Alan, distorted
At tonight’s photoshop class I learnt about brushes. I downloaded a number of brushes, one a grid brush set by ~cubsocer10-stock. I took a photo, splatter some paint over it, played with opacity of the different layers, distorted Alan’s head with the Transform > Distort tool, copied the distored hairpiece and applied a number of filters. I quite like the result.
Before Photoshop
After photoshop
One Taste Festival 2009 in Balham
See us in the audience?
Me and the Smithster, as she calls herself, went to a festival that was new to both of us on Sunday, One Taste Festival. The venue was The Bedford in Balham, a 15 minute walk down the hill from home, a good start. We arrived a couple of hours after the doors opened and received the last 2 of a hundred goodie bags, inside being a couple of CDs, some flyers and party poppers. We wondered around lost for a bit, getting our bearings, found the bar and started to feel at home. One Taste is best described by Amelia’s Magazine. The Smithster knew a friend of a friend of The La De Dahs so went and checked them out in the Globe, one of three rooms setup for live music. They were great and I caught a bit of their version of Creep on my crappy camera.
Whilst the Smithster was getting the beers in, I moved to a better vantage point, position us in the centre of the floor to get perfect stereo, something I always try to do when at gigs. I like my ears to get an equal thumping. Next up were Gabby Young and Other Animals. This was a treat, and at 4pm I thought the festival had reached its peak. However, this quality and enjoyment level lasted for the next 3 hours, with more bands, poets and rappers, and singer-songwriters. We didn’t leave the Globe in search of something better at any point because every single act was that good. And there was literally minutes between each act so no time to get bored and wonder off in another direction. We did miss The Correspondents, the 1 Giant Leap videos, Tim Freke stand-up philosophy, thing. We did see Kate Tempest (angry), Gideon Conn (this man makes you smile), Laura Dockrill (funny) and Mark Hole (very good album and completely bonkers) amongst others.
Weekend of farty art
Yesterday I took a look round the free bit of the Royal Academy of Arts as there was a bloody long queue for the Amish Kapoor exhibition (see his shiny balls in the collage below). After this wondered over to National Portrait gallery, then rested the pins sitting on a pew in St. Martins in the Field, listening to an orchestra and choir rehearse a couple of numbers.
Walked over to Battersea Park to check out the Affordable Art Fair. Saw loads of amazing art but no affordable art. These people live on a different planet. I guess Chelsea is just over the water, where all the rich posh twats live, so the art is affordable to them. Affordable is a relative term. I await the Really Affordable Art Fair, where price tags are £100 or less.
Here’s some of the art I liked:
In the middle of the day when walking around in search of a Sunday roast in a pub, came across a pigeon that had somehow hung itself from a railway bridge. Nasty stuff.
More images from my photoshop class
At the last couple of photoshop classes I learnt about a few more basic tools. Magnetic lasso is a pretty damn good tool for selecting parts of a photo. It will take a bit of practice to master these essential tools, plus learning more advanced techniques that help me to create exactly what I had envisioned.
Messing around with a few of the tools I know I used a couple of my snaps to create this monstrosity :
Strange montage
The week before I tweaked a photo by cropping, playing with brightness/contrast, cloning parts of the image and adding some text. Not too bad, except for the dodgy colour near the bottom right of the image:
David Cronenburg's Wife @ 12 Bar Club
Before/after photoshop
Tonight was the 3rd class of “Working with Photography: From blogs to book publishing” at a college round the corner from my home. Karl Grupe is teaching us the basics of photoshop in a fun, open manner. I’ve always been confused by Photoshop, never having the patience to learn it myself. So far we have learnt about burning, dodging, cloning, healing, cropping, zooming and fonts. With a few pointers I’ve managed to get the knack of these basic tools. I’m rather pleased with my efforts tonight. What d’ya think?
Before photoshop
After Photoshop cleanup
I’m a photographer, not a terrorist
A while ago I came across a Youtube video that, via a confrontation with a couple of clueless PSCOs, highlighted how police were isinterpreting the terror guidelines on photography. On the 10th of August, I’m a photographer, not a terrorist campaign launched a new website.
Some further clarification from the Home Office has been issued to police chiefs up and down the country due to campaigns like I’m A Phographer. However, as written in the comments of the blog post, this is progress but the law needs clarifying more to cover normal folk like me, not limited to professional journalists and the fluffy term “tourists”. Anyone should be able to take photos in public spaces no matter what the event or time is. As it happens, I don’t take photos of political events or demonstrations, but for those who do I think it is important to allow this to happen without risk of intimidation by police officers or ill-informed security guards because photos and videos tell the truth more often than not.
In other news
In other related news, I was going to start a beginners photography course next week but it is full, even after the college putting on a second class. I’m going to enrol tonight for the course starting in January. Should give me sometime to experiment a bit more with my new lens, a Sigma 50mm, good for street photography because of the magnification it offers.
Where can I buy these Suzuki MotoGP trainers?
Suziki trainers, originally uploaded by rowlando.
I’ve established that they’re made by the italian company Lumberjack. They’re not on their website. I’ve emailed and I’m waiting for a response.
Reading Festival 2009
I’m off work now for the next 2 and a bit weeks. Hooray! Today I’m off to the Reading Festival. We’re staying in hotel tonight because it’s impossible to return home at festival end because public transport to London stops at 10pm. Can’t wait to see Radiohead of course. I’m not too sure who else is playing but see it as an opportunity to discover new music. It’s been a hectic few months and I haven’t made much time for music, especially new music.
I’ve just ordered myself a new sony mp3 player to keep me company whilst travelling on my own around Croatia. Claire’s leaving me in Rome to go cruising around the Adriatic.
We’re on a train to Reading and on time. I lied to Claire about the time to get her up. It’s the only way sometimes.
I’ll post about the bands we see later on. Also, I’m gonna continue to blog over the next few weeks because I should, fingers crossed, find myself in some interesting places that I’ll want to remember.
How much water does 1 person need in reserve whilst they are a sleep?
How much water does 1 person need in reserve whilst they are a sleep?, originally uploaded by rowlando.
