The Incredible... Macro Box!

I've been asked a few times about the right way to photograph an object alone, like most of the commercial products you see nowadays, especially when it comes to marketing. If you want to take an isolated photo of an object, it isn't always simple to eliminate completely the background and still manage to control the lightning you want.

You can't simply place an object on a table and expect it to look good. So what's the trick?



A few years ago, me and some friends did some research about a home made system that could provide us basic control over both the object, environment, and lightning. Without spending a lot of money, of course, and by a lot of money I mean anything above €15!

So... we created a box.






Yep, this is it. An old micro-wave box which can wonders. But you need to modify it, in order to provide some basic (good) lightning and color control.

Step 1) Get a box. A big one, if you're using large objects. Place it so the opening will be facing you.

Step 2) Cut 4 holes in each side of the box: two on the side, one on top and one on the back. These holes should be large, it's where our light will come from; but should still be small enough to be covered with an A4 size sheet.

Step 3) We could leave our holes as they are, but the light would be too harsh and we need to diffuse it. Paper will do just fine. So get 4 A4 pieces of thin white paper and cover these big holes from the outside.

Step 4) Cut the flaps on the opening, you won't need them.

Step 5) This is important as it teaches you how to get the infinite background effect. You simply have to place a LARGE piece of paper inside the box, in a curved shape (NOT like the photo above!!!)

Here's a sketch, using side view (yes, my drawing skills are extremely unique):



As you can imagine, shooting this object from the front will simulate an infinite horizon, and no one will be able to tell you've used a sheet of paper to get the effect.










Step 6) Lightning. You will need it, and lots of it, wether it's natural of artifficial. And this is actually the fun part. I prefer using artifficial light because I can control it better, and placing colored sheets in front of white lamps gives you a natural control of coloring. I usually use two lamps coming from the side, other times I use one on the side and another one coming from the top.

For natural effects, ONLY use white lamps, not yellow.

Optional Step: Use black cardboard or black sheets in order to create dark effects (see Porsche image above). You can do whatever you like, depending on the effect you wish to create.

Optional Step 2: Mirrors! It's amazing what a simple flat mirror can do. Simply place it as the "floor", and be careful not to shoot it's edges while composing the frame. This works better with dark environments.

Optional Step 3: If you don't have a mirror large enough, you can use black silverware plates filled with water.

Optional Step 4: Macro rings. If you can't afford a macro lens, or don't have a camera capable of changing lenses, look for a small dioptry macro ring and put it in front of you camera. This will reduce your field of view and enable you to shoot closer, comfortably.

Optional Step 5: A tripod will make your life a whole lot easier.

Optional Step 6: Use closed aperture values (f8.0+) and shoot longer.

And that's pretty much it. It all depends on the lightning, and how you play with it. I'm only giving you my best way to control it, but it's still up to you to find the correct values to play with. Keep in mind that different materials and color completely change the way your object will look like

Passage

Today, while reading a few blogs, I discovered a tiny game (not quite a game, but keep reading) that changed my state of mind, and probably speeded up my heartbeat rate for a while. It's called Passage, and it's an old-fashioned side-scrolling game with a unique characteristic:

It represents your whole life during 5 minutes.

The game itself only lasts 5 minutes, then you die. It's a simple, yet complex maze where you control a young character. Eventually, this character will grow old, slowing down, and at the end, die. You can read the author's notes to become fully aware of what this game means, in it's full complexity.

At the start, you have the possibility to team up with someone else (your wife). But you can choose not to, and your character will walk faster and manage to get through mazes you couldn't reach with company. But if you team up, you'll walk side by side (in love!) through the whole thing.
You begin in the left side of the screen, and the right side (which represents your future) is a giant amount of blurred pixels. As you walk by, you can search for treasures in complicated mazes, increasing your score. But you won't live to see all the scenery, and just walk around freely with your love. As you get near the end, you're already on the right side of the screen, not much future to look up to, and the left side of the screen is now the blurry part... your past.
And you begin to think if your score is really that important.

You get the idea of the game, but you really have to play it to feel what it has to tell you. I was shocked when I felt that the "life algorithm" could be recriated in 5 minutes alone, and altough impressed, I'm now afraid of playing this game.

Download it here, and don't forget to read the author's notes.

It's so easy

... to find good music.


The Mars Volta new album, "The Bedlam In Goliath", is a wonderful piece of musical art. The ex-At-the Drive In did it again, and managed to fit a whole bunch of delicious progressive rock jams into a new release. The lyrics are exceptional, and the hardcore feeling attached to it is superb, enough to keep my mind under constant pressure while listening to these fantastic tracks.







Finally! I found Witchcraft's second album, "Firewood", from 2005. And what could I expect from them, if not the best stoner rock alive? "Firewood" clearly steals a lot from old "Pentagram" early releases, but that doesn't take any credit away from them. Unlike the recent "The Alchemist", "Firewood" is raw and straight to the point, wrapping the corner stone between stoner rock and stoner metal in hot aluminium foil. Delicious.





Fuck fuck fuck, why do I always forget about how much I love Bowie? If there's anyone in the musical industry with a tremenduous amount of compilations, is David Bowie. (and J. Cash as well, but that's another story.) So you got to know how to pick them right. "London Boy", from 1998, is a fine way to start collecting. Why, you ask? Well, for starters you get to listen to the very original "Space Oddity" version, which seems rare to listen nowadays. The annoying "Laughing Gnome" he once tried to hide, now fits right in the middle of the album. And you get 16 more great songs from David, but it's important to mention that London Boy is not a Best Of. And that's the beauty of it, really.




And the new The Sword album, to be officially released in April this year, kicks ass.

Buzzards and Dreadful Crows

Finally, some time to breathe. After spending the last 6 ou 7 weeks in a peep-hope every day, since early morning to late night and with no time to sleep or eating right, I find myself now in a short term peace. Only exams left to do now, which means I can start and stop work whenever I actually want!

... it feels awesome.

And these are good days, especially because... the new Mars Volta album is out! Yes, and it's fuckin' great. "The Bedlam In Goliath" is one hell of an album, I know for sure I'll keep on listening to it over and over again as I did with the previous ones. And I've discovered a great 70's stoner rock band some time ago, called "Pentagram". It's a lot like Witchcraft, and I'm eager to find more stuff from those guys.

And I'm re-watching Band Of Brothers, the best war-series related ever made in history. Only two episodes left to finish it but.. it will be worth it. They're great. And I'm also re-watching good old Twin Peaks again, in good company.

A lot of work is coming again, very soon, both related and non related to University. But I don't really care, I want to make the most of these days and also do whatever the hell pleases me.

Taking both my camera and my girlfriend out, sometime, are priorities. A lot of music and movies are next on the list. Maybe even travelling, if the time is right. Who knows what 2008 might bring.

It's Cause Of These Things

So yes, we tend to underestimate the simple things, the minor pleasures of life. Often taking them for granted. But there is nothing, absolutely nothing, compared to the satisfaction of taking a Sunday off, have one hell of a (rather expensive) lunch, and drinking a delightful glass of wine in great company, with a view to die for in the city you love the most.

No rush, no preocupations, zero level process on the back of your mind. I have to be careful though, 'cause I can really get used to this.

Cheers!

Messed Up Xmas?

I hate buying people presents on Xmas. Don't get me wrong, because I love to give spontaneous gifts to people (who actually deserve such an act). But it's the "forced" feeling of buying, instead of offering. You give presents to someone you barely know just so they know "see, I'm not cheap".

So today I was with a friend making all the shopping (yes, I'm on of those who buys Christmas presents the day before, at midnight), and we thought of something really cool: wouldn't it be awesome if you had the nerve to give people the most wrong and absurd present to them, based on their personality?

It would be something like offering a Holy Bible to your satanic friend. Or frozen meat to your vegetarian buddies. A playstation game to your old fashioned grandfather. And maybe a coffee machine to the 5 year old next door! But the fun part would come when you said "I really hope you like it, I spent a long time figuring out what you would want". And then see their reaction. Man, I would so love that.

There should be a day like that. Believe me, it would be the greatest way to find the real personality of your friends! Aside from all this crap,

Merry Christmas.

Safe Music

For quite some time I've wanted to have a website about... music. Good music. Music I could share with the rest of the world. If there's something I love to do is to write about the music industry, so yes, my dream job would be the one presented in the Almost Famous movie.

Two years ago I had a blog in which I used to review the albums I loved the most, and the new ones I used to get my hands on. Unfortunately it didn't last long... nobody actually read the blog (like it happens with 80% of all the blogs) and it made me lose my interest.

I'm thinking about creating a small album-review system based on RSS - it wouldn't give me the trouble to actually build a website, only writing the review itself and publishing the Feed... A lot of people use iGoogle and NetVibes now, I could learn how to develop it as a gadget and publish it.

What I'd really love though, would be having more people to write with, kinda like it happens on Indienation (google it). That way I could share my wonderful perspective of the music magical world, and learn with my fellow colleagues. I have 2 or 3 people in mind, but I'm afraid of entering in this sort of projects now... they don't usually work and people tend to forget about them in a couple of weeks.

But my desire is strong, and as soon as I have time I will release the RSS Feed Reviewing. For sure :)

Witches, buffalos and dead ones

This week's recommendations:




Witchcraft - The Alchemist (2007)

[Stoner Rock / Hard Rock / Classic Rock]

[to fans of: Zeppelin, Lynyrd Skynyrd]






Omar Rodriguez Lopez - Se Dice Bisonte, No Bùfalo (2007)

[Progressive Rock / Experimental Rock / Psych Rock]

[to fans of: The Mars Volta]







...And You Will Know Us by the Trail Of Dead - Maddonna (1999)

[College Rock / Art Rock / Noise Rock / Post Hardcore]

[to fans of: At The Drive-In]

[my] (harsh) truth about CONTROL

So I finally got to see Control, the movie about Joy Division, and more specifically, Ian Curtis. For months I've been waiting for it to premiere, and to watch one of the most mysteryously dramatic stories about someone as odd as life itself. I can't say I'm disappointed, but unfortunately I can't say I'm satisfied either. I'll explain.

At the very first minute, you know you're going to get the silent treatment through the whole film. When you think about it, it makes some sense. Ian was a writer and a singer, but definitely not a speaker. You allow yourself to be embraced with a monochromatic silence, and a lack of long straight sequences that won't ever let you dissect whatever the hell was going on there. And yet, there is plenty of time for you to absorb the heat, or the cold, of that specific moment.

And there you have it. Ian Curtis is played by Sam Riley, a young man who's not a perfect match for Ian's looks, and definitely not a target hit on Ian's voice, but... he's the perfect middle term. The movie includes both music played by the original band members, and from the actors themselves, including the lead singing of Sam Riley. His effort is remarkable, but often failing miserably [his interpretation of Isolation is bloody terrible].

The story is straight forwarding. Perhaps too much. The sequences are short, silent, and they're simply too many. If Anton Corbjin's intention was to create frustration out of the lack of communication, he got way more than that. Which is good at some point, but then it just really gets you on your nerves. One hundred and twenty minutes of silence treatment can be harsh, so sometimes you're bombed with what seems to be some kind of an introspective diary, as if Curtis himself had the need to express and explain to you directly what he was going through. And honestly, it's akward. You can (could) get so much out of the facts themselves, that having someone explaining to you makes the whole plot fit together and following the same straight line.

And that, is bad.

Those who have seen 24 Hour Party People will find in Control a whole different approach. I was afraid Anton would make Ian's story into some kind of beautiful fairytale, something people could remember and tell others in a predefined order of events and emotions. And I wasn't completely wrong... the movie can be cruel, but it's not even as raw as those twenty minutes of Joy Division we get to lick in 24 Hour PP. Sean Harris may actually have been a better Ian than Riley, because he didn't call for the use of words. Riley is a closed book obviously, but only with heavy weights on top. Control represents darkness with a cherry on top.

But the main reason of my disappointment is because there could be so much more here. The characters are exactly what you would expect them to be, and you can't exactly love one of them. They don't give that much mystery, maybe except for Annik, which is gorgeous, a stunning woman who had a minor grade of importancy on the general plot... again, there could easily be so much more. It's like each character had their own string pulling them towards the very same end, and just when you think the string is about to break, it doesn't.

At some point, Ian Curtis [Sam] tells Annik that "some things about Joy Division are not meant to be beautiful". This is exactly what Anton should have paid more attention to, because in the end, it's all just a somewhat comprehensive story which doesn't really leave you wondering around thinking "what the hell happened after all?". You're pushed, they give you a puzzle of a thousand pieces and for two hours, they mount the first 950 pieces for you. The beautiful thing about Ian and the late 70's/early 80's Joy Division story is the fact that you simply cannot understand it. It's a back and forth of events, and fortunately this roleplay is pretty well expressed throughout the whole movie.

But the moments do sink in, eventually, and wether they're forced or not, the truth is they hit you. You miss the caption as a whole, but you know it's there. Still, I would rather have a shorter approach 24HPP style, because in this particular case, distancy only means you're getting closer. And if you don't get it, even better.

Overall, I enjoyed the movie, but the rush just is not one of my side-effects right now. Not even with the unfair "Atmosphere" being played just when Deborah finds Ian hanging, which would hit me like a damn frisbee if it wasn't so unfortunately predictable. But the [lack of] words is there, and they're burnt on wood. Timeless, eternal, just like they were then. But only now the world actually gets them. Unfortunately, the film also misses this final consideration.

Among a whole lot of things which made Joy Division so freakin' good.