Hermit crabs line up in order of size to swap and upgrade shells with one another.
Bert found this amazing video. It's astounding, the things that happen in nature.
Thursday, March 05, 2015
Wednesday, March 04, 2015
iPhone International Gallery
I must admit I'm quite surprised at the roaring success the iPhone, particularly the Six Plux (with optical stabilization) is having as a camera, both in terms of quantity and quality. Even one of the World Press international photo winners recently was taken on an iPhone.
Here is Apple's iPhone int Gallery.
I really like this one, fantastic tones, colors, composition. I wonder how much is incredible luck, how much is leg work, and how much if any is photoshopping.
Here is Apple's iPhone int Gallery.
(Click 4 big pic.)
I really like this one, fantastic tones, colors, composition. I wonder how much is incredible luck, how much is leg work, and how much if any is photoshopping.
And this similarly-themed one by another photographer, is actually another of my favorites. (Long time readers know that I have a weakness for a touch of the abstract in photos.)
Tuesday, March 03, 2015
TruthFacts comics
Update:
Del wrote: Now you said, "If three ads don't work, twelve ads won't either!” Is that true? Because if it is then the world needs to move in another direction.
Just seems logical to me. If we take a dog, a teenager, or such simple-minded creature :-), and put down three different dishes in front of him, and he doesn't eat, it seem quite unlikely to change his mind to put down nine more dishes.
Click 4 big pic.
Del wrote: Now you said, "If three ads don't work, twelve ads won't either!” Is that true? Because if it is then the world needs to move in another direction.
Just seems logical to me. If we take a dog, a teenager, or such simple-minded creature :-), and put down three different dishes in front of him, and he doesn't eat, it seem quite unlikely to change his mind to put down nine more dishes.
Click 4 big pic.
No joke. Especially on my iPad where there is no ad-blocking software, I've been marveling/seething recently at how the content is drowning in ads. It doesn't even work, folks! If three ads don't work, twelve ads won't either!
Monday, March 02, 2015
The Zeiss Otus 85mm f/1.4 Versus… a Two-Year-Old Pocket Camera
The Zeiss Otus 85mm f/1.4 Versus… a Two-Year-Old Pocket Camera, article and photos.
So how much more detail do you really gain when you choose one of the world's finest and most expensive lenses (over four grand) and high resolution cameras, over a (admittedly good one) $600 pocket camera?
So how much more detail do you really gain when you choose one of the world's finest and most expensive lenses (over four grand) and high resolution cameras, over a (admittedly good one) $600 pocket camera?
Friday, February 27, 2015
New media, new art
Modern Family has just, and justifiably, attracted a lot of attention with an episode taking place on Claire's laptop screen, and the video chats and other stuff that happens there. It was very good.
Somebody beat them to it, though. Noah is just the same, and almost the same length, 17 minutes (the MF episode was 21 minutes without ads).
I think Noah was good and interesting, although the ADD Hyper-speed young people operate at digitally and which was captured well, did tend to confuse.
I guess this ultra-multitasking must be addictive, I doubt you get more done that way.
Somebody beat them to it, though. Noah is just the same, and almost the same length, 17 minutes (the MF episode was 21 minutes without ads).
I think Noah was good and interesting, although the ADD Hyper-speed young people operate at digitally and which was captured well, did tend to confuse.
I guess this ultra-multitasking must be addictive, I doubt you get more done that way.
Tuesday, February 24, 2015
The Unbearable Lightness of Tweeting
The Unbearable Lightness of Tweeting, article.
[Note: the article does *not* end with the graphics.]
I have earlier (to my shame, more than once. I'd like to be more positive, but sometimes it's hard) kvetched about Twitter. It's a small wonder I can't find anything interesting on it, who can be interesting in 140 characters?
But I thought at least it might be a good platform to share links, both for me and for others. A portal medium, leading to substantial stuff, relatively.
But no, it turns out that even at best, only about 1% of twitter readers who interact with a tweet, click through to a link! That is so depressing. It means Twitter actually *is* useless as a medium, except for such superficial use as sharing 140-character jokes or making 140-character arguments.
I, like many others, have found our attention span horribly diminished in the digital age. That many, many others are far, far ahead in this slow mental suicide might be a solace, but sadly it does not feel like it.
[Note: the article does *not* end with the graphics.]
I have earlier (to my shame, more than once. I'd like to be more positive, but sometimes it's hard) kvetched about Twitter. It's a small wonder I can't find anything interesting on it, who can be interesting in 140 characters?
But I thought at least it might be a good platform to share links, both for me and for others. A portal medium, leading to substantial stuff, relatively.
But no, it turns out that even at best, only about 1% of twitter readers who interact with a tweet, click through to a link! That is so depressing. It means Twitter actually *is* useless as a medium, except for such superficial use as sharing 140-character jokes or making 140-character arguments.
I, like many others, have found our attention span horribly diminished in the digital age. That many, many others are far, far ahead in this slow mental suicide might be a solace, but sadly it does not feel like it.
photograph reportedly just went for a world record $6.5 million
...photograph reportedly just went for a world record $6.5 million, article.
Australian photographer Peter Lik will rarely pass up an opportunity to show his biceps. There he was, wearing a cowboy hat, trekking up a snowy mountainside, arms bare. There he was, behind the wheel of a green truck, flexing. ...
art consultant David Hulme saying. Commenting on one of Lik’s pieces that went for $1 million, he added: “I don’t fancy the owner’s chances of recouping anywhere near what he paid for this one.”
That assessment hasn’t stopped Lik from selling. Take it from photographer Scott Reither, who also sells pictures and once worked as one of Lik’s salesmen. He wrote a lengthy blog post on his travails in which he spoke of hustling photographs like a used car salesman and pushing fine art on a Las Vegas clientele caught up in “impulsive behavior while visiting Sin City.” Reither said he sold $700,000 worth of Lik’s photography in seven months and quit, unable to “stomach it any further.”
“I felt like I had to feed people a bunch of lies,” he wrote, questioning the “absurd pricing structure for the not-very limited editions of 950″ print...
-
Get this print for $6.5M.
Australian photographer Peter Lik will rarely pass up an opportunity to show his biceps. There he was, wearing a cowboy hat, trekking up a snowy mountainside, arms bare. There he was, behind the wheel of a green truck, flexing. ...
art consultant David Hulme saying. Commenting on one of Lik’s pieces that went for $1 million, he added: “I don’t fancy the owner’s chances of recouping anywhere near what he paid for this one.”
That assessment hasn’t stopped Lik from selling. Take it from photographer Scott Reither, who also sells pictures and once worked as one of Lik’s salesmen. He wrote a lengthy blog post on his travails in which he spoke of hustling photographs like a used car salesman and pushing fine art on a Las Vegas clientele caught up in “impulsive behavior while visiting Sin City.” Reither said he sold $700,000 worth of Lik’s photography in seven months and quit, unable to “stomach it any further.”
“I felt like I had to feed people a bunch of lies,” he wrote, questioning the “absurd pricing structure for the not-very limited editions of 950″ print...
-
Get this print for $6.5M.
---
Pop singers "design" Leica cameras, and the Marborro Man sets world records in "art photo" pricing. It's a brave new world. Or at least a brass one.
Lenny Kravitz, Leica designer?
This is one of those increasingly frequent stories where you check mentally "is it the first of April already?"
Lenny Kravitz, by virtue of being a medium-popular pop-rock singer, and by virtue of apparently sometimes using a Leica camera, has achieved the status of now being a Leica designer!
His "design" consists of no more changes to the camera than having machines and assistants rubbing off the black paint in corners and some areas on a black Leica camera, so it looks like it has been used a lot! Awesome...
(Having seen some documentaries about how things work in Celebrity World, I would be surprised if Lenny even had anything to do himself with this design "idea".)
Read Mike Johnston's no less sarcastic take on this.
Lenny Kravitz, by virtue of being a medium-popular pop-rock singer, and by virtue of apparently sometimes using a Leica camera, has achieved the status of now being a Leica designer!
His "design" consists of no more changes to the camera than having machines and assistants rubbing off the black paint in corners and some areas on a black Leica camera, so it looks like it has been used a lot! Awesome...
(Having seen some documentaries about how things work in Celebrity World, I would be surprised if Lenny even had anything to do himself with this design "idea".)
Read Mike Johnston's no less sarcastic take on this.
Friday, February 20, 2015
Atlas of Beauty
Atlas of Beauty is a photo project just after my heart.
Project's home page.
Romanian photographer Noroc Mihaela is on a mission to photograph women from every single country on Earth in order to show that beauty is found everywhere.
Mihaela is doing this entirely self-funded, so I hope you will join me in donating what you can afford to her project.
Project's home page.
Romanian photographer Noroc Mihaela is on a mission to photograph women from every single country on Earth in order to show that beauty is found everywhere.
Tuesday, February 17, 2015
Dubai hyper-lapse video (updated)
A "hyper-lapse" video is a time-lapse video which is done with a camera which is moving (beyond a few feet on a track). It's all the rage now, partly because Instagram has released an app to make them pretty easily (Microsoft has made software which evens out all the dramatic raggedness of camera "shake" which a first-person moving video tends to have. Pretty durn advanced software.)
Update: I have now tried Instagram's app, and I'm not impressed at all. It seems to simply make a speeded-up video, with no processing at all to enhance quality, unlike the Microsoft app's amazing stabilization, which uses bits of frames to expand other frames so as to avoid a severe cropping. The result I got from the Instagram app was extremely jerky and pretty useless.
It's certainly a strong effect, but will it be a lasting art form? I think it will be limited exactly because it easily becomes too strong, just like fish-eye pictures, or star-filters (which makes highlights into stars). But I think it will be a good way to illustrate a special trip like skiing, climbing, scuba-diving, and so on.
Update: I have now tried Instagram's app, and I'm not impressed at all. It seems to simply make a speeded-up video, with no processing at all to enhance quality, unlike the Microsoft app's amazing stabilization, which uses bits of frames to expand other frames so as to avoid a severe cropping. The result I got from the Instagram app was extremely jerky and pretty useless.
It's certainly a strong effect, but will it be a lasting art form? I think it will be limited exactly because it easily becomes too strong, just like fish-eye pictures, or star-filters (which makes highlights into stars). But I think it will be a good way to illustrate a special trip like skiing, climbing, scuba-diving, and so on.
Sunday, February 15, 2015
A pen review...
This review of a very ordinary ballpoint pen on Amazon has a wonderful understated, creative humor, and so does many of the comments under it. (The link goes to the comments, scroll up a little to read the review first.)
It's uplifting how many people display inventive and subtle humor in such ways. And yet sad that I have trouble finding much humor amongst the many, many novels published each year.
Update:
Russ pointed us to technology to make BiCs multitask.
It's uplifting how many people display inventive and subtle humor in such ways. And yet sad that I have trouble finding much humor amongst the many, many novels published each year.
Update:
Russ pointed us to technology to make BiCs multitask.
Sunday, February 08, 2015
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