Cantor: Outside Looking In

Post author By Scott Loftesness
Post date January 21, 2020
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Last year The Capital Group Foundation gifted a remarkable collection of over a thousand 20th century American photographs to the Cantor Arts Center at Stanford. Cantor has been exhibiting from this collection – beginning with last fall’s display of Ansel Adams and Edward Weston photographs. Today the next exhibition is now up – with photographs from John Gutmann, Helen Levitt, and Wright Morris.

Each of these photographers has a distinctive style which this exhibition mixes beautifully. I was not familiar with Gutmann’s work – but really enjoyed discovering how he captured moments from unique perspectives. Levitt’s New York City photographs (in a mix of both black and white and color) are more familar. Morris’ photographs from the American midwest are uniquely different yet again.

Here’s one of Gutmann’s photographs on the cover of the brochure available at the exhibition which is sitting in my lap. Such a great image with that hand coming out of the broken window!

If you’re able, be sure to visit Cantor between now and April 26, 2020. Cantor doesn’t charge admission – making it a delight for me who lives about 10 minutes away enabling frequent visits! Parking can be challenging up until 4 PM during the week but very available on most weekends. Cantor is open six days each week – closing on Tuesdays.

Tags cantor arts center, helen levitt, john gutmann, palo alto, photography exhibition, stanford, the capital group foundation, wright morris

Art and Artists Photography Photography - Black & White Stanford

Another Ansel

I recently visited Cantor Art Museum at Stanford to see a temporary small exhibition of Ansel Adams’ work: Surf Sequence. It’s an exhibition of five of his photographs taken in 1940 along the San Mateo county coastline looking down at the surf as the waves move in and out over the sand.

They’re beautiful images – as usual with his work. Even more interesting to me, however, were two other images on the opposite wall taken in the late 1920’s of a skier coming down a ski run on Mount Watkins in Yosemite (both images shown below taken with an iPhone 11 Pro Max).

Skiing on Mount Watkins, Yosemite High Sierra

These images remind me of one of Georgia O’Keeffe’s drawings – Winter Road – although I’m sure one didn’t directly influence the other!

Winter Road comes from one of O’Keeffe’s books of early drawings and we studied it along with some of her other work during a workshop I attended last summer in Santa Fe. The image above was taken with my iPhone at a wonderful exhibition of her work – Living Modern – that I saw last August at the Nevada Museum of Art in Reno.

I’ve seen a lot of Ansel Adams photographs over the years – but these were new to me. There so different from his usual Yosemite work but very “musical” in some sense. There’s a certain calligraphic look in all of these images – pen strokes that vary in width. Others might see other things – finger patterns in the frost on glass in the wintertime, etc.

Tags ansel adams, cantor arts center, mount watkins, stanford, surf sequence, winter road, yosemite

Black and White Monochrome Photography Photography Photography - Black & White Stanford

Ansel Adams and Edward Weston at the Cantor

Post author By Scott Loftesness
Post date October 27, 2019
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Weston by Ansel Adams -— Adams by Edward Weston

Currently there’s an exhibition of over thirty prints by Ansel Adams and Edward Weston at the Cantor Arts Center at Stanford. Yesterday I stopped in for a docent tour of the show and enjoyed seeing their prints with Carol’s accompanying commentary.

She started with the two images above. On the left is Edward Weston taken by Ansel Adams. On the right is Ansel Adams taken by Edward Weston. In the exhibition the Weston prints are smaller – 8×10 contact prints in white frames and unsigned on the front while the Adams prints are signed and framed in black. A nice contrast.

The current exhibition draws from the Capital Group Foundation’s gift of 1,000 photographs to the Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University that includes works by American photographic masters Ansel Adams, Edward Curtis, John Gutmann, Helen Levitt, Wright Morris, Gordon Parks, and Edward Weston.

Tags ansel adams, cantor center for visual arts, edward weston, stanford

Photography Photography - Canon PowerShot S95 Stanford

Breaking Away @ Stanford

A couple of months ago HDR photographer Trey Ratcliff held a photo walk at Stanford University. It was a beautiful late afternoon – and some 200 photographers showed up to join Trey for his second photowalk around the Stanford Campus.

This shot was taken with my tiny Canon PowerShot S95 and post-processed in Photoshop using Nik Software’s Color Efex Pro 4 – in particular the Details Enhancer and Cross Processing Filters.

I titled it Breaking Away – with the bicyclist heading home…ignoring the crowd.

Tags bicyclist, canon powershot s95, color efex pro, hdr, photowalk, stanford, trey ratcliff

Black and White Photography Photography - Black & White Photography - Canon 5D Mark II Stanford

Moonrise Over Stanford – 2011

Post author By Scott Loftesness
Post date September 12, 2011
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Order a Limited Edition print of this photo

Last night, I went over to Stanford to try to capture the full moon rising near Hoover Tower just as the sun was setting. I had figured out (using the great TPE application) that a good spot for trying to capture this might be the roof of the parking structure at the corner of Panama St. and Via Ortez.

Turns out that this particular parking structure isn’t an ideal location – because of the new buildings in the Science Quad that block the lower half of the tower from this vantage point – but it was good enough for tonight and, most importantly, properly aligned with the path the moon was going to take as it was rising. Unfortunately, the tower itself was in less than perfect form with the scaffolding still remaining up top! So, this was good practice but didn’t produce a perfect image!

The moon began to appear out of the haze around 7:10 PM and then slowly rose up and to the right. This particular shot was the last shot I took – about 7:30 PM – handheld as I was putting everything (tripod, etc.) back into the trunk of my car. It was far and away the best shot of the night! Post-processed in Photoshop using Nik’s Color Efex 3 and Silver Efex Pro 2.

Tags moonrise, stanford

Compact HDR HDR Photography Photography Photography - Black & White Photography - Canon PowerShot S95 Photomatix Pro Stanford

The Power of Black and White – Canon S95 HDR

Post author By Scott Loftesness
Post date September 6, 2010
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Maybe it’s the visit to the Ansel Adams show with Chris on Saturday that has sent me over the edge, but I’m continually intrigued by how one can take a color photo and turn it into a much more powerful black and white image.

See the photo below – it’s #3 from my initial Canon S95 HDR post earlier this morning.

Frankly, I didn’t spend much time on this photo – the point was to provide it (a traditional HDR post-processed shot) as a point of comparison with the new in-camera HDR feature built-in to the S95.

As I was looking at it, I wondered how a conversion to black and white might look – now that I’ve become acquainted and familiar with Lightroom 3’s excellent Black and White Mix controls.

So, I gave it a shot – here’s the result – after about 10 minutes of tweaking in Lightroom:

Rodin's Gates of Hell - Canon PowerShot S95 - HDR

Obviously, it’s the same subject as the original photo – Rodin’s Gates of Hell – but it’s been transformed into a more powerful photograph through the conversion to black and white.

I also experimented for the first time using the new Lens Correction features in Lightroom 3 – to remove the distortion in terms of angle, etc. that I had in the original image. It now looks very close to a direct, head-on shot at the scuplture.

Finally, I tweaked it in Flickr – using Picnik to add a museum frame around it – dressing it up a bit.

I like the result. What do you think?

You may also want to view my Flickr set of Canon S95 HDRs taken this morning at Stanford.

Tags black and white, california, canon powershot s95, cantor arts center, gates of hell, hdr, lightroom, palo alto, rodin, sculpture, stanford

HDR Photography Photography Photography - Canon 5D Mark II Photomatix Pro Stanford

Shoot HDR on the Canon EOS 5D Mark II – Rodin’s Gates of Hell

Post author By Scott Loftesness
Post date January 13, 2009
2 Comments on Shoot HDR on the Canon EOS 5D Mark II – Rodin’s Gates of Hell

Here’s my first attempt at handheld HDR photography using my new Canon EOS 5D Mark II.

The setting is Rodin’s Gates of Hell at the Cantor Arts Center on the Stanford University campus.

I love their description:

“The Rodin Sculpture Garden is open all hours, with lighting for nighttime viewing. Admission is free.”

I took three raw shots while seating on the ground, holding the camera as steady as I could, using Aperture Priority with three high-speed shots on the 5D Mark II.