The Cloud Made Whole

Connie Zhou Reveals The Cloud's Intricate Beauty

Copyright Photographs by Connie Zhou for Google

I used to think of "Cloud Computing" as a fragile, abstract idea that was claimed to be the next big thing in IT. Now, in an era when the word Google has evolved from noun to verb, Shanghai-born U.S. photographer Connie Zhou's elegant, formal views of the massive computer installations of the search giant literally give metallic flesh to this idea. With her simple, formal images, Zhou www.conniezhou.com/ embraces the future of public computing, as present in massive installations as far apart as the U.S. and Skandinavia. In each photograph Zhou captures the acres of necessary hardware that bounds to our attention at the click of a mouse - anywhere in the world. Interestingly, Zhou did not resort to the orthodoxy of a Perspective Control lens in order to keep her verticals perfectly aligned. Instead she elected to control these essential architectural requirements in the post-production of each image, taken, incidentally, using a conventional wide angle lens. So much for the optical magic developed by PC lensmakers. There is also the sense in these magical colour images that her observations mimic, for example, the paths of electronic particles, as rendered by electron micro photography. For a revealing interview with Connie Zhou please open this link to U.S. Popular Photography http://www.popphoto.com/gallery/connie-zhous-images-inside-googles-massive-data-centers
Last Week for Ralph Gibson's Silver Sorcery


Photo by Andrea Blanche

Photograph's greatest gift can often be its simplest. A photographer's vision can craft compositions which can create illusions, either in tone and colour, that defy literal interpretation. Ralph Gibson www.ralphgibson.com/ is one of a select group of photographers - Henri Cartier-Bresson, Diane Arbus, Robert Frank, to name three others, who have changed, sometimes subtly, sometimes blatantly, the way we see. Once, when asked what her photography meant to her, Arbus gave a seemingly opaque reply, " Why, my photography is a process of recognizing with I have never seen." So it is with Gibson. In compositions sliced by ridges of savage highlights and deep shadows, the American has created works sculptural, sensual and mysterious. Point Light Gallery www.pointlight.com.au are to be commended for bringing Gibson (pictured, above left) to Australia - both for this exhibition which finishes this weekend and a series of workshops given by this remarkable photographer.