Keeping it simple

Today we did 'simple' - as in taking delight in small blessings; like a drive to New Brighton, lunch at the pier and a short walk on the beach with my lady. There is a certain purity about a spring day, a soft salty breeze and the sound of surf gently breaking on the beach, that erases (temporarily, anyway) the weightier and more intractable obstacles to life. After that we put the car through a car-wash, so we all came home feeling a little fresher than when we set out.

Make like paint

Occasionally I like to make my photographs look a little less photographic and a little more drawn or painted. Over the years I have tried a lot of software to accomplish this with varying degrees of success and lack of. This last few days have been a concerted effort to find which software could produce the best results.

I had previously tried Virtual Painter 5 (now no longer available), Corel Painter (now only available as part of  a $600 package) and a few others that escape my memory (i.e. not memorable - literally).

This time I looked at four packages. I excluded anything costing over $100 as being too expensive for the use I would make of it and ended up looking at:
FotoSketcher (free),
GMX photo Painter (about $50),
Dynamic Auto Painter ($100) and
Snap Art 4 ($100).

First the exclusions;
Dynamic Auto Painter has a lot of people rooting for it. I didn't like the results. I really tried with this software, processing my test picture through about a dozen filters and post processing steps. The results were unconvincing. I also didn't like the way it messed with the colours. While there were detailed differences between the filters, the overall effect was sameness and a lack of differentiation. It’s also an overly complex program to come to grips with. Big fail.

GMX photo painter was much better. There are heaps of controls and, with some effort, good results could be obtained. But to get good results does require a lot of trial and error and patient work with a stylus. Don’t even think of using this program with a mouse! I liked this program a lot and if cost is an important factor then its a reasonable pick despite one or two little niggles (like the painting not going all the way to the top and left edges of the picture). I only really excluded this program because my final choice was just so much better. A free trial is available if you want to give it a try.

I’m keeping two of the programs:
FotoSketcher is brilliant for a free program. It doesn't have as many filters as some of the other programs but what it does have are very flexible. I found the best way to use this program was to produce a few JPGs with different settings and to combine the layers in Photoshop to produce the finished piece. In fact this is the strategy that I use with both my keepers. If you just want to play around and produce some reasonably impressive results then download FotoSketcher and give it a go.

My best keeper was Snap Art 4 from Alien Skin. It’s the easiest program of the four to learn and the results it produces from a single pass are truly impressive. However, produce separate layers for underpainting, body and details to combine in Photoshop and the results really surpass anything else I have ever tried. If you don’t have Photoshop then you can mask different setting from within Snap Art but I simply find using Photoshop easier. This program is a wonderful blend of power and ease of use. It also works as a stand alone program and as a plugin for photoshop, lightroom and other  graphics programs.

Here are my two test pictures (original photos from http://www.morguefile.co.nz/) processed in Snap Art 4 and Photoshop (view full size):

Deep breaths, people

So, it's all over for another three years. We didn't get the government I would have liked, but we also didn't get the government I feared. What we did get was the government best equipped to run the country. Confused?

I would have preferred a competent government with compassionate social policies that could have carried this country forward to a better future for all its citizens. In some people's eyes that would make me a centrist or perhaps a centre-left voter. Unfortunately there wasn't a choice of voting in any leftward direction at this election. The left were united in only one thing - getting rid of John Key. There was absolutely no evidence that having achieved that goal there was any competency to run a country - the bickering and infighting that would have resulted would have paralysed New Zealand for the next three years (if they had lasted that long). New Zealanders didn't vote 'right' so much as they voted for stability - absolutely in line with the New Zealand psychi in my view.

As well as no demonstrable evidence that the left had any cohesiveness, or ability to manage NZ Inc. there was the spectre of Dotcom being behind at least a part of any government. As Dotcom admitted himself afterwards, the Dotcom brand had become 'poisoned'. I think it's a shame that we lost Hone Harawira in the process - I didn't often agree with him but he was a good voice to have in parliament. Shame.

Which brings me to the brokenness of our party political system. Elections should be about policies and the direction the country is headed in. This election had very little about policy; it was about getting elected and stopping other people getting elected - by fair means or foul. The policy debate, as little as there was, was lost in the noise of the bar-brawl. Indeed the little policy there was could have well been characterised as a series of election bribes (from both sides). I think it's time we demanded better of our politicians.

How about each political party being required to publish a couple of statutory documents three months out from an election. The first document is a brief ‘Vision’ document of where they would like to see New Zealand in 25 years time. Let’s set a word limit on that to discourage waffle and political BS. The second document should be the party’s 10 year business plan for NZ Inc., spelling out how they intend to move towards their vision. If we had those two documents we might have a chance of knowing what we were voting for every three years.

Of course coalitions would require compromises but an incoming coalition government  would need to identify which policies from each coalition partner were going to be pursued and publish a revised business plan and vision at the beginning of their term. It’s about transparency of intent and accountability of action. We, the people of New Zealand, need to know clearly what our politicians are going to do when we elect them and to be able to hold them accountable for their actions while in government.

Maybe there are other and better ways to achieve transparency and accountability but it seems to me that requiring our politicians to be clear about what they intend, provides a good basis for both.

A weekend of Hobbits

Ballerina Hobbit had a fourth birthday party this weekend and hobbits from all over the Shire descended upon Hobbiton.  Considering how quickly hobbit gatherings can get rather unruly, this one was very well behaved – the castle was not demolished and most of the food was eaten rather than thrown. And yet the hobbits seemed to totally enjoy themselves and the big people found time to relax, chat and enjoy the day.

Two of the hobbits were still here on Monday morning when I awoke bleary-eyed and paddled into the living room in my dressing gown. “Gandad, Gandad,” the smallest one cried, tugging at my beard for attention. “Yes, little one?” I managed, wondering why hobbits seem so bright so early. “And its not ‘Gandad’; it’s ‘Gandalf’ if you please.

Pebble power

To be honest, I’ve been a bit of a “wearables” sceptic. I gave up wearing a watch about ten years ago – a sort of two finger salute to being driven by the mechanics of time. So, when wearable computing started to be ‘the next big thing,’ I was like, “nah, don’t need it”. But then I got a “Pebble” smart watch to try out and I realised that I have needed one for quite a while.

I have two use cases for this wearable – when I am at home and when I am in the car. At home I seldom have my phone on my person – I usually leave it someplace and then fail to hear it when I get a call, message, email etc. When driving, I want to know whether the call is worth pulling over to respond too without fumbling in my case or pocket for the phone. The Pebble addresses both these needs and, in addition, becomes a general first-line interface for the phone, meaning that I pull out the phone to check it far less often.

The phone talks to the Pebble via Bluetooth (in my case, Bt v4 on the Pebble and Bt v3 on the phone). The connection seems rock solid, and reconnects seamlessly when the Pebble has been out of range from the phone.

Out the box, the Pebble has only basic functionality and I quickly added two key apps – “Notification Center” which replaces the Pebble’s limited notifications with any notification that the phone and its apps are able to generate. And secondly “Wristponder” a $2 app that can send canned SMS messages from the Pebble (useful in meetings or when driving). Both these apps have an Android component that lives on the phone. A third app “Pebblets” provides a calendar, calculator, timer, weather, stocks, and RSS feeds and lives solely on the phone.

Being the size of a watch it has a very limited interface but enough to read short email messages, texts and check the weather. The canned messages feature of “Wristponder” is brilliant for acknowledging texts or providing limited information like “running late be there soon” without having to stop to type the message on the phone.

Pebble works with iOS and Android devices (but not Windows Phone or BlackBerry) and costs US$150 in its basic form (shown above) and US$250 for the ‘Pebble Steel’ version. If you thought that Pebbles were for skimming across the pond or providing interest at the bottom of a fish tank, then this Pebble might make you think again.

Living the dream

When I started this blog in 2011, I used (and still do) the tagline "A rather indirect ramble through the aft end of life". However that's not been strictly true; in the last four years the blog has mainly been about my ramble in relation to photography and picture making. Yes, making pictures is a big part of my life - there are three cameras within arm’s reach (not including my phone) even as I write this - but there is more to this ramble than pictures. To be honest, I've been a little afraid. There are other dimensions to this back end of life ramble, but they tend to be more personal, more about the vulnerable 'me', the 'me' that would feel safer if it remained in the background. Those other dimensions might also be of no interest to others and bringing them up might only confirm that I have just become another 'boring old fart'.

Yet, unless I flesh things out a little more, the record of the ramble will be missing all the peripheral aspects that inform and motivate even my picture making. Life is so much more than a series of stationary images; what fills the gaps between? If the pictures are the 'what' everything in between becomes the 'why'. So, from here on, I'll still be posting the pictures but I'll try, when I am aware, to talk about the 'why' of things too, starting with this ...

Back in 2008 I turned 60. At the time I wrote “Sixteen or sixty” an upbeat reflection on why I was making pictures again:

“Sixteen or sixty?  Say both words with less than perfect enunciation and they can be mistaken for each other.  And if, in my sixtieth year, I look at my life from the corner of one eye, I can almost believe that I am sixteen again.

“At sixteen my passion was photography. It was a passion played out on a budget, with cobbled together darkroom equipment in a bedroom blacked out with plastic sheets and prints rinsing in the bath.  It was a passion that I wanted to be a profession.  Perhaps I didn't want it bad enough but, in 1964, no one wanted an apprentice photographer and so I became a draughtsman in the construction industry and, eventually, migrated to the IT business. It paid the bills and served me well. “Somewhere along the road I married and, with the advent of a family, I lost the darkroom. As the family grew, my camera bags began to shrink and, as the equipment and spare time shrunk, so did my passion for the art of photography.  Then, around 1998, I laid hands on my first digital camera.  After a thirty-four year downward slide a ten year climb back started and now, in my sixtieth year, I am producing pictures again - perhaps not great pictures but good enough to be much better than those from 1964.
“In his "Last Lecture", Randy Pouche talked a lot about realising one's childhood dreams. He realised a lot of his before he died and he helped a lot of other people realise theirs.  And the point is this - its never too late - my dream may have had to wait for more than forty years, but it feels like I am sixteen again and loving it.”
Back in 2008 life seemed to be all glitter and endless possibilities...

to be continued ...

Shown in NY

It's an odd world - when the email arrived saying that my work was to be included in a New York exhibition at the “Soho Arthouse,” I thought “Yea, right” (seen too many Tui ads) – “I’ll believe that when I see it”. It seemed little different from those emails stating that I had won a gazillion dollars in a lottery that I had never entered.

Then, later I saw this blog post on the two-day exhibition - announcing the launch of a new art website called “Crated” - and there it was, “Akoroa by night” in this picture (far left).

So, my inner sceptic, having been silenced, I guess I can add "exhibited in New York" to my CV. Yes, it's definitely an odd world.

Confessions

“Dog Kennel Corner”, the sign said. Another said “Lake Benmore Haldon Arm”; always a sucker for a lake, I took the turn. I didn’t know the area and I didn’t have a map, but the road was good and stretched invitingly into the Mackenzie District’s distance (Google Street View: https://www.google.co.nz/maps/@-44.099683,170.563848,3a,75y,221.31h,84.61t/data=!3m4!1e1!3m2!1sMmcNMazOtvnApVAQQHriew!2e0?hl=en)

I drove, for what seemed like a long distance through the rugged Mackenzie. Actually it was about 20km, twisting and turning over one-lane bridges, spanning a variety of creeks, and getting deeper into the tussock covered wilderness. I wasn’t worried, but saw no other vehicles and it did cross my mind that this would be an unfortunate place for my little Suzuki (affectionately known as “Camera Bag”) to break down. Then the tar seal stopped and the gravel began. Perhaps ‘gravel’ is too kind; it was more hard-packed earth with an occasional sprinkling of stone. But hey, I had already come a long way and somewhere down here was a lake. I drove on.

Gradually, kilometre after kilometre, the road got narrower and rougher. I passed the occasional sheep station and stock yards and once saw a farmer in a ute. Somewhere, around the 40 kilometre mark, I really did begin to wonder if I was doing the smart thing, but consoled myself with the thought that Camera Bag’s other nickname was “Mountain Goat”, and pressed on.

50 kilometres and the road was a two wheel-track through the tussock. I was conflicted; by the thought that this might be an incredibly stupid thing to be doing (at my age) and a stubborn determination not to be beaten; either by the landscape or my own fear of the unknown. Determination won.

Finally the track took a sharp turn and a dive down into a large cluster of trees. I had arrived at a beautiful, secluded camp site on the edge of Lake Benmore. The summer campers had long gone and in late autumn the place’s only inhabitants were the golden trees and the multitude of birds that had reclaimed their home.

After the mild anxiety of the drive, the place was heavy with a tangible peacefulness and I stayed a while to soak it in. Strangely, I didn’t take pictures there that day, except as a matter of record – this is where the road ends:

Another of life's little metaphors, perhaps.

One simple trick

Last weekend I was taking some photographs at the observatory on top of Mt. John. I don’t normally watch other photographers but it was hard not to in such a popular scenic spot. Over the course of a couple of hours I became aware of one repeated behaviour: get out of car, walk to the edge of the car park, hold camera in front of face, take picture.

I saw no exceptions to this behaviour. It didn’t matter whether the camera was a cell phone, a compact or a big DSLR; one photographer even set up his tripod at the edge of the car park, adjusted it to face height and took his picture. I wish I had the foresight to take such a picture, so that you could see what it would include, but that only occurred to me later after I had left. Magnificent vista that it was, their pictures would have included a mountainous background with a valley lake in the middleground and NO FOREGROUND.

As humans, we experience all such views from the foreground - even if our focus is on the distance. The foreground is where we stand, it fills our peripheral vision and provides context for the rest of the scene. When you see a picture without a foreground, it doesn’t capture the experience of actually being there, and we end up feeling disappointed that the picture doesn’t reflect the moment. Unfortunately cameras don’t have peripheral vision – what’s in the viewfinder is all you get so you, the photographer, need to introduce some foreground into the scene.

Ten paces away from the car park edge there is an interesting rock. Down on one knee, rock in the frame and the picture has what it needs – foreground context, strong middle ground, and magnificent background. It’s that easy.

So that’s my one tip for your vacation landscapes; don’t just do what everyone else does by standing there and clicking into the distance – just change your position, bend a little if you have to, and include some foreground interest in the scene. That’s not a rule by the way – not every picture has to have foreground - but most landscapes will benefit from its inclusion.

Getting what you want

Mt Oxford, Canon A590 IR, 1/220 sec, f5.6, ISO 80 (8 frames)

Usually, when I set out to capture a particular picture, I come back with something quite different; either because circumstances prevented the intended picture or because I get distracted by something better. Today I came back with what I wanted - a picture of Mt Oxford taken from the township - in infrared.

This picture just wouldn't work in a normal photo; the tones would all be too similar and would merge into a mass of green-brown sameness. In IR it's a totally different story, with the trees fluorescing brilliantly against the hills and sky.