Former Chairman of the Media Arts Department at The University of the Arts in Philadelphia, Harris Fogel today concentrates on teaching as well as curatorial and creative projects. He directs the Sol Mednick Gallery and Gallery 1401, and is an Associate Professor of Photography. Recently, Fogel was chosen as the curator/juror for the Texas Photographic Society "TPS 15" National Competition, which drew almost 2,600 entries (www.texasphoto.org). He chose iView MediaPro as the application to view the numerous entries – many on his Apple MacBook Pro laptop.
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| 1st place. Photograph by Tom Chambers |
Fogel has used iView MediaPro since its birth as a shareware program. He reflects that as the numbers of images and files have grown, digital asset management (DAM) has become a critical element in one’s workflow.
Fogel has used iView MediaPro since its birth as a shareware program.
“Speed is of the essence,” he observes, “No matter what the ads say, computers just aren’t fast enough, and the digital revolution has perhaps made photographers even more impatient than they already were. Especially in photojournalism, where your client might want the images ten minutes after the event,” he said. So he values a process that allows you to speed the processing of images to quickly and easily select favorite images.
“My job was to review almost 2,600 images and make selections for the exhibition and catalog. I then had to narrow down this extraordinary body of work to only 60 images out of the thousands submitted. What helped me the most was having a program that allowed me to view the image quickly and without distraction.
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| 2nd place. Photograph by Shen Wei |
“Initially I used Adobe Photoshop CS2 to browse the images. It was a natural choice since I use Photoshop for so much imaging work. But unfortunately it’s not a Universal Binary application (native on Intel Macs) yet. With so many images to browse it was unworkable for this task. Then it occurred to me, ‘Isn’t the latest version of MediaPro a Universal Binary application?’ So I used that.
“I launched iView MediaPro and was able to drag and drop my thousands of images. In a couple of minutes I had a catalog built and I was able to easily scroll through the images.
I launched iView MediaPro and was able to drag and drop my thousands of images. In a couple of minutes I had a catalog built and I was able to easily scroll through the images.
“I used a slide projector to view the slide submissions which were supplied in trays ready to show, which was fun, as well as instructive about how fast one can move through slides, compared to digital media. A slide projector is lot easier to use then a computer! Of course using MediaPro allowed me to jump through images instantly, which was wonderful when it came to comparing images from throughout the submissions. Try doing that with slides!
“I did not color code or otherwise mark entries. I wanted to ‘live with’ the images and respond to what elements stayed with me. What images lingered in my mind and imagination. Again, the simplicity of MediaPro facilitated that process. It gave me the opportunity to view images while the technology itself was invisible.
“MediaPro was the right tool at the right time. I needed to have something that operated quickly and natively on my new MacBookPro and created a workflow that was smooth, simple and allowed me to focus. I required a tool with absolutely no distractions.
MediaPro was the right tool at the right time. I needed to have something that operated quickly and natively on my new MacBookPro and created a workflow that was smooth, simple and allowed me to focus.
The Selection: “I was aware that the photographers submitting work were very serious, very committed. It was clear that they had put enormous time, energy, and emotion into their photography, and that effort deserved my utmost attention. I wanted to be very respectful toward how much passion and effort those images represented, so it was important to have a tool that would not be overly intrusive or be a distraction. The last thing I wanted was to have to constantly consult a list of key commands or shortcuts!
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| 3rd place. Photograph by Frank Schramm |
“More and more, digital asset management is an issue for us all. With the proliferation of hard drives, iPods, USB flash memory, and all sorts of digital devices, we’re really not all that evolved from the days of the file cabinet and carbon paper. We are trying to find out what we did with a file, what version it is, and where the version we need is. At least in the days of carbon-based photography, we could actually touch a negative, print, or transparency. Now we are dealing with the information age, and all that we have to show for our work is some transient file name!
The great thing about iView MediaPro is its simplicity. It sticks to what it does and it does that very fast and easily.
“The great thing about iView MediaPro is its simplicity. It sticks to what it does and it does that very fast and easily. I turn to other programs when I have to worry about RAW file conversion, light balance, and more specialized creative work. Best of all, I found that iView MediaPro is a good digital imaging citizen -- it plays well with other apps, didn’t alter any RAW data, and without ever needing to consult the Help menu, simply and superbly gave me a catalog, and allowed me to concentrate on what I was there to do, which was to look at beautiful and thought provoking photography in a higher light.
