Now you know how much I like patterns. Friends over at Irdial sent this little article along to make my life easier.

"The biggest challenge for web designers is the unthinkably huge number of possible ways to solve any given problem. We usually don't think of this because we have our habits and traditions to fall back on, but there are literally billions of possible pixel combinations for each page we make."

Hmmm, drop the habits and conditions, sounds like my yoga teacher!

"There is a better way to manage this vast complexity than by making big decisions up front and hoping for the best. To make better sites — sites that are functional, beautiful, and "usable" — we have to break our design problems up into small independent chunks based on the real issues within our requirements. Christopher Alexander, who came up with this stuff, calls these chunks patterns."

For the record, breaking up design challenges into smaller bits is not a new concept [to me], nor is determining importance, but this is so simply explained that you just have to love it.

I will be touring the Real Pictures exhibition in a few weeks at the VAG. Claudia Beck and Andrew Gruft have donated their collection of photography to the gallery, and there are over 350 images in this show, spanning 150 years of photography. The range of work will be a challenge to navigate, so I thought a review of the different types of photographs was in order. I will give my first impressions of the aesthetics of the prints, and then list the techinical aspects of the process.

Calotypes and Salted Paper Prints
There are about 11 calotypes in the show, and they are covered with fawn-coloured velvet curtains, so the gallery lights will not fade the images. They are beautiful, images of old stone buildings and gardens. Because of the nature of the technique, the images have an ethereal quality, blurry and watery. They are the most delicate of sepia tones, and the edges are feathery and broken. It is interesting to note that these images were not taken in the spirit of art-making, but as a scientific endeavour, due to the precise and complicated process of mixing and applying chemicals to papers.

Pencils of light
The Calotype Process
Salted Prints

Silver Albumen Print
This process replaced the salted paper process, and it is understandable why photographers that were striving for clarity of detail and a wide range of greys were so keen on it. These are the Ansel Adams prints, the Robert Frank images, those stunning images with the deepest, velvety blacks, stretching greys and stark whites. It is the grain that I get caught up in, some so fine you don't even register it, and some so bold it is like dark sand cast up on the paper. Of course, the magic lies in the indispensible egg.

The Albumen Print
Creating and Processing Albumen Paper

Digital Chromogenic print
Now we are seeing today's images, large colour photographs that have been manipulated in PhotoShop and then printed on high-quality emulsified paper. In fact, this type of photography is so popular, so common, that it is difficult to find an explanation of the process, you must wade through the many examples of this type of print. And they are truly gorgeous. Vivid colour, sharp details, fine grain. And large, very large images, so sumptuous!

C-type print