Rando -- Random Images from the World

It's been a month or so since I downloaded the Rando app from the Google Play Store. I read about it in a post on Google+ and decided to give it a try. It's a fun little app reminiscent of chatroulette, but so far, without all the penises.

The premise is simple: take a picture, upload it up to the internet aethyr and receive one in return. The names, no connections, no nothing. You take pictures. You send pictures. You receive pictures. That's all there is to Rando.

As they state on their Play page:

Description

Rando is an experimental photo exchange platform.

Give, receive and collect unique photos from random people from all over the world.

A rando must be sent for one to be received. It's about gifting rather than sharing.

You will never know who received the rando, they will never know who sent it.

You will know the location of where it landed, the receiver will know where in the world it was taken.

Build your rando collection with unique cultural sights from around the world.

We deliberately haven’t incorporated social features into the application.

No likes, no comments, no direct communication.

Just Rando.

And that's exactly what it does: Rando allows you to take an image with your cell phone (in this case Android) and send it off into the wind. Only other people with the Rando app will receive an image and only after sending an image themselves.

First Random Picture I Sent

For a month now I've been sending random images into the universe: pictures of the area where I live, what I'm eating, my dog, the leaves on the trees and anything I think others might want to see. Or might not want to see. Unfiltered, unedited and unknown, that's the beauty of Rando!

Let's be honest, when I first heard about Rando I thought it was something akin to Chatroulette and recipients would be receiving unwanted pictures of penis' and other items no one really wants to gaze upon while toodling around on their device.

Unlike the Instagram square that made all the hipster's pants wet, as you can see to the right, the images are all round, creating a new challenge to framing and capturing content. This also gives Rando it's own unique look, different than the four corners look of nearly every other image on the internet.

Using the app is as basic as you'd think. Without post-editing, watermarks, frames or filters you just launch the app, touch the round button at the bottom, the image is recorded and then uploaded to the aethyr.

Boom! You're done.

Well, sort of.

In the upper right hand corner of the Rando screen are a series of grey dots --  one atop the other -- each one corresponding to an image you took awaiting delivery somewhere in the world. As images come to you delivered randomly from the Rando-verse, red dots will build up at the top of your Rando stream awaiting delivery from a queue to your device. Simply swipe downwards and the images come in one-by-one, or rather, swipe-by-swipe.

Tapping on a delivered image flips the image showing a map of the image's point of origin. I've noticed not all images have locations and I'm not sure if that has to do with GPS not being turned on or some other setting that doesn't seem to exist.

That's right, Rando's settings are very limited -- as in, there are none.

For a while I thought I noticed Rando's coming in similar in construct to Randos I sent. For example, if I sent a picture of the sunset, I'd receive a picture of the sky. If I sent a picture with a face (mine or my dog's) then I'd receive a picture with a face. If I sent a car, or other large man-made item, I'd receive an image of a large man-made item. This doesn't always seem to be the case, though. However, it was noticeable and now I pay attention to how closely the images are in subject matter. If this is true and not me just seeing patterns were there are no patterns, it means there's an algorithm out there selecting pictures and the service isn't completely random at all.

I've also noticed, most of the images seem to be coming from South Korea and the eastern half of Europe. Very few are from the western hemisphere and I've seen absolutely none what-so-ever from the southern hemisphere. At least, not that I can recall. Maybe the app just hasn't caught on yet.

The Good -- Or, Why I Like Rando

Random. I like random. More importantly, Rando is a view into how other people see their own worlds. Sure, there are pictures of books on tables, cups of coffee, ashtrays and other completely random bits of the world.

Rando I sent earlier today

For example, yesterday I received an image of a pack of Marlboro cigarettes, but the package was written in Korean. The flip side of the image does, in fact, show the image originated in South Korea.

There are no watermarks, no post-processing and no userIDs. It's completely random. Like playing 5 card stud -- you play with the hand you're dealt. Since there are no watermarks there is no way to attach an URL or social media information aside from taking a picture of something with the URL or social media contact information. You cannot load a pre-existing image from your gallery to Rando, either. Point. Shoot. Send.

You have no choice in where the image is delivered. The Rando servers take care of the delivery duties by some sort of mathematical magic to which I'm not privy. Like I stated earlier, in order to send and receive the Randos, each user must have the app. There is no way to share the image to social media after receiving it or to save it to your device, but with a recent update, Rando now has a folder on your Android system to store your images. The only current method to save received images is by taking a screenshot while the image is prominent on your screen.

Maybe I'm different, but I like the randomness of not exactly curating a stream of photographers or styles.

The Bad -- Or, Things That Could Be Better

I have no idea why Rando insists on notifying me where my photos were sent. Unless there's a way to like the image or to communicate with the recipient, knowing where it went is pointless. Just knowing it's out there in the interverse is good enough, especially considering the whole purpose of Rando.

Being able to click the map and opening the corresponding Google Map would be a nice feature. Then the recipient could zoom into the location and learn more about where the image came from. Or, perhaps the corresponding search results/Wikipedia page for the location. Right now, I think the map would be easiest since a map screen shot is already shared.

Also, why the red dots and the having to pull the screen down to get new randos to show? I'd rather they just load, perhaps with a red dot next to them or with an outline of red (or whatever color) indicating they're new to my stream. Having to slide the screen down each time is cumbersome. Or if we must, can't a screen slide load all the images instead of one at a time? Maybe this is just a personal preference, but to me it seems more streamlined as a workflow.

For a while I thought it would be nice to edit images before sending them, even adding filters ala Instagram and it's clones, but then I recalled how I really like the raw unedited method of not being able to edit images. SOOC, or straight out of the camera, at it's finest. Kind of like going back to the most basic point and shoot film camera of our, well my, childhood. Knowing the image is WYSISYG really forces the photographer to pay attention to what s/he's doing since there is no option to "fix it in photoshop." From what I've received in my Rando stream, it appears most people aren't taking care to properly expose an image so I might be in the minority in this regard.

The Ugly -- Or, the Potential to Be Ugly

Since the images are completely random (I'm not sure if Rando keeps them and any identifying markers) there is always the potential for abuse. I'm not talking nudity or pornography, but rather pictures of abuse, pictures of a violent or child-pornographic nature, and anything else I can't think of at the moment.

The End

I like Rando. It's fun without hassle. It's the ultimate shoutout to the universe: this is my life! From a sociology perspective, you can see how other people live their lives as they choose to show you, and with the app's claims to randomness, there's no reason not to show the universe anything.

[I'm pretty sure there's something else I wanted to write, but for the life of me, I can't recall what it might have been. I'm sure it will come to me when I use the app later. Expect an update.]

Fun at the Park

Took Rufus and Charlie to the dog park for a little fun in the Colorado Sun. I didn't bring the dSLR and regretted it almost immediately as the dogs that were there were very photogenic.

The grass had some yellow flowers sprouting all over the place, so I tried to grab a couple of shots of the dogs in the green and yellow.

Below are some of those Android shots, edited with the Snapseed app.

More Androidography

Yes, I know, more pictures from on the go, but hey, what are you going to do? Cameras are fairly prevalent now.

These are just a couple of shots from walking my dog yesterday afternoon. We hit the Sun's light and clouds just right and to be honest, I wish it had been one of those walks where I brought my dSLR.

Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't bring it and usually when I don't I wished I had. Thank the gods for cell phone cameras!

Such is life.

The first shot (if they show in order) is of the clouds rolling in from the south  the second is of a tree highlighted by the afternoon light with the clouds adding texture to the sky and the third is my roommate's dog resting his head on my lap.

The Purity of Photography as an Art Medium

I've been playing photographer since the early 90s. First in high school where I learned the ins and outs of the dark room and had my first experience with an SLR camera and then again as an active duty soldier in the Army when I bought an SLR for documenting my travels and experiences.

I continued taking pictures and re-acquainted myself with the darkroom while taking the obligatory art credit in college. It was about this time the first digital SLRs were making it to the consumer market and digital darkrooms quickly replaced the need for gallons upon gallons of chemicals, basins and red lights.

It also ushered in the age of digital manipulation. 

Image added because this is a photography blog after all

In the dark room manipulation of the photograph can happen: filters can be applied to result in a specific outcome, burning, dodging, letting the paper swim a little longer to over develop or removing it early to under develop. This, coupled with in-camera techniques, gave the film photographer what we once thought of as a lot of leeway in regards to post processing -- or perhaps, parallel processing -- of the image.

During my college photography course our instructor had us using a new technique she'd read about in a photography journal: developing the image for the highlights and the shadows separately. In the darkroom it took a lot of trial and error per image to develop the negative once for the highlights and then again for the negatives. The technique also involved a lot of math. 

Today this technique is called HDR (http://goo.gl/OFoAb).

A few years later and there are gazillions of photo and image manipulation software options to be found (http://magicelfbox.blogspot.com/2013/05/editing-pictures-is-hard-work.html). Photographers are editing with manual adjustments, automatic adjustments with filters and textures to give their images certain looks and feels.

Like many things in life there are opposing opinions on the pure (conservative) form and the radical new techniques. We've seen this recently with the backlash regarding free online universities, automatic cars versus manual transmissions and even running a text-based operating system (unix or linux) versus a GUI system. A recent metaphor I used when trying to explain this was website design: hosting services like Wordpress allow users to manipulate and customize their web presence, but does that make them website designers?

Hey look, a black and white tree!

As photography is my art medium of choice and having started in the days of film when a photographer would capture as much of the photograph in-camera as s/he could, I find myself somewhat annoyed at the current crop of whipper-snappers (yes, I said whipper-snappers) who take pictures, push a couple of buttons and let the computer -- and software -- do most of the work for them.

This is very prevalent in the current trend of HDR, letting the camera, the cell phone, the HDR software plug-ins compile the highlights and shadows into an image without the photographer ever overtly being involved: point, click and let the software do the rest.

Where is the art? Where is the capturing of a moment in time? Where is the knowledge, experience and know-how?

In my opinion, good photographers will all tell you the same thing: you always want to try and capture the image properly in-camera; that's why they're always watching the Sun, looking at light sources, adjusting their position and adding/removing items from the camera's field of view. Post processing should be relegated to fixing errors and make minor adjustments to what the camera caught.

There was an old adage once that photographers, especially street and photojournalists, would run through a hundred stills, multiple rolls of film, hoping they have one usable image once they've developed their rolls. These days it's the same, but with digital cameras capturing gigabytes of information so quickly it's practically grabbing stills from video.

About a year ago, I went on a photowalk with some other photographers. I was amazed at the number of photographers out there who just held down their shutter button, capturing dozens of shots at a time. I learned during out lunch break they had their cameras set to bracket (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bracketing) hoping to obtain a single image of quality or to combine multiple poor images (with HDR) into one perfect image.

Where is the art? Where is the skill?

Sleeping Dogs on my blog

At the end of the walk we were comparing notes: most people were taking between 200 and 300 images. I had taken somewhere around sixty-five. Each snap of the shutter was a carefully framed, composed and camera set to capture a good image the first time.

Can someone call themselves a photographer when in fact they're nothing more than an image manipulator  with a camera? Can someone who doesn't understand how light works, how shadow-play can change the emotion of an image, who cannot look at a scene and know exactly how to set up his or her camera to capture the image they see in their mind call themselves a photographer? If they're holding their shutter down, hoping for a single usable image, are they truly giving respect to their artistic medium of choice?

Or was Marissa Mayer right (http://goo.gl/WHVRR)? Is the role of photography as an art medium dead?

I do not like overly manipulated images --  HDR, or high dynamic range annoys me. 

When I see an image with massive amounts of manipulation, for me, it appears as though the photographer isn't adept at his/her art, but must instead rely on software cheats and deceptive practices. 

Are you a good photographer, or are you a good software manipulator? That is the question.

I think that's the core discussion of this article. When we photographers capture an image, we're capturing a moment in time. In nature or on the street we're capturing that 1/250th of a second that can never be replicated again. Sure, we can get close but will that cloud always be there, will the Sun glint the right way, will that rock or those ripple on the water be just like that ever again? Will that bird fly by at just the right moment?

On the street (and photo-journalism) there are even more variables: background, time of day, activity, subject and more. Will everything line up perfectly all the time, every day?

This article talks about a rating system for the level of manipulation in photojournalism. I think this is a great idea. Especially for images people are purchasing. When a buyer of art looks at art, they're not just buying the emotional feelings the art provokes, but they're buying the knowledge and skill of the artist, the time and effort -- the blood, sweat and tears -- if you will. 

Oooh, look, it's Denver!

Does a table set made by a machine in Taiwan have the same sort of artistic quality as a hand tooled oak transformed into furniture? Which one costs more? Which one is more sought after by people who appreciate the effort put forth to design, choose the lumber, cut, carve and tool the designs on a one-on-one basis? 

Which is more coveted, the factory knock-off or the hand stitched jacket/purse/boots?

If I can just hold my shutter down with a finger or a remote, then pop a couple of images into a piece of software and let the algorithms do the work for me, was there any real effort put forth? Is it art?

There is a certain level of respect for people who know their craft.

A couple of years ago I entered a discussion about the level of image manipulation that individuals found acceptable. A very prominent HDR photographer admitted he knew nothing about photography and so he learned the HDR technique as a way to compensate his lack of skill. his opinion: who cares how the image was reached if people are buying it?

That's right, who cares about the process if people are buying it? Who cares if it's the truth as long as people buy it? Who cares about the means as long as we can justify the ends? I mean, I can paint by numbers, too. That doesn't make me an painter any more than speeding makes me a NASCAR racer.

Most recently a friend discovered HDR as an app for his phone's camera. I had this discussion again: HDR vs. capturing in-camera. he liked the HDR due to the end result and the minimal effort he had to put forth in order to achieve his result.

Which, I suspect, is fine for someone just looking to share their pictures with their friends with the least amount of post-production as possible. Fast, quick, easy. 

But for someone trying to make a living as an artist or as a photo-journalist capturing a moment in time, do you really want fast, cheap and easy?

Added because... well, it's a photoblog

When do you ever really want fast, cheap and easy? 

There is an inherent negative connotation with "fast, cheap and easy" and for good reason. Usually, that ideology results in other hazards down the road: another car repair, diabetes or ill health, a loss of job, or having your roof leak because your contractor was fast, cheap and easy.

If we don't choose the short cuts in our regular lives, why should we accept shortcuts in art or history?

In my photography I never use HDR. Aside from filters and the occasional texture, I adjust each image individually and manually, for better or worse. As you can see in my other blog posts, I try and capture a good in camera image and then manipulate for a specific look and feel. No matter what techniques I use, I perform these adjustments manually and have -- in many, many, many occasions -- had to toss specific shots due to the amount of effort needed to adjust them into something usable. 

My general rule of thumb is: if it takes more than 10 minutes to adjust the image then the original image wasn't a good capture to begin with.

Snapsational!

+Chris Chabot is a connection of mine of Google+. His newest venture is called Snapsation and is designed to bring photographers together with clients. Sounds great, right?

No more, well, less, pounding the pavement, making connections, annoying your networks with nearly spam frequency messages about being available for shooting their birthday, business events, parties, festivals, weddings and more.

Maybe I'm not explaining it properly. That's okay, they made a video. Check it out below and if it's something you might be interested in, sign up for an invite. You never know, maybe someone will pay you money for your passion.

Editing Pictures is Hard Work

Lists! Lists are great, aren't they? There are lists just about everywhere, for just about everything. There are lists of psychological disorders, lists of comic book characters and lists of yellow flowers.

Right now we're going to list photo-editing software that aren't Photoshop. Why? Because I saw an article recently that listed photograph editing software that wasn't Photoshop and there seemed to be a few missing.

So, without further adieu:

Free Options, because who doesn't like free?

• GIMP, primarily Linux distros, but can work on Windows and Mac OS
• Paint.NET, Microsoft Windows
• Pixlr, browser based, Flash required. Plus mobile apps
• PicMonkey, browser based
• Picasa, Windows and Mac
• Creative Kit, browser based editor encased within Picasaweb.google.com and Google+ photos
• Pics.io, not released yet
• Darktable, Mac and Linux distros. Not available for Windows users
• Photopos, Windows
• CinePaint, an offshoot of GIMP, Mac, Linux, Windows
• PaintStar, Windows
• Inkscape, Windows, Ubuntu, Mac
• Artweaver, free and paid, Windows
• Splashup, browser based
• RawTherapee, Linux, Mac and Windows
• SumoPaint, browser based, free and paid
• Fotoflexer, browser based
• Picfull, browser based, more like Instagram with filters than a true photo editing service
• Fotor, browser based, similar to PicMonkey and CreativeKit.
• Seashore, open-source Mac
• Image Tricks, also for Mac. Comes in free and Pro versions.
• Streamzoo, web or mobile (Android/iPhone) based. A bunch of filters and basic editing.

Paid Options, because you just need a little more than free can provide.

• OnOne, price varies depending on product
• Nik Software, $150 (more of an add-on to Photoshop, Lightroom and Aperature)
• Corel Photo Editor, $59
• DxO, price varies depending on product
• Pixelmator, $15 in the Mac Store
• Capture One, price varies depending on product 
• ACD, $59 as of this blog's posting

There are hordes of more paid options out there, including the software that came with your camera, software sold at the check-out lane in box stores and many more options. Aside from the free category, I tried to keep this list to options prosumers or semi-professionals and more might use.

I should also note, Adobe is moving their suite of services to a subscription soon, leaving the buy once and done model behind. They're calling this new service Creative Cloud. Adobe Revel is also cloud-based, but downloads of their apps are for Apple products only at this time, it seems.

Mobile Options, because you're always on the go.

I'm not going to sit here and list all the great mobile apps, because well, frankly, I don't know all the mobile apps and since mobile photo editing is still an incredibly open market, there are gazillions of them out there, most of which I haven't tried. However, +Colby Brown has cataloged a bunch of them HERE and HERE on his website.

Personally, I have used Snapseed, Streamzoo, Pixlr Express, Camera360, The Photographer's Ephemeris and can attest to all of them being worth their while.

From the Denver Art Museum

Oh, and here's a pretty picture for your troubles:

Flickr!

Whoa! Flickr is getting serious! Free? Terabyte? Full resolution?

Did I say, free?

I've never used Flickr, preferring Picasaweb (Google+ Photos) for my storage needs, but this offer is tempting, indeed. Nearly unlimited full-resolution uploads?

I'm stunned! Stunned, I say!

What's Flickr's endgame? Are they just upping the ante, knowing full well that Facebook probably won't, Google already had unlimited uploads (with a Google+ account and at a lower resolution) and most other services with this offer are pay-to-play?

Read TechCrunch's article on the move by Yahoo to revamp Flickr.

Out This Morning

Took my dog out for a walk this morning on Cherry Creek State Park. Naturally, I grabbed some pictures while out.

These are the before and after shots -- SOOC and post-processed with Snapseed.

I apologize for them not being in the same order as I haven't quite figured out how to keep them that way when blogging from mobile.

The before shots are first three and the after images are the second three.

Denver

Had a chance to grab a couple of (android) shots of the Denver skyline.

The images were edited with Snapseed and then two of them -- one of each -- were given some extra treatment. You know, for fun.

Unfortunately,  I didn't know we were going to be allowed on the 7th floor garden terrace or I would have brought my tripod and Pentax.

The Shell

"The Original" SOOC

I know I've been ignoring this blog for a while and I apologize for that indiscretion. While I haven't stopped taking pictures, both with Android and with Pentax; and while I haven't stopped sharing them on both Google+ and Streamzoo, I just haven't been in a place to sit down and type out posts.

Today, hopefully that changes.

The image to the right is one I snapped at the dog park a few days ago. This shotgun shell was just sitting out there on the walking path in a place designated for dogs, horses, cyclists and runners.

It's not really a place for shot guns or their shells. Now, granted, this area used to be a gun-dog training area, but casual dog walkers eventually took it over from those trying to teach their hunting dogs not to fear the sound of a shotgun firing and to retrieve on command. Occasionally a shotgun shell is found in the park, some older than others.

For giggles I played with a handful of photo-editing software options and differing techniques to create the images below. Since this image was simple, had some depth of field and a foreground subject matter it was an easy image to experiment with in this manner. This first one, How the West Was Won, I edited with the online service, PicMonkey. There are strong similarities between PicMonkey and Google's Creative Kit (formerly known as Picnik) and that can be ascribed to PicMonkey being the pet project of those developers who originally created Picnik and left Google after their program being acquired by the search giant.

On to the edits!

Winning the West

 I decided to give this image an "old west" or sepia feel since the lonely shotgun shell lying on the ground just shrieked "leftover from the OK Corral" to me. It's not from anywhere close to Tombstone, AZ, but Colorado was also a part of the western expansion of the late 19th century and that was good enough for me. In order to complete the feel of the "old west" I rounded the corners and darkened the edges.

Edit on the Go

Since this was an Android original, my first edit was using Google's (Nik Software) Snapseed Android app. While far more feature filled than many image editing Android apps, Snapseed is still just a mobile app and therefore limited. The image, which I stated before, screamed old west and instead of creating a sepia image, I just boosted the contrast, made the image black and white and then added some texture --  hopefully to give the image a classic feel, perhaps a little nostalgia from the 40s or 50s, before color film became widespread and monochrome still ruled the world.

My impression of the final edit is an image found in an old newspaper or magazine, accompanying a story about murderers on the run in New Mexico, Utah, Texas or the Mojave Desert.

Like PicMonkey before, Google's social network, Google+'s, online image editing software is easy and convenient. While this image edit became the template look for the above wild west look I settled on above, I used Creative Kit because... well, I was bored. That's right, I was logged into Google+, became bored and decided to play with Creative Kit.

Aftermath of the zombie apocalypse

This edit was a little different, instead of  "old west" I saw the final image and immediately thought of the what the world would look like in the aftermath of the impending zombie invasion. Not the zombies running around trying to get at our brains, but rather what the world would look like once the last zombie has been dispatched from existence. It won't be sunshine and rainbows, I think, but a wasteland devoid of humanity with the ground littered in the shells of bullets giving proof to humanity's fight for survival. Sure there will still be people, but perhaps a tenth of the population of any given geographic location, I think.