Cameron's Brain

Today's Mood Is...

one of my photos becomes ART

This is pretty cool. A couple of months ago I took this photo of a broken window on a nearby house which has since been torn down.

 

Yesterday I got an email from Martha Ellis from Hamilton Ontario saying:

I needed a picture to do for a final project for an airbrush course and found this photo on the web.At the time I didn't see an artists name or a copyright so I submitted my rendition for my final.Got an 86 on it an everyone loved it.What I would like to know is if I have your permission to make a pattern from it to teach to some art students.

Of course I told Martha that was totally cool! Here’s her final work done with an airbrush, dry brushing with acrylic paint and some tech pen:

I’m totally jazzed that she was able to take my quick snap and turn it into something for people to enjoy! Thanks Martha, you made my day!

 

POTD - St Remy de Provence

I took this photos as we were entering St Remy de Provence August 2004. St Remy, of course, is most noted for being the place where Van Gogh committed himself voluntarily to an asylum and where he painted most of his greatest works.

Vincent van Gogh arrived in Saint Remy de Provence on 8th May 1889. He had come from Arles and wished to be taken in at the Saint Paul de Mausole hospital. He found the quality of light and the ardent beauty of the landscapes around Saint Remy quite fascinating. The beauty of the surroundings and the pleasure of finding a serene and understanding atmosphere surrounded by the nuns and the personnel who took him in were such that, in the space of a year, he had completed more than 150 paintings and numerous sketches. The Saint Remy period is considered to be one of the major periods in the work of Vincent van Gogh. The best known of his paintings from that period are “the irises”, “starry night”, “olive grove in the evening”, “field of wheat with cypress tree”, “first steps”, “reaper in a field of wheat”, “La siesta”, “The paving stone layers”, “St. Paul hospital”, “Vase of irises on a pink background”, and so on. He left Saint Remy de Provence on 16th of May 1890 to go to Auvers sur Oise where he died little more than two months later on 29th of July 1890. It is possible to visit the central alley, the church and the cloister of Saint Paul de Mausole without feeling a certain wave of emotion.

It really is a beautiful town, one of the few places I saw that really lived up to my expectations. We visited Saint Paul's and I have photos of the olive trees that he painted. They look like they have jumped out of one of his paintings.

Photo of the day - Florence

Here's a shot I like that I took last August. It's the view of Florence from the top of the Duomo. Taken with my Canon 300D.   

The Gates Photo Phenomenon

Forget business blogging. Forget podcasting. 2005 will be the year of PHOTOSHOPPING GATES. You heard it here first. It has begun. [Source: SeattlePI Microsoft Blog]

Wangaratta trip

Today I drove. And drove. And drove. I had some potential clients to visit in Shepparton and Wangaratta, a few hours drive north of Melbourne. Listened to LOTS of podcasts (Coverville, Daily Source Code, IT Conversations, Reel Reviews, Eric Rice, Engadget). Took some photos of Australiana on my little Minolta, so they are low res, but I've posted them anyway, trying out my MSN Spaces photo album for the first time.

in da bgning ws da wrd

Of all the photos I took while on vacation, this is my favourite. Taken 30 Aug 2004 at the Vatican. The nuns were getting a lecture on the restoration of the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel and I caught one of the nuns sending an SMS message! To whom?? I wonder which SMS provider the Lord uses??

(Canon 300D with 300mm zoom lens.)

Broken Windows

Saw this house in Yarraville, my suburb. In the process of being torn down, but a local walking past ("Is this art?", she asked me) told me that someone lived there until very recently. Inside it's a total dive.

[Listening to: Images - Lou Reed ]

Crumpler bags have a Purple Cow

Yesterday I went shopping for a camera bag. I recently bought a Canon Digital Rebel 300D with an additional telephoto lens. My first foray into semi-serious photographic equipment. I wasn't happy with the Minolta Dimage xt I bought back in January. The shutter lag was a killer. So we opted to spend a couple of grand to get a D-SLR. I finally figured out yesterday how to take some half-decent photos with it. I had to learn a new vocab... aperture settings, shutter speeds, ISO settings, ugh. And I thought the PC industry went to great lengths to make OUR products difficult to use. Why is it so hard? Anyway, after several weeks of mucking about, I finally figured out yesterday, at a kids party, how to take indoor shots without using the flash. I figured out how to turn the aperture setting down, high shutter speed, etc. Hallelujah. See some shots I like in my family photo album.

Anyway, the bag. After visiting a few camera stores without finding anything really suitable for the trip to Europe, we were walking back to the car and stumbled upon an outlet for Crumpler. We picked up a nice bag with an apartment for the additional lens, etc. These bags seem very comfortable and funky (although reading up on them since I came home, apparently EVERYONE has one and they are just too common to be seen with these days). The thing I loved most about the bag though is reading through the material that comes with it and on the website. Like this blurb from their website:

¡lifestylin’
It’s yr lifestyle, fetish madam man, it aint anybody else’s
my bendy friend, so you gotta set the tone. You gotta know
when to hit and when to throw, when to stay amateur,
when to go pro, when to wear your bikini on your head
and when to put it in the washer. Slosha.
Crumpler’s got the satin n the platinum, the world on a string and the string on
that thing that should be in the bin cos we know u work too hard and love too long,
yr everywhere at once and nowhere twice, feelin kinda naughty but lookin kinda
nice . . . (What rhymes with Crumpler?)
Humpla? Nah, only Crumpler rhymes with Crumpler cos we know all the beats
the streets forgot – and only Crumpler can properlike hold all the tunes and
gadgetools u want 2 play up to today. Gear made of megabjesus material that’ll
outlast yr fetish – lots of pouches, slots, slits, strong straps, waterproof bits.
Everythin u need for heavy duty petting – and gettin stuff (ed) around.
International, interstate, intersexual, intervice, you’re on the move, on the
prove lube, on the plane on the phone, in ya pilot’s palm, where everythin’s
gettin smaller ‘cept all the hairs growin in ya sound holes spite all the shavin...
Let Crumpler hold your lewdstyle together – oooh, you look proody, you look proody, I lark you....

===============

Nice copy. It draws you in. It makes me want to have a relationship with the company and their products. Why? Because they write with a sense of humour I can relate to. And, as Godin says, it obviously starts with their products. It isn't just marketing. The marketing and the product design are equally cool.

We bought a Budgie Smuggler.