100!

Believe it or not readers, it's Archipelago's 100th blog post!
So for the special occasion I made a few '100' themed photos. The first one, with 100 dots on a bunch of domino's, the second with a 100 block Duplo tower, and the final with 100 books out of my bedroom. One thing I learned; 100 books takes up a lot of space! I had to make a vertical panorama with two landscape pictures; something I've never done before. So, a welcome to my new readers (Maggie), a thanks to those who've been reading for a while, and a special tip-of-the-cap to those who are reading their 100th Archipelago post!
Archipelago Photography: insulae de cogitum lumenque, maritus cum nomen.

Photo Workshop

If you are a photographer in London, you should really look into the London Camera Club. Yes, I am the only one there below 40, but, it is a fantastic way to learn new tricks and techniques. When I went to the meeting the other night (we meet thursday nights from 7:30-9:30) I was shown some fantastic new tricks for photography. The coolest being Black Light Photography. What you do, is you get a black (uv) light and shine it on a subject that has been painted with phosforescent paints. it works really well when you put the paint on the back of glass figures, as shown above, because the light reflects through the subject, giving you a different image at every little angle. I cannot wait to try this for myself. Look for that coming up soon, whenever I get the free time. The second image is another one I made at LCC, but this one was just a quick macro work shop.
Archipelago Photography: insulae de cogitum lumenque, maritus cum nomen.

Knittin

So, aside from Photography and music, I also knit. Granted, I started this scarf four years ago, and finished it last week, but I think that should still count. Th model in the picture in one Parker Lecasse, who I've known forever, and was more than happy to make her modelling debut.

March Break Slideshow

Okay, so yes, the discovery of Movie Maker has made me slide show crazy. But I can't help it, it's just so easy, and so cool. And it solves a pretty good problem for me. I get really annoyed when people just take my photos of the Internet, and don't even bother to let me know, that they are stealing something that I worked hard on. It may sound bitter, but only if you take it as a given. I realized that to protect my ownership of individual images, and still share them with the Internet (and also my mom, who bugs me to post pictures often) i can make them into a slide show. This is a pretty good example.
For reference the bio on YouTube is: A slide show of photos and videos made on March Break when 8 Walkers (Jane, Mike, Melly, Trev, Alex, Maggie, Abby, and Kendra) and Rio all visited Grand Bend for a few days. the video follows us hanging out, walking to the (frozen) lake, painting the house, and seeing the Tundra Swan migration.

All the music is by Weezer, on albums before they sold out.

Archipelago Photography: insulae de cogitum lumenque, maritus cum nomen.

Digital Negatives

A lot of people, when hearing the word "negative" and "photography" in relation to each other, would firstly think of a digital photo, photoshopped into negative.
15 years ago, most people would think of film negatives. Another by-product of this new digital world. I often express how much I miss film, but please don't take it as anything negative about digital. I love digital photography, but I just wonder "Why can't digital and film co-exist?"
Archipelago Photography: insulae de cogitum lumenque, maritus cum nomen

Stop-Motion

So this March Break I tried something that I've been meaning to try for a while: Stop-Motion Video. I took a few old Playmobil toys and wrote myself a little story. Then I set up the toys and my camera. I made a photo, moved the toys as little as I could, then moved it again, and repeated. I made 395 photos along the length of this story. Lay them out in a video with each taking about 0.8 seconds and you have some stop-motion.
Aside from the story, I do wish that I had taken better care to make the motion in the photos match up with real time; so that the scenes would all take the amount of time that they would in reality. Instead of some scenes being too quick because a lack of pictures.
Technically speaking, it was a lot more simple than I had originally thought. A few considerations: 1)It is beneficial to use a small-memory setting because the quality of the photos is not paramount as they are going to be in a video and it saves space like crazy. 2)Make sure not to adjust the camera except in slow, broad strokes, where it only moves a little bit per frame 3)And finally, don't even bother without a tripod. It's 100% essential.
Archipelago Photography: islands of thought and image, connected with a name

An Octodecem of Classic Literature

I've realized recently that I've been reading books way below my reading level. I finished reading The Historian about a year ago and ever since I've been reading essentially kids books. There were a lot of great series started when I was a kid and as they continued I kept reading them. Except now they're pre-teen books and I'm almost 18.
So, I made myself an ultimatum this march break. I picked out 18 (the Latin word for 18 being octodecem, hence An Octodecem of Classic Literature) of the classics as pictured above. I am going to read these 18 before I myself am 18. That's what I've decided. The books are
Frankenstein
20,000 Leagues Under The Sea
Journey To The Center Of The Earth
Around The World In 80 Days
The Adventures Of Sherlock Holmes
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
The Three Musketeers
Moby Dick
Wuthering Heights
Oliver Twist
A Christmas Carol
A Tale Of Two Cities
Pride And Prejudice
Kidnapped
Treasure Island
The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyl And Mr.Hyde
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

(For those who were wondering, the tunnel-motion effect in the second two photos, was done by zooming in while exposing the picture, causing the gold lettering on the surrounding books to blur in a line towards the main book. the two photos are supposed to represent me choosing which books my first and second would be.)