sculpting with soup

Relocated

2008-04-07T08:00:00.005Z

It's been a while since I looked in on Sculpting with Soup. It's been nearly 6 months since the last post! Looking at it now, I feel kind of sad to have abandoned the thing but we must move on...

The reason is I decided one blog was more than adequate for me and as I worked out that more people blogrolled Living with Mr. Fleas than any other of my blogs, I made that my consolidated blog. There's photos posted when I get around to them and a separate section, updated when I get around to thinking about it. So, please pop along to

Living with Mr. Fleas

I thank you!

2007-10-14T16:35:00.001Z

la mort lente du vélo

a moment's conversation

2007-09-30T17:14:00.000Z

I see blogger has introduced a video insertion facility. Previously, if I wanted to post ''movelets'', I'd have to deconstruct the AVI file from the ixus camera, record enough snapshots and assemble a GIF animation in Paintshop Animation Workshop. I put the inferior quality down to this crude process but now I see it's really down to the camera's inability to record with precision. I really don't know why they bother! lol.

Having said that, I am fond of the concept of ''movelets'', and I'm seriously considering getting hold of a budget digital camcorder to do them justice. Also, I'll need more sophisticated editing software than MS Movie Maker provides - I'll have to get my Christmas wishlist started.

A moment resting our tired pins in Le Musée d'Orsay's main hall, I noticed the ghostly silhouettes passing the other side of the glazing behind the grand clock (the museum was once one of the main railway stations in Paris). It is, if nothing else, a good example of what defines a ''movelet''; recording movement, but not a movie.

It reminds me, in a way, of something which might belong in Jacques Tati's Playtime. I've also played around with some of the very basic effects provided and the sepia version is quite fetching, a bit Metropolis, and an edge enhancement filter gave it the look of a line drawing animation. I could play all day if I had the right tools.

All fairness to my little camera, it is showing its age and it was performing indoors with available light. And if you're wondering about the black border, that was the operator's fault. I haven't worked out how to fix the playback to show in portrait mode (yes, because I recorded it with the camera balanced on its side, like a fool!)

2007-09-30T17:01:00.000Z

a moment's conversation

2007-08-21T17:26:00.000Z

boardwalk

2007-08-19T15:56:00.001Z

demon

2007-08-19T15:45:00.000Z

bougainville

2007-08-18T17:28:00.001Z

dulsori

2007-08-17T15:42:00.001Z

jack gardner's flood

2007-08-17T15:08:00.000Z

tibetan dance moves

2007-08-13T12:41:00.000Z

milou (ou 'snowy')

2007-08-13T09:30:00.000Z

blown

2007-08-12T14:41:00.000Z

still life on green

2007-08-12T10:50:00.000Z

submergence

2007-08-11T10:23:00.001Z

stratton church bells

jack gardner's memorial

2007-08-10T09:32:00.000Z

Who was Jack Gardner?
I love this little green by the side of the main road out of town. There's not much to it, just lawn and a dozen or so mature trees. The River Churn splits at its north end, the major part slipping between the green and community housing. There are three bridges, including the weir where the river divides, and a small central one reminiscent of Monet's painting. Although the town is small and surrounded by agricultural landscape, it's still good to find pockets of greenery within.

There are several ways to walk back from Town and I just happened to choose this one and was taken by the greenery and the strong early evening shadows. I took the view with the altered image below in mind, I wanted to try to strip away all superfluous detail. I was aiming for monochromatic but didn't figure on the sky, so we have a new tag; bichrome.
I'm getting into 'curve' manipulation with photoshop, it's very painterly in approach. The green channel is enhanced and both cyan and magenta reduced. This left an odd greenish cloud in the top left corner which wouldn't tone down satisfactorily so I erased it with clone brush. Sorted!

2007-08-10T09:23:00.000Z

jack gardner's memorial

2007-08-02T16:54:00.001Z

shoot out at the fantasy factory

old age & young boy

2007-08-01T16:31:00.000Z

I fear the Ixus is showing its age more and more. One digital camera year is equivalent to 12 human years. I might have to replace it - definitely with another Ixus, of course!

Pole Boy was taken as surreptitiously as I could as we walked passed, not wanting him to become self-conscious. There's a series on telly here called Coast. Last night they mentioned a seaside photographer, Peter Henry Emerson - a pioneer of the art who used a great wooden thing with a simple lens, all carried on a stout tripod, and recorded images on silvered glass plates. The contemporary expert asked to talk about him, with a twinkle in his eye, said (I paraphrase), ''photography today is largely about editing, whereas back in the day it was about recording the image''. I think it is true.

The ''depth of field'' in Pole Boy was modified by duplicating the image layer, blurring this new identical top layer and erasing that portion containing the boy - a cheap and simple trick. I wanted something to add to my Almost.... blog. Too impatient, I forgot to save the duplicate layer version before jpegging (rule no. 1!). What I could have, should have done further is mute the colour saturation levels of the background as well. (sigh)

2007-08-01T16:26:00.001Z

pole boy @ womad

2007-07-01T17:44:00.001Z

D.N.O. #1: black jack girl

obstructions

2007-07-01T17:40:00.000Z

The ixus is small and unobtrusive, it can be carried around without constantly feeling a need to take photos - so it's ironic that I'm more inclined to use it in town than the big eos. This is me hiding down an alley along Black Jack St. - funny how the lettering in #2 almost looks as if it was added in photoshop. They have neat writing in Black Jack St.
Isn't it a pest when people, trying to be helpful, stop short or hurry away when they think they might get in the photo? It's not like I'm shooting a movie or even taking the grinning old folks huddled together in a ''this is us in cirencester last year'' souvenir photo. Don't second guess me, I can delete the mistakes and I don't really mind making them! But thanks anyway.

2007-07-01T17:36:00.001Z

D.N.O. #2

photo doodle: the ash tree

2007-06-25T22:35:00.000Z

More experimental doodling with Photo XI. The original shot was taken a month ago and shows one of the trees in front of our house momentarily lit by the sun peeping through dense rain clouds. It's taken quickly through the window as there wasn't much time before the sun disappeared again. I suppose it was one of those magical moments difficult to capture in a single still. Anyway, I thought I'd see what I could do to create an image which conveys something of the experience.
It really was a doodle so it won't be a reliable account but I split the image twice in RGB and CMYK, discarded all but the red, cyan and magenta. Then I tweaked the levels of each to get the best contrast of tree against sky before combining the three channels in RGB: red to red, cyan to green, and magenta to blue. Unsharp mask was used to create contrast and darken the greys. Then I copied the original colour image as a new top layer, pushed the saturation and lowered the transparency just to give the merest whiff of colour - I'll still call it B&W.

2007-06-25T22:13:00.001Z

the ash tree

olive grove poppies

2007-06-22T14:19:00.000Z

I'm enjoying getting to know the latest version of paintshop pro, Photo XI. I like the way the command history is now located on a palette which allows you to toggle and jump across previous commands rather than just linearly, though I can get a bit lost. Eventually I get down to comparing two results where I can't choose which one I prefer - too much green, too little green? I found getting satisfactory rendering of the red on green difficult: I find red is often awkward to get to look natural but if you tweak the green and blue too much the background begins to look fake. It doesn't help to know that the palette of greek greens is slightly different to those of english greens. There is a temptation to go surreal at this point but I remind myself it's not what I'm after.

As it turned out Image #2 had the minimal amount of curve adjustment and I think I prefer it the best. Sometimes you have to trust the camera.

These poppies were growing in an olive grove in front of a zakynthian house near where we were staying. Unusual as we didn't see any other poppies growing in such profusion anywhere else.

2007-06-22T13:53:00.000Z

poppies #1

2007-06-22T13:22:00.000Z

poppies #2

2007-06-22T13:13:00.000Z

poppies #3

2007-06-22T13:07:00.000Z

poppies #4

geometric

2007-06-19T10:54:00.000Z

I'm inspired once more to do some photography and I've refurbished the Soup to render in Firefox which seems to be the only way I can post images on blogger in Vista. Also it's an opportunity to make use of the labels. The new banner was photographed last year on Zakynthos, along the little beach.

Here are some images I took with a geometric theme, in and around our apartment on Zakynthos this year. They are taken in colour mode, as always, but I thought I'd experiment with monochrome to tighten up the theme. Image #1 was achieved using RGB channel splitting, image #2 using CMYK splitting and image #3 using RGB channel mixing - each method chosen for no reason other than experimentation. Image#4 is a combination of splitting, discarding and combining channels.

2007-06-19T10:50:00.000Z

geometric #4

2007-06-19T10:43:00.001Z

geometric #3

2007-06-19T10:18:00.000Z

geometric #2

2007-06-19T10:12:00.001Z

geometric #1

more 3H images

2006-12-02T22:07:00.000Z

continuing with images i've created for 3H; most of these were specifically taken for the blog, the aim was to arrive at a portrait image format which looks presentable when displayed in blogger's smallest size - which is almost ''thumbnail''. as 3H is intended to be daily, i'm finding it tough to collect enough images i'm satisfied with so i'm going back into the infamous trash can archive to review previous rejects. some time ago, i read an article by a professional which contained the advice; never throw anything out! i'm beginning to appreciate this piece of wisdom.

also i've decided to post on Soup in blogger's largest format from now on, and i don't know why i didn't begin that way! seems i must have followed the pack on that one.

2006-12-02T21:38:00.000Z

plane

2006-12-02T21:20:00.000Z

pig

2006-12-02T21:17:00.000Z

snout

2006-12-02T21:09:00.000Z

heads

2006-12-02T21:06:00.000Z

loco

2006-12-02T21:03:00.000Z

patriot

2006-12-02T21:02:00.000Z

sly

2006-12-02T21:01:00.000Z

chook

2006-12-02T21:00:00.001Z

shades

2006-12-02T21:00:00.000Z

spiral

2006-12-02T20:57:00.000Z

fruits

2006-12-02T20:13:00.000Z

gate

2006-12-02T19:30:00.000Z

truck

the month that almost got away

2006-11-30T22:31:00.000Z

seems i've been letting this blog slide - two whole months missing! well, this will take care of november 2006. september will have to remain the month that never was. i have been taking photos all through but have been lazy at processing.

skive

3H images

2006-10-25T21:40:00.000Z

early in october I began yet another blog which combines three of my favourite idle interests: scribbling, photos and haiku. that's why I haven't posted many pics on Soup.

these few photos are some of the ones I used on the new blog. because of the format, the aim is to get a portrait style image which looks good in blogger's ''small'' dimensions - and one a day.

2006-10-25T21:05:00.000Z

conkers

2006-10-25T21:01:00.000Z

bench

2006-10-25T20:44:00.000Z

the road through minch common

2006-10-25T20:30:00.000Z

windfalls in weed

2006-10-25T20:28:00.000Z

floppy

2006-10-25T20:06:00.000Z

the allotmenteers

2006-10-25T19:57:00.000Z

keith's coffee & tea shop

2006-10-25T19:11:00.000Z

murph

2006-10-25T19:03:00.000Z

icon

scanography

2006-10-08T20:31:00.000Z

Images made with a flat-bed scanner from random materials collected during this afternoon's walk in the park... and one from the random drawers.

2006-10-08T20:30:00.000Z

scatterings

2006-10-08T20:03:00.000Z

carnage

2006-10-08T20:01:00.000Z

stoicism

2006-10-08T20:00:00.000Z

jettison

2006-10-08T19:57:00.000Z

nightsailing

2006-10-08T19:54:00.000Z

the glorious twelfth

rambles about town

2006-08-28T21:51:00.000Z

'tis the end of august and this, the final bank holiday weekend before christmas, and i'm trying not too hard to get the winter blues. it's my perception that the oddments of time we pick over, after everything else has devoured its share, do not amount to enough hours to inspire great creativity.

also the weather is conspiring against us this weekend; the diminishing patches of blue sky wrestle with the grey billowing clouds and the air smells faintly of rain.

i have an art course beginning next month and, with thoughts of this, i walk into town to buy pencils and stuff, and gather these few images on the way.

2006-08-28T21:49:00.000Z

riverside walk

2006-08-28T21:30:00.000Z

shop chook

2006-08-28T21:27:00.000Z

walking man

2006-08-28T21:20:00.000Z

cloud break

2006-08-28T21:18:00.000Z

teach yourself harmonica

2006-08-28T21:14:00.000Z

coxwell street

2006-08-28T21:02:00.000Z

hal is cool

2006-08-28T20:34:00.000Z

gimme

2006-08-28T20:30:00.000Z

duckfest

2006-08-28T20:28:00.000Z

duckfest 2

2006-08-28T20:07:00.000Z

got a light, mate?

2006-08-28T20:04:00.000Z

leaf and stream

2006-08-19T18:46:00.000Z

red admiral

2006-08-15T21:40:00.000Z

comma

delete nothing

2006-08-12T23:15:00.000Z

there's a rule I picked up from a professional: never throw any images away.

it's true that some pics that didn't make the grade might be reused in other ways. i've been admiring some photoshopping artwork recently and it got me thinking; i don't really try much of that stuff (apart from the odd tweak and enhancement). these two images use photos that i took a while ago - the kids in the stream is just a simple tonal and saturation shift with added noise, followed by an overlayer with an airbrush pattern, blurred.

the montage below is built up of several layers of old images i'd taken then blended with the layer transparency controls and finally the eraser tool, toggling between layers. finally an overlayer with an airbrush pattern, duplicated and the second layer colorized to a complimentary, mirrored, then blended with gaussian blur.

if i don't type this now, i won't remember tomorrow. ;o)

2006-08-12T23:13:00.000Z

strolling the churn

2006-08-12T23:10:00.000Z

the woolgatherer's door

2006-08-12T23:01:00.000Z

dig this

zakynthos pics!

2006-08-06T13:34:00.000Z

paper leaf

2006-08-06T13:32:00.000Z

orange net and boots

2006-08-06T13:30:00.000Z

two boats

2006-08-06T13:29:00.000Z

white cat on a yellow chair

2006-08-06T13:26:00.000Z

tangled

2006-08-06T13:25:00.000Z

bouka fisherman

2006-08-06T13:23:00.000Z

jetsam (or flotsam?)

2006-08-06T13:21:00.000Z

the fruits of love

...wife says they look a bit like testicles! :o/
but i loves 'em! they grow everywhere on zakynthos, second only to the ubiquitous olives.

2006-08-06T13:18:00.000Z

boat eye, bouka harbour

2006-08-06T13:14:00.000Z

two heads

2006-08-06T13:10:00.000Z

our path down to the beach

2006-08-06T13:07:00.000Z

bouka harbour

just wanted to get a greek flag in - it's a fine flag, I believe the stripes represent the importance of the sea to the greeks.

2006-08-06T13:05:00.000Z

our studio and garden

a superb laid back week on zakynthos; the sun, the sea, good food and wine... perfect.

2006-07-30T23:15:00.000Z

alien : little blue flora