Balance
Absolutely beautiful shot from Black Death… which I saw last night :) This is the bit where God gives Osmund some seriously bad advice. The movie is beautifully shot – in Germany… but all a little too violent for my tastes. If you can deal with the medievalness of it all though, it’s a wonderful lesson in composition – how to think like a photographer rather than a film-maker.
New Design
Got these back from Ponoko, the prototyping people yesterday. I’m trying a variant where one rivet fits behind another so the tips touch. Not sure if it works… the tolerances need to be really really tight, so plastic isn’t a very good material – or at least I haven’t found a way of doing it. The thing about steel and rivets is that they expand to fill the hole, so the tolerance is tiny fractions of a milimetre. They’re supposed to look a bit like this: Which is quite cool I suppose – remind me of a nautilus for some reason – odd, because they don’t look anything like a nautilus. Still, there you go. Actually, I think I know where it comes from – there’s this view-finder thing that I think belonged to my dad… or… sometime. 1950s Sci-Fi, and one of the discs is 2000 Leagues Under The…
Golden Mean iPhone App
Well there you go: An iPhone app for measuring the golden mean in px. Does other ratios as well – eg: 16:9 – which is the standard size for video etc. Must admit I’m a bit of a fan of Anamorphic (2.35:1) though – which is what epic movies use… eg, this is Standard 16/9: and this is Anamorphic 2.35/1 So the golden mean ain’t the only ratio on town. It gets around though – eg, Apples new iCloud page… I haven’t done any actual measuring, but the whole thing “rings” with golden mean to me. The developer of the iPhone app links to an interesting article (if you’re a web-dev, and a maths-geek :)) on using the golden mean and modular-scales in web-design and typography. An example of this is on the iPhone app site… eg: I use the golden mean in design… a bit. Not to the degree…
Stormy Augusts
So passeth the busiest month ever, which was characterised (oddly enough) by a lot of waiting around. I ran out of parts… almost instantly – and in the 10 days that it took for the new ones to turn up, more than twice as many people placed orders than had ever done in a single month ever. So the last 3 days of August were flat-out. It was almost like having my old factory job back again :)… and (if I can keep this up), I’ll actually be able to make a living out of this, which would be great. Besides, it’s winter in NZ right now, which means the weather looks a bit like this: So it’s a good time to be busy doing something industrious. Thanks to everyone who ordered – for your custom and patience. I wouldn’t be able to do this without you. — …
Klaus Kinski and The Golden Mean
Ok – when I say “Klaus Kinski”, I actually mean Werner Herzog… and I must confess, I’m a bit of a fan. I’m a particular fan of Cobra Verde… which is every inch a Werner Herzog film… he thinks like a photographer rather than a film-maker. He tends to have these beautiful set-pieces… and the action is either a small part of what happens with these, or the action consists of “bits” that allow the stringing together of big set-pieces. I’m relying on Youtube for Cobra Verde screen-grabs, so my fav scenes aren’t here… but some fairly good examples are. Now I don’t imagine for a second that Werner is actually measuring this stuff – he’s just winging it… and there’s always the rule of 3rds thing, so there are these centers of gravity that aren’t a millions miles away from where you’d expect golden-mean-lines to be… Ok – that…