Chrysler Building

Chrysler Building
Originally uploaded by Drhaggis.
I'm sorry, poor neglected Blogger blog. I do love you very much. Here is a fine photo I took whilst in New York. There. That makes it much better right? Right?

Cheap photography tricks

Last week I took some pictures in downtown Calgary. This one looked good on the camera preview, a nice contrast between the landmark Calgary Tower being dwarfed by newer office buildings. But still being a noob camera owner, I didn't really get the exposure right.



So I opened the picture in Picnik and tweaked the saturation and contrast until it looked interesting.


Then, employing the cheapest design trick of them all. I added some text in the most acceptable font of them all: Helvetica.


Now you know a dirty, cheap photography trick: don't be a hack like me, be original.

Diagram of my online presence

To keep straight the details of all my wheeling and dealing on the internet, I have created this little chart. At first glance it's a mind-numbing mess. Subsequent looks confirm this.

The Slashboing Empire

What it all means to me:

I post to each Flickr, Blogger, Twitter, and Livejournal by logging into each, or via email (which I seldom do). To read all the comments made on my posts, I only have to check Hotmail and Flickr.

What it all means to you:

To read everything that I contribute to the internet, you only have to check my LJ account: drhaggis.livejournal.com and my flickr account: flickr.com/photos/drhaggis. Everything I post to Blogger gets posted to Twitter, which gets bundled with its own content to be fed to Livejournal.

However this has recently changed. The "Loudtwitter" service I was using to bundle twitter missives to livejournal is down, and is unlikely to come back. Meaning I need to find a safe and suitable replacement.

I have also updated the format of Slashboing.ca, in an attempt to keep looking up to date. Let me know what you think!

Star Trek Punk

The California punk band, "No Kill I" rock the house with this track.

A Pirate's Life For Me

A Pirate's Life For Me
Originally uploaded by Angus Blacksheep

Happy Talk like a Pirate day everyone!

Fake San Diego Comic-Con

If you are unable to attend an exciting convention, one can attend vicariously through the internet. Enough attendees twitter, flickr and blog and their experiences to give those at home a good feel for what they are missing. If you want to take a more active role while sitting on your couch (or behind a desk) you can attend the fake version of the convention.

After seeing fakesxsw posts from people who couldn't be at SXSW, I started up fakeSDCC, a stay-at-home shadow-con for San Diego Comic-con. Part convention satire, part larp, people are playing along, pretending their work desk is a guest signing table or posting about their clever memorabilia finds.

Play along on your blog or twitter, if you want, and I'll save you a seat in the Thundercats/Voltron crossover movie panel.

Twitter posts for FakeSDCC

52 Weeks of Video

I have started another year-long project on flickr. For a whole year (September 2006-2007), I took a daily self-portrait for the 365 Days project. This was a great experience, though daunting. I attempted to slow things down in 2008, and started taking a weekly self-portrait for the 52 Weeks project, though somehow this proved more difficult than the daily photograph.

Time has passed and I was itching for a new project, when I was invited to the 52 Weeks of Video project. Since Flickr started accepting short videos, there has been much controversy, but more importantly, there has been much creativity from the users. This new weekly video group was just what I needed to keep me creative and busy with my camera.

This is what I put together from a toga party yesterday:



If you want to follow along, my video set can be viewed here.

Previously on Slashboing

• Start of 365 Days
• Start of 52 Weeks
  

Steampunk Newsreel

Filmed during International Steampunk day meetup at Heritage Park in Calgary, Alberta, I have created a short steampunk newsreel based on some of my friends' cosplay characters.

It was a hoot to make, I don't think I can be stopped making more.



Music is the "Hot Time March" by The Edison Concert Band (1890's)

The Airship Destroyer

This is a great steampunk film featuring airships, tanks, and explosions. Now that I have the ability and desire to make little films for flickr, I've been searching for public domain and creative commons stock film that I can incorporate into my own mediocre clips. Sifting through The Internet Archive, I found this fantastic film from 1909 by Walter R. Booth, and had to share it. Booth also made a film called "Too much Sausage" which I have to see.

Paris Videos

I have discovered that the movie editing software I have doesn't completely suck. I have started going through some of my videos, with their lame sound and questionable purpose, and modifying them into something better.

Here are some of the Panoramas of Paris I filmed last year, and smushed them together with some 'marker' photos and appropriate music.

Expect more of these as I go through my library for inspiration. They will be posted as I complete them to my flickr account.

Happy Halloween!

Jack O'Lanterns 2008
Originally uploaded by Drhaggis.

We have finished carving our Jack O'lanterns for this year. We have a mix, some complex stencils, some simple ones and a stem-nose.

Also to note twitter is supporting image replacements for some cool Halloween emoticons. I reprint them here for reference and mayhem:

`@

(|:|/)

////Ö\\\\

>o<

8-#

∑:*)

+-(

[:-]-I-

( | )

}:o{

<|:~(

X-/

:-[

DragonCon Ends

I'm back from Dragon*con 2008! I have started uploading pictures to my Flickr account, so watch that space.

I will be posting a full report later, but I'm still in decompression mode, trying to stave off the Post Con Blues. After the big emotional high and physical challenges of a big convention, coming home is a shock to the system. No matter how well things go, I leave feeling inadequate, believing I could have done things better. I could have gone to more panels. My costumes could have been better. I could have been more adventurous. I could have taken more pictures. I could have been less of the person I am, and more of the person I want to be.

This year was probably the best yet, and we will return, because I don't think I can stand missing moments like the one captured here:

Anachrotechnofetishism: Artifacts by Pioneers of American Steampunk

Anachrotechnofetishism: Artifacts by Pioneers of American Steampunk
Originally uploaded by exoskeletoncabaret.

Long before the age of the internet, and well before the cold efficiency of the assembly line, existed fantastic and terrible machines, run on hope, sweat, and steam. It was a time in which form and function lived in sin, and everyman was a revolutionary.

This is a showcase of 13 American artists united by broad geography and narrow aesthetic.

Marrying narrative and nostalgia to design and technology, we imagine the triumphs of the past overriding the failures of the present to create from the ruins and detritus a dazzling future-perfect.

September 12 - October 3, 2008
Opening Reception: September 12 6:00 PM - 10:00 PM

Suite 100 Gallery, 2222 2nd Ave, Seattle, WA 98121 (206) 956.3900

Ely rhymes with freely

I was in Ely, Minnesota for a week on business. I was very busy, but I did manage to get out and take some photos. Ely is a small mining and fishing resort town, which makes for some interesting architecture. I'm a sucker for vintage and well worn signs, and here the bar signs seemed to be from the 50's. There are are also great rusted out and preserved historical mining implements to be gawked at. One day I came back to the hotel, and the parking lot was full of antique cars. Apparently there were a few steam cars driving around town, but I didn't catch any of those.

However I did spot a cool boarded up castle-style mansion of sorts. The signs said it was being renovated into condominiums.

My flickr set is here for your Ely viewing pleasure:


Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

Ninja/Pirate flowchart

Ninja/Pirate flowchart
Originally uploaded by Drhaggis.

A new theory in ninja /pirate relations is under consideration. Inclusion of the oft ignored "cowboy" transitional phase may be the first breakthrough in years.

Paris: Photography update

I have spent the last several nights uploading photos I took in Paris to my flickr account. I had +860 pictures to review and I uploaded them at full resolution, so it took quite a while.

I picked over 300 pictures and a few videos to share, so I won't be posting them all here. The set is in chronological order, with the oldest pictures first, so you can follow my trip along, monument by monument.

I used specific date tags if you want to view each day on its own:
10 APR | 11 APR | 12 APR | 13 APR | 14 APR | 15 APR | 16 APR

Here are some cool monuments and Museum tags to view:
Louvre | Eiffel Tower | Museum of Arts and Metres | Notre Dame Cathedral

I was downloading pictures off my camera every night for backup, so if I ever lost my camera, I would at least have all the previous pictures safe. Reviewing them nightly I was getting annoyed as the inside/no flash shots mandated by most museums were coming out blurry and the resolution of my videos was terrible.

I still managed to score some great shots from the trip, like this tower "upskirt" so it wasn't so bad in the end, but the shortcomings of my camera became quite clear. These issues were echoed by a CNet review that came out after I had purchased the camera, so don't be surprised if a new camera is in my future.

Nam Nam Nam

Nam Nam Nam
Originally uploaded by Drhaggis.

I have LOL'd this map. Let me show you it.

Paris by Arrondissement

Paris is a beautiful and heavily photographed city. No seriously. But you don't have to take my word for it. Here is a great sampling of flickr photo groups delineated by arrondissements of the city.

• First
• Seventh
• Eighth
• Ninth
• Tenth
• Eleventh
• Twelfth
• Thirteenth
• Fourteenth
• Fifteenth
• Sixteenth
• Eighteenth
• Nineteenth
• Twentieth

Voila!

Image:Paris Old Metro Signboard
Originally uploaded by pedrosimoes7. CC licence: Attribution 2.0 Generic

How I spent my trip to Chile

I spent my recent trip to Chile at work in a maintenance shop in an open pit mine. My work can send me almost anyplace on the planet. There is the possibility of ending up in Greece, Croatia, or Guinea. There is also equal likelihood of ending up in a very small town in Illinois or Minnesota. Some of our trip itineraries look like the the doted-line-on-a-map montage from an adventure film. However once we end up where we are going, work is work, and a shop is a shop and there is little time to sightsee.

My trip to Chile was typical, with a total of forty-fife minutes of free time in La Serena, a popular beach resort. However I took a lot of pictures, enough to gain the moniker "paparazzi" from the local guys we were working with. I tried to take pictures of everything I ate, at the request of Mr. Smith, however the formality of working lunches and business meetings made this difficult. I did however eat very well, and got to sample a lot of typical local food. Pastel de choclo, Pisco Sours, and Cazuela de pollo (left) made this trip very comfortable.

My hotel was across the street from Iglesia Santo Domingo, a great looking church and a popular destination. My room overlooked a palm tree and a pool. Very nice indeed.

I wish I got a picture of the LAN airlines stewardesses. Changing planes in Miami, I watched ten air hostesses go through security together. The LAN airlines outfit has retro red skirts and neckerchiefs. The temporal displacement of travel and timezones made the sight very surreal, as if they were getting ready to board in 1962.

It was a good trip over all, despite the long hours and short-notice inconvenience.

[Chile Trip Photo set on Flickr]

52 Weeks

After finishing the 365 days project last September, I have been both relieved that I didn't have to carry my camera around anymore, and itching to start a new project.



I decided to join the 52 Weeks project to fill the photographic void in my timetable. It is a similar project, wherein one takes a weekly self portrait and posts it to Flickr. This may be harder to do, without the constant burden of creativity, the ability to slack increases.

One may think that with a week spent planing, setting up and executing a photo, the quality and creativity of each shot should be superior to that of a daily photograph. However week one has me inserting the "Rock Band" headstock in my mouth.

More on that later.