Among other noteworthy events, 2007 marked the 30th anniversary of the release of Charles Burnett's classic neo-realist masterpiece, KILLER OF SHEEP. If you haven't seen the film or always wanted to own it, copies are now available on Amazon for much less than the $200 a pop I had to pay to rent the 16mm version in college. UCR/CMP screens the film throughout January with guest speakers Jill Muniz of California African-American Museum and Erica Edwards, professor of English at UC Riverside. (www.artsblock.ucr.edu) (www.killerofsheep.com) ++

I took along a 1950's stereo camera for my Jerusalem trip in addition to shooting digital images. I processed the 35mm film at a local Riverside photo lab since I knew I had overexposed everything. I then scanned the thin negatives at 2400 dpi -- doing contrast corrections and color adjustments in Adobe Photoshop. As the left-right picts were situated every fourth frame, I had to cut them out and re-align on the computer, creating a painterly rather than photographic frame. I then downsized everything for the web. The flashviewer is a free download at airtightinteractive.com. Stereoscopy is the subject a new show at UCR/CMP "Side-By-Side." Wikipedia on Stereo imaging.

Digital Heritage

Over the Thanksgiving holidays I was able to travel to JERUSALEM, Israel to take part in the Digitization of Culture Heritage conference at Hebrew University. Participants discussed the production of a European Digital Library as well as a Mediterrean Library portal of photographs, artifacts and documents for worldwide access. I managed to get in a little shooting in around the Old City, Bethlehem, Jericho, and near the Dead Sea.  on Flickr...