What does a new season look like all around the world? That’s the question we want you to answer by taking a photograph at the exact moment of the Spring/Autumn Equinox on March 20, 2010 at March 20, 2010 at 5:32PM GMT (check Fixed Time World Clock for your local time).
This will be 3:02 AM for me – so I’ve already set myself a note on my mobile to set the alarm *early*.
To see the last Worldwide Moment – visit this link.
Interactive panorama. 1.62 Mb, requires flash – this interactive is different to the others that I’ve put together thus far as it starts aimed at the nadir. To see the rest of the universe, you will need to pan upward.
SPi-V interactive version. Requres shockwave. This is the usual view, with the z-axis being the plane you are floating on.
The images used to make this panorama were shot by Tony:
One of my dear, dear friends is shaving her head next Friday, 12 March 2010 to help raise money for the Leukaemia Foundation. Here’s what Wendy has to say:
Most of you know and some of you don’t but I’m participating in the World’s Greatest Shave on 12 March where I will be having my hair shaved off to raise awareness and funds for the Leukaemia Foundation. My shave will be taking place at the Courthouse Hotel in Southport on the cnr of Nerang St & Davenport St between 6pm and 9pm, come and watch me make a spectacle of myself!
I have reached my initial goal but there is still 8 days to go before my head becomesBALD in support ofthe brave people fighting these blood diseases and disorders.
I would dearly love to raise more as the Leukaemia Foundation gets no government funding and has a village in Brisbane where patients and their families can stay for free while they are getting treatment, every donation helps.
We have a competition now running, it’s a raffle, anybody may enter from anywhere in the world. I would really appreciate if you would forward this on to as many people as you possibly can on all the social networking sites as it’s such a worthwhile cause.
All you have to do is go to this link – My Profile – and using the secure page, donate AU$10.00 or higher and you will be in the running to win. You can only use a credit or debit card though.
It’s getting close to the deadline and I’d like to see more people donating money to this wonderful cause. To assist Wendy in this endeavour, I’ve offered to donate one of my photos on canvas to be shipped anywhere in the world. For more information on this wonderful offer, please visit Wendy’s blog post.
These are the beautiful words that Wendy has to share about my photography:
He’s got a wonderful eye for subject, and has a unique perspective and produces amazing photos as well as digital manipulation to create some of the most amazing images. Rantz lives in the “Top End”, in Darwin and comes across some of the most amazing scenery and wildlife that Australia has to offer.
If you are not personally keen on having yet another beautiful photograph to adorn your abode, I’m sure your best friend, work colleague, mother, father, daughter, son, husband, wife or secret lover might enjoy a bit of beauty – donate! I take photographs of practically everything – so I’m pretty confident there will be something you can find on my photostream that you will llike to have on canvas. In my photostram you will find panoramas (including interactive ones), abstracts, sunrises, sunsets, storms, rain, critters, portraits, textures and stacks of crystal balls – something for everyone, including you!
The photos above, chosen as ‘Favourites’ by other flickr users, are but a fraction of what is available on my photostream – if you’re the lucky winner, you can choose the one you’d like, I’ll get it printed on canvas and shipped your way. I’ve had quite a few images printed onto canvas over the past year and I can tell you the result is quite magnificent – you won’t regret making a donation if you win a photo of your choice. And if you don’t win, you can always download a photo or three and use as your desktop wallpaper – it’s all beautiful and you’re helping the Leukaemia Foundation wheter your win or lose.
Donate – and good luck!
Please head on over to Wendy’s blog, follow the links to make your donation and the winner will be notified next Saturday, 13 March 2010.
It’s been seven weeks since I last shot images to make a panorama in this wetland area and some of the grasses have grown approximately a metre – quite an amazing growth.
I’ll go back to the same area in another seven or eight weeks to shoot more images for another panorama so as to compare the difference again. I’m thinking it’s probably a good idea to do this every few months so that those who don’t live in Darwin and get to experience the stark contrasts between the Wet and Dry seasons can get an opportunity to at least experience our climate digitally.
If you look closely – maybe not so closely – you’ll see a few smudges in the panorama – this is due rain drops on the lens as the rains began dropping towards the end of shooting the 21 images and I thought it not necessarily a bad thing – it is the Wet, after all.
I’ve also taken the opportunity to make two panospheres (planets, amazing circles – call them what you will):
Electronic Frontiers Australia is coordinating a petition against the Government’s mandatory Internet filtering policy that will be presented to the Senate of the Parliament of Australia.
The middle bit of the above image is my dinner for tonight (and for the next few days, I’d imagine). The left bit of the image is dried pearl mushrooms – the right bit of the image is the same mushrooms after making a tea for 1.5 hours.
Ingredients
375g arborio rice
250g (dried) pearl mushrooms
1 litre vegetable stock
2 large white onions
1 large red onion
1 bulb garlic
1 bunch asparagus
1 small sweet potato
parsley – as much (or as little) as you like
parmesan cheese
olive oil
Instructions
cover pearl mushrooms with 500ml boiling water, set aside to soak
finely chop garlic, onions
turn hob to medium
sautee garlic, onions until clear in olive oil
stir in arborio rice to garlic, onion, oil mixture, thoroughly coating rice
add 250ml vegetable stock, stir, turn hob to low
simmer mixture, continually stirring
when liquid absorbed, add 250ml vegetable stock, stir
when liquid absorbed, add liquid from mushrooms, stir
add mushrooms
when liquid absorbed add 250ml vegetable stock, stir
snap ends off asparagus, chop in knuckle length portions
dice sweet potato into small cubes
add aspargus, sweet potato mixture, stir
add last of vegetable stock, stir
simmer until all vegetable stock absorbed
turn off hob, let mixture sit
serve in large bowl with parsley, parmesan and add a glass of wine
Yesterday morning – Tuesday, 2 Feb 2010 – I awoke and did my usual morning rituals. Or started to do them, that is. I quickly realised that things were missing in my flat. Wallet. Gone. Camera bag – with camera with lens attached and the fisheye in a pouch in the bag. Gone. Laptop. Gone. A few bottles of wine (from my visit to Sinclairs Gully in the Adelaide Hills last November). Gone. My front door – slightly open. My cats outside the door, freaked out (the dearest kittehs in the world, my Bonnie and Ganzou) as they are inside cats. I bring my kittehs inside and try to soothe them a wee bit but all they wanted to do was run to their favourite spots and just be themselves.
My head is spinning – how the fark did this happen? A burglar, it seems. D’oh!
I finish my morning rituals – dazed the whole time – and do my usual walk to the bus stop feeling incredibly uncomfortable and freaking out about the person(s) that did this and worried that they were still in the area and might return at any time to remove the rest of my possessions from my flat. They shouldn’t have been able to get into my flat – but did. Surely they could do it again?
I get to work, moving like an automaton, do a necessary few work tasks, contact the police and then arrange for a friend to bring me home. When I get home, I have another, closer look around my flat to see if I can notice if anything else has been stolen. Not that I can tell. I then go outside to feed my fish – which I had neglected to do in my automaton-like state earlier in the morning and then I look around my front garden and the verandah. In the corner of the verandah is my garden trollie. In this garden trollie is my laptop. One bit of relief. Photo from my mobile phone below:
The investigating officer will be at my flat to have a look around and take a statement sometime soon and I call the police number (131 444 – should you ever need it) to let them know that I have found my laptop on my verandah but that is all. The investigating officer arrives at some point during the day, looks around, takes a statement. Considerate man who offered me advice on other security measures I might take around my flat to prevent this happening again.
A friend brings around the D40 that I had loaned him as he knows how much photography is a part of my life and that I am doing a Flickr 365 project (ie taking a picture every day, all year) and only having my mobile phone camera was not going to be quite what I was after for my 365 project.
I then have the rest of the day to fret about what has happened, worry about what might happen and generally freak out about life in general. Oh – and there was a bottle of wine – though not from Sinclairs Gully – which took up a large part of my evening.
The above image was taken whilst I was walking through my local shopping centre on the way to the bus. I wasn’t intentionally trying to look terse or angry or annoyed – or anything, for that matter – I was merely trying to get used to do the D40 again and trying to get my automatic memory of using the camera back. This will take a while, I thought. Not happy, I was – not happy at all. I think the picture – unflattering though it is – sums up how I was really feeling quite perfectly.
Within 20 metres of taking this shot – maybe a minute at most – I was through the shopping centre and walking out toward the bus stop. I’m approached by a gentleman who spotted me taking pictures on “that little camera” who then told me that he had a “proper flash nigh con” (I write it like that as that is how he pronounced it – obviously not a photographer) for fifty dollars. I asked him what sort it was and he invited me to come around the corner to have a look. My alarm bells were going OFF. As he turned around to lead me around the corner, I spy (with both my little eyes) my camera bag (it’s a back pack) on his back.
Without thinking or hesitating, I grab the centre handhold and drag it down and off his back and yell “That’s my camera you thief – you stole it from my house and I want it back” (I just know there were at least 3 fucks in there, but I’m not sure where – so I shall leave them out). My darling D90 was now in my possession again and I continued to shout at him such that as many people in the area would witness the interaction. He didn’t try to take it back from me. Instead, he merely yelled at me calling me a loser and saying that he’d had the camera for years, whilst he was walking away from me and heading around that precious corner where he wanted to show me my camera thinking he’d make a quick $50. How wrong was he?
I should point out, after having written the above paragraph, that I am not a physically strong person. Anything but, in fact. When there is aggression or violence anywhere near me, I move away as quickly as possible. I was quite surprised by my actions in ripping my camera bag off his bag – it wasn’t planned, I didn’t think, I had no time to think – I just did it. Damned fucktardasshatwannabees!
My heart, as you might imagine, was thumping up around somewhere near my throat and I had to consciously remind myself to breathe. I briefly spoke to a woman that I see almost every morning as I’m heading to the bus and she’s waiting for the shop to open to get the newspaper, trying to help her to understand that I hadn’t stolen anything from this gentleman but was merely reclaiming my property that the fucking thief had taken.
I then cross the road to catch my bus to get to work, still having to remind myself to let air into my lungs and hoping to high heaven that my heart would calm down sometime soon.
I cross the street and get to my stop, sit down and open the bag to see what is there. Amazingly, everything that was in the bag was still there so I pulled the D90 out of the bag and take the shot above. It’s no grand shot and I have not even the remotest thought that it is – it’s merely an “is the D90 working” shot and, fortunately, it is.
I’m so elated that I can’t stop smiling so I have to let several friends know via sms that I have my camera back and I also have to let my Plurkfiends know as they have been incredibly supportive during the past 36 hours when I was full of anger and fear about what had happened. Thank crikey for mobile Plurking.
The bus arrives, I get to work, updating a few colleagues with the most recent developments and then contact the police to give them the latest update. I ended up going to the police station for close to a few hours to make a statement as well as have a look at a few photos of potential thieves. Not quite The Bill, this cop shop – but there were more than a few cuties lurking about. Don’t tell them I told you that, okay?
The officers then drive me back to work (sorry folks, unmarked car, so I didn’t get to make the sirens and lights do their magic) and I continue with my work day and then, at lunch time, return to my usual self and go on a fotiez walkabout.
The above image was taken during this lunch time fotiez walkabout. I am quite pleased with the way it turned out and, I believe, it captures the warmth and relief that I am now feeling now that my camera is back with me.
What an interesting 36 hours this has been.
PS – The above video was on my camera when I checked it out this evening after getting home. It was taken at 8:58pm on Tuesday, 2 Feb 2010 when the camera was in the hands of the thieving fucktardasshatwannabe. If anyone in Darwin recognises the signage that is visible in the background, I’d be most appreciative if you could let me know via commenting on this post. Thanks!
PPS – the video has been sent to the investigating officer – police forensics may be able to pick up more than I can.
For more information on the image above, click the image to go to the flickr page. If you’d really like to have a spin, take a seat and visit the Interactive Version (1.15Mb – requires flash).
The photos for the above equirectangular were taken in November 2009 at the Mt Lofty Botanic Garden in the Adelaide Hills. They were stitched together last evening and further tweaked – just a wee bit – this morning. If you ever get a chance to visit, then you should certainly do so. Tis a beautiful place and I hope the interactive panoramas will give you a good idea of its beauty.
You can view the interactive version here. You can roll the image upward to get a grand view of the sun rays at the zenith. Please note that you can select a second panorama via the drop-down menu on the top right. You can also go from one pano to the other via the hotspots, but they are difficult to see. I must remember to fix that for the next iterations.
The static image was created from 21 images shot handheld, using AutoPano Giga to stitch the photos together and the flash version was created using AutoPano Tour. The shockwave version is courtesy of fieldOfView | Spi-V engine.
With the flash version, you can select from two different panorama views by selecting the drop-down menu on the top right.
Continuing on this theme from my post at the end of 2008, the above images are my 12 favourite photos that I took in 2009. The selection above I allowed myself 5 minutes at most to choose a favourite from each month. If I were to choose these on a different day, there would certainly be a different selection. That’s just the way it is.
The above images are those that I’ve taken (or, in the case of most of the Panospheres, modified) during Dec 2009.
You’ll find a range of images in this slideshow, from Panoramas to Panospheres and from the Birds to the Cats. It’s been a grand month photography wise and I managed to take and upload at least one photo per day – good preparation for my PAD 2010.
The above is one of my last photgraphs for 2009 – I thought it perfect to introduce my main photography project for 2010: a photo taken and uploaded every day for 365 days. I’ll explain more about this madness later on in this post, but I want to start with thanking the various photographers who have inspired me through flickr over the past year or so. I’ll start with the four who have inspired me, through their photography this past year, to undertake this madness: Alan, Claude, Auntie P and Jeff. I first came into contact with Alan, Claude and Auntie P via Plurk and then somehow that is the ways of the web, came into contact with Jeff’s photography. Jeff’s long – for flickr, at least – explanations of, his photographs and photography are just as good as his photography.
The next two are Murfomurf and Stephen, also met through Plurk and then this past November out there in meatsapce for Plurkfest Oz 2009 in Adelaide. Both Murf and Stephen’s photographs offer quite different takes on Adelaide – visit their flickr for the details.
The final two are madpoet_one and GrungeTextures. I’ve only made contact with these two photographers qutie recently via flickr but both have inspired me for particular aspects of my PAD 2010. GrungeTextures as I intent on at least one of my photos each month to be of a similar in quality and kind to this photographer’s and, finally, the madpoet as we’ll both be participating – with many others – in the Plurk People Photo-A-Day group on flickr.
Now, the details:
I’ll be taking and uploading at least one photo that I’m happy with each and everyday for 2010;
Over the past few months, I’ve been using G’MIC – a set of filters for GIMP. There are whole variety of filters in this plugin and you can find more information about both the plugin and the scripting language by visiting their site at sourceforge.
The Panospheres above were created with the Sphere script, which is available in the Deformations section of the plugin when you’re using GIMP. I’ve taken a particular liking to this filter and will be creating more Panospheres from the panoramas that I’ve made over the last eighteen months as well as from any new panoramas that I make.
I hope you enjoy looking at the images and, more particularly, I’d recommend you download and use same if you’re a GIMP user. If you’re not a GIMP user, I’d suggest you’d start being one.
