fanciful devices: Show and Tell

A Stone Is Nobody's

A man ambushed a stone. Caught it.
Made it a prisoner.
Put it in a dark room and stood guard over it for the rest of his life.

His mother asked why.

He said, because it's held captive, because it is captured.

Look, the stone is asleep, she said, it does not know whether it's in a garden or not. Eternity and the stone
are mother and daughter; it is you who are getting old. The stone is only sleeping.

But I caught it, mother, it is mine by conquest, he said.

A stone is nobody's, not even its own. It is you who are conquered; you are minding the prisoner, which is yourself,
because you are afraid to go out, she said.

Yes yes, I am afraid, because you have never loved me, he said.

Which is true, because you have always been to me as the stone is to you, she said.

Russell Edson

FAQs

1. Are you a Southeast Asian dancing girl from the 1800s?

No, sorry to disappoint. My avatar and banner images are from an ancient book I found in the depths of my grandmother's cabinets. More on that here.

2. How do you make everything look so old?

First, you need a good oxidizer to brush on every bit of metal you can reach. I'll tell you all about it here.

Then there's this wax. I first mentioned it here. You'll have to scroll down a lot.

3. How can you be so productive?

I'm insanely obsessed and I have no offspring. I do nothing else- I don't have a day job, I don't clean my house or cook, I spend all day in pjs, often completely abandoning personal hygiene... I only interact with other humans when I walk my dog. And I like people! But I prefer dogs.

And I'm sloppy- but I make that sloppiness work for me.

4. Any tips you'd like to share?

No! Except for these 16 posts about techniques and this one about how to find your aesthetic.

5. Would you be offended if I took some inspiration from your designs?

Well, I'd be happier if you outright copied them.

No really, imitation is how we learn. I have enough ideas to go around. And even if I don't- please. No one's going to do this obsessively enough to threaten my business. (Probably.) I learned by copying others and I've seen others copy me as a step toward developing their own voice. So feel free. (I'd love if you tossed me a link in my comments, so I can feel like a proud momma.)

6. What do you look like?

Why, what have you heard? Really? Wow.

12/31/10

Show and Tell

So y'all know TiltShift maker? It's a site that lets you upload photos and processes them to create a narrow depth-of-field, for neat effects. Then you can download your picture and use it, say, for an eye-catching etsy listing.

before:

after:

This is the kind of effect you can achieve with a good camera set on a ... higher? f-stop...? lower? bigger? smaller? Yeah, I know all about camberuhs.

Here's one more I did.

before:

after:

And now I can't remember why I ever stopped using it! Oh, yeah, on my old computer it would crap out. But these were created instantly. You can adjust where you want the focus, the size of the focus, the speed and strength with which it goes out of focus and even something called bokeh:

Which I just learned are those spots of light that show up in un-focused areas on pictures. Damn!

Except when I try to do it with my macro pictures, just these weird stripes appear:

Because the site is originally intended to make landscapes look like miniatures:

<-- This is a real landscape through tilt-shift maker!

So, that was my show-and-tell for tonight.

2 comments:

Spirited Earth said...: wow you are getting to be a camberuh expert..these are soo interesting..those landscapes are crazy.; 12/31/10, 8:20 AM
stregata said...: The tilt-shift maker imitates the effect of using a macro setting or a very small area of focus in a landscape photo on your camberuh - maybe that is why it doesn't work so well on an actual macro shot.
Wishing you a wonderful 2011 with many more gorgeous pieces to take fantastic photos of...; 1/1/11, 1:51 AM