First of all, spent some of the weekend giving Pixel Post a run through (as mentioned by Angshu in a response to Raul’s post)… Here’s the result:

http://lawrenceripsher.com/pixelpost/

I’d love some feedback on this. To put it together, I had to think long and hard about my portfolio – how I wanted it arranged, presented, what images, etc. In the end I was able to boil it down to 4 categories, or projects – named:

- Fragments
- Horizons
- A Natural World
- The Infinite Sadness

No portraits, dog photographs, commercial work, ballet, action, contender shots. Just a collection of ‘fine art’ images, things I consider to be my more creative work and perhaps most importantly the work that I’ll be focusing on moving forwards.

I’d love some feedback. Don’t worry about the text or writing – I’ll do all that properly later. Main things are the site itself and most importantly, the image selection. Goes without saying but criticism is appreciated also obviously

BTW, if you notice, “blog” will now point to my author index on Lost in Focus. When I put up my new site, I’ll be putting a bullet in the head of my review based blog at lawrenceripsher.com. That means I’ll be spending a lot more time on this site, improving it with enhancements, etc. Will be cool.

Oh and I made a commitment to myself this weekend to get a book and exhibition together for LIF. So stay tuned.

Despite my ambitions to enter competitions I didn’t really get around to it (and am reconsidering anyway). I did send in two images earlier this year though – one was to the Sony thing, another to some Ektar competition sponsored by Kodak I ran across on Flickr.

I had only shot one or two rolls in 35mm at the time, but submitted a few images. Anyway, I recently heard that this image:

made it as a finalist and was awarded one of the 4 ‘honorable mentions’. As a prize, Kodak sent me 20 rolls of Ektar in 120 format which I just received. The cool thing is that the image will be part of the Kodak jumbotron display in Times Square later this year.

Anyway, pretty cool – now I’ve got to think of something good to shoot with the film.

I hope Scott doesn’t mind me sharing this with you guys but you should all check out Scott’s interview on Channel News Asia on his latest project. It’s a great interview, the images are awesome and it makes me want to pack it all in and travel back to Asia ! Follow this link for the video

I mentioned this a short while back (making the shortlist, etc). Here was the image:

http://www.worldphoto.org/images/image/471/?FromImageGalleryID=29

I think everyone’s seen this. You can browse the other images that made the Amateur Commended list – some incredible work up there, well worth a look.

Welcome our newest member, Steve Viscot. Some of you already know Steve – I did not and when he sent me a mail introducing his work, I was immediately gripped by it. Interestingly, I recognised one of his images from before – an instance where Kaden had sent me an example of extreme / beautiful composition and had used one of Steve’s shots an example of that. Decisions to bring in folks like Steve are easy when you see the quality of his work and extents of his talent. I’m excited to welcome Steve into the fold and know his presence will continue to raise the bar. Sorry Steve btw for making you wait for the account activation – been a little behind on this site and will correct that soon!

You can check out more of Steve’s work in our gallery. Please join me in welcoming him on board.

I noticed the site was running v slowly the past couple of days… I contacted my hosting provider who replied:

“Please accept our sincere apologies for the problems caused to you in this matter. This issue had been caused by the mysql502 server’s urgent unscheduled maintenance that has taken place recently. We detected hardware problem on the web server, that serves your sites and replaced all misbehaved parts. We are working on the restoration now and it will take us about 24 hours for this process. The sever can work unstable during the rebuilding. We fully understand that such issues caused problem to you and we are more than concerned about this situation. We appreciate your patience and understanding in this situation as we doing our best to provide the highest level of web hosting services.”

Things seem to be working better now – am telling them to contact me once it’s resolved. Anyway, sorry about the slowness this week but wanted to let you guys know.

Also, a few comments recently have been going into junk mail. Am looking into that also. Don’t worry they don’t get lost if they don’t appear – i’ll get that fixed .

Cheers,

Lawrence

Thanks all for your patience… I received a notification from the service provider that there was a DB overload coming from this site and they sent me a bunch of sql / analysis. I responded asking for more details and they responded by taking the site offline.Ridiculous.

Anyway, after chasing them and making config changes for a day (and telling them this is a horrible customer service response)  they brought it back online. I figured out the cause – a bad wordpress plugin – and things are back.

I know. >yawn<

Anyway, things all seem to be back up and actually running faster as a result of the changes. Let me know if you see any gremlins.

I’ve known Stu Egan online from his pbase work for what seems like forever and I’m delighted to welcome Stu to our ranks… David (Procter) emailed me last week saying he’d like to use his invitation to bring him on board. David clearly has impeccable taste and I was very excited to reach out to Stu and ask if he was interested in joining our merry mob. I am sure this will be a popular choice amongst many of us already here – given our familiarity with Stu’s excellent work and photographic insights. Please join me in welcoming Stu.

Ewan Brown was a Kal nomination and I’m delighted this happened. In the short time I’ve gotten to know Ewan’s work, I’ve become instantly taken with his style and subjects. He’s going to be a great addition to the group and as you’ll see from his bio write up, definitely falls in the film camp (wait till you read about “alternative processes”). Welcome Ewan – looking forward to you finding a home here.

Ok so after much discussion, Lost in Focus is now open for submissions…

I’m working out the final mechanics – probably it’ll be a guest account with a temporary password. If you feel like submitting something and you’re not already a member, just let me know with the proposed contents of your post and I’ll hook you up.

Cheers,

Lawrence

OK i’m opening this topic up to the floor. It’s been about a year since I made the last major improvements to the site and this time round I thought it’d be a good idea to solicit ideas from everyone (and not just current LIF members)… If you were not limited by imagination or time, how would you like to see this site improved? Suggestions can be anything really. To give some ideas, they might include:

• Features requests (I have one from Scott – email notifcations for threads he’s commented on)
• Ideas for the format / design of the site (although if you suggest a banner, you’re automatically agreeing to design it :)
• Suggestions for content (e.g. articles, news, favourite photographers, guest writers)
• Ideas on how (and if) to involve a broader community (something around Facebook?)
• Or maybe even just talking about the things you love, like or hate about this site

Put your thinking caps on folks! I can’t commit to taking everything on – this is more idea solicitation currently – but I’ll take in every suggestion, figure out what’s possible (or not) and try to come up with a plan to add another layer of polish.

Cheers!

Lawrence

I’d like to introduce the latest addition to Lost in Focus- Kaden Kratzer. Some of you may already be familiar with his work on Pbase, but I’ve only had the opportunity to know Kaden well for a while… He has some extraordinary work on his site and I’d encourage you to spend some time there – he’s also a true “hybrid photographer” – someone who embodies the blending of digital + film. He also has a camera collection that’d make most of us drool :) (sorry Kaden I had to mention it).

Anyway, am looking forward to having him on board – I think he’ll fit in just fine around here.

Quick update as I’ll be offline for the next couple of days. I’d like to warmly welcome Sebastiaan Veldhuisen who was introduced by Lorin (using his free invite-a-friend credit). I’m glad to say that Sebastiaan accepted the offer to join our motley crew so am looking forward to seeing his posts and comments.

You (may) see interruptions of service on LIF over the next couple of days as I get my service provider to upgrade the Web Server… will try to minimise downtime – but just to let you know in advance. Thanks, Lawrence

Dear LIF’ers… We’ve been making our merry way for the past couple of years and I recently noticed we just quietly passed the 1,000 post mark! To celeberate the occasion, Lost in Focus is going to get a little bigger. Not a lot bigger – just a little. You all have a credit to invite another photographer of your choosing to join Lost in Focus. No rules or limitations on this invite – whoever you feel like.

Of course, you don’t have to invite someone but if you’ve had your eye on that someone special, and you think they’d benefit from hanging out here, give them a holla. Discuss with your preferred choice and once you’ve invited him / her (and they’ve accepted!) let me know and I’ll create them an account.