These are 23 of my recently favorited photographs on flickr. Quite a range there: 23s, people and other animals, cables, buckets.
The first and last are particularly amazing, I reckon.
Please note that these are not photographs taken by myself but are from other photographers on flickr. They are great images to learn from and if you’re a flickrite, I’d suggest you add them to your contacts such that you can see their most recent work when you visit flickr.
Enjoy these images - and learn from them, if that’s your thing. To visit the individual photographs, click the mosiac and go to the links on the flickr page.
Most of the photos in this set were uploaded/manipulated* using my laptop and also viewing/editing via my television. My desktop had an incident on the 20th which ended it’s career as workable object. I’ve now put the laptop on the desk and connected the old monitor to the laptop. I’m finding it interesting that some of the photos that look quite grand on my laptop/television look rather dull on the older monitor. Vice versa, too.
*those in the GIMP set have been manipulated in some way - mostly cropping/auto white balance, some heavily manipulated (eg the fake HDR tutes).
The images in the above slide show were taken today in the Darwin CBD. The sculpture is by Anton Hassell and consists of 11 bells (10 with birds on top, one with the Beagle on top) and a final scuplture of Mr Darwin at 31 years of age, the age at which he was doing his explorations.
The above are most of the ingredients for my version of a chili paste based on Harissa. In the recipe below I’ve indicated (with a ~ which of the ingredients are identified with notes in the photo on flickr - to see which ingredient is which, click on the above image to go to flickr.
Ingredients:
23 birds eye chilis~ (grown in my garden)
12 sweet chilis~ (grown in my garden)
5 cabe sumatra, dried (picture) (grown in my garden)
100 gram nob of ginger~
garlic bulb of garlic
12 leaves thai coriander~ (grown in my garden)
2 carrots
10 small tomotoes (or one normalish one)
1 teaspoon caraway seeds
1 teaspoon cumin
2 teaspoons pepper corns
1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 teaspoon paprika
You need a large mortar and pestle to properly smish all this together.
Instructions:
Leave the chili chopping for last
in mortar, grind caraway, cumin. peppercorns, cayenne pepper and paprika to your liking, I prefer coarsely - roast until smokey in a frying pan on low heat, set aside
chop ginger, grate carrots, chop tomatoes, smish garlic - put into mortar, pound with pestle until moosh
Now, the chilis - be careful, very careful - of where you put your hands until you finish this process.
birds eye chilis - I keep the seeds and chop the seeds and fruit up together - the more seeds, the hotter
cabe sumatra - Again, I keep the seeds - hot, hot, hot, chop, chop, chop
sweet chilis - I get rid of the seeds - far too many of them and doesn’t add much to the hot
add all the chilis and the spices to the mortar, pound some more
put into container, add olive oil to cover, seal container
I’ve used carrots in this but they are not necessary - could substitute with capsicum, perhaps to add volume - or shreded apple.
This particular mixing, I’ll continue to add chilis to it for the next month as it consumed. I would have used fresh cabe sumatra from my garden, but that fruited well before the other chilis. These particular chilis are quite hot and I can only compare them to the Scotch bonnet. The sweet chilis, as I call them, are in the picture below:
I call them sweet chilis because they aren’t super hot - they are hot, but nothing at all compared to the cabe sumatra.
This paste is good on any number of things. It’s grand smeared on a fillet of fish and baked - or grilled or whatever your favourite method of cooking fish. I also like it on a slab of good cheddar.
Tonight, however, I’m having it on top of a bowl of freshly peeled grapefruit - the pink ones. The grapefruit has been in the freezer for the past two hours so is cold, though not frozen.
Lots of flavours, colours, temperatures, textures there, with the final picture:
This morning when I stitched together the draft of the Dry Damo Pano, I was only going to do the one. Instead of doing other things, I put two more together. Alas, they are only 360s, not equirectangulars. Bodged something up there, I did.
There are row upon row of garden beds choc-a-bloc full of haliconias. I look forward to seeing them after the first rains at the end of this year. Interactive version (5.28 Mb - requires flash)
The top of this shade house is one bougainvillea - tis a huge bugger. Interactive version (2.31 Mb - requires flash)
Interactive Version (5.02 Mb, .swf)
Appropriate that the previous post was “Curing Sea-sickness, One Hopes”, when this one could likely cause something akin to sea-sickness?
This pano was made up of at least 23 images. You should be able to find many of the images in my flickr account - if you do find something that you think is a match, link to the image via notes.
The panoramas that I stitched together on Friday/Saturday looked as if the horizons were bendy-bananas. I’ve been playing with my panorama software to tweak these images - and their interactive counter-parts - such that the horizons are flat, as they should be. I’ve got a fair way to go in learning to perfect these techniques, but I’m quite pleased with today’s results, which you can see below.
I went out with a friend again yesterday to take a few more photos of the area that could be devastated by a potential marina/housing development. The above are the results of said outing.
*Look Ma, No Feet is a reference to my previous equirectangular panoramas where you could see my feet/shoes/socks (eg Thursday evening experiment (Flash, 4.63Mb)) - no such daemons present in these panoramas.
The slideshow above is from my panorama set on flickr - it starts with the earliest and ends with the most recent. The very first in this set was taken in my living area (ie open plan kitchen/lounge):
As noted by manyone1, it’s rather resolution low, I ended up re-stitching it - but that’s not the direction this post is taking but to tell you about the software and practical application of making this first stitched image.
My first introduction to making panoramas was via several (more?) flickr groups about panoramas, software and equipment. When I first start to learn something new with my camera, I either take photos in my flat or the garden. That way I know I have everything with me and if not at hand, it is only several steps away. For this one, I decided inside would work perfectly. It was a bright Darwin day with plenty of light coming into the flat (most days are like that - for those of you who don’t have the joy of living in Darwin) so it made sense to give it a whirl.
I got out my camera, stood in the middle of the room started taking photographs at eye level, turning whatever degrees and taking another and then continuing until I get back to where i started. Always making sure that each image I took overlaps with the next by whatever amount so you get a complete circle of images.
I then angle the camera down about 30 degrees, did the same little circle trick and, with camera 30 degrees up, the circle trick again.
I have my images. I now need the software, which I had previously scoured (ie googled) the net for and ending up choosing Autostich.
I then started the software, selected the images and waited for processing.
Neat, I thought.
Not long after that, I posted it to flickr and that is when I was introduced to other ways of looking at these images via links from manyone1’s comment.
That’s my introduction to making panos - it’s where I started. If you’re interested in making panoramas, follow the various links as mentioned in this post - the Autostitch sofwtare is good. It’s also free - and licensed by several other more advanced products. Be warned - if you start it’ll take a while to stop.
The following images and their interactive version (requires flash) of said images where made at East Point on Friday, 1 May 2009. There is currently a proposal to develop this area into a marina and housing.
With the previous panoramas that I have uploaded to these rantz, I’ve put the interactive version in a little box that you can scroll around (and for the equirectangulars, up and down). For these, I’ve put the original image with links to the full screen interactive versions as I reckon it’s a far more enjoyable experience. In the future, I’ll be doing the same for all of my 360° panoramas.
To the panoramas…
Entering the Mangroves Flash Version (6.44 Mb)
And, finally, after making those panoramas we headed to the beach and made this final pano, looking from our vantage point at East Point to Fannie Bay (in the distance is Darwin). Flash Version (3.52 Mb)
Please note: the interactive flash versions of these images will be sepia toned when they first load - when they completely load the proper colours will be displayed - most of these flash files are quite large, so if you have a slow connection you will need to be patient - thanks.
I hope you enjoy these panoramas and I’d appreciate your feedback via comments.
PS: The idea was to make an equirectangular pano at the very end (ie Crocs - No Swimming) but I stuffed up the number of images I needed to take so that didn’t work out - next Friday, perhaps?
