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Month: September 2010

Tilt-shift Van Gogh

Tilt-shift Van Gogh

I have loved Van Gogh’s paintings ever since I saw the actual “Starry Night” when it was in Chicago about 10 years ago.  His stuff blew me away because the pictures in books I’d seen didn’t do justice to the real thing at ALL.  The paint is glopped on in HUGE daubs in some places while the white canvas shows through in other spots.  He layers the daubs so when he brushes through them, the underlying colors come out too. It’s 3D, it was so creative, so amazing.

Anyway, long has there existed the novel effect of tilt-shift photography.  Normally this is the exclusive realm of those with an appropriate $1800 lens (depending on the aperture).  But now, you can use a simple Photoshop technique to generate the same effect yourself on any photo you’ve taken.

So, someone used this Photoshop technique on Van Gogh paintings, and HERE were the incredible results

Perhaps I should try it on some Monet or Klimt….

Oktoberfest was great!

Oktoberfest was great!

How to make an Oktoberfest at Mt Angel, Oregon.

First, a dash of evening prayer with the monks:

Then a deep-fried twinkee:

Then some chicken dancing:

Mix with meeting up with many old friends and a great time was had by all.

Tower climber

Tower climber

When I was a kid out in rural Indiana, we didn’t have cable.  We also didn’t do the satellite thing – so we only had over-the-air TV.  Well, you also need a pretty good sized, and tall, antenna to get a decent set of stations.  I still remember putting up our antenna tower.  It was probably about 50-75ft tall and assembled in 3 sections bolted together.

I remember my brothers and I taking climbing excursions up the tower, to test your bravery and see how high you’d get.  Back in the day, I actually wrote up the idea for a game called ‘Tower Climber’ based on this.  Back in real life, I was small as a kid and could climb inside the tower until the 3rd and final section.  But once you got to that third section, you had to go outside the box and climb outside.  The tower would also start jiggling more and since the sections tapered inward, your hand-holds also got narrower.  I never made it all the way to the top but got within 2-3 feet at my best – though 2 of my brothers did (though at least one *smartly* used a climbing rope around the tower).

Anyway, when I saw this, it brought it all came back…

Unbelievable opportunities – for this weekend Sept 18th+19th

Unbelievable opportunities – for this weekend Sept 18th+19th

Just when you thought summer was over!  No excuses about not having something to do this weekend…

Mt. Angel Oktoberfest – Sept 16th-19th

http://www.oktoberfest.org/

Portland Pirate Festival
Talk like a Pirate Day is Sunday, along with the annual Portland Pirate Festival where they will seek to get the world record again for most pirates in one place:

http://www.portlandpiratefestival.com/

Pendleton Round-up!

http://pendletonroundup.com/

Willie Nelson
Saturday at the Edgefield

AND

The Portland Retro Gaming Expo

http://retrogamingexpo.com/