Local Architecture - Part 2

Another opportunity to take some more local architecture.  One thing I did try was to look around Burton, but using a mobile to capture

Printer Problems - Inkjet Printers

One thing about printing your work at home is that you have been in full control of the whole process from choosing your position and taking the photograph to seeing your print emerge from the printer. With this control though comes a few drawbacks including hardware and software issues.

As inkjet printers are the most common printers used at home for printing, I will cover this type of printer.

 

Most inkjet printers have a built-in diagnostics program to help you troubleshoot. Typically, running a test page involves pressing a button or two as you turn on the printer. Many inkjet printers also use a combination of indicator lights to help you pinpoint the problem.

 

Below are some of the problems that you could encounter at the printing stage:

Prints are lighter than expected or prints contain white spots or horizontal lines.

These signs point to a clogged print head - especially if you haven’t used your inkjet printer for some time. Banding (fine horizontal lines across the print are a common problem, sometimes encountered after changing a print cartridge.

Below is an example of banding:

 

To solve these problems select the printers cleaning and diagnostic utilities application for your printer, this is installed when you install your printer:

 

Below is the utilities screen for my Epson Stylus Colour 860:

 

 

Below is the utilities screen for my Canon Printer:

 

 

Then carry out a test print to verify if any of the print head nozzles are blocked:

 

 

If the resulting print has gaps in it then you need to run the head cleaning tool:

 

 

 

then carry out a test to ensure that the problem has been fixed.  If necessary repeat the cleaning and testing, until you are happy.  Bear in mind though that during the test print and cleaning cycles ink is used so beware if you are low on ink.

Vertical lines are jagged

This is usually a sign that the print head is out of alignment. There’s not much you can do to avoid this problem - all print heads become misaligned over time.

You can usually recalibrate the heads using the alignment tool that comes in your printer’s utility section. This involves printing a pattern of lines on normal paper and choosing which pattern looks best.

 

Below is a screen grab of the Epson print head alignment tool.

 

Colours look dull and sometimes run into each other

Check that you have loaded photo quality paper into the printer. I know this sounds odd but sometimes the printer may not catch the piece of photographic paper properly and feed through another sheet below if the photographic paper is not loaded properly. Also if the photographic paper is put in the wrong way around (some photographic paper, especially thinner matt you will be printing on the back of the paper which is not prepared for printing on.

In this case it is simply a case of checking what paper the printer has used and if it's the right way round.



Colours are missing or prints lack shadows and contrast

Colours may print inconsistently even before your printer instructs you to replace a cartridge. If the ink cartridges are low on ink when the problem occurs, try replacing them, this may improve colour quality.

If there’s enough ink but your print seems to be missing a particular colour, you probably have a clogged nozzle, so you’ll need to clean your print head. Colour quality can also suffer if ink cartridges have been in the printer for more than six months. Try swapping in a new cartridge.

Vertical lines down the print, either on the front or on the back

This means that at some stage ink has got onto the guide or rollers of the printer.

This means a lengthy cleaning, I use cotton wool buds, to clean the guides and rollers where the ink is coming from. Feed through the printer old printouts afterwards to check the guides and rollers are clean before printing again. If the guides and rollers are clean and you have the problem again there could be a serious fault with the printer.

Odd looking text being printed out instead of your photograph

This is usually a sign that there is a problem with the printer driver, which translates what the computer is sending to the printer to what is printed out.

If you're experiencing problems visit your inkjet printer manufacturer's web site and download the most current printer driver. Once you have reinstalled your printer software you will need to reboot your computer and then try printing again.

Paper constantly jamming

This can mean that there is something is blocking the path of the paper through the printer.

 

Check inside the printer for anything like torn paper, staples, paper clips etc. If a piece of paper jams inside the printer carefully remove it checking for any missing areas of paper, if this does happen check inside the printer for the missing paper and remove this as quick as possible.

Multiple pages fed through at once

This can either mean that the paper is sticking together, often through static, or that the paper thickness setting is set too thick.

 

Check the paper thickness setting, if there is one on the printer, and set it correctly, and remove the paper from the printer, fan the paper (to separate it) and re-insert the paper into the printer.

 

 

Colours do not match what you see on the screen

This is usually a case of not using any form of colour management.

Basically it is a case of setting up your camera, monitor and printer to interpret colours in the same way, so that skin tones come out correctly, matching what you actually saw before you took the photograph.

This might sound odd, but, I have noticed a distinct difference when printing out the same photograph on my Epson printer and Canon printer.  The Epson seems colder, with a slight green cast, whereas the Canon produces a warmer tone.

 

No print out at all

Check the printer queue or status monitor, to see if the print has gone to the printer, if you have more than one printer make sure it has gone to the correct printer:

often under the status heading a warning will appear if the printer is offline or out of paper or ink.

 

General Printer Care

Basically, it is a case of taking care of the printer,

• watching ink levels (many now have utilities that warn you when the ink is getting low) both on the printer (flashing LEDs) and sometimes on the computer (a window opening up).
• Make sure all connectors are in securely.
• carefully remove paper from the printer, if you have to pull the paper out, which could damage the paper feed mechanism, check that there are no missing pieces, which could lead to paper jams.
• only use good quality ink, poor quality ink will produce poor quality prints and may clog up the print heads
• only move the printer when you have to, certainly not when it is printing.
• Always keep plenty of ink, a spare cartridge of each if possible, because you never know you might run out of ink at a bad time, or late at night, trust me, I know !

Types of Computer Printer

 

Basically there are two forms of computer printer:

 

 

Impact Printers

 

These are called impact printers because they actually impact on the surface of the paper via a ribbon. These printers include dot matrix printers and daisy wheel printers.

 

Dot Matrix Printers

 

 

 

Dot matrix come in two types 9 pin and 24 pin and two widths; normal and wide carriage.

 

The number of pins relates to the number of vertical pins in the print head, therefore the higher (24 pin) gives better quality. These pins strike a ribbon which in turn strikes the paper producing the printed characters. But due to the use of the pins the resolution is limited and the use of a ribbon limits the amount of colours and tones available.

These are rarely seen much today as their limited resolution and colour space and loud noise, when in use, have made these printers unpopular, and with the drop in the prices of ink jet printers with their almost silent use and far higher resolution these printers have become redundant, certainly for printing photographs.

 

These printers are more used in distribution where their noise and lack of resolution is not seen as a problem.

 

 

Daisy Wheel Printers

 

 

Developed in the late 1960s, these are basically typewriters that have no keyboard,with a fixed number of characters (as found on the daisy wheel) and take their instructions from the computer.

 

They are limited to only the characters that are on their wheel, hence the name daisy wheel.

 

Because they cannot be used to print out photographs I am not covering them here.

 

 

 

Non Impact Printers

 

With these printers, the print head does not touch the paper.  These include inkjet, laser and dye sublimation printers.

 

 

Inkjet Printers

Since their introduction in the latter half of the 1980s, inkjet printers have grown in popularity and performance while dropping significantly in price. Prior to inkjet printers (referred to as Bubble jet printers by Canon) the main type of printer in homes was dot matrix printers.

 

An inkjet printer is any printer that places extremely small droplets of ink onto paper to create an image. If you ever look at a piece of paper that has come out of an inkjet printer, you know that:

 

• The dots are extremely small (usually between 50 and 60 microns in diameter), so small that they are tinier than the diameter of a human hair (70 microns)!
• The dots are positioned very precisely, with resolutions of up to 1440x720 dots per inch (dpi).
• The dots can have different colours combined together to create photo-quality images.

Some inkjet printers use four colours (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black) others have additional colours like light magenta, light cyan and different tones of grey to produce more accurate colours and tones in the final photograph.

 

My printer is an Epson Stylus 860, like the inkjet printer shown above.  Although the printer is about ten years old it is still a good printer and can produce good prints, but very cheaply at £5.00 per black and colour ink cartridge.

 

 

Dye Sublimation Printers

 

 

These printers are becoming popular with people who simply want to print out their photographs, sometimes directly from the camera, without any post production.

 

The way that they work is not a new process, which is based on thermal printers.

 

A dye-sublimation printer is a computer printer which employs a printing process that uses heat to transfer dye onto a medium materials such as a plastic card, paper, or fabric. The sublimation name is applied because the dye transitions between the solid and gas states without going through a liquid stage. Many consumer and professional dye-sublimation printers are designed and used for producing photographic prints.

Most dye-sublimation printers use CMYO (Cyan Magenta Yellow Over coating) colours, which differs from the more recognized CMYK colours in that the black dye is eliminated in favour of a clear over coating. This over coating (which has numerous names depending on the manufacturer) is also stored on the ribbon and is effectively a thin laminate which protects the print from discoloration from UV light and the air, while also rendering the print water-resistant.

 

 

Laser Printers

 

 

 

Although these printers can produce colour prints, the initial cost of the printer and the costs of the consumables, both toner and photo receptor units, prevents them from becoming more popular.

 

Colour laser printers are developed and designed to work well in offices. They are best used for crisp black text printing and colour graphics. But lasers can print photos successfully as well. It all depends on what type of user is asking.

 

A photo professional will tell the difference between a colour laser printer photo and a professional photo printer one right away.

 

Colour Management

 

Colour management is very important to ensure that the printed photograph looks the same as what the image on screen does.

The problem with trying to produce photographic prints that look exactly like what the photographer first saw, is that each device; the camera, the computer / monitor and the printer has its own limit on how it can handle the colour spectrum.

Whilst the camera and computer / monitor can handle their range of colours and tones, sometimes called their colour spaces or gamuts, the printer then has to translate this collection of colours in the format of RGB (Red, Green and Blue) and translate these into its gamut in the format of CMYK (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and blacK).

As you can see from the diagram below, there are still some differences in the actual colours tones that are displayed on the computer screen and those on the final print out, which appear more muted and less vibrant:

An important consideration is the type of paper used for the final print out, as using normal paper would result in very drab colours with plenty of colour bleeding into other colours on the paper.

The above diagram demonstrates the difference between the RGB and CMYK colour gamuts. The CMYK colour gamut is much smaller than the RGB colour gamut, thus the CMYK colours look muted. If you were to print the image on a CMYK device (an offset press or maybe even a ink jet printer) the two sides would likely look much more similar, since the combination of cyan, yellow, magenta and black cannot reproduce the range (gamut) of colour that a computer monitor displays. This is a constant issue for those who work in print production.

One reason for the differences in the colours and tones available between RGB and CMYK is that RGB uses additive colour mixing, because it describes what kind of light needs to be emitted to produce a given colour. Light is added together to create form from out of the darkness. RGB stores individual values for red, green and blue. RGBA is RGB with an additional channel, alpha, to indicate transparency.

Additive colour mixing: Three overlapping light bulbs in a vacuum, adding together to create white.

Common colour spaces based on the RGB model include sRGB, Adobe RGB and ProPhoto RGB.

CMYK uses subtractive colour mixing used in the printing process, because it describes what kind of inks need to be applied so the light reflected from the substrate and through the inks produces a given colour. One starts with a white substrate (canvas, page, etc), and uses ink to subtract from white to create an image. CMYK stores ink values for cyan, magenta, yellow and black. There are many CMYK colour spaces for different sets of inks, substrates, and press characteristics (which change the dot gain or transfer function for each ink and thus change the appearance).

 

Subtractive colour mixing: Three splotches of paint on white paper, subtracting together to turn the paper black.

 

This translation of colour information is hindered by the fact that each device has a different colour space. 

 

Digital SLRs can use two different colour spaces:

• sRGB
• AdobeRGB

with the later colour space yielding a much more range of colours and tones, but, as you can see from the diagram below:

none of the available colour spaces cover all of the visible colour spectrum.

To try and solve this problem of accurate colour reproduction on both the computer display and the final printout, the ICC (International Colour Consortium) developed a range of ICC profiles which can be used to more accurately translate the true colours from one device to another to ensure the finished photograph looks the same as what the photographer first saw through their viewfinder.

These ICC profiles are simply look-up tables that describe the properties of a colour space. They define the most saturated colours available in a colour space; ie the bluest blue or deepest black your printer can produce. If you don't have a profile, the trio of Red, Green, and Blue values (or CMYK (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Key or black)) that make up a colour have no particular meaning — you can say something is blue, but not exactly which shade of blue. Accurate profiles are the key to a colour-managed workflow. With accurate monitor and printer profiles, your prints will closely match what you see on your monitor.  Without profiles, you need to rely on trial and error combined with good old-fashioned guessing.

 

Colour Space Conversion

Input		Conversion		Output

Colour space conversion is what happens when a colour management module (CMM) translates colour from one device's colour space to  another. Conversion may require approximations in order to preserve the image's most important colour qualities.

The translation stage attempts to create a best match between devices-- even when seemingly incompatible. If the original device has a larger colour gamut than the final device, some of the those colours will be outside the final device's colour space. These "out-of-gamut colours" occur with nearly every conversion and are called a gamut mismatch.

Marking Criteria for Assignment 205

Pass
The candidate has provided:
P1	The minimum relevant information of equipment and materials
P2	Limited evidence of equipment and accessories knowledge
P3	Limited account of the operation of equipment
P4	Reasons for choice of equipment and materials which are not substantiated

Merit
The candidate has achieved everything at pass grade and provided:
M1	Evidence of clear explanations for the choice and operation of a range of materials and equipments
M2	An explanation showing clear evidence of function and operational knowledge
M3	Information in a clear and logical manner

Distinction
The candidate has achieved everything at pass and merit grade and provided:
D1	Clear and coherent explanations for the choice of materials and equipment
D2	A detailed explanation showing clear and consistent evidence of function and operational knowledge
D3	A structured and substantiated explanation which fully supports the final choice of equipment and materials
D4	Clear and consistent evidence of consideration given to alternatives with evidence of informed reflection

Marking Criteria for Assignment 310

Pass
The candidate has provided:
P5	Two series of ten finished thematic printed images of acceptable quality
P6	Evidence of the use of equipment and materials
P7	Limited evidence of checking for potential printing problems
P8	Limited evidence of the use of test print procedures or colour management
P9	A minimal account of alternative printing processes and techniques
P10	A limited technical evaluation
P11	Provided the minimum relevant information in the workflow

Merit
The candidate has achieved everything at pass grade and provided:
M4	Two series of ten images which clearly relate to the themes
M5	Clear evidence of effective use of materials and equipment
M6	A structured explanation of the use of equipment and materials
M7	Clear evidence of checking for potential printing problems with solutions provided
M8	Clear evidence of the use of test print procedures or colour management
M9	A structured account of alternative printing processes and techniques
M10	A structured technical evaluation that supports the final printed images
M11	Clear and relevant information in the workflow

Distinction
The candidate has achieved everything at pass and merit grade and provided:
D5	Two series of ten images of optimum quality that all relate consistently and coherently to the themes
D6	Clear and consistent evidence of effective use of materials and equipment
D7	A structured and substantiated explanation which fully supports the use of equipment and materials
D8	Workflow which provides clear and consistent evidence of understanding the processes
D9	A technical evaluation that demonstrates a high level of knowledge

Marking Criteria for Assignment 212

Pass
The candidate has provided:
P12	The minimum relevant information required by the task
P13	limited evidence of resource, time and cost estimation

Merit
The candidate has achieved everything at pass grade and provided:
M12	Provided clear evidence of resource,time and cost estimation
M13	Presented information in a clear,logical manner
M14	Provided information which shows evidence of understanding
M15	Completed the task with minimal assistance

Distinction
The candidate has achieved everything at pass and merit grade and provided:
D10	Provided clear and consistent evidence of resource, time and cost estimation
D11	Provided information which indicates clear evidence of understanding
D12	Worked with a high level of independence

Ezra Stoller

Ezra was born on 16th May 1915, in Chicago.

Whilst studying at the School of Architecture and Allied Arts at New York University, Ezra became interested in photography, in particular architectural photography.  During the course he began making lantern slides and photographs of architectural models, drawings and sculpture. After his graduation in 1939, he concentrated on photography.

During World War II, he taught photography at the Army Signal Corps Photo Center in New York City. Two decades later, Stoller founded Esto Photographics, the agency that has become one of the profession’s best known and most respected houses of photography, which is now run by Erica Stoller, his daughter.

In 1961, he was the first recipient of the AIA Gold Medal for Photography.

Having studied as an architect, it gave Stoller’s an architect’s eye and discipline that moved him to capture on film the structure and spirit, body and soul of the icons of Modern architecture, from the Louis Kahn’s Salk Institute in La Jolla to Eero Saarinen’s TWA terminal in New York and close to all of the great postwar buildings in between. Often, the image we carry in our mind’s eye of any particular great building was first seen through a lens by Ezra Stoller. He managed, in a career that spanned more than five decades, to capture not only the architecture, but also the times and culture embodied in each piece of work. His photos continue to be featured in countless books and magazine articles, and in art exhibitions worldwide.


 In 1990 Ezra's photographs were published in Modern Architecture: Photographs by Ezra Stoller, which features 400 of his most important works, along with his writing about the pictures, the buildings, and the architects who designed them

On 29th October 2004, Ezra passed away after complications following a stroke.

Examples of Ezra's photography:

Falling Water	Finnish Pavilion
Guggenheim	New Harmony
Seagrams Interior	Chamberlain Cottage
Kitt Peak	Notre-Dame-du-Haut Chapel
Manufacturer's Trust	Whitney Interior

Evaluation of Images

Ezra's photographs show good use of light, texture and shape.  With these images being in black and white the shadows are clearly defined with the texture and contrast of some photographs emphasised by the use of the black and white film.


The unusual shapes and forms in the Finnish Pavilion photograph, with the subtle lighting and the contrasts, not just in light but also with the inclusion of the plant in the bottom right of the photograph and the unusual shapes of the building.    

The shapes and forms are shown clearly, especially in the case of Kitt Peak, where the different tones which are lit by the natural light and the unusual angle of the shot with the almost diagonal line and the shadows created make this image very interesting.

With Seagam's Interior the contrast of the light from the windows and the shadows creating leading lines, leading the viewer into the photograph.   

Julius Shulman

Julius was a very well respected architectural photographer from America, who is best known for his photograph of Case Study House #22, which is shown below (row 1, column 1), who sadly died on 15th July 2009.

Julius was an architectural photographer who’s architectural photographs, like the iconic shots of Frank Lloyd Wright's or Pierre Koenig's remarkable structures, have been published countless times.

Julius was born on 10th October 1910, in Brooklyn, New York.  He was the son of Russian Jewish immigrants. His family soon moved to a farm in Connecticut. Shulman said that's where he learned about lights and shadows and developed a love of nature.

When Julius was 10, his family moved to Los Angeles and opened a dry goods store. His father died of tuberculosis in 1923, leaving his mother with their five children and the business.

Julius attended Roosevelt High School, where he took his lone photography class. He spent the next several years soul searching and earning his rent money by taking photos with an Eastman box camera. One picture of a bridge won first place in a national magazine contest.

It was a casual meeting with architect Richard Neutra in 1936 that launched Julius’s career in architectural photography.

The brilliant design and style of buildings like those by Charles Eames, and Richard Neutra, was first brought to peoples attention by Julius's photography. The detail in the photographs of his work demanded that architectural photography had to be considered as an independent art form. Each of Julius’s architectural photographs brings together the perception and understanding for the buildings and their place in the landscape. The precise compositions reveal not just the architectural ideas behind a building's surface, but also the visions and hopes of an entire age. A sense of humanity is always present in his work, even when the human figure is absent from the actual photographs.

Today, a great many of the buildings documented by Julius have disappeared or been crudely converted, which is why I wanted to capture photographs of some of the buildings in Burton On Trent, before some of them suffer the same fate.

Julius’s mission was to use his photography to build the reputation of architects who were bringing innovative design to the West.

Examples of Julius’s work

Case Study House #22	Chemosphere
Fire Station No 28	Palm Springs House
Prairie Chicken House	Juergen Noga
	Freeman House

Evaluation of Images


Julius's photographs include some colour photographs as well as black and white photographs.

Fireworks

Just some photographs from a firework night, to try out some ideas:

Kathryn Wheel

Fountain

Sparklers

Local Architecture–part 1

One important thing about architecture is that you don’t have to travel far to find any:

Above is a view of the University block of Burton College, in fact the building in which we are studying this course.
Burton has a number of older buildings, which have their own style (like the University Block above), here are some examples:

Andressey Bridge	St Modwen’s Church
Burton Market Hall	Old Building at mouth of Burton Market

Architectural Photography

What is architectural photography ?

Architectural photography is defined as "encompass views of the exteriors and interiors of domestic, commercial, religious, institutional, and engineering structures, as well as records of the evolution of towns and cities".

This latter part of the description is interesting because there are a number of buildings in and around Burton On Trent, that I like and I would like to capture on a photograph, because in the past I have thought about taking a photograph of a building only to be beaten to it by the demolition men.

There are some buildings that I have seen on my travels that I like as either a classic old building, a striking new style buildings.

Below are some of my architectural photographs from our visit to Whitby:

Arch at Whitby Abbey	Part of Whitby Abbey
Nat West Bank – Whitby
St Mary’s Church – Whitby	St Mary’s Church – Whitby