Lectures & Research Worldwide: China and Korea
Dr Hellmuth will attend the Shanghai sign printing trade show this July. This is the largest event in China and will make it possible to see all Chinese solvent printers and all Chinese UV printers in one venue. Only about 20% of Chinese manufacturers exhibit in Europe or the US (because the other companies either have no distribution channel or their printers won't hold up to expected standards outside China).
In mid-July Dr Hellmuth will be guest of IP&I for a week, primarily inspecting their Cube UV-curing combo flatbed inkjet printers in the company factory and demo room. Nicholas also hopes to visit some Korean printshops. This is the second visit of FLAAR to Korea. Earlier this year over 100 people attended a lecture organized by DP trade magazine and the local Gandinnovations distributor in Korea.
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| Professor Nicholas Hellmuth is available to lecture in your
hometown anywhere in the world. He can present PowerPoint
presentations on digital photography as a means to explore Maya art,
UV-cured flatbed printer reviews, fine art giclee, fine art
photography, Mayan ethno-botany, photographing ancient architecture in
Guatemala, and other topics.
Recently Nicholas has lectured in Athens, Amsterdam, Ljubljana,
Zagreb, Novosibirsk, Seoul, Dubai, Cincinnati, etc. His next lecture
will be in August in Mexico City. If you wish him to lecture in your
city contact ReaderService at the FLAAR web site, @FLAAR.org. |
FLAAR in Guatemala:
Nicholas was already in Guatemala several weeks earlier this summer. He and project manager Eduardo Sacayon took part in several projects:
A botanical and ethno-botanical project to find and photograph specific trees that were sacred to the Maya people. Of particular interest was the "Nikte" flower. Fortunately May was the month this species blooms, so they got some good photographs. It is ironic that this is the same flower that is used for the lei in Hawaii. These plants were transplanted to Hawaii in the last century.
The second project was to study metamorphosis in butterflies, using the garden around the FLAAR office as the test area. An entomologist from the local university came to take samples of butterfly cocoons which were being eaten by parasitic wasp larvae. A butterfly is part of the logo of FLAAR in part because this insect was pictured frequently in the incense burner lids of Tiquisate, a colonial area of the extension of the Teotihuacan empire in the 4th-6th centuries A.D.
A third project that is beginning is to identify which beetle or cockroach-like insect is the bug commonly pictured on Tepeu 1 (Late Classic) Maya bowls from the Peten area. Nicholas and Eduardo (who is a trained biologist working with FLAAR for many years) visited the leading university reference collection of these insects in Guatemala. We hope to photograph the collection later this summer.
All these projects bring to bear our experience in evaluating digital imaging hardware and software.
Upcoming Evaluations:
In past years several companies have provided digital camera backs for us to evaluate. These are the cameras that we recommend for museum photography, and for field photography by archaeologists, botanists, zoologists, and geologists. One of the many long-time projects of FLAAR has been to find out what equipment is best, by actually using it ourselves. Most professors don't have time to experiment with a wide range of equipment.
FLAAR will be receiving additional 22 to 39 megapixel digital backs for Hasselblad medium format cameras to evaluate this summer.
Recent Research earlier this year:
You can click on the front-cover page here and you will receive an immediate download of our photo essay on what we were doing during May and June (in the high-tech areas of Israel and in Switzerland). This was to receive training in highly technical digital imaging equipment that can assist architects, archaeologists, and museums to recreate ancient buildings and ancient artifacts. This equipment is of particular utility to museums and national parks for preparing exhibits.
This is what FLAAR is good at, finding pertinent digital imaging technology that can help scholars and students, and then providing the information in a convenient full-color PDF format.
Prior to this trip, there was an earlier research and training program that we were invited to at Mutoh Europe headquarters, in Oosetende, Belgium. This is of particular interest for printing outdoor signage.
This same information is also useful to a much wider range of applications and markets. We don't want to restrict our knowledge just to archaeologists and to Latin America. In this era of the Internet, it makes more sense to disseminate our findings worldwide.
