Don't recall it being blindingly sparkley.
This is not just any board game, this is softly-softly-drive-you-blind-e game
'Jhansee ka Raja'
And in the foreground you can just about make out KP pointing at the contraption, asking .. 'what's this made of ?' ... only to follow it shortly with ... 'you reckon I can touch it' ...
What a hero ...
A sunset sponsored by ... Sainsbury's
Aldo - where cows come to die !
Ohhh what a cruel world we live in .. Sniff sniff ... My heart, it breaks for these 'inappropriately-footed' women.
All that glitters is gold ?
Zara .. Lost to the masses
Hunt of the 'Gatherers'
This is walls ... reporting live (for now) from the 'annual spurge day' ...
It's the season to belt a note
Holding on to dear life ... Or dead
strolling casually through the exhibits I couldn't help but notice that all memorials spoke of the deceased being retained in vaults of some nature ... Safe from the world.
It's interesting how people find ways to hold on to the passing of time and loved ones. Erecting memorials and starting charities so others won't let them forget ... But to what end ... Well, in most cases to 'their end'.
A lit torch will only burn so long.
Rain and wind .. a good thing?
Unless you are moving with the wind, in the same direction, which is what Travis did. Of course it will always rains on you, you stupid mut. That and the fact that you live in scotland, try living underwater, it's dryer than Scotland .. Or Wales for that matter.
EID mubarak to all who read this ...
It always surprises me how people take pictures of each other at the mosque, like tourists ... I suppose it's a testament to their infrequently visits to a mosque ... In which case an urge to document an exception is understandable ... What can I say, I'm packed full with empathy ...
Price for being smart ...
Price for being over smart .... Is a waiting a long que.
Gunners vs the black team?
Exploring for ecstasy
Spent the better part of Saturday evening at an unplugged session with latif balot's sufi music. Very interesting and relaxing ... If only the seating arrangement was a little more comfy.
Sure will try this again ...
Here's to trying and most likely failing ...
What goes 'swing' and misses
This clip starts at his 8th attempt and goes on from there. Giving me enough time to arm myself with my camera.
Suffice to say it was mucho entertaining.
The city limits
The non-mystery solved.
Ramadan over ... time for the chickens to come home .. For lunch course
Time to call it a day
A good way to tell when to call it a day is when you start taking pictures of yourself ...
Look what the bat dragged in
Let's hope the game play lives upto expectations. Did I mention it looks awesome.
Saturday @ Paul's
Lost in transit
It's interesting how you get climatised to dubai demographic if you
don't take a direct flight.
With the western-eastern split of the people around you reflective of
your proximity to the destination.
I'm close ... I can smell it ... Probably not a good thing, or is it ?
T minus 65 min
Power up
If someone knows where I can find a few close to each other near London, do let me know ...
Done for the day
Driving with a hockey stick
On the plus side, I have been told that I have an uncanny ability to make the ball bounce behind the scope-thing before sending it on it's way at a direction that can only be described as something spit out by a random generator, including some outliers making their way behind me.
What can I say ... I'm gifted that way ... especially when it comes to sports. Time to tee up ...
Photo Tutorial - HDR 101
'Do not take picture of a subject with a bright light source behind them' ... all of us with a camera have learned this the hard way. Worry not, HDR is here to save the day.
High Dynamic Range (HDR) is based on increasing the range of information captured in the shadows and highlights. Lets analyse what the hell that really means.
Shadows;
Lets think this through ... You want to capture the detail in the shadows, the dark part of the image. Logic dictates you should over expose the image (refer to basics tutorial; part 1 & part 2). This will completely blow out the background, making the bright parts of the pictures completely white, but revealing the details in the darker areas of the image.
Highlights;
The same argument can be applied to the highlights. Here, we want to capture details in the highlights. To do that you need to under expose the image, to get some of the details in the hot spots. As you can imagine this will flatten the shadows, killing any and all details.
Putting Humpty Dumpty together;
HDR is the merged image, combining the extreme images into one that has the added details in the shadows and the highlights. Usually this involves three images, a normal exposure for your mid-tones (think of this as your average), an over-exposed image and an under-exposed image. When combined they are .... HDR, not be confused with Captain Planet, which requires 4 elements and "heart" to materialize, Ma-ti was soo the token south American guy in the show ... truly a 5th wheel.
However, once you have merged the three images you need to decided how bright you want the shadows to be etc. This is referred to as 'tonal mapping' and usually achieved through levels adjustment (i'll explain levels based on demand, in a later post) to get an image that looks surreal in the sense and dare I say magical !!
Practical application:
Enough theory, now for how its done
- On your camera you will find a setting called ABE which stands for auto bracketing. This allows you to set the over/under exposure brackets or ranges. This avoids a need to manually adjust the exposure between shoots. On my camera if I use a timer to take the shot, with ABE on, it takes the three shots automatically.
- Next you bring the three pictures (shadows, midtones and highlights) into photoshop which will happily combine the three exposure, giving you the HDR.
- Finally, you need to adjust the tones to tease rade out the shadows and highlights to your liking and you are done.
In summary;
This gives a very surreal looking picture which can look very unsettling. The trick with this is to keep it subtle so people can tell there is something interesting about the picture but not be able to put their finger on it. Secondly, since you will be taking 3 of the same shots, it's highly recommended that you employ a tripod unless you have utmost trust in you stability.
With that ... Go forth and HDR ...
Photo - today's lesson
Maths of beauty
“Symmetry defines beauty” .... this should not be news to most of us. Symmetry is all around us both natural and self induced ranging from the wings of a butterfly to that perfectly hung painting because the minute it’s crooked the symmetry of the frame is thrown off (lets ignore the painting for now).
People happily hypothesize about the importance of symmetry but never its driver. What drives nature, and through transitivity us, to seek symmetry? Why is it that all things must have an axis around which the object must be foldable?
My theory ... laziness ... it’s a lot easier for our eyes to process a symmetrical object requiring less process aligning the separate images received by each eye. So the easier it is to process an image the more aesthetically pleasing it is to the eye. That easy of processing is labelled as beauty.
There may also be balancing advantages to symmetry in nature.
As far as our faces go, we “distort” our symmetry through hairdos and accessories so an argument that symmetry is the be-all for all beauty is flawed. With the introduced warping of our appearances we have developed a secondary benchmark for the signs of “beauty” ... wait for it ... the “Jaw line”.
Having taken enough pictures I can definitively say that the most prominent feature of the face is its outline, defined by the jaw which frames the face. If the face is not 100% symmetrical you can always tilt it but a good jaw-line says that you are reasonably proportioned. You can be as big as the marshmallow monster from ghost busters but if you have a defined jaw-line I can guarantee that you will look good in pictures.
So a quick and easy way to look good in pictures is to suck in that double chin at the sound of “cheese” !!!
Wafer thin
It's chow time ...
A boat full of actuaries
Green eye look better on TV ...
Started watching Prison Break this weekend and couldn't help but notice every other character has either blue of green eyes, except of course the tokens. Now it's not a racist thing but green/blue eyes are better on screen. As a videographer, when I take close-ups I would like to enhance the eyes and really make them "pop". To make you audience feel like they are part of the scene you take tight shots and once you are up close and personal you want them to look the actor in the eyes to make a better connection. That also detracts from any imperfections or small marks you have on the face.
For the image above see how there is a small dark rim around the eye. This helps define the eye and enhancese it overall. If I was looking to enhance someone's eye in photoshop that is where I would start, cut it out, drop the opacity and give it an edge ... tha daa .. intant eye pop.
All in all it takes less work in the post and its more engaging to have actors with lighter colored eyes. So if you want to look good on camera or have an upcoming audition do something to make your eyes "pop" on screen and you're golden.
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