Osama Bee Laden

I was out on the weekend at the gardens doing a photoshoot for a friend, and when that had finished I broke out the macro lens for some insect/flower action. I saw a frog doing frog things in a pond, and then noticed little mini frogs jumping about. It was almost too much when one leapt onto a lily flower.

Anyway, I take photos of the little frogs and when I come back to Momma (or Daddy) frog I see a little-un has climbed atop its head. This is a photo opp that could not be passed up, so I start snapping photos of it. I wanted to get a good front-on shot, but the pond was bordered by a foot and a half high bush teeming with flowers and bees.

I have a healthy respect for bees, what with a mild allergy and the painful memories of being stung on the same finger twice in the same day when I was about six, but to get the best eye-level perspective of the frog I have to lift my tripod (on its lowest setting) over the flowers to a low brick retaining wall.

This leaves me with the issue of setting the camera focus and taking the shots while I cannot easily get to it. So I do the only thing possible -- hpist one leg over the flowers and put it on the bricks, and lower myself so I can get the shots. As I am performing this graceless manoeuvre a cloud of bees swarms up out of the bushes and starts darting about. Angrily.

I’m actually doing the splits over these bee-filled flowers, crouching ever lower so I can get my eye to the camera’s viewfinder, and all the time I’m thinking please please please do not sting my nuts. Please stay calm, bees. Not. My. Nuts.

So anyway, this is a long intro about a frog photo (that didn’t really work - above) but most importantly it’s about bees. While my nuts remained un-molested by these little apic drones, as I was resetting my camera I took some time to watch the bees and pondered my lucky escape from being stung, and the bee’s even luckier escape from certain death had it stung me.

Not that I was going to the kill the bee in question in rage (quite likely that I would) but had I done so that would have been a hollow victory as once a worker bee stings you it dies. I remember thinking about how shit that was when I was a child, as it’s the ultimate lose-lose situation: I didn’t want to be stung, was not a threat to the bee, and the bee wasted its short life in delivering what it must have seen as ultimate justice. No one won, and although the sting hurt like almighty hell, the bee came off worse for it.

Bees are well prepared to give their lives for a higher goal. Now stay with me here: this actually makes bees the suicide bombers of the natural world.

They are little terrorists, willing to sacrifice themselves for a greater good. Their hives are Al Q’aeda cells, and they’re on a honey-jihad.

God help us all.

Allāhu Akbar!

Children ran here once...
Photo from my haunted places project

How I'd like My Music Reviews to be Composed from Now On.

Pete Ohs, from www.theanchorcenter.com

My Super Pre-Op Ex-Girlfriend

It looks like the kind of movie I’d watch only out of entertainment desperation, or if I wanted to impress a girl on a date with how sensitive I am, but I cannot say that My Super Ex-Girlfriend excites me. I’ve only seen the trailer though, so maybe I am depriving myself of an entire universe of larfs.

There is one part of the trailer that kind of disturbs me a little. It’s a sex scene where Uma is riding Luke’s character in bed, and being the demanding Super Ex-Girlfriend that she obviously is she’s riding him super hard. So hard in fact, that the bedhead is being driven through the wall, most probably into the neighbour’s apartment where hilarity and hijinks must surely ensue.

What worries me in this part of the trailer is that the bed is being driven through the wall as Uma thrusts forward, in what for anyone who’s had sex like this would mean Uma is essentially coming off Luke. Had Luke been on top and been the Super Ex-Boyfriend then the laws of physics would remain unchallenged, and Einstein and Newton could stop oscillating in their graves.

But no, Uma’s on top which means only one thing: for the thrusts to work as depicted Uma must in fact be Luke’s super soon-to-be-ex-man ex girlfriend, and he’s being penetrated like never before.

Which also explains the horrified look on Luke Wilson’s face.

Fin.

I don’t know why I don’t get more dates.

Hey baby -- you’re looking awesome tonight. I’m really glad you could come. Here, let me get that chair for you…there you go. Gentlemanly? Please! I was just brought up right, with manners and the proper respect for woman.

Ok, so here we are. What a beautiful restaurant, and what a beautiful woman to be here with. Wow…even more so when you blush like that. No, no, don’t hide your face -- I like to see you.

So. Shall I order the wine or would you like to? You would, great. I’ll finish off my story while you peruse the list.

So there I was, about the 32^nd floor of Nakatomi Plaza, and without my-- Japan? Yes of course. Have you been? Oh you should, it’s a wonderful place -- great food, great culture. I love it. Where was I? Oh yes, so there I am, about two floors above the reception area of Nakatomi Plaza when terrorists break in and start shooting up the place.

Now most people would lose their cool in a situation like that, but not me. Wait -- try this aperitif, just a mouthful, here…isn’t that delightful?

No, I wasn’t scared at all. What worried me was that I didn’t have any shoes, and later they shot out all these windows and I had to run barefoot through the gla--. What do you mean you’ve heard this before? I’m pretty sure I haven’t told you this one. Alright, fine.

Did I tell you about time I was in San Francisco, and I had to recruit this old con who was supposedly the only person to escape from Alcatraz, and I needed him to break me in! See these terrorists had set up missiles there with biological payloads, and they were threatening the city.

Huh? You know this one? That makes no sense, I’m pretty sure I haven’t mentioned this one yet. Alright, you know what you haven’t seen? This is awesome. Check this out. It’s a bicep. Want to feel it? Go on. I don’t care who’s watching. Feel it. Come one. Yeah, that’s it! Like a rock, huh? Knew you’d like it. You’re impressed, I can tell.

So what was happening? Oh right, so there I am, coming out of the foyer lift of this company, and there’s like a full SWAT team running in, yelling drop this and drop that. Now, I only kill people who deserve it, and these are just guys doing their job, so I shoot them in the thighs. Thwap, thwap, thwap. Once they drop, I walk forward, letting bullets bounce off my huge frame and pick up this excellent tear-gas gun, and start firing all around -- at the squad cars outside, into a few guys inside.

The SWAT and the cops are all like, noooo run, and I’m all like haha, indeed!, but anyway I walk up through the mist of tear-gas an-- huh? Oh it hurt a little -- it probably would have killed a normal man but it just tickled my nose a bit -- so anyway up I go and rip gas masks off two SWAT members and they drop like stones. See, I needed the masks for Sarah and John who were holding their breath back in the lift, as they’re not strong like me.

What’s that? Cyberdyne Systems? Terminator 2? Never heard of them. I don’t watch movies.

So anyway, I get the masks back to them…alright, I can see you’re getting a little bored now, so they get the masks and then we drive off and everyone lives happily ever after. Geez, I didn’t even get to tell you about the tanker of liquid nitrogen or the lowering into molten iron.

I bloody well did get lowered into molten iron! Of course I survived, I’m here aren’t I? What?!? I’m being ridiculous?!? You’re being ridiculous! Yes, a man can surviv-- A man CAN survive being dropped into-- How? You want to know how? You want to KNOW HOW?

Lower my voice? I wasn’t shouting…you were.

A man can easily survive being lowered into molten iron because…sit down!...because IT'S A DRY HEAT!

And I did it, and I survived it, and if that makes me a hero to you then that’s ok, but you don’t have to call me a hero unless it gives you some form of comfort in these post-911 times.

Wait, where are you going? Aren’t you at least going to pay?

Why walk when you can shuffle?

Singapore. I love this place. The food's awesome and cheap, the lifestyle's great, it's clean, it's ordered, things work and it doesn't have that patina of dirt and open-sewer smell that I recall so fondly of my years in KL.

However there is one thing that drives me absolutely around the bend, and that's trying to walk from point A to point B in this place. It's not that there's a lack of pathways or dangerous drops through missing concrete slabs into deep drains (How ya doin', KL?) the problem with being a pedestrian in Singapore is well...the pedestrians.

I can handle the glacial pace, I can handle the throngs, I can handle the aimless shuffling, but what I can't handle is the Singaporean innate ability to randomly veer, merge into your trajectory, sideways block and cover as much of the footpath as possible with zero regard for other pedestrians either approaching from behind or walking toward them in plain sight.

Side Note: The shuffling gait may not be exhibited by all locals, but it's very prevalent. So much so that it's been dubbed the Singapore Shuffle, while a friend calls it the I-have-a-mate-who-runs-a-shoe-factory walk

Although Singapore is one of the most densely packed cities on the planet, please remember that at whatever moment you are walking, wherever it happens to be, you are the only pedestrian.

Here is a quick list of tips to ensure that you can be the most Pedestrian Pedestrian that you can be:

• Have a goal in sight, but give yourself at least thirty minutes to shuffle the 100m there
• Meander from side to side
• Randomly stop, but take a half-step left or right when you do so. This is a brilliant manoeuvre that confounds all
• Should you be walking in a group, please ensure that you spread out into a line that covers the entire footpath. Do not move when other pedestrians approach
• Should we come face to face, whatever you do please do not move to your left when I move to mine, nor should you move to your right when I move to mine. In fact, the best course of action is to stop. Let me navigate about you
• Should you require the assistance of an escalator when you tire from the intensive shuffling, please, please, please ensure that you stand on the right hand side -- effectively blocking all traffic from moving past
• By all means stop at the top or bottom of an escalator while you ruminate on world politics, wonder what colour to paint your lounge room, or contemplate the mysteries of where you are and how you came to be there. As a bonus, please do get huffy and annoyed when the 6'2" guy bumps into you when the escalator spits him out directly into your immobile back

Side Note 2: Another friend has a theory about the Singaporean jag, turn, sudden stop and other blocking manoeuvres. He posits that it’s the little man’s way of fighting the government’s ordered uniformity. It’s a damning protest that shoots a bullet directly into the heart of the government machine.

That’s right Singapore -- don’t walk the way They want you to walk!

Side Note 3: I took some shots of the pre-national day fireworks last night, and then faced the ordeal of ‘walking’ amongst hundreds of shufflers on the way to MRT station. Oddly, the people had congealed into a single shambling brainless bio-mass -- one that took up the entire width of the twenty meter wide concourse between Suntec and Raffle’s Place.

Normally they form nearly unnavigable algal rafts where you do your best to plot a course between, but last night must have seen some extra nitrogen or phosphates introduced to the water because the populace had flourished, congregated and then congealed into this single homogenous mass.

And if this bio-mass had not been glacially undulating in the direction I was headed I may well have totally, irrevocably, lost my shit.

As it was, a ten minute walk turned into a 30 minute ordeal.

Eldorado: The rumoured pedestrian-free escalators of Singapore. Myth or reality?

Homemade Tilt Shift Lens for Canon 300D

I bought an extremely old Japanese Auto Chinon 50mm prime lens second-hand the other day, so I could play about with creating a new tilt shift lens for my Canon 300D.

I've been playing about with mounting options, and believe it or not the most effective I have found to date is black fibre gaffer tape. It's not a permanent solution at all, but until I find one that is it will have to do.

This is a test shot hurriedly scraped together on the first day or lens creation.

It's a random page of The Economist, taken at an angle. With a normal lens you'd expect a band of words to appear focused, with the foreground and background out of focus, but by angling the lens I was able to almost lay the plane of focus along the page (you’ll notice “Europe” is fuzzy).

As a first attempt it’s great. The lens mount (not sure what it is, but the lens is for a 35mm camera -- Pentax, I think) is much smaller than the opening for the EOS mount, so while the lens needs to settle flush to the body for perfect focus, the smaller mount means I have leeway to move the lens about in the opening.

Not bad for a $20 lens with perfect optics. Lens specs:

50mm
Aperture: f1.9-f16
Focal range: 0.4m - infinity
Manual Focus

What tilt shifting does is allow you to move the plane of focus about in accordance with the Scheimpflug Principle, which as well as allowing perfectly aligned architectural photography (sky scrapers no longer warp to the centre of the frame, but remain straight) but to also mess about and change perception of everyday objects.

Often this is referred to as the miniature effect. Here's a few not so good samples I've taken, but the bitter*girls blog has many professionally shot ones that illustrate it better than I ever could.



What I have found though is that the tilt shift lens makes for interesting portraits. Here's the current crop.

And of course my camera looks like shit with black gaffer tape all over it, but who's gonna steal it?

There are many, more elegant ways to make a cheapo tilt shift lens, so if gaffer's not your thing fair enough. Check out these guys:

Mkaz has made heaps of lenses.

Justin Ouellette's homemade lens

John Perkinson's homemade lens

Mark Tucker's plunger lens (I love the plunger cam!)

David J. Nightingale's homemade T/S

Wicker World

Many years ago, some friends and I came up with the ultimate store that would make us rich: a store to rival the 24-hour drive-through pet funeral service’s brilliance and convenience. Our store concept?

WICKER WORLD: YOUR 24-HOUR CANE CONVENIENCE STORE


Brilliant, isn’t it! How many times have you been drinking with friends, and at 3am you’ve had an inexplicable desire for cane or wicker products but were unable to slake that thirst?

If only there was a WICKER WORLD nearby, you could sate your every wicker desire.

Baskets, chairs, pot plant hangers, shelving -- we’d stock the lot. And lest you think WICKER WORLD caters only to the lowest common denominator I’ll have you know that we fully intended to stock a full range of products made from the thinking man’s cane: rattan.

I bring up WICKER WORLD only to highlight how ahead of our time we were. Right now a new Nicolas Cage movie is about to be released called The Wicker Man, which is a reimagining of the original 1973 movie starring Edward Woodward. In both cases the movie deals with Captain Lucius Wicker, the discoverer and some say inventor of, modern wicker and wicker-based products.

Cage fears a world without cane.

Captain Lucius had a dream, a dream of products made of wood, and yet somehow not wood. While his dream becomes an obsession his life hits the rocks, and the movie deals primarily with his hunt for the elusive fibrous construction material and his attempts to reconcile with his estranged wife. It’s part tragedy, part drama, all wicker.

Right now wicker is in. It’s the hip thing and interest in wicker is high. Expect to see cane popping up on MTV soon, and maybe a WICKER WORLD: YOUR 24-HOUR CANE CONVENIENCE STORE opening up next to your local Starbucks soon.