A simple yet difficult Photoshop Job

Because I had nothing better to do, I took one of Techie's photos from last post, and 'shopped it to oblivion. Final result (for now, I might make it a bit better):

Comments, suggestion, critiques?

Photography - An Amateur's Perspective

There are a few important things that all amateur photographers should know, which I have learned mainly through experience, being a (VERY) amateur photographer myself. (You probably won't be finding much of this in any handbook, it's just information and technique I've picked up throughout the course of my short career.) To start, I've found that one of the most important things to remember about photography is that you don't need to limit yourself to photographing the unusual. Anything, ANYthing, can be interesting. In fact, a big part of the art of photography is to flatter everyday things using a subtle combination of angle, lighting, focus, and composition. (The other half of photography is, in fact, finding unusual, exotic or out-of-the-ordinary subjects, and snapping photos of them frantically in order to save them. But we're not there right now.)

The second thing that you should know is that photography is extremely unpredictable. Anything can happen while you're snapping your photo. Learning to take a good picture is an art of balancing proper setup with the hundreds of variables that could possibly occur, an art which I have not mastered yet in the slightest. But I can hope to give you a little bit of advice, anyway, so here I go.

But before I launch into more explanation, the third and final thing that I have found important (and this one, I have heard from other people, too) is that NO photograph you take on the first shot will be what you want - unless you have an extreme amount of good luck. It takes dozens of photos of the same thing to get what you want. Don't snap one picture of a subject and then move on. As long as the subject stays in the same place, take up to ten - or more. It sucks when you go back and look at the photos later, and realize that one of them is just blurry enough to be distracting but would have been really good if it hadn't been - and that you don't have any more pictures of that subject.

Mostly, this post is about the topic of making things interesting - and about accidents that have turned out really good. (Those happen, sometimes, too.) For example, look at this lightbulb. I took this picture in my friend's kitchen. Would it normally be interesting? Absolutely not. But when I focused on it with my camera, the background turned from whitewashed walls and a kitchen counter to completely pitch-black. Now the photo looks cool.



Now, these rabbit tracks. I found these in the snow in the forest near our Winter Park house, when I was out tromping around looking for subjects. Rabbit footprints are not that interesting. But with the filtered lighting, it becomes more interesting. Also, the footprints hold enough contrast with the snow around them to stand out that much more.



My final example for you is an icicle. This picture came out way better than expected. I figured out how to focus the lens on the icicle instead of the background, and was snapping pictures like mad - but in this one, I caught that droplet of meltwater completely on accident. I still consider this one of my best pictures.



So there you go. When taking pictures, remember these things: anything can be interesting, accidents will happen (but may not turn out badly), and one picture (or even five pictures) is never enough. If I could, that's the photography advice I'd broadcast to everyone.

And, feel free to fault me if you want - I'm not exactly the next John Fielder at all, so I know pretty much next to nothing about what I'm saying. This all comes from experience. So if you disagree, let me know. You'll probably be more right than me anyway.

The News

First of all, I'd like to thank 'Pessimystic' for the awesome new theme. 'Tis incredibly awesome.

Sorry I haven't been on in a while, everyone- I just haven't been focusing on much lately. (unless you count my 19-page science paper and 30-page powerpoint as something I've been focusing on. Well, crap. Just forget all of that. I've been doing my science paper, okay?) But, as I haven't been focusing on anything (productive, or not relating to schoolwork), I have been watching the news a lot- both on TV and on t3h intarwebz. I have MSNBC as my homepage, and occasionally look at CNN, (They pretty much report on the same stories, so I mostly just look at MSNBC because it has a clearer layout) and I have to say that, even simply as a 13-year-old boy just watching the world revolve around him, the news is sorely disappointing. The headlines as of 11:10 PM on March 22nd on MSNBC are about easter sermons on racism, something about basketball (I don't care, honestly) and the mistaken release of a prisoner. (WTF) There are two headlines which ARE relevant to actual things, such as con artists targeting homeowners and Cheney talking to Israel about security, but if you scroll down, you'll see something very different. There are things about Britney Spears' wardrobe, Tiger Woods playing golf (STILL. WHO CARES), and other things specifically catered to the general public. Where are those of us who want to know what's happening in the world to get our information?
There was a recent documentary that I watched called "In the Hot Zone" by Kevin Sites that I found quite interesting. Mr. Sites was in Lebanon during the short war between Israel and Hizbollah (you say Hizbollah, I say Hezbollah...) that resulted in many civilian casualties, along with a war in Sri Lanka, the Chechnya province of Russia, and other places, recording the suffering endured by just a few of the millions who live in war zones. Why can't we have news like this? Why can't we simply hear about what happens in the world? We are the most powerful, the richest, the most influential nation in the world. Why should our people care more about Britney Spears and Tiger Woods than the millions dying in Africa, the medical breakthroughs scientists make every day, the technology of the computer industry that constantly changes and improves upon itself? Granted, there may be some showing of this, but when people like Kevin Sites go in and report on what's TRULY happening in places like this, it leaves you wondering what MSNBC isn't reporting.

So that's my rant. Hope you liked the wall of text that my random thought patterns spawned.

This is Jacob, signing out. But first, how's about I leave you with a nice picture?And please, I'm totally open to constructive criticism about what I say on this blag. If no one ever tells you what you're doing wrong, and you don't notice it, how are you going to fix it?

~'Q?'

TotalCrap Weekly

OK everyone, it's time for my weekly post of total crap. Let's see...

I made a new logo for this blog. Anyone notice how much cooler it looks? If yah didn't, then you suck. Ah...the magic of PhotoShop. And the magic of having nothing better to do.

OK, so I have an observation to make. People are lazy. Very lazy. I do not deny that I am one of these lazy people. In America, and many other locations throughout the world, we have truly entered an era of laziness. An era where new innovations only exist to fuel the laziness of our current culture. What brought this on? I have no idea. What could get rid of it? A few days without any electricity would probably do the trick. Well, I take back the statement that I don't know what brought it on. The revolution of products that limit the amount of work Man has to do brought it on. They sure as hell seemed like a good idea at the time...and yet now, look at all the fat people. What have we done to ourselves?

In a completely unrelated topic, anyone hear about the woman who got killed by the stingray? Or rather, should have gotten killed by a stingray? She got hit over the head by a jumping ray, and then fell down, and got killed when her head hit something. That something killed her. Now see here is where I get slightly pissed off. There was more publicity given to this story then to the death of Arthur C. Clarke, one of the fathers of Science Fiction. As much as I really don't give a crap which famous writer just died, it still doesn't make sense that an Almost-Ray-Murder scores more media points than the death of a writer. I would say that a ray hitting someone should score even lower than a football player ODing (which happens a lot). This is the unfortunate state of press these days. Whatever scores ratings is the news that they will display. Fark is always a good source of other crap like this.

And lastly, I've been working on retouching in PhotoShop. Retouching of people, that is. Here is an example of my work so far:

Before:

After:

Notice the suspicious lack of pimples...

I'm sure I'll have more crap to post next week, cause I'll have a full week to collect it.

Hello everyone...I am a new author here, so bear with me.

To give you a quick description of myself, I will say that I'm a quirky little geek who sits in front of his computer at any possible time. I have an extremely depressing and dark outlook on the world in general. I enjoy spending time with my cats, as long as they hang around by my computer. I pretty much never go offline on AIM, and when I do, it's usually just to avoid someone. I know several different programming languages, from Javascript to HTML, to Applescript, to Cocoa. I program a bit for the web, and plenty for Macintosh. Quite frankly, I despise PCs in every way possible. As far as Linux goes...meh. I mean come on, it's a cheesy operating system created by a bunch of bored teenagers in their spare time. But I won't get into my own opinions here or anything...

In MY spare time, I either am programming or photoshopping someone/something. I have to say, the more I realize the power of Photoshop, the more I realize that pretty much all the pictures in magazines are totally photoshopped. By the by, if you need to make yourself look better, send me a picture!

As far as programming goes, I have a fairly popular Mac application out right now (roughly 33,000 downloads from macupdate.com, and an un-countable amount from Apple.com) called xMod. It modifies hidden preferences in Apple's new Operating System, Leopard, and does all sorts of other crap like that. I find it fairly useless, but others don't, so who am I to complain? I run a software company called Geek Peak Software, ( geekpeaksoftware.com ) which currently only supplies xMod. I am working on a few other programs, such as an iTunes companion and automation application.

Well, now that I've successfully bored the hell out of everyone, I think I'll sign off for the night. Catch me on IM any time (pretty much), and I will be around to post more random crap! I promise!

It's been a while...

but I think (note the lack of certainty) this blog is still on track. There are plans to invite more members soon. The more the merrier - and the higher the number of posts. In the meantime, though, you're stuck with the four of us... and Alex, who doesn't post. But don't worry, we have plans to fix that too.

Been taking pix, but haven't really looked at them, just randomly uploaded them into my iPhoto library. I only really got around to checking them out tonight, and found some really cool ones. Here are two that got a general rating of approval.


This first one I took about three hours ago when we were driving up Berthoud Pass on our way into the mountains to do some good ol'-fashioned skiing. The moon was beautiful and full - and, of course, my camera had a bunch of issues with it. I took 5 photos. This was the only one even remotely worth keeping. I edited it into oblivion, and now it looks good - as opposed to a black void with a white spot in the middle.


And this one's just kind of cool.

I should be sending a teaching post at y'all quite soon, keep checking up on our site!

Rules

You are playing The Game.

Everyone is playing the game. They always have been and always will be. Participation in a game requires neither consent nor awareness of its existence.

Only when someone has told you about The Game does it become possible to lose, unless you independently create The Game.

The creator of The Game was the first person to realise that he was playing, and was therefore the first person to lose.

Loss is temporary. As soon as you forget about The Game, you start winning again.

It is possible for people to simultaneously lose The Game.

Causing others to lose The Game more than you is the only way to "win" The Game.

Rule 2 can be interpreted in a number of different ways depending on:

When during the thought process of thinking about The Game constitutes loss?

(i) Whenever you think about The Game.

One interpretation is that any thought involving The Game constitutes loss. Therefore, the objective of this version is to forget about The Game. Experienced players can think about, and even discuss, The Game without realising they have lost. Not announcing this loss violates Rule 3. Whether or not a thought is about The Game is hard to define.

(ii) Whenever you remember that you are playing The Game.

There is a point at which you realise you are playing The Game without realising this means you have lost. Loss at this point would mean that the objective of this version is to forget that you are playing The Game. It is still possible to not realise that you have lost this version of The Game.

(iii) Whenever you then realise that you have lost.

When you become aware that you should lose, you lose. This version of The Game has seemingly paradoxical properties. The objective is to not realise you have lost. Unfortunately, the rule "Whenever you realise that you have lost, you have lost" does not explain how you lose to new players. However, this version of The Game prevents accidental cheating.

(iv) Whenever you realise you have thought about The Game.

It is possible to realise that you have thought about The Game without realising you have lost. This version still allows accidental cheating but significantly reduces it.

After reading these possibilities, you could well have forgotten that you are always playing The Game. No matter what version of the rules you play, you are playing The Game. You are thinking about The Game. You know you are thinking about The Game. Lose The Game. If you haven't just lost The Game, hopefully you have now. Only a true master could read this whole paragraph without losing The Game.

Do you lose when you are told about The Game by someone who has just lost?

There are 2 possibilities:

i) Yes

In accordance with Rule 2, you lose if you think about The Game (see above), even if this is because you have been told by someone who has just lost. Many people play that you do lose, but that loss does not have to be re-announced. This results in it being beneficial not to be around other players of The Game (in addition to the fact that them losing reminds you of the existence of The Game in the long term). It should be noted that hearing someone else announce their loss does not necessarily cause you to lose as you may not think about The Game.

ii) No

A new rule needs to be added to incorporate immunity if the trigger for rememberance was someone else losing. This rule would also have to take into account messages that are left about The Game.

Can you keep losing?

Some variations allocate a period of time, or "grace period", after losing The Game, during which you cannot lose. This is often based on preventing repetitive or continuous loss.

i) No grace period

Some players would argue that they do not need a grace period to prevent repetitive loss. Involving time limits may in fact increase the rate of loss by associating The Game with when in becomes possible to lose again, as well as other time related occurrances.

ii) The grace period is 15 minutes long

You must tell everyone you can that you have lost.

It is possible to explain The Game to someone without realising that you have lost. Whether this counts as cheating or not depends on your interpretation of rule 2.

Every loss must be announced to at least one person.

P.S After reading this post or any of it you are all now playing "THE GAME". You have 15 minutes to forget. 2 points for me!