GET IT GET IT

GO FOR THE GOLD,
DOUBLE UP AND
MAKE A STACK.
6 Gs IN MY SHIRT
10 Gs ON MY BACK.
NEVER BEEN A
QUITTER MAN,
ALWAYS BEEN A
SNAKE. SELL IT
THROUGH THE
AGENCY, SELL IT
THROUGH THE
BREAK.

FOREIGN WILDERNESS

when my parents logged into

tumblr a huge vortex of

RGB pixels passed across their

vision, leaving a silent void

/

blank screen

dull white fading into forms

/

now they sit in a clearing

of deep greens.

a faded yellow 1970s

sky hovers a meter

above their heads

/

now my parents see

in all directions:

small windows of sacred

light tunneling off infinitely -

north south east west

past present future

Short Poghems (Sorry I Like To Blhog)

I realize I have been "blhogging", i.e. hogging Erik's blog. Erik/Bobby need to step up their updates. I promise I'll stop blhogging once I find a job where I can earn a shitload of money working 50 hours a week and being exposed to as many Chemicals Known to the State of California as possible.

In the meanwhile, here are a few poghems I wrote while riding Public Transportation.

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“Old Man Staring Down The Printer Cartridge Aisle At Office Depot”

Or is it staring
him
down?

+++

“Antonio’s”

I want to write
a poghem in this
bar. But I am
afraid it is too
light.

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“Homophobia”

I don’t understand
it. No one I know
even cares who they
themselves
sleep with
anymore.

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“Chromatography” or “A Poghem For Chemists”

Tonight the Orchestra
has played ‘Four Seasons’
and with Vivaldi done
the crowd heads
for a parking-lot along
a long, narrow strip
of pavement edged by grass wet
with rain.

The crowd splits
along the column. The first
to pass me are the
single young men
smoking nervous walking
fast spitting into
the grass. The next
to pass me are the
young couples learning
to hold hands and walk
quickly. The next
to pass me are the
older couples shuffling by talking
about the show. The last
to pass me are the
single Old Men.

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“Low Fidelity”

Moves in and he asks me
“are you around at night.” “I do
sleep here”, I say, and “we
should go to a bar this weekend.”

It comes and I
knock on his door at
eight. He answers
the door naked. “We
should go to a bar”, I say.

“Yes, good timing, I was just
starting to get sober”, he says
and “let me get dressed I’ll be
a minute”.

+++

“Wreck”

I am talking to my sister
about that great trio:
Global Warming Cancer Terrorism
the three
specters we raise to get
research funded, and she asks me
“How do you think Mankind
will go extinct?”
“A car
crash.”
“No- Mankind.”
“I said, a car
crash.”

+++

Half Moon Bay and Pacifica in Infrared

Below are several infrared photographs I shot at Half Moon Bay and Pacifica with my modified HP PhotoSmart C850. All of these were shot from a tripod. Some of these images qualify as street photographs (i.e. they are unposed photographs of people), and are the first street photographs I have shot in infrared. They are also the first photographs of people I’ve taken with the modified HP. I did some portraiture with my modified Fujifilm FinePix 1300, but it was posed.

These photographs demonstrate some of the peculiarities of IR:

-Plants appear extremely bright because chlorophyll is IR-fluorescent; that is to say, it converts visible light to infrared. The dirt plants grow in appears black because it contains IR-absorbing water. This combination makes IR ideal for high-contrast imaging of foliage.

-Human skin appears relatively bright because it contains IR-fluorescent pigments. All human skin appears about the same “color” in infrared, I.E. one cannot estimate a subjects’ skin tone from an IR photograph. If human vision were IR-based, racism would probably work differently, because in IR it is not easy to tell if someone is Black or White.

-Safety glass (used in car windshields) appears very dark because the chemicals added to make it shatter-resistant absorb infrared. Generally, optical glass does not contain these chemicals, and so fortunately most camera lenses can be used to shoot IR. HOWEVER, SOME OPTICAL GLASS IS TREATED WITH SHATTER-RESISTANT CHEMICALS, SUCH AS THE GLASS IN RIFLE SCOPES. Therefore, if you intend to modify an optical instrument to shoot in IR, I strongly recommend you check the IR transparency of the lenses you intend to use before attempting conversion.

I have run into the following conundrum in my photography: What is the “correct” way to map IR image data into the visible spectrum? All infrared images are necessarily false-color images, since the human eye is insensitive to infrared. The processing of infrared requires one to decide how frequencies of infrared light should be translated into frequencies of visible light. I see two principle questions:

Q1: How should the raw magnitude of infrared at a particular pixel be mapped to the raw magnitude of visible light at the corresponding pixel?

Q2: How should frequencies be mapped?

The first question is easier to approach. A positive correlation between IR brightness and visible brightness gives a “positive”, while a negative correlation gives a “negative”. I have chosen a positive correlation, because I think this is most reasonable. However, some types of non-visible-light imaging use a negative correlation. In some X-rays, bones are shown lighter than flesh (negative correlation); in others, darker (positive). Of course, one need not choose a linear mapping function. I use a natural log function, because human senses are approximately logarithmic, i.e. a 200-watt lightbulb appears brighter (but LESS than twice as bright) as a 100-watt lightbulb, two packets of sugar make coffee taste sweeter (but LESS than twice as sweet) as a single packet, etc. One can even imaging using a function which gives positive correlations at some values and negative correlations at others. I could, for example, take an IR photograph and manipulate it so that areas of the image receiving very high and very low levels of IR are light, while areas receiving moderate levels are dark. Suppose I photographed a lightbulb in IR and processed the image in such a way: the luminosity would take on a bull’s-eye-shaped pattern, with a central bright spot surrounded by a dark ring surrounded by a bright ring. One can imagine all sorts of exotic mapping methods, but I don’t see much reason to. The only mappings that I think are “reasonable” are linear, log, and exponential. Polynomial and trig mappings are silly, but I imagine they might have some use.

The second question is enormously more complicated. I could make it “go away” by simply converting all my IR images to grayscale. Then, pixel mapping would involve brightness only. I have done this in some cases, but I don’t like to: the cameras I use provide information about both the intensity and frequency of infrared at a particular pixel, and grayscale conversion involves throwing out the latter piece of information, a piece I would rather keep. Color mapping is of course very complicated because, even though we think of perceived colors as corresponding to specific wavelengths, the reality is that, when we perceive colors, we are really perceiving many wavelengths at once. As one of my chemistry professors was fond of reminding her class, “your eye is not a spectrophotometer”. Despite the myriad possibilities for mapping infrared “color” to visible color, there are two options which seem most reasonable to me:

[1] Map short-wave infrared to short-wave (blue) visible light and long-wave infrared to long-wave (red) visible light, and so on with all intervening colors, compressing or dilating the spectra as necessary.

[2] Do the opposite, and map short-wave infrared to long-wave (red) light, etc.

The first scheme seems the more reasonable, and I’ve used it here. However, long-wave infrared imaging (“thermal imaging”) often uses the second scheme. It is a convention that red is a “hot” color and blue is a “cool” color, and since blackbody emission shifts to shorter wavelengths as temperature rises, scheme [2] makes hot objects red in a thermal image.

I appreciate any suggestions.

If you don’t like the way I’ve mapped luminosity and color, then download my images and Photoshop the fuck out of them by adjusting the curves and using the channel mixer.

Click an image to view it larger.

+++
"Sun Through Pacifica Tree"

+++
"Surf Below Pacifica Cliffs"

+++
"Cinderella"

+++
"Foliage Dripping Down Cliff"

+++
"Foothills Below Route 280"

+++
"Nikon Moment"

+++
"West Of Highway One"

+++
"Lone Figure On Cliffs Over Half Moon Bay"

+++
"Riders Preparing To Descend"

+++
"Small Dog Chasing Horse Along Stinson Beach"

+++
"Three Riders In A Line"

+++
"Young Man With Curly Hair Riding Past Mobile Home"

+++
"Uh...will the pictures I took with my cell-phone camera still look this cool when the acid wears off?"
"No. Photograph it in infrared instead. It'll last longer."
+++
Peas out bros.

California in Infrared and Three Short Stories

“California in Infrared and Three Short Stories”

Embedded is a short video shot in infrared. It shows the foothills of Northern California. Shooting film while driving is not a fantastic idea. There are worse.

California Foothills In Infrared (V4L) from AA on Vimeo.

+++

Short Stories:

+++

“To the Graduating Class of 2010”

This morning I need a shave, get my razor and cream, go to the bathroom- think to myself, I’ll just shave my moustache, that’s all that needs it. I’m shaving, slip a little with the razor, take off part of my beard. Figure, I might as well just shave my face entire. I have extra cream in my left hand- it’s impossible to get just the right amount out of the can, and if I don’t use the cream, I’ll just waste it, wash it down the sink. I put it on my face, shave my face entire. Anything I have accomplished in the past twenty-two years, I have accomplished exactly like that.

+++

“Civilization”

I stop at a used CD shop. The crates are full of Ashlee Simpson CDs. At first, I think that this must mean that people who buy Ashlee Simpson CDs often regret their purchases, or that people who buy Ashlee Simpson CDs are likely to sell off their possessions in moments of panic. In retrospect, those thoughts are prejudiced and wrong.

The crates are full of Ashlee Simpson CDs. All it means is that people who listen to Ashlee Simpson are likely to have their cars broken into.

Buyer beware.

+++

“Diane”

She tells me things have changed- things have changed since the Seventies. Back then, when she worked in college admissions, colleges never advertised. Now, it’s everywhere, and she knows that, and I know that. I tell her the ads are all the same, that I don’t remember a damn thing about any college from the tour I went on, the tour I went on with her, five or six years ago. I don’t tell her what I do remember from the trip.

“There has to be some way out of that, don’t you think? Some way for a college to stand out as unique? What would you do, if you had to present a college that way- go beyond the generic?”

“I’d never be hired to do that. That’s inconsistent with the mission of college advertising. You have to be generic to advertise to everyone. Everyone, and everyone’s mother, everyone’s father.”

“Don’t you think the information could be something besides advertising? Not advertising to sell the college, but information to help our students decide if the college was a good fit for them? Information to help them make an informed decision?”

“That’s what every advertiser says. ‘We’re not advertising, we’re educating consumers and doing a public service’. I worked in a drug company. We didn’t ‘advertise’. We conducted ‘public awareness campaigns to help patients and their physicians make informed choices’ so that they could ‘evaluate how our drugs products could extend and improve their quality of life’. We never ‘advertised drugs’. I looked at a job in agrichemistry. Dow. Dow doesn’t make ‘pesticides’. They produce ‘crop protection products to safeguard the world’s food supply’. And it’s the same in the tobacco business. Tobacco companies don’t ‘market cigarettes’. They don’t encourage people to smoke. They just ‘provide information about products so that responsible adults can make their own decisions’. Everyone says that.”

+++

CHAT ROOM FUTURE

Overlake College Tour 2010: Stanford University

I was recently contacted by a college counselor (Diane Fr.) from my high school, Overlake. The following exchange took place through email; click to view larger:



I have arranged to give a group of Overlake students an hour-long tour of the campus. Diane Fr. has been at Overlake for several years now; she acted as my college counselor when I graduated from Overlake in 2006, and she also lead a 2005 tour of colleges on the West Coast of the United States. I attended that tour, which lasted some two weeks and included about 20 colleges and universities, including Stanford, Berkley, UCLA, and so-on.

I remembered almost nothing from the 2005 tour. The universities all blended together. Every admissions officer explained that his or her university had “all the resources of a world-class research institution” with “the personal focus and intimate atmosphere of a small, residential liberal-arts college”. Every single college we visited had the best campus, most illustrious faculty, best sports program, most enthusiastic student body, and largest variety of course offerings of any college in America. We also learned that every college we visited was optimally situated in an ideal college town and surpassed every other college in its financial aid, commitment to diversity, and study-abroad opportunities.

I do have two memories of college tour. Both are of the time I spent on the tour bus Overlake rented; we traveled from Seattle to Los Angeles and back in this bus, and most of my waking hours were spent on it.

1. During much of the Tour, I sat next to Davin St., Overlake’s greatest automobile enthusiast. The bus was nearly full, and so seating was not flexible. Davin talked my ear off endlessly about cars. Although I usually prefer aisle seats (which provide more room and an avenue of escape which appeals to my nomadic leanings), I eventually started sitting by the window in order to block Davin’s view of the road. This was because, when he sat by the window, the endless rush of cars along the freeway would serve as fodder for his automotive ramblings.

2. Tristan Dr. and Maria Bo. sat behind me and discussed life while drinking vodka out of a green Nalgene bottle. Since they were older and more jaded than myself, I tried to extract as much wisdom as possible from their conversations. I knew Tristan a bit; he had complemented me on my nipples when we went swimming. I knew Maria a bit; when I was in the back seat of her Infiniti, she played Cypress Hill and drove through underground parking garages in a way that made me look at my life and ask myself what really mattered.

I don’t want another generation of Overlakers to have the experience I did. I am going to make their tour of Stanford memorable. I’ve spent nearly four years getting ready. I may not be able to walk backwards, but I’ll give it a soldier’s try, and I think I’ll have a few insightful things to say. Still, I want to solicit any bits of last-minute advice. Erik? Bobby?

“Owls” Shirt: Check.
American Spirits: Check. (Not the organic kind, duh…)

-A-core

Summary of my Undergraduate Years

This image was shot in infrared with a modified 4.1-megapixel HP camera. I desaturated it to remove the purple color cast. Erik- I can also shoot IR video with the camera. The resolution is decent enough that, in the case of a movie uploaded to YouTube, the bottleneck in terms of quality would be YouTube's automatic compression of video, not the camera.

"Summary of my Undergraduate Years: A Picture is Worth One Thousand Words"
(Click to view larger)

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