Category: Photography

Photography

Mah Motherboard

Shelly

I pulled the dead motherboard out of my old computer, thinking it might be useful for an art project. At the very least, it’s kind of fun to photograph.

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That little thing in the center of the photo, that looks like a miniature paper cutter, is where the processor sits. The itty bitty arm holds it in place. The cooling fan sits in the black plastic cage surrounding it.

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After I’d pulled out the motherboard, I realized that it looks a bit like the model in at the beginning of Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood. If I had a better camera, I’d be able to capture the streets-and-buildings feeling. It’s really kind of cool.

Photography

Mr. Worm

Shelly

It’s still raining, or at least, it’s drizzling and misting, which is probably just as irritating to the folks who are trying to engage in traditional Memorial Day activities.

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This little guy was wriggling around on my patio this morning. I couldn’t get a properly focused photo of him, because he wouldn’t hold still for me. Not to be gross, but somehow worms and remembering dead people seem to go together.

Pets, Photography

A Play in One Act

Shelly

SCENE: A small dining room in a small town in the middle of nowhere. The scent of jasmine rice wafts on the warm, spring air

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[Miss Brown, tantalized by the smell, settles herself and waits patiently. She knows her turn will come…]

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[Eventually…]

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[Slingers, though, wait for no one.]

Yes, she was drooling like that over rice. Plain old rice. Something is seriously wrong with my dog, I think.

Photography

Blue Ball in the Rain

Shelly

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It’s been raining on and off all day, with low, rumbly thunder. I guess we needed it, because I don’t think it’s rained much recently.

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When I was out in the country, I’d check the weather religiously. Things can sneak up on you in the hills, and somehow living in a valley made bad weather seem especially menacing. Since moving back to town, I’ve noticed that I rarely pay attention to the weather beyond noting what it\’s doing right at that moment. And sometimes, even then, I don’t notice what the sky is doing. Living in a brick building makes it difficult to hear the wind and rain. It’s a solid building, which has hugely reduced my storm anxiety.

It’s nice to be able to actually enjoy storms.

Crankypantsing, Photography

Unforseen Consequences

Shelly

One of the things I hadn’t considered, and under the circumstances it wouldn’t’ve made any difference if I had, is that all my cookies are fubarred–even after importing them from my old drive. Hrmf! This has resulted in me being locked out of my Coppermine gallery, because forgetful me can’t remember my password. I have a list of numbers + words that I rotate through, so eventually I should be able to figure the correct combination, but in the meantime, I seem to’ve hit the limit for incorrect attempts. Grrr. For some reason, I’m finding that the words “You have been banned” in big red letters are just a little bit irritating.

This whole forced upgrade experience has not been going as smoothly as I would have liked. And by “not going as smoothly,” I mean “is a galactic-sized pain in my behindermost.

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Clouds at Sunset

So maybe thinking about happy little clouds will help? Because, on the bright side, I think I’ve got pretty much all of my software installed, including the 99.9% useless Adobe Photo Deluxe, whose only purpose in existing is to provide me with cheesy faux film negative borders on images.

Addendum: I figured out my Coppermine password. Whew!

Photography

Jumping Spider

Shelly

It’s summer time, and you know what that means: pictures of spiders and other assorted creepy crawlies! This little guy (I think it’s a male) is a fishing or nursery web spider. He was hanging out on the outer wall of my building, near the downspout. He didn’t like having his picture taken, and kept crawling around and giving me the evil eyes (eight of them!). He fidgeted so much that it was difficult to get a completely focused photo of him.

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Isn’t he gross and meaty? Also, hairy.

Jumping spiders don’t use webs to catch prey. They go out and hunt for it. Their silk is used to as a sort of safety line. If they jump and miss their goal, they can climb back up and try again. Jumping spiders are fast, which is necessary for their method of catching prey. They are not particularly aggressive, and usually won’t bite unless threatened.

Art, Crankypantsing, Photography

Plaster and Paper

Shelly

Still no computer. Still cranky as hell.

Other than that, it was a (mostly) lovely weekend. I got a lot of arting done. I can’t play show-and-tell, so you’ll just have to take my word for it. I’ve been mostly playing around with re-creating the patina on crumbling old plaster walls. It’s actually pretty easy, and involves gesso, Caran d’Ache Neocolors II (other water soluble crayons may work just as well, but I haven’t tried them), and baby wipes. It takes a little practice to blend, then partially remove the color, but it’s not difficult. It helps to periodically refold the baby wipe, because unused portions will remove more crayon than those that are have been clogged with pigment.

I’ve also found that paper grocery bags are excellent foundations for this technique, because of the way they are folded and, after use, slightly crumpled. Even after ironing, the crumples show through the layers of gesso and crayon. The only drawback to using them is that they are not archival. There may be similar papers available that are, but I suspect that it would be difficult to find one that had the same weight and fibrous quality as used grocery bags.

Teach Hiúdí Néill 11

Teach Hiúdí Néill 4
Teach Hiúdí Néill by Seán Ó Domhnaill, published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic license

Frustration is: Six two-page spreads in an art journal and no way to share them. So, for now, you’ll just have to make do with beautiful photos of real crumbling walls.

Happy damned Monday, everyone!

[ETA: This originally was illustrated with different photos, which of course have disappeared from Flickr.]

Photography

Flickr Find

Shelly

Derelict Ireland, Scattery Island, County Clare
Derelict Ireland, Scattery Island, County Clare by Mark Waters, shared under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license

In my Flickr trollings, I stumbled across this lovely image of two old, abandoned cottages in County Clare, Ireland.

Did you know that you can do an advanced search in Flickr, and constrain your results to images that are Creative Commons licensed?

You can also blog some images directly from Flickr (depending on how the owner has configured permissions), though the result is less than perfect. The default image dimensions are small, and the attribution leaves a little to be desired. So, if that drives you nuts, and if the license allows you to make derivatives, you can save and upload the image to your own space and make it whatever size you want. Just make sure to attribute it properly, and to provide a courtesy link to the photographer’s Flickr profile.

Pets, Photography

Smile!

Shelly

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Harriet and I played a game of soccer with an empty ice cream container. Obviously, she won (and quite pleased with herself, too!), but that’s to be expected. Four feet beat two, right?

For a while now, I’ve been mulling over switching at least some of my Flickr stream to a Creative Commons license. While I was hunting for images relating to the potato famine, I was very happy to find some that were CC licensed. That made up my mind for me. It just seems to be a community minded thing to do. Not that I think my photos are anything special, but if someone did want to use them, now they can. I extended it to artwork, too.

That doesn’t mean I’ve given up my copyright. That’s still mine. It just means that folks may use my images and artwork without asking for permission, given that they A) attribute me, B) the use is not commercial, and C) they share alike.

In other meta-news, lordy! I had a ten-fold increase in unique visitors yesterday. I don’t know what accounted for the spike. Very weird.