A photoblog of my life, with notes.

Friday, April 24, 2009

SPAMMERS!

Somebody has stolen my last post, run it through what looks like a bad traslator or a word changer, and posted it to their blog. It contains a lot of odd lexical changeups. From the title of the blog, I think they found it by searching for the word "photoshop". I'll see if this post also ends up garbled and stolen.

The link is: http://photoshoptrial.blogmas.com/2009/04/24/ertys-blog-my-senior-year-after-the-trial/

None of the information on that site is mine, and I would like whoever it is to please stop. I've sent a letter to the blogmas support team, and I'll see how far that gets.

Please remember that only some things you read on the internet are true - 1337guy.blogspot.com is my blog, not that theif's.

Unfortunately, that post showed up in a recent google alert about Conserve School - My link is the one to this blog.

Thank you,

--Erty

Thursday, April 23, 2009

After the Trial

Well, it looks like my school is going to die. Some might say that, no, it is just transitioning, but I happen to have bought into the idea that Conserve School as a four-year program was something really special. It was for me. Conserve School for me was a real home away from home, a school where I could really be myself. I don't think there are many schools that allow students to do that, and soon there will be one less.

Sometime soon, I'm going to make an image of Conserve School with both a birth and death date. Also, an image of our main building, the LAB, emblazoned with "NEVAR FORGET".

Anyway, I'm pretty depressed about the whole thing. I slept through most of Earth Day, and spent the afternoon at a house of one of the concerned parents, eating and trying not to talk about the whole thing.

Anyway, there was a small and low-key get-together at a local hotel immediately following the dismissal of our case to get our school back. (If you want to know what happened, https://bringbackconserve.com/). I took two pictures that I like.

Arron Toy Machine

Super high contrast, super high saturation. It reminds me of a carnival.


Eight Ball


There was a pool table at the hotel, and although I didn't play, I did take some pretty pictures. This one was a slightly long-exposure shot that I played around with in photoshop. I darkened the eight-ball itself, and dodged out the white circle, to make it more of a focal point.

I'm pretty distracted at the moment, what with the whole school thing. 32 days until I graduate. I'm not sure how I feel about that.

Check out my new website design, if you have a moment: www.ertyseidel.com

--Erty

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Stephen and Snow

My good friend Stephen (pronounced Steven) McVerry was lounging and chatting, when I, the rogue photographer, snuck up upon him like a tiger among grass and pounced, shutter flying wildly open and closed as I tried to get the best angle and lighting to capture my subject.

Stephen One


...

Just kidding. I really just walked up to him with my camera, took a few shots while he struck poses like the one above, exchanged some quick and monosyllabic words, and walked away to go play DDR.

But it's fun to dream. Here's another shot of him:


Stephen Two


Secretly, this second one is actually a pretty blurry picture, but I shrunk it down enough that I don't think anyone can tell unless they look really hard. Both these images are nicely rule-of-thirds and focus-on-the-eyes compliant, which I've been working on and seem to be getting the hang of. It might be the fact that my camera seems incapable of taking a "bad" image (barring those when I'm walking and shaking the camera so much that it would throw up if it were capable).

Also, it snowed. I am very disappointed about this and expect something to be done immediately.

Snow


Blizzarding down, we got about 5-6 inches in just two days. By Thursday, it's supposed to be 65 degrees here. Weather is so finicky. I was perfectly happy with the last time it was 65 degrees and clear. I think the perfectly logical explanation of this is that somebody with more snow karma that I went and sacrificed some small animals to the snow gods so that they could go skiing one more time.

I'm not bitter. Bitterly cold, maybe, but not bitter.

--

In addition, tomorrow is Earth Day. Here at our little environmental school, we like to celebrate Earth Day in a big way - we have the entire day off to do things related to environmentalism. I'm excited.

For those of you who know, tomorrow is also the big trial for Conserve School's future. I'm anxious, but I've decided I want to stay and go to Earth Day, since that's really why I'm here.

Good luck tomorrow, Mr. Leizerman & co.

--Erty

Monday, April 20, 2009

Return of the Pictures

Well, I finally have a cord to get pictures off of my camera, and although I still do not have the highest confidence that my camera will continue to work for a long time, I have, in fact, taken some pictures.

I've been working on the design of my main website, too. That'll be up as soon as I work out all of the bugs (which are numerous, since I'm not using tables. Those who are CSS-savvy will understand my pain.)

To pictures!

Billiam Bright

I start off with my black and white piece for the evening. This is my good friend Bill Meier. This was taken during a class in which we spent two hours flying giant weather balloons. Yes, my school is just that AWESOME. We were testing the feasibility of a wind turbine, and one of the important factors is visibility. Unfortunately, at 180 feet the balloon was visible from across the nearby lake, and so the residents may take some convincing. By the way, 180 feet is WAY UP THERE.


Glowing Lamps


This picture I took while I was at home, and had been recently pestered by friends and family to take some pictures. Among some almost amazing pictures of a fan, I found this glowing picture. I imagine the bells of the lamps as fairy skirts, their delicate owners glowing inside their flowing glass-silk bulbs.


Sun Star

This image I took of the sun at 1/4000 of a second, F22. It basically means that my camera was taking in the smallest amount of light that it can manage. The sun is BRIGHT. Things are just blowing my mind today (and, although it was 4/20 yesterday, I am not on anything.)


My Mask

Well, this last weekend was my school's prom. The theme? Venetian masquerade. I went in black and white, complete with cape. The picture above is my mask, which I made out of an old pinhole camera, which in turn was made out of a Mrs. Feilds' cookie tin. I cut out the bottom of the 10" tin with a can opener, drew on the dimensions I wanted in dry-erase marker, and cut out the shape and eyeholes with regular scissors. One side of the mask was painted black, so I ran some fine-grained sandpaper over it to scratch away parts of the paint, giving the whole thing a very interesting look.

I took it off after about 20 minutes to go dance, but I really enjoyed making and wearing the mask.

Musical Girl


As she is most likely under 13, it would be uncouth and possibly illegal to post her name, but let me just say that I really like the photography aspect of this picture. I think I caught a lot of the moment in this one snapshot that I took before spring break during a pep talk for our school musical, Cinderella. The viewer is almost immediately drawn to her eyes, which portray just so much about her personality in this picture. This is probably one of my favorite portraits so far.

Fallen Girl

This is one of my good friends here at Conserve, who was hiding behind a chair. I added a quick vignette to the image, and a little desaturation. Voila! The picture takes on a dark and emotional flavor. I've always been a strong believer in the theory that the position of a subject in a picture holds a lot of power in the image. I may have mentioned this before, but a subject at the top of the frame is flighty, free, and happy. A subject at the bottom of the frame (as shown here) is heavy, trapped, and weighed down. Here, combined with the odd angles and perspectives of the stonework (I was standing on the top of the chair), I think I've created a nicely dark picture.

--Erty

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