PhotoShopped on October 20, 2007
Portal2theUniverse (AKA “Gateway to the Multiverse”) called me a Prestidigitator a couple of weeks ago. At first I wondered if I should be offended, but his actual opinion of Where the Walls are Soft seems to be somewhat admiring, so I ended up feeling fairly complimented – sort of like when somebody calls me “weird”. If I’m going to cultivate the persona, I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised when others jump to the conclusion that I really must be so, even when somebody sees through the smokescreen and outs me to the Internet at large.
Prestidigitation (what a groovy-cool word) aside, when I’m taking pictures, I really want the perfect shot from the get-go, and generally only want to open Photoshop to resize the images for my blogs. Sometimes, though, Hilary Federwhore insists on taking the shot exactly as she sees it in her viewfinder, completely ignoring the vision in my mind.
At other times, she will just play the bitch and focus on something behind the very obvious, perfectly-centered object that is my intended focal point, prompting me to swear like the sailor me ol’ Da’ used to be. The apple didn’t fall far from the tree.
“…and speaking of ‘apples’…” (Har Har), I saw this HUGE field of them on my Walk-About yesterday, and got some really nice shots. The “field” was the four-foot width of grass, a median of sorts, running the length of Wellington St., and those apples are really tiny, little crab apples that can be encircled with the thumb and forefinger, so the vision in my head was probably a little over-the-top to begin with.
Hil cooperates beautifully when I break all the “how-NOT-to-treat-your-electronics” rules, in that she has survived being dropped into puddles (accidentally), being set down in wet bathtubs (several times now, but still, accidentally), getting caught in recent, sudden torrential rainstorms, and being splashed by passing cars. She refuses to die. Granted, I haven’t drowned her in coffee yet, but that’ll no doubt happen at some point. I’ll let you know how that goes.
Yesterday, to get the POV you see in “Applefield Sky”, I set her down in wet grass. On purpose. Even with her ass wet and freezing, Hil is a trooper, and gamely took the shot, but she was pissed off enough to leave the traffic and buildings in it, and this was the raw result:
Taken October 20, 2007 with Canon PowerShot A550
Not the vision in my head.
The day before, I had snapped a “Skyscape” picture, as I had told David McMahon I was going to break the flower addiction with a new subject.
Taken October 19, 2007 with Canon PowerShot A550
Crap photo if ever I saw one.
So I spent waaaay too much time last night in Photoshop, removing the traffic and buildings from the “apple” shot and superimposing the result over the “skyline” shot, when I was supposed to be doing homework. And waaaay too much time today, writing this post, when I’m supposed to be doing homework and clogging up the vacuum with several sweaters’ worth of cat hair.
But, hey – I am a Prestidigitator. That’s what I do.
Random Song for the Day: “U-Fig” – System of a Down