Having Fun Creating Graphic Art Again

Last night I spent a few more hours manipulating pixels to put young Andrew into various amusing scenes.

Let me get you up-to-speed on this situation:

When Ben Cottle (@Benaud) first presented this photograph of his son, Andrew, (at left of text) on his Plurk time-line, I jokingly suggested that it “looks more like Luke SkyWalker“. Ben says he contemplated ‘shopping a wee light-sabre in there, but too much effort for the small visual gag‘!

This got my brain working overtime with lots of ideas and I had to take it a step further!
I love editing images and I really enjoy the opportunity to test and improve both my use of both GIMP and Photoshop CS3. So I decided it would be fun to see where Andrew could be ‘found’ in his little white outfit.

Since the joke was that he looked like Luke Skywalker from Star Wars, adding the sabre to his attire (as if it was just a ‘toy’ that a kid would drag along) was fun and easy. Putting him on Tatooine put it all into perspective. See my previous article to see those two images

Last night I put Andrew into new scenes:

Andrew Skywalker in his Speeder

This first image includes four layers: [1] An original speeder from the first Star Wars movie, [2] an obscure landscape found buried somewhere deep on the internet, and [3] a quick little image I created using GIMP plugins (don’t ask how, it was an accident!) plus [4] Andrew into the drivers-seat. More time was spent on getting the canopy to cover Andrew, but it didn’t work properly. I’ve not worked out how to photo-manipulate a curved canopy over a flat surface. Anyhow, about 90 minutes was spent on this to get the colouring right. Each layer has been saved separately, so I may go over it again as my PS-CS3 skills improve.

Andrew in New York

This was a quick project, using only two obvious layers with a bit of color-adjustment. Andrew was resized to match the size of the woman and the height of the glass balustrade. Actually, this was meant to be a parody of ‘Sleepless in Seattle’, but my knowledge of US city-scapes is rotten. Turns out this is New York! So I will be doing another version, complete with teddy bear. But minus the celebrities … we don’t want anyone to upstage young Andrew!

As you can imagine, I had a lot of fun! I am planning a few more scenes with young Andrew in scenes around the world, plus some more unusual ones, all of which should make his parents laugh with delight. I have a few ideas that are merely ideas in my head that I have no idea how to create … yet I’ll give it a good try!

But because I have other activities going on that actually bring in the dollars, Andrew is a side-project for my quiet nights when I am trialling my self-teaching of both GIMP and Photoshop CS3.

Successfully Shooting Zombies in Adelaide

Early in October I had the good fortune to be there when the Adelaide Zombies walked through the CBD.

The photographs below show where I found them on East Terrace and the amazing young Zombies who were most willing to be photographed.

I enjoyed being able to walk with them down Rundle Street, through Rundle mall and through the traffic in Hindley Street. Getting close-up with a few zombies enabled me to recognise a few as friends from a previous lifetime.

In the end, they all converged on Worlds-End, a great pub in Hindley Street. I didn’t stay around for that part of the night, my budget had been spent on an additional memory card to ensure I was able to keep shooting for the entire 3 hours!

Each of the photographs above will link back to my Flickr Gallery. Be sure to check out all my original photographs from the 2009 Adelaide Zombie Walk!

How We Survived the Last Fifty Years

This is how it was before the lawyers and the government regulated so much of our lives for our own good.

When we were kids there were no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors or cabinets and when we rode our bikes, we had no helmets, not to mention, the risks we took hitch-hiking. As infants & children, we would ride in cars with no car seats, booster seats, seat belts or air bags.

Riding in the back of a pick up on a warm day was always a special treat. We drank water from the garden hose and NOT from a bottle. We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and NO ONE actually died from this.

We ate cupcakes, white bread and real butter and drank home-made lemonade with LOTS of sugar, but we weren’t overweight because WE WERE ALWAYS OUTSIDE PLAYING !

We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the streetlights came on. No one was able to reach us all day. And we were O.K.

We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps and then ride down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. After running into the bushes a few times, we learned to solve the problem.

We did not have PlayStations, Nintendo’s, X-boxes, no video games at all, no 150 channels on cable, no video movies or DVD’s, no surround-sound or CD’s, no cell phones, no personal computer! s, no Internet or chat rooms … WE HAD FRIENDS and we went outside and found them!

We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth and there were no lawsuits from these accidents. We ate worms and mud pies made from dirt, and the worms did not live in us forever.

We were given BB guns for our 10th birthdays, made up games with sticks and tennis balls and, although we were told it would happen, we did not put out very many eyes.

We rode bikes or walked to a friend’s house and knocked on the door or rang the bell, or just walked in and talked to them!

Sports teams had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who didn’t had to learn to deal with disappointment. Imagine that!!

The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law!

Kind of makes you want to run through the house with scissors, doesn’t it?!

These generations have produced some of the best risk-takers, problem solvers and inventors ever! The past 50 years have been an explosion of innovation and new ideas. We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned HOW TO DEAL WITH IT ALL! If YOU are one of them . . . CONGRATULATIONS!

Original and full version at lyndonantcliff.com

Macro Photography at Wittunga

I took a walk with my macro lens yesterday. I have a lovely 60mm dedicated-macro Canon lens that fits very nicely into my Canon EOS 400D. Together we visited the flowers at the Wittunga Botanic Gardens, shooting their petals and features at all different angles. It was a good morning.

Today the sun is out and the sky is semi-blue, so I am going again, this time with Susan Adey, a fellow photographer upon Redbubble. Should you be interested, I’ll see you there at 1.00pm. Otherwise, I will show our results later tonight.