Crazylemur

05.18.12

Fine. It’s flowers. I know there are millions of flower pictures out there, but I like this one. I’m not sure what type of flowers these are, but I found them in Central Park on a walk last weekend. I love the contrast of purple and yellow. Apparently, this might be because purple and yellow are complementary colors, which means that they appear opposite from each other on the color wheel (or, at least, some color wheels).

And, hey, purple is the color of the rich and famous. In the Byzantine Empire, a specific type of dye, called Tyrian purple, could only be used on garments intended for the imperial class. The dye (and color) had become synonymous with wealth and royalty. The dye is thought to have first been produced by the Phoenicians—and it is still made today in some parts of Mexico and Central America. Tyrian purple dye is manufactured using mucus extracted from the hypobranchial (mucus-producing) gland of predatory sea snails. Why would kings want to clothe themselves in dye made from snail mucus? Scarcity, probably. And the fact that the color does not fade. Tyrian purple dye was expensive and rare—12,000 snails are needed for about 1.5 ounces of dye. This small amount of dye could be used to color the trim on one item of clothing.

05.14.12

This is a macro shot of some crazy flower I saw at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. It’s chock full of good bokeh. Bokeh is a term that relates to the background blur in the image—as far as I understand it, it’s not the blur itself, but the quality and aesthetic feel of that blur. This definition might help (though not the example sentence, which I find hysterical because it reminds me of what lazy kids in my 7th-grade class used to do during vocabulary exercises).

TECH TALK: Read enough about bokeh and you will stumble upon the even more awesome term “circle of confusion.” The circle of confusion has nothing to do with our current political system. It is, instead, a spot of blur that occurs when rays of light from a specific point do not come to perfect focus. As you can see from the Wikipedia link, it all descends quickly into a super technical morass—with equations! But what’s interesting is that the depth of field of a photo relates to the circle of confusion—if the diameter of the circle of confusion is less than the resolution of the human eye, the point will appear sharp. All the points that fall into that category are what create depth of field (the sharp area of a photo).

I think. Probably.

Umm.

Hey, I opened an Etsy store this weekend. Feel free to stop by!

05.10.12

Ah, lovely rust. This is a close-up of a rusting girder on Roosevelt Island. I made a trip out there last weekend for the first time, after nearly a decade of NYC residence. I had been wanting to take the tram (seems safe enough…now). It’s just a 4-minute ride, but the amazing views make it worth it.

As for Roosevelt Island…strange place. The main reason I wanted to head out there was to check out the Renwick Ruin, an old decaying smallpox hospital. What’s left of this super-cool Gothic building is currently being stabilized and will be opened to the public in the near future. But, like the High Line, it’s yet another NYC landmark that I wish I had visited before. Not long ago, you could apparently pretty much just walk right in to the ruin itself (they used to leave the fence gate open, from what I read). Now, the gate is locked and there seems to be some half-hearted security. Interestingly, the building, while beautiful, is WAY smaller than it appears to be from Manhattan (sorry for the ads, but this is totally relevant and worth it).

I’ll be posting some more shots from my excursion to Roosevelt Island soon, if only for an excuse to talk more about its bizarre history.

05.07.12

Well. It’s been too long. I’ve fallen off the wagon with the blog. So I figure the best way to get going again is with a picture of a horse. Because you know…horses…pull…wagons. Nevermind.

Horses and photography have a long history, of course, thanks to Eadweard Muybridge. It was Muybridge’s photos that finally allowed us to really understand the mechanics of a horse’s movement during the trot and the gallop. In 1872, an image shot by Muybridge proved that there is a point during trotting when all four feet are off the ground. And thanks to Muybridge’s later, more famous, 1878 photo series entitled The Horse in Motion (or Sallie Gardner at a Gallop), the same was proven for the horse at a gallop.

Muybridge himself had a very storied life. In 1860, while working as a bookseller, he was involved in a stagecoach accident (he fell off the wagon! sorry.) that caused serious neurological injuries. He spent more than a year recovering. But it was these injuries, according to Wikipedia, that “may have led to some of the emotional, eccentric behavior reported by friends in later years, as well as freeing his creativity from conventional social inhibitions.”

Muybridge took up photography after his accident. Naturally. His injuries came in handy for more than just expansion of his creativity, though. When Muybridge shot and killed his wife’s alleged lover, his attorney was able to submit a plea of insanity. Muybridge was acquitted—but not on the grounds of insanity. Rather, the jury let him go on the grounds of “justifiable homicide.” Not sure how shooting someone point blank is justifiable, but there you go. And the acquittal left Muybridge free to continue his photography.

Muybridge has inspired creativity in others. Philip Glass’s opera The Photographer is based on Muybridge’s life. Neat. Here are some lyrics from it.

01.16.12

Here’s an older shot dug up during my photo library reorganization endeavor. On a trip to Central Park, I caught this happy little green insect on these vivid yellow flowers. Okay, fine. I’m not sure if the insect is happy, but it is green. And I believe it’s actually a type of bee, thanks to some help from Eric R. Eaton’s entomology blog.

Not exactly sure what genus and species the bee is, but I am fairly certain it belongs to the family Halictidae, also known as sweat bees. Fun. Some of the members of this insect family are attracted to the salt in human sweat. Now, there’s good news for those of you who tend toward hyperhidrosis. My research revealed that the sting of a sweat bee is not very painful, measuring 1.0 on something called the Schmidt Sting Pain Index.

I highly recommend taking a look at this index. Schmidt describes the pain of various types of stings as if he is assessing the subtleties of fine wines. The 1.0 sting of our friend the sweat bee is “light, ephemeral, almost fruity.” The red harvester ant has a sting that is “bold and unrelenting,” rather like “somebody is using a drill to excavate your ingrown toenail.” Oh, and you’ll definitely want to avoid being stung by the bullet ant—that is, unless you like the sensation of “fire-walking over flaming charcoal with a 3-inch rusty nail in your heel.”