How does one title a post anyway?

I feel bad. I haven't been on here for ages... Mostly because I was working on a new blog... as that seems to have fallen through I thought I would post on here again.

To make this blog a little more interesting I shall share with you, dear reader, some ideas for complexly edited photos... or at least one idea.

I was watching catiematthews (is this how it's spelt?) on youtube. She made a video about boxes, which sparked off an idea of a body packed away in boxes. essentially I needed a photo of someone laying down, from directly above. I tried to take the photo of mum.... but it just wasn't working, so we swapped roles, I became the model & she became the photographer... not such a great idea.... It seems my camera is heavy+complicated+no lcd screen, which equaled frustration on both our parts. Blurry photos all round, not up to my exacting expectations. Anywho, The next part was the photograph the boxes, and then dissect the body (digitally of course)& place the different body parts in the different boxes. I rather like the allusion to 'packing your life away', that this mental image gave me....

If I do come to making this image I shall certainly post it...

For now, I have a few images I took a few weeks ago, back when the sun was warmer and agreeing to see us for a few hours of the day, now it seems like a displeased monarch, only poking its face out occasionally to see if we are still there.

















To achieve the long exposure during the day I put a pair of dark sun-glasses over the lens, acting as a light filter. This allowed me to set the camera for a long exposure without the image being hugely blown out. Looked funny & confirmed my view that my camera is nearly human.... or at least not as inanimate as it seems.

:)

Just reading about Art Deco gives me Thrills. :)

Elizabeth Marie

My Sister and her husband welcome into the world their beautiful new daught Elizabeth Marie last Tuesday (22/feb). Here are a few photos that I took for the thankyou notes.


Pretty Pink Ribbon F4.5 Exposure 1/20
Shooting: I tied a ribbon around Elizabeth's wrist to try and add some colour.
Editing: A little sharpeneding and lighteing with curve layers, as well as darkening
the eyes a little. I also created a mask over the ribbon then inverted the selection, and added
a black a white layer. Then I added a colourising layer with the same mask again, which just
smoothed the colour of the ribbon a little. I also added a second black & white layer and set
the mode to 'soft light', which makes the black richer. Though I did mask out the face area so
that the face wasn't too dark.



Thoughtful F4.5 Exposure 1/15



Orange Ribbon F4.5 Exposure 1/30


Here's looking at you Kid! F4.5 Exposure 1/30



Basket Case F4.5 Exposure 4.5
Shooting: Kathryn had the brilliant idea of putting Elizabeth in a basket, she also took the body suit offf & left Elizabeth in a nappy.
Editing: This onewas a little tricky. I had to mask out the background in order to use it for the thankyou notes. It took a bit of cloning, masking, erasing to get a white background. I also added a black and white layer, setting the mode to 'soft light' to get a smooth black pillow, and masked out Elizabeth. I also lightened the image with curve layers.

WheezyWink

I was just nonchalantly watching another WheezyWaiter video when....
my wink appeared. I was super pumped. :) :D

For those of you who don't know who WheezyWaiter is I'll offer a
brief explanation. WheezyWaiter, AKA Craig Benzine, is a youtuber comedian.
He has 284,409 subscribers (taken at 4:44, 9th Feb, 2011), that's not including
the ones who just look & don't subscribe.

So, I made a short stopmotion clip for him, not expecting it to be even picked
up, as I'm sure he must get loads of these... and I was watching the video,
it was just drawing to a close, and there was my clip! wooo! At first I was like, hey... I recognize that, then I was like, wow! That's mine! I was very (quietly)
excited.
I know it's not life changing or as important as the floods/cyclones/bushfires
affecting Aus right now, nor is it important as the revolution in Egypt, or the
new telescope that can, apparently, see into our past, but it was a neat moment for
me, and I wanted to share it with you. :)

So, enjoy the video, and try check out Wheezy's other stuff, he's awesome... ;-)

Album Cover Project

So, to get me back in the swing of things I made myself
do a project. I've seen these on a few peoples FB,
and today someone put up another one, so I made one too.

Below are the instructions I had to follow & actually stuck to them,
excluding the last one. ‎


1 - Go to wikipedia and hit random. The first random wikipedia article you get is the name of your band.
2 - Go to quotationspage.com and hit random. The last four or five words of the very last quote of the page is the title of your first album.
3 - Go to flickr and click on “explore the last seven days”. The third picture, no matter ...............what it is, will be your album cover.
4 - Use photoshop or similar (picnik.com is a free online photo editor) to put it all together.
5 - Post it with this text in the "caption" and TAG the friends you want to join in

this is mine, not totally happy with it, but considering I'm not dealing
with an actually customer who has a style already, It's okay.

Only took me 2 minutes too... which is why its a bit shitty. :) oops. ShiRty. ;-)

I can't just blog about some lyrics, can I?

These lyrics to be precise;
I never really ment to share it chronologicly/the little things that make me, me/I never thought I'd have to quantify them day by day/I never really felt the need to take my two or three neurosis and then talk about them openly and them brutally dissect them on a tray.

From Tom Milsom's 'Why I shouldn't have let you in'; this link should take you there... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qjSXOuPIII&feature=player_profilepage

I love this set of words :) he is an amazing writer, painter, musician... I am very jealous, he's acheived so much, and he's my age. (By my age, I mean relative age, he's actually a year older, but still!!!)

instruments he plays (according to wiki)
Accordion
Banjo
Bass
Drums
Electric Ukulele
Gameboy (for eight-bit)
Glockenspiel
Guitar
Harp
Kazoo
Keyboards
Mandolin
Melodica
Omnichord
Organ
Piano
Slide whistle
Synthesizers
Tambourine
Theremin
Ukulele
Vocals

: 0

I can make this blog purely about these lyrics... because its my blog.
And while I'm in some mind to do that, just to prove that I can, I've decided that unless you're in my head, (and if you are please get out!) you won't really understand why I like these lyrics so much (to be honest neither do I), so I may as well put something useful in this blog as well...

By useful I mean related, even by the smallest thread, amplified by make-believe,
to what this blog is suposed to be about.

Bellow are some pictures of the Asutralia Day Fire Works, Albany, 2011.
These aren't the greatest, but at least I had the opportunity to take them.








Both are taken with the bulb setting (where you hold the lens open yourself
instead of pre-setting it).

♥

Youtube

So lately I've had a lot of time off, as I'm on holidays.
Unlike others with actual stuff to do in their holidays, my free time ends up being frittered away using the internet, or just playing with design stuff. My latest experiments have involved stop-motion videos, which I have previously blogged about. But my foray into the wonderful world of youtube revealed a community, of which I am still scraping the surface. I guess I've seen the popular youtubers, Vlogbrothers, Charlieissocoollike, CommunityChannel, Nerimon, KurtHugoSchnieder, and more. Essentially this world has the same as every other social structure, the popular ones lead the pack while others fill out minor roles in suporting, advising or generally 'fanning'. But the great thing about this community is the collaborations. People who would never have met, can share skills and ideas to create great things.
For example Ed Stockham at: http://www.youtube.com/user/smilinglimpet , is an animator who worked with Charlieissocoollike to create Bread:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6MIgvcCZTCs&feature=iv&annotation_id=annotation_982837
I was blown away with the animation, so I looked at who had created it, and
found an awkward endearing English boy (can I call him that if he's my age??) who is incredibly talented. Mr. Stockham (see, I'm making up for it ;-) ) made a video explaining how he made the animations, quite a basic, if laborious process. I was so excited I decided to blog about it. :)
As well as these collaborations between artists, there is a marketing website (I've only seen one there may be more), called DFTBA (look up the history of the name). DFTBA was started by two guys who are both youtubers (and songwriters), and they help to market the artists
on youtube, selling albums and t-shirts, and what ever else the artist decides the want to sell, excluding kindeys. This means that along the way, designers, t-shirt manufacturers, cd makers, cd package makers (excuse me for not knowing the real names of these jobs), website designers, people involved in internet stuff, and postal servicers, are employed. All because a few people met on youtube, and a few thousand others liked what they produced.
I guess the thing I like the most about the way youtube works, is that it's an even playing field. You have to be good to achieve anything, the more years and effort you put into something, the more likely you are to succeed. Yes, it helps if you know people there already, but if you keep chipping away you will achieve your goal.
The thing that suprised me the most about these communities was the way that it so basically human. People make friends through shared interests, people share information and inspiration in order to achieve greater things, people laugh about the same jokes, marvel at the same beauties, and cry about the same sorrows. Instead of isolation, these communities are creating spaces for those that may not have freinds that share their interests and those that don't or can't get out much, it connects people to people.
This connections extends to real life, with youtubers meeting in real life, either through 'gatherings' or through sharing knowledge of events that may interest others. I don't believe that these communities are causing a break down in society, just adding another dimention to it...

And if you've managed to stay through all that rambling, here's a reward:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EPd8mHXap_U

Check out this song by Tom Milsom ^^^

Scrabble Stop Motion Video

Another one. I shot this, this morning. It took 246 photos in total,
with a few frames repeated so that the words are readable. :)

Need some decent ideas though, this one's a bit boring.

Keyboard Stop Motion

So today was Australia day, HAPPY AUSTRALIA DAY! :D

But during my Aus. day I made this. It's a video made from 38photos
taken with my trusty dslr. It's quite fun to do, just requires a little thinking about.

The title of the video refers to the singer I was watching at the time.
The ending of the video is meant to be the keyboard swaying to the song - but I didn't
take enough photos in order to make this apparent.

A little advice, check out Eddplant (I did post him to my fb wall), I think he's fantastic & I think you may too. :)



Shots taken @ F11 Exposure:0.7sec

The Black Book of Colours

The Black Book of Colour is a book I have fallen in love with. I found it, maybe 5 minutes ago, in my local book store, and I think it is just fantastic. It's about a blind boy who experiences colours through other senses. It explores this concept through a completely black book, with only the type in white. The pictures are line art, but raised off the page(I know there is a word for this type of print but I can't remember it & I've looked through my print book too!) The book also has brail words above the visual text. It's a fascianating and beautiful book, that I would dearly like to own, but will simply have to be added to a list. It's only $12.21 on amazon though!!! :)


Image taken from: http://www.amazon.com/Black-Book-Colors-Menena-Cottin/dp/0888998732


The thing that really got me excited about the book is a phenomena called synaesthesia, which is where a sound can have a taste, a colour can have a smell... I wrote a poem using this concept a while a go... http://www.poetsgraves.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=3785&hilit=+violin (be kind, I was only 16)
The other thing that really interested me was the idea that these colours, though not seen, are still producing a reaction, and emotional and sensory reaction. I don't know if the 'boy' can see light and shade, or nothing at all, but it leads me to ask whether or not we actualy all see the same colours. I know it sounds mad, but I have heard it asked before, and I find this an interesting question. After all, this 'boy' has certain reactions to a colour ('Yellow tastes like mustard, but is as soft as a baby chick's feathers'), but these are conditioned reactions. He has been told that the chick's feathers are yellow, he would not know it without being told. Which leads to my mad question.
If I see yellow, do you see the same yellow as me? I have been told that the colour I see is called 'yellow', and you have been told that the colour you see is 'yellow', but is it actually the same colour. I can't see what you see... The emotional reaction is the same, but is this because of the shade and depth of the colour?
While I recognize that this mad idea is unlikely to be right, (I imagine we all see slight variations of colour, but not discernably so) it is one that has been bugging me since I have heard it.
The other minor thing I came across which made this concept surge to the fore-front of my mind, was seeing skewed colours. I was at the video store and Edward(?) St Cloud was previewing. Now I was not particularly interested in this film, and the reason I stopped to watch was because people's skin was purple. I got a little of an idea from the trailer that there was something weird and physcological going on, and I started to believe it was something to do with the colours (I really wasn't listening to what the actors were saying). I was excited it the idea that hollywood had decided to explore the idea of colour being seen in a different way that I was beginning to forgive them for using Zac Efron (jk). I was sorely dissapointed when I discovered that the colour skew was caused by the screen, not the actual film.
So now I desperately want some one to make a book, or perhaps graphic novel about this idea. It might be hard idea to express, I'll admit, but I really want to see this idea explored. (perhaps someone already has done this and I just don't know about it, if this is the case, please let me know...)

But getting back to the book, I recommend you read it/buy it. It's a kid's book, so it's in the kid's section, but I think it's also a book for adults.

Here is an overview; have a read...
http://www.kids-bookreview.com/2010/05/review-black-book-of-colours.html

Have a nice day <3 Rose