This weekend I had a good friend visiting from the Dirty Dirty so I decided I would show him how we do, Frisco style. The 5D was free once again so I grabbed it and we hit the bricks. This time I thought I would shoot for the stars, sorry for the horrible pun, and try something a bit harder. Night shots are not easy but I think I managed to get a few good ones. I’m still learning but I think I’m getting a better grasp of how this bad boy works.

Thanks again for all the comments last time, it made me think a bit harder about what I was doing this time around. I’m really looking forward to using this medium to explore different modes of story telling and I have a few ideas which I think will be alot of fun.

Check out this sweet flash application called CODEORGAN that turns any website url into beats all you have to do is paste in any url. Its pretty awesome and seems pretty…well you decide. I copied the full description below and check out what THE BLACK HARBOR sounds like!!!

“The codeorgan analyses the “body” content of any webpage and translates that content into music. The codeorgan uses a complex algorithm to define the key, synth style and drum pattern most appropriate to the page content.

Firstly, the codeorgan scans the page contents and removes all the characters not found in the musical scale (A to G), and then analyses the remaining characters to find the most commonly used “Note”. If this is an even number the page is translated into the major pentatonic scale of that particular note, it beomoes minor if there is an uneven number.

Secondly, the codeorgan defines which synthesizer to use. This is based upon the total number characters used on the webpage – there are currently 10 synthesizer effects and the one chosen is picked based upon the percentage of content.

Lastly, the codeorgan selects a drum loop based upon the ratio of characters on the page versus the number of characters that are actually musical notes – there are currently 10 different drum loops to pick from.”

-That’s exactly how I thought it worked.

Watch this video it is simply amazing! What is even more amazing is how it was made. It appears to be film but infact is made up of over 35,000 photographs. It combines an innovative mix of stop motion and live projection mapping techniques. Here’s what Xavier Chassaing had to say about his film.

“What I have was an apartment, a small DSLR camera, a small computer and a small videoprojector. I also made a contraption who looks like a motion control but with the particularity of moving extremely slow who allowed me to take sequences of pictures with long exposure. (1frame per second, with 1 second of exposure). Even the best camera can not compete with this kind of sensitivity if they shoot at normal speed. So, I did everything myself from the 3d animation that I project on object, building the machine, the editing etc…” -via motionographer.com

This weekend I had a good friend visiting from the Dirty Dirty so I decided I would show him how we do, Frisco style. The 5D was free once again so I grabbed it and we hit the bricks. This time I thought I would shoot for the stars, sorry for the horrible pun, and try something a bit harder. Night shots are not easy but I think I managed to get a few good ones. I’m still learning but I think I’m getting a better grasp of how this bad boy works.

Thanks again for all the comments last time, it made me think a bit harder about what I was doing this time around. I’m really looking forward to using this medium to explore different modes of story telling and I have a few ideas which I think will be alot of fun.

Lately I have been trying to answer the question “what is good architectural design” and I remembered these photographs. They were shot by Danny Wills and are of Mike Tyson’s abandoned mansion.

I love these photographs. They remind me of my disdain for superfluous architectural design and of another giant’s fall from grace. I am referring to Dubai and its recent collapse. I hope that the world’s current economic state is clear enough evidence that architectural design, or any design for that matter, cannot be solely predicated on the pursuit of wealth. There are far to many problems in the world that need solving for us to be building monuments to luxury like the Burj Dubai and the home above. These photographs also remind me of why I have the utmost respect for the people behind projects like Architecture for Humanity and Project H Design.

*side note: I am looking forward to the day when I can visit Dubai and document all of the fallen.

What is good design? Is it pleasing to the eyes or is it something which solves a problem? Do designs which disregard the latter lack integrity?

I have my own assertions but either way I think this home is beautiful, even if it does not solve any world issues. The photography is pretty sweet as well and was taken by Ryota Atarashi & Satoshi Asakawa.

The home is located in Meguro, Tokyo, Japan and was designed by Mount Fuji Architects Studio.

I came across this sweet gif and it reminded me, not sure why, of these crazy cool stereoviews I stumbled across a few months ago. In case you haven’t seen them already here they are. Click on the thumbnails to enlarge.

“In the late 19th and early 20th century, enigmatic photographer T. Enami (1859-1929) captured a number of 3D stereoviews depicting life in Meiji-period Japan. A stereoview consists of a pair of nearly identical images that appear three-dimensional when viewed through a stereoscope, because each eye sees a slightly different image. This illusion of depth can also be recreated with animated GIFs like the ones here, which were created from Flickr images posted by Okinawa Soba”

Legend: Ruby,  JavaScript,  Scala,  Tests,  HTML/CSS/Images, Misc

I saw this last night as I was scanning through my 1000′s of google reader posts and I couldn’t help but share. This video shows the back-end development of twitter via a very cool particle animation. The colored particles swarming about the developers avatar represent a project based on Html/CSS, Ruby or Java. I did a little more searching and found out how it was made.

“This was made with the brain power of Ben Sandofsky, Mobile engineer at Twitter, and a nifty tool called “Code_Swarm”. Code Swarm is an open source experiment in organic software visualization and you can check it out on their site, or at Google’s code HQ.”

I would love to see this type of visualization applied to an extensive design project and displayed in an interactive environment. Imagine if you could rollover each particle and see the actually piece of work or if you could track one particle all the way through fruition…that would be sick. I’ve offically added this to my “things to do” pile. Enjoy and watch in full-screen mode to see all the goods.

A friend exposed me to a, still trying to find the words for it, rap video today which left me with many lingering questions. I set out on a quest to quench my curiosity and I thought I would share my findings. Below is another video, love the style, which answered a few questions but left me with a yearning for a pair of Dark Side of the Moon skivvies.

They also have a pretty badass website, even though it’s flash, where you can listen to more of their music and even stumble across a few hidden gems. It turns out that the 24 yr old DJ Leon Botha is one of the world’s longest surviving Progeria sufferers. Here is a very interesting photo essay entitled Transcend and Transgress where he and “photographer Gordon Clark embark on a collaborative and artistic adventure, exploring the questions of destiny and immortality ” I have also posted another video below of Leon speaking about his thoughts on immortality.

Still thirsty? I found a post on Boing Boing, looks like they already have some street cred, with even more information and videos. I think all of this is pretty badass and is just a reminder that we can and should do whatever the fuck we please. What say you?

I have always wanted to try my hand at photography but have never really been able to get my hands on a nice camera. Luckily for me we just happen to have a Canon 5D sitting around the office. I had Mike give me a short tutorial, found myself a muse and hit the streets.

I had no idea what I was doing but that didn’t matter I was having plenty of fun messing with all of the settings, sorry Mike. That was until I discovered adobe bridge and all of the sweetness of RAW.

I have A Lot to learn before I am worthy of this camera but I decided to post a few of my favorite photos anyway. Hopefully having these up here with all of this great work will inspire and push me a bit harder. So if anyone has any tips please shout them out. Thanks!