The Luminous Landscape Video Journal, Vol. 15

I just finished watching the Luminous Landscape Video Journal (LLVJ), volume 15 and have nothing but great things to say about it. Until very recently, the LLVJ was only available via a DVD subscription which, although the product looked promising, was cost prohibitive from my perspective. Now, beginning with LLVJ #15 the video is available for download for $10 - as soon as I saw the announcement I made my way over to the site and placed an order.

For your ten bucks, you get over two hours worth of high quality video which is shot in high resolution wide-aspect with a quality audio stream. This is not your run-of-the-mill video podcast! The whole package weighs just under 700MB, so it fits nicely on a standard CDR for long-term storage.

The Luminous Landscape is a pro-oriented photography website by Michael Reichmann. Its archives house many highly detailed reviews on the best in optics, printing, and camera technology. Michael's Video Journals chronicle the various travel photography workshops that he hosts periodically.

Part one: Bangladesh
The first three videos are of footage shot during a workshop trip to Bangladesh combined with a one-on-one print review. Michael and another photographer take a look at several of Michael's prints from the trip and discuss the circumstances behind each one. The video cuts between the prints and live scenes of Bangladesh complete with natural sound in the background.

Biblical is how Michael describes the scene on several occasions. At one point he claims to have "brought 190 Gig of storage, and I'm gonna use it all!" The prints produced from the trip are outstanding and having a guided tour through the locations where they were created is almost as good as having been along for the workshop (almost)! Seeing live video "pause" into dramatic prints is quite fascinating!

Part two: Bill Atkinson on Color Management
Well, if you're going to get a tutorial from someone on color management, then it had might as well be from the best there is. Bill Atkinson, the Apple genius responsible for much of the color capabilities that we enjoy today in our imaging software, is interviewed on Color Management by Michael Reichmann. Bill delivers a tutorial on the history of color management, how he creates his profiles, and how to put them to good use.

There is a very interesting explanation of Rendering Intents and how they should be used when printing. Bill takes a fairly wide-gamut image and loads it into a Gretag software that visualizes the image's color information, plotting it on a three-dimensional LAB coordinate system. He then overlays AdobeRGB, ProPhoto RGB, and a printer profile on top to illustrate how various parts of the image gamut will necessarily be lost during the output process. Bill goes on to explain how having a proper printer profile combined with consistent printer settings allows you to maintain a maximum amount of detail even though the broad starting gamut will have a shortened range in print.

This interview is a must-see for anyone who is at all interested in accurate color reproduction!

Part Three: Watch Bill Atkinson cut a double mat and hang a print in 5 minutes!
Bill has mounted on his wall probably the coolest mat cutter I've seen: the Speed Mat. It's a wall mounted deal that can cut in all four directions without releasing the mat board. It's also over $2k, but I suppose if you do any significant volume like Bill does then it'd be easy to justify. Fortunately, the interview is quite a bit longer than how long it takes him to cut a mat!

Michael watches as Bill goes through the process of preparing a print for shipping after a sale. He goes into quite a bit of detail on every step along the way, from the type of mat board he uses to how he mounts the print and even to how he signs twice: once on the outer mat for typical display and again on the white margin of the print as a backup in case the mat were somehow destroyed or otherwise replaced. Bill spends a lot of time explaining the "whys" behind every step of his very well-thought out workflow to the great benefit of the viewers.

Part Four: Brooks Jensen of LensWork Magazine
I've been a fan of Brooks Jensen, both for LensWork magazine as well as for his insightful photography podcasts. Michael sits down with him on the back porch to discuss the publication as well as Brooks' take on digital photography. The first half of the interview is a history of LensWork and how it came to be. There is also a bit of discussion on the publishing business and the technology behind the press of the magazine. The details of the editing process are laid out and quite informative.

The second half is, much like the magazine, more to do with photography itself than the technology. If you've ever listened to his podcast, you know that (aside from having a really good on-air voice) Brooks has some firm beliefs and the knowledge to back them up. He speaks specifically about the state of photography and his take on the impact that "digital" has had. The interview was great to watch, and Brooks is certainly a figure whose opinions count.

Overall
My overall take on the LLVJ-15 is highly positive. In fact, I'm very much looking forward to catching up on the 14 previous editions that I've missed out on. Hopefully Michael will get them encoded and online soon!