And Slaters Go Plop

For many years I’ve been an admirer and occasional practitioner of the art of typography. I’ve got an old (and dusty) hole punch and I’ve always admired the typography on this label.

Bathtub IV from Keith Loutit on Vimeo.

Here’s a video that has been on the InterTubes for a while now but it’s a good example of tilt-shifting done properly. Well, almost properly; the helicopter during the rescue should have remained in sharp focus as it was on the same plane as the section of water which was in focus. I also like the fact that it’s sped up a bit as it adds to the feeling of the surreal. Nice song too.

Tilt-shifting is a photographic effect where a faraway shot is artificially blurred in such a way as to give it a depth of field effect usually only found in close-up photography. This is because lenses (cameras and eyes) have different depths of field depending on how far away the object is. [A good demonstration of this depth of field effect is to move your head closer to the screen, close one eye and hold your finger up halfway in between your eye and these words. Focus on the words and you'll see that your finger is fuzzy. Now, leaving your finger where it is in relation to the screen, gradually move your head back and you'll see that both the screen and the finger become reasonably sharp.]

When used properly it can produce surreal shots with a hint of cutesy nostalgia.

Now, wind the clock back to the mid-nineties and to the glory days of lens flares.

An often unwanted effect of photography in bright light was that little orbs  (i.e. lens flares) would appear on the photo due to the source of the light hitting the lens directly. It wasn’t long before photo editing programs like PhotoShop realised that some artists were using this effect to give a shiny thing a bit more ‘bling’ and before you could say “Bob’s your sugardaddy” wannabe artists (myself included) were putting lens flares on anything and everything. Including things that didn’t shine. Like fur for example. Want to make your cat look more expensive? Put a big ol’ lens flare on its shoulder.

Return to the present and we have the same thing happening with tilt-shifting.

If you have, say, a photo like the above, the tilt-shift effect works pretty well because when you track vertically up the image the actual horizontal depth of field is fairly consistent. But imagine the same photo where one of the people in the crowd in the foreground is holding up a banner that takes up half of the right side of the photo. Applying a gradual blur-everything-vertically-away-from-the-middle will mean that the bottom of his banner will be blurred (as it should be because he’s in the foreground and the focal point is somewhere out on the field) but the middle of the banner will be nice and crisp which simply never happens in real miniature photography.

The crux of the matter is, inappropriate use of tilt-shifting is exactly as silly as whapping a lens flare on your cat’s shoulder. Learn from my lens flare crimes. Just because it can be done it doesn’t mean it should be done.

Now THAT has style written all over it. I’m going to have to buy lots for my family and friends. And a wardrobe full of them for when I meet with clients. Get yours now at Amazon!

I see that Apple are deigning to release the new iPhone in New Zealand soon. I’ve had an iMate Jam for almost three years now and only use it as a phone and an MP3 player (since moving to Linux I’ve been unable to sync my calendar and emails). I’m not going to be rushing out to get the new iPhone either. Why? Because I already know what I want in a device and I just know I’m going to be deeply dissatisfied with anything for the next ten or twenty years.

Here’s my specs for the ultimate device:

• Small enough to be worn on the wrist (perhaps twice the size of a watch but more fitted)
• An in-built or pull-out screen that suffices and has a minimum 800×600 resolution
• A universal docking port.
• Open source software AND hardware
• Phone
• Good quality camera (~4 megapixels + optical zoom)
• Audio and Video playback
• Desktop-equivalent processor + 4gb ram (to replace current PC but can be hotplugged into screen, keyboard, mouse and other devices wherever I happen to be)
• At least 160GB storage.
• Bottle opener
• Assorted knives, saws, scissors and picky things (air travel issues here)
• GPS
• Heart rate and other physiological monitors
• IR and radio remote control and key control for car, TV and house
• Credit card built in
• Solar panel on the back in case I can’t get near a power point
• Emergency beacon
• Tape measure
• Minesweeper and solitaire (isn’t that obligatory?)
• Total lockdown of sensitive information

And that’s all I can think of right now. Anything less is just not going to blow my socks off.

When my iMate finally dies I’m probably going to go back to my trusty Nokia 8210 which pretty much does everything I currently need a phone to do.

What I want is a keyboard that senses how hard I’m typing and translates it to the varying boldness and/or size of the text that appears.

Here’s a little something you may not know:

The ampersand is an abbreviated form of the Latin “et” which means “and”.

If you have the Trebuchet MS font on your computer you’ll notice that it renders the ampersand like the middle image.

Tonight I set myself a challenge to redesign the look and feel of this blog without using any images. Lots of grey, lots of white space and all typography. And if you are viewing this on Linux it’s likely you’ll be treated to an eyeful of Deja Vu Sans+Serif Condensed – the sweetest open source font IMHO. Windows and Mac users get Helvetica, Arial and Trebuchet.