addictions – Page 12 – Oh Fair New Mexico

I Don’t See a Forest? Those Trees Are In My Way!

Sheesh, sometimes I worry about my brain. I can usually rely on it to make the connections I need and I’m off to the races. But sometimes…sometimes I just can’t seem to rattle all the pieces into place.

This week the Theme Thursday theme of fixture was really baffling me.

When I don’t get an idea right away for the weekly theme I usually start by looking the word up in the dictionary. Then I’ll do a Google images search. Then I’ll look at my own trove of photos, both on my phone and on my computer, to try for ideas.

And, well, fixture wasn’t speaking to me this week.

Last night, as I lay in bed getting ready to sleep, I was thinking on this dilemma. Sometimes when I’m really sleepy the best ideas come around. My brain works more smoothly after throwing off the bounds of the day.

So I tried to rev up the old brain motor. I was like “come ON. I know I can do something with fixture. Don’t I have a photo or an idea? I have to make it work. Come on brain.”

Then I closed my eyes. I gave up, thinking, “whatever. I’ll skip participation this week.”

That’s when my clever ol’ brain got in gear.

Suddenly my eyes shot open, because I remembered I had this photo, taken on my phone, just this week:

I have looked at this photo a thousand times trying to get ideas and somehow the phrase “light fixture” never crossed my brain. What. The. Heck?

And then, one might ask, why do I have a photo of a light fixture?

Because among my many weird obsessions is looking at and often snapping a photo of the ceilings in San Francisco’s oldest buildings. I dig the old tin ceilings and miss how builders used to really pay attention to detail when a new place went up. I miss that workmanship and that style.

This photo was taken at a fave restaurant on Union Square called Sears Find Food. Established in 1938, this place embodies the essence of old San Francisco. I *adore* this restaurant. The food is awesome. The service is impeccable. The location on the heart of Union Square rocks.

Speaking of location, the day I ate at Sears I spent some time wandering around Union Square and felt gutted to see all the old places closing and the shiny new moving in. I wasn’t able to capture a photo, but there was this really old school tailor storefront that now has a huge “coming soon” false front around the door. A Jimmy Choo shop is moving in. *sigh*

I did manage to snap a quick shot of this longtime fixture on Union Square, The Gold Dust Lounge, established 1933.

According to our local paper, it’s soon to shut its doors as well. The building owner wants to convert it to retail space and has a clothing store all lined up.

From an article in the SFGate (I couldn’t have said it better):

The issue is particularly touchy downtown, where the sultry saloons, strip joints and savory and not so savory amusements that once lined Powell Street have steadily disappeared over the years. True or not, there is a perception in some city circles that corporate stooges are busily wiping out San Francisco’s colorful bacchanal traditions and turning everything retail vanilla.

So, I guess my tired brain is actually doing ok. A little slower to make the neurons snap into line, but I got there.

Turns out I really did have something to say on the topic of fixture.

And The Wheel Goes Round

To get the ol’ creative juices flowing, I’ve been working a little, here and there, on a lesson book of painting techniques. I’m pretty comfortable working with a brush and craft quality acrylics, but now I’m learning methods to create an image from scratch using real big boy paints and brushes.

It’s a big deal!

Today’s lesson was to paint my own color wheel. At first, I thought “Meh. A color wheel? Boring.”

It turned out to be a really interesting and useful exercise, and helped me learn both the paint and my new (fancy) brushes. When my work was done, I fell a little bit in love with my hand crafted color wheel.

And since I can’t seem to separate my High Arts from my Craft Arts, when I was done, I noticed the little bit of imperfection at the center of my wheel. That place where all six colors meet? There was paint overlap and some small white spaces.

So I did what any good crafter does. I hid it with rhinestone. Fabulous!

I must have colors and color theory on the brain. Here’s a photo I snapped earlier today:

Oh Woe, My Lost Love

Posted on March 12, 2012March 13, 2012
by Karen Fayeth
19 Comments

For a whole variety of reasons my doctor has me off the java for a while. And by a while, I mean at least a month, probably. Likely I should keep off it all together.

Acid in the tummy and all.

But I love coffee. Adore coffee. Sing songs in ode to coffee.

And I miss it. Oh how I miss it.

While I moan and wail over my loss, I looked through the photos on my iPhone and found this little beauty shot taken a couple weeks ago.

That is The Good Man’s latte with a crispy little Amaretti cookie on the side. The (Italian) guy pulling shots at Cafe Venetia in Palo Alto always makes a charming little design.

Look how pretty. *sigh*

Such sorrow for my lost love…….

Tomorrow: bad poetry as ode to the fact I also can’t have wine. *whimper*

Photo taken with an iPhone4s using the Camera+ app. Subject to the Creative Commons license, found in the right column of this page.

Testing That Hypothesis

Posted on February 17, 2012April 8, 2012
by Karen Fayeth
10 Comments

“You learn a lot about our society, who we are and where we are headed…and you learn a lot about yourself when you board a Southwest Airlines flight.”

— Bob Fitzgerald, on his Feb 14th afternoon KNBR radio show.

To which his partner, Rod Brooks responded, “There’s a lot of truth to that.”

To which I replied, out loud, to my car radio “There’s A LOT of truth to that!!!”

Today I’m going in there for the sake of science, entertainment and friendship.

Yup, I’m testing that theory.

I’ll be boarding a flight headed for the garden city of El Paso. I gots me a social engagement in Las Cruces and some godkids to hug.

I hear there’s some green chile that needs eatin’ too. I’m on it.

Watch out New Mexico, here I come!!

Whoooo!

Friday Gadgety Goodness

Posted on December 30, 2011
by Karen Fayeth
3 Comments

I’m rather blown away at the recent rapid advances in the quality of mobile phone photography.

The art from has gone from a simple lo-res snap and upload to Facebook, to a genuine, respectable medium.

Today I’m going to gush like a lovesick schoolkid over a product from the Photojojo store that just happened to find its way under my Christmas tree.

Called a Macro Cell Lens Band on the store listing, it retails for $15 and is simply a small macro lens that fits on my iPhone by way of a sturdy rubber band.

Here it sits my iPhone (photo taken with The Good Man’s iPhone):

Easy to install, easy to use.

Since the internet is loaded with budding photographer’s photos of cats, I decided to turn my new lens on my other unsuspecting pet, my male Betta fish:

Here he is:

Photographing a fish is rather challenging, in that he is constantly on the move. The camera on the iPhone4s has a much quicker shutter and handles light so much better that previous versions, so I was willing to try.

One thing about this little macro lens, you gotta get close up on your subject. The little card that comes with the product suggests about 1 ¼ inches. That’s pretty close. My Betta is terrified of my big DSLR but seemed curious about the iPhone, so that helped my cause.

I’ve noticed when shooting my very expensive macro lens on my DSLR, I struggle with focus. The macro lens will only make one part of the photo crystal clear and the rest is not.

This little rubber band lens is the same. I love that the little fishy’s eyes are so clear and detailed. I just wish the rest of his face was too.

It’s such a handsome face.

Due to the low lighting in the area where the fish tank is located, these photos are a bit noisy, but not terribly so. I think with more light that would be less of an issue.

The Good Man says this one looks like Admiral Ackbar

Overall I’m deeply impressed with what this inexpensive little lens and an iPhone can produce. These photos were taken with the Camera+ app, by the way.

Just a little bit of magic on a blue rubber band. Brilliant!

My next mobile phone camera add on will likely be an Olloclip, which is considerably more expensive (about $70USD), but also considerably more advanced.

Look at this photo of a snowflake on a pine needle. It was posted on Facebook by Hipstamatic Rocky Mountain and he used the macro lens on the Olloclip and the Hipstamatic app.

Incredible!

And in my humble opinion, a huge leap forward for the medium of iPhoneongraphy.

Photo owned and copyrighted by Hipstamatic Rocky Mountain

This was not a paid review for any of the products mentioned in this post. This is simply my joy and enthusiasm for new techniques and tools for the art of iPhoneography.