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An interesting sign for the used car lot at Mazda of Erie - July 6, 2018.

For your Art only, not for Sale on a Collage Sheet or a CD

Using his new found poking stick to poke the sun.

 

www.christianstepien.com

Manila Sports Car Club May 2018 Gathering

Traction motor sitting next to 1612, suspect it is the old one, but do not know if it is a replacement or the old/used one.

Part 1 or 3 : options of use.

 

- Too round to have been 'polissoirs' for polishing stones.

- Too large to have been basins for pounding grain.

- Too shallow to have been food stores.

 

Many basins have had time spent carving lip inputs and outputs, and it would be wrong to ignore the importance of 'flow' to this hill-top site. Despite this, flow is not systematic, and some basins are simple circular (lower right). The 'architectural basins' certainly show the ideas and hands of man (see image of the same name below). Some of the simpler basins may be original geological pits - artifacts of sandstone's geological past. My own feeling is that there was a fixed and long term cultural relation with basins of many forms and juxtapositions, and, whilst there may be some natural basins, most of these have been augmented by the hand of man or generated from raw monolith.

 

Flow can be associated with pressing grapes and other fruits, animal sacrifice, hygiene and rites with water. The neolithic was still early for significant juice production (early along the timeline of plant domestication). The steep hill down from the vantage point that is home for the array is not productive agricultural land, and, in truth, the whole area does not invite images of productivity - produce in need of transformation. Whilst the pressing of grapes may have occurred within history, in epochs post the Roman invasion or within a medieval optic, the problem remains - how to find the source of the scale of pressing and then answer the question: why so many basins in number and form? Many of the basins seem to repeat scales that are not optimal for grape and fruit pressing, being too small or shallow. An appropriation of some pre-existing basins during the timescale of the adjacent medieval Priory may have occurred, but with wind crisp off the cusp of the hill, and monolithic stones readily available far and wide, the site does not seem to be ideal for agricultural transformations and one must start to assume that the majority origin may be pre or proto historical.

 

Here is a description of the site from a central Megalithic source:

 

"Several rocks have curious basins and channels carved into them, which are thought to possibly be sacrificial tables. There are stories of sacrifice, and there being channels cut in the rocks for the blood to run through. Several of the rocks seem to have been cut into what are possibly thrones."

 

Animal sacrifice does occur as a cultural constant throughout the world, and the basins' flow points may have been to channel the blood of the sacrificial beast. This does not seem to answer the question : why so many basins and why so many forms of basin? Might there have been a basin allocated for the sacrifice of every different type of farm animal and gibier? There are so many basins that the list of different animals would be raggedly merging with spurious sources of desperation food like frogs and worms. Such persistent and lucid stone carving for sacrifice might leave a trace, and archaeologists may look for iron deposits in tucked away sediments of adjacent dry corners. I don't think that they will find anything, as the basins are relaxed in their disposition and, whilst some are clearly visible, many.are not positioned for formal ritual display. The basins are known locally as 'écuelles du diable' or Devil's bowls. There is talk of Druidique sacrifice, and these cultural frames are most probably best understood as coming from the 'mist' that makes up anti pagan slur, late medieval cabalistique appropriation and even 19th century role-playing theatrical druidism..

 

The last two possible uses are for hygiene and rites with water. I will first merge these two potentials and later discuss them apart. Speculation about the use of water and milk exist. Both flow, and both can carry ideas in and other ideas away. They can come from sacred sources and sacred animals. A third element that might be visualized is that of 'steam'. Imagine a large fire near the adjacent spring - a hundred meters inland from the hill's cusp. The fire heats up dense river stones - a common sight for prehistoric inductive heating. These hot stones are placed onto a flat carry flagstone that has been bordered with clay to stop the rocks from rolling. The ensemble is carried by two men on a leather sling in a formal, or informal parade, to the main vista and its range of basins. Pots or leather bags of sacred water are also carried on shoulders. The down lip of a basin is jammed with greased leather and water is poured onto the 'deep' hot stones that have now been distributed over selected basins. The steam would be dramatic for a spiritual rite, or cleansing and sensual for an Epicurean social solidarity.

 

One site might include both religious and 'social' utilization -

selected according to date.

 

A lake now covers the area around the water source, so vestiges of fires may be difficult to find.

 

Many of the monoliths would retain repeated heat and might have been encapsulated with simple leather tents. Sweat houses exist from Irish protohistory and have been credibly imagined as an ice age potential. Where there is steam, there is near boiling water and herbs can infuse with the smell of mint, pine and thyme potentially adding further range to the site's pallet of expression.

 

A second input is as follows: if a basin has been smoothed with a sooted black clay, and gently skimmed with a thin layer of water, then, when the water stands still, it will be a mirror for those looking down. This may explain some of the simple ground level basins - good sizes and measures adapted for one or two reflecting faces.

 

The text continues clicking on the photo below

"Archetectural basins : Part 2"

 

AJM 03/05/17

For your Art only, not for Sale on a Collage Sheet or CD

For your Art only, not for Sale on a CD or Collage Sheet

This is from a cool book called The Marvels and Mysteries of Science published in 1941.

 

Common with the inexperienced.

Image Free To Use under:

Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic Licence

 

I am happy for you to use this image for your intended purposes (including commercial). All I ask for in return is that you credit me with this use - Attribution Required.

See Licensing details at Creative Commons Licensing: creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

 

Attribution — As the original creator you must give me appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.

 

Please advise me of any usage of this image via my Flickr mail address:

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Fave/ Comment/ Follow of any Flickr image used is appreciated.

Have a great day! - Andrew G Thomas.

For your Art only, not for Sale on a CD

Using an old AI 35mm f2 Nikkor with wrong lenshood, so had to crop down to avoid vignetting!

This shows the estuary of the Swalecliffe Brook as it goes into the North Sea

Por favor, no use esta imagen en su web, blogs u otros medios sin mi permiso explícito. © Todos los derechos reservados.

© Alejandro Cárdaba Rubio/2015

 

El Edificio Carrión (también conocido como Edificio Capitol) es uno de los más conocidos del tercer tramo de la Gran Vía madrileña. Está situado en la esquina de esta calle con la de Jacometrezo, en la plaza del Callao. Su perfil se ha venido empleando como icono de la calle en las celebraciones del centenario de la Gran Vía. El edificio fue ideado como un espacio multiuso, en el instante que se construyó el edificio contenía oficinas, cafeterías y el Cine Capitol. A comienzos del siglo XXI el edificio acoge el cine, una tienda de ropa y un hotel. El estilo de su fachada corresponde a una arquitectura expresionista con claras influencias mendelsohnianas.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------The Carrión building (also known as Capitol building) is one of the best known of the third installment of the Gran Via. It is located on the corner of this street with Jacometrezo, in the plaza de Callao. Your profile has been used as an icon of the street at the celebrations of the centenary of the Gran Via. The building was designed as a multipurpose space, at the moment that was built the building contained offices, cafes and the Capitol cinema. At the beginning of the 21st century the building houses the cinema, a clothing store and a hotel. The style of its façade corresponds to an expressionist architecture with clear influences mendelsohnianas.

 

Más Información / More Information: es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edificio_Carrión

My gorgeous package from Cindy for Beautiful Use - handprinted cards (her own), vintage buttons and a lovely tea towel.

For your Art only, not for Sale on a CD

Using the Van der Waals' Force

Cigarettes are typically sold in one's and two's instead of an entire box..the seller was stacking the used boxes on a wire...not sure why..perhaps to keep count of sales

 

For your Art only, not for Sale on a CD or Collage Sheet

IR HDR. IR converted Canon Rebel XTi. AEB +/-2 total of 3 exposures processed with Photomatix. Levels adjusted in PSE.

 

High Dynamic Range (HDR)

 

High-dynamic-range imaging (HDRI) is a high dynamic range (HDR) technique used in imaging and photography to reproduce a greater dynamic range of luminosity than is possible with standard digital imaging or photographic techniques. The aim is to present a similar range of luminance to that experienced through the human visual system. The human eye, through adaptation of the iris and other methods, adjusts constantly to adapt to a broad range of luminance present in the environment. The brain continuously interprets this information so that a viewer can see in a wide range of light conditions.

 

HDR images can represent a greater range of luminance levels than can be achieved using more 'traditional' methods, such as many real-world scenes containing very bright, direct sunlight to extreme shade, or very faint nebulae. This is often achieved by capturing and then combining several different, narrower range, exposures of the same subject matter. Non-HDR cameras take photographs with a limited exposure range, referred to as LDR, resulting in the loss of detail in highlights or shadows.

 

The two primary types of HDR images are computer renderings and images resulting from merging multiple low-dynamic-range (LDR) or standard-dynamic-range (SDR) photographs. HDR images can also be acquired using special image sensors, such as an oversampled binary image sensor.

 

Due to the limitations of printing and display contrast, the extended luminosity range of an HDR image has to be compressed to be made visible. The method of rendering an HDR image to a standard monitor or printing device is called tone mapping. This method reduces the overall contrast of an HDR image to facilitate display on devices or printouts with lower dynamic range, and can be applied to produce images with preserved local contrast (or exaggerated for artistic effect).

 

In photography, dynamic range is measured in exposure value (EV) differences (known as stops). An increase of one EV, or 'one stop', represents a doubling of the amount of light. Conversely, a decrease of one EV represents a halving of the amount of light. Therefore, revealing detail in the darkest of shadows requires high exposures, while preserving detail in very bright situations requires very low exposures. Most cameras cannot provide this range of exposure values within a single exposure, due to their low dynamic range. High-dynamic-range photographs are generally achieved by capturing multiple standard-exposure images, often using exposure bracketing, and then later merging them into a single HDR image, usually within a photo manipulation program). Digital images are often encoded in a camera's raw image format, because 8-bit JPEG encoding does not offer a wide enough range of values to allow fine transitions (and regarding HDR, later introduces undesirable effects due to lossy compression).

 

Any camera that allows manual exposure control can make images for HDR work, although one equipped with auto exposure bracketing (AEB) is far better suited. Images from film cameras are less suitable as they often must first be digitized, so that they can later be processed using software HDR methods.

 

In most imaging devices, the degree of exposure to light applied to the active element (be it film or CCD) can be altered in one of two ways: by either increasing/decreasing the size of the aperture or by increasing/decreasing the time of each exposure. Exposure variation in an HDR set is only done by altering the exposure time and not the aperture size; this is because altering the aperture size also affects the depth of field and so the resultant multiple images would be quite different, preventing their final combination into a single HDR image.

 

An important limitation for HDR photography is that any movement between successive images will impede or prevent success in combining them afterwards. Also, as one must create several images (often three or five and sometimes more) to obtain the desired luminance range, such a full 'set' of images takes extra time. HDR photographers have developed calculation methods and techniques to partially overcome these problems, but the use of a sturdy tripod is, at least, advised.

 

Some cameras have an auto exposure bracketing (AEB) feature with a far greater dynamic range than others, from the 3 EV of the Canon EOS 40D, to the 18 EV of the Canon EOS-1D Mark II. As the popularity of this imaging method grows, several camera manufactures are now offering built-in HDR features. For example, the Pentax K-7 DSLR has an HDR mode that captures an HDR image and outputs (only) a tone mapped JPEG file. The Canon PowerShot G12, Canon PowerShot S95 and Canon PowerShot S100 offer similar features in a smaller format.. Nikon's approach is called 'Active D-Lighting' which applies exposure compensation and tone mapping to the image as it comes from the sensor, with the accent being on retaing a realistic effect . Some smartphones provide HDR modes, and most mobile platforms have apps that provide HDR picture taking.

 

Camera characteristics such as gamma curves, sensor resolution, noise, photometric calibration and color calibration affect resulting high-dynamic-range images.

 

Color film negatives and slides consist of multiple film layers that respond to light differently. As a consequence, transparent originals (especially positive slides) feature a very high dynamic range

 

Tone mapping

Tone mapping reduces the dynamic range, or contrast ratio, of an entire image while retaining localized contrast. Although it is a distinct operation, tone mapping is often applied to HDRI files by the same software package.

 

Several software applications are available on the PC, Mac and Linux platforms for producing HDR files and tone mapped images. Notable titles include

 

Adobe Photoshop

Aurora HDR

Dynamic Photo HDR

HDR Efex Pro

HDR PhotoStudio

Luminance HDR

MagicRaw

Oloneo PhotoEngine

Photomatix Pro

PTGui

 

Information stored in high-dynamic-range images typically corresponds to the physical values of luminance or radiance that can be observed in the real world. This is different from traditional digital images, which represent colors as they should appear on a monitor or a paper print. Therefore, HDR image formats are often called scene-referred, in contrast to traditional digital images, which are device-referred or output-referred. Furthermore, traditional images are usually encoded for the human visual system (maximizing the visual information stored in the fixed number of bits), which is usually called gamma encoding or gamma correction. The values stored for HDR images are often gamma compressed (power law) or logarithmically encoded, or floating-point linear values, since fixed-point linear encodings are increasingly inefficient over higher dynamic ranges.

 

HDR images often don't use fixed ranges per color channel—other than traditional images—to represent many more colors over a much wider dynamic range. For that purpose, they don't use integer values to represent the single color channels (e.g., 0-255 in an 8 bit per pixel interval for red, green and blue) but instead use a floating point representation. Common are 16-bit (half precision) or 32-bit floating point numbers to represent HDR pixels. However, when the appropriate transfer function is used, HDR pixels for some applications can be represented with a color depth that has as few as 10–12 bits for luminance and 8 bits for chrominance without introducing any visible quantization artifacts.

 

History of HDR photography

The idea of using several exposures to adequately reproduce a too-extreme range of luminance was pioneered as early as the 1850s by Gustave Le Gray to render seascapes showing both the sky and the sea. Such rendering was impossible at the time using standard methods, as the luminosity range was too extreme. Le Gray used one negative for the sky, and another one with a longer exposure for the sea, and combined the two into one picture in positive.

 

Mid 20th century

Manual tone mapping was accomplished by dodging and burning – selectively increasing or decreasing the exposure of regions of the photograph to yield better tonality reproduction. This was effective because the dynamic range of the negative is significantly higher than would be available on the finished positive paper print when that is exposed via the negative in a uniform manner. An excellent example is the photograph Schweitzer at the Lamp by W. Eugene Smith, from his 1954 photo essay A Man of Mercy on Dr. Albert Schweitzer and his humanitarian work in French Equatorial Africa. The image took 5 days to reproduce the tonal range of the scene, which ranges from a bright lamp (relative to the scene) to a dark shadow.

 

Ansel Adams elevated dodging and burning to an art form. Many of his famous prints were manipulated in the darkroom with these two methods. Adams wrote a comprehensive book on producing prints called The Print, which prominently features dodging and burning, in the context of his Zone System.

 

With the advent of color photography, tone mapping in the darkroom was no longer possible due to the specific timing needed during the developing process of color film. Photographers looked to film manufacturers to design new film stocks with improved response, or continued to shoot in black and white to use tone mapping methods.

 

Color film capable of directly recording high-dynamic-range images was developed by Charles Wyckoff and EG&G "in the course of a contract with the Department of the Air Force". This XR film had three emulsion layers, an upper layer having an ASA speed rating of 400, a middle layer with an intermediate rating, and a lower layer with an ASA rating of 0.004. The film was processed in a manner similar to color films, and each layer produced a different color. The dynamic range of this extended range film has been estimated as 1:108. It has been used to photograph nuclear explosions, for astronomical photography, for spectrographic research, and for medical imaging. Wyckoff's detailed pictures of nuclear explosions appeared on the cover of Life magazine in the mid-1950s.

 

Late 20th century

Georges Cornuéjols and licensees of his patents (Brdi, Hymatom) introduced the principle of HDR video image, in 1986, by interposing a matricial LCD screen in front of the camera's image sensor, increasing the sensors dynamic by five stops. The concept of neighborhood tone mapping was applied to video cameras by a group from the Technion in Israel led by Dr. Oliver Hilsenrath and Prof. Y.Y.Zeevi who filed for a patent on this concept in 1988.

 

In February and April 1990, Georges Cornuéjols introduced the first real-time HDR camera that combined two images captured by a sensor3435 or simultaneously3637 by two sensors of the camera. This process is known as bracketing used for a video stream.

 

In 1991, the first commercial video camera was introduced that performed real-time capturing of multiple images with different exposures, and producing an HDR video image, by Hymatom, licensee of Georges Cornuéjols.

 

Also in 1991, Georges Cornuéjols introduced the HDR+ image principle by non-linear accumulation of images to increase the sensitivity of the camera: for low-light environments, several successive images are accumulated, thus increasing the signal to noise ratio.

 

In 1993, another commercial medical camera producing an HDR video image, by the Technion.

 

Modern HDR imaging uses a completely different approach, based on making a high-dynamic-range luminance or light map using only global image operations (across the entire image), and then tone mapping the result. Global HDR was first introduced in 19931 resulting in a mathematical theory of differently exposed pictures of the same subject matter that was published in 1995 by Steve Mann and Rosalind Picard.

 

On October 28, 1998, Ben Sarao created one of the first nighttime HDR+G (High Dynamic Range + Graphic image)of STS-95 on the launch pad at NASA's Kennedy Space Center. It consisted of four film images of the shuttle at night that were digitally composited with additional digital graphic elements. The image was first exhibited at NASA Headquarters Great Hall, Washington DC in 1999 and then published in Hasselblad Forum, Issue 3 1993, Volume 35 ISSN 0282-5449.

 

The advent of consumer digital cameras produced a new demand for HDR imaging to improve the light response of digital camera sensors, which had a much smaller dynamic range than film. Steve Mann developed and patented the global-HDR method for producing digital images having extended dynamic range at the MIT Media Laboratory. Mann's method involved a two-step procedure: (1) generate one floating point image array by global-only image operations (operations that affect all pixels identically, without regard to their local neighborhoods); and then (2) convert this image array, using local neighborhood processing (tone-remapping, etc.), into an HDR image. The image array generated by the first step of Mann's process is called a lightspace image, lightspace picture, or radiance map. Another benefit of global-HDR imaging is that it provides access to the intermediate light or radiance map, which has been used for computer vision, and other image processing operations.

 

21st century

In 2005, Adobe Systems introduced several new features in Photoshop CS2 including Merge to HDR, 32 bit floating point image support, and HDR tone mapping.

 

On June 30, 2016, Microsoft added support for the digital compositing of HDR images to Windows 10 using the Universal Windows Platform.

 

HDR sensors

Modern CMOS image sensors can often capture a high dynamic range from a single exposure. The wide dynamic range of the captured image is non-linearly compressed into a smaller dynamic range electronic representation. However, with proper processing, the information from a single exposure can be used to create an HDR image.

 

Such HDR imaging is used in extreme dynamic range applications like welding or automotive work. Some other cameras designed for use in security applications can automatically provide two or more images for each frame, with changing exposure. For example, a sensor for 30fps video will give out 60fps with the odd frames at a short exposure time and the even frames at a longer exposure time. Some of the sensor may even combine the two images on-chip so that a wider dynamic range without in-pixel compression is directly available to the user for display or processing.

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-dynamic-range_imaging

 

Infrared Photography

 

In infrared photography, the film or image sensor used is sensitive to infrared light. The part of the spectrum used is referred to as near-infrared to distinguish it from far-infrared, which is the domain of thermal imaging. Wavelengths used for photography range from about 700 nm to about 900 nm. Film is usually sensitive to visible light too, so an infrared-passing filter is used; this lets infrared (IR) light pass through to the camera, but blocks all or most of the visible light spectrum (the filter thus looks black or deep red). ("Infrared filter" may refer either to this type of filter or to one that blocks infrared but passes other wavelengths.)

 

When these filters are used together with infrared-sensitive film or sensors, "in-camera effects" can be obtained; false-color or black-and-white images with a dreamlike or sometimes lurid appearance known as the "Wood Effect," an effect mainly caused by foliage (such as tree leaves and grass) strongly reflecting in the same way visible light is reflected from snow. There is a small contribution from chlorophyll fluorescence, but this is marginal and is not the real cause of the brightness seen in infrared photographs. The effect is named after the infrared photography pioneer Robert W. Wood, and not after the material wood, which does not strongly reflect infrared.

 

The other attributes of infrared photographs include very dark skies and penetration of atmospheric haze, caused by reduced Rayleigh scattering and Mie scattering, respectively, compared to visible light. The dark skies, in turn, result in less infrared light in shadows and dark reflections of those skies from water, and clouds will stand out strongly. These wavelengths also penetrate a few millimeters into skin and give a milky look to portraits, although eyes often look black.

 

Until the early 20th century, infrared photography was not possible because silver halide emulsions are not sensitive to longer wavelengths than that of blue light (and to a lesser extent, green light) without the addition of a dye to act as a color sensitizer. The first infrared photographs (as distinct from spectrographs) to be published appeared in the February 1910 edition of The Century Magazine and in the October 1910 edition of the Royal Photographic Society Journal to illustrate papers by Robert W. Wood, who discovered the unusual effects that now bear his name. The RPS co-ordinated events to celebrate the centenary of this event in 2010. Wood's photographs were taken on experimental film that required very long exposures; thus, most of his work focused on landscapes. A further set of infrared landscapes taken by Wood in Italy in 1911 used plates provided for him by CEK Mees at Wratten & Wainwright. Mees also took a few infrared photographs in Portugal in 1910, which are now in the Kodak archives.

 

Infrared-sensitive photographic plates were developed in the United States during World War I for spectroscopic analysis, and infrared sensitizing dyes were investigated for improved haze penetration in aerial photography. After 1930, new emulsions from Kodak and other manufacturers became useful to infrared astronomy.

 

Infrared photography became popular with photography enthusiasts in the 1930s when suitable film was introduced commercially. The Times regularly published landscape and aerial photographs taken by their staff photographers using Ilford infrared film. By 1937 33 kinds of infrared film were available from five manufacturers including Agfa, Kodak and Ilford. Infrared movie film was also available and was used to create day-for-night effects in motion pictures, a notable example being the pseudo-night aerial sequences in the James Cagney/Bette Davis movie The Bride Came COD.

 

False-color infrared photography became widely practiced with the introduction of Kodak Ektachrome Infrared Aero Film and Ektachrome Infrared EIR. The first version of this, known as Kodacolor Aero-Reversal-Film, was developed by Clark and others at the Kodak for camouflage detection in the 1940s. The film became more widely available in 35mm form in the 1960s but KODAK AEROCHROME III Infrared Film 1443 has been discontinued.

 

Infrared photography became popular with a number of 1960s recording artists, because of the unusual results; Jimi Hendrix, Donovan, Frank and a slow shutter speed without focus compensation, however wider apertures like f/2.0 can produce sharp photos only if the lens is meticulously refocused to the infrared index mark, and only if this index mark is the correct one for the filter and film in use. However, it should be noted that diffraction effects inside a camera are greater at infrared wavelengths so that stopping down the lens too far may actually reduce sharpness.

 

Most apochromatic ('APO') lenses do not have an Infrared index mark and do not need to be refocused for the infrared spectrum because they are already optically corrected into the near-infrared spectrum. Catadioptric lenses do not often require this adjustment because their mirror containing elements do not suffer from chromatic aberration and so the overall aberration is comparably less. Catadioptric lenses do, of course, still contain lenses, and these lenses do still have a dispersive property.

 

Infrared black-and-white films require special development times but development is usually achieved with standard black-and-white film developers and chemicals (like D-76). Kodak HIE film has a polyester film base that is very stable but extremely easy to scratch, therefore special care must be used in the handling of Kodak HIE throughout the development and printing/scanning process to avoid damage to the film. The Kodak HIE film was sensitive to 900 nm.

 

As of November 2, 2007, "KODAK is preannouncing the discontinuance" of HIE Infrared 35 mm film stating the reasons that, "Demand for these products has been declining significantly in recent years, and it is no longer practical to continue to manufacture given the low volume, the age of the product formulations and the complexity of the processes involved." At the time of this notice, HIE Infrared 135-36 was available at a street price of around $12.00 a roll at US mail order outlets.

 

Arguably the greatest obstacle to infrared film photography has been the increasing difficulty of obtaining infrared-sensitive film. However, despite the discontinuance of HIE, other newer infrared sensitive emulsions from EFKE, ROLLEI, and ILFORD are still available, but these formulations have differing sensitivity and specifications from the venerable KODAK HIE that has been around for at least two decades. Some of these infrared films are available in 120 and larger formats as well as 35 mm, which adds flexibility to their application. With the discontinuance of Kodak HIE, Efke's IR820 film has become the only IR film on the marketneeds update with good sensitivity beyond 750 nm, the Rollei film does extend beyond 750 nm but IR sensitivity falls off very rapidly.

  

Color infrared transparency films have three sensitized layers that, because of the way the dyes are coupled to these layers, reproduce infrared as red, red as green, and green as blue. All three layers are sensitive to blue so the film must be used with a yellow filter, since this will block blue light but allow the remaining colors to reach the film. The health of foliage can be determined from the relative strengths of green and infrared light reflected; this shows in color infrared as a shift from red (healthy) towards magenta (unhealthy). Early color infrared films were developed in the older E-4 process, but Kodak later manufactured a color transparency film that could be developed in standard E-6 chemistry, although more accurate results were obtained by developing using the AR-5 process. In general, color infrared does not need to be refocused to the infrared index mark on the lens.

 

In 2007 Kodak announced that production of the 35 mm version of their color infrared film (Ektachrome Professional Infrared/EIR) would cease as there was insufficient demand. Since 2011, all formats of color infrared film have been discontinued. Specifically, Aerochrome 1443 and SO-734.

 

There is no currently available digital camera that will produce the same results as Kodak color infrared film although the equivalent images can be produced by taking two exposures, one infrared and the other full-color, and combining in post-production. The color images produced by digital still cameras using infrared-pass filters are not equivalent to those produced on color infrared film. The colors result from varying amounts of infrared passing through the color filters on the photo sites, further amended by the Bayer filtering. While this makes such images unsuitable for the kind of applications for which the film was used, such as remote sensing of plant health, the resulting color tonality has proved popular artistically.

 

Color digital infrared, as part of full spectrum photography is gaining popularity. The ease of creating a softly colored photo with infrared characteristics has found interest among hobbyists and professionals.

 

In 2008, Los Angeles photographer, Dean Bennici started cutting and hand rolling Aerochrome color Infrared film. All Aerochrome medium and large format which exists today came directly from his lab. The trend in infrared photography continues to gain momentum with the success of photographer Richard Mosse and multiple users all around the world.

 

Digital camera sensors are inherently sensitive to infrared light, which would interfere with the normal photography by confusing the autofocus calculations or softening the image (because infrared light is focused differently from visible light), or oversaturating the red channel. Also, some clothing is transparent in the infrared, leading to unintended (at least to the manufacturer) uses of video cameras. Thus, to improve image quality and protect privacy, many digital cameras employ infrared blockers. Depending on the subject matter, infrared photography may not be practical with these cameras because the exposure times become overly long, often in the range of 30 seconds, creating noise and motion blur in the final image. However, for some subject matter the long exposure does not matter or the motion blur effects actually add to the image. Some lenses will also show a 'hot spot' in the centre of the image as their coatings are optimised for visible light and not for IR.

 

An alternative method of DSLR infrared photography is to remove the infrared blocker in front of the sensor and replace it with a filter that removes visible light. This filter is behind the mirror, so the camera can be used normally - handheld, normal shutter speeds, normal composition through the viewfinder, and focus, all work like a normal camera. Metering works but is not always accurate because of the difference between visible and infrared refraction. When the IR blocker is removed, many lenses which did display a hotspot cease to do so, and become perfectly usable for infrared photography. Additionally, because the red, green and blue micro-filters remain and have transmissions not only in their respective color but also in the infrared, enhanced infrared color may be recorded.

 

Since the Bayer filters in most digital cameras absorb a significant fraction of the infrared light, these cameras are sometimes not very sensitive as infrared cameras and can sometimes produce false colors in the images. An alternative approach is to use a Foveon X3 sensor, which does not have absorptive filters on it; the Sigma SD10 DSLR has a removable IR blocking filter and dust protector, which can be simply omitted or replaced by a deep red or complete visible light blocking filter. The Sigma SD14 has an IR/UV blocking filter that can be removed/installed without tools. The result is a very sensitive digital IR camera.

 

While it is common to use a filter that blocks almost all visible light, the wavelength sensitivity of a digital camera without internal infrared blocking is such that a variety of artistic results can be obtained with more conventional filtration. For example, a very dark neutral density filter can be used (such as the Hoya ND400) which passes a very small amount of visible light compared to the near-infrared it allows through. Wider filtration permits an SLR viewfinder to be used and also passes more varied color information to the sensor without necessarily reducing the Wood effect. Wider filtration is however likely to reduce other infrared artefacts such as haze penetration and darkened skies. This technique mirrors the methods used by infrared film photographers where black-and-white infrared film was often used with a deep red filter rather than a visually opaque one.

 

Another common technique with near-infrared filters is to swap blue and red channels in software (e.g. photoshop) which retains much of the characteristic 'white foliage' while rendering skies a glorious blue.

 

Several Sony cameras had the so-called Night Shot facility, which physically moves the blocking filter away from the light path, which makes the cameras very sensitive to infrared light. Soon after its development, this facility was 'restricted' by Sony to make it difficult for people to take photos that saw through clothing. To do this the iris is opened fully and exposure duration is limited to long times of more than 1/30 second or so. It is possible to shoot infrared but neutral density filters must be used to reduce the camera's sensitivity and the long exposure times mean that care must be taken to avoid camera-shake artifacts.

 

Fuji have produced digital cameras for use in forensic criminology and medicine which have no infrared blocking filter. The first camera, designated the S3 PRO UVIR, also had extended ultraviolet sensitivity (digital sensors are usually less sensitive to UV than to IR). Optimum UV sensitivity requires special lenses, but ordinary lenses usually work well for IR. In 2007, FujiFilm introduced a new version of this camera, based on the Nikon D200/ FujiFilm S5 called the IS Pro, also able to take Nikon lenses. Fuji had earlier introduced a non-SLR infrared camera, the IS-1, a modified version of the FujiFilm FinePix S9100. Unlike the S3 PRO UVIR, the IS-1 does not offer UV sensitivity. FujiFilm restricts the sale of these cameras to professional users with their EULA specifically prohibiting "unethical photographic conduct".

 

Phase One digital camera backs can be ordered in an infrared modified form.

 

Remote sensing and thermographic cameras are sensitive to longer wavelengths of infrared (see Infrared spectrum#Commonly used sub-division scheme). They may be multispectral and use a variety of technologies which may not resemble common camera or filter designs. Cameras sensitive to longer infrared wavelengths including those used in infrared astronomy often require cooling to reduce thermally induced dark currents in the sensor (see Dark current (physics)). Lower cost uncooled thermographic digital cameras operate in the Long Wave infrared band (see Thermographic camera#Uncooled infrared detectors). These cameras are generally used for building inspection or preventative maintenance but can be used for artistic pursuits as well.

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infrared_photography

 

Using a mix of the late afternoon's natural light and my Elinchrom Ranger Quadra RX, to fill the shadows and add some spice to the photos.

I used a 70cm Elinchrom - Rotalux Mini Octa" Deep Throat " on a single 400 w/s high speed head, the pics were taken with a Canon EOS 1Ds MKII + EF 28-70 f/2.8L USM lens, triggering with a Skyport Speed.

7126 S Western Ave. Chicago Illinois

For your Art only, not for Sale on a Collage Sheet or a CD

Use left-over scraps of binding to create this block. Find out more about this and all the Patchsmith Sampler Blocks at The Patchsmith.

For your Art only, not for Sale on a CD or Collage Sheet

The rig I made to hold a laser pointer during photos so that eyes glow. Here it is in use.

using the Fujifulm X10 panorama setting - this is about 180 degrees.

The shoes have the outline of France on the insoles

For your Art only, not for Sale on a CD or Collage Sheet

For your Art only, not for Sale on a CD or Collage Sheet

For your Art only, not for Sale on a CD or Collage Sheet

For your Art only, not for Sale on a CD

Used to love campfire Marshmellows...mostly I remember them in wax paper...a Five pound tin must be for a boy scout cookout. Or the Kkwwwuuusssshhhhhh of Maxwell House Coffee, pop the key off the top, lift the tab and insert it into the key and roll it around the top of the can...forthose of you familiar with a 12 inche black and white TV with tubes in it, you could here the sounds on the Maxwell House commercial for 'I Remember Mama"

A marionette is a puppet controlled from above using wires or strings depending on regional variations. A marionette's puppeteer is called a marionettist. Marionettes are operated with the puppeteer hidden or revealed to an audience by using a vertical or horizontal control bar in different forms of theatres or entertainment venues. They have also been used in films and on television. The attachment of the strings varies according to its character or purpose.

 

ETYMOLOGY

In French. marionette = "little Mary". One of the first figures to be made into a marionette was the Virgin Mary, hence the name.

 

HISTORY

ANCIENT TIMES

Puppetry is an ancient form of performance. Some historians claim that they pre-date actors in theatre. There is evidence that they were used in Egypt as early as 2000 BC when string-operated figures of wood were manipulated to perform the action of kneading bread, and other string controlled objects. Wire controlled, articulated puppets made of clay and ivory have been found in Egyptian tombs. Marionette puppetry was used to display rituals and ceremonies using these string-operated figurines back in ancient times and is used today.

 

Puppetry was practiced in Ancient Greece and the oldest written records of puppetry can be found in the works of Herodotus and Xenophon, dating from the 5th century BC. The Greek word translated as "puppet" is "νευρόσπαστος" (nevrospastos), which literally means "drawn by strings, string-pulling", from "νεῦρον" (nevron), meaning either "sinew, tendon, muscle, string", or "wire", and "σπάω" (spaō), meaning "draw, pull".

 

Aristotle (384–322 BC) discusses puppets in his work On the Motion of Animals.

 

The movements of animals may be compared with those of automatic puppets, which are set going on the occasion of a tiny movement; the levers are released, and strike the twisted strings against one another.

 

Archimedes is known to have worked with marionettes. Plato's work also contains references to puppetry. The Iliad and the Odyssey were presented using puppetry. The roots of European puppetry probably extend back to the Greek plays with puppets played to the "common people" in the 5th century BC. By the 3rd century BC these plays would appear in the Theatre of Dionysus at the Acropolis.

 

In ancient Greece and Rome clay and ivory dolls, dated from around 500 BC, were found in children's tombs. These dolls had articulated arms and legs, some of which had an iron rod extending up from the tops of their heads. This rod was used to manipulate the doll from above, exactly as is done today in Sicilian puppetry. A few of these dolls had strings in place of the rods. Some researchers believe these ancient figures were mere toys and not puppets due to their small size.

The Indian word "sutradhara" refers to the show-manager of theatrical performances (or a puppet-player), and also means literally "string-puller" or "string-holder".

 

SICILIAN MARIONETTES

The sides of donkey carts are decorated with intricate, painted scenes from the Frankish romantic poems, such as The Song of Roland. These same tales are enacted in traditional puppet theatres featuring hand-made marionettes of wood, an art form called "L'Opera deî Pupi" ("Opera of the puppets") in Sicilian. The opera of the puppets and the Sicilian tradition of cantastorî (singers of tales) are rooted in the Provençal troubadour tradition in Sicily during the reign of Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor, in the first half of the 13th century. A great place to see this marionette art is the puppet theatres of Palermo, Sicily.

 

MARIONETTE OPERAS

In the 18th century, operas were specifically composed for marionettes. Mozart as a child had seen marionettes. Gluck, Haydn, de Falla and Respighi all composed adult operas for marionettes. Lewis Carroll composed marionette operas and plays for his siblings' entertainment. Today in Salzburg in Austria, the Salzburg Marionette Theatre still continues the tradition of presenting full-length opera using marionettes in their own purpose-built theatre.

 

The Opera dei Pupi, Sicilian puppet theater, was relisted on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2008.

 

MARIONETTES IN MODERN TIMES

Marionettes are sometimes referred to as "puppets", but the term "marionettes" is more precise, distinguishing them from other forms of puppetry, such as finger, glove, rod and shadow puppetry.

 

In the UK the renaissance of Marionettes during the late 19th and early 20th century was driven by W. H. Whanslaw and Waldo Lanchester, two of the co-founders of the British Puppet and Model Theatre Guild. The only purpose-built UK marionette theatre is The Harlequin Puppet Theatre (built 1958) in Rhos on Sea, North Wales, Founded by the late Eric Bramall FRSA and continued by Chris Somerville. Other theatres that occasionally perform with marionettes are the Little Angel Theatre founded by John and Lyndie Wright in Islington, London, Whose first ever show The Wild Night Of The Witches was a marionette play, It opened the theatre in 1961 and was revived for the 50th anniversary in 2011 The Norwich Puppet Theatre founded by Ray & Joan DaSilva sometimes present marionette shows and the Puppet Theatre Barge continue to perform using long string marionettes throughout the year, founded by Gren Middleton and Juliet Rogers. The barge is based in Little Venice, London during the winter months and tours to places such as Richmond Upon Thames during the summer.

 

In Scotland, Dr Malcolm Knight has championed the art form and over the last 25 years the Scottish Mask and Puppet Centre[12] has acted as a catalyst, a lead agency, and as a resource centre for all those with an interest in mask and puppet theatre.

 

In Austria the Salzburg Marionette Theatre was founded in 1913 by Professor Anton Aicher. Aicher was heavily influenced by Count Franz Pocci who founded the Munich Marionette Theatre in Germany in 1855. Until 2012, the Salzburg Marionette Theatre was under the artistic direction of his granddaughter, Gretl Aicher, who commented on her lasting interest in marionettes, "What then is the fascination of a life with marionettes? Is it the pleasure of performing? The appeal of mastering an 'instrument' to the point of virtuosity? The transformation of one's own self? For me, it is the process of empathizing with mind and soul, of feeling at one with music and movement that bring these much loved creatures to life. The Salzburg Marionette Theatre performs mainly operas such as Die Fledermaus and The Magic Flute and a small number of ballets such as The Nutcracker. The Salzburg Marionette Theatre productions are aimed for adults although children are welcome. There is also a marionette theatre at Schoenbrunn Palace in Vienna. Marionette theatre also had a very long history in entertainment in Prague,

 

In the Czech Republic Marionette theatre has a very long history in entertainment in Prague, An important organisation is the National Marionette Theatre. Its repertoire mainly features a marionette production of Mozart's famous Don Giovanni. The production has period costumes and a beautifully designed 18th-century setting. There are numerous other companies including, Buchty a Loutky ("Cakes and Puppets") founded by Marek Bečka. Rocky IX and Tibet are just two works in the repertoire.

 

In Australia, like in many other countries, there is a continuing tradition of marionette puppetry. Norman Hetherington OAM, Peter Scriven, founder of the Marionette Theatre of Australia, Richard Bradshaw OAM and David Splatt (Smallpox Theatre) are notable puppeteers.

 

In Picardy, Lafleur is a marionette from Amiens. The Cabotans d'Amiens are hand carved, using wood, with a central rod and strings for the arms and legs. In France, the most famous puppet is the Guignol which is a hand puppet created in Lyon in 1808.

 

TELEVISION FILM

With the rise in popularity of television and film, marionettes found a rise in popularity especially in children's programming. The story of Pinocchio and its Disney adaptation (Pinocchio), which was released in 1940, is a story about a marionette. In 1947, Howdy Doody introduced marionettes to children's television, with Howdy Doody (the main character) being a marionette, as well as some other characters.

 

In the 1950s, Bil Baird and Cora Eisenberg presented a great number of marionette shows for television, and were also responsible for the Lonely Goatherd sequence from the classic film The Sound of Music. Bil Baird also wrote a classic book on his work. In Australia, a program called Mr. Squiggle, using a marionette central character of the same name, ran for just over 40 years (1959–1999). Another program for children using puppetry was the Magic Circle Club featuring puppets Cassius Cuckoo and Leonardo de Funbird.

 

From the 1940s onwards, the BBC in the United Kingdom, produced a wide series of marionette programmes for children and then created The BBC Television Puppet Theatre based in Lime Grove Studios from 1955–1964, Usually under the title Watch With Mother The various programmes included Whirligig, The Woodentops, Bill and Ben, Muffin The Mule, Rubovia a series created by Gordon Murray and Andy Pandy. Later in the 1960s, Gerry Anderson with his wife, Sylvia Anderson and colleagues made a number of hit series, Fireball XL5, Stingray and Thunderbirds, which pioneered a technique combining marionettes and electronics. This allowed for radio control moving of the mouth of a marionettes. The technique was patented and called "supermarionation". The programs have been shown all around the world and are now widely distributed on DVD. Anderson also made two films, Thunderbirds Are Go and Thunderbird 6.[15] During the 1970s in the UK TV series using marionettes include The Adventures of Rupert Bear, Mumfie and Cloppa Castle. Some marionettes appear in Pipkins namely Octavia Ostrich. More recently marionettes are starting to re emerge on the TV screen, Coca Cola Have used marionettes to create a series of adverts based in an office and music videos use them regularly as metaphors.

 

Marionettes are featured in the 1999 film, Being John Malkovich. John Cusack played a manipulator who referred to himself as a puppeteer.

 

The BBC children's show Playbus (later Playdays) used many puppets during their commission, notably a singing and dancing marionette called Lizzie Dreams, sometimes paired up with another marionette called Nick.

 

Team America: World Police is a 2004 movie made by South Park creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker which uses a crude, naive, child like style of supermarionation as in Thunderbirds. Matt Stone and Trey Parker dubbed their version "Supercrappymation" due to the fact they intentionally left the strings visible among other reasons.

 

Also appearing in 2004 was the full-length, award-winning marionette fantasy film Strings, directed by Dane Anders Rønnow Klarlund.

 

A marionette was also used in the Doctor Who episode "The Shakespeare Code".

 

Pixar uses its own proprietary software called Marionette to create its animations but this has nothing to do with puppetry except in name.

 

TYPES OF MARIONETTE CONTROL BAR

CHINESE/ASIAN PADDLE CONTROL

This type of control has many strings attached to a rounded rectangular paddle with a short handle, all the strings are attached and hang from the outer edge of the paddle and are used by selecting each string with the opposite hand and pulling to control the figure which hangs below.

 

HORIZONTAL CONTROL

This control is a bar which is held in the hand in a horizontal plane. There can be numerous bars at right angles to the central bar, which in turn attaches via wires to the hands, shoulders, back, etc. A smaller plate is usually hung under the main bar, and this carries the head strings; likewise, a detachable clip usually holds the leg bar. This style of control is generally used in the USA for human figures and is also known as the American control. A similar control is almost universally used for quadruped animals; as it emulates the basic shape of the animal, rocking it from side to side will control the leg movements in unison. The Salzburg Marionette Theatre in Austria also uses a variant of this style for its human characters.

 

VERTICAL CONTROL

This type of control is an upright bar which has various smaller bars inserted at right angles from which the head, shoulder, back etc. strings etc. are attached to. This control usually has a detachable leg bar which controls walking when held in the opposite hand. The arms are controlled by wires which are inserted into a hole in the shaft bent at approximately 45 degrees to the shaft and hang loosely with a loop at the end to attach the hand strings, these are then moved by the fingers holding the main shaft. A tilt of the main upright, controls the head and body with a fine nuance, This type of control is usually called the British control. Another variation of the vertical control is found in Europe usually a rigid wire rod extends from the centre of the head upwards and fixed rigidly to the control, The leg bar is inserted through the main upright but pivots on a pin to allow movement of the legs.

 

STYLES OF MARIONETTES

SICILIAN MARIONETTES

Sicilian marionettes are among the simplest marionettes to operate. They are usually carved out of wood and have a sturdy rod which extends up through the body into the head. This rod, and one string attached to the hand, controls the manipulation of the puppet.

 

CZECH MARIONETTES

Czech rod marionettes are similar to Sicilian ones though they are more complex. They are hand carved, usually using lime wood. The marionettes have the central rod like the Sicilian marionette but also have strings for the arms and legs. Sometimes they also use string to control a mouth or movable ears. These require more skilled manipulation. Czechs also have marionettes that have no central rod and strings that are attached to the head, shoulders and back. These are the most difficult marionettes to manipulate due to the absence of the central rod. Miroslav Trejtnar is an acknowledged master puppeteer and teacher of traditional Czech marionette making skills.

 

BURMESE MARIONETTES

Burmese marionettes are all string operated and are a popular art in Burma. Marionettes are called Yoke thé (lit. miniatures) and are almost always performed in operas. A Burmese marionette troupe must have 27 characters, including a king, animals such as horse, elephant, tiger, monkey and parrot, ministers, prince and princess and buffoons A hsaing waing, a traditional Burmese orchestra usually provides the music. Burmese marionettes are very intricate and dexterous as they employ 18 (for male characters) or 19 (for female) wires, each puppet controlled only by one puppeteer.

 

WIKIPEDIA

1992 model- they used to use green for recycling at multifamily complexes

Experiment with converted IR camera using a polarizing filter and HDR software. AEB +/-2 total 3 exposures processed with Photomatix.

 

High Dynamic Range (HDR)

 

High-dynamic-range imaging (HDRI) is a high dynamic range (HDR) technique used in imaging and photography to reproduce a greater dynamic range of luminosity than is possible with standard digital imaging or photographic techniques. The aim is to present a similar range of luminance to that experienced through the human visual system. The human eye, through adaptation of the iris and other methods, adjusts constantly to adapt to a broad range of luminance present in the environment. The brain continuously interprets this information so that a viewer can see in a wide range of light conditions.

 

HDR images can represent a greater range of luminance levels than can be achieved using more 'traditional' methods, such as many real-world scenes containing very bright, direct sunlight to extreme shade, or very faint nebulae. This is often achieved by capturing and then combining several different, narrower range, exposures of the same subject matter. Non-HDR cameras take photographs with a limited exposure range, referred to as LDR, resulting in the loss of detail in highlights or shadows.

 

The two primary types of HDR images are computer renderings and images resulting from merging multiple low-dynamic-range (LDR) or standard-dynamic-range (SDR) photographs. HDR images can also be acquired using special image sensors, such as an oversampled binary image sensor.

 

Due to the limitations of printing and display contrast, the extended luminosity range of an HDR image has to be compressed to be made visible. The method of rendering an HDR image to a standard monitor or printing device is called tone mapping. This method reduces the overall contrast of an HDR image to facilitate display on devices or printouts with lower dynamic range, and can be applied to produce images with preserved local contrast (or exaggerated for artistic effect).

 

In photography, dynamic range is measured in exposure value (EV) differences (known as stops). An increase of one EV, or 'one stop', represents a doubling of the amount of light. Conversely, a decrease of one EV represents a halving of the amount of light. Therefore, revealing detail in the darkest of shadows requires high exposures, while preserving detail in very bright situations requires very low exposures. Most cameras cannot provide this range of exposure values within a single exposure, due to their low dynamic range. High-dynamic-range photographs are generally achieved by capturing multiple standard-exposure images, often using exposure bracketing, and then later merging them into a single HDR image, usually within a photo manipulation program). Digital images are often encoded in a camera's raw image format, because 8-bit JPEG encoding does not offer a wide enough range of values to allow fine transitions (and regarding HDR, later introduces undesirable effects due to lossy compression).

 

Any camera that allows manual exposure control can make images for HDR work, although one equipped with auto exposure bracketing (AEB) is far better suited. Images from film cameras are less suitable as they often must first be digitized, so that they can later be processed using software HDR methods.

 

In most imaging devices, the degree of exposure to light applied to the active element (be it film or CCD) can be altered in one of two ways: by either increasing/decreasing the size of the aperture or by increasing/decreasing the time of each exposure. Exposure variation in an HDR set is only done by altering the exposure time and not the aperture size; this is because altering the aperture size also affects the depth of field and so the resultant multiple images would be quite different, preventing their final combination into a single HDR image.

 

An important limitation for HDR photography is that any movement between successive images will impede or prevent success in combining them afterwards. Also, as one must create several images (often three or five and sometimes more) to obtain the desired luminance range, such a full 'set' of images takes extra time. HDR photographers have developed calculation methods and techniques to partially overcome these problems, but the use of a sturdy tripod is, at least, advised.

 

Some cameras have an auto exposure bracketing (AEB) feature with a far greater dynamic range than others, from the 3 EV of the Canon EOS 40D, to the 18 EV of the Canon EOS-1D Mark II. As the popularity of this imaging method grows, several camera manufactures are now offering built-in HDR features. For example, the Pentax K-7 DSLR has an HDR mode that captures an HDR image and outputs (only) a tone mapped JPEG file. The Canon PowerShot G12, Canon PowerShot S95 and Canon PowerShot S100 offer similar features in a smaller format.. Nikon's approach is called 'Active D-Lighting' which applies exposure compensation and tone mapping to the image as it comes from the sensor, with the accent being on retaing a realistic effect . Some smartphones provide HDR modes, and most mobile platforms have apps that provide HDR picture taking.

 

Camera characteristics such as gamma curves, sensor resolution, noise, photometric calibration and color calibration affect resulting high-dynamic-range images.

 

Color film negatives and slides consist of multiple film layers that respond to light differently. As a consequence, transparent originals (especially positive slides) feature a very high dynamic range

 

Tone mapping

Tone mapping reduces the dynamic range, or contrast ratio, of an entire image while retaining localized contrast. Although it is a distinct operation, tone mapping is often applied to HDRI files by the same software package.

 

Several software applications are available on the PC, Mac and Linux platforms for producing HDR files and tone mapped images. Notable titles include

 

Adobe Photoshop

Aurora HDR

Dynamic Photo HDR

HDR Efex Pro

HDR PhotoStudio

Luminance HDR

MagicRaw

Oloneo PhotoEngine

Photomatix Pro

PTGui

 

Information stored in high-dynamic-range images typically corresponds to the physical values of luminance or radiance that can be observed in the real world. This is different from traditional digital images, which represent colors as they should appear on a monitor or a paper print. Therefore, HDR image formats are often called scene-referred, in contrast to traditional digital images, which are device-referred or output-referred. Furthermore, traditional images are usually encoded for the human visual system (maximizing the visual information stored in the fixed number of bits), which is usually called gamma encoding or gamma correction. The values stored for HDR images are often gamma compressed (power law) or logarithmically encoded, or floating-point linear values, since fixed-point linear encodings are increasingly inefficient over higher dynamic ranges.

 

HDR images often don't use fixed ranges per color channel—other than traditional images—to represent many more colors over a much wider dynamic range. For that purpose, they don't use integer values to represent the single color channels (e.g., 0-255 in an 8 bit per pixel interval for red, green and blue) but instead use a floating point representation. Common are 16-bit (half precision) or 32-bit floating point numbers to represent HDR pixels. However, when the appropriate transfer function is used, HDR pixels for some applications can be represented with a color depth that has as few as 10–12 bits for luminance and 8 bits for chrominance without introducing any visible quantization artifacts.

 

History of HDR photography

The idea of using several exposures to adequately reproduce a too-extreme range of luminance was pioneered as early as the 1850s by Gustave Le Gray to render seascapes showing both the sky and the sea. Such rendering was impossible at the time using standard methods, as the luminosity range was too extreme. Le Gray used one negative for the sky, and another one with a longer exposure for the sea, and combined the two into one picture in positive.

 

Mid 20th century

Manual tone mapping was accomplished by dodging and burning – selectively increasing or decreasing the exposure of regions of the photograph to yield better tonality reproduction. This was effective because the dynamic range of the negative is significantly higher than would be available on the finished positive paper print when that is exposed via the negative in a uniform manner. An excellent example is the photograph Schweitzer at the Lamp by W. Eugene Smith, from his 1954 photo essay A Man of Mercy on Dr. Albert Schweitzer and his humanitarian work in French Equatorial Africa. The image took 5 days to reproduce the tonal range of the scene, which ranges from a bright lamp (relative to the scene) to a dark shadow.

 

Ansel Adams elevated dodging and burning to an art form. Many of his famous prints were manipulated in the darkroom with these two methods. Adams wrote a comprehensive book on producing prints called The Print, which prominently features dodging and burning, in the context of his Zone System.

 

With the advent of color photography, tone mapping in the darkroom was no longer possible due to the specific timing needed during the developing process of color film. Photographers looked to film manufacturers to design new film stocks with improved response, or continued to shoot in black and white to use tone mapping methods.

 

Color film capable of directly recording high-dynamic-range images was developed by Charles Wyckoff and EG&G "in the course of a contract with the Department of the Air Force". This XR film had three emulsion layers, an upper layer having an ASA speed rating of 400, a middle layer with an intermediate rating, and a lower layer with an ASA rating of 0.004. The film was processed in a manner similar to color films, and each layer produced a different color. The dynamic range of this extended range film has been estimated as 1:108. It has been used to photograph nuclear explosions, for astronomical photography, for spectrographic research, and for medical imaging. Wyckoff's detailed pictures of nuclear explosions appeared on the cover of Life magazine in the mid-1950s.

 

Late 20th century

Georges Cornuéjols and licensees of his patents (Brdi, Hymatom) introduced the principle of HDR video image, in 1986, by interposing a matricial LCD screen in front of the camera's image sensor, increasing the sensors dynamic by five stops. The concept of neighborhood tone mapping was applied to video cameras by a group from the Technion in Israel led by Dr. Oliver Hilsenrath and Prof. Y.Y.Zeevi who filed for a patent on this concept in 1988.

 

In February and April 1990, Georges Cornuéjols introduced the first real-time HDR camera that combined two images captured by a sensor3435 or simultaneously3637 by two sensors of the camera. This process is known as bracketing used for a video stream.

 

In 1991, the first commercial video camera was introduced that performed real-time capturing of multiple images with different exposures, and producing an HDR video image, by Hymatom, licensee of Georges Cornuéjols.

 

Also in 1991, Georges Cornuéjols introduced the HDR+ image principle by non-linear accumulation of images to increase the sensitivity of the camera: for low-light environments, several successive images are accumulated, thus increasing the signal to noise ratio.

 

In 1993, another commercial medical camera producing an HDR video image, by the Technion.

 

Modern HDR imaging uses a completely different approach, based on making a high-dynamic-range luminance or light map using only global image operations (across the entire image), and then tone mapping the result. Global HDR was first introduced in 19931 resulting in a mathematical theory of differently exposed pictures of the same subject matter that was published in 1995 by Steve Mann and Rosalind Picard.

 

On October 28, 1998, Ben Sarao created one of the first nighttime HDR+G (High Dynamic Range + Graphic image)of STS-95 on the launch pad at NASA's Kennedy Space Center. It consisted of four film images of the shuttle at night that were digitally composited with additional digital graphic elements. The image was first exhibited at NASA Headquarters Great Hall, Washington DC in 1999 and then published in Hasselblad Forum, Issue 3 1993, Volume 35 ISSN 0282-5449.

 

The advent of consumer digital cameras produced a new demand for HDR imaging to improve the light response of digital camera sensors, which had a much smaller dynamic range than film. Steve Mann developed and patented the global-HDR method for producing digital images having extended dynamic range at the MIT Media Laboratory. Mann's method involved a two-step procedure: (1) generate one floating point image array by global-only image operations (operations that affect all pixels identically, without regard to their local neighborhoods); and then (2) convert this image array, using local neighborhood processing (tone-remapping, etc.), into an HDR image. The image array generated by the first step of Mann's process is called a lightspace image, lightspace picture, or radiance map. Another benefit of global-HDR imaging is that it provides access to the intermediate light or radiance map, which has been used for computer vision, and other image processing operations.

 

21st century

In 2005, Adobe Systems introduced several new features in Photoshop CS2 including Merge to HDR, 32 bit floating point image support, and HDR tone mapping.

 

On June 30, 2016, Microsoft added support for the digital compositing of HDR images to Windows 10 using the Universal Windows Platform.

 

HDR sensors

Modern CMOS image sensors can often capture a high dynamic range from a single exposure. The wide dynamic range of the captured image is non-linearly compressed into a smaller dynamic range electronic representation. However, with proper processing, the information from a single exposure can be used to create an HDR image.

 

Such HDR imaging is used in extreme dynamic range applications like welding or automotive work. Some other cameras designed for use in security applications can automatically provide two or more images for each frame, with changing exposure. For example, a sensor for 30fps video will give out 60fps with the odd frames at a short exposure time and the even frames at a longer exposure time. Some of the sensor may even combine the two images on-chip so that a wider dynamic range without in-pixel compression is directly available to the user for display or processing.

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-dynamic-range_imaging

 

Infrared Photography

 

In infrared photography, the film or image sensor used is sensitive to infrared light. The part of the spectrum used is referred to as near-infrared to distinguish it from far-infrared, which is the domain of thermal imaging. Wavelengths used for photography range from about 700 nm to about 900 nm. Film is usually sensitive to visible light too, so an infrared-passing filter is used; this lets infrared (IR) light pass through to the camera, but blocks all or most of the visible light spectrum (the filter thus looks black or deep red). ("Infrared filter" may refer either to this type of filter or to one that blocks infrared but passes other wavelengths.)

 

When these filters are used together with infrared-sensitive film or sensors, "in-camera effects" can be obtained; false-color or black-and-white images with a dreamlike or sometimes lurid appearance known as the "Wood Effect," an effect mainly caused by foliage (such as tree leaves and grass) strongly reflecting in the same way visible light is reflected from snow. There is a small contribution from chlorophyll fluorescence, but this is marginal and is not the real cause of the brightness seen in infrared photographs. The effect is named after the infrared photography pioneer Robert W. Wood, and not after the material wood, which does not strongly reflect infrared.

 

The other attributes of infrared photographs include very dark skies and penetration of atmospheric haze, caused by reduced Rayleigh scattering and Mie scattering, respectively, compared to visible light. The dark skies, in turn, result in less infrared light in shadows and dark reflections of those skies from water, and clouds will stand out strongly. These wavelengths also penetrate a few millimeters into skin and give a milky look to portraits, although eyes often look black.

 

Until the early 20th century, infrared photography was not possible because silver halide emulsions are not sensitive to longer wavelengths than that of blue light (and to a lesser extent, green light) without the addition of a dye to act as a color sensitizer. The first infrared photographs (as distinct from spectrographs) to be published appeared in the February 1910 edition of The Century Magazine and in the October 1910 edition of the Royal Photographic Society Journal to illustrate papers by Robert W. Wood, who discovered the unusual effects that now bear his name. The RPS co-ordinated events to celebrate the centenary of this event in 2010. Wood's photographs were taken on experimental film that required very long exposures; thus, most of his work focused on landscapes. A further set of infrared landscapes taken by Wood in Italy in 1911 used plates provided for him by CEK Mees at Wratten & Wainwright. Mees also took a few infrared photographs in Portugal in 1910, which are now in the Kodak archives.

 

Infrared-sensitive photographic plates were developed in the United States during World War I for spectroscopic analysis, and infrared sensitizing dyes were investigated for improved haze penetration in aerial photography. After 1930, new emulsions from Kodak and other manufacturers became useful to infrared astronomy.

 

Infrared photography became popular with photography enthusiasts in the 1930s when suitable film was introduced commercially. The Times regularly published landscape and aerial photographs taken by their staff photographers using Ilford infrared film. By 1937 33 kinds of infrared film were available from five manufacturers including Agfa, Kodak and Ilford. Infrared movie film was also available and was used to create day-for-night effects in motion pictures, a notable example being the pseudo-night aerial sequences in the James Cagney/Bette Davis movie The Bride Came COD.

 

False-color infrared photography became widely practiced with the introduction of Kodak Ektachrome Infrared Aero Film and Ektachrome Infrared EIR. The first version of this, known as Kodacolor Aero-Reversal-Film, was developed by Clark and others at the Kodak for camouflage detection in the 1940s. The film became more widely available in 35mm form in the 1960s but KODAK AEROCHROME III Infrared Film 1443 has been discontinued.

 

Infrared photography became popular with a number of 1960s recording artists, because of the unusual results; Jimi Hendrix, Donovan, Frank and a slow shutter speed without focus compensation, however wider apertures like f/2.0 can produce sharp photos only if the lens is meticulously refocused to the infrared index mark, and only if this index mark is the correct one for the filter and film in use. However, it should be noted that diffraction effects inside a camera are greater at infrared wavelengths so that stopping down the lens too far may actually reduce sharpness.

 

Most apochromatic ('APO') lenses do not have an Infrared index mark and do not need to be refocused for the infrared spectrum because they are already optically corrected into the near-infrared spectrum. Catadioptric lenses do not often require this adjustment because their mirror containing elements do not suffer from chromatic aberration and so the overall aberration is comparably less. Catadioptric lenses do, of course, still contain lenses, and these lenses do still have a dispersive property.

 

Infrared black-and-white films require special development times but development is usually achieved with standard black-and-white film developers and chemicals (like D-76). Kodak HIE film has a polyester film base that is very stable but extremely easy to scratch, therefore special care must be used in the handling of Kodak HIE throughout the development and printing/scanning process to avoid damage to the film. The Kodak HIE film was sensitive to 900 nm.

 

As of November 2, 2007, "KODAK is preannouncing the discontinuance" of HIE Infrared 35 mm film stating the reasons that, "Demand for these products has been declining significantly in recent years, and it is no longer practical to continue to manufacture given the low volume, the age of the product formulations and the complexity of the processes involved." At the time of this notice, HIE Infrared 135-36 was available at a street price of around $12.00 a roll at US mail order outlets.

 

Arguably the greatest obstacle to infrared film photography has been the increasing difficulty of obtaining infrared-sensitive film. However, despite the discontinuance of HIE, other newer infrared sensitive emulsions from EFKE, ROLLEI, and ILFORD are still available, but these formulations have differing sensitivity and specifications from the venerable KODAK HIE that has been around for at least two decades. Some of these infrared films are available in 120 and larger formats as well as 35 mm, which adds flexibility to their application. With the discontinuance of Kodak HIE, Efke's IR820 film has become the only IR film on the marketneeds update with good sensitivity beyond 750 nm, the Rollei film does extend beyond 750 nm but IR sensitivity falls off very rapidly.

  

Color infrared transparency films have three sensitized layers that, because of the way the dyes are coupled to these layers, reproduce infrared as red, red as green, and green as blue. All three layers are sensitive to blue so the film must be used with a yellow filter, since this will block blue light but allow the remaining colors to reach the film. The health of foliage can be determined from the relative strengths of green and infrared light reflected; this shows in color infrared as a shift from red (healthy) towards magenta (unhealthy). Early color infrared films were developed in the older E-4 process, but Kodak later manufactured a color transparency film that could be developed in standard E-6 chemistry, although more accurate results were obtained by developing using the AR-5 process. In general, color infrared does not need to be refocused to the infrared index mark on the lens.

 

In 2007 Kodak announced that production of the 35 mm version of their color infrared film (Ektachrome Professional Infrared/EIR) would cease as there was insufficient demand. Since 2011, all formats of color infrared film have been discontinued. Specifically, Aerochrome 1443 and SO-734.

 

There is no currently available digital camera that will produce the same results as Kodak color infrared film although the equivalent images can be produced by taking two exposures, one infrared and the other full-color, and combining in post-production. The color images produced by digital still cameras using infrared-pass filters are not equivalent to those produced on color infrared film. The colors result from varying amounts of infrared passing through the color filters on the photo sites, further amended by the Bayer filtering. While this makes such images unsuitable for the kind of applications for which the film was used, such as remote sensing of plant health, the resulting color tonality has proved popular artistically.

 

Color digital infrared, as part of full spectrum photography is gaining popularity. The ease of creating a softly colored photo with infrared characteristics has found interest among hobbyists and professionals.

 

In 2008, Los Angeles photographer, Dean Bennici started cutting and hand rolling Aerochrome color Infrared film. All Aerochrome medium and large format which exists today came directly from his lab. The trend in infrared photography continues to gain momentum with the success of photographer Richard Mosse and multiple users all around the world.

 

Digital camera sensors are inherently sensitive to infrared light, which would interfere with the normal photography by confusing the autofocus calculations or softening the image (because infrared light is focused differently from visible light), or oversaturating the red channel. Also, some clothing is transparent in the infrared, leading to unintended (at least to the manufacturer) uses of video cameras. Thus, to improve image quality and protect privacy, many digital cameras employ infrared blockers. Depending on the subject matter, infrared photography may not be practical with these cameras because the exposure times become overly long, often in the range of 30 seconds, creating noise and motion blur in the final image. However, for some subject matter the long exposure does not matter or the motion blur effects actually add to the image. Some lenses will also show a 'hot spot' in the centre of the image as their coatings are optimised for visible light and not for IR.

 

An alternative method of DSLR infrared photography is to remove the infrared blocker in front of the sensor and replace it with a filter that removes visible light. This filter is behind the mirror, so the camera can be used normally - handheld, normal shutter speeds, normal composition through the viewfinder, and focus, all work like a normal camera. Metering works but is not always accurate because of the difference between visible and infrared refraction. When the IR blocker is removed, many lenses which did display a hotspot cease to do so, and become perfectly usable for infrared photography. Additionally, because the red, green and blue micro-filters remain and have transmissions not only in their respective color but also in the infrared, enhanced infrared color may be recorded.

 

Since the Bayer filters in most digital cameras absorb a significant fraction of the infrared light, these cameras are sometimes not very sensitive as infrared cameras and can sometimes produce false colors in the images. An alternative approach is to use a Foveon X3 sensor, which does not have absorptive filters on it; the Sigma SD10 DSLR has a removable IR blocking filter and dust protector, which can be simply omitted or replaced by a deep red or complete visible light blocking filter. The Sigma SD14 has an IR/UV blocking filter that can be removed/installed without tools. The result is a very sensitive digital IR camera.

 

While it is common to use a filter that blocks almost all visible light, the wavelength sensitivity of a digital camera without internal infrared blocking is such that a variety of artistic results can be obtained with more conventional filtration. For example, a very dark neutral density filter can be used (such as the Hoya ND400) which passes a very small amount of visible light compared to the near-infrared it allows through. Wider filtration permits an SLR viewfinder to be used and also passes more varied color information to the sensor without necessarily reducing the Wood effect. Wider filtration is however likely to reduce other infrared artefacts such as haze penetration and darkened skies. This technique mirrors the methods used by infrared film photographers where black-and-white infrared film was often used with a deep red filter rather than a visually opaque one.

 

Another common technique with near-infrared filters is to swap blue and red channels in software (e.g. photoshop) which retains much of the characteristic 'white foliage' while rendering skies a glorious blue.

 

Several Sony cameras had the so-called Night Shot facility, which physically moves the blocking filter away from the light path, which makes the cameras very sensitive to infrared light. Soon after its development, this facility was 'restricted' by Sony to make it difficult for people to take photos that saw through clothing. To do this the iris is opened fully and exposure duration is limited to long times of more than 1/30 second or so. It is possible to shoot infrared but neutral density filters must be used to reduce the camera's sensitivity and the long exposure times mean that care must be taken to avoid camera-shake artifacts.

 

Fuji have produced digital cameras for use in forensic criminology and medicine which have no infrared blocking filter. The first camera, designated the S3 PRO UVIR, also had extended ultraviolet sensitivity (digital sensors are usually less sensitive to UV than to IR). Optimum UV sensitivity requires special lenses, but ordinary lenses usually work well for IR. In 2007, FujiFilm introduced a new version of this camera, based on the Nikon D200/ FujiFilm S5 called the IS Pro, also able to take Nikon lenses. Fuji had earlier introduced a non-SLR infrared camera, the IS-1, a modified version of the FujiFilm FinePix S9100. Unlike the S3 PRO UVIR, the IS-1 does not offer UV sensitivity. FujiFilm restricts the sale of these cameras to professional users with their EULA specifically prohibiting "unethical photographic conduct".

 

Phase One digital camera backs can be ordered in an infrared modified form.

 

Remote sensing and thermographic cameras are sensitive to longer wavelengths of infrared (see Infrared spectrum#Commonly used sub-division scheme). They may be multispectral and use a variety of technologies which may not resemble common camera or filter designs. Cameras sensitive to longer infrared wavelengths including those used in infrared astronomy often require cooling to reduce thermally induced dark currents in the sensor (see Dark current (physics)). Lower cost uncooled thermographic digital cameras operate in the Long Wave infrared band (see Thermographic camera#Uncooled infrared detectors). These cameras are generally used for building inspection or preventative maintenance but can be used for artistic pursuits as well.

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infrared_photography

 

For your Art only, not for Sale on a CD

For your Art only, not for Sale on a CD or Collage Sheet

Used Photoshop - Water smashing pear

 

Andy Titcomb shot of a pear was so amazing I added it to my water splash

 

www.flickr.com/photos/teapots/258537057/in/photolist-nK1X...

Frank Clergue, in January 1883, sought official approval to build a railroad from the village of Bar Harbor to the summit of Green Mountain. He also sought and got approval to use a narrower gauge for the tracks, one that matched what was being used on Mount Washington in NH, and on Feb. 3, 1883 got permission to use the narrower gauge.

Once he had gotten final approval, Mr. Clergue began work on the railroad on Feb. 19, 1883. He began placing ads like the one below in the local papers in search of men and materials.

Local businessman Richard Hamor won the bid for clearing the area where the train tracks would be laid. As the Hamors cleared the way for the tracks, they also over saw the delivery of materials to the site as well, and a hotel began to be built on the summit of Green Mountain of stone and wood.. Meanwhile, as work progressed, the St. Sauveur Hotel was chosen as the site where the engineers and contractors met on a regular basis.

As winter set in, on Feb. 19, it is said crews began clearing a 100 foot wide strip of land up the mountain side, the work days were long, 12 hour shifts, with workers making only $1.50 per day. A place was needed to house all the workers and temporary housing was constructed along the shore of Eagle Lake, a large boarding house operated by Samuel E. Head. Many of the published articles on the Green Mountain Railroad fail to make mention of this large boarding house, and once the railroad was complete the boarding house was torn down.

A few months into the work, the workers tried to organize a strike, demanding higher wages, but Mr. Clergue would have no of it, and work soon continued on.

If you ever walked the route as I have done many times over the years, you will find that much of the route passed over open granite, which meant little blasting had to be done. In a few places, due to slight ravines, granite crib work had to be done, and to this day that granite crib work stands as solid as it did when it was put in and is one of the major features one finds as one hikes along the route - see photos of this stone crib work below.

It is written that up to 15 oxen were used to haul cut lumber from near the summit to areas where it needed to be used. As soon as a section of granite was cleared, workers moved in and drilled six inch holes into the granite where one inch thick iron bolts were inserted leaving iron rods of eight to twelve inches sticking up out of the granite all along the route.

These rods were used to hold in place logs, and upon the logs crews positioned stringers parallel with the tracks and fastened them into place. The cog rails used were assembled at the Atlantic Works in East Boston, the same place that years earlier had made the rails for the Mount Washington Railway.

It is said that actual rail laying began around the first of May and over the next seven weeks work progressed rapidly, with the locomotive and work cars being used to ferry materials further along the tracks. A.S. Randall was hired to operate the locomotive, he had worked for the Mount Washington Rail rail for eleven years bore that. One of his jobs was operating the engine, another was to teach others how to operate it.

By June about half the track was laid in place and by mid June the final rail was hammered into place.

Clergue ordered a ten ton locomotive along with a passenger car and work cars from the Manchester Locomotive works, the same company that made the locomotives for the Mount Washington Railroad. The plan was simple, the ten ton locomotive would be placed on the steamship City of Richmound, but it soon became clear that the steamship could not handle the job and the schooner Stella Lee was hired to haul the heavy locomotive to Bar Harbor. It arrived at Hamor's wharf on April 18, and a team of 14 horses where brought in to move the 10 ton locomotive along skids, slowly moving up West Street, than turning onto Bridge Street and moving to the intersection of Bridge Street and Cottage street where work was halted as a quicker method of moving the locomotive along was explored. It was decided to replace the runners with wheels to speed progress up and two oxen were brought in and added to the 14 horses, but even than progress was slow and the train moved less than a mile a day. It finally arrived at the shore of Eagle Lake Saturday, April 21. Hamor and sons purchased a large scow and brought that out to the lake as well, and was used to ferry workers, tools and equipment across the lake.

the lake was still frozen over so a crew set about cutting up sections of ice and clearing a channel across the lake, and on May 3, it was reported that the locomotive and work car, carried across on a barge, had made it across the lake to the site of the train station. The locomotive was named Mount Desert, and like the locomotives at Mount Washington, it burned wood which generated steam to power the locomotive. The passenger car was unique in that unlike the Mount Washington passenger cars, the Green Mountain one had opened sides and featured eight wooden benches. Should it happen to rain, rolled up canvas curtains were unrolled along the sides of the passenger car to protect passengers from rain or heavy wind. Besides the locomotive having a braking system, the passenger car also had its own braking system should anything go wrong. Unlike the Mount Washington Railway, the Green Mountain Railroad could run its locomotive the entire route without having to stop to take on water.

Frank Clergue had worked out the details for his railroad venture down to the last detail. Signs were placed around town at various hotels and boarding places advertising the Railroad and carriages made timely stops at each place to pick up any potential passengers. Large "Barges" - extra long horse drawn carriages were than used to ferry passengers out to the shore of Eagle lake. Once there, passengers would board the steam ship Wauwinet to transport passengers across the lake to the train station on the far shore. While the locomotive Mount Desert weighted 10 tons, the flat bottomed Wauwinet weighted more than 11 tons and proved to be even more of a challenge to get it out to the lake than the locomotive had been, and for a time it rested by Hamor's wharf while they sought a plan for getting it out to Eagle lake. On May 24 it arrived at the north shore of Eagle Lake.

At the newly constructed hotel on the summit of Green Mountain, its large dining room could seat 125 paying guests. The hotel also featured two parlors. The second story of the hotel had 16 sleeping rooms and the third story contained 10 more sleeping rooms. On top of the hotel was a glassed in observation tower. At one time a total of three observation towers were constructed on Green Mountain, one at the hotel, and one on each of the two nearby peaks not far from the summit, each observation tower had a stairway leading up to it, was glassed in, and featured powerful telescopes for viewing the night sky. June 30 was the day the railroad company began taking on regular customers, with the very first ticket being sold to M.W. Belshaw of San Francisco, Cal., him being the first person a ticket was sold to is recorded in the Bangor Daily Whig and Courier, July 11, 1883 edition. A two way ticket sold for $2.50.

At its peak two locomotives were used

Frank Clergue had much bigger plans for his railroad, he wanted to run the tracks from the shore of Eagle lake right into downtown Bar harbor, but citizens organized aginst his plan. In the end, Clergue got permission to extend the tracks further toward town but never followed through, mainly because so many in town were against his plan. There was a number of reasons people in Bar harbor did not want the train coming into the downtown area, many feared sparks from the train would set off fires in and around town, while others voiced concerns for the public's safety with a train that would cross public roads, pedestrianizes or cars could be hit by the moving train. Another concern was with all the noise a moving train would add to the traffic in town, it seemed very few people wanted the tracks extended into town.

Things seemed to be going pretty good for the railroad company until disaster struck, on August 2, 1884, in the evening hours fire broke out at the hotel on the summit of Green Mountain, burning the hotel to the ground. Before the ashes of the burned down hotel could even cool plans were already being drawn up to construct another hotel on the summit, and on August 5 work was begun on the new hotel, and by August 15 the rapidly constructed hotel was open for business.

In late 1887 competition arrived at the mountain when Elihu and Ralph Hamor along with John J. Carr organized the Green Mountain Carriage Road Company. In three weeks the old survey road up Green Mountain was replaced with a new road which followed a new route up the mountain side, branching off of the old survey road at one point and making its way up the mountain side quicker with more wide open views along the way. The railroad company was not happy and erected a gate across the new road, which remained up for about a day before the carriage road company tore it down. On July 23, a group of six men crossed Eagle Lake in darkness and boarded the train, taking it to the summit of Green Mountain, where they gathered supplies and slowly began walking down the new carriage road, digging and planting explosives as they went. A good section of the new carriage road was blown away that night by people from the Railroad company, but the carriage road did not stay closed for long. Repairs were quickly made and tempers flared with people for the carriage road company wanting to do damage back, maybe even blow up a section of the railroad tracks, but that never happened and the feud died as quickly as it started.

In part, the railroad company was faced with an even bigger threat, a decline in earnings for two years straight, from 1888 - 1889, and in 1890 they became so desperate they lowered the fare from $2.50 to $1, business picked back up but with less money coming in the railroad company continued to slide further and further into debt. On July 30, 1891 a short article in the Bar Harbor Record spelled out the end of the line for the Green Mountain Railroad Company.

On Jan. 17, 1893 the Hancock sheriff's department conducted a sale of all of the railroad company property, interestingly, one of the passenger cars was purchased by a local artist who moved it to main Street and converted it into an art studio.

Sadly, there was no interest in anyone purchasing either of the two locomotives and they were left to set not far from the shore of Eagle lake. But a few months later, in May of 1893, fire broke out at the Mount Washington Railway Station in N.H. and two of their seven locomotives were destroyed. Word soon reached the Mount Washington Railroad company about the two locomotives that sat at the base of Green Mountain and the two locomotives were purchased and moved to Mount Washington where they both saw service for a number of years.

The carriage road company also went out of business, but for a few years after, the hotel at the summit of Green Mountain remained open, but never again would it be the attraction it once was. In fact, rumors continued to swirl of illegal goings on, in part major violations of the prohibition law, and on August 21, 1895 Hancock County Sheriff along with Bar harbor police officers raided the hotel and seized a large amount of illegal liquor, arresting the proprietor and shutting the place down. It would never reopen. In the summer of 1896 what wood could be salvaged was, with the rest set on fire. By the end of 1896 most of the remaining tracks were removed and hauled off to be recycled, but despite such reports, not all was hauled off. One section of rail still remains on the mountain side, about two thirds of the way up the mountain, see photo below.

Also many of the iron railroad rods still rise upward out of the granite all along the route, an effort was made to remove them, but it soon became evident they were too embedded into the granite and left in place. The few that were removed remained behind as well, in small piles here and there, rusting away.

I have spent a number of years researching and visiting the site and to this day the route the train once took can be followed fairly easily, starting at a pullover, with trail phantoms erecting small rock piles here and there to assist any would be hikers. This has been going on ever since the railroad company went out of business.

It would be a few years later before I discovered the route the train took from that pull over on down to the shore of Eagle Lake, at one point the tracks crossed a brook where a small water fall can be found, before making its way to the shore. A wooden bridge crosses the brook in that area along the Eagle Lake Carriage road, and the train station and its other buildings once stood near a slender piece of land that stretches out onto the lake not far from the brook.

The train tracks crossed the brook just in front of a small waterfall at an angle, a gully along the right side runs up through the woods with a number of railroad spikes along it embedded into the granite. Not far from this waterfall is the Eagle Lake Carriage road and a wooden bridge which crosses this same brook. Just ahead, through an opening in the tree's is Eagle lake where a thin strip of land stretches out onto the lake, the train station and other buildings were located in that area.

The very first ticket sold was to Mr. M.W. Belshaw of San. Francisco, CA.

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