The last picture show… part 1…

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These days, everyone has a cell phone, and the cell phones all have cameras. Unfortunately, this means that many of us are capturing the last moments of our lives, recorded in digital perpetuity.

I have managed to track down a site on the dark web where some sick, morbid bastard is cataloging these grim photos… and I have taken the trouble of combing each set into a small video clip… or GIF… or whatever you computer savvy people call these little movies.

This is not because I am also a sick, morbid bastard. I just have a slightly twisted sense of humor, and crack squirrels living in my head.

These are the last images taken by Sir Monty ‘Python’ Chewdon, who was on safari in Botswana at the time of his unfortunate demise. He wanted to get close to nature. I think he got his wish.

And trust me, as horrendous as these images might be, I did spare you from having to look at the pictures taken by Lady Chewdon, the safari guide, and the rest of the people on the safari. Those were really horrific.

But, as my mother always says; ‘Nature in the wild is seldom mild’!

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Stick together… part 17… islands edition… part 2…

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What is that?

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It is two of those, more or less, that’s what.

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Or, it is four of half of that… sort of.

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Why does that oddly symmetrical little island look like some kind of insect?

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Oh, sure, I could explain all this to you…

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Or, you could just go back and read some of the earlier posts in this series.

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Stick together… part 16… islands edition… part 1…

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I am not going to explain what this is all about.

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The way I see it is this:

Vietnam Halong Bay cruise boat near tropical island. Aerial phot

If you didn’t read the words in the fist 15 posts in this series…

Vietnam Halong Bay cruise boat near tropical island. Aerial phot

Then you probably aren’t reading these words either…

Vietnam Halong Bay cruise boat near tropical island. Aerial phot

So what would be the point of me typing them?

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Inner light… part 1…

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Okay, technically, this post is really part of my ongoing posts about glass. But I decided that I might lure some new people in with a new title. HA!

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Yes, these are more of the photos I took of that first project I did in my glass blowing class, the paperweight.

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It is still super-close-up-macro-photography.

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But these images were taken with the paperweight on that little stand I have with the LED lights inside it that shift colors, shining up into glass.

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And that explains the cool, ethereal inner glow… and the cool, clever title.

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Stick together… part 15… don’t go changin’ waterfalls edition…

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Waterfalls are cool to begin with.

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I am not trying to improve on nature.

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I’m just having some fun with it.

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Mixing it up a little.

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Showing that there are always new ways to look at things.

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And really, isn’t that all art really is?

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Think of these as alternative facts…

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You know… for nature…

 

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Stick together… part 14… beaches edition…

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What I love about this series is the deceptive simplicity of taking random Google images, copying part of them in Photoshop, flipping that part over to make a mirror image, and then sticking the pieces back together, is that you never know what they will end up looking like.

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Those are both done from the same image of a beach at sunset. This time, I just copied the entire image before doing the mirror effect. I simply made the canvas… the working area of the picture… bigger. In one, I moved the image to the left before copying it. In the other, I moved it right. But when I stuck them together, something magic happened.

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I did the same thing with the second set of images, more or less.

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In one, you get a strange lagoon, and in the other, a weird, symmetrical point of land.

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That one, unless you are paying attention, might seem to be an unaltered photo. I did the cut right through the middle of the sun. Only the kaleidoscope effect gives it away.

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That one, on the other hand, is a little more obvious.

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I give you: the finger… wait… that sounds wrong…

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The thing is… Hey, thing, it is good to have you back… I am still playing around with macro super-close-up photography.

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As per the suggestion of my son-in-law, who loaned me the three macro lens spacer thingies that I have been playing with, I tried using them with my big zoom lens attachment.

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He said this meant I could move a little further back, and eliminate the problem of the shadow of my own lens getting in the photo.

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It did solve that problem, but created another one: now, I am having trouble getting those really close up images I am looking for.

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Don’t get me wrong, these are still nice photos.

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It also does nothing to address another issue with macro photography. The field of focus is small. Only a tiny portion of any picture is in focus. I can get around this by cropping the image to just the in focus sections, but as an example, is any part of the above photo in focus???

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That is a good shot of a tiny star jasmine flower.

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I guess the point is that I am having fun learning.

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Stick together… part 13…

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Okay…

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I swear…

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This is the very last of these posts I am going to do…

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That involve pairs yoga…

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HA!

 

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Muchas classy glass… part 1…

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Okay, I know I already posted a bunch of super-close-up-macro photos of the projects I made when I took that glass blowing class… and, yes, I realize that the title of this series is a stretch, even if you do speak some Spanish… but there is a twist this time.

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You see, this time, I was really still just trying to figure out which of the three macro lenses gets the best results… and I suddenly remembered something my wife got me when we were in Maui. It was a glass jellyfish, encased in a flat-bottomed glass teardrop, the shape and size of which reminded me of my paperweight, the first project I made… yes, this one…

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So anyway, after taking a couple of photos…

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Just as a test, you know…

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That is when I remembered the jellyfish… which came with a little stand that you can plug in, and it has LED lights on the top that change color. It makes the jellyfish look really cool, and I wondered, what would happen if I put the paperweight on it…

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And I have to say, the results were spectacular.

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Not only does it fill the glass with an unearthly, ethereal glow, but the colors change, so I could take two or three pictures in the same place, and they would all be different… which I did, as you will see in the next few posts in this series.

Also, try saying ‘unearthly ethereal glow’ five times really fast.

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Stick together… part 12…

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I know, I know, I am stuck on this yoga part of my series where I take images from Google and copy part of it, flip it over, and do a mirror image thing… which is ironic, being stuck on something, given the name of this series…

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But the thing is… hey, thing, haven’t seen you around here lately!… that this is just so fun to do, and I never know how the images will end up.

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I think the part I like so much is deciding exactly where to select on the image for the best result.

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The possibilities are endless, and they are all amusing in their own way. Sometimes, I do it a bunch of times, deleting the new layer and trying again, to make it just a little more weird.

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I will leave you with the original image below, for anyone who cares.

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And I swear, I am only doing one more doubles yoga post, before I move on to other things.

 

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