Posts Tagged ‘photography’
Changing, Again
At the rate the transition from winter to spring has been playing out this year, this Words on Images post from April of 2013 resonates enough that I’ve decided to give it a fresh viewing. The prolonged cold and snow is getting mind numbing, but the change will eventually swing through to fruition. At least, that’s what we keep telling ourselves.
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Words on Images
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Image Inversion
One more image from Cyndie’s latest collection taken after the recent snowfall:
If you look at it long enough, at the right angle, this is one of those photos where the perception can become inverted, and the high spots suddenly appear as recessed.
The image will take on a softer, fuzzier appearance. Once the mind shifts to the inverted perception, it can be very difficult to switch back again.
Which do you see?
It’s all in how you interpret the shadows and highlights of the snow that actually rests on top of the swirling pattern of the mat that sits outside our front door.
When you can see that the snow puffs up on top of the mat, the image will seem more crisp.
When the perception flips, the puffy snow will suddenly invert and look sunk below the surrounding cutouts of the pattern swirls.
Flip Out, man!
No drugs required.
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Natural Wonders
When I first saw this image that Cyndie captured, I struggled to imagine what could have made these intriguing tracks in the snow.
The alternating diagonal slices in the snow had me thinking of a large bird of prey dragging its talons as it “ran” across the surface while taking off.
Seemed like there should also be evidence of flapping wings, too. There wasn’t.
Closer review led to a much less dramatic, but still rather surprising cause.
The snow that had stuck to the wires of our fence was blowing off in long chunks and creating the lines on the surface below.
Cool!
I wouldn’t have been able to create that artwork if I tried.
Thank you, Mother Nature.
Oh, but nature wasn’t done creating. In an evening walk, Cyndie took one more picture of the fence wires.
Once again, the shadow of the wires was having a visible influence on the melting of the snow beneath the bright April sunshine.
Many thanks to Cyndie for her keen eye and crafty image captures!
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Melt Art
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When life gives you snow, make portraits!
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The good news, yesterday’s blue sky and high sun melted a lot of the snow that fell overnight on Friday, even though the air temperature stayed cold.
The bad news, more snow and continued cold air is what lies ahead this week.
The silver lining, plenty of new photo opportunities!
Sparkling Transition
Nature is putting on a nice show for our morning walks lately. The nightly re-freeze of flowing melt-water greets us in the morning with all sorts of brilliant formations that I like capturing for full-frame close up image abstracts.
Here are four from this weekend:
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Missed Again
If you take a lot of pictures, you know what it’s like to miss a shot. Like most things, there are more misses than hits when it comes to the spectacular capture. If you want to nail the perfect picture, beyond some good luck and good equipment, you need a lot of patience.
I came up short on all three yesterday while out on a walk with Delilah. Cyndie wanted me to give our little shepherd a workout to burn off some extra energy, so I strapped on the snowshoes and headed out to pack some of the trails that haven’t been walked since the last snow storms.
Delilah didn’t get the deep snow workout I had intended, because she was just light enough to stay on top of the wind-packed, partially melted blanket of beautiful snow, but I had a plan for that. We would be hiking many routes and doubling back on several of them.
If I can snowshoe both directions, it makes for a better packed path.
The first time we approached the road from our southern fence line, two hawks were up to something, putting on an air show with vocal enhancements that intrigued Delilah greatly.
From there we continued across our driveway and traversed what we call the “north loop” trail that pops out at the big willow tree famous for tripping Cyndie up when she stomped on the rake. Normally, this route would be followed by traveling up the driveway to the house. Delilah was locked into that program to such a degree that my instruction to turn around and head back in the other direction was met with quite the expression of complete confusion.
It’s was laughable, especially because that was quickly followed by a sprint that said, “Let’s do this!”
As we returned to the road from the opposite direction, it wasn’t a hawk that caught our attention, it was a big eagle flying away. With my eyes skyward, the silhouette of another white-headed dark bird perched in a tree was easy to catch. Even though I was limited to what my pocket camera could achieve, I stopped Delilah and tried to zoom in for a photo.
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It didn’t provide much in the way of opportunity, so after a couple shots my attention shifted to Delilah at the end of her long leash in front of me. She was staring across our field, holding a gorgeous pose that was definitely photo-ready.
As I lifted my hand with the camera and my finger reached for the shutter button, I missed and pushed the power to “Off.”
Delilah moved as I fumbled to get the power back on and the spectacular sound of large flapping wings made a couple of snaps into flight. That beautiful bald eagle pushed hard against the air to soar into the sky away from us.
It won’t be the last beautiful photo I just missed.
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Finding Votograph
Who’s up for a little fun and games? I just so happen to know a guy who knows a guy at a local software development firm that created a new opportunity for phone-camera enthusiasts to enjoy some healthily addictive entertainment. My son, Julian Hays, and fellow developer Tyson Acker (currently answering from New Zealand’s time zone) agreed to be interviewed about the app they created called, “Votograph.”
Relative Something: How would you describe what Votograph is to someone who has never heard of it?
Julian Hays: Votograph is a social photo game for mobile devices. Players compete by submitting a photo that matches or somehow relates to a given challenge phrase. Players then vote on the best photo for each challenge. The player whose photo has the most votes when time is up wins the challenge.
Tyson Acker: Votograph is a platform for all the photo nerds out there that has more of a game focus than other social media apps. You’re not merely sharing your photos–you’re trying to out-do your friends and family (or, in public groups, the entire world!) on a given topic. Users can either join ongoing public challenges or create private challenges of their own; in either case you have a specified length of time to submit a photo and vote for the best.
RS: So, just to clarify, when you say “mobile devices,” will Votograph run on tablets, in additions to phones, but not on a PC or laptop computer?
JH: Votograph is not available on tablets at the moment- only “phones”, or phone-sized devices for now. But it is available on both iOS and Android platforms.
RS: Can you describe how the idea for Votograph originated?
JH: The initial game concept came from DevMode’s owner, John Bailey. He proposed the idea and DevMode began working on the project in our spare time between client work. The project served as a means to learn more about project architecture and to refine our skills.
RS: Do the photographs submitted for a challenge need to be taken in the moment, or can they be old images already on a person’s phone?
JH: For the daily public challenges, you can submit either a photo you capture using the Votograph camera, or a photo from your library. That allows you to use your phone’s camera app if it helps you capture a better photo, or if you want to submit a picture you captured earlier. That also means images you found and downloaded from the internet are fair game.
If you are creating your own challenge for a private group, you have the option of whether or not you would like to allow existing photos from someone’s library. Sometimes forcing “camera-only” works well for a challenge at an event, such as “Best Mullet At The State Fair”.
RS: What if two people submit the same image? Can we see the other images that have already been submitted to a particular challenge?
JH: That’s another option- by default, the public challenges are “blind” challenges, meaning you cannot see or vote on other submissions until after you have submitted. When you create a private challenge, you have the option of toggling “Allow Vote Before Submission”, which would allow anyone to see and vote on submissions at any time.
If you choose not to submit a photo, you can still see and vote on the submissions once the challenge enters the “Vote” stage after submissions have closed. Challenges can be set to a duration of 1, 4, 8, or 24 hours. The “Vote” stage would be the final 15, 30 or 60 minutes depending on the length of the challenge.
So, on a “blind” challenge, it is possible that people could submit the same image or same idea without knowing it. At the end of the challenge, if there is a tie between submissions with the most votes, the win is awarded to the photo that was submitted first.
RS: If a player has already voted for an image, can they change their vote if a new submission arrives that they like better?
JH: Yes, players can change their vote as many times as they would like until the challenge has ended.
RS: When did DevMode release Votograph?
JH: January 11th, 2018.
RS: How is DevMode feeling about the response thus far?
JH: Interest has been light so far- but we haven’t really had time to put forth much of a marketing effort quite yet. Hopefully we can reach out a bit more and start gaining some more traction.
RS: I see Votograph as appealing to people who want to take the “perfect” beautiful picture, as well as to those who like the more intellectual aspect of interpreting the challenges in quirky or obscure ways. Have you seen any patterns that reveal one or the other methods have met with greater success in challenges played thus far?
TA: Good question! So far I actually see that as one of the drawbacks of the app: I think users might be discouraged from submitting if they feel like they don’t have a “perfect” photo. We have a series of achievements which attempt to add some positive feedback on multiple levels, so users can feel like they’re accomplishing something without necessarily winning a challenge. But I fear that it isn’t enough to coax some of our more cautious users into increased participation. We still have some work to do in that area.
As for the quirky/obscure angle, I did manage to win a recent challenge with a crude line drawing. So it can be done!
JH: Tough to say- So far there have been a variety of winning strategies. And that has been part of the fun. Sometimes the best-looking photo wins, sometimes the tastiest-looking item in a photo wins, sometimes the obviously-quirky photo wins. It might be too early yet to say which strategy sees greater success. I think the given challenge phrase matters a lot- the quality of the phrase is pretty clear based on how many submissions come in for it. The less interesting phrases certainly do not get as many submissions.
This is probably a good spot to point out users can submit phrase suggestions for public groups- Here’s how:
From the main screen, tap the yellow “+” button in the top right corner. Then, select a Public group from the list. You will then see a text input where you can submit your phrase suggestion. We’ll review it and if it looks good it will get added to the master list.
RS: Can a user submit more than one image to a challenge? If the game were happening instantaneously, like an in-person card game, that question wouldn’t probably come up, but when the challenge lasts 24 hours, there can be tempting opportunities of better shots that arise before time runs out.
JH: No- once the submission is in, that’s it! One photo submission per user, per challenge.
RS: So make it a good one! Fair enough. I suppose this would be a fine time to ask how people can get the App and what it will cost. Where can photo-gamers find Votograph for downloading to their camera phones?
JH: It is a free download at both the Apple Store and Google Play Store: https://votographapp.com.
We’d love to hear feedback- feel free to send your thoughts to feedback@votographapp.com.
Thanks for the support & good luck to all players!
RS: Thank you for bringing new fun to our camera-phones and taking the time to describe Votograph to the Relative Something followers. I think I have an idea to submit for a challenge… Wonder what images would be submitted for “Relative Something?”
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Relative Something 