things that interest me

For a tiny little project over the summer, I am going to fill a book of drawings, notes, whatever of things that I am interested in. In my end of year tutorial the conclusion was reached that I have had little or no interest in my college projects this year, which has most likely been a big factor in why I have done shit all work and haven't had the best grades. If I can see in front of me what I actually like (because I usually forget because I'm in a bad mood) then I could almost just pick two different things, link them in some way and make a project out of it.

I haven't decided whether I am going to start a new book yet or cut and stick things into a new one. Whatever, I'll scan stuff in.

cinemaxx advertisements

Cinemaxx in America have brought out a series of advertisements by advertising agency Jung von Matt which are pretty attention grabbing.

supercolor 1000

Modified my Polaroid Land Camera today to work with the newer, more easily available 600 film rather than the SX-70 it was designed to take. It was pretty easy.

I stuck a knife down the side of the front casing and pulled it off to reveal all the gooey insides.

Then twisted the tiny little cog thats on the right hand side, underneath the viewfinder, anti-clockwise as far as it would go using a craft knife. This controls the sensitivity of the photocell, as due to the inconsistencies in production of film and components in the factories, as well as constant advances in types film and quality of the components, Polaroid built in a small mechanism to compensate for this. This was originally calibrated in the factories.

On the other side of the cog there is a four section density filter with the equivalent of a two stop difference per panel, basically all that needed altering was to change this to the lightest panel, two panels away, being the equivalent of four stops, 600 film is approximately four times faster than SX-70 film. Easy.

Then I clicked the case back on the front, Bob's your uncle. The only other problem is that 600 film cartridges have extra little nubs on the front of the plastic case which get caught inside the front door of the camera, these need to be sanded off every film cartridge before using it.

oktapodi

A two minute short CG film about two octopuses going to great extents to be reunited after being separated. Made by students of Paris’s Gobelins School of Image. It has won several awards that include Best Animation Imagina 2008, ‘Best Student Animated Film Ficci Baf 2008′, Canal Award Annecy 2008 and many others.

For the website and the film click here.

me youff

Recently I have been enjoying painting nonsense for fun. It's nice being able to do something almost productive when I don't have to.

sometimes things remind me of stuff

what is your favourite food?

today it is

on a spoon

pig-slug

late night doodling

I used to do this all the time but seem to have got out of the habit; drawing pointless pictures when I'm really tired and should be in bed. Seeing as I can't sleep at the moment I am going to take it up again.

furnishing

Folding people's noses out of pictures gives a nice result.

hello pigeon

bee-dog

wow. Bee-Dogs!

tilt-shift

Tilt-shift photography is generally used for architectural photography and often portraits. It involves the use of a special lens which both shifts (usually up and down) and tilts (usually side to side) to change the line of sight without converging parallel lines when photographing tall buildings. It makes use of the Sheimpflug principle, used to describe the effects of when the Plane of Focus in the optical device (here, the camera) is not parallel to the image plane. 

Tilt-shift photography usually uses a very large aperture to achieve a very small depth of field.

A tilt-shifted effect can be created digitally using programmes such as Photoshop to create effects such as below, using the a similar style of depth of focus as that created by a tilt-shift lens. This is done by adding a horizontal cylindrical gradient mask and then adding a lens blur. The saturation of the image is also adjusted to give the overall effect of a painted miniature.

Here are some nice images of digitally made tilt-shift photographs.

There are lots of tutorials on the internet about how to make these yourself. There's a nice easy one on Receding Hairline.

I also found a website which shows how to make a tilt-shift lens using two old SLRs, it's called Found Photography. I think I'm going to try it, just need to get a couple of old cameras first.

//..

i'm not happy. my life is a mess. i'm going to sort it out tomorrow.

merijn hos

Merijn Hos is an artist and illustrator from the Netherlands, he graduated from the Utrecht School of Visual Arts with a B.F.A. in Illustration and has since divided his time between personal projects such as exhibitions and independent publishing, and commercial work.

His body of work is made up of many different mediums, such as collage, computer illustration, video, textiles and often the use of blackboards and marker pens. I am particularly keen on the image below, I think I might try this at home when I buy some nice paper.

I have always been particularly keen on plush toys and these are no exception. Merijn Hos' plushies usually accompany commercial work. I want to make more squishy toys! At some point I'll put up pictures of the ones I made in art foundation I guess, only after I've made some more.

I like how bright and colourful Hos' work is, I also like the fact that quite a lot of it has no meaning behind it at all, which was even embraced in his exhibition "Half of what I do is meaningless" at the Extrabold gallery in Luxembourg.

dammit

..it didnt work, here's the link. wheeee!

cats

lolcats

lovecats

glasgow film festival

I'm going to Glasgow on the 13th of February to stay for a night or two, which will be at the beginning of Glasgow's annual film festival. After previous tutorials, I had decided that I need to educate myself more in the way of films, and think that this will be the perfect opportunity. Ill post about what I have seen when I return.

Glasgow Film Festival

the world within a sock

by david firth

social commentary or what

international swimming pool

A couple of friends and I attempted to get into the abandoned international swimming pool down the other end of town the other night. After successfully breaking in once I decided that I wanted to go back to get some better photographs, as the first time had been an extremely hurried visit I didn't manage to get any good photographs. Vic had to catch a train and we got a bit scared as something was crashing around so the images I took were just more like proof that I had been there. I wanted to go back with a tripod.

Well what happened when we went back was pretty annoying, after scaling the 10 foot metal fence and climbing round the outside of the building in the pitch black it turns out that the window which you have to climb through at a right angle over a 40 foot drop or so was boarded up with a big sheet of metal. No way we could've smashed it through, I just hope someone else does so we can get back in at some point. I also managed to rip my new trousers climbing back over the fence which made it doubly as annoying. 

Images from the first time to the pool:

Round the corner from the gate we had to climb over, we had to go up massive steps the same as these round the corner and then come back down. On the left hand side is the walkway round the whole building, we had to climb through one of these windows which was smashed through.

Stood in the same spot as before but turned 180degrees, it would not be possible to smash another window to get into the walkway as there is a door to the right and then a large drop where the blue pipe is.

The swimming pool from the inside, stood on one of the seating areas, it was extremely eerie in there and was extremely messy. We found some swimming medals and some "Summer of Fun '98" stickers which we kept as tokens of our visit.

As you can see, the images I took were not particularly good, I only selected these three as the rest were blurry and out of focus due to the speed which I took them at. We feared smackheads and police and didn't have much time anyway, so unfortunately we didn't manage to get down to the poolside and into the rooms below. There was about a 7 foot drop from the seating to the poolside so we didn't jump down incase we got stuck. Wish I had though.

oren lavie

Don't particularly care much for the song but this videos pretty damn good. It must've taken ages but I think it was worth it. The song is "Her Morning Elegance" by Oren Lavie.

seen it before but..

i want to go to sleep

etch-a-sketch

Web2 workshop.

polaroid

Found out today that a company called The Impossible Project have bought Polaroid's instant film factory, and aim to improve the film and begin production again in 2010. Hoorays! I think its time to get me a Polaroid from ebay in preparation, I've found a beautiful old one which takes the old type SX-70 film, but they can be modified to take 600 film, so I think I shall buy it! Check it out, isn't it pretty!!

yes please

south shields

Finally put up my diana+ pictures from South Shields onto Flickr. They are heeere.

etch-a-sketch

Whilst sat in a dreamweaver workshop on my own the other day in college, I discovered my new favourite website www.etchy.org, online etch a sketch. Here's my first attempt, reckon I'll probably add more when i have my next few workshops.