blog digital picture: August 2009

Monday, August 31, 2009

A tale of three cities

THEME DAY: BIG • Is three cities big enough? This is the view from the deck of the dining room of the Timberland Sports and Nature Club which is located in the foothills of the Sierra Madre mountain range in the town of San Mateo in the province of Rizal. Metro Manila, with its seventeen cities and municipalities, is too big to be encompassed by any single view (unless you're up in an airplane) and my friends and I figure that we could only see three cities from Timberland: Marikina, Pasig and Quezon City.

view of Metro Manila from Timberland Heights

Size is relative so it'll be interesting to see how City Daily Photo bloggers around the world will define big. Click here to view thumbnails for all participants.

Sunday, August 30, 2009

Manila hemp

During Spanish colonial times, one of the most important export products of the Philippines was marine rope made out of abaca (Musa textilis) fiber, known worldwide then and now as Manila hemp. It proved to be more flexible and resistant to salt water damage than rope made out of hemp, to which it has no relation whatsoever. Classified as a hard fiber, abaca is one of the strongest and most durable natural fibers in the world. Its pulp is used to make specialty papers for tea bags and money. It is also used widely in Philippine handicrafts like furniture, rugs and carpets, clothing and fashion accessories. This Filipiniana dress designed by Jontie Martinez, part of the Maria Clara exhibit I caught at The Block at SM City North EDSA, features a kimona (the blouse) and panuelo (the shawl) made out of abaca. With today's technology, textiles using the fiber can be as delicate and smooth as silk but it was the rough texture of this piece—its 'naturalness,' if you will—that caught my eye. Amazingly and wonderfully, the coarse-looking cloth proved to be very soft and smooth to the touch.

kimona and panuelo made out of abaca

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Saturday, August 29, 2009

Waiting to leave

Back in November, I mentioned in a post about its arrivals waiting area that only passengers are allowed inside the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA). This means that everyone with international flights have to show their tickets and passports before they can even enter the building. Despite having a separate entrance for Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs), on very busy days the line of passengers snaking its way towards the entrance can be so long it spills over onto the driveway.

entrance to the departures area of the Ninoy Aquino International Airport

Friday, August 28, 2009

Yet another

Looks like the lovely shopping and dining promenade that is Eastwood City Walk is not enough to serve all the residents and tenants of the many condominium and office towers of Eastwood City. Megaworld, the property developer, recently opened Eastwood Mall in the middle of a ring of towers, some of which are still being constructed. Some of the shops in the Walk have transfered to the mall, including the cozy A Different Bookstore (whose new store is no longer as cozy, unfortunately). The shops and restaurants in the mall are more upscale (Crisostomo is on the second floor of the mall, just above where the young girls are) and seem to be targeted to 40-somethings and older, while those at the Walk are trendier and younger. I guess I don't fit in their demographics—I still like the Walk better.

Eastwood Mall

How lenses are made

Afternoon Everyone!

This is Pink-Colour.com

Check out how Hana Medicon makes their lenses in the factory: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=un3HM02g6F8

Pretty neat huh?

Athena kitten picture

Athena by statelyenglishmanor
statelyenglishmanor

Thursday, August 27, 2009

Across two cities

Looking north from the fifth floor of Fully Booked in Bonifacio High Street in Taguig City, I saw this cloud touched by the late afternoon sun rising high over the tallest buildings of the Ortigas Center in Pasig City.

cloud over Ortigas Center

Visit the Sky Watch Friday home page and tour the skies of our beautiful world.

Sky Watch Friday

In Progress Yarn List for Colorwork

Here's the second yarn list recommended for colorwork so far. I added all the Elann and Knit Picks alpacas I like for stranded color knitting and a few others. It has occurred to me while doing this that I really don't have a lot of experience using non-wools for this purpose. For instance, I don't think I've ever used silk or a silk blend for two-color knitting. I've had some disasters with cotton and superwash wool though.

Fingering Weight
Dale of Norway Baby Ull superwash wool
Blue Moon Fiberarts Socks that Rock Medium Weight
Knit Picks Essential (wool/nylon)
Elann’s Peruvian Baby Cashmere
Elann’s Sock it to Me 4-Ply nylon/wool

DK/Sport Weight Rauma Pt5 Per Tryving wool/nylon
Blue Moon Fiber Arts Socks that Rock Heavyweight
Elann’s Pure Alpaca Fina
Knit Picks Andean Treasure (alpaca)
Crystal Palace Yarns Panda Cotton Solid (bamboo/cotton)
Worsted Weight Green Mountain Spinnery Mountain Mohair (mohair/wool)
Elann’s Peruvian Pure Alpaca

Anyone else have any recommendations? I'm sure I'm missing more sock yarns but I haven't used many of the newer brands for colorwork.

Before & After In The Darkroom

Photoshop CS4

Working on images in a "digital darkroom" such as Photoshop CS4 is a powerful tool to take a photo you may have normally thrown away and transform it into a masterpiece.

One of my students in my "Fundamentals of Composition" photography course that I teach at the Perfect School of Photography posted a plea for help in our Question & Answers message board. Here is what she wrote:

"As some of you know, 3 weeks ago I lost my little kitten Amber. She got out of her cat carrier at the grocery store, hubby did not see that the carrier was empty. He opened the door to put groceries in and she flew out the car. We have been looking from daybreak to after dark for her with no success. At only 13 weeks old, there is not much hope for finding her. I am not even thinking about the coyotes, foxes, fishers, bears, bobcats, etc. that would consider a 13 wk. old kitten as a snack food.

So after searching this long, I am finally accepting that she is gone for good. I have 2 pictures that I had taken of her that I like a lot, but she is in the base of my Ponytail Palm and the leaves are in the way. Would somebody be willing to clone the leaves out and send me back the photos? These pics are only small thumbnails, I would send the full size to whatever email address you give me. I would really appreciate it, and I suck at cloning so bad."

I wrote her a quick reply that she could send them to me and I will see what I can do to help her, for most likely these may be the only two photos she has, and I can certainly feel for her on the loss of this cute and adorable kitten. She sent the two high resolution versions of the images, and I began to work on them in Photoshop. Here is the before and after of them:

Original

Original

Here is the original photo of Amber. Notice the distracting palm leaves not only in the background, but they are also falling across her ears and whiskers. The image is also a bit dark and most notably the eyes seem dark and lifeless.

Edit

Edit

A couple of hours of working on the photo in Photoshop to remove the palm leaves that included some cloning, patching and repair the delicate whiskers has greatly improved this photo. Notice how the image is also a bit warmer in temperature, overall the image was brightened and the eyes are now a vibrant blue that draws our attention. Also I burned the corners to further the effect of narrowing our focus on the eyes.

Original

Original

On the second photo, pretty much the same as on the first photo of Amber. The one thing that is good on both however was the composition as they are both filling the frame nicely and the rule of thirds was also followed for a pleasing composition.

Edit

Edit

The same exact techniques were applied to this photo as in the first which totally transforms an ordinary photograph to one that she will cherish forever to remember a lost friend.

So the lesson learned here is before you click that shutter button, pay close attention to not only your subject, but a simple rule of composition which is your background. By doing a little "clean-up" of removing the distracting elements you will save hours and hours in your digital darkroom removing them. Sometimes we are so focused on our subject we fail to "see" the whole picture, so training your eye to pick up on those elements will certainly go a long way.

Want to learn more in-depth about backgrounds and how to take your images to the next level? Then join me for the most comprehensive course taught on the internet about composition today! Click here to learn more about "Must Know" Fundamentals of Composition.

Robert La Follette
www.robertlafollette.com

Taking up as much space as possible. kitten picture

Taking up as much space as possible. by wakingmagenta
wakingmagenta

Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Twenty-four hours

Ministop is a 24-hour convenience store franchise from Japan brought into the Philippines in 2000 by the Robinsons Group. It is the direct competitor of the older 7-Eleven chain, which opened its first store in the Philippines in 1984. I don't know which of the two has more branches in the country or even in the metro, but I see more Ministop branches in the places which I pass through everyday.

Ministop convenience store

Rip Polypaint

Festeggiamo i 1000 accessi con un'illustrazioncina ^^

Ripclaw again

Ancora Riplcaw, figura intera in Zbrush in 10 ore di modellazione, la prossima volta facciamo una supersexy eroina, giuro XD

my happy little man kitten picture

my happy little man by faeryboots
faeryboots
wednesday, may 6th 2009. my little man sitting in the sun. he is 9 months old now! he gets bigger and fluffier as each day passes.

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Leaping for joy

Trinoma mall in Quezon City is designed in such a way that many of the restaurants and cafés are centered around open areas which extend from the second to the fifth levels. Those open areas are filled with plants and interconnected water features. I've already posted a photo of the charming location of the Starbucks on the fifth level and another of this same area but looking up from the third floor. The jets of water are shooting up from fountains on the lower levels.

water fountains in Trinoma mall

Natural or man-made, take a refreshing dip in Watery Wednesday.

Watery Wednesday

Working on 2nd Yarn List

Even though it is cooling here I am still not back to my usual knitting productivity. So instead I thought I'd work on a new yarn list. Last year with everyone's suggestions I compiled a list of basic wool yarns for colorwork. The yarns on the list were non-superwash, smooth and plied 100% wool yarns with more than 15 or 20 colors to choose from. I also stuck the list on the Stranded forum's group pages HERE.

This second list will be yarns that knitters like for stranded color knitting that don't fit the confines of the first list. All non-wool yarns, wool blends, superwash, single ply, lumpy, etc. yarns will work here. I'll link them all up to their Ravelry yarn page. Let's keep the list solid color yarns and preferably at least 10 colors to choose from but other than that the sky is the limit. I appreciate any and all suggestions you have for yarns you've used for colorwork and I'll put my request (and the final list) on Ravelry's Stranded forum as well.

(BTW, the yarn seen above is Pakucho organic cotton in many different naturally-colored shades. I'm hoping to try it for colorwork soon. Aren't the shades beautiful? It is so dark here today that I thought the flash would go off when I took the photo; there's no way those colors would have shown up in our normal bright sun.)

As you add your comments here and on Ravelry I'll keep adding to the list on this page. Thanks so much! A list of yarns other knitters have enjoyed for colorwork is very helpful to those new to stranded color knitting. If you sell yarns you think would work for color knitting, let me know in the comments and I'll add them.

I'll start by adding the one yarn everyone wanted on the last list because it is very popular for colorwork. It is superwash though so I kept it off the last list.

Fingering Weight
Dale of Norway Baby Ull superwash wool

DK/Sport Weight

Worsted Weight

Monday, August 24, 2009

Additional defense

One side of the outer wall of the Spanish colonial era Fort Santiago in Intramuros overlooks the Pasig River. Just outside the high walls is a lower wall for additional defense called a falsabraga. There are two of these overlooking the river and this one, which is at the very tip of the fort, is called the Falsabraga de Santa Barbara. I can almost imagine a guardia civil standing watch in that tiny guardhouse.

Falsabraga de Santa Barbara in Intramuros

kitten picture

by St Sandwich
St Sandwich

Sunday, August 23, 2009

Lazy Sunday afternoon

After a heavy, delicious meal, what better way to spend a lazy Sunday afternoon than playing board and card games with family and friends? Aside from taking a nap, that is. The past five years have seen a resurgence of the popularity of tabletop games in Manila, thanks to European designer games. The games are not inexpensive, however, so it didn't surprise me when I once saw a board game café somewhere. Though I'm not against computer or video games, there is much to be said for games where you face other people rather than a video screen. This particular game is Bamboleo, a balance game that can tax your dexterity. Can you guess the goal of the game?

playing Bamboleo

Started the Bandelier Socks

I started the Bandelier socks from the Fall 2009 issue of IK in Palette. Earlier this week I had the flu and picked out the colors. I really like the colors so apparently that should be my color choosing strategy in the future!

Tonight is another Red Sox/Yankees game - their games are often extra-long so I'm hoping it will go into 21 innings and 6 hours so I can finish a good amount of the sock.

Money

How do artists make a living?
Besides the selected few who actually make a living from their work, how can an artist afford to be an artist?
The bottom line is: should art pay for itself? Should it be efficient in an economic sense?
Most practicing artists either have money from their day jobs, or from their families.
The funny thing is: the first group seem heroic, and the second - fakes.
Why? Why is there so much resentment towards people who decide to spend the money they have on doing something they love?
Is it because we, as the public, feel betrayed, as if they stopped playing the game with their audience? After all, if they don't care about (our, or government - which comes out to the same) money, aren't we left aside?
(What's wrong with being left aside? Hm. Of course, this modernist idea can come in handy. But I've been writing about it elsewhere.)
Come think of it - would we feel it wrong for a rich person to buy an expensive car? A big house? So why do we want him to feel guilty for spending the money into something we might actually appreciate? It turns art into a hobby, you say? So what?

Below, completely unrelated (at least not that I know), is the work of Paulo Ventura.

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