Hey, everyone loves to see cold people.
In high school I read that perceptually, the human eye sees at around 30fps. This has a big ramification not just on movies and TV (where 1/60th of a second is perceptually “smooth” because it’s within the Nyquist of the optic nerve’s sensory rate) but also photos and sculpture and painting and maybe even music because that 1/30-ish number represents what we humans perceive as “momentary.” It defines our distinction between moving and still, both in images and life (and everything in between, like video games).
A kid once asked: How long does it take to become a photographer? To which the smartass wise man replied: 1/125th of a second, kid.
I’ve stopped worrying about the size of images on this journal — rather, I’ve come to worry that the size I usually see, even on some picture sites, is just too small and crappy to really know what I’m seeing (or supposed to be seeing) (or supposed to not be able to see).
Ken Kobré over at SFSU seems to agree, at least with regards to web pictures on news sites:
"Mr Kobré is scathing about how most news sites approach photojournalism and much of his frustration is focused on the inflexible formats sites have adopted. When pictures are used, he says they are often only thumbnails, or are cropped into pre-sized boxes...""...that makes it easy to get the page out every day — but the reverse is that it is not good journalism."
This might not be journalism, but I get his point. So sorry in advance to you folks with the 1024×768 screens.