Fotoviva Art Prints

Ten of the pioneering photos of snowflake crystals that American farmer Wilson Bentley began taking more than a century ago are to be sold in New York.

Wilson A Bentley (1865-1931) is thought to be the first photographer to capture images of single snowflakes on camera. He made thousands of the jewel-like prints, and came to the conclusion that no two snowflakes were the same. This concept caught the public imagination and he published other articles in magazines, including National Geographic, Nature (Journal), Popular Science and the Scientific American. His photographs have been requested by academic institutions worldwide. Bentley poetically described snowflakes as “tiny miracles of beauty” and snow crystals as “ice flowers.”

His photomicrography technique involved a microscope and a bellows camera. Snowflake expert Kenneth Libbrecht said the photos did not meet modern standards because of the “crude equipment” Bentley used.

“But he did it so well that hardly anybody bothered to photograph snowflakes for almost 100 years,” Mr Libbrecht added. He perfected a process of catching flakes on black velvet in such a way that their images could be captured before they melted.

Ironically, Bentley caught pneumonia in a blizzard and died just weeks after the publication of his book Snow Crystals.

Chicago art gallery owner Carl Hammer is selling them along with 16 of Bentley’s winter scenes at an antiques show at New York’s American Folk Art Museum.

“They’re remarkably beautiful,” said Mr Hammer.

“There are imperfections on the outer edges of the image itself and on the paper, but the images themselves are quite spectacular.”

Bentley, who was known as The Snowflake Man, wrote in 1925: “Under the microscope, I found that snowflakes were miracles of beauty and it seemed a shame that this beauty should not be seen and appreciated by others.

“Every crystal was a masterpiece of design, and no one design was ever repeated. When a snowflake melted, that design was forever lost.”

Bentley also photographed all forms of ice and natural water formations including clouds and fog. He was the first American to record raindrop sizes and was one of the first cloud physicists.

That’s right, we’re now Twittering for you guys from Fotoviva HQ!  This is a great way for us to keep our customers up to date with new photographic work, special offers and news from the world of Fotoviva Art Prints.

We will also be Tweeting about interesting and fun related news we find such as the arts and photography in general so why not ‘follow’ us to keep in the loop? If you don’t have a Twitter account give it a try – it’s free and fun to use. Just click the logo above to open our Twitter page and click the ‘follow’ button to ensure you have the latest information about our canvas and acrylic prints.

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Fujifilm has announced the release of Wunderbars, billed as “a revolutionary framing system for canvas prints”. Wunderbars offers a new way to create canvas prints – quickly, easily and without the need for specialist tools, Fujifilm says. Each frame has a sprung pin mechanism which automatically stretches the canvas and ensures it remains under constant tension.

Wunderbars’ constant tension stretcher bars are even easier to construct than normal stretched canvas prints. Wunderbars are precision machined so there is no need to measure the frame to get it square or  hit the frame with a mallet to keep it square during stretching, it will always remain square.

The Wunderbars system is touted as a natural progression from traditional stretcher bars and has been developed for photographers and framers from the hobbyist right up to the production canvas framer.

The wood used for Wunderbars is Tulip wood which, unlike pine, is a hard wood with a top quality look and feel. It’s a heavyweight timber with very little knotting. It helps give the completed frame a top quality professional feel. Wunderbars ticks all the environmental boxes too – the wood comes from sustainable sources and it is possible to reset and reuse a frame. FSC wood does cost a little bit more but not so much as to affect a purchasing decision. FSC wood comes from sustainable forests which help protect wildlife and the environment.

Wunderbars canvas frames come in packs of four in a range of sizes from 8inch to 48inch which will limit the canvas print sizes you can offer, but for most people this will be a good starter. It will be interesting to see if photographers try this system or continue to use established canvas printers such as ourselves. Obviously you still need a large canvas printer in the first place to print onto the canvas material. You then have the packaging costs to factor in, not to mention your time taken creating the canvas.

Full marks to Fujifilm though for trying something new. What do you think about the Wunderbars? Will you use them yourself or would you rather not get involved in the canvas printing side of things?

Toshiba, one of the leading innovators in NAND flash memory technologies has announced the launch of the world’s first 64GB SDXC Memory Card.

The new card is compliant with the new SD Memory Standard, Ver. 3.00. Toshiba also extended its industry leadership in memory card solutions by unveiling 32GB and 16GB SDHC Memory Cards compliant with the world’s fastest data transfer rate.

The new SDXC and SDHC Memory Cards are the world’s first compliant with the SD Memory Card Standard Version 3.00, UHS104, which brings a new level of ultra-fast read and write speeds to NAND flash based memory cards: a maximum write speed of 35MB per second, and a read speed of 60MB per second.

The combination of large storage capacities and increased data transfer rates will meet the needs of a wide range of consumer electronics applications such as digital still cameras and digital camcorders that require high bandwidth data communication. For us photographers this means digital SLR cameras will be able to shoot longer continuous bursts in the highest quality RAW format. Similarly, with these cards, it will be possible to download a 2.4GB video in only 70 seconds.

The SDXC card is the next-generation standard defined by the SD Association in January 2009. The new standard applies to cards with capacities over 32GB and up to 2TB, compared to the SDHC standard, which applies to cards with capacities over 2GB and up to 32GB.

The high level specifications and wide range of memory cards announced by Toshiba will further open the way for developers to bring applications to future generations of consumer products. By further enhancing its SD Memory Card lineups with larger capacity and a higher data transfer rate, Toshiba will continue to meet market demand and to lead the NAND flash memory market.

You may have noticed this blog not being updated as much as it has been in the past. This is because all the site news about Fotoviva Art Prints can now be found on our News pages on the Fotoviva site itself. There we will be keeping our customers up to date with all the latest images we add to the print collections, news of the latest photographic team members and general site news. So bookmark this link for all the latest Canvas Print News.

On this blog we will continue to bring you exciting news from the world of photography and the arts, such as cutting edge technology and interesting articles.

If you would like to contribute as a writer please let us know.

Japan’s Fujifilm is planning to add a new dimension to photography this year: the third dimension. The camera hopes to succeed where other 3D image technologies have failed in the past.

In the battle to differentiate its products in the competitive digital camera market, the Japanese camera maker has been developing a model that features two identical lenses and image sensors. It snaps almost-identical images that are blended together by a custom chip to produce a 3D image, it said.

The system has been dubbed Real 3D by FujiFilm and can be used for both still images and movies.

There have been attempts to introduce 3D photography in the past but a complicated set-up and reliance on 3D glasses has meant they’re too complicated for widespread use.

FujiFilm’s system makes use of a 2.8-inch 3D LCD panel on the rear of the prototype camera so viewers don’t need special glasses. For display of images the company has also come up with a prototype 3D photo frame that has an 8.4-inch display.

Aside from 3D images, the company imagines a camera with two lenses and image sensors could provide some other clever tricks such as the ability to shoot a wide and telephoto shot at the same time, or for a wide panorama shot by capturing half with each lens.

The prototype 3D camera first appeared at last year’s Photokina show in Germany and recently made an appearance a the PMA show in the U.S. and Tokyo’s Photo Imaging Expo. It’s next step will be onto store shelves. FujiFilm plans to launch its first 3D camera in Japan later this year.

The company sees a bright future in the technology, the aim of which is to capture pictures that are almost as good as the real thing. Whether it takes off or not depends on consumers but this is one technology you want to keep both eyes on.

In December a specially designed 1.4 billion pixel (gigapixel) camera began scanning the night sky to protect humanity from possible Earth-bound asteroids and comets.

The Pan-STARRS cameras, built with chips designed by MIT Lincoln Laboratory, is part of a prototype telescope installed in an observatory on Maui’s Haleakala Mountain. Its high resolution will improve scientists’ ability to detect asteroids and comets by a factor of five.

“This is a truly giant instrument,” University of Hawaii astronomer John Tonry told the MIT News Service. “We get an image that is 38,000 by 38,000 pixels in size, or about 200 times larger than you get in a high-end consumer digital camera.”

Congress in 2005 directed NASA to detect 90% of near-Earth objects larger than 140 meters by 2020. According to a 2003 NASA report, the 60-meter rock that struck the Earth about 50,000 years ago and formed what is now called Meteor Crater in Arizona released the equivalent of more than 10 megatons of energy. It created a hole over a kilometer across and 200 meters deep.

The telescope is one of four that will eventually be housed in the observatory’s dome. It is part of a system named Pan-STARRS (Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System) that is being developed at the University of Hawaii’s Institute for Astronomy.

The first gigapixel camera was sent to Haleakala in August 2007 and mounted on the PS1 telescope, a prototype of the Pan-STARRS system.

The Pan-STARRS cameras each have 1.4 billion pixels on an area approximately 40cm square. A typical consumer camera has about 5 million pixels on a chip that measures a few millimeters.

The camera focal plane consists of a 60-by-60 arrays of 600-by-600 pixel CCDs. The CCD cells are grouped in 8-by-8 arrays on a single 5cm chip called an orthogonal transfer array.

They develop a chip called an orthogonal-transfer charge-coupled device, or OTCCD, which can shift its pixels to compensate for the blur of random image motion. This is similar in concept to physical stabilization features on consumer cameras, but OTCCD technology manages this feat electronically, at the pixel level.

Our photo contributor Jacky Parker has taken top honours in the RHS Photographic Competition 2008, sponsored by Medici, and was named RHS Photographer of the Year, winning first prize in the Plant Portrait Category.

Jacky’s striking image of Rudbeckia hirta ‘Marmalade’, was selected from over 4,500 entries, from across the UK and around the world. Click the winning image above to go through to the image page on Fotoviva.

This year’s judges included renowned garden photographer, Tim Sandall, Deputy Editor of The Garden, Chris Young and television gardener and lecturer, Matt James.Assessing the entrants’ technical ability and the composition of the photographs, all the judges were impressed by the standard and quality of this year’s entries. Matt James explains, “To receive 4,500 entries completely exceeded our expectations. It just proves the enthusiasm people have for their gardens and gardening. Every picture we received had something to offer and it was incredibly hard to choose the final 18 prize winning images.”

Here is the link to the RHS website RHS Photographic Competition 2008.

We have recently offered a photo to canvas for a competition run by Friends of the Animals in Wales. This is a special Valentine’s competition that runs from the 2nd – 14th february. Members can submit their own photos of their loved pets and the winner receives an A2 boxed canvas of their art.

Friends of the Animals is an independent, home based rescue run completely by volunteers. Although based in Wales, Friends of the Animals has helpers and supporters throughout the UK who are responsible for homevisiting, transporting, fostering, adoption, fund raising and many other tasks. The group has a wonderful group of foster carers who take the dogs into their homes and rehabilitate them whilst a suitable forever home is found. Friends of the Animals is committed to the reduction in numbers of homeless and unwanted dogs and has a strict policy of neutering all dogs prior to rehoming.

We are glad to help out with this worthy cause and would invite you all to join in – it only costs £1 to submit your image to the competition. Best of luck!

Fotoviva now has a new search facility built into the site so you can find your ideal canvas wall art quicker than before. This is a nice addition to the store which has already received positive feedback. 

With a collection of prints that grows every week there is more to look through and this search function will help you pin-point the ideal picture faster, making the Fotoviva experience a lot easier for you.

There’s lots more to come this year so keep watching this space!