Friday, September 17, 2010

Locals moving in to get their fix while yours truly kicks back enjoying his long black...




Some of you following the Sydney Chronicles may be assuaged to read that I haven't completely abandoned that mini-project.  This is where we usually have our long black coffee until we realized we were being overcharged.  (We started going to another one a few blocks away.) 

This image is just a straight shot early one morning.  For the photo techies, here's how I shot this:  I set the camera on auto focus with the aperture at f22.  The iso was at 100.  Then, I just placed the camera on the table and waited for people to move in.  The whole process was pretty laid back. I usually do this approach with my pinhole but I thought I would use the crappy kit lens to get more details.  It's not an image I would normally post in RB or Flickr -  but I still like it just because it reminds me of my stay in Sydney.

Read the rest of the Sydney Chronicles.

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

I think this is art

My sweet painted lady, the one with no name
Many have used her and many still do
There’s a place in the world for a woman like you… (Elton John, Bernie Taupin)
Here's an "old" photo that I managed to mangle. I mean it's not that old since I shot this about a year and a half ago.  I was sauntering along the street of old town when I saw her through the window.  I immediately took a shot before she could notice what I was doing... so I did not really check what I got until I got home and downloaded it into my computer.  My initial urge was to try to fix it.  Sometimes I wonder why I bother to try to fix a botched shot.  The original looks like this... the lighting is fine but I can't stand that patch of green (lower right) behind the subject.  

I tried to crop it and it started to look really ridiculous... I would have kept the cropped version but it was too compressed.  I felt like the poor dummy (no worry - she won't mind being called a dummy)was pressed in front of the lens.  That would have been fine but that wasn't the effect I was looking for.  So I finally settled for a dada-ish approach, which is basically to just rotate and distort the image until it starts to look totally absurd, and pretend that I knew what I was doing by calling it art.  He-he.

Thursday, September 09, 2010

My own priivate indulgence (ii)

This is what I see everyday when I'm at work.  It's actually a photo of my wall.  Why am I posting this image?  I don't really know.  It's a bit late here in SoCal, and my wife's car has been stolen, and the water sprinkler is causing a great leak on my backyard, and the dog just started limping for no apparent reason... yada yada.  I am just having a bad week.  On the up side, somebody bought my art work... a first.  Now I am 39 cents richer.  Heh-heh.  Sorry.  My meds are not working as they should.  Time to see the doctor again. Tomorrow will be Friday.  Can't wait. 

Wednesday, September 08, 2010

Monday, September 06, 2010

Ubet

“I spent a great deal of my life being ignored. I was always very happy that way. Being ignored is a great privilege.” (Saul Leiter)


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