Recently in art + photography Category

This week Sandra and I are working on an iteration or somewhat-redesign of her Debutante Clothing blog. The other night I went over to her house and used a photo of Justin's sister to make a big bold splash of a banner header.

But by the time I got home and all through yesterday day, I felt it was too bold for the rest of Sandra's blog and overwhelmed the content. This afternoon, I plugged my Wacom tablet in, turned on Fireworks, opened up the photo of the roses outside of Sandra's front door that I took on Tuesday evening and started to draw over the photo with colors from her blog.

I wasn't sure if Sandra would like the drawing for her masthead or if she liked our big bold statement, or if I should take the the drawn over roses and weave them into the new masthead I created on Tuesday evening.

Tuesday Evening's Masthead:

This Afternoon's Rose additions to the Bold Banner:

Now looking at the two ideas above, I thought of a subtler iteration:

What do you think?

For a variety of reasons, fast cars and even faster panicked dogs at the vet, the last few photos I have moblogged here have been blurry.

I am happy with them. Yes, blur is good.

When Greg took off before I could capture the photo of him & Ryan in the hot rod, I was afraid that my Nokia N95 could not and would not take the photo fast enough to capture Greg's peeling out on to Electric avenue. But the N95 did get the photo.

Last evening, as I drove north-east to Sandra & Justin's house in Ontario, I wanted to get a photo of the golden Brea Hills that were speckled with oak trees and shrubs. I kept pointing the N95 to shoot while I was driving at the or a bit over the freeway speed limit. Due to the fact that the sun was going down, the light was all wrong and I kept getting a bright sky with dark hills. I decided to fool the light meter in the N95 by pointing it low and then moving it to see a bit of the sky as the shutter was releasing, which caused the white out effect. I love it when I can get a Nokia camera phone to white most the landscape out but leave a few saturated objects, in this case the red car speeding by on the other side of the freeway.

This morning I took Scruffy for his yearly vet check up and shots. He gets nervous and shakes violently when he is at the Vet and the Groomers. This morning it took a while for the vet, Dr. Kali, to come into the examining room, so to distract Scruffy I tried to take photos as he attempted to jump off the exam table and into my arms.

It wasn't that bad. Scruff survived. I love how the N95 focused on his legs & paws on the exam table but everything else is slightly blurred.

Which brings up one of the major reasons I primarily shoot photos with my camera phone: the gift of a good shot within the randomness of very little control and the constraints of capturing good photos with a mobile phone.

Sun. Feb. 10, 2008 - I had the pleasure to join up with the Chennai Photowalk Flickr Group folk to participate in the 4th Chennai Photowalk up Mount Road (Anna Salai) . Good fun, great photographers & conversation.

Video captured by Ms. Jen in Chennai, India, with a Nokia N82.

Uploaded by Ms. Jen on 26 Mar 08, 8.53PM PDT.

About two weeks ago, I received an invitation to join a Flickr beta test. I was intrigued, so I said yes. I had to sign an NDA stating that for the love of a tasty chicken I would not breath a blog, twitter, or in person word that I was beta testing Flickr Video. Yes, Flickr can have my silence in return for uploading 60 seconds of various tasty chickens from India, SXSW 2008, and Scruffy & Belle.

Oh, what a delight. I have had quite a bit of fun over the last 2 weeks uploading videos, really participating in a Flickr group in a way that I have not been interested in or invested enough in before, and watching with baited breath what folks would post as their videos. And then there was the Fridget meme that Derek started...

In all truthfulness, while I appreciate YouTube, Google Video, and Vimeo, I am not drawn into these services. I don't wait to see what will be posted, I only go when someone else sends me a link. If the video is longer than 5 minutes, I don't watch, be it too much work or just plain not interested.

It has been very different with Flickr Video. I am drawn in. I love the short format of 60 to 90 seconds. As the Flickr folk said - think of it as a long photograph. I also love the fact that I can use the same uploader and same Flickr tagging and interface that I use for photos. The user interface is simple and easy to use and not just because I am used to it.

Most of all, I am having fun with video on Flickr in a way that has never been fun before. Thanks, Flickr! Y'all rock.

Photo by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N95, of which the Lifeblog is borked so this photo was uploaded via MT rather than moblogged.

Mon 03.03.08 - Driving towards the 110 southbound on Olympic Blvd., downtown Los Angeles, after having a lovely dim sum lunch at the Empress Pavilion with Megan and Murray McMillan.

Photo taken by Ms. Jen with a Nokia N82.

Fri 02.29.08 - Happy Leap Day!