Sunday, August 26, 2007

Bloomin' Idjut-Part II

Yesterday I again damaged my head in public. I went to the new flooring store to shoot photos at their open house.

And proceeded to hit my head on a carpet display.

Here's how it happened:

I was crouching down next to the display, shooting upward. Stood up after the shot and bonked my temple (the same one as last week) on the edge of a carpet sample.

At least they probably won't forget who I am.

I've decided to take this weekend off--no writing, no work. I chalked up the visit to the flooring store as "playing with my camera."

So I watched two movies yesterday.

The first was Gray Matters. Fairly decent movie. It's about a woman who does not know she is gay until she falls in love with her brother's wife. I think the strongest thing about the movie is it's title, though. The woman's name is Gray. It's a gray area-sexuality-and she matters. I like wordplay like that.

The other movie I watched last night was Peaceful Warrior. Now this was a great movie! I'd never heard of it before and I probably wouldn't have even chosen it if I'd known Nick Nolte was in it. But it was great! A little odd at points. A guy is trying out for the Olympic gymnastic team and he's very competitive and yet unhappy and never satisfied. Nolte plays an old guy at a gas station that teaches him to "empty out the trash." Take out all the garbage in his mind and life and build concentration. Good good movie.

Mensa Boy and the guys are building me a light box for my birthday. Out of PVC pipe and, so far, a sheet. But I think they are going to need a different kind of fabric than a sheet. For those of you who are not aware of what a lightbox is, it's sort of like a portable photo studio where you can put whatever you are shooting and use diffused light to photograph it. Shining the light through the walls of the lightbox (or the bottom, if it's just a table one with no sides), helps you control or eliminate shadows. Here's a photo of an apple I took by way of a test:


newlightbox

You can see the texture of the sheet they used. So I think we'll have to look around for some other kind of fabric.

So. That was yesterday. I don't know what's on tap for today. Probably more of the same! I told Mensa Boy I'm in a sort of in inertia right now. I want to get out and do something, but I don't know what. And it's too ridiculously hot, really. We are all very very tired of summer now.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

For your wrinkly problem purchase an old style gray vinyl window shade for your background. It doesn't get wrinkled and rolls up so it will stay clean.

The other thing you can do is adjust the photo in photoshop elements (which you told me you had):

1) Select RGB Mode.
2) Select Adjustments/Curves and click on the white selection tool. (Third eyedropper on the right)
3) Select the background making it go to white which will lighten the background but leave shadows.

If I can find the tutorial on post-production of images that I pulled this technique from I'll forward it to you.

Otherwise, pull out your ironing board and get the wrinkles out. If it's like the one at our house, it will be glad to see you again since it's been trapped in a dark space by itself for so long.