Colour tools?

Nice little colour generating tool, lot's of them out there, this ones very elegant

Thanks to Ed for the heads up

Pet peeves whinge number #041111

One of my main peeves in life is the way we are pigeon holed by advertisers and marketers, this article on wired throws some light on the the issue and also gives some hope.

[Wired News]A PBS documentary makes the case that Americans have tuned out marketers pitching everything from cars to candidates. The result: even more crass attempts to get through, and a fragmentation of American society. By Jason Silverman.

Bush salutes us - NOT!

Finally G. W. Bush reveals his true feelings about the rest of the world.

Berencie Abbot and Eugene Atget

The article below, on Berenice Abbot from about.com, mentions one of my early favourites Eugene Atget. A street photographer who never saw himself as an artist, but has been elevated to that status for many years. The trouble is, his work to my mind, takes a lot - and I mean, a lot, of close inspection and reflection to see that. The problems begin I guess, if you use the yard stick of "what is the function of this work" as a means to measure the work. Even though the work indeed was used by Atget to sell to Museums and other artists as either reference pieces or documents if you like, it somehow moves beyond mere documentation. One extra factor in Atget's favour is of course the fact that the majority of the imagery is of a place that no longer exists, pre-war Paris of the early 1900's.

Personally I like his work, I can connect to it on many levels and it's always a pleasure to look at. I have of course read several tomes about him and his work, so my understanding of where he's coming from maybe different to someone discovering him for the first time. This is what I like about this article, it gives a teaser and links and allows the reader to explore more in their own fashion based on their needs and desires, a very handy function of the web.

Enjoy the article and the links.

Berenice Abbott's own place in the history of photography is sometimes overshadowed by the work she did in bringing the work of one of the greatest of all photographers, Eugene Atget, to the public eye. After his death in Paris, she bought much of the work from his studio, and brought it back with her to New York where she exhibited and published it. In his lifetime, Atget had sold large numbers of prints of aspects of Paris to various museums as well as to individuals, including artists such as Man Ray, but had not generally been recognised as a significant artist. Although his work was written about in Europe, it was the collection in New York (later at MoMA) that made him a well-known name in photography. Abbott took many fine portraits, but her work on the city of New York is her finest monument You can see a good selection from this at the Hacklebury Gallery in London until January 29, 2005. Also on the gallery site are some other interesting images of New York, including work by Ted Croner, Elliott Erwitt and Arthur Leipzig

I am so inspired by some of the work I am seeing on Flikr that I am planning on spending the day out and about with my camera, seeing what I can, so stay tuned for a big update either here or at flickr, or my own site - oh and there is the travelogue as well.

For both my readers I wish to share the latest gem of software I have picked up from the internet, it's called Quicksilver and it is a useful and free utility for speeding up access to the contents of your Macintosh computer, bypassing the need for the dock, which for me had become painfully slow and time consuming. I am still learning it's intricacies but within minutes of downloading and installing last night, I am already opening and closing documents and files quickly with nothing more than a couple of keyboard strokes. A very useful tool indeed. The application's website will of course migrate over to the right with all the other interesting stuff I've found. One thing I neglected to mention was the quality and standard of work over at flickr, unlike other sites i've seen out there in cyber space this one is populated by people who are not onlt talented but also able to "see" wit their cameras in away that makes the world an interesting place again, go check it out.

my desktop 08/11/04

Changes are some what infrequent on my laptop, but as I'm sick of fiddling with the dock I've gone back to the old system of the alias on the desktop

my desktop 08/11/04,
originally uploaded by s2art.

Flikr and photo-sharing

I have been hanging around flickr now for almost 3 days! Unheard of in this era of nano-second attention spans. Admittedly I have been adding tons of my own images, from my own site, but also busy adding tags (to my shots) and making contacts, and commenting on these contacts' work as well.

This site really interests me. It allows the user to upload and store their own photos these can then be organised into galleries, and set for public or private viewing, tags allowing sharing of common galleries. You can also set up galleries of images with images that are cross related, this is a fab idea and allows any user to organise threads and connections within their own bodies of work. So when another user browses a gallery they can then see the other connections made by the original maker of the images.

Macs are a tool afterall?

Here's one for the all macophobes out there, if they can stop playing their 3rd person shoot 'em ups long enough to read it -and - think about it

blue sky. look!

Have spent many many hours on flickr today, thank god things are settling down at work! This woman's imagery is just stunning

blue sky. look!,
originally uploaded by swissmiss.

Have signed up with Flickr, I am here if you want to find *me*One of the neat features is it posts straight to this blog if I so choose, as can be seen by the sculpture of Jesus below.

Uncomfortably Close Jesus

Hee Hee gotta love this one, says it all really, in one!

Uncomfortably Close Jesus,
originally uploaded by fboosman.

Canon images from my work

Some images made at work today the vibe is good and the work is getting done! The end of year show is only days away now and the students can smell it I'm sure!

Stupid online quizzes?

Well apparently according to this test I am an exe file, what tha!

Which File Extension are You?

Of course I'm only useful to PC users and who would want to be that!

Democracy revived?

Cruising through my e-mail this morning when I read my weekly newsletter from prwatch.org. Picked up this little gem.

Newspaper readers have always had their little "letters to the editor" section, if they can get in. But cheap online tools have given anyone with a Net connection the chance to start a publication, a Weblog, a chat room, a bulletin board. Citizen media sites focused on tiny communities give journalists a role as content shepherds, whipping the chaos of reader-generated content into a manageable morass.

Ah yes indeed, the web may yet revitalise democracy in the west. Call me a hoepless romantic but I honestly feel that things like weblogs and the online communities in general that been spawned by the web have an oppurtunity to wrest control of folks information digestion back off the big media oultets.

Just last night I watched a program that argued that the US press in particualr has been undergoing some extreme introspection since 9/11 and they are starting to admit that they may have been wrong to so blindly follow the Whitehouse's lead. The program very eloquently argued why the big media organisations did what they did which was partly driven by commercial interests and a need to be seen as fairly and squarely *patriotic*. And some even admitted that following Fox with it's lowest common denominator approach had been a bad move. The implication being that they wouldn't do it again, but will they? Murdoch - no relation, is being portrayed as the bad guy here! Which reminds me must go see that movie about Murdoch and the press, as well as the one about "Corporations"

Time-lapse photography in Canada

This guy shoots some interesting stuff around his native town in Canada. This particular series looks like it could be interesting.

Click here to see the timelapse video of all 1928 images. (10mb quicktime movie)

A research issue?

A new issue of Boxes and Arrows is out. In this issue is Use of Narrative in Interactive Design by Nancy Broden, Marisa Gallagher, and Jonathan Woyte.

Interseting read yet somehow not really all that practical? the article as often happens whilst surfing turned up a couple of other names, Marshal McLuhan, Brenda Laurel and Mark Meadows. The first name I am well aware of (of course), the other two will require a little more digging. Sadly at the moment Amazon's servers are down, unheard of really? Also some of the other links at the bottom of this article were broken as well?

Post Melbourne Cup reflections

Can *you* remember your first hangover?

Cup day 2004

Today is a public holiday in Melbounre. It has been an excuse to paaartee. As indeed we have here at my house. Here is a self portrait to prove it.

Retro Kitchen Canisters

e-bay is a wonderful thing

The mighty search engine fends off accusations of big business bias.

Is the ground shifting under Google's feet? Will folks abandon the darling of the net? All I can say is I'm happier now that Yahoo puts me above Carl Volks (now deceased) 2 day workshops, Google doesn't? Try doing a search for "photoshop workshops in Google or Yahoo and you'll see what I mean!

What to do on a weekend?

Weather has turned into a real pearler. Daylight saving has started here in Australia - in the states with common sense anyway. So will be able to get more done outside tonight after dinner if I'm so inclined. It's almost beer o'clock now though so I'm not holding my breath. Looking forward to the BBQ on Tuesday, big race for many, just an excuse to fire up the bbq, and down a few brewskis for me!

Been hammering away at the 3d software most of the day, it's getting there very very slowly.