Tuesday 31 August 2010

Do you believe in Jesus?

I believe he existed; he was a traveling teacher who proliferated and explained a certain set of morals and virtues. While these differ slightly from the Aristotelian set by which I tend to abide, I believe he had a lot of good things to say that were, at the time, revolutionary and vital to social and intellectual growth.

Ask me anything

Wednesday 11 August 2010

Lo-Q / It's 3 AM

The fact that I get a bit more alert and focused (and, indeed, artistic) late at night / early in the morning is pretty well-known amongst my friends and family.

Odd, then, that I should stay up til ungodly / unhealthy hours of the night or early morning and then wake up at 8:00 AM sharp every morning without fail - preparation for college I say, but everyone knows it's really preparation for college.

Hey hold on a second. I meant to say that this place - http://20kbps.sofapause.ch/ - is to blame for my continued state of awake-ness. Niche Swiss netlabel for 20 kbit/s bitrate noise/industrial/experimental music, artists from around the world, lots of neat and unique stuff. I can't wait to listen to it - that's right, I downloaded ALL of it (FlashGot helps).

ZIP = album, ~ 1.44 to 8MB size, contains files, convert them: OGG => WAV LL => WAV LQ => AAC m4a.

Used switch and iTunes, Finder's search function, and that's about it. Helps when you wanna find all the .m3u files in a certain batch of music albums and get rid of all of them so they don't mess with your iTunes library.

The topic of lo-fi music got me thinking about photography, inevitably, as all my music-production ventures have so fair fallen flat on their eclectic faces. So why not just remove a few words and make it "lo-fi photography" ...?

I've already done stuff like this, actually. Several of the photos that were in my exhibit:


Needless to say - absolutely no editing. I could have if I wanted. I didn't.

All of these are 640x480 JPEGs taken with a 333px 3.6mm camera that steps down to f 1.8 (but up to what? anyone's guess) and I played with the settings a fair bit. A few of the shots I had back in March (holy crap, so long ago) at Anywhere Left to Turn were actually 160x120 shots I intentionally printed at such a size as they were not at all pixellated (and others that were unrecognizable).

Yes you've probably guessed what this camera is. Hint: I've since downgraded the apparatus of which is is a part.

I've kinda always wanted a really really old digital camera. Then again, I kinda have a cabinet full of 'em. See, the thing is, old film cameras can still take amazingly good pictures. Hell, if you know how to work it, a wartime Leica will take photos that can take a dump on a D3X any day.

But see, digital technology has always had limits. It's always been imperfect in some way. And sometimes, we choose to be restricted by limits that may have been surpassed long ago. This is usually not very beneficial (using aDSL instead of fiber optics) but can also be a great idea (not having a smartphone because I have a laptop).

Why use my D60 for everything? Sure it's a great (discontinued, potentially obsolete) camera. It always has been - since I got it June 2009 - and always will be - until the shutter goes after 60K or 70K iterations. Thing is, I shoot RAW and then do extensive, seriously involved editing and post-processing. Why? Because I can. Because technology is awesome and cool and so is art. And me. Sometimes.

When I don't use my D60, I use my Canon Powershot A550 Nikon E8700 or Canon A75. I had an A60 as well but in typical fashion, dismantled it and promptly lost most of the screws and little electronic thingys that make it work. Oops. I think I was trying to fix it.

My brother better find my A550 before I leave for college or I'll be pretty ticked off. It might be found while I'm away. It might be found next week. It might not even be in the house and he might be a lying sea monkey.

I have smeared enough moths in the process of writing this. Good night and good luck.

JB

remember you can find me now. Facebook. DeviantArt. Search the internet for Nullcoding or one of my other nicknames. you know. those ones.