May 23 2006
The coming days I will (again) have the opportunity to improve my rotoscope techniques in Photoshop, because I will be busy digitizing and partially restoring 8 mm film for http://movies.ameanet.org.
About Rotoscoping:
http://www.digitalmediafx.com/Features/maxfleischerp.html
Using Adobe Premiere & Photoshop to Rotoscope Digital Video:
http://fcserver.nvnet.org/~martin_s/HYP2/handouts/rotoscope.html
It is a painstaking but effective way to restore damaged film.
May 22 2006
In the 12 years that I have worked on the Internet I have seen search engines come and go. I still remember the days when webcrawler was popular and I also recall the exact moment that yahoo linked to my second project Amea.
I was so happy! Thousands and thousands of visitors almost made our provider’s server crash. We were generating 2 Gigabytes data traffic a month! Today AmeaNet can generate the same amount of data traffic in an hour.
May 19 2006
A recent study in the Netherlands shows that the Internet is (again) a reason for concern. Why? Well, some men use the Internet to stalk women. I am always fascinated by studies that have an outcome like that. The difference between men and women is hardly noticeable for me these days. So, I am a little surprised that men are a reason for concern in their Internet behavior and women are not.
If I ever give stalkers a thought; then it is mostly women who are on my mind.
I have two exes and I know their IP-numbers. They never send me a birthday greeting but they do log on to my website every other day, many years after the relationship has ended. That is disturbing to me. What are they doing here? Is there a difference between standing on my porch and logging on to my website?
I do not think so.
May 10 2006
In the last few months I have posted pictures in the gallery that I have withdrawn as quickly as I have uploaded them. A website is tempting as an instrument to show a work in progress, but I really need more time to evaluate pictures. A photograph that seems great on the day of the shoot can look quite fiendish after the first cup of coffee on the day after.
So, I decided to wait longer with new works and rather post some older material instead. In the meantime I also try to add to my links page. An easy job because I spend considerable time on the web looking for photographs to collect in digital format. Once in a while I run into something that really absorbs me, like the Atget / Rauschenberg photographs of Paris.
On rare occasions I find a site that really cracks me up. Like today; when I found the site of the ‘Paducah Artist Relocation Program‘. As an artist and a studio photographer I have always felt that I am on a lifelong relocation program. If it is not a disastrous relationship forcing me out of my house, it is the landlord who seeks profit in selling the space that I have so enthusiastically redecorated from an industrial space to a loft that suddenly charms bored managers in a midlife crisis.
So the title of this particular site made me smile and I posted the link in the Miscellaneous section. Not that I will ever go there, but it is nice to know that in a time when most artists are forced out of major cities - because the rents have become unreasonably high - there are also people turning these sad situations into Happy Projects.