Tag: Photography

Embrace the Gloom

swanksalot0 comment
Embrace the Gloom
Embrace the Gloom, originally uploaded by swanksalot.

Hence the saying: If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.

If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat.

If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle. – Sun Tzu

Randolph Street, Chicago

Embiggen:
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Reading Around on December 23rd through December 29th

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A few interesting links collected December 23rd through December 29th:

  • Fun phrases in Latin – Ridiculum sum, ergo sum

  • Glenn Greenwald – Karl Rove: Champion of “traditional” divorce – [he ] engineered multiple referenda to incorporate a ban on same-sex marriage into various states’ constitutions in 2004 in order to ensure that so-called “”Christian conservatives” and “value voters” who believe in “traditional marriage laws” would turn out and help re-elect George W. Bush. Yet, like so many of his like-minded pious comrades, Rove seems far better at preaching the virtues of “traditional marriage” to others and exploiting them for political gain than he does adhering to those principles in his own life:Karl Rove granted divorce in Texas

  • Animated stereoviews of old Japan ::: Pink Tentacle – In the late 19th and early 20th century, enigmatic photographer T. Enami (1859-1929) captured a number of 3D stereoviews depicting life in Meiji-period Japan.

    A stereoview consists of a pair of nearly identical images that appear three-dimensional when viewed through a stereoscope, because each eye sees a slightly different image.

Color Images of Russian Empire

Seth Anderson0 comment

A delightful merging of analog and digital technology

A photographer named Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii (1863-1944) made glass negatives in the early 1900’s that could be used to create color images. He did this by inventing a camera that would take three different frames of the same scene, with different color filters (red, green blue) for each. He displayed the pictures via projection, using the same filters. Even though the negatives were only grayscale images, the result was comparable to that obtained using a color slide film, such as Kodachrome. As a result, we are able to see full-color images of an historical period that otherwise would be seen only in black-and-white.

…

The whole process is described on the Library of [the USA] Congress, here: The Empire That Was Russia: the Prokudin-Gorskii Photographic Record Recreated.

The original images are on hand-made 3-inch x 9 inch glass negatives. Each negative has three 3×3 images. Archive workers made digital scans of the negatives, cropped the three frames, and used computers to colorize each frame. Then, they superimposed the three color images using layers.

[Click to continue reading Digital Reconstruction: Color Images of Russian Empire : The Corpus Callosum]

The Library of Congress website has several galleries of the images1, some of which are also found at the Wikipedia entry

Footnotes:
  1. including Architecture, Ethnic Diversity, Transportation, People at Work [↩]

But I have promises to keep

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But I have promises to keep
But I have promises to keep, originally uploaded by swanksalot.

Glenview, IL somewhere

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When I was a boy in Ontario, in 4th grade perhaps, maybe younger, we had to recite this Robert Frost poem in front of the class. Wonder if that still happens?

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

Request for Consideration

Seth Anderson0 comment

I should have said this earlier in the month, but got busy, and forgot to post the thought. Anyway, for the record, I am not giving gifts to anyone this year, besides my 5 year old nephew1. For the rest of you, I love you, but instead am donating gift money to charities, food banks and Kiva.com.

However, I am planning to craft some photography calendars from photos I took last year. These will be hand-made creations, crafted as I have time to craft them. No two calenders will be alike, but if you want one, contact me2and I’ll let you know details like cost3. Last year I think I made five, but I’m hoping to make a lot more this year as we are not traveling anywhere, and our main client’s offices are closed until January 4, 2010. Plus it will be fun.

Footnotes:
  1. and even that might be a little late. We had picked out a cool gift, but then forgot to send it until yesterday. Doh! Maybe it will be a Festivus present instead? [↩]
  2. if you don’t have my email handy, just leave a comment here [↩]
  3. if any, since I haven’t actually finished making these yet, am not sure how elaborate and expensive they will be, so am not sure if I’m giving them away or asking for a donation [↩]