2001 Ti Airborne Corsair - Infant Joy / Eternal Conflict / Tinkerer Test Bed 🍷🤪
- Thread starter Woz
- Start date
Diverse ramble
Some know here that I am a little monochrome brain damaged. The reasons for that is fairly multiple and not something really to dwell on perhaps. I was however about 0.1" off making a career in black and white old school photographic printing, being a lover of this craft since the early 90s. I studied a lot and went to courses. Invested substantially in analogue stuff when fashion was swinging hard to digital.
I could never get out of me the power of monochrome. Studied many great photographers, 1000s of prints, and their influence and went to many art galleries to study and enjoy more. Even most recently I see this rather fascinating research, and I have to add, the concept is absolutely nothing new, was well known and used much much well before, but for me it shows we are approaching something even in 2024 requiring research to understand better. We do get a new description "Sustained Attentional Loop" though.
https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20241002-scientists-unlock-secret-of-girl-with-pearl-earring
This painting works converted to monochrome too (with some very minor tweaks) and above all it was mostly certainly painted through a camera lens that accentuates (by a fault) contrast compared to a human eye. We still haven't established properly concepts like do we dream in colour or in black and white.
Somewhat of an odd rant, but I think being a bike tart and being in art is very close. I for one never have an urge to cock my leg over a bike that I feel doesn't look right. The power of aesthetics is traditionally a large parcel of the bike industry and fleeting fashions. I wished much more time and documentation was spent on this, and somebody actually did some solid research and documentation.
I find today we are too locked into functionality and have been dumped into this more stale state and that is all that matters - the most is functional gimmicks. Flamboyancy is aged for the moment, but will comeback. I cringe in moments we are heading for a very dull period in the future with a lack of diversity - monochrome classic lover or not.
Some know here that I am a little monochrome brain damaged. The reasons for that is fairly multiple and not something really to dwell on perhaps. I was however about 0.1" off making a career in black and white old school photographic printing, being a lover of this craft since the early 90s. I studied a lot and went to courses. Invested substantially in analogue stuff when fashion was swinging hard to digital.
I could never get out of me the power of monochrome. Studied many great photographers, 1000s of prints, and their influence and went to many art galleries to study and enjoy more. Even most recently I see this rather fascinating research, and I have to add, the concept is absolutely nothing new, was well known and used much much well before, but for me it shows we are approaching something even in 2024 requiring research to understand better. We do get a new description "Sustained Attentional Loop" though.
https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20241002-scientists-unlock-secret-of-girl-with-pearl-earring
This painting works converted to monochrome too (with some very minor tweaks) and above all it was mostly certainly painted through a camera lens that accentuates (by a fault) contrast compared to a human eye. We still haven't established properly concepts like do we dream in colour or in black and white.
Somewhat of an odd rant, but I think being a bike tart and being in art is very close. I for one never have an urge to cock my leg over a bike that I feel doesn't look right. The power of aesthetics is traditionally a large parcel of the bike industry and fleeting fashions. I wished much more time and documentation was spent on this, and somebody actually did some solid research and documentation.
I find today we are too locked into functionality and have been dumped into this more stale state and that is all that matters - the most is functional gimmicks. Flamboyancy is aged for the moment, but will comeback. I cringe in moments we are heading for a very dull period in the future with a lack of diversity - monochrome classic lover or not.
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Takingabreak
Dave Yates Fan
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"Sustained Attentional Loop" - Does it apply to bike pictures? Handlebars, crank, saddle.
grantoury
Kona Fan
I am afraid this is more pseudo science than hard facts but I could be wrong. I have not seen the painting but a lot of other work from Vermeer and it is all very compelling because he had an incredible eye. It is believed by some he used the camera obscura to compose his paintings.
I love your view of artistry in bicycle building. I think of Pegorettis or early Salsas and they seem to me to be more because of the artistry of the builder. But the concept of the bicycle is so powerful to me that I could ride an uninspiring bike and still enjoy it, I think. But you make a very valid and too often ignored point, I suppose it is racing being the motor to further most development that means beauty or artistry is being stripped from a bike as being unnecessary.
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Yes. Any two dimensional image to begin with. Making a two dimensional look three dimensional is another craft, related more to perspective control. The "western" eye wants to read left to right, then down. Bright parts surrounded by darker areas grab attention, just like our innate lust and pleasure looking up at a star filled night.
The artist though can't afford us to loose attention and go outside of a frame - he/she does not have the luxury of vast space like nature to scan back and forth and in depth and in wonder. An old concept of vignetting is tool to help here.
So a circular loop of bright, handed over to dark, then bright again is deployed. The eye motion around the picture is far from limited to capturing three bright parts (but it is a minimum for triangulation). Very physically large art works especially in Renaissance era used the technique but gave visual clues to connect it all - like fingers pointing, draping cloth, eye contact, etc. etc.
A good photograph from our conditioning is also based on a good painting.
When it comes to bikes, the absolute classic on a drive side two dimensional image is a silver stem, silver crank, silver seat-post. The first impression triangulation is made. It is totally classic.
The bike designer though needs to occupy with rest of the visual space, and that I think, not even Shimano scores (always) the high points and have made errors.
I remember when I first joined this site, there was a thread about retro pro bike builders would hack up things like Alivio hubs and match them with XTR or XT or LX parts, for something they considered aesthetically pleasing and coherent and balance.
Balance is a sort of funny concept, but in arts it's easy. You put the image in a mirror and / or cut the image in half vertically and butt it's opposites together, and / or cut the image horizontally and do like wise. You tend to look for volume of colour here, rather than absolute position. On a bike we are not free to modify the position of things, but volume of colour can be adjusted.
Balance also requires some sort of fulcrum point, so on a bike, it's typically something central and usually the chain set - more so the outer most chainring I have found like umpteen others. A black outer ring will marry well and again is classic to what I think is a good looking bike respecting the black extreme three point human contact points and help tie it altogether.
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AirborneCIC
Retro Newbie
Woz... love seeing the Airborne threads and that there are still some faithful followers!
Thank you. A lot here have seen this before, but for own pleasure - no remorse SS Ti Hag. One of my favourite builds and frame still with me:
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Haven't ridden it in a long time now
Loved every moment riding it for what it was built for.The segmented stays a la De Kerf and the massively over built horizontal track ends and V-brake make it a special place for me. I did tone down the decals by removing some. Interestingly, to keep clean photographic lines and help shouldering bike the rear brake cable routing is about at 10:30 o'clock position.
I've often wondered someday to jump in with a modern hub gear and dynamo hub to get it more fit purpose for today and make use of it.
