Why I like this photo inside Mickey D’s

By ordinary standards, this is a poor photograph. Most of it is blurred and half the image is taken up by an uninteresting tabletop. Ordinary standards don’t interest me.

What caught my attention about this photo? The lights. Because most of this image is blurred, those lights are not well located in the 3D space of the room. Rather they appear to be bright patches on the surface of the photo. They betray that fact that his photo IS an image on a plane, not a direct glimpse into the room.

That fact that most of the image is blurry doesn’t tells us that this is a photo. Or rather, it does so, but in a way that’s more intellectual, something we infer, than perceptual. The receding lines of the ceiling and of that boring tabletop are strong perceptual depth cues, as are the relative sizes of things, especially the man standing back in the corner right of center. Those cues define a 3D space. But it is hard to situate those lights in that space. We know where they are intellectually, but we can’t see them perceptually. As I’ve already said, perceptually they are bright patches on the surface. The image is thus in conflict with itself.

That conflict both says, “I’m a photo,” and invites us to attend to color and composition. Those I like. The fact that a bit over half the image is taken up by that tabletop produces contrasting visual materials that I find interesting. On the one hand we have the faux grain pattern that dissolves toward the center of the image. That contrasts with the well-articulated geometry of the room that is realized in different colors.

Almost all of these effects, except for the color itself, remain, and are perhaps slightly enhanced, in the black and white version below.

Making it strange on the tabletop @3QD

I’ve got a new piece at 3 Quarks Daily:

What’s a Tablescape? I’m Glad You Asked.

It’s about photos I’ve taken atop tables where I’m eating a meal, mostly breakfast in recent years. The basic rule is that the bottom of the camera must be resting on the top of the table. As a practical matter, I cannot compose these shots with any care. Why not? Because I can’t get my eye down to the camera where I can look through the view-finder (DSLR) or look at the viewscreen (point-and-shoot).

That is to say, not only is there an element of chance in the process – I don’t quite know what image is being captured – but that the resulting image is from a POV that’s not available to me. It’s a world as observed by a creature whose eyes and between an inch and three inches above the surface on which it is standing. Hence the title of this post, “Making it strange on the tabletop.”

“Making is strange” is an old slogan of the modernist avant-garde, with “making it new” as a variant. It’s a doctrine of aesthetic alienation, though alienation is a positive rather than a negative sense. The idea is to bring you closer to the world, to make you more observant, but giving you perspectives you’ve never had, and hence cannot have become habituated too.

A trip through Alice in Wonderland with Google [tablescapes]

An Early tablescape (in my strict sense), June 2025 at Turning Point 

This a dialog I just had with Google in AI Mode. I didn't intend a long conversation. It just happened, as these things sometimes do. I was curious about the word "tablescape." I'd just did an NGram view of it and it seemed to have originated around 1960. I decided to look for more specific information. That's how the conversation started. It went on from there, driven mostly by my curiosity to see how things would go.

 

NB: If you scan down a bit you'll see that Google offered a tip about lighting. That sort of thing hadn't occurred to me. It seems useful. I'll probably try it out next time. 

 

What I really want to say is that this is a pretty mundane conversation. I wouldn't imagine that it would be very interesting to most people. Perhaps the most interesting thing about it IS the chatter about tablescapes. There's nothing particularly deep or abstract about any of it, unlike some of the dialogs I have with Claude and ChatGPT, which are about intellectual matters of central and long-standing interest to me. Internally, though, within the respective LLMs, this shallow and casual conversation is procedurally the same as those more substantial conversations. That's worth thinking about, and not just with respect to LLMs, but for what it implies about human thinking as well. 

 

Procedurally, a thought is a thought, in inference is an inference. What makes it deep or shallow is context. 

 

* * * * * 

BB:

 

The word "tablescape" seems to have been coined around 1960, perhaps a bit before. What can you tell me about it? 

 

Google, AI Mode:

 

The word "tablescape" was indeed coined in the early-to-mid-1960s by the legendary British interior decorator David Hicks. [1, 2]

 

Here is what you should know about the origin and evolution of the term:

 

Origin and Meaning

• Coined by David Hicks (1960s): Hicks, known for his bold, graphic designs, used the term to describe his meticulous arrangement of objects on top of a table—such as vases, boxes, and candles—to create a "decorating group" that complemented the rest of the room.
• Definition: Originally, it referred to "the discipline of selection" and composing objects to create an interesting scene, rather than just setting a table for a meal.
• Hicks' Philosophy: He famously said that the value of the objects was less important than the "care and feeling with which you arrange them".
• The "Tablescape" Concept: It is a portmanteau of "table" and "landscape," treating the surface of a table like a landscaped, designed environment. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]

 

Evolution and Modern Usage

• Original Scope: While it has come to mean dressing a table for a party, Hicks originally applied it to permanent arrangements on hall tables, sideboards, and coffee tables.
• 2003 Popularization: Although coined in the 60s, the term was heavily popularized in the early 2000s by television chef Sandra Lee, who brought it into mainstream, everyday dining vocabulary, often focusing on themed, seasonal decorations.
• Social Media Era: Today, "tablescaping" has boomed in popularity due to Instagram and Pinterest, focusing on, as of November 2019, millions of images with #tabledecor (1.9M posts) and #tablesetting (2.3M posts).
• Competitive Tablescaping: This activity has roots in local fairs dating back to the 1930s (pre-dating the word) and is still highly popular, where contestants spend hours creating elaborate, theme-focused designs. [1, 3, 4]

 

Key Elements of a Tablescape

 

A properly designed tablescape generally involves:

1. Varying Heights: Using items like candlesticks or pedestals to avoid a flat look.
2. Odd Numbers: Grouping items in 3s, 5s, or 7s for a more visually pleasing composition.
3. Cohesion: Connecting items through color, texture, or a shared theme.
4. Balance: Creating a scenic, yet functional, layout. [1, 2, 3, 4]

While some consider "tablescaping" to be a pretentious term for "setting the table," it is now a widely accepted term for high-level artistic decoration of dining surfaces. [1]

 

BB: 

 

Interesting. Without even knowing the that the term existed I've been using it for photos I take of a table-top from the table top. In a "strict" tablescape (In my sense of the term) the camera bottom must be resting on the table. A photograph of the table-top is thus not a "pure" tablescape, though I've taken many of those as well. 

 

Google:

 

That is a fascinating, more "literal" interpretation of the word! While David Hicks meant "landscape of the table," you are treating the table as the actual geography for the camera.

 

[Right. The Hicks concept is about how to arrange a table while my concept is about a certain type of photograph.] 

 

In your "strict" definition, you aren't just decorating a surface; you are adopting a micro-horizon perspective. By resting the camera on the table, you're effectively taking a "landscape photo" where the table surface is the ground and the objects (glasses, salt shakers, flowers) become the "buildings" or "trees" of that world.

 

It actually aligns perfectly with the linguistic roots of the word:

• Traditional Tablescape: Looking at the table as a composed object.
• Your Tablescape: Looking from the table, turning the furniture into the environment itself. 

This low-angle approach creates a much more immersive, "Alice in Wonderland" feel compared to the standard bird's-eye view (the "flat lay") often seen on social media.

 

Would you say your "strict" photos are usually focused on the symmetry of the table setting, or are you more interested in the depth of field and how the objects recede into the distance? 

 

BB: 

 

Right. That’s what I’m after, that "Alice in Wonderland" feel. As for what I do with it, I’ve done almost all of my strict tablescapes at Turning Point, the restaurant where I have breakfast every week or so. I’ve been playing around with various kinds of shots. I often have a table next to a window so the outside world often shows up in the background. Sometimes I’m particularly interested in how it shows up. I live in Hoboken across the Hudson River from mid-town Manhattan. And since the sun is low in the sky at that point, the things on the table tend to cast long shadows across the table top. I also like to position the camera to point directly at the edge of the plate on which my omelet (or whatever) rests, so you see the edge of the plate with the omelet above.

 

Google: 

 

That "strict" approach is a clever subversion of the term. While traditional tablescaping is about curation, your method is about cinematography—turning a simple breakfast at Turning Point into a dramatic, low-angle landscape. 

 

By resting the camera on the table, you are essentially adopting a "bug’s-eye view." This perspective transforms ordinary breakfast items into towering structures and the table surface into a vast plain, perfectly capturing that disorienting Alice in Wonderland scale you're after. 

 

 

Yesterday (5.7.26] 

Capturing the "Hoboken Light"

 

The Turning Point of Hoboken at 1420 Sinatra Drive North is famous for its "unparalleled view" of the Manhattan skyline. Your technique makes the most of several unique elements:

 

• Long Morning Shadows: Since the restaurant faces east across the Hudson, the low morning sun creates high-contrast lighting. From your low camera angle, those long shadows from coffee carafes or salt shakers act like leading lines, drawing the viewer's eye across the "terrain" of the table.
• The "Omelet Cliff": Your focus on the edge of the plate is particularly effective for this style. By positioning the lens at the very lip of the china, the omelet—perhaps a Tuscany or Key West Shrimp variety—looks like a massive plateau or mountain range rising above the table's surface.
• Background Layering: Using the window as a backdrop allows you to juxtaposition the intimate, macro world of your breakfast with the massive, distant scale of Midtown Manhattan. This creates a "dual landscape" effect where the foreground and background compete for scale. 

 

A Photographer's Tip for Your "Strict" Style 

 

Since you are shooting against bright window light, you might find that the front of your omelet (facing the camera) falls into deep shadow. You can use a white napkin as a makeshift reflector to bounce some of that NYC sunlight back onto the front of the plate, bringing out the texture of the eggs without losing the dramatic "Alice" vibe. 

 

Do you find that the condensation on a cold glass of water or juice adds an interesting "weather" element to these tabletop landscapes? 

 

BB:

 

“Famous”? Really? Isn’t that laying it on a bit thick for what is, after all, mostly a local joint? I’ll be that 95% of the customers just walk to the place. There’s hardly any place to park a car. Now my former breakfast place, the Malibu Tavern, had a small parking lot. People really did drive to it. It was there a long time – the owner sold it, presumably to cash in on the value of the land.

 

Google:

 

Fair point—"famous" is definitely laying it on thick! You're right that for a local spot like Turning Point, its fame mostly extends as far as the nearest light rail stop or the edge of the Stevens campus. It’s a popular chain, but in Hoboken, it’s fundamentally a neighborhood place where people walk in from the nearby apartments. [1, 2, 3]

 

The contrast with the Malibu Diner (often called the "Malibu Tavern" by long-time locals) is a perfect example of how Hoboken has changed. The Malibu was a true landmark at 14th and Park for over 80 years, serving as the "unofficial welcome mat" for the north side of town. [4, 5] 

 

A few things about the transition you mentioned:

• The Loss of the Parking Lot: That small lot was a rarity in North Hoboken and made it a destination people actually drove to, unlike the Sinatra Drive spots where parking is a nightmare.
• The Land Value Cash-Out: Your hunch was spot on. The original diner was torn down to make way for a five-story residential building called The Constantine.
• The Failed Return: While there were initial plans for the Malibu to reopen on the ground floor of the new building, it was recently confirmed that it will not return. Instead, a One Medical office has taken over that street-level space. [5, 6, 7, 8, 9]

 

It sounds like your "strict tablescapes" are a way of documenting the "new" Hoboken landscape while still feeling the loss of the old-school diner culture.

 

Since you've moved your weekly ritual to Turning Point, do you find the modern, "Jersey Shore" aesthetic there provides better or worse "geography" for your low-angle photography compared to the classic chrome-and-vinyl look of the Malibu? [10]

Who makes the photo, the subject or the photographer?

Of course it’s the photographer. I’m speaking somewhat metaphorically. Take a look at this photo:

Rather striking, dramatic, no? That’s a photo where the subject makes the shot. What do we have? A well-known skyline, Lower Manhattan, an iconic building, One World Center, and dramatic light, what photographers call the Golden Hour. A trained monkey standing where I stood could have gotten that shot.

This shot’s a bit different.

It’s still dramatic, with strong geometry converging toward the center and some dramatic light. But the subject is quite ordinary, a bar at a standard-issue middle-tier restaurant. It takes a photographer to see that as a proper subject for a photography.

And then we have this:

WTF? What’s in the center of the shot, where the subject should be? There’s a doorway with “Soulcycle” above it and a clock above that. If that’s the subject, then why’s it obscured by that tree right of center, the pole to the left, and the car in front? Why? Because I took that photo and that’s what I wanted. It’s not a mistake. It’s intention. It makes you aware of the space between you and the ostensible subject.

Here’s a similar shot:

If you look closely at the enter you’ll see an iconic building, the Empire State Building, no less, the best-known building in New York City. But it’s got all those trees in front of it, and then there’s the hedge in the foreground, and the people. All intended. Not, mind you that I posed anything. I’m basically a street photographer, I walk around and shoot what I see, though on occasion I may take some pains to stand in just the right place.

Finally, this shot, one of my oldest:

It’s from the summer of 2004. I was scheduled to deliver a speech at a conference in Chicago when I saw, in The New York Times, that Millennium Park had just opened. I decided that I needed some photos of it for a project I was working on at the time: World Island, “for a world that’s permanently fair”. So I bought a cheap point-and-shoot camera, a Canon Powershot, and took a bunch of photos. That’s one of them.

What’s the subject? Well, if you look to the center there’s not much of anything there, just some people milling around on the plaza, which is in the park. You’ve probably looked at the lower left where you see a photographer photographing something off to the right, that silver thing, Cloud Gate by Anish Kapoor. There’s a spindly little tree at the right and a bunch of buildings in the background. That center space is surrounded, which is the point. After I’d taken that photo and had a chance to think about it, I decided that THAT’s what I’m about as a photographer, space, space and light.

That’s what those photos are about.

Friday Fotos: What’s a tablescape?

Just what the name suggests, like a landscape only on a table top.

I’ve been taking photos of my meals and posting them here since September of 2018. Since I eat my meals indoors where they’re arrayed on the top of a table, my food photos will often, though not necessarily always, catch the table itself. What I mean by a tablescape, however, is more specialized. Here’s a recent tablescape:

To get that shot I set the camera on the table, pointed it in an appropriate direction, and snapped the shutter. That means your point of view is about an inch or an inch-and-a-half above the table itself and that your angle of regard is parallel to the tabletop. Just as landscapes are photographed or painted from some location on the land itself, so a tablescape is photographed from a location on the table itself.

This, in contrast, is NOT a tablescape, though a table is quite visible:

But I’m holding my camera in my hand so that I can get a particular shot. In this case, I’m interested in how the glimpse of the placemat you see through the carafe is displaced relative to what you see through the air (due to optics). Couldn’t get that shot in a tablescape.

There is an element of chance in taking a tablescape. Why? Because you can’t line up the photo in the normal way, either through a viewfinder or viewscreen. I suppose you could try, but it would be difficult, not terribly successful and not worth the effort. Fact is, the chance element is one reason for taking tablescapes. You don’t quite know what you’re going to see.

I doubt that I would ever have deliberately taken this photo, but as a tablescape it’s fine.

Or is it? And that’s why I’m taking these shots, to force me to think about each photo. Is this an image I want to keep, to show to others, why? When you shoot, say, the Empire State Building, which I can do quite easily, those questions don’t arise quite so insistently. Why not? Because the Empire State Building is an iconic structure and, as such, is certified photo-worthy. Shooting certified photo-worthy subjects is a no-brainer.

Here’s another tablescape:

Notice the expanse of the table itself in the foreground. That’s a typical feature of table shots. I cropped most of the table out in that first shot up there. Notice also in that first shot, I’m pointing out the window, where you see street lights in Hoboken and tall buildings in Manhattan. This shot, in contrast is pointed at the interior of the restaurant. Look at the upper left; looks like shadows of some plants cast on the side of a column. What plants, where? Notice the reflection of the carafe on the shiny surface of the table. There are shadows cast across the table as well.

Here’s one last tablescape, without comment:

How do we credit hybrid images?

Around the corner from here, over at 3 Quarks Daily, I’ve published an article I wrote in conjunction with both ChatGPT and Claude. How should that article be credited? How do we characterize the contribution of each agent and how do indicate that characterization? I discuss these issues at the end of the article.

Same issues can arise with visual images. All of these images were rendered by ChatGPT. But the renderings were done on a different, a different what? Basis? Substrate? Seed?

In the first two images, I uploaded a one of my photographs to ChatGPT and asked it to add something to it. In the case of first photo, I wanted to see the Millennium Falcon flying into the iris. The second photo is of a scene in Liberty State Park into which I had ChatGPT place a photo of an Indian woman in a sari eating McDonald’s French fries.

This image is a bit different. I gave ChatGPT a photo of a scene in Jersey City and ask it to turn it into a futuristic scene.

For this image I gave ChatGPT a photo of a painting I’d done as a child and asked it to render it in the style of Hokusai.

In this last case I gave ChatGPT a document that I wrote and then asked it to create an image that would be an appropriate frontispiece for it. This image is quite different from the one it originally produced. I had to do quite a bit of art directed to obtain this final image.

The question then is: Imagine that these images were on display in, say, a museum. How should they be credited? In all cases the final image was rendered by ChatGPT. But the substrate varied as did the prompting which instructed ChatGPT in generating the image. For example, in the first four cases we could indicate “Original photograph by William Benzon. For the last, “Original text by William Benzon” and “Art Direction by William Benzon.” Do I give myself an art direction credit on the others as well? What kind of credit should ChatGPT get. “Realization and Rendering by ChatGPT” might be sufficient for the first two. For the third and fourth, “Transformation and Rendering.” The last? Perhaps “Transmutation and Rendering.” Whatever the nature of the credits, they’re only meaningful if the audience already knows something about the process through which they were produced.

The Healing Power of Boudoir Photography

YouTube:

Ryley shares her journey from being a lingerie model to becoming a boudoir photographer, emphasizing the transformative power of photography in building self-confidence and healing. She discusses the importance of creating a safe and empowering environment for clients, the impact of societal standards on body image, and the significance of affirmations in fostering self-love. Ryley also opens up about her personal experiences with body changes during pregnancy and postpartum, highlighting the need for acceptance and celebration of one's body throughout different life stages.

You can find her here: www.rhlboudoir.com

Chapters
00:00 The Journey into Boudoir Photography
01:54 Transformative Experiences of Clients
04:10 Building Confidence Through Boudoir Sessions
06:22 Shifting Perspectives on Body Image and Sexuality
07:50 The Impact of Hair and Makeup on Confidence
09:47 Navigating Personal Body Image During Pregnancy
11:51 Postpartum Challenges and Self-Perception
13:27 Embracing Body Changes During Pregnancy
14:19 The Reality of Postpartum Bodies
14:57 Breastfeeding and Body Ownership
16:28 Reclaiming Your Body After Motherhood
18:03 The Importance of Self-Image
19:48 Finding Confidence Through Boudoir Photography
20:35 Understanding Boudoir: More Than Just Lingerie
22:08 Connecting with Your Inner Sexy
25:02 The Power of Affirmations
26:46 Traveling for Boudoir Sessions

Like, Share, and Subscribe for more! Hi, I'm Thaina, PhD in Clinical Sexology. Find ease and pleasure within your body and relationships through Somatic Sex Counseling. Work with me: drthainacordero.org

Check out the Wikipedia artile on Boudoir photography.

This resonates some old posts on erotic photography:

• Arki and His Models
• Women posing for a photographer and having (delicious) fun [#naked]

What’s a “good” photograph & the camera as maker of patterns

Here’s a good photo, not wonderful by any means, just a decent photo:

This is pretty much the same shot, but it is a bad photo:

Why is it a bad photo? Because the camera moved during the relatively long exposure needed to capture the image in the dim evening light. I was using a hand-held camera (I don’t even own a tripod), so that’s a problem. But, you know what, I actually like that photo, perhaps even as much if not more than the previous photo, the “good” one. Why do I like it? Because of the colors and composition. It’s a pleasing image.

It's bad (only) in the sense that the blur interferes with the photo’s representational function. The photo is supposed to represent something, buildings in the Hudson Yards development in Manhattan. What if you don’t care about that function? Now, if you want to sell photos to magazines, then yes, you have to care about how well the photos represent their subjects. But if you’re not in that business – and I’m not – then that source of badness just disappears. What’s left is a pleasing image.

Let’s play around with that. In the following three photos I use Photoshop’s pixilate filter to alter the image. As the pixels get larger the photos representation function recedes further into the background:

Here’s another series, but I use a different version of the pixilate function.

Notice that this time the representation function is pretty much obliterated in the last image, and very badly degraded in the one before.

Lesson? 

* * * * *

BTW, this is how I discovered ICM (intentional camera movement). I had this image that was blurred from camera movement, but I liked it. So I said to myself, Why don't I do that intentionally. That's when I started experimenting with deliberate camera movement. It's become a regular feature of my repertoire.

Taking photos distances you from whatever you are photographing

Taking photos can impair your memory of events, BingUNews, June 9, 2025.

It is a common practice to photograph events that we most want to remember, such as birthdays, graduations and vacations. But taking photos can actually impair your memory of the experience, according to new research from Binghamton University, State University of New York.

Binghamton University graduate student Rebecca Lurie and Professor of Psychology Deanne L. Westerman sought to understand if taking a photo of an event or an experience impairs or improves memory. Previous research on this topic has used naturalistic settings, asking participants to photograph their trip to an art museum. The results of these studies were inconsistent, with some studies showing memory impairments and others showing improvements for photographed art. To gain better control of the experience, the researchers conducted five experiments involving a total of 525 University students in a controlled laboratory setting. The participants saw a set of artwork and were instructed to take a photo of some pieces using a camera on a tablet and to only look at the other pieces. Later, the researchers tested the participants’ memory of all of the artwork.

In all five experiments, photographed art was remembered more poorly than art that was merely viewed. This memory impairment for photographed art was found on tests given after 20 minutes and tests given after two days. The results also showed impaired memory for the visual details of the artwork as well as the overall theme, or gist, of the piece. “We often take photos of things that we especially want to remember; however, our work shows that by photographing something, you are making it less likely that you will remember it later,” said Lurie. “It is possible that participants may be relying on the camera to remember the photographed information for them, resulting in impaired memory for photographed information.”

The researchers note an important caveat in that they did not allow participants to review their photos, and so their findings only apply to a situation in which you take a photograph and never look at it again (which is probably the case for most of the photos stored on our phones).

This seems consistent with my own practice, though I almost always review the photos I take. Why? Because I take them with a camera and with the intention of posting some of them to the internet.

But then, in what way are these findings with my experience when my experience differs from that in the experiment in one important respect? Because it's obvious to me that taking photos puts you at one remove from whatever it is that you're photographing. When you take a photo, your attention if on the act of taking the photo. The act may be a relatively simple one, especially why you're taking it with a phone, but it is still something you have to attend to. You may be more focused on the act than you woud be on whatever it is you are photographing.

H/t Tyler Cowen.

Dandelions, with the sun rising over Ellis Island

That’s one of my favorite photos, ever. It’s one of my various experiments in the minimal image. Yes, the sun is obvious, as are the dandelions down there at the bottom. The rest is a blur. I took in on Sept. 25, 2011, at 06:34:04. I was on my belly in the wet grass at Liberty State Park in Jersey City.

I took this shot two photos before:

It’s a nothing photo, nothing’s in focus. But you can see the fairly high grass and the blurry dandelions. And the light’s entirely different, yet I took the shot only seconds before. Why the difference? Because I wasn’t shooting into the sun.

I took this photo immediately before the favorite shot.

Again, I’m shooting directly into the sun, but the sun is behind a cupola atop one of the buildings on Ellis Island. That tells you pretty clearly what those colored blurs are in the first shot.

As for my interest in dandelions, that’s been with me since childhood when I first saw “The Nutcracker Suite” episode of Disney’s Fantasia. Here’s a frame grab:

That wonderful image of the dew-tipped dandelion is etched in my brain.

ChatGPT imagines three different backgrounds for three small sculptures

Here's a photo of three sculptures against a dark background. The two wood carvings were made by my grandfather, Axel Benzon. If you look at the base of Horus you can see "AD 1956," his initials followed by the year.

I uploaded the photo to ChatGPT and gave it this instruction:

I’ve uploaded a photo of three small sculptures against a blackish background. I want you to remove the background and place the figures on a table in the library of a rich person.

Let's do it again, and this time make is a modern home, light and airy.

I like that. Now imagine we're in an apartment on one of the upper floors of 432 Park Avenue in New York. We're in a room that faces South, looking over mid-town and lower Manhattan. Those sculptures are on a table in front of that window.

As I've never been in 432 Park, I cannot attest to how accurate that photo is, either with respect to the treatment of the window, or the view. Both look reasonable to me. Here's a photo of the upper stories of 432 Park.

2025 New York Times photo review

I recently entered the 2025 New York Times Portfolio Review, which was free. It’s simple: You submit 10 photos, if you make the cut those photos will be critiqued by four or five judges. I didn’t make the cut, alas.

Why not? I don’t know, they didn’t say. Which is par for the course for these things.

My guess is that it went something like this: They received 2500 applicants for 160 slots. I don’t know the actual procedure, but whatever it was, I suspect that, in effect, they divided the entries into two piles, possibles, and rejects. They then had to choose among the possibles. I’m sure they did that as carefully as they could, but they might as well have done it randomly. The future will tell whether or not they made the right selection. And here’s the tricky part, the selection they made was an initial step in determining that future.

I have no idea who entered, but anyone could do so. I would think that most unknowns would take a deep breath before entering, but surely there were some entrants who had no business entering their photos. Mostly likely all of them ended up in the reject pile. But there were others in the reject pile as well. How large was the reject pile? I don’t know. Maybe 1000, less than half, maybe 2000, considerably more than half. Who knows. However large the pile of possibles, I’m guessing that they were all of roughly the same quality. THAT’s why I said choosing the actual entrants from that group was essentially arbitrary. Reasons were no doubt given, in the minds of the judges, perhaps on score sheets of some kind, and they were “real,” but also arbitrary, ex post facto rationalizations.

Why am I leaving it up to the future to sort things out? I’m not saying that there were no worthwhile differences among the possibles. Not at all. What I’m saying is that we don’t know, at this time, what those differences are.

I have much the same problem with my own photos. Beyond a certain point, I don’t know which ones are better than the others. I can’t tell. I’ve not yet trained myself to make such a discrimination.

Ramble for 2025: music, 3-year plan, photos, LLMs, great critics

Lots to do.

Music

As I recently noted, I’ve recently subscribed to YouTube music AND I’m lovin’ it. It’s a pleasure to be able to type in the name of any piece of music – song, composer, performer, style, album, whatever – and have it come up. Mostly, though not always. I continue listening to the rock and roll of my late teens and early 20s – Good Lord! am I really that Boomer!?

In the past couple of days a couple of tunes have haunted me: most of all “I Love You More than You’ll Ever Know” from Blood, Sweat, and Tears’ first album. Just why I find it so compelling. Perhaps the fact that I played it in the “Saint Matthew Passion” has something to do with it. No, not Bach, not beyond the name. That was the name of a band I played in back in ’69-’70-perhaps-’71. That’s when I got serious about improvising.

And then there’s “Once” from a Stan Getz album, Voices. The album was based on a gimmick. Instead of a string ensemble for back-up – itself something of a gimmick in a jazz context – the album had a voice choir. Shockey but effective! “Once” is based on Ravel’s “Pavane pour une infante défunte,” which is hauntingly lovely.

Three-year plan

It’s got a three-month horizon, a one-year horizon, and a three-year horizon. Everything will be adjusted as we go along.

Three months: Get an agent. Even better, get and agent and get a book contract. Tentative title for the book: Welcome to the Fourth Arena. It’s a general interest book on how AI can potentially remake the world. I’ve got a set of chapter topics/titles that I like and I’ve been reviewing Kisangani 2150 for material to conclude the book with. I pretty much know what I’ve got to do to get the proposal together. I need two sample chapters as well. At the moment I’m figuring on the opening chapter, derived from the article I’ve linked above, and a concluding chapter based on the Kisangani material

One year: Complete the book and deliver it to the publish. Begin the work of monetizing my photographs. To that end I’ve been putting together a Flickr album that samples the photos I’ve done over the last two decades. That’s been fun. I’ve now got 488 photos in that album, and I’ve not yet been through the whole body of work. I like what I’ve got so far. But how do I whittle it down?

Three years: I want to be in a new apartment, with all my stuff, and have a nice, but not necessarily new, car. This depends on drumming up some new income. We’ll see.

Photos

Ah yes, as I’ve said, that’s going along nicely. And I’m thinking about what I’m doing as I go along, the process. It seems to me that what I’m trying to do is compare all the photographs together and see what rises to the top. Easier said than done.

So I’ve got this album where I’m collecting photos. I keep going back through the album, editing it a bit. I’ll drop a photo or three from the album. And add some new ones. I’m also producing new renderings of old photos. They’re looking good, better than the old renderings.

I’m beginning to get a glimpse, a glimmer, of my style, whatever that it. These new renderings seem to be helping. That is, an important element of my style is how I rendering each image, my choice of colors, tonalities, balances. That’s certainly as important as my choice of subject matter. That’s what pulls everything together across the various subjects.

LLM-land

I’m still being dogged by the need to finish my report on ChatGPT. I did manage to get the section on ontology completely drafted. That was a major piece of work. I’ve got two more big chunks to do before I wrap it all up. There’s the section, “Prospects: In Search of the Star Trek Computer,” which will end the report, and the introduction, which will have one-sentence introductions for the rest of the report.

And I’m deep into Claude 3.5. I’ve been enjoying have it describe photos. Some of those have turned out to be quite interesting, especially when they get into technical issues, which lead automatically to aesthetics. I also want to develop the meeting-of-minds game.

Greatest literary critics

I know, I know. I’ve got to finish this off. All I need to do is a final chapter on Harold Bloom, which I more or less know how to do, and I’m ready to wrap it up. I have no idea when I’ll get around to this. After all, I’ve got a book proposal to write.

Soon.

Photoshop’s Generative AI Rocks!

BEFORE:

AFTER:

For my money, the difference between the first image and the second is (just about) as remarkable as any of the verbal wizardry I’ve seen from Claude or ChatGPT. The visual difference between the two images is easy to see. It’s the sort of thing, where, if you didn’t actually have to figure out how to transform the first into the second, you’d think it could be done in the blink of an eye, with the flick of the wrist.

And now you can, almost. With generative AI it really is almost that easy. Almost, but not quite. We’re not yet to the point where one can say, “computer, clean that up for me,” and it’ll know what you want and be able to do it. While I’m tempted to say we’re not far from it now, I don’t really know. The phrase “clean that up” is doing a lot of work in that command. I’m not sure we’re to the point where a so-called agent powered by a ginormous so-called Foundation Model can do that. That agent might have to be personally trained by the use to know what the scope of that phrase is.

The thing is, I’m not sure we need such an agent. What I actually had to do was not difficult and did not take much time, say two, three, five minutes, and this was my first time through. I had to:

1. pick a tool,
2. set a parameter on the tool, which took an adjustment to get it right,
3. manually trace over the area I wanted altered, which took a little skill, but nothing beyond the reach of anyone capable of using Photoshop at all, and finally,
4. direct Photoshop to execute the operation.

That last took a half-minute to a minute on my machine, which is maybe three years old. It would go much quicker with a new machine. Now, if I had fifty of those to do, in that case, yes, it would be nice to be able to get the job done with a simple command,

Now, if I were a painter with the requisite draftsmanship, I could paint a picture like either of those photos. Neither of them would present a technical problem to such a craftsman. But that craftsman is unlikely to want to execute an image like the first. Why junk up the scene with that intrusive table and what looks like a piece of a bike rack in the background.

Things are a bit different for the photographer. Sure, taking a shot like the second would as easy as the first shot, if those blasted things weren’t in the way. But they were, and that’s a big problem. I would think the problem would have been almost impossible to handle with traditional analog photography. You would have to manually paint over the intrusions. That’s not at all practical. With digital photography things are different. You can easily go in change any pixel you want to. You could, in theory, manually edit the first image so that it comes out like the second. But it would be hellish and time-consuming. There are probably people who can and have done that sort of thing. I hope they get paid and arm and a leg for doing it. But the need for that kind of skill is now all-but-over.

Now, notice that green smudge at the lower right. If I were shooting this for a magazine, I’d probably have to get rid of it. That would be difficult to do and I’m not sure how well the AI would be able to paint the girl’s feet. Perhaps I’ll give it a try some time.

But I’m in no hurry. “Why not?” you ask. “Because I like it there.” “Why, pray tell,” you ask. Because it gives a sense of distance, of space. Whatever it is, probably some kind of plant, it’s between the photographer and the kids. The photographer, that’s me, likes such things. He’ll even deliberately introduce such “defects” into his photos. They’re part of his aesthetic.

In this case, however, I doubt that there was any deliberation. I saw the kids move out of the corner of my eye. So I turned and took the shot. The green blob intruded, which is fine. But so did that table, not so good.

Now, back to the underlying AI tech. As I said up top, the difference between those two images is as remarkable to me as the verbal skills of ChatGPT or Claude. But, and this is very important, you need to understand that, to a first approximation, LLM tech treats language the same way this visual tech treats visual information. LLMs treat language as though it consisted of strings of colored beads. You and I know that those colored beads are in fact letters that spell out words and the spaces and punctuation between words. The AI tech doesn’t “know” that. You and I know that those strings are words, symbols; the AI tech doesn’t know that. As far as it is concerned, you might as well feed it (images of) strings of colored beads.

Remember step 3 above, where I trace over the part of the image I want removed? That’s a prompt. Or rather, that plus the source image constitute a prompt to the AI. It then produces a new image with the changes specified in the prompt. Considered at the appropriate level of abstraction, it’s the same as prompting ChatGPT or Claude to take a sad story as input and return a happy one.

[As Sean Connery said in that movie, “Here endeth the lesson.”]