Hasta La Ideas

Julio Ojeda-Zapata, a technology reporter and blogger with St. Paul, Minnesota’s Pioneer Press, dug into his newspaper’s archives today upon learning of the sad news of Leonard Nimoy’s death. He wrote a couple of articles about Spock back in the day, beginning with a locally flavored piece that must be logged at the opposite end of the technology spectrum celebrated in Star Trek.

As the reporter wryly notes in his blog post, the article dates back to a time when the Internet was known as the “World Wide Web.” Here’s an excerpt:

Nimoy is among a growing number of photographers who are pursuing a digital strategy for achieving greater [photographer] exposure.

This month, about a dozen of Nimoy’s nudes are being exhibited on a St. Paul-based World Wide Web page dubbed “F-64” that is the online equivalent of an art gallery – a site that selectively displays the works of accomplished photographers in a gallery-like environment.

“Some [photography-oriented] sites sell space like a mall,” posting the work of any amateur for a fee, says F-64 creator Scott Bourne, a photographer and a former Internet-oriented entrepreneur who recently opened a photo studio in St. Paul’s Lowertown District. “But they can’t buy their way onto F-64.” In this regard, f-64 is similar to a “real-life, street-level gallery,” Bourne says. “Its precious retail space wouldn’t be available to just any photographer.”

F-64 has drawn kudos from the likes of Chuck Delaney, dean of the prestigious New York Institute of Photography, who calls Bourne “a visionary” and says, “Exhibiting photographs in a cyber-gallery is an innovation that is here to stay… Though the sale of fine-art photography (online) is in its infancy, others will follow.”

Ojeda-Zapata is promising to share the other Nimoy piece he wrote shortly. Read the rest of the first one here.

FYI, the publishing use of the photography lens-aperture term “F-64” (or f/64) dates back many more decades. To wit, check out this manifesto published on behalf of a 1932 group that included Ansel Adams.
 
[Photo: Carla VanWaggoner/Shutterstock.com]