Dear blog and blog-readers. All 3 of you. I'm sorry for the lack of posts. I've been twitter-ing. All the way from Sweden.

That may sound dirty but if you click on the link I assure you most of the time it is not dirty.


You can tweet from AIM (or IM client), web browser, Twitteroo, Twitter MAC widget, or from your Mobile. No mobile tweeting from me yet. Call me a prude if you'd like. It still has a lot of kinks to work out, and if the kitty that is responsible for maintaining the servers wasn't so cute I might question it.

No, you've made my day, No Problemo!

On Saturday I got lunch at No Problemo in New Bedford and I made the day of the guys who work there. And they made my day right back. The No Problemo guys, like me, are easily made content.

It was fairly early for lunch, 11:30, when I walked up to the counter to place my order.

"I'd like 7 beef tacos, please", I said.

The guy behind the counter gave me a look as though he had heard me wrong. "7 beef tacos?"

"Yes."

The man who was making the food (who knows me by name) then replied, "7?"

"Yup, 7," I said.

"That's awesome!" He returned.

The guy behind the register rang in a taco and hit the repeat button. As he was doing this another man came out from the back and said, "7 beef tacos?"

The guy behind the register confirmed it. He then looked at me and said, "You've just made our day."

I smiled and said, "No guys, you are making my day."

Almost just as fabulous is the fact that 7 delicious and filling tacos cost just over 20 dollars. How awesome is that!


By the way, I only ate two of the tacos.

Fun with Photoshop

Photoshop CS2 has a neat image adjustment feature... Match Color. After loading the original image and the image you would like to match the color of, simply click on the tool, choose the source, and done. (Well, almost done, you can then change the luminance and intensity of the adjusted image.)

With this tool you can match the color of a series of photos to one another. Furthermore, you can match the colors in your photos to anything, including famous paintings. I thought this was a really neat idea and so I tried it out with a couple of my digital images; just for the fun of it.


Here is my original image:



And after using the Match Color tool, this is the new image:

I matched the color to this famous painting.


Here's another image of mine:


And after using the Match Color tool, this is the new image:



This last one I think came out the best. Probably because I took my own image of Santorini and matched it to a painting of the same island.
My photo:


The new image:


I matched the color to this painting.


The colors in the adjusted image are so vivid and honestly closer to my own recollections of the places photographed. An artist, by nature, has such expressivity. The way they see the world is so vibrant and soulful and often times refreshing. Their work not only reaches people, but it also touches people and connects people. While the tool is quite simple to use, there are broader issues at work here. I did have to consider light and color much more carefully when selecting a painting to match the color of. There were a few awful attempts and landscapes seemed easier than portraits. For instance I attempted to match an image of myself with the colors from Renoir's 1883 painting "Dance at Bougival" . Apparently I am just not a Renoir girl. It wasn't just color and light that came into play, but also the value, intensity, and relationships of colors. It's a neat tool, and if you have access to the program you should definitely check it out. Maybe you'll see what I mean.

Land Camera

So I've been interested in getting a Land Camera for a little while now, also referred to as a Pack camera or Folding camera. A Land camera was the first "instant camera" and was invented by Edwin Land, founder of Polaroid. The camera was first demonstrated on February 21, 1947 in New York City by Land.

ALL Folding Pack Cameras (original style) have the following features in common:

• Pull-out front standard with scissor strut design
• Removable hinged plastic cover protects entire front of camera when camera is not in use.
• Unit focus; focus is controlled by pushing on either side of a sliding arm located near the base of the bellows struts.
• Shutter must be manually cocked; shutter release is on top of camera body.
• Has PC socket for flash (Model 360 excepted); flashgun is clipped to the top of the camera.
  

I'd been doing some research on the models of cameras and thought the Model 360 or Model 450 looked like my best bet. The 360 was an improved 350 with a better "daylight" scene setting and the production numbers were higher. So I thought it would be easier to find. The 400-series model cameras replaced the 300-series camera models. They are generally similar except for a new flash system which couples to the focusing mechanism of the camera. The 450 model also had decent production numbers. Both cameras also take film which is currently still being produced and sold. And since I want to actually try and USE the camera, that was a plus in my book.

Anyway, I had looked online and there are Land cameras for sale on ebay but I decided to wait and see if I could find one at a yard sale or something. On Saturday of last week (not this past Saturday) I wandered into an antique shop downtown. And what did I find? A Model 335 Land Camera (pictured to the left). It seemed to be in decent condition, came with a flash, the instruction manual and the original case. I looked it over, examining it, and asked the store owner questions about it. He wasn't too knowledgeable and I decided to think it over because I hadn't done research on this model camera yet. I wanted to make sure I could still get film for it. So last week I did some research on it. As with most of the 300-series models, it was produced between 1969-1971. And I could still purchase film for it. This past weekend I wandered back into the antiques store and purchased the camera. On Monday I bought some film, Fuji instant pull-apart film type FP100c (also formerly marketed under Polaroid brand type 689) and similar in general standard photo application uses to the popular Polaroid brand pull-apart film type 669. I had wanted to get some Type 665 B&W film which produces both a positive and a reusable negative. I thought that would be really cool and it is good quality film that is inexpensive. (Instant pull-apart film is not cheap by the way.) But it is not regularly sold since it requires sodium sulfite.

I haven't tested the camera out yet - first I have to replace the batteries, they were quite corroded, and clean it a bit. Then I want to make sure I use my film wisely.

I will report back.