Shapes

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Fingerprint

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I added the finger (thumb) print that appears on the left margin today (as well as the image for my profile.) I struggled with this. It is annoying and visually in the way. However, I find this to be meaningful. It is the sign of the human touch, a signal of a presence. At the same time, it is the kind of thing that if it were on a print, it would be an indication of poor craft, really a mistake.
But this is not my fingerprint (yet). I have to create it and then replace this default.

Myself in My Work

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This is a cell phone photo of one of my drawings (framed under glass) from several years ago.

Red Shaker

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I set the shaker up as a "studio shot." I placed a white napkin behind the red shaker to create the overall white background.

Text Manipulation

I have found yet another opportunity for investigation. With the "hidden text" posting, I began to manipulate the text in the entry to "edit" the content. With the previous two postings ( 1 and 2 ) I pushed this a bit further, to see what I could come up with.

The text manipulation is accomplished using CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) coding. On a simple level, I have worked to mimic the look of a highlighter. This is the tool universally used by college student to identify important or memorable text. I also found that I could "jumble" text by adjusting the line height between lines of text. Obviously, this makes the text hard to read. I continue to think about the possible significance to the oversized font sizes.

Yes

memory

epitaph

shadow
His epitaph was a memory of a shadow.

What is Lorem Ipsum?

Quoting http://www.lipsum.com:

Contrary to popular belief, Lorem Ipsum is not simply random text. It has roots in a piece of classical Latin literature from 45 BC, making it over 2000 years old. Richard McClintock, a Latin professor at Hampden-Sydney College in Virginia, looked up one of the more obscure Latin words, consectetur, from a Lorem Ipsum passage, and going through the cites of the word in classical literature, discovered the undoubtable source. Lorem Ipsum comes from sections 1.10.32 and 1.10.33 of "de Finibus Bonorum et Malorum" (The Extremes of Good and Evil) by Cicero, written in 45 BC. This book is a treatise on the theory of ethics, very popular during the Renaissance. The first line of Lorem Ipsum, "Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet..", comes from a line in section 1.10.32.

Lorem Ipsum

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Suspendisse in erat sed quam nonummy adipiscing. Aliquam risus. Nam tellus tortor, fermentum vel, adipiscing a, feugiat et, elit. Vivamus nonummy mattis metus. Fusce ullamcorper neque. Aliquam gravida scelerisque mauris. Nunc nibh nisi, vehicula semper, tempus vitae, accumsan vel, nisl. Mauris nec lorem eu sem mattis aliquam.

Curabitur molestie vulputate ante. Mauris dignissim congue ligula. Sed scelerisque, lorem quis mattis posuere, arcu ligula condimentum risus, ut aliquam elit arcu ut velit. Suspendisse potenti. Vestibulum id turpis et lectus nonummy nonummy. Ut cursus semper felis. Morbi adipiscing condimentum felis. Sed eu est. In laoreet nibh suscipit ligula ornare tristique. Curabitur ligula. Vivamus condimentum eros. Vivamus enim nunc, mollis ac, interdum eu, dictum ut, justo. Integer pellentesque. Sed tortor. Aliquam erat volutpat. Proin nec elit.

Sed neque. Duis urna. Morbi nec libero. Integer a risus vel felis nonummy pulvinar. Donec ut nisl. Praesent pharetra venenatis felis. Duis felis ante, consequat ut, ullamcorper sed, ultricies non, eros.

Mauris nulla. Integer pulvinar ipsum eu neque. Vestibulum ante ipsum primis in faucibus orci luctus et ultrices posuere cubilia Curae; In nec ligula. Nunc semper egestas enim.Morbi cursus risus a nisi. Nunc tincidunt nibh sit amet purus. In egestas, quam ut pulvinar accumsan, arcu nulla nonummy elit, ac bibendum quam mauris vel tellus. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Ut id massa eu purus aliquet elementum. Nam eu tellus at nunc condimentum ullamcorper. Curabitur dui magna, pellentesque lacinia, fringilla ut, mollis sit amet, nisi. Proin massa urna, vulputate aliquam, scelerisque ac, rutrum consequat, urna. Phasellus eget massa et neque rutrum pellentesque.

Morbi cursus faucibus eros. In pharetra felis eget nisl. Nam consectetuer, dui in congue rutrum, arcu nisi tincidunt neque, sit amet suscipit ante risus in ipsum. Donec eget orci ut sapien commodo tempus. Nullam quis felis. Suspendisse rutrum. Nulla ante mi, rutrum quis, venenatis id, facilisis in, quam. Mauris facilisis, leo et eleifend viverra, pede arcu luctus enim, vitae cursus purus nibh eget est.

Apology (definition)

Main Entry: apol·o·gy
Pronunciation: &-'pä-l&-jE
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural -gies
Etymology: Middle French or Late Latin; Middle French apologie, from Late Latin apologia, from Greek, from apo- + logos speech

1. a formal justification: DEFENSE, EXCUSE
2. an admission of error or discourtesy accompanied by an expression of regret
3. a poor substitute: MAKESHIFT

synonyms APOLOGY, APOLOGIA, EXCUSE, PLEA, PRETEXT, ALIBI.

APOLOGY usually applies to an expression of regret for a mistake or wrong with implied admission of guilt or fault and with or without reference to palliating circumstances. APOLOGIA implies not admission of guilt or regret but a desire to make clear the grounds for some course, belief, or position. EXCUSE implies an intent to avoid or remove blame or censure. PLEA stresses argument or appeal for understanding or sympathy or mercy. PRETEXT suggests subterfuge and the offering of false reasons or motives in excuse or explanation. ALIBI implies a desire to shift blame or evade punishment and imputes mere plausibility to the explanation .

Apology

I thought I might get a bit personal here, or at least that is the sense that I have. I believe that I am a “Jack of All Trades, Master of None.” For example with this blog, When I find the time, I take a cell phone photo and post it, or I write some little bit of a thought. Then I am on to some other task.

Nevertheless, I will not devalue this blogging activity. I am confident that it is productive. I do believe that it is generating many ideas and possibilities for creating a focused body of work—photos of reversed words folded over one another on paper, photos of shadows, a cell phone “pin hole” series, photos of what I observe of the ordinary.

And oddly enough I am posting photos. I would hesitate to call myself a photographer. I am afraid that I would get “caught in the act.” I am very surprised that I am posting photos.

But back to the “Jack of All Trades.” I am interested in so many (technology-based) image making activities. These include “traditional” graphic design (Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign), web design/development (Dreamweaver, Flash, ColdFusion), creating video for the web (Flash, iMovie, Final Cut).

I know something about all of these. I have worked with each of them, some more than others. I lack focus.

I am writing today because I have a day off from work. I have time. I have time to write. I have time to examine this blogging activity. I have time to be self-conscious. This writing today is strangely exhilarating. Writing with the knowledge that what I write will have public venue is at the same time addictive as well as equally repulsive—characterized by “blogging narcissism.”

I have had enough.

To read the complete post, highlight the text area and white space above with a click and drag of your mouse.

Handheld

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Following up on the idea from "Reading Through an Envelope,"I printed out a page from this blog and placed it face down on a light table. Shot the image with my hand holding down the page. This is one of the moments when I become quite excited. I love this image of "backward" text. Is the text hard to read?

Like the shots of the monitor screen, the stripes appeared in the viewer.

Reading Through an Envelope

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At lunch today an envelope arrived in the mail, not addressed to me. It appeared official, from the County Attorney General . I wanted to know what was inside. I decided to hold the envelope up to a light to see what I could decipher. I tried to read text over text, upside down and backward. The letter proved to be of no real importance.

I found my effort to read the text to be visually intriguing. Jumbled words. I quickly found a piece of paper with the text, “image not available,” printed on it. (This was a trial printout for my framed text for the UTEP faculty Show.) Interesting image to me. It looks like the text is somehow in front of the paper.

Petal 2

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Lace (shadow)

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Caution

I have, with some caution, begun to give a few people the URL to this blog. I am not certain why I hesitate. I know that I have been waiting for the “right” moment—waiting for more images, or more writing. I have to work up my courage.

At the same time I have been concerned that the writing and images are becoming lost in the archives. The visitor has to make it through a few screens, for example, before reaching postings from September 2005. Why would they spend the time to learn the navigation system and to make it back to the beginning?

Monitor Screen 2

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I shot this photo with my cell phone camera. I placed a piece of scotch tape across the lens. I quickly realized that for any image to be visible I had to point to a strong light source.

I pointed the camera at my computer monitor and realized that these odd stripes were visible, with no additional information from the screen. I am certain that there is something technical about this that I do not immediately understand--something about the light frequency on the (CRT) monitor.

I this case, therefore, I was taking a photo of something that I could not see.

Monitor Screen (l’Age d’Or)

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I shot an image of my computer monitor while viewing a digital video. Note stripes above figure.

Moss on Paper (Manipulated)

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I did some manipulation of this image in Photoshop. It had previously been too dark and blue. Additionally, the cell phone camera records a hot spot of sorts when shooting a close-up. I have some hesitation about this manipulation, presuming that I had established a requirement that all images be unaltered. In fact I had previously manipulated a few images. I felt an urge to manipulate this "Moss and Paper." What is this urge?

The urge is at base a desire to get the image right--as if some ideal future state existed, now only in the urge but certain nevertheless. Following this concept would suggest that the "ideal" version of the image actually exists. The urge to get the image right depends on it.

A color is shifted and a blurring filter is applied. That's more like it. That's closer.

Pomegranate (Manipluated)

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Traveler

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I am the traveler. Yes, I went up to the mountains last week and took a few shots with the cell phone camera. I am not so interested in the photo of the "Side of a Tree", but I am intrigued with the image of the map.

Map

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Side of Tree

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Another (shadow)

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This image has no visual appeal to me. I do not have a "feeling" for it. It is interesting to me only for what it captures. The irregular shadow shape is of my hands holding the cell phone camera out over a pool of water directly below. The shadow of the cell phone appears toward the center of the image, with a faint indication of the antenna.

Saving Fortunes (hidden text)

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I was sent an email comment (independent of the blog site commenting function) regarding this blog.

I do like your cellphone aesthetics (I was not kidding) and the ephemeral objects you capture. People will not only scratch their heads when they navigate their way through your blog, they will also be enticed by the beauty and strangeness of the images--available and unavailable.

To read the complete post, highlight the text area and white space above with a click and drag of your mouse.

Ellen Lupton/Magazine Shot

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This is a photo of a magazine article in Print Magazine January/Febreuary 2005, "Going Public: A Napster-like revolution in Graphic Design Promises to Spread Design and Its Tools to the Masses," by Ellen Lupton.

Design is an instrument for packaging ideas and making them public. Giving people access to design tools helps them make their own knowledge and ideas tangible. This active mode of literacy folds back into the ability to read and understand what's out there in the world. Learning to build your own Web site, or edit your own movie, or publish your own book, makes you more critical of the media you see and experience each day, and more cognizant of the skill and artistry required to create such media at the highest level.

See also Julia and Ellen Lupton Blog.

Petal

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12/2000

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