it is a rare time that i am up for a sunrise

today was one of those rare times.
what i find interesting is not the sunrise itself, but the moment before. when the sky is this interesting blue gray, and you can kind of make out shapes. most of the stars are gone (well here in Long beach the sky is so polluted we don't see stars)
and then the warm light of the sun slowly peaks over the horizon, and everything changes.
gold warm light trickles in to fill the darkness and flat gray light and everything gets more shape and definition. perhaps this is because the source of light is visible and we aren't just light by the reflection from the atmosphere

the sunrises are definitely better on the east coast, but the sunsets here are nice.

gizmodo shooting challenge

i think i am going to be doing the gizmodo photo challenge every week from now on.
the challenges are fun, and it give me an excuse to take more photos.
lets see how it goes.

Disposable cameras

22 Experiments with disposable cameras
I had almost forgot that these still exist.
while looking at these pictures it makes me want to go out and get a disposable camera right now!
i might just do that.
also i think it would be interesting to do an entire project with a disposable camera...

and photo shop of course

Backlog

So i didnt have the internet at home for a while. this meant that i didnt make as may updates (since i usualy update at the end of the day).
But i have been keeping a pen and paper version for the month without internet. here is what you missed

Sept 7

Running around today trying to figure out my elective I took a ride in one of the art dept Elevators. Now this is not a very impressive feat, but while I was in the elevator I noticed the odd polish on the metal wall gave this interesting reflection on the faces of everyone in the elevator. The light source was from the small incandescent in the ceiling but the reflections were these interesting swirls of light, giving a felling of motion almost.

Technically the elective is figured out... but I still want to know if it’s right for me

Sept 8th

More thoughts on FYF

In retrospect I realised how much the sound and lights actually ruined the show for me, and yes in many cases bad tech can totally ruin a show... (Unless it’s Shakespeare in the park) The one band I wanted to see was school of seven bells, so I busted my ass to get across the park from the mountain goats to get a good spot. So first of they did an extra long sound check, that in the end involved one of the girls from the band coming out to make adjustments herself (which were re adjusted by the tech right after she left) then they finally got onstage and every song was bracketed with awful feedback and the band members looking at each other in despair and over to the sound guy with malice. Then there were these projections, which were a series of screensavers and the occasional live clip washed out in saturated colors. Now I know they had decent equipment there. All the boards were road hogs, and it looked like they were using Hippos for the media (although I could be wrong since I got escorted away by security when I went to take a look)

Hippos for those who don’t know come with a wide variety of effects that anyone can figure out provided they have 15 minutes of spare time and a brain. And if it wasn’t a hippo even the most basic media servers have decent effects programs... so why not use one of those programs rather than running the 80s filter. I feel like this is what you get when you hire a group of people who don’t give a crap about what they are working on (Except for the one board op on the small stage) and I think this is a vital lesson to learn. If everyone has a vested interest in what you are creating then it will show in the art, but if your team is just there for the pay check, then they are bringing everything down.

Sept 9^th

Interesting discussion in today’s class... I now have a list of everything I could do wrong in a plot; therefore if I use this as checklist I should never have any technical errors on my plots... I think if I approach everything with a bit more precision I could eliminate most of the major errors I will make.

Sept 12^th

There’s something to the sunset in fall, I am uncertain as to what the quality is that like so much, perhaps it is tied in with the nostalgia and memories of my youth, and returning from school after the first few days of being back, I also miss the smell of dead leaves.

I think there is a big difference to the sunsets I have witnessed around the world too. Here in long beach the sun has this warm almost golden and red quality to it. Up north I feel the sun sets differently. There is a bit less warmth to the sun set. Perhaps this could be due to the proximity to the equator, but I think it could be also attributed to the gross levels of smog in the air. I think there is also a noticeable difference between the seasons.

I man there will obviously be a difference due to global positioning and all that stuff, but I wonder how noticeable it is to the average person...

Sept 14^th

There is a bit of a hill I have to walk on my way home, I was lucky enough to be walking this hill today at sunset. I really liked how as cars drove past me their shadows extended to these long shadows I expect from a sunset, and then disappear.

Sept 16^th

I agreed to work on the Symphony showcase. The main reason I did this is because the idea is extremely interesting, but also I love working on musical shows. Music and light have much in common, and the director believes that light will have to be with the music, so it’s bound to be an interesting show.

Sept 18^th

Today was lefty tech. I stopped by the theatre to see how Heather was doing and to see how lefty was going. Now I had heard that the stage was going to be red but I think I was still kind of surprised when I saw the red stage and the hue of red the stage was. What I think is very interesting, is that it gives off a very nice reflection; I think it’s always a bit of a risk to do something like that, but it almost gives the lighting designer a little bit extra fill light.

I think that’s why I like the showcase room so much, because it has a very light collared reflective floor, even if an actor can’t find their light there’s a chance they are still going to be caught with the reflection from the floor.

Sept20th

I gave my first lecture of the semester today. Surprisingly not a bundle of nerves I was last semester when I gave a lecture. I was surprised and mildly disappointed that many of the people in the class never had high school physics. I feel like this would be something that should not left out of a high school curriculum. Physics are the building blocks of the universe, how can this be ignored in school?

You need to check this guy out

Normally i am opposed to photos of the homeless, and photos of cats.
i find that they are a bit too cliche but Christophe Huets work is amazing.
bonus points for a nicely done website.
the photos themselves were done by other artists and he did the photo shop work, but they are still impressive none the less.



Seriously check it out

i want to get this printed again

i still have the negative

FYF Fest

Or is it just FYF since the last f actually stands for fest?

There were 3 stages, the two big stages had about 20 moving lights (looked like mac 2k profiles)and LED strip lights
the small stage had about 8 moving lights (Profiles as well)
out of the three of them, i think the best run was the small stage. the board ops on the large stages just seemed to run effect after effect with no consideration for the music.
the small stage board op, realy had a feel for the music and the bands styles.
for example, cold case was playing and he turned off all the conventionals and just did a slow sweep that built with the music. whereas on the big stage, with Local natives the board op just threw up strobes and color chases at random intervals.

the small stage also did this really neat effect using a Spirograph gobo in the haze. this is definitely something im gonna use during the drag show if it comes back (since i have the same gobo in my personal collection)