āThe boys of Capital, they also chortle in their martinis about the death of socialism. The word has been banned from polite conversation. And they hope that no one will notice that every socialist experiment of any significance in the 20th centuryāwithout exceptionāhas either been crushed, overthrown, or invaded, or corrupted, perverted, subverted, or destabilized, or otherwise made life impossible for it, by the United States. Not one socialist government or movementāfrom the Russian Revolution to the Sandinistas in Nicaragua, from Communist China to the FMLN in Salvadorāno one was permitted to rise or fall solely on its own merits; no one was left secure enough to drop its guard against the all-powerful enemy abroad and freely and fully relax control at home.
Itās as if the Wright brothersā first experiments with flying machines all failed because the automobile interests sabotaged each test flight. And then the good and god-fearing folk of the world looked upon this, took notice of the consequences, nodded their collective heads wisely, and intoned solemnly: Man shall never fly.ā
ā Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II - William Blum (updated, 2014)
I met a traveller from an antique land,
Who said ā āTwo vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desertā¦ . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal, these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.ā
How do the gnomes of the mushroom village govern themselves and how do they determine the legitimacy of the Giggleking who rules them? These are questions you must be able to answer.
the persistence of "he or she" makes me slightly insane. youre willing to adapt and learn nearly every other linguistic change in modern times but yet you stlll refuse the singular they, which has been around longer than you've been alive. annoying.
It's so funny how many people talk about George Orwell as though he's an expert on Soviet Communism. Like he never lived in the USSR, was never particularly close to anyone who did and never even studied it in an academically creditable way. Sure, he had some run-ins with "Soviet-Aligned" communists in Britain and Spain. But it's not as though they were especially deep or revealing interactions, neither Britain nor Spain are part of the USSR and frankly the whole "the Soviets are friends to my personal enemies" should make Orwell an even less reliable source on the Soviet Union. Like he's just some fucking colonist's son and Old Etonian who spent most of his life working for the British government, both openly and secretly, that happened to write some well known and (ironically) state supported pieces of anti-communist propaganda. You'd probably learn more about Soviet history and society from Rambo and Red Dawn than from Animal Farm and 1984
And the funniest part is that many ideas in 1984 aren't just random nonsense he made up. The book was heavily influenced by Orwell's actual experiences working in and around state information control: for the British government. He was basically sitting at his desk and telling lies for broadcast while thinking "Damn this place sucks. I bet the fucking Stalinists are doing something just like this but even worse". Like 1984's depiction of "Totalitarianism" isn't just bullshit; it's blatant projection
red can mean whatever the heck you want it to mean, that is never going to change that this straight up looks like they DRAGGED A BLOODY BODY ACROSS THE FUCKING FLOOR š
Hi fun fact, colors do have meaning and there is a legit thing called color theory. Red does has more positive connotations than negative like the @mintymaiden said. Red is associated with more love, lust, passion than blood and death just like the chart shows you but If you want, hereās a link for you to check it out yourself. Also, check out āThe Designerās Dictionary of Colorā by Sean Adams. Have fun learning something
Xoxo
-Designer
What isColor Theory? Color theory is a term used to describe the collection of rules and guidelines regarding the use of color in art and de
I like that the presumption here is that āNo One On Tumblr Has Heard of Color Theory, Let Me Explain in Depthā rather than simply acknowledging that the VISUAL EFFECTS of this particular color choice, applied in the manner it was, can still amount to āthis is a hospital and that looks like bloodā
like, color theory doesnāt exist in a vacuum. If your design of choice for Blood Red Paint is asymmetric splatters and sploches against the wall, or in this case, a snail trail on the hallwayās floor, an infographic wonāt override the viewersā instinct.
Hannah Arendt was also an extremely racist bastard who believed ātotalitarianismā originated in āOriental despotismā āencroachingā open pure, progressive European individualism.
From The Origins of Totalitarianism Like, it canāt be stressed enough how much the entire idea of ātotalitarianismā is rooted in deeply racist, colonialist, orientalist thought.
Friendships as a teenager: we used to talk 5 hours every night now itās down to 3ā¦ are we still friends š¤? I wonder if they donāt like me anymore
Friendships as an adult: omg Iāve finally cleared up 20 minutes of my schedule to talk to my friend I havenāt spoken to in 4 months #bffs #we will find eachother in every life
Iām still so taken aback by people in the notes who claimed you need to be talking to people weekly or even daily to consider them your friend. how many people do you know? As an adult I feel like talking every day is sustainable with one person maybe 2 or 3 if your circumstances somehow are really conveniently aligned. yeah thereās people I talk to often thereās also people I donāt talk to for 6 months because thereās no way weāll be able to coordinate time and energy and I still consider them my friends because this is real life and there isnāt a stardew valley esque hearts system based off of how many interactions we had this month
just fyi by the time youre in your 30s, most of the people you would call to help you cover up a murder are the people you text about twice a year. it's specifically because you can maintain the relationship on two texts a year that they are your closest friends. the reason everyone's interpersonal relationships are so unstable in your teens is because everyone's "best friends" are almost entirely circumstantial. you won't actually know which of those people are in for the long haul until the relationships have been stress tested by distance, conflict and silence.
These outtakes where the flash didn't go off are also AI generated.
I like this spooky dutch angle one.
I was just starting to learn flash and I didn't have all the equipment I needed. Since corgis are quite short, I had to put the lighting on the ground. The off camera flash was on a tipped over lightstand with a shoot-through umbrella to diffuse the light.
But I had no wireless triggers. And the only other way to trigger a flash, is with another flash. So I used the on-camera pop up flash to trigger the main flash.
But I had two issues.
First, I did not want that dinky on camera flash affecting my picture.
Second, triggering a flash with a flash is best done indoors. The flash will bounce all around the room and eventually hit the sensor so the main flash triggers. When you are outdoors, there is no bouncing.
SO... I took a little handheld makeup mirror and angled it toward my main flash. This blocked the dinky pop up flash and sent the beam of light towards the main flash to trigger it.
I was lying on the wet morning grass, holding a camera in one hand, a mirror in the other, trying to aim the mirror exactly toward the main flash, making crazy noises to get Otis's attention, and trying to get the focus point on his face so I didn't get a blurry photo. Also, Otis was much more interested in sniffing things than posing for a photo.
Here is an overhead view that might help explain.
I await all of your comments saying my amazing drawring is clearly AI generated.
Only 30% of the time did the flash actually go off. Aiming the mirror was tricky and I was doing like 8 things at once. I wasn't even sure I got the photo I wanted. But when I came back to the computer there was one that stood out and it is one of my favorites I've ever taken.
It was the best combination of monumental effort, great discomfort, perfect foggy sunrise light, and just pure luck.
Unfortunately, people like me who use advanced sculpting light techniques are getting accused of using AI more and more. Not really sure what to do about itāother than show the 30 awful photos it took to get the good one.
My 80s sunglasses photo and spoon photo get called out the most.
But it's just good old fashioned gradient lighting which has been used in product photography since the days of film.
Most of my photos with artificial light added would be considered "unmotivated lighting." I think that is the term you were looking for.
The short explanation is that motivated lighting always has a logical source. Like the sun or a window or a lamp off to the side.
That doesn't mean there are no lighting shenanigans used.
The overhead office-style fluorescent lights depicted in this scene were actually powerful diffused light bars that were much closer to the actors. They replaced the ceiling in post with more traiditioinal looking lights. So the lighting was still very craftedābut it has a logic and realism that doesn't set off alarm bells in your brain saying, "Where is the light coming from?"
Unmotivated lighting is the opposite. It's crafted, artificial light that doesn't need to make sense. It just has to achieve the aesthetic goal of the artist.
All studio lighting is unmotivated. I just re-edited this old photo of my dad.
There is no room in the world where he could have sat down and had perfectly sculpted light hitting his face. I intentionally directed the light to accentuate his features and capture the best, most idealized version of what he looked like.
Coincidentally I just wrote a post about motivated lighting in films.
š¬ 20Ā Ā š 208Ā Ā ā¤ļø 349Ā Ā·Ā First, thank you to everyone who is nerding out with me about motivated lighting. I love that I can have these convers
Weirdly, I expressed a preference for motivated lighting in movies with a realism-based aesthetic and a lot of people disagreed. They said that the lighting comes from the same place as the music and that you just have to suspend your disbelief.
(Personally I think that is a bad analogy because music is *very* motivated by the emotional vibe. I would say unmotivated lighting in movies comes from the same place as women's apocalypse makeup.)
But I *love* unmotivated lighting in still photography. I love crafting an image and creating it in a fantasy realm where perfect, beautiful, sculpting light can come from anywhere. I want the most idyllic lighting possible.
It's the only way I could make fingernail clippers look beautiful.
And now people are saying unmotivated lighting looks like AI or CGI and isn't authentic. Even though this aesthetic was created before computers were invented and the tools of post-capture manipulation were done in a darkroom.
I'm fairly certain this is because AI does not have a great understanding of motivated lighting. It never thinks about where the light is coming from so it almost always creates images where the lighting comes from a fantasy realm. And now people are heavily associating unmotivated lighting with AI, even if it is a subconscious observation.
I think at this point in time, people are yearning for authenticity. We know so much of our imagery is heavily manipulated for nefarious purposes. Beauty advertising with retouched skin like porcelain dolls and liquified torsos that don't leave space for vital organs. Every fast food ad shows the perfect juicy hamburger because they paid a food stylist $500/hour to perfectly cook and arrange things.
But fast food workers are not food stylists and your burger isn't going to have perfect lettuce and a non-smooshed bun.
(Before you reply with urban legends about food styling, they don't use fake materials. They are required to use the actual ingredients. Those myths came from movie prop masters who needed to maintain the look of food during hours of shooting.)
I think AI just turned our uncomfortable relationship with unrealistic imagery up to 11.
It's a little depressing for me because I love to use light as my artistic medium. I say I am a photographer, but my passion is more focused on lighting.
And I often incorporate my other passion, which is image manipulation. I sometimes add another layer of unreality to my images by artistically editing them.
This is days of work.
I worked very hard for the in-camera image. Dragging a heavy chair and lighting equipment into a field on a hot summer day was not easy for me.
But I also worked very hard on the edit. The RAW file is overexposed, but once I corrected that, the lighting on him and the grass is actually what I captured. I hid a flash in the lampshade and lit him with my big 7 foot umbrella off to the right.
I could have shot this at night, but my area has so much light pollution, I would never have achieved the sky I wanted in my head. So I took the photo knowing I'd replace the sky later.
I like crafting images. I like picturing something in my head and then trying to manifest it in a photo.
I get why people are starting to prefer more natural looking images. I understand why they are currently preferring everything to be captured as it was in the moment. I know why they disparage the amazing work of CG artists and demand that every movie use only practical effects.
When everything is fake, a small dose of reality feels special.
But I see my photography more like a drawing or a painting. Light is my paintbrush and I am just trying to manifest my imagination into an image. I don't claim I don't use artificial light. I never say anything is "straight out of camera." I am very open about my use of Photoshop. If I were able to leave my house and go to more beautiful places, perhaps I would take a more motivated approach.
I mean, I love when the world is just beautiful all on its own and all I have to do is competently pick settings on my camera.
But I enjoy my artistic process and while some of my images may not be realistic, I think my artistry is always authentic.
I don't need every person to like every one of my photos. But when I work hard on a photo and there is clear talent and skill involved, I'm hoping people will still acknowledge that. I hope they will respect the effort and artistry involved.
I didn't enjoy the show Breaking Bad. I disliked all of the characters and the story just depressed me more and more as I watched it. But I still think it is an amazing show created by talented artists. I can acknowledge the monumental artistic achievement even if it wasn't my cup of tea.
every so often the discourse comes around again that basically boils down to āis it feminist for a woman to want men to be attracted to herā and itās like. no, itās not. itās also not anti feminist. itās not relevant. itās nothing. a woman wanting to have sex with men has nothing to do with feminism. being a lesbian or celibate is not āmore feministā than being a straight woman. the point was always āwomen should not have to dress in a way that is attractive to men solely in order to be acknowledged by them at allā not āwomen should never dress in a way that is attractive to men for any reason.ā sometimes a woman wants men to want to have sex with her. thatās not anti feminist. thatās average. itās also not feminist just because itās her choice to do it. it is not related. feminism is about womenās human rights. that doesnāt mean itās a feminist act every time a woman makes a choice.
idealism is when youre a good person and an optimist but a little too much and materialism is when you like stuff too much and youre greedy and liberalism is when theres freedom and capitalism is when theres money and socialism is when theres state owned healthcare and communism is when you do things as a community but also stalin big spoon no toothbrush so its bad and imperialism is when a country is big and colonialism is the same thing and settler colonialism is when people outside a country live there and decolonialism is kicking all them out and xenophobia is when you wanna kick out all the outsiders and revolution is when everyone in the country turns to dust and completely new people pop up like daisies and like dictators a lot and racism is when people are mean based on race which is very real and the primary axis of oppression and the same in all countries and fascism is when theres genocide and class is how much money you have and misogyny is when people are mean to women and transmisogyny is when people are mean to trans women so there must be a transmisandry right and reading those big books is too hard i prefer my movies and propaganda is when things are lies my movies wouldnt lie to me and anti-intellectualism is that thing the nazis did when they burned books i forget which ones tho.
ā America Delenda Est ā @knowslikesnows - Tumblr Blog | Tumgag
