I suck at Film

So I acquired a Diana F+ off of Craigslist recently, and what started out as a hobby has turned into an obsession. I went through 4 rolls of film in about 10 days, and most of the results have been less than stellar. I also purchased a scanner so I can scan in my negatives and not have to pay a printer, mostly because I’m a cheap bastard and film can be quite pricey.

Well right now I’m working on a 35mm roll in my Diana, and since the Diana normally shoots 120, the picture should bleed through the sprocket holes, kinda like this. I’m not expecting much with the first roll, but we shall see.

Here’s my first foray into the wonderful world of film:

The B&W film I used was Lomography 100 speed and it looks really crappy. I doubt I will ever use that brand of film ever again,

So I haven’t updated my blog in like a year, but I plan on updating my exploits with film more frequently. I also have my sisters Canon AE-1 35mm, I’ll post those as well.

Filed under: California, Fun List, Lomo, Orange County, Photography , analog, diana f+, film, lomography, southern california

Photo’s from the day

I meet my wife for lunch at Ikea today, partly for lunch, partly to pick up a toy tea set for my daughter’s friend Nina. It’s been raining like non-stop here in socal for like 3 days, and for Pittsburgh that’s nothing, but for California that seemed like the end of days. So we have this mountain in Orange County called Saddleback Mountain and everyone has been freaking out over the amount of snow on it. What’s ironic is that it actually gets snow like once a year, sometimes for a week, sometimes for a few hours, depending on the amount of sun it gets the following week. So I took my camera to get a few pics.

Clouds Galore.

Oh well, maybe tomorrow I’ll have better luck.

We had fun with Tegan at Ikea. Sofie played in smaland while we shopped.
Here are the pictures:

Clouds over Ikea.

Tegan and Amber.

Tegan and Amber with sunlight peeking over Amber’s shoulder.

Amber & Tegan walking through the warehouse.

Tegan taking a sip.

All of my photos are hosted by Flickr , which is probably my favorite site in all of the world. Flickr is magically babelicious. I’ve had a pro account for the past 2 years and have well over a 1000 photo’s on it. I did however let my pro account recently expire, and asked my wife to renew it for me for Christmas. Easy Christmas gift.

Alright next post will be sIFR related.

TV On The Radio has been the music in my ears all day. The first and third album.

Staring at the sun indeed……

Filed under: California, Lomo, Los Angeles, Music, Nikon D80, Orange County, Photography , Adobe, Costa Mesa, Ikea, Landscape, Lightroom 2.0, Nikon D80, Orange County, Photos, Santa Ana, TV on the Radio

What I Learned Today: Cascading Style Sheets 2

Flash Replacement. One major downside to image replacement is that it requires a lot of manual labor. Thankfully there is sIFR.  Scalable Inman Flash Replacement.

Example:
Noodlebox

Sorry I don’t have a before or after picture.

Basically, sIFR is a javascript file that scans your headings, copies the text from inside those headings, and uses it inside a Flash object that replaces the HTML text. Pretty awesome huh?

sIFR can be affected by the extra whitespace in your HTML tags. This would be proper code:

<h1>Yo! MTV Raps!</h1>

No spaces, no problem.

You can get ready made sIFR from many different sources, including one from the author of the book I’m using.
Fontsmack

Once you have the .swf file they’re ready for your web page. You should really call the .swf by the font they include. example: bitwise.swf

Customizing the Javascript. You do need to insert into the head of your page one line of script.

<script typre=”text/javascript” src=”scripts/sifr.js”></script>

You’ll also have to insert some of your own code to indicate which headings you’ll want o replace.

Alright, it’s 4:30 Pacific time, I gotta get ready for work.

Here’s some visual stimulation for that ass:

Presidio Cemetery S.F. with the 300 effect.

Goodnight munchkins.

Filed under: Books, Cascading Style Sheets, Fun List, Javascript, Lomo, Nikon D80, Photography, Web Design , Cascading Style Sheets, CSS, DOM Scripting, Dreamweaver, Javascript, Sitepoint, Web Design

What I learned today: Cascading Style Sheets

Hierarchy. Not all headings are created equal. Looking at two different websites, A List Apart and Subtraction , you’ll notice the different style’s regarding font size and weight on headings to create a sense of hierarchy on the page.

Identity. Your company logo has to be unique. Also, your site design – colors, layout & images must also be unique. To consider headings, you must consider typography, and the current state of HTML typography is very poor, although it is improving, considering that only about 75% of all users have just 8 fonts installed on their computer. We need some style…we need to Diddy the web if you will. Sometimes being subtle is the way to go. Check out Rapha, which has a well harmonized typeface, and it brings out a nice effect.

Image Replacement. This is a nice answer to spruce up your web page with “Diddy” fonts. This means any user with a CSS enabled browser will see the replaced text, but ones without will just see plain text.
HTML like this:

<h1>

Yo! MTV Raps!

</h1>

<p>

…

</p>

Would be replaced by an image. Again, users who have browsers not supported by CSS would just see the plain text.

Text-Indent. With Text-Indent image replacement, a negative text-indent is used on the text inside the heading to make it move off the left of the screen, placing it out of view. Using CSS, you can adopt any design you like.

example:

h1 {

height: 43px;

background-image: url(images/blahblahblah.gif);

background-repeat: no-repeat;

text-indent: -9999px;

overflow: hidden;

}

However, users not supporting CSS will not see the image. Oh well, sucks for them.

Providing Additional Markup. Basically, we’re covering up the text with an image, using span inside h1:

<h1>

<span></span>Yo! MTV Raps!

</h1>

This allows us to apply a background image to cover up the HTML text.

This is all I’m going to update today, not to be rude, but I need to concentrate on the book, and less on the wordpress post. Blogs are cool, but Wu Tang is for the children. I’m getting the lesson’s directly from The Art & Science Of CSS by Sitepoint.

I don’t want to leave you without any visual stimulation so here’s a picture from Mel’s Drive In, the Sunset Blvd. one :

OK, back to work.

Filed under: Books, Cascading Style Sheets, Lomo, Web Design , Adobe, CSS, Daily Log, Dreamweaver, HTML, Learning, Mel Drive In, Photo, Picture, Style Sheets

Santa Ana Train Station

I got kicked out. I was told that the Train is under the Homeland Security umbrella and me walking around taking pictures made the station manager nervous. I completely understood and just snapped a few then left. The station was built in 1985, but it was made to look like it could of been built in 1955. So my hat goes off to the designers.

I’m a really big fan of the Lomo look, and I know it’s been done to death, but I tried my best to achieve that effect. I know there’s an easier way in Photoshop CS3, but I did it through several steps which allowed more control. I think I need to work on softening my edges.

Tell me what you think.

Here’s a photo of the Tracks, Bridge, and Main Sign:

Here’s one of the light and long walk way along the tracks.

Again, I tried to achieve the Lomo look and I’m actually kinda thrilled with the results. I’ll continue to play with it and see what comes of it.

This post is brought to you today by the Letters “L” & “P” and the number “2″.

This photo journey soundtrack was provided by the mix on my LG Voyager phone which has a mix of Camera Obscura, J Dilla, Radiohead and Eazy E. Thank you micro-SD.

Also, I think as of today I’m going to swear off red meat.

Filed under: California, Fun List, Lomo, Nikon D80, Orange County, Photography , Ana, Art, California, D80, J Dilla, Life, Lomo, Music, News, Nikon, Personal, Photography, Politics, Random, Santa, Station, Train