Demand Media, Content Farms and the End of Journalism?

February 23, 2011

Know who Demand Media is? Ever visit a Content Farm? (No, but isn’t that where my parents said they were sending my hyperactive puppy?).

Think the decline in American journalism is an irreversible slide into screaming pundits, extremism, the rise of citizen-journalists spewing their Idiot Wind across the InterWebs, then being aggregated by the Huff-Po, as if it all mattered?

Will news become 1% content and 99% commentary? And just how many rhetorical questions can I crowd into a single post?

The following infographic, designed and illustrated by Ricky Linn, will answer all your Demand Media questions. . .

HDR – High Dynamic Range Photography without a Tripod

February 11, 2011

Click on image for larger size.

If you’ve got a camera with a very fast shutter speed, you may be able to take the separate exposures needed for an HDR image without a tripod. How can that be possible? It’s explained here by George Schaub at Shutterbug.com.

High dynamic range images may seem gimmicky to some but they do reproduce a photograph that comes far closer to what we perceive when we view a scene with our eyes; they’re constantly making exposure and white balance adjustments that are impossible to capture in any single exposure.

 

 

 

Make Halloween Shrunken Heads from Apples

February 9, 2011

 

Of course, IT WOULD BE WRONG to use authentic South American Jívaro tribal methods to actually decapitate and shrink the head of the person most annoying you AT THIS VERY MOMENT. The finished shrunken head is called a tsantsas and if you follow the link above you’ll find the process easy and enticing. Really, just a perfect weekend project and the tools needed are rudimentary. So simple. So satisfying. BUT IT WOULD BE WRONG. Click on image above for larger size.

However, we can safely and, without committing felony murder, satisfy this urge by making a Shrunken Head Apple Halloween Decoration. Isn’t Halloween great? It’s my favorite holiday. I’d never even considering decapitating anyone. Honest.

 

Stereo Diableries

February 7, 2011

Diableries are defined as “representations of devils or demons, as in painting or fiction.” In 19th century France there were a popular series of Holmes-style stereo cards produced (the exact number of images or sets of images is still under investigation) that are commonly referred to as Diableries. The images represent satirical scenes combining small plaster figures of devils and skeletons and other hand-crafted elements which were then photographed by a stereo camera. – Click on image above for larger size –

Brian May (with Elena Vidal) author of the superb A Village Lost and Found about 19th century english stereo photographer T. R. Williams is said to be working on a book about stereo diableries. We can’t wait! But in the meantime you can peruse the Early Visual Media web site of Thomas Weynants for more background and many more superb images.