traviscommeau

[traviscommeau]

Nashville Arts Magazine

Nashville Arts magazine was kind enough to give me a spread in their January issue - pick up a hard copy all over town, download the entire issue here, or just read the article on their site!

I had been derelict on executing a glitch self-portrait all this time, and for the article they requested just that. I have to say, I have a hard time deciding between the two above, but this updated process may have sparked my interest in them back up. Until now I have been minimal in the manipulation of the glitched I get out of decim8 - focussing more on getting the countenance, feel and lighting to my liking and having fun with the chaos of the aftermath. With these two self-portraits I was much (much) more deliberate and focussed in the approach and I am commensurately more interested in the images as well - and not just for the narcissistic ping! in my dopamine levels. I had thought I was mostly done with the glitch portraits, but I think now that I may do at least a few more of these...

Let me know what you think in the comments!

[traviscommeau]

Piacular 4

More new work!

The 4th (see all four here) and maybe final in my Piacular series.

Click the image for a lightbox version, and here are some alternates...

Prints are available in two sizes and with gilding as an option on the larger, and that goes for all four in the series. Let me know what you think

[traviscommeau]

Piacular 3

New work!

pi·ac·u·lar - pīˈakyələr - making or requiring atonement

(Apparently I've been pronouncing that wrong.)

I'm working on a bunch of new stuff, but I do have a few ready to show off - namely two new images in my Piacular series. Print available here in two sizes and with a limited edition gilded option. Click for a lightbox version, and here are some alternates...

I love the look of the figure on a plain color field, but the juxtaposition of the digitally dissolving figure on a beautiful natural backdrop is more engaging to me, contains more possible narrative. What do you think?

Another next week.

[traviscommeau]

Athens of the South, Process

Sarah Saturday - the engine behind Gardening, Not Architecture and veteran of organizing more large festivals than I’m ever likely to attend - tapped myself and a clutch of other artists to fill out the Mockingbird Gallery at the first Athens of the South Festival here in East Nashville. The theme, “The Mythos of Nashville.” to be interpreted at large and to us individually as artists.

Like many (seemingly most) folks in town these days, I’m new here. Natasha and I moved not too terribly long ago, and the city is still showing us something new almost every day, so personally I chose to lean toward the collective idea of the theme as opposed to the personal one. Nashville has been known as music city for ages, but even so it is still surprisingly (to me) the second largest music seat in America, after Los Angeles - even surpassing our beloved Gotham. What’s lesser known is that it’s one of the largest seats of the healthcare industry as well, and more specifically earned it’s nickname of the Athens of the South from its copious institutions of higher learning. It’s also known, however, as the Buckle of the Bible belt, housing more mega-churches per-capita than just about anywhere else in the U.S., and more reasonably sized houses of worship per-capita than most.

Those details are well and good, but how to incorporate them all without pandering…

 Step 1: Inspiration

I’ve been a fan of the narrative interpretation of the psyche championed by Carl Jung and Joseph Campbell since I was a kid. Images that induce or reflect the numinous properties of collective ideas, myths, and symbols. In that vein, I’ve also always been a fan of Alphonse Mucha - specifically his idealization of the female form (in pursuit of something universal) and his deeply moving religious compositions. I’m a sucker for a well rendered archetype.

 Step 2: Sketches

After thumbing through a few of my (paper!) books dedicated to Mucha and scraping up a bunch of imagery that felt applicable to me (above), I got closer. I wanted to show Nashville’s anima - something feminine and collective, strong and maybe even a little frightening. First through quick pen sketches - an old wagon wheel as halo, something reaching toward the way the history of this city is ever-present, and a not-so-subtle nod toward its more conventional religiosity. The moon, in all her phases, to counterbalance and inform the wheel; pagan and feminine, a light int he dark. The Rod of Asclepius for the healthcare nod, as well as a nod to the more reptilian aspects o the anima - and since, in America we bastardize it into the symbol of Caduceus, the symbol of the messenger of the gods, guide to the dead and waker of the sleeping. A violin/fiddle, something indicating music but not wholly country in variety. (Sure, Nashville is still country at heart, the T.V. tells you so… but secretly, there is a shit ton of great work going on here in all genres, in particular our Symphony kicks ass.) The Cumberland River, purple irises, fireflies and skyline for the purists and pedants, as well as the mockingbirds - though I obviously had a hard time figuring out how to work them in. And finally a blinding inner and projected light for the intellectual and academic nod.  “As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light in the darkness of mere being.”

Simple Hand Sketches:

 Quick iPad sketches/color studies:

Bringing some rough comp work into Photoshop and putting the iOS app ArtPose FE to good work, I got a better idea of how I wanted the actual figure to appear. Head up slightly, floating, powerful and imposing. Some value and color studies later, lets shoot.

Photoshop sketches/comps:

 Step 3: The Shoot

I’ve gotten pretty decent at making my (now) quaint little Mark 3 preform like a much bigger camera when it comes to backgrounds. I knew I wanted to make this piece live very large (36” x 48” natively), so the landscape and river had to be shot as panoramas, and for more latitude I’ve been shooting 3-to-5 frame brackets for each of the frames, combining them and stitching the results into enormous files that my server bitches at me for maintaining - but hey, I maintain a gross amount of dynamic range, which helps when you’re shooting in a park infested with the largest mosquitoes I’ve ever encountered. I’ll stick around a little longer to get the brackets if it means I don’t have to come back and get eaten again. As for the figure: thanks to Hound Dog Commons for the reasonable rates and high ceilings or I wouldn’t have had the space to shoot this. Relatively simple though. Key light from above, coming from the staff in her left hand, and rim light from the side for effect/moonlight. Thanks to Tara Ptacek for modeling, Leigh Anna Thompson for the recommendation and Natasha for filling in when I realized I had neglected to get the legs right with Tara (and for being the right hand holding the violin, shot after-the-fact - and thanks to Gabe for letting me borrow it for little while and playing for us while waiting.) And special thanks to Ronald Manley for contributing the mockingbird photography. Not only had the neighborhood birds gone into molt (and hiding) right as I began to work on the piece, but I’m reasonably sure I don’t have the right gear to clearly capture a mockingbird in flight at a great resolution and convenient lighting.

 Step 4: The Build

The build! This one took some horse power. I think the final large format photoshop file is something like 8-9Gb, but like anything tough, you just hack away at it slowly and methodically. I found that while I liked the trees from the shot of Shelby Park, the necessitated longer exposures made the water not-quite-right. So i fiddled around, painted and manipulated and came up with a fully editable and (as far as I’m concerned) excellent facsimile of the shot I had wanted in the first place. That means that in this case, the water, reflections, tree line, city and sky are all separate elements pushed and prodded to get in line and play nice. One of my favorite elements is the fireflies. After moving to Nashville I became totally enamored of them again, having not seen them for years living in New York and New England. Oh, they’re there, just not nearly in the magical, yard-encompassing numbers that Nashville has. These guys though, are generated. Some witchery with photoshop, some depth layering and some secret sauce.

(The secret sauce is basically a clouds layer heavily manipulated - pro-tip, so are the stars.) And while you can’t see it on-screen, the fireflies and stars - at least on the very limited edition prints - are hand-leafed in gold and silver leaf respectively. The moons are actually all a single shot from NASA’s archives. I have some beautiful shots of my own, but I’m not going to kid myself and imagine that they’re crisp enough to compare to such a gorgeous shot at the size this file lives in - I actually had to slightly soften this one to keep them from becoming over active in the composition. Here again, just hacking away. I love that they interact with the clouds in such a way as to confuse the depth and positioning altogether, as if they’re miniatures hanging in some impossible space around the figure’s wagon halo. Really though, the animation says it all. One step at a time, smart objects galore:

Outro:

What’s not to be satisfied with? The printed piece is just gorgeous, the gilding looks fantastic and Picture Frame Warehouse did a stellar job, as always, getting it nice and rightly protected. Help me make back the cost of production by picking up some prints in the shop!

Give me some comments, let me know what you think!

[traviscommeau]

Exploded View Camera, Process

Process post!

Once again, one of my favorite parts of the job - the in-the-dirt, figure-it-out, tune-the-world-out sort of stuff that is frightening, and challenging, and in the end the most rewarding stuff. I'd rather be doing this part than any scheduling, talking on the phone, or whatever admin tasks are piling up on my desk. Or cleaning my desk for that matter...

So let's get to it. I desperately needed to do some self-promotion and start drumming up more shooting work here in Nashville, so I figured I'd make some time between outside retouching gigs and challenge myself to create an image that shows off my technical ability to shoot complicated and unorthodox still-life, my more trade-like skills as a retoucher, and my conceptual skills as an artist* in general. I think I pulled it off, but you be the judge. Here's the final image:

So how did I do it? Let's see if I can quantify it after the fact, since I am notoriously bad at taking shots along the way to document it properly.

  Step 1, The Concept:

Sketches? I didn't make any this time, to my discredit. I'd recently worked on some killed artwork (I did not shoot these) with Sacred Bones Records and their excellent designer (and fellow RMCAD alum), David Correll, involving some "exploded view" portraits of band members for an album cover. You can see some of the work that was killed for that above - while it certainly needed more refining, I rather like it. Them's the breaks though, so onward and upward... This work led me down a rabbit hole of ideas that I never committed to paper, but rather just held in my head.

Pro-tip: write things down.

  Step 2, The Shoot:

This was daunting. The actual set-up process was relatively simple, a few big soft sources and some flags and reflectors and we're good to go. Unfortunately, my tripod, while great, is no tank-like studio stand; the dog (Harp) loves to sleep right up against whatever tripod- or light stand legs she can find - and is less than ginger when doing so; and keeping the exact angle and placement of the camera being shot while also taking it apart piece-by-piece is nigh on impossible. All that being said, it went about as well as could be expected. Above you can see some of the RAW shots and behind-the-scenes.

The camera of note is a Canon T70, an early '80s 35mm SLR focussed on simple controls on an otherwise fully powered and flexible body. That being the case, I wanted the image to be neutral, so I've de-branded the lens and body to say "camera" instead of "Canon". It's not particularly rare or remarkable... and more than a little ugly with regards to it's branding, not to mention I already have several 35mm film cameras that are more fun to use, so it seemed perfect for the dissection challenge. I had wanted to start with a much (much) more simple camera to basically test the process out, but waffled too long and finally just bit the bullet. "A journey of a thousand miles ..." and all that. Turns out, relatively modern cameras have a shit ton of individual parts. Hindsight.

  Step 3, Composing:

Initially I had thought I'd take a much more "clinical" approach to the exploded view idea - and went so far as to shoot the camera this way. Everything on a basically 45-degree angle and constrained to the axis. However, as I began to put everything together in a rough fashion, I found myself a little bored by the execution. I knew I could probably make photoshop work a bit harder and try to make the camera look like it was literally peeling apart, but wasn't really satisfied with that exploration either. The more dynamic, directional explosion in the final image seemed more visually appealing, less static and less pandering (to photoshop), so ... winner, winner, chicken dinner.

  Step 4, The Build:

My favorite part - the animated gif process build! It gives a much better impression of the amount of work that went into this image - so may pieces (and trust me, I've weeded way more that became too visually complicating), so many paths to cut, so many compositional choices, so many tiny violins playing the tears down my cheeks. 

Let me know what you think in the comments or elsewhere online!

  *To be fair, I struggle with the term "artist" a lot. I feel more like a crafts- or trades-person - but we can talk about that some other time over a few drinks.

[traviscommeau]

-Sigstop, Process

Process post! If nothing else, because I love making the animated GIFs at the ends of these things.

So I started a series a while back, -Sigstop, to play with more color and deliberation than I sometimes get a chance to on client work. For now it exists as just grocery produce and a few hand signals, though I'll be expanding it as life progresses and I find some time or fitting subjects. I'll walk you through what I can of my process here, though I do need to get better at documenting the actual steps while I'm doing them.

 The Finished Products:

For reference, and for those of you (such as myself) that are too busy to go clicking though that link above - here are the finals - and remember, prints are available for sale! 

  The Concept:

Unfortunately, I have no sketches to show. To be fair to myself though, these guys were fairly straight forward in my head from the beginning, and the glitching does lend itself to a bit of spontaneity as you'll see below. Past that though - what was I thinking? Several things, it turns out.

At first the image of a bunch of bananas where one was disintegrating digitally popped into my head. I'd been trying to venture away from my glitch portrait series, but continue the theme. I'd done those for ages and still have a few left to finish (sorry guys!), so I think I've mostly got that ground covered. What followed there was the Piacular series - which I'll cover in another process post at some point. There I was experimenting with the glitching process as it applied to a whole body, in an environment. Less investigating identity, more investigating the aesthetic and narrative properties. From there, between shooting more folks for Piacular, I wanted to try the glitching technique on a more focussed, manual level and to see how it behaved on brighter, more colorful backgrounds. To see what it was like to take the technique to high-resolution, large format executions. These meant getting more manual and deliberative. 

Technical experimentation is the main focus then - method/lighting/composition - but I do love the idea of suggesting a message. In the case of produce the obvious question relates to genetic engineering - the digital manipulation of an organic symbol. I'm personally in favor of it (particularly in the case of the imperiled common banana as we Americans know it), but the debate is fantastic to have. Learning new things is always good practice. In the case of the non-produce related pieces though, it gets a little more murky - and frankly, I'd love to hear what any of you guys think.

  The Shoot:

Nothing very complicated here. Get my lights in order, just key and rim - make sure my background is black (the glitching process goes smoother this way) and make sure I've got a good white balance. Pretty straight forward.

  The Glitching:

I take the straight shots, retouch them to be clean and presentable, and then export them out to be run through the ringer. As you can see, I generate a LOT of glitches. Nearly 200 in this example alone. The mobile app decim8 is my usual go-to, with a plethora of recipes that I run through in different iterations, combinations, and rotations. Again, and again, and again. Generally multitasking with my phone and tablet at the same time, while working on some altogether different project. Waiting for the processor on my old iPad to keep up, saving only maybe 30-40% of the ones that get generated. I generally know what I want going in, but on the far end of the process things tend to get a little (a lot) more flexible and subject to change and experimentation. For that reason I tend to go overboard on the quantity of these to cover my bases and not have to retread old roads.

  The Build:

I take those glitches from above and cull them down to just a handful that appeal to me, importing them into the main image, playing with composition, color and effect. Some get used as guides, some get used as spice.

Obviously this animation oversimplifies the process, in that it skips - or makes light of - the tweaks on all of the individually sliced up, manually 'glitched' pieces of the solo banana of the bunch. It simplifies the compositional process that goes through a lot of back-and-forth as I'm putting the file together, but it does give an idea of the overall process. 

I'll generally take a few of my favorite decim8 outputs and use them as a loose guide for the manually sliced up item. After the initial division, I move and blend and mask and tweak each individual slice so that it comports with the image in my head, in so far as I have a specific image hiding in there. Gradually it comes more and more into place, a shadow is added, and an output file is made that can actually be printed. The bright RGB images often exceed the ability of standard printers to replicate, but I try to get the prints as close as possible. I'd rather give preference to the bright RGB files and treat the prints as separate entities altogether, given that the RGBs are so arresting. In many cases, such as this banana example, the difference between the printed and on-screen versions is slight - in others it is necessarily more pronounced.

  Conclusion:

While I think I may be drawing to the latter half or so of my affinity with the glitching process in terms of just creating more for creation's sake, I'm still a big fan of this series and can easily see a few more iterations thereof. Maybe I do some flowers, maybe I do some less organic items. I'll get there.

Any suggestions?

[traviscommeau]

10 Hudson Yards

While I didn't shoot these images (the flora or these actual shots), I did do the retouching and it's always nice to show off some real-world work. Robert Wright did the shooting on the High Line, and was kind enough to go back and shoot the finished product for me recently. Be sure to check out his work - it's pretty tight and he was personally great to work with, in our limited capacity.

Point One Percent, working with Related, was tasked to do some construction covering screens to make the new tenants at 10 Hudson Yards more comfortable entering the space while work continued on the floors above them. The location is right off of the High Line, an elevated rail line turned public park, so they went out and shot a bunch of the same flora seen in the park to make the experience more seamless. In just a few days I was tasked with taking those shots and combining them into super-huge (read 10Gb+) files for the excellent designers over at P.O.P (see: Katie Jansen, among others) to then slip into the actual layouts. 

Thanks, as always, to all involved! If you're in NYC any time soon make sure to check out the High Line, it's beautiful and so much better than the rusting health hazard it was just a few years ago, and when you're done (walk south-to-north) check out 10 Hudson Yards and appreciate that the walk is substantially more pleasant because of these screens.

[traviscommeau]

Argus C3

The Argus C3, "The Brick," one of the most popular 35mm cameras in history, selling over 2 million units from 1939 to 1966. 

From the wiki:

"The C3 was introduced in October 1939 as an improved version of the C (1938–9) and C2 (1938–42). All three models shared the same "brick" design, attributed to Gustave Fassin, but the C3 was by far the most successful. The original Argus C was equipped with an uncoupled rangefinder which required the user to manually rotate the lens barrel to match the rangefinder reading, while the C2 coupled the rangefinder to the lens to allow one-step focusing. The C3 added built-in flash synchronization but was otherwise identical to the C2. It originally retailed for $35, equivalent to $595 in current dollars. The C3 proved hugely successful, selling approximately 2 million units during its 27-year production run. Although the boxy design was neither stylish nor ergonomic, customers were reportedly drawn to the camera's "scientific" appearance with its many gears, knobs, and dials. The C3 also developed a reputation for rugged durability and sharp, high-quality images. Photographers affectionately nicknamed it "the brick". The C3's enduring popularity allowed it to outlast nearly all of its American competitors, including the Kodak 35 Rangefinder, but it was not able to compete with the flood of inexpensive Japanese single lens reflex cameras entering the market in the 1960s and was finally discontinued in 1966. Although the design is over 75 years old as of 2014, many C3s are still in use. The cameras are inexpensive on the used market and their simple construction makes them relatively easy to repair."

I have just been displaying this as an art piece along side it's sick old flash attachment and leather case since I found it in a gigantic antique mall in Illinois or Kentucky someplace, but after taking this shot I dug out a roll of 35 and plopped it in there. From what I can tell it still fires well, though the shutter cocking crank is a little finicky so I'm not about to use if for a paying gig or really anything I'm terribly concerned about. That being said, I'll definitely be posting the results of the tests here if any of them pass muster.

[traviscommeau]

Prints for sale!

Prints! Small, large, beautiful, gilded, archival and buttery smooth sent straight to your door as fast as I can manage!

I've been meaning to get this underway for ages but the right printer and options were just a little daunting to finally get out of the way. I'm very happy with the quality of the offerings you'll see here. Everything is printed on Fuji Deep Matte paper, incredibly smooth and pretty. I'm trying to give a few options on each as well. something small and affordable, something large and still reasonably priced and then, in some instances, some hand-loved options that are limited edition and at a more premium price-point.

For now I'm offering all of the -sigstop series as well as all of my conceptual stuff (with the exception of the holiday cards). If you want something that's not listed, feel free to hit me up and I'll be happy to accommodate. I'm also hoping to get some small free downloadable stuff up as well, when I get some extra moments. Stay tuned.

In the meantime, head over to the shop and take a look around. Let me know what you'd like to see, and if there are any issues with the process. I'm new to this whole rigamarole, so I'm sure they will be a hiccup or two here and there.

[traviscommeau]

Prints for sale!

Prints! Small, large, beautiful, gilded, archival and buttery smooth sent straight to your door as fast as I can manage!

I've been meaning to get this underway for ages but the right printer and options were just a little daunting to finally get out of the way. I'm very happy with the quality of the offerings you'll see here. Everything is printed on Fuji Deep Matte paper, incredibly smooth and pretty. I'm trying to give a few options on each as well. something small and affordable, something large and still reasonably priced and then, in some instances, some hand-loved options that are limited edition and at a more premium price-point.

For now I'm offering all of the -sigstop series as well as all of my conceptual stuff (with the exception of the holiday cards). If you want something that's not listed, feel free to hit me up and I'll be happy to accommodate. I'm also hoping to get some small free downloadable stuff up as well, when I get some extra moments. Stay tuned.

In the meantime, head over to the shop and take a look around. Let me know what you'd like to see, and if there are any issues with the process. I'm new to this whole rigamarole, so I'm sure they will be a hiccup or two here and there.

[traviscommeau]

-Sigstop

-sigstop - a programming signal used to halt a process. 

I'm obviously enamored with the glitch look, but I've begun to move farther and farther away from the actually randomized results I am given from apps like Decim8 toward more manual recreations of the same effect. Not sure I can say it's any more or less valid, but I do think it's substantially more artistically satisfying. 

In the interest of keeping my chops up, I've begun an open-ended series of still-life pieces incorporating the technique. For now I'll keep it mainly on produce and simple isolated objects, but may expand outwardly in the future. In addition to the aesthetically pleasing aspect of the series, I'm also interested in the nebulous message posits, in much the same way as my Piacular series. Is the glitching, especially in the produce pieces, a commentary on GMO practices? If so, Am I pro- or anti-GMO? Or maybe it's more of a take on our digital dependence. What message do you get out of them?

For the moment I'm selling them as stock on Arcangel (at least, the curious few from the series they accept over the others. No accounting for taste I guess) and will be selling them as prints as soon as I can find time for solving that on process my schedule. Let me know if you're interested in any.

[traviscommeau]

Mary Mooney

East Nashville has been very sociable since we moved last summer. Being almost-alcoholics, Mickey's Tavern was our first in-road, through which we've met just about all of our current social circle - thanks to owners Andy and Becky - and the ridiculously awesome bartenders. In that vein, through one or two turns and connections I met Mary Mooney - a gratuitously nice and gracious local artist and jewelry maker. (She's just relaunched her website and it's pretty sick, please, take a look - https://marymooneyart.com/)

Mary's work is two-fold in that she first creates these beautiful hexagonal abstract back-painted colorful pieces - but in the process spins off something like shards of the parent painting, which are first done in a standard rectilinear shape. She takes these shards, cleans them up and makes them into beautiful necklaces unlike anything I've seen floating around - and though she already has some perfectly great product photography, and technically creates more of these than I could hope to keep up with on our little indie budgets, I really wanted to work with her on some shots. She obliged, let me borrow a few pieces and spend some time with them - some of the results of which are above. Not only that, but she also offered to let me use her miter saw for some of my own little projects instead of letting me brutally labor over them with a hand saw. Thanks Mary!

I can't wait to work with her more in the future and see what else we can come up with.

[traviscommeau]

Edison Phonograph Cylinders

While wandering around last years' Tomato Festival in East Nashville we stumbled upon a vendor selling both these beautiful ~100yr old phonograph cylinders, and - if you've got deep pockets - the antique players to listen to them on. As collectors (coughhipsterscough) of shit way older than we are, Natasha and I gladly picked up these two with the intent of using them as decoration and in the hopes of keeping them nice and safe for decades to come.

Apparently these variety of cylinders were some of the earliest commercially sold music, reaching back to 1896. Sadly (?) the medium was overtaken by the more familiar disc style record by around 1910, so these guys are relatively rare-ish. I'd never seen or heard one before anyway, so hey, that's rare enough for me when it comes to tchotchke.

Here's some history from wikipedia:

Beginning in 1889, prerecorded wax cylinders were marketed. These have professionally made recordings of songs, instrumental music or humorous monologues in their grooves. At first, the only customers for them were proprietors of nickel-in-the-slot machines — the first juke boxes — installed in arcades and taverns, but within a few years private owners of phonographs were increasingly buying them for home use. Each cylinder can easily be placed on and removed from the mandrel of the machine used to play them. Unlike later, shorter-playing high-speed cylinders, early cylinder recordings were usually cut at a speed of about 120 rpm and can play for as long as three minutes. They were made of a relatively soft wax formulation and would wear out after they were played a few dozen times. The buyer could then use a mechanism which left their surfaces shaved smooth so new recordings could be made on them.

...

Cylinders were sold in cardboard tubes with cardboard caps on each end, the upper one a removable lid. Like cylindrical containers for hats, they were simply called "boxes", the word still used by experienced collectors. Within these "boxes", or tubes, the earliest soft wax cylinders came swathed in a separate length of thick cotton batting. Later molded hard-wax cylinders were sold in tubes with a cotton lining. Celluloid cylinders were sold in unlined tubes. These protective tubes were normally kept and used to house the cylinders after purchase. Their appearance motivated bandleader John Philip Sousa to deride their contents as "canned music", an epithet he borrowed from Mark Twain ... but that did not stop Sousa's band from profiting by recording on cylinders.

Think they're cool? They can be found online for nice and cheap. If you get some though, keep them safe. They're little slices of the beginning of the modern music age and won't be around forever.

[traviscommeau]

Stereo Realist

The most popular stereo camera of all time, a tank and kind of a pain in the ass; the Stereo Realist is still one of my favorite vintage cameras. Not hard to come by, and not too expensive - but they tend to be falling apart at least a little. In this one's case the focal mechanism is screwed up, so much of my efforts are either mathematical or best-guess. 

It began production around 1947 and gained popularity with the celebrity set for the novelty of the 3-dimensional 35mm positive prints given by its dual lenses set just slightly apart. Effectively the same technique that VR cameras today use and Google Cardboard has made so cheap and easy for anyone with a cell-phone. 

Unlike modern VR though, the clarity of the tiny little slide prints is astonishing and gorgeous. Couple that with the preciousness that comes with the product being the very film the photos are shot on and the impracticality of duplicating the slide film (especially after you cut it all apart to get it in the stereoscopic holders), and it easily makes up for being so curmudgeonly, slow, and brick-heavy.

[traviscommeau]

Been a while...

So we bought a house, had a bunch of renovation done that turned out to take quite a while longer than expected, and ultimately, I got distracted by the hustle. That's not to say that the hustle is going well. I'm not a fan of the hustle, but it is distracting.

Anyway, back to it. Something simple just to get me back on track.

While growing up, my parents and I had birds for quite a while. A Parakeet, a Quaker, and two African Greys. It was nice, as a kid, educational and all that - but we're really not into having them as pets now that we're adults. We have, however, become bird-people when it comes to the songbirds and wilds birds around the house and local parks. Cardinals, Chickadees, Titmice, Mockingbirds, Wrens, Bluebirds and a whole list of others. With that in mind, we received a two-way mirrored, window-mounted bird feeder for Christmas from family and ever since I was smart enough to move it to the front window we've been wrapped up in who comes to feed at it. I've taken to setting up my backup camera tied to an old iPhone with a TriggerTrap set to fire the shutter on motion detection. Mostly it's worked wonderfully, though the finches tend to just hang out and run down my batteries. 

We get plenty of Chickadees and House Finches, the Titmice have finally come to trust it and a female Cardinal has been getting braver. Had a Carolina Wren once but the bastards are too damned fast. The Juncos won't come up to it and prefer to eat from all of the shrapnel that the Finches throw on the ground, and we haven't been able to get a male cardinal in yet. If we can get a Cedar Waxwing or one of the little Downy Woodpeckers that frequent the yard in and catch them in the camera I'll be more than stoked.

[traviscommeau]

Been a while...

So we bought a house, had a bunch of renovation done that turned out to take quite a while longer than expected, and ultimately, I got distracted by the hustle. That's not to say that the hustle is going well. I'm not a fan of the hustle, but it is distracting.

Anyway, back to it. Something simple just to get me back on track.

While growing up, my parents and I had birds for quite a while. A Parakeet, a Quaker, and two African Greys. It was nice, as a kid, educational and all that - but we're really not into having them as pets now that we're adults. We have, however, become bird-people when it comes to the songbirds and wilds birds around the house and local parks. Cardinals, Chickadees, Titmice, Mockingbirds, Wrens, Bluebirds and a whole list of others. With that in mind, we received a two-way mirrored, window-mounted bird feeder for Christmas from family and ever since I was smart enough to move it to the front window we've been wrapped up in who comes to feed at it. I've taken to setting up my backup camera tied to an old iPhone with a TriggerTrap set to fire the shutter on motion detection. Mostly it's worked wonderfully, though the finches tend to just hang out and run down my batteries. 

We get plenty of Chickadees and House Finches, the Titmice have finally come to trust it and a female Cardinal has been getting braver. Had a Carolina Wren once but the bastards are too damned fast. The Juncos won't come up to it and prefer to eat from all of the shrapnel that the Finches throw on the ground, and we haven't been able to get a male cardinal in yet. If we can get a Cedar Waxwing or one of the little Downy Woodpeckers that frequent the yard in and catch them in the camera I'll be more than stoked.

[traviscommeau]

Renovation...

I've been amiss in updates since we're living in an active renovation. Between the DIY projects going on, the contractors working day in and day out, the lack of a functional kitchen (any kitchen at all really, since that's where all the major reno is going on), paying work and laziness - I've definitely been off my update-game. This post is not much different but hopefully gives some kind of context. 

Lacking a kitchen we've resorted to shitty eating - ramen, pizza, blah blah blah. That being said, I was a little happy to have a relatively reasonable reason to eat Maruchan Cup-O-Noodles again and was surprised to see a new flavor (new to me at least), Chicken Tortilla. Long story short, go get some. Just do it - forget the ridiculous level of sodium for a second and just eat it. It's delicious. 

I can't wait to have a real kitchen again though. Especially this gorgeous walnut butcher block and concrete island.