Structural Chaos

Structural Chaos, originally uploaded by iHeartDimSum.

I've been feeling sick since the end of our trip - I think I may have caught some food borne illness from a 'pasta with squid ink' dish we ate in Hong Kong the day before we flew home. My stomach feels like it's filled with all of the pipes of the above photo, and then twisted in on itself. Very fun. Definitely something you should all experience at least once. Go on... eat some raw chicken or something. The result should be similar.

Anyways, I've managed to stay awake long enough to finally do a preliminary sort through of my photos from Japan (stupid jet lag), and will present a series of them from now until pretty much eternity (30 gigs!!!). The one above was of the exoskeleton structure surrounding the West Facade of a quirky modern art gallery nestled in a maze of side streets of the Harajuku area of Tokyo. The gallery itself was interesting, but the highlight was definitely the spiderweb like monstrosity of pipes outside. Photo was processed in CS4 to give the colours a slight vintage look.

More to come later tonight. My stomach is dictating that I must return to the washroom now.

-G

Flatiron Building

Flatiron Building, originally uploaded by iHeartDimSum.

Back from our trip to Japan and Hong Kong. It was a blast, but as always, felt way too short. Japan was an interesting study in contrasts - it was so modern, yet so old and traditional. You could literally find glitzy shopping complexes placed right next door to old traditional shrines and temples. A bit of a clash of old vs. new on every corner. I shot some 3000 plus photos, so I'm finding the task of even deciding what to start processing/ editing very daunting.

So instead, I present to you another photo from New York city. This is one of the Flat Iron building, photoshopped to look like a vintage photo taken from the hey day of grainy black and white film.

One Year Performance

I've become very fascinated by this artist I discovered during our visit to the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) in New York City. The artist's name is Tehching Hsieh, and he explored some very extreme forms of performance art over a series of years. The 'piece' (if you can even call it that) on display at the MOMA involved the artist voluntarily locking himself up in solitary confinement for a year in 1978, as an exploration of the passage of time as art.

Taken from Wikipedia: One Year Performance 1978–1979 (Cage Piece): September 29, 1978 through September 30, 1979.
In this performance, the artist locked himself in a 11′6″ × 9′ × 8″ wooden cage, furnished only with a wash basin, lights, a pail, and a single bed. During the year, he was not allowed to talk, to read, to write, or to listen to radio and TV. A lawyer, Robert Projansky, notarized the entire process and made sure the artist never left the cage during that one year. A friend came daily to deliver food, remove the artist's waste, and take a single photograph to document the project. In addition, this performance was open to be viewed once or twice a month from 11am to 5pm.

I'm sure many of you are thinking this was a complete waste of a man's life, which may or may not be the point of his pieces that explored time and human nature. But even if you fail to appreciate this for what it is, the photographic display of his portraits by the day is very interesting, and I'd hazard a guess that this is the first 365 photo project that everyone seems to be doing nowadays on Flickr, etc. Seriously though, check out his website to see the other challenging performances that he completed. You haven't seen dedication or belief in art until you've seen what he went through in each of his one year performances.







-G

Missing the big Picture

A shot of the Calgary Skyline at night - 15 second exposure, zoomed out during the last 5 seconds. I'm taking the intro photography course at SAIT right now (it's a prerequisite to any of the advanced courses), and they aren't teaching anything you can't learn on your own. So instead, I've been doing more people watching than paying attention. You can always pick out the Engineer in a room - in my class, he's the guy with the Nikon D700 ($3000 body only) that didn't know what a sensor was, and couldn't understand how going from 1/60sec to 1/125sec was a halving of the amount of light. "60 into 125 ISN'T a half!!!" I'm thinking that he's, pardon my pun, missing the big picture?

'shopping is not a dirty word

'shopping Manhattan, originally uploaded by iHeartDimSum.

I used to think that Photoshop was for cheaters... that somehow the use of Photoshop was akin to a 'roid using Tour de France winner - a way of turning uninteresting photos into something they were not. But the more I play with it, the less guilty I feel about using it. While I still believe that getting your shot correct in camera in the first place is the way to go, there's room for play in Photoshop to add some fun to your workflow, so long as you don't go overboard with the post processing.

The above shot was done using a panorama of the NY skyline taken from Ellis Island - tutorial courtesy of Photojojo.

Photo of Anita aping Lady Liberty during our visit to New York. Border and faux cross process done in CS4.


From the upper terrace of St. Paul's Cathedral in London, England. Fake Tilt and Shift effect done in CS4. I love how the T/S effect makes things look like miniatures.

-G

Shoot Wide Open

A few friends of mine have started an f/1.8 photoblog, dedicated to all of us bokeh whores. Check it out.

And, just to prove my point about us visiting Chinatown everywhere we go (ala my previous post), here's a shot of us searching out the motherland in London, England.



-G

I <3 NY

Our first trip to New York City was fairly successful... although I'm still not quite sure why they call it the Big Apple - seems a bit of a misnomer. I was half expecting some kind of giant landmark in the shape of said fruit that could be seen from space, or at least an oversized tetrabrik Sun-Rype Apple Juice box plunked right in amidst the skyscrapers of the New York skyline. It'd be a brilliant marketing campaign now that I think of it - putting up a big print of your juice box label on the front facade of a skyscraper in the Big Apple? Excuse me, while I phone up Sun-Rype to make my pitch.

Anyways, getting back on track here - the trip was great. Of course our first order of business when we landed on Friday night was to hit up Chinatown. Who travels to world class foreign cities to see Chinatown? Apparently, us. {I wonder if we'll find one in Tokyo next month?} Next up, Times Square, which, really isn't a square at all. In fact, it's more like a number sign, or the lb. symbol on your touch tone dial. Misnomer # 2. Or should I say Misnomer Square 2. It reminded me very much of Picadilly Circus - which at least bears some resemblance to its moniker - a carnal circus of seizure inducing flashing lights, broadway billboards, and chaotic tourist pedestrian traffic.

Over the next few days, we saw all the typical tourist sites, ate some fantastic latin American cuisine, hit up the Giant Robot store (yes, that Asian American Culture magazine), had a ridiculously overpriced Japanese lunch (which in retrospect seems even more retarded considering we're going to Japan in 2 weeks), and got threatened by a decidely high and hostile African American hobo at the Fulton-Broadway subway station. Mission accomplished.

My feet logged what felt like 3000 miles of walking (they were howling at me by the last day), but I finally took control of my photographic life - after two years of dabbling in photography, I shot in full manual for the entire trip. No more lazy Aperture Priority. And I feel like I ended up with some of my best work yet. Two of these made Flickr's Explore in the past week (which, I understand doesn't actually mean squat in real life, but still it's an ego boost). I haven't processed all the images yet, but here are a sampling of a few highlights. More to come. Check my Flickr stream for a more up to date look.

Cheers,
-G














1. This way to Brooklyn, 2. Passing By, 3. Weathered, 4. Inversed, 5. Sprocket Panorama

Wanderlust... sated

T-minus 3 hours to departure. I've been dying of boredom for a while now. A couple weeks ago, Anita and I finally did something spontaneous, and decided we were going to fly to New York for Easter (Anita tends to plan for trips MONTHS in advance, so this is really something). Of course, her face is still swollen from an ill advised wisdom tooth removal last weekend (can you hear me thinking, I TOLD YOU SO!), and I mysteriously came down with some kind of stomach illness after going for dinner with a buddy. Oh well... we're going to Manhattan!

See ya later, suckas!
-G

Snuffed

Crackling embers
Originally uploaded by iHeartDimSum

This blog has become way too serious for my tastes. No wonder no one's reading it. I feel like now that I'm married, getting home cooked meals from the in-laws, not having to do my own laundry, and generally having nothing resembling even a hint of adult responsibility has taken the edge away... snuffed my mojo... robbed me of my rant-astic-ness (?)... Seriously, I've lost the anger, the sarcasm, the cynicism (okay, maybe not that one) of yesteryear. I need something to get ANGRY about. NEEED. That's right, with 3 E's. That's extra needy.

Excuse me, I think I have a Fox news marathon to watch.

-G

I Shoot People (3)

The Photographer, originally uploaded by iHeartDimSum.

Week 3 of my portraiture class didn't actually revolve around portraiture at all. Part of our assignment was to roam the halls of ACAD and shoot stuff demonstrating some principles of composition. I was at a loss for what to shoot, so waited for Vania to see what she would come up with. When I looked at her, I noticed that her head was at the convergence point of all the diagonals in the frame. So I quickly snapped off a few shots to capture this. Unfortunately, what I had envisioned in my mind, didn't quite translate into the image that I captured.

As it is right now, Vania really is the focal point of the photo, yet she's out of focus. The DoF is set too shallow, and the focal point too close to the camera (the only parts that are sharp are a section of the pipes overhead, and a bit of the lockers down below. This seems very distracting to me with two small areas in focus that are separated by a space that isn't really in focus, leading your eyes to jump around the frame confusedly. If this hadn't been a candid shot, I would've placed her further into the frame, so that your eyes would follow the lines, and end up at her further in the background. Then I think it would've been okay to have her slightly out of focus. Thought process - good, but final result - fail.

Even despite this, I still ended up with a couple shots from our adventure that I liked:


Rule of Thirds, originally uploaded by iHeartDimSum


Galoshes, originally uploaded by iHeartDimSum

Alright, the Oilers just shot their playoffs hopes like a midget out of a cannon into a brick wall. I'm gonna go cry myself to sleep.

-G