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I don’t know about everyone else, but I know that the closer we get to Christmas, the more I want to spend all my time gaming. You know: snugly, warm Christmas holiday spent gaming in monkey pj’s. Completely natural. Right now I’m back in Everquest 2 for the Xmas content and generally rocking my own guild hall, and playing my way through Halo Anniversary.
Inspired by this, and by Xmas cheer, I’ve made a few gamer ornaments for our tree. Like this Halo Anniversary bauble:
Merry Christmas to all and every nerd!
Supportive boyfriend is supportive =)
I’m taking a small photography course right now (Digital Photography and Image Theory), about photographic images in a world of digitalized media. The course is a combination of lectures and theory, but also of practical problem solving and assignments as the course progresses.
The theory is extremely interesting, putting the origin of photography and its development into a historical and social context. I find that the way I think about photography is evolving. But I must say that I enjoy the practical assignments even more!
The very first assignment was to create my own camera obscura using my own home. It’s been something I’ve wanted to try for a while, ever since me and Jed went to Scotland last year and visited the Camera Obscura museum in Edinburgh. We even bought a little pinhole camera kit to try out, but we never found the opportunity to use it.
Anyhow, my problem with this assignment is that usually the easiest way to do it is to black out your apartment, and then project light from the outside world into your camera obscura. What makes it easier is that you have a lot of nice, sharp daylight outside. I didn’t have the time to do this during daytime though, and since it now becomes pitch black quite early in the afternoon, there was no daylight to be seen when I came home from work. So I had to do the whole thing completely within the confines of my home.
Luckily I have a small storage room (well, nowadays it’s my tiny, wonderful, happy-place crafting studio, of course) with a doorway facing my bedroom. Commence blackout!
Jed helped out, of course, being just as interested in the result as I was. Also, he had to pose in the shot so that there was something more interesting in it than our messy bed and balcony window. So, we used a ton of black bin liners and masking tape.
And then some more bin liners in the place where I cut the little hole for the light projection. A small frame was made onto which I taped a thin sheet of oven paper.
Sure enough an image appeared on the oven paper, but very blurry and not so bright. To make it better I needed to get rid of any light pollution, and make the hole smaller and more even. Loads of tin foil was used (I’m sorry, Mother Nature. It was in the name of Papa Science) on the outside of the black bin liners. Also, black cardstock was placed on top of the old hole to create a better one, but this time I made a tiny hole and made it much more even.
And suddenly I saw an upside-down image of my bedroom projected on the oven sheet. It felt sorta cool.
Results really approved. Awesome! So, with my camera on a tripod I could take this camera obscura portrait of Jed in our bedroom. How cool is that? I made a camera from bin liners, tinfoil and masking tape.
I know it’s been done a billion times, even by Aristotle. But this time I did it 
I was looking through a few sketches to work with for a photo layout. They’re of course mainly drawn in black and white, so I thought I’s make the entire layout in black and white, including the photographs. So, I thought it would be a fun thing to take a self-portrait. I really only did this for a laugh, because all I could think of when I thought of black and white were those mime artists. I don’t particularly like being in photographs, but this was kind of fun.
Russian wild life photographer Sergey Gorshkov has spent six years following the bears in the forests around Kurile Lake in Kamchatka, Russia. He also visits the Okavango Delta in Africa several times every year. He likes to get really close the animals, my mind boggles at the thought. He says himself: “’I have got as close to the bears in the wild as you could in the zoo. It is only now, looking back I realise how dangerous it was” (quote from the Guardian, which has also published a series of the photographs).
The Russian Geographical Society has a nice translated interview with Gorshkov, that I found to be rather inspiring. he beliefs that photography can change minds, and talks about the impact a photograph can have, how some photographer’s work have actually lead to sensitive geographical areas being turned into a nature reserve. This is his advice to budding photographers:
“You shouldn’t seek popularity and fame. You should enjoy what you do, and then, when you start taking good pictures, you’ll certainly get noticed. You shouldn’t keep pictures which are of no photographic value. Out of a hundred shots you may keep just one, which is really worth it, which is the best. The rest should be deleted. Keep and show only your best photos. And you should learn to wait and be patient.”
“Sharpness is a bourgeois concept.”
Henri Cartier-Bresson
I’m partly writing this post to comfort myself, because I am an expert at taking un-sharp photos, and thus I’m preparing myself to maybe post the blurry photos I took yesterday (I really need to invest in a proper tripod). I’m also writing it because I’m getting more and more interested in the history of photography and this is a funny side note I found while surfing websites in search of some of famous photographs.
As mentioned before I’ve been watching a documentary on photographic history, and find myself fascinated, hence the scouring of The Internetz for the photos. I felt I wanted to follow up some of the things I thought was inspiring or appealing.
I stumbled on a picture in a blog called Iconic Photos, and felt rather pleased with myself that I actually recognised it, because I wouldn’t have just a week ago.
It was great reading a bit about Henri Cartier-Bresson, but what I’ve spent way to much time on this evening is the link it referred to at the end of the blog post.
At one point someone posted the picture in a Flickr group for public criticism, where people vote if it should be deleted or not. But it was posted without any mention of its background or who took it. The poster named it “Mario’s Bike”.
Of course, hilarity ensues when some of the members in the group votes for it to be deleted because it’s too out of focus and un-interesting and badly composed and what-not. Helpful comments suggest for the photographer to try and use a tripod next time, should he have the chance to get a hold of Mario and take the photo again.
I mean, imagine some of the greatest and most influential photographers in history getting their work critiqued on today’s various Internet forums… (clicky)
After a few comments like that of course it’s revealed that this is an early photo taken by Cartier-Bresson, considered a classic, and the people who voted for it to get deleted gets slapped on the fingers for not knowing this. War commences.
Now: the first thing that I find interesting is how the act of posting this photo on Flickr in the way that it was done inspires such a great debate on the old “What is art?”. It really goes in all directions; it’s as heated as a debate on democracy.
The second thing is that the critique towards the photograph is the same as it was back when it was first taken. As a pioneer of photojournalism and being an advancing figure within the snapshot aesthetics and street photography, he faced the same assessment from his contemporaries.
But no matter what you think of the photograph, Cartier-Bressons did have a style that has influenced generations of photographers. He was part of a paradigm shift. He very decisively approached photography differently from those before him, he said: “I suddenly understood that a photograph could fix eternity in an instant”. He was the man who defined the decisive moment.He is a part of the canon.
For me I suspect itbecome art when it makes me think and wonder: “This made me feel something, how did this affect me?”. Personally I like the photograph very much. It does impress me and it does make an impression on me, because it makes me imagine the moment when the picture is being shot. Did he take it accidentally, on his way down the stairs? Did he stand there waiting for the right time? I like all the motion and the curves of the railing and the cobble stones. I find the perspective pleasing. And I don’t mind that there are no specifically extraordinary sharp spot to rest your eyes on. As Jason Wilson says: “the beauty just has to be enough”. (<– It’s a very good article, go read it).
All this makes me want to get out of the house more often with my camera, and there is no question about it: I will spend a lot of time taking blurry pictures. But maybe, sometimes, I will also catch something that might be worth keeping, even though it’s a bit un-sharp. Because if you don’t even try, in fear of failing, you’ll end up with a lot of nothing. I also feel I need to read “The Decisive Moment”. I think I must.
“Twelve significant photographs in any one year is a good crop.”
Ansel Adams
I stumbled on a picture in a blog called Iconic Photos, and felt rather pleased with myself that I actually recognised it, because I wouldn’t have just a week ago. It was great reading a bit about Henri Cartier-Bresson, but what I’ve spent way to much time on this evening is the link it referred to at the end of the blog post.
Jed spoiled me for x-mas with a couple of new lenses for my camera, and as we tried out the 50-milimeter the other night, I don’t really know how I even survived without one for so long (seriously, with it I could probably find a way to fight back the Zombie apocalypse, it’s that frikkin’ great). It’s funny though, I was reading about it and what people used it for, and thought: “Hey, that sounds like something for me, I could really use that with the type of photos I’m taking”. At the same time Jed had already ordered me one, since HE observed was I was trying to accomplish and thought: “Hey, Jennie could really use one of these for the type of photos she’s taking”. Perceptive boyfriend is perceptive!
One great thing about it that I completely love is of course how much you can play with the depth of field. I find it a bit hard to trust the auto focus now though; with a low f-number like 1.8 you really have to make sure you get the focus exactly where you want it, and there is no trusting that tiny LCD-screen on the camera to see if you got it right (zoom in and make sure, valuable lesson…). F1.8 is so tight it’s even hard to get both eyes focused. I have to learn to balance it a bit; extremely narrow depth of field is fun, but on the other hand maybe you don’t want to make your subject look drunk:
The great effect you get is of course the blurry background. There is even a word for it: Bokeh (pronounced bo-keh). It’s Japanese, it seems photographers started using it in lack of a good translation. I guess “Look at that pretty blur!” doesn’t sound as fancy. But that is what it is about: The attractiveness of the blur, the aesthetics of the blur. It’s been suggested that, because it’s about aesthetic values, there is no point discussing “good bokeh” or “bad bokeh”, but rather speak of “pleasant” or “un-pleasant bokeh”. That said, also keep in mind it’s not about how far something is out-of-focus, but rather the character of it.
It’s a bit like when you were a kid and you made your eyes go all wonky and un-focused on a long and boring trip when you couldn’t fall asleep in the car. You’d sit there and watch the world go by with all the lights being smeared out of shape.
Just using the manual focus when aiming my camera at my old x-mas lights it’s easy to find different steps for different degrees of blur:
Of course you can use any light source and with different ones make loads of different cool effects depending on colour and mass. There is even a sort of prestige battle of the lenses going on. Expensive lenses have more leafs in their shutter, making the actual background blur rounder and prettier. Imagine that.
But here is the really nifty part:
What Jed suggested was that by locking the lens on the biggest aperture, and then punching a shape into a black cardstock and put that over the lens, we could force the bokeh into whatever shape we wanted. So we used one of my crafting punches to make a hole in a piece of paper, shaped like a dragonfly.
It’s cheap and ghetto, but it’s amazing how much you can do with some masking tape. Now, point your camera towards the light source and take a picture. The behold the awesomeness:
Put your subject far in front of the background lights. Try to focus (which might be hard when you live in a small shoe box apartment like mine) by doing a little footsy dance. I think we’d have done a bit better if we’d have used a tripod, but were a bit to excited to have time to set it up.
Of course, once we had done all this and there where paper and masking tape and stuff all over my apartment we found loads of ready-made kits you can by off the internet, but I think it’s sort of neat that it’s so easy to make yourself.
I can really recommend a Google picture search on bokeh, people do so many amazing and inspiring things with this method. My list of “Photos I’d like to take before I break my camera” grows longer.
Mellandagar! Julhelgen är över med all lust och gamman; familjerna samlades, maten blev lagad och uppäten, klapparna öppnades, sen sov man gott och nu inväntas nyårsafton. Jag har hunnit klämma in både en svensk och en engelsk jul under helgen som varit. Mammas sill var helt gudomlig som vanligt, liksom den varma brysselkålssalladen med getost, och det efterlängtade marshmallow-i-magen ögonblicket infann sig hemma i mammas och pappas nya lägenhet, med föräldrar, bror, svägerska och mormor. Vi tittade på bilder från året som gått och öppnade julklappar i godan ro. Dagen efter lagade jag och Jed en engelsk julmiddag till hans föräldrar, som var på besök i Sverige. Det gick över all förväntan!
Jag tror att pappa blev glad för de inramade fotona av honom och mig när vi båda har kameran i högsta hugg, och jag tror att mamma blev glad för fotoalbumet med bilder och minnen från Italienresan. Jag blev i alla fall överlycklig när pappa och mamma gav mig en bok om digitalfoto och en fotokurs! Jag tänkte jag skulle gå en kvällskurs på medborgarskolan i februari (någon som har lust att haka på?), en grundkurs så att jag får en trygg och bra grund att stå på. Som det är nu experimenterar jag hej vilt och ibland går det riktigt bra (ibland går det mindre bra, hehe). Jag skulle vilja förstå mer hur det faktiskt FUNKAR, inte bara veta hur man ska göra.
Jed, min kärlek, överraskade mig med ett 8GB minneskort och två nya objektiv, ett 50-millimeters och en enkel zoom. Vilken revolution, vilken skillnad från min kit lins! Jag vet inte hur klokt det är att skämma bort mig så mycket, men jag måste bara säga att plötsligt fick hela upplevelsen gällande fotografering en helt annan dimension. Jed, hans föräldrar och jag promenerade runt på Skansen igår, så jag fick ju genast ett bra tillfälle att testa båda objektiven.
Det är faktiskt en himla skillnad när man, istället för att ta en bild på en snöig hage med lite kvistar och något brunluddigt som eventuellt kan vara ren lång borta i bakgrunden, kan ta en bild på en snöig nos och ett par klara svarta ögon som plirar upp från en snödriva.
Nu vill jag bara fota. Och experimentera. Och gå fotokurs. Och skriva ut fina bilder. Och pyssla ihop fotoalbum. Och spela lite dataspel. Fritid, tack? När jag var en liten tös var det detta mellandagarna var till för: att lyckligt leka med alla sina julklappar och gå runt hemma i pyjamas. Ibland är det bra trist att växa upp.
It’s September already! It’s less than 2 month left to November and NaNoWriMo, WOO! As soon as that hit me (owie) I got that ridiculous tugging feeling in my tummy, if it was November NOW I would write at least 5 pages in the blink of an eye. Of course, after all the anticipation, when November finally comes I’ll sit there crying and pulling my hair out by the roots and curse the universe and the plot bunny (existent or non-existent).
Last year the plot bunny arrived quite early and come November 1st I had a clear outline and an entire made up city in my head with several characters with solid background stories. And for the first time, after five years of trying, I did it, I wrote 50 000 words in 30 days. I would like to say I actually wrote a 50 000 word story, but looking back at everything I wrote it might just as well have been prep work, I had so much material I never really got to core of the story. 50 000 words was not enough.
Almost one year later I can’t even remember what the point of the story was. I know I have it written down in a note somewhere, but I can’t remember it for the life of me. I’m sure it was revolutionary. Erm. Yeah.
No real plot bunny has poked up its fluffy head yet, but I’m sure it will. I was thinking about writing a sort of in-game/IRL gamer story based on EverQuestII, but maybe I’ll revisit the city I made up. I can’t make up my mind, really. We’ll see what happens.
Jag har fotat mycket ända sen jag var en liten tösabit med en min första kompaktkamera. Minns hur jag sparade och sparade veckopeng och julklappspeng tills jag kunde köpa en alldeles egen kamera. Så här i efterhand kan jag ju misstänka att älskade mamma och pappa sköt till en del pengar, men då, när jag var kanske 7 år gammal, trodde jag att jag köpte den helt själv, och jag fotade för glatta livet! Det finns HÖGAR av helt onitressanta bilder på småfåglar och blommor och stenar och träd.
Icke att förglömma är alla foton från 4 års ridläger på Sindarve på Gotland. Jag tog flera rullar varje gång på de älskade hästarna. Numera har jag ingen som helst aning om vilket år som är vilket. Alla hästarna var fjordhästar, nämligen. De ser liksom likadana ut allihop.
Då och då hittar jag fortfarande oframkallade rullar hemma som är en si så där 15-20 år gamla. Det är oftast fjordhästar på dem när jag framkallar dem. Någon gång i framtiden ska jag välja ut en enda bild ur den där skokartongen, den ultimata ridlägerbilden som representerar alla mina år där på Sindarve, spara den bilden, och kasta alla andra. För precis som att fjordhästarna såg likadana ut såg alla hästtjejer likadana ut, och tog jag, som inte var någon mästarfotograf, alltid likadana bilder varje år.
 Som alla andra 70-talister gick jag media i gymnasiet, och den roligaste kursen var så klart inte den inrikting jag valt, utan fotokursen. Vi fick låna kameror i skolan, men jag fick också låna min pappas gamla Pentax, en systemkamera han själv började använda när han var 17-18. Den var helt analog, helt manuell, man fick titta i sökaren och vrida in skärpan för hand, se så att de små strecken befann sig ungefär där man ville och räkna ut slutartider i huvudet.
Vi fick framkalla våra egna bilder! Min vän Sara var väldigt duktig på det, hon fixade till och med ett eget labb hemma i klädkammaren! Mindre bra gick det för mig, som har fobi för kemikalier.
 Någon gång under årens lopp investerade jag i min alldeles egna analoga systemkamera, en Canon EOS 300. Det måste ha varit 2001, för jag hade med mig den till Italien när jag var 22, och den modellen släpptes först 2000. John, som är duktig på foto, hjälpte mig att välja ut den, och tipsade om ett bra objektiv, mitt Sigma som jag var så himla nöjd med. Vilken revolution! Autofokus! Automatisk exponering! Man behövde bara hålla upp den och klicka och det blev en bild med skärpa i! Som var SÅ mycket mer än något man kunde göra med en tråkig kompaktkamera.
Speciellt förtjust blev jag i att fota med monokroma filmrullar, jag tyckte det blev snyggare än med ren svartvit, men det var lika billigt (allt är relativt) att framkalla som en vanlig färgrulle. Bland annat gav jag mig ut till skogs med min kompis Linus och fotade.
Men så var det det där med automatiken. Det blev ju så smidigt. Jag kunde ju ställa om den till manuellt läge, men gjorde sällan det, och i slutändan lärde jag mig i inte kameran så bra. Jag försökte ibland,men allt jag lärt mig med pappas gamla Pentax var som bortblåst. Men jag tog bilder för glatta livet.
Till slut blev drömmen om en digital systemkamera sann. För några år sedan blev en Canon EOS 400D min. Med en digital kamera är möjligheten att testa total. Svartvitt, färg, bländare och slutare, RAW, HDR, porträtt, landskap, natt och dag, det är ju bara att försöka! Blir det inte bra kan man radera bilden och försöka igen.
Men problemet var fortfarande detsamma, jag experimenterade väldigt lite med manuella inställningar och jag lärde mig inte kameran ordentligt. Det fanns egentligen ingen att dela intresset och fördjupningen med. Men det ska sägas att de förinställda valen på den så kallade “kreativa zonen” gör mycket för bilderna, vad gäller färger och ljus.
 För något år sedan tog längtan och intresset för fotografering fart igen, när jag upptäckte att de börjat tillverka Lomo LC-A kameror igen. Jag läste en del om den när jag var yngre men fick aldrig tag på någon. Men nu lyckades jag införskaffa en som jag genast blev kär i. Självklart ser jag ju ironin i att jag plötsligt brinner för att fota med en rysk plastkamera som tar bilder med mycket varierande resultat, som man inte kan zooma med, fokusera med eller har någon kontroll över, som man måste stoppa i en vanlig filmrulle i, en kamera där man inte vet resultatet förrän allt är framkallat… Men nu ville jag prova saker.
Så träfffade jag Jed, som en sen julklapp var han. Vi upptäckte att vi hade rätt mycket gemensamt. Till exempel gillar han också att fotografera. Han har också en Canon EOS 400D (skillnaden är att han vet hur han ska använda sin). Han brukade också ha en EOS 300. Han är väldigt bra på att förklara, när man frågar. Det visar sig att min kamera har massor av funktioner som jag trodde att den saknade. Och en del som jag inte visste fanns.
Det finns få saker som är så inspirerande som att umgås med likasinnade. Att umgås med någon som har samma intresse. Jed inspirerar mig.
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