Glass roof and glass bottles letting the light through. Rain water running down the surface from a drainpipe on the wall above. Glass bottles are perched like pigeons on a beam below the skylight. Bright blue sky and white clouds scud past high above. The roof of the Spode museum building is visible behind the bottles. This was in the ‘Factory Floor’ conference and party room at Spode. I like the conjunction of the glass roof with the glass bottles is pleasing, it is also interesting to see the metal industrial chimney rising above the roof.
Trees and roots and cars reflected in a photo, then filtered digitally in various ways. I have buzzing ears today so I don’t want to spend a long time describing what I’ve done to the photo. I could say my whistling ears have been partly responsible for this, undulating noise, like a tide whispering in and out, and the picture seems to be covered in dirty ice that lumps up over the surface? Anyway, it’s just an experiment for today. A bit of synesthesia perhaps?
I think it’s a good idea sometimes to take a different view for an image. In this case my friend sent me a photo from three years ago. I used a mirror on the wall to frame the people in the photo. He also sent me a couple of other photos I’d taken, and completely forgotten about. Those both have photos of windows where the view outside and the objects inside are framed by the window. By the way I think the mirror was framed with wooden sticks?
Symmetry makes interesting patterns. I took a few photos of my kitchen window ledge a few days ago and then tried using a vertical mirroring to create something different and unusual. Something you wouldn’t see unless it was in a reflection. I always think it’s worth doing this because it can look really alien. This photo has a large cat doorstop in it at the back, a Spanish pot with a tile design pattern and a large, dark pink cactus. But I can see a face, with pink hair and a moustache at the front with dark eyes and nose? The cats could be like conjoined twins, like a Greek mythological monster. And the cactus leaves in the middle seem to show a green face with an open mouth. Why not try this yourself?
WordPress keeps telling me my phone is full. I know! I keep trying to delete photos but it’s almost impossible. There are thousands of them. There’s lots of other things, I am not sure of half of what’s on here….
So I think I will have to buy more memory. Its funny how real memories are subsumed into a digital memory. If you don’t have a photo of it, it didn’t happen? Case in point, the recent death and funeral of the Queen. People have always recorded their lives throughout the ages, for example look at cave paintings. Then art throughout the ages, paintings for people who could pay, or sketches by people who had the means or ability to draw or paint. Then deguerreotypes (not sure of the spelling) became popular, painted portraits turned into slow motion photos that took time to take and heads had to be clamped in place to get a clear image. Box brownies, single lens reflex, eventually digital cameras, then phones which took a few photos. Now, the mobile phone is a hand held computer… But it still gets full.
The human mind can hold more information, but it’s not stored in a logical order. Links from the past suddenly reach out and grab your attention. Clearing a human brain of memory is not a good thing, and unless it happens through illness, age or injury, causing degradation of the brain structure, it is to be hoped that people can build memories (good or bad?), not lose them.
I joined two photos and blurred them with photodirector to give them a blurred, oily effect. I like the way the clouds have become puffed and swirly. The line between the trees and sky has darkened and become almost castellated. Some subtle blues on the left side flow slightly into the right. I like the way things are slurred and smoothed. I just like it.
Playing with pattern again, four verticals mirrored. Based on a petunia in a hanging basket. Symmetry is such a wonderful thing. The purple and green work well together. I’m interested in the structure that has been created by duplicating the shapes. These could also be strange alien creatures…. Or even squids!
I thought it would look good! Symmetrical fun! It would be great to actually have plants that were this shape. Perhaps a bit of genetic engineering? Why not have fun with your photos? Keep an eye out for things that might make a pattern and use something like the layout app I have on my phone to get creative…..
Staffordshire University is holding its first degree shows for a couple of years. We went to see the fine art show today. Its also on tomorrow. I thought the show was one of the best I had seen in years. (we go most years). There was a lot of interesting images and ideas. Some exceptional painters and thought provoking installations. I decided not to take photos as each of the students will have their own copyright and I didn’t have permission to take pictures of their work. If you are in the area tomorrow pop in and take a look? Check on Google for opening times. Staffordshire University, Shelton, Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire.
Look at the size of the hand in the background, apparently stroking this cat? If it were really that size the cat would be as big as a pony! How does this work? The cat was very close to the camera and appears large, the hand is my hubby’s, he sat about a foot away and this is his right hand, furthest away from the cat. It’s a bit blurred because it’s at the back. This is called depth of field. If you think of a photo as being in layers from the closest layer to the lens going backwards in slices then the deepest part of the feild of view is at the back. If you have a shallow field only the things at a certain distance will be in focus. With a deep feild all or most of the photo will be in focus. This is most noticeable in the deep field view of the universe with the Hubble Space telescope. In the pictures from that you can keep zooming in to see more and more detail. Sorry for the non technical explanation!
Mallaband-Brown 