UKC

http://www.ukclimbing.com/photos/index.html?nstart=0&sort=v&categor...

You know, some of these people should get together and compile a coffee-table book or something...

In reply to A Random Climber:

Unfortunately coffee table books have become rather passe, simply because one can view superb photos like these straight off the internet. I agree that many of the pictures that have appeared on UKC have been quite extraordinary (such as the recent ones of the UK hills and crags in winter).

In reply to John Stainforth:

Nothing looks as good as a printed photo though. We are under experiencing on computer monitors.

In reply to Pylon King Against Capit@lism:

Of course one can download, copy and print any which way, the print quality depending on the printer and the number of pixels.

In reply to John Stainforth:

No i mean printed properly in a book.

In reply to Pylon King Against Capit@lism:

Nothing looks as good as a printed photo though. We are under experiencing on computer monitors.

Think that's partly down to the way people view photo's on their computers.
The only way to properly view a photo, is to make it full screen and step back a couple of yards or so.
The reason for this is twofold. Firstly, If you view a photo which is smaller than your monitor, you'll have all kinds of distracting equal focus clutter in the background. Secondly, if you make it full screen and stay a foot away from the monitor, then your eyes have to scan back and forth across the monitor and can't really appreciate the photo as a whole.
In essence, if you printed off a 24" photo, you would properly frame it, hang it on a nice wall and view it from the centre of the room. The way most people view photo's on computers, is like getting a 24" inch print, bunging it on a pile of paperwork and looking at it while you're having a cuppa...

In reply to Pylon King Against Capit@lism:


I'd have to disagree. If anything, we're perhaps 'over-experiencing' on monitors. Like for like, images always have more 'ping' when back-lit; hard copies are flatter.

In reply to Fraser:

The other annoying thing about coffee table books is that photos are often printed across the fold of a double page spread - not a problem on a monitor.

In reply to Mark Kemball:


That's all well and good, but you'd be hard pressed to put a cup of coffee on Kramer's coffee-table book about coffee tables that is itself a coffee table on a monitor unless you laid it flat.
http://www.theclassyhomeblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/coffee-table-bo...

In reply to Fraser:


But books are beautiful objects that can be leafed through at leisure whereas computers, while they have their place, are loathsome objects of mere utility.

In reply to Robert Durran:


Some would appear to have wet dreams about 'loathsome objects of mere utility' if they have a bite missing from a piece of fruit on the lid.

Me, I'd prefer a good screen to a printed page every time nowadays but would not have done just a few years ago. Not bothered about fruit though.

In reply to Robert Durran:

Is it not the content of the book you find 'beautiful' rather than the book itself? A book is no less utilitarian than a computer IMO, in some ways vastly more so, as a computer can do much more than a book can. It sounds like we're back to the same old 'classical vs. romantic' argument again.

In reply to A Random Climber: Well the best images on UKC are certainly absolutely none of the ones in this thread:

http://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/t.php?n=610877

In reply to Fraser:
Books are simple.

They do the job perfectly.

and computers like most other things nowadays, over-complicate things.

and printed pages feel and smell nice.

In reply to Fraser:


If we're doing musical analogies, I think it's more 'Mozart vs Rage Against the Machine'.

In reply to Fraser:
No, the quality of the paper, the smell, the feel, all of that goes towards the enjoyment of a book. I can't say that I enjoy the tactility of my computer, in fact, I've been suffering from computer-related RSI for some time now.

In reply to Robert Durran:


No, we're not. (It was supposed to be a 'Zen and the Art...' reference, never mind.)


In reply to SidharthaDongre :

I agree with all that and that books can evoke much more than a monitor can, but in terms of the purely visual quality of an image, I think for me digital always wins over print.