Why I Can't Have Nice Things

I am notoriously rough on my possessions. Clothes have to be able to survive both the washer and the dryer to live in my house. My shoes generally only last a year or two. I've dropped my phone three times now in the 6 months I've owned it. It's not that I mean to destroy things, I'm just clumsy and unthinking sometimes.

I've owned my beautiful Canon Elph camera for only about a year and a half. I've been careful with it. I've never dropped it. Tried to keep it clean and dry. I've even kept it out of my purse so it won't hit against my wallet. Seriously I've babied this thing. And...it's broken. I took it out to the lake a month and a half ago to take some early morning bird shots. I turned it on to have the lens instantly retract. Lens Error. I started it again...and again...and again. When I finally got the lens to stay out, the zoom won't work at all and all of the images are vignetted. I looked for camera repair places in town with no luck. And Canon will charge me $190 to send it in for them to fix. Sooo...

Meet my new camera. I've been chomping at the bit for over a month now to get a new camera. Going without has been hard. My phone just doesn't cut it. I've been reading reviews to find something in my price range. And I've been focusing on getting something that's a bit more rugged. Meet the blueberry. It's a Fujifilm FinePix XP70. It's waterproof to 33 feet, dustproof, freezeproof to 14 degrees F, and most importantly shockproof at 5 ft. Which means that I might have a chance of keeping it working for a couple of years. I played with it for a couple hours last night right after picking it up and I think I'm going to like it. The photo quality is very good, it's simple to use, I like the feel. The zoom isn't anywhere near as good as my previous. But it's a fine camera that going to be great to get outdoors with. I'll even take it snorkeling and diving with me. It isn't quite as amazing as my Elph was, but it might, just might be Catproof.

Daily Shots

Last November I got a camera for my birthday and wrote about it here. Over the last year the camera has become a regular companion for me. On the weekends I tend to grab it before I leave the house most days. It's light, fits in my pocket, and takes the kind of photos that I always wished I could take. I'm a little in love with it.

And I want to share some of my photos with you. In an attempt to make sure I post a bit more, and to show off some of the beautiful things this camera can do, I'll be posting a picture everyday. We'll see how long this lasts but I love the idea. This will push me to post and push me to get outside to take even more pictures. Win-win, in my book.

So here is my first picture. It was taken with the Super Vivid setting on my camera so the colors are a tad more intense than they would be with other cameras. But this is much closer to what I was seeing that day. It was one of the more glorious days we've had. This was taken right outside the Iowa Arboretum in Boone County. You'll see more pictures from that trip. I took well over 60 in the arboretum alone.

The Eyes Have It

In the last year I found a collection of photographs by Suren Manvelyan of animal eyes. These incredible macro shots showed both the incredibly diversity of eyes but more fascinating to me, the structure of the iris. I've always taken for granted that the iris was simply a solid color. But as I looked at the images I realized that there are gaps in the iris, there are color changes. Honestly there is nothing solid about them. 

Chimpanzee eye (very close to a human eye)

Since then I've become fascinated with my eyes. I've started checking out Jeff's eyes. I would be fascinated with other people's eyes but they might find it disconcerting when I get close enough to examine their irises in detail. And although I don't have the skills that Manvelyan has with macro shots, I've taken some images of both Jeff and my irises. 

These are mine. Note the gaps on the left side of the iris. Note the way each strand of iris goes into the dark pupil in the middle. It looks more like a hole than any solid structure.

This is Jeff's eye. Notice the color changes. Jeff has eyes that fluctuate between blue and green (at least in my mind). I love the center green surrounded by the light blue. I didn't do any color touching for this photo. 

This photo was something fun. I took a horrible shot of Jeff's eye. The flash was still on and the photo was too bright to be useful. Until I started playing with it in iPhoto. I changed the contrasts and what I have is more artistic. But even more interesting it really shows those gaps in the iris. They now show up as pure black against the white of the iris. And I love the odd color of the pupil 

Make sure you check out the rest of Suren Manvelyan's gallery here. I promise you these will be some of the most interesting and beautiful photographs that you'll see all week. I guarantee that you've never seen eyes like those photos before. They made me rethink how eyes work. I loved these last two the most (gecko above and llama below). 

Moon Shots

Jeff and I went out one of the nights last week to try to catch a glimpse of Comet Pan-STARRS, a bright comet that could be seen in the Western sky right after sundown. We had heard that it could be seen with the naked eye but we still brought out binoculars and of course the camera. Jeff made sure I packed the tripod as well.

Although the clouds were low on the horizon, the rest of the sky was clear. So we took some sunset photos and a couple of beautiful moon photos. Jeff and I played to see how close we could get with just the natural zoom of the camera. I thought about digiscoping it but I'm still learning and most of my shots come out terrible. Plus once we got home, I realized just how close the zoom had gotten.

Alright Jeff, you're correct, the tripod makes all the difference.

And a view of the sunset that night. Now if only the colors were perfect. But I guess that just gives us something to work towards.

Foodscapes

I'm sure you're all tired of seeing food at this point. After the huge feast that is Thanksgiving, there are days and days of leftovers. And dinners with family. And extra pie in the fridge. I'm sure you're thinking that you've seen enough food for a lifetime. Or, if you're like me, you never get tired of food. Particularly not when it is as well presented as these foodscapes.

Carl Warner is a U.K. based photographer who creates landscapes out of food. Almost everything in these scenes is edible. He takes very traditional looking scenes and finds the exact right ingredient to make them out of edibles. According to his website each set takes a couple of days to build and then Warner takes photos of the foreground, background, and the sky separately. Like any organic setting, the food deteriorates quickly so he has to work in stages.

Warner started as a still life photographer and then began to branch out into these arranged landscapes. His work has been used in numerous advertisements and he even came out with a book of his work. I just love the inventiveness of these images. Every part of the picture offers such wonderful detail, which makes for complete images that are creative and simply amazing. The images can be dramatic or serene but they are all wonderful to look at. And all made of food.

Not sure why but this simple scene is my favorite

Passion and Madness

I've been drinking cheap red wine in the bathtub which means that this will be more maudlin and romantic then I mean it to be. It never fails. Give me a bottle of red wine and I will write you sonnets. Or at least feverishly slave away with words like the great poets of old. I wonder what's in the wine to make me do that.

I'm reading a book about reading (my favorite subject) and the author is talking about poets. Not just any poets but the masters of romanticism. Rimbaud, Verlaine, Baudelaire. Poets that I used to read (in translation of course) and dream of passion and madness. Years ago I bought a greeting card that had the phrase "passion is a form of madness". I bought it for the saying. I was a young romantic. I wanted that passion. I wanted to be that starving artist living in a garret, selling poems to buy cheap red wine and a meal that night. Some night (like tonight) I still do.

But as I read this book I remembered a picture. I don't know if I've posted it here before and I know that tonight I won't be able to describe why this photo pierced my soul. Why I printed a copy and moved it from house to house. Why it used to sit above my writing desk. The simplest explanation is that this photo (by Felix Nadar in 1856) captured the passion and madness of Charles Baudelaire. I've loved this photo my entire life. From the moment I first saw it I loved it. I knew I needed to have a copy. I can't really explain way. It's terrible quality. It's blurry and odd, but I love it. Something about it speaks to me. And some days I understand what it's saying.

Book image

I'm not really feeling like writing this week so instead I'll be posting images I like. That way you still get something new but I can take a bit of a break from writing. I found this one years ago and have had it sitting up on my desktop waiting to be posted. I like most of Cindy Grundsten's work but I love this image.

Lori Nix

It's been a while since I profiled an artist whose work I enjoy. I keep a list of artists and always want to share good art. And Lori Nix's work is beyond good. It's downright incredible.

Lori is a Kansas born artist who creates miniature dioramas and then photographs them. In many ways she's a double artist. First is the building of her subjects, wallpapering tiny walls, constructing tiny chairs, sculpting miniature trees. She's a craftsman and a sculptor. But after all the hard work of building is done, then she has to light and photograph the scenes. It has to take a lot of patience because each scene is perfect right down to the last detail. Lori says that it takes about 7 months to build a scene and 2 or 3 weeks to shoot it properly.

Lori has her studio set up in Brooklyn. Her most recent exhibit is called The City, which focuses on what will happen after cities are abandoned by humans. It was her image of the library (seen below) which first caught my attention. The images are all about the decay and destruction of the man-made world mixed with Nature's capacity for producing life. I find them beautiful and a bit disturbing.

Nix has a number of different themes, like Unnatural History (Great Plains seen below) which gives a museum curators view of history and nature. It's all about how they create dioramas and displays. I love Nix's use of black and white which makes them seem like old museum pictures.

I simply had to share Lori Nix's art. I'm in awe of her photography but I'm even more in awe of her diorama building skills. I want to explore her little worlds. Each is so filled with beautiful details. They are nearly perfect.

Bird Books

Over the last couple years I've become a birder. It started innocently enough when I began reading the Birdchick's blog and learning more about birds. I've always wanted to take nature photos and loved her images. But after reading for only a couple weeks I started noticing the birds around me. I bought a bird guide, which eventually became three or four bird guides. I bought a cheap bird feeder and have gradually moved up to good feeders. I can now recognize all the birds that come to my feeder. And I'm starting to venture farther afield to find more birds. I've become a birder.

So it's no surprise that I've started buying nonfiction titles about birds. This past week has been bird book week. I started with Hope is the Thing With Feathers by Christopher Cokinos. Cokinos tells the fascinating and tragic tale of six bird species that have gone extinct: the Carolina Parakeet, Passenger Pigeons, the Ivory Billed Woodpecker, the Labrador Duck, the Great Auk, and the Heath Hen. I was well aware of the Passenger Pigeon but knew very little about many of the other birds. Cokinos points out that Passenger Pigeons were described in the early 1800s as wonderfully prolific. Within 50 years, they were extinct. An amazing reminder of how fast a species can go from populous to gone. Cokinos includes history of the birds, speculation about their extinction, and his own personal journey to recapture the essence of these birds. Many of the birds have been extinct for a hundred years but Cokinos tracks down old specimens, old environments, and personal descriptions written by the people who actually saw them. An amazing book, sad but inspiring.

After the difficulty of extinction, I wanted something a bit more uplifting. Tim Gallagher's In Search of Birds and Wild Places fit the bill. Gallagher is a falconer, a photographer, a birder, and an adventurer. Tim takes the reader along on some amazing journeys to some of the more remote places on earth. He describes traveling in Iceland and Greenland, searching for gyrfalcons and peregrine falcons. He describes hanging off cliffs in icy weather, boating past icebergs, and trekking in places that few people have every walked through. He describes the beauty of North Padre Island, Texas and Churchill, Manitoba. He visits California to try to save the California Condor and Alberta Canada to watch Prairie Falcons. These stories made me want to get out exploring. I want to photograph birds and nature and spend time in places that no one else have visiting. A fast read that inspired.

My next book is A Year on the Wing by Tim Dee. I've heard good things about this one and am excited to start it. I wonder if I should branch out into other types of books. I figure eventually I'll hit bird overload. But for right now I'm enjoying the birds.

Just a Little Tilted

I've been talking about photography a lot at work lately. Our new IT guy shoots photography in his spare time and my boss has a business selling art photography and t-shirts (more on that later). One of my conversations today about photography turned interesting. While I was waiting for my computer to have some software installed this afternoon, I was talking with Jeff, our new desktop guy and he happened to mention making miniatures. The conversation went a little something like this.

Him: It's like creating miniatures in photo.

Me: You mean tilt-shift?

Him: Exactly, how do you know about tilt-shift?

Me: Are you kidding, I'm fascinated by that type of photography. What types of things have you done?

Him: I've taken a couple downtown shots. I just have fun with it.

Me: You'll have to bring them in to show me. I would love to see them. It's something I've always wanted to learn.

Him: It's actually really easy. I can show you how to create them.

At this point I'm salivating. Not only does he do tilt-shift work but he'd be willing to show me how to do it. Of the long list of things that I would like to learn, this is right there at the top. Of course now that means I'll have to actually take some real photos. And pick up photoshop.

arcticnomad

If you've forgotten, tilt-shift photography is taking photographs, blurring the edges and creating miniature scenes from real landscapes. It is taking what are often sweeping aerial views and making them look like models. I've posted some Olivo Barbieri images before but here are some other tilt shift images to get your imagination going.

mcsixth

I'll check with Jeff to see if I can post some of his images.

B Tal

Google Wallpaper

If your Google page looked a little different this morning, that's not by accident. Apparently Google is launching a line of background wallpaper for their website. Rather than the basic white background with search box and a few links, Google lets you customize your page with either personal images or ones from their stock photos. Just sign in to your account and Google will look however you want.

I was excited to see familiar artists like Jeff Koons or Dale Chihuly available for a background. There are a number of public photos as well that are really stunning. It was difficult to pick just one. I went back and forth between a couple images before deciding on this Dale Chihuly as my background. I may change it tomorrow though. I do like the flexibility.

I wonder if this is Google's way of competing with Bing's search engine. I've been going to Bing daily to look at the incredible photography that they have available. They change the image daily and then have links for more information about the location, event, animal, or whatever other subject it depicts. Today's image of Lisbon's Belem Tower was so beautiful that I ended up saving the image in a file I keep.

I'm a huge fan of photography and art so I honestly don't mind if this is competition between the two search engines. I like that I can choose my image from Google, and I love that I get surprised daily by Bing. It's a bit like browsing or searching for books. With searching you are guaranteed to get something you like. But with browsing you can discover something completely new. Both wonderful. And now available on my desktop in beautiful colors.

Michael Paul Smith

As you all should know by now, I'm fascinated by art that's a little out of the ordinary. I love when an artist uses a new technique or medium to bring something completely new into the world. When it comes to Michael Paul Smith's imagery, it's all about technique. What looks like a simple photograph found in an old photo album or attic, suddenly becomes so much more.
Here are a couple of examples of Smith's photography. I love the nostalgic feel of the photos. They are exactly like images my parents had of their houses growing up. The 1950s cars and the old fashioned storefronts that we simply don't see anymore.
Each images is like a little piece of history. But it's a history that didn't exist. What you are looking at are models. Elaborate and beautiful little models. Smith has created little scenes that he then takes out into the real world to photograph.

The trees and the power lines behind the house above are real, everything else is just a model, as is shown below.

Below is a great example of how those models are built. Smith offers insight into how he creates his images on his Flickr page. He mixes the model world with the real one very effectively to create something of a distortion. There are a number of images on his Flickr page that somehow include live actors (usually himself) inside his model. It is a fantastic trick of the eye that makes me wish I spent more time taking pictures. Smith creates his own little worlds and I'm awfully glad he does. Interesting work.

As is typical lately I found this artist through Lines and Colors which has rapidly become my favorite site for art. I am constantly inspired by the artists that the blogger (Charley Parker) writes about. There was also a nice collection of Smith's work on Beautiful Life, a website that I'm going to have to check out further.

The artist with his models.

Olivo Barbieri

I've been meaning to write about Olivo Barbieri's unique photography for a long time now. I was introduced to his work through a blog named Roadside Scholar and was instantly enchanted. I love photography in general but Olivo uses a unique trick to create what look like miniature scenes. And who doesn't love miniatures?

Don't be confused though. The image above is an aerial photograph of the actual Paris hotel in Las Vegas. Barbieri uses a technique called Tilt-Shift to create the illusion of smallness. He blurs the edges of the photographs to give the image a sense of the unreal. We look at the images and see scale models when they were actually taken of real-life objects.

Olivo has normally worked from city to city creating a site-specific series of images. His photos from Las Vegas were the first that I'd seen and they were so unreal that for a while I simply could not believe that he hadn't built a scale model and photographed it. I include images from Vegas, Rome (The Coliseum), and New York. I'm so in awe of this man's work. The ability to create unreal images from real landmarks is so incredible to me that it seems like magic rather than incredibly technical photography. I understand that Olivo has done some videos using the same technique. I'll see about find them and posting them. In the meantime, enjoy more of Olivo's work at a good article by Metropolis Mag and at ArtNet.

Bing

I'm trying to remember when Google appeared on the scene as the primary search engine for the world. Google has easily outstripped all other engines in terms of usage and I would argue, versatility. As a librarian, I know that it is not a great research tool but I will admit that if you have an idea what you are looking for, it is invaluable.

This past year the word has been Bing, a new search engine put out by Microsoft. I've done some comparison work and still prefer Google for most of my search needs. But every morning I dutifully go to Bing.com. I go for the photography. Every day, Bing posts an image as the backdrop for their interface. And every morning I am completely blown away by the image. I'm not sure where they are finding these photographs but I want that source.

The images then offer links to learn more about the animal, place, landmark, etc.... I've learned a lot about different landmarks just by finding an image I liked. I clicked on an image of Stari Most, the Old Bridge in the town of Moster in Herzegovina to find out all about it's history. I learned about the Falkirk Wheel in Scotland after seeing a picture on Bing and wondering what the heck it was. I got to reminisce about my trip to Maui after seeing the image below. This picture was taken at the Black Sand beaches on the road to Hana. I stood on this very beach but my pictures don't come anywhere close.

Bing is not going to be my new search engine. I've done scientific comparisons and simply feel that Google is a better engine. But there is something about serendipitous learning that draws me. It's the same way I love to walk aisle by aisle through a library to see what catches my eye. I'll keep going to Bing to learn new things, to find new places, and to see the beautify of the world around us. For that reason alone, I hope they keep the site up.

Earth Day

I originally had a bit of a rant that I was planning to write for today. I get frustrated with the idea that we only celebrate the Earth one day. And normally we do it in ways that are not particularly environmentally friendly. But the office is letting me where jeans (not sure how that impacts the Earth) so I'm in a great mood. And just can't work up any rightous anger to do my rant. Lucky you!

Instead I want to share some of my favorite Earth pictures. I love photography and some of the ones I have received recently are incredible.

A friend of mine sent me this image of snow rollers this morning. What's a snow roller you ask. When the snow is right and the wind is right, it rolls itself into a ball. Now if nature could only learn to stack them and add coal for eyes.

Taken by Tim Tevebaugh in Idaho last month. See the rest of the pictures here.

While I'm on the subject of ice and snow, isn't this dock just amazing? I love the feet look that it has.

One of the guys at work sent me this stunning image of Mt. Fuji in Japan. I love that people think to send me interesting or beautiful photos they find.


And it wouldn't be complete without some animal/wildlife images. I love this little otter stopping by to say hello.

And last but not least, this mantis that reminds me that this is a celebration. And that I should be thankful that at least one day out of the year people stop and think about what we're doing to the planet. Happy Earth Day all!

Calling on the Carnegies

Every profession has its heroes. Those people who have done more for the profession than others. Strangely librarians have an odd hero to thank. The profession, particularly public librarianship, was changed more than anything by a man who wasn't a librarian. Nor was he really that interested in libraries. And we, both librarians and American citizens, owe him a debt of gratitude. 

Andrew Carnegie didn't start out to build libraries. In fact the idea of a public library, which was city funded and free for the community, was still something of a novel idea. But Carnegie was asked to do something for one of his towns. (a town populated mostly by his workers) So he built them a community center. And then he built them a library. I'm not sure where the idea started that Carnegie was handing out money for libraries but people started writing him letters. Hundreds of letters. Letters from Mayors and rotary clubs and private citizens and investors. 

And Carnegie started handing out funds. His institution built more than 1600 libraries across the country. Mostly because people asked for money. He personally spent $40 million dollars for these buildings, not a small sum in the early 1900s. For many small towns this was the only way they could get a library. There were stipulations to the money though. The town would have to maintain the library and provide upkeep. The town would also have to match a certain amount of funds. It was one of the first times that libraries were designed to be financed by the city. Carnegie built the building, but the city had to do the rest. 

I love libraries. I've been in tiny libraries and massive multi-story libraries and haven't found one yet that I didn't love. For library lovers out there, or even book lovers, check out this page from Curious Expeditions. It includes some of the most beautiful libraries in the world. Some of them can be found in Cynthia Hofer's stunning book entitled Libraries (pictured below) but many of them are simply photos gathered from many different sources that showcase just how incredible libraries can be. I mean it, check it out. You won't be disappointed. 

There were over a hundred Carnegie libraries in Iowa and although some have been torn down, I am vowing to go visit (and photograph) all the remaining ones. This will give me a chance to get into some of the smaller Iowa towns and the excuse to visit some interesting libraries. And maybe even preserve some history before it gets torn down. So although you may not care, expect to start seeing library pictures, hopefully soon.  

Source:Life

Google has been doing some amazing things in the last couple of years. And I'm not just talking about the new data center they are building here in Iowa. (my office helped bring the company in). Des Moines was recently added to the street view images which is pretty incredible. I can literally walk down any of the streets in Des Moines all from the comfort of my desk. Here for example is my favorite lunch place. When I talk about Lucca for lunch, this is where I mean.

Google has also been great about putting book content online. Bookstores and publishers are grumbling, but I still say that the more information that is out there, the better. Education and knowledge are simply the most important resources we have. Without education, society simply isn't possible. So all of these books are now becoming increasingly available online, thanks to Google and it's gigantic servers. (the environmental aspect of servers and data centers I won't get into)

But my favorite new thing that Google has done recently is Life. The company has posted thousands of old Life Magazine photos on their image search. These are original pictures pulled straight from the magazine and searchable by all. To find old Life images, go to Google, click on image search, type in your subject words, and then type source:life. This will search only the Life Magazine pictures. You can also access the entire archive from the image search page. This is a rather impressive archive and a wonderful treasure trove for a history fan.

As I'm a huge Walt Disney fan I searched for him in the Life photos. And luckily, no single person, spent more time getting photographed for Life than Disney did. All interesting shots. Here is perhaps the most famous one going around. This is mostly because it shows Disney smoking. Since the man was a pack a day or two pack a day smoker, I'm only surprised that more photos don't show him that way.

Here are some great photos of early Disneyland and the building of Disneyland. I was in history heaven.

And here is perhaps my favorite picture I've ever seen of Disney. This reminds me of why he was a creative genius. Even if he didn't draw Mickey Mouse (Ubb Iwerks did most of those drawings) he still had a hand in everything. He was naturally curious and just loved what he did.