Saturday, December 3, 2011

The Graveyard Crow


Meandering back to my place, there is a lot of cool stuff to photograph. I have also just recently moved to the area, and so a good meander is fresh and new!




Oh yeah, and a Graveyard!



I really like Graveyards. Quiet, interesting, and full of life in the midst of the death surrounding it.




I found a crow in here, and started taking pictures. He wasn't letting me get too close, but didn't perceive me as a threat, either.








The Busking Life



Welcome! I had the grandest of pleasures when given the opportunity to follow around two thirds of "Chantel And The Cheap Drunks". You have probably heard all about them.


This is Chantel. You can usually find her kicking ass behind the piano, but every now and then we coax her out to come play. She gets us into trouble, usually, seeing as she is a very bad influence on the normal behavior which we all usually exude. *WINK*


This is Josh. He is known by many names which add to the normal amounts of awesome he is, and magnifies it to astounding levels. Also, he Physics.

It was on this day, which started like any other Saturday, that I met up with Chantel and Josh down at the market. They had finished playing early at the Market due to musical differences. It was on the roof that I made my rendezvous armed with Irished coffee and my camera.

We then set out!



Fresh in the air were the leavings of a Friday night.


Finding a spot, they quickly set up shop and declared street dominance with the ceremonious "Tossing Of The Hat" to indicate awesome was about to happen, LOOK OUT!

Through the clammour of the street, the sweet sounds of a guitar tuning cut the edge off the harsh world around them.


Faces alight with hope, they began the sweet succession of voices intermingling with the vibration of the guitar. Cautious foot traffic weaves around the hat, perplexed and confused by the beauty they are confronted with.


All was not to be that way for long. With great resignation, the local authorities were made to give notice that it was "Not alright" to be awesome where people might be confronted with the chance for happiness. He was an alright dude, though.


"I have found a spot" proclaimed Josh. "This pleases me."


Once again the sweet hum of music fills the air.


It was here that the people realized what was going on, and who it was that played among them. They stopped to take pictures with their phones and stare in uncomprehensable recognition. "That's  Chantel! And a Cheap Drunk!"


Chantel is pleased by this.


Song after song, they play with abandon, knowing what their fans are there for, and delivering it straight to their brains through their ears.

Like A Boss
This is a man who knows about awesome, and has a Ph.D to prove it.  

Literally.

On into the afternoon they played, when most would have collapsed due to musical fatigue.






And on they played. I had to leave, but on into the day the echo of their music would stay with me, spreading the inspiration they sought to bestow.

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Painting with light

 Well, to be honest, this was less "Painting" with light, and more of a "Pollocking" with light, where the Pollock is Happy, and the splatters are glow sticks carried not by inertia, but by children.

The Aurora Borealis? At this time of year? At this time of day? In this part of the country? Localized entirely within your back yard?

It kind of reminds me of the balance board thing on the Wii, where it maps your balance as you Hula Hoop (also to be explored in this post) and shows you your motion at the end.
A brief moment of clarity
The Idea, if you are not in the know, is to leave the shutter on the camera open (on a tripod) and it will capture all of the light as it passes through the frame. You get the same effect if you wave your hand in front of your face, but on "film", it records it and lasts. 
The flash illuminates the scene and records that image, while the shutter remains open to capture the moving glow sticks.

And so, with all of these things set into literal motion, and subsequent stopped motion, we are blessed with the randomness of light and children.





And, of course, there is the grand display of attaching many glow sticks to a hula hoop, and hula hooping into the night!






A small fan with LEDs attached to one of the fans. DO NOT ATTEMPT IF HIGH!! (Or do...)




Calm before the storm

"What storm?"

The trippy storm.