EF Tutorial -- Panoramas For Everybody: How to Create Panoramic Shots Without Fancy Equipment.

Panoramic shots create dramatic photos.

Sunset in Baguio City.

This tutorial will teach you how to create your own panoramic shots without fancy cameras or expensive software.  All you really need is a camera and a way to crop pictures.  For the purposes of this tutorial, I'll use a basic (and free) program called IrfanView to show how simple the process is.

An update on my health...

Trapped in a haze
It all began when I started collapsing randomly.  Shortly after that, the seizures, blackouts, and lapses into unconsciousness regularly came.  I was hospitalized and was diagnosed with "essential epilepsy" because they seriously could not figure out why any of that was happening when no tumors showed up and the ionic balance in my system was very normal. I was also popping 27 (not a typo) pills a day to somehow manage the symptoms, the most potent being Tegretol -- a drug that has a list of side effects as long as my arm.  The rationale behind it all was to basically sedate me because any kind of excitement in my nervous system could trigger seizures.

In that time, I suffered semi-permanent headaches, dizziness, and general weakness.  My friends also noticed that I was turning weirdly bipolar (I still deny this! Hahaha) and would often be confused about what I was doing.  I remember going out to the balcony right in the middle of dinner and my girlfriend asked me what I was doing.  I answered, "I'm going to pee" right before I was promptly dragged back in and led to the bathroom.

After several months of living like this with no discernable progress, it was clearly time for a second opinion.

Because...

....sentences must not be left hanging, stories must not be left unfinished, and what has started must continue till it's appointed end. Which I don't think is now.

So to undust this blog and make it seem somewhat active:

Here. Something interesting.



The real-life counterpart to Satine's Elephant hotel - An Actual Elephant Hotel in Coney Island. Although it's gone now.

and.

Lately I've been discovering odd antique stores here in Gotham City:

Obscura Antiques in East Village, a store full of oddiites.. seriously.

There's also another antique store that sells old street signs and subways signs on Houston street between Bowery and Lafayette, but I forgot the name of it. But it is easily found because there are old subway/street signs piled next to the entrance.
I think.


I also has a blog in dire need of updates:
http://blog.ruthkim.com
... In addition to my life, which is in dire need of updates.

RK (formerly known as Azureon) NO THIS IS NOT RAWNBLADE, who needs to start posting at some point. *cough*

Woah. Dusty.

This ship is in need of repairs, a new mast, new sails, and a good stiff northward wind of Inspiration.
That's all up to ol Cap'n Rawn.
In the meanwhile, I have a new personal blog. Me own little skiff, over at yon CoffeeandCaramels.blogspot.
Come visit, if you evers feel the need. :D

Edit:
Whoops, forgot to sign me name.
Sorry about that, folks.

-Swansong (Thus, not Granville/Rawnblade)

midnight indigestion

here's a picture of The Fruity Vampire Man, who is extremely displeased with the slanderous representation of his people as tormented, sexually ambiguous people constantly at war with werewolves (and somehow always winning the said battle/lovetriangle/hwatever). He says that in reality, vampires are quite happy with the way they are, thank you very much, they are not sexually ambiguous despite their fruity looks, there are no such things as werewolves, and that werewolves are the most ridiculous things he's heard of since large format printers, social networking and that thing where Americans want universal health care .. yet won't pay for it.*




*I'm a socially awkward freak living in a rather social(?) era of networking websites and blogs (the electronic equivalent of a large convention hall packed with people to a psychologically cloying and claustrophobic extent) and my experience with fedex large format printers has been quite positively wonderful, as in the type of wonderful that tries to amaze you with its cumbersome slowness, ill sensitivity and lack of extra stock! And I'm still getting billed for a hospital visit that occured at the beginning of the year! Preposterous.




Speaking of social networking, there is a prevalence of network portals these days (flicker, twitter, facebook, myspace, etc, etc, etc, ..), which makes me think of a rather ghastly possibility:


Will social networks become the equivalent of electronic surveillance?


And pray, dear stranger, think about it, before you go and slam me on the statement.

After all,

A. The psychological? distance between people have gotten smaller, which is a good thing, but..

B. We now have this tendency to constantly update our FB statuses, not to mention those damn Twitters. Therefore letting whoeveritis know what you are currently doing, and perhaps where you're at.

C. There are people who are idiot enough to post their address and phone number on Facebook and other portals.

D. We post our info there, be it our addresses, musical tastes, whatnot.

E. Therefore, we willingly submitting our data to a giant networking website, I mean DATABASE...

F. ... for potential lovers and employers, yes, AND potential assassins, spam adverts, stalkers, pedophiles to take advantage of. And perhaps the soon-to-come One World Government to spy and watch. Sorta like the online version of China's surveillance cameras, only minus the photos I guess. =P


Just my two cents on this extraordinary phenomena. Which I'm unfortunately forced to make use of, thanks to my choice of career (crap).


- (the antisocial acidic agrravant) Azureon

Photo manipulation

I've never really dabbled in photomanipulation until now. Here's a couple things that I've come up with recently for a Mario Kart Racing League that we have here in the dorms.

Also, regarding the lack of art updates for the past few months, I've been doing a lot of studies and practice that are just now finally getting positive results. These poster type things are the firstfruits of that labor and hopefully, I'll be churning out some much improved art soon.

The Eyeless Feesh is stirring back to life!

--RWHC

hello...

HELLO EMPTY BLOG!




(hello empty blog!)
(hello empty blog!)
(hello empty blog!)

(hello empty blog.)

(hello empty blog...)

(hello e m p t y b l o g . . .



(hell  o    e    p     y l         o   .





       m               t b    g

yet another sad observation of life: i guess everyone's rather busy ='(
i also realized that as time goes by, people get busier and busier and busier, and grayer and grayer and grayer, and get further and further and further apart. and somewhere, some psychotic mad scientist will build a device the Ultimate Plan to Stop Time (and therefore, stop aging, people getting further away, and all those ugly bits that come with Change).



and this is where you realize that i need to go to sleep.

- Azureon

Let the Games Begin

The Olympics kicked off yesterday with a bang, boom, and a bright shiny torch. Not that there weren't many bumps on the way to Beijing.

It has been one of the more turbulent lead-ups to the world's biggest field-day. Politics, grievances, history, and patriotism have all jumbled together and fallen in a large and inglorious puddle in the road.

What of the Olympics?

I'm sure that we have all read and seen far too much regarding the Olympics and China. It's on the news, in the blogs, and plastered across the TV screens.

Some say that the Olympics should be free of all of this political mumbo-jumbo. It's a global celebration and a way to bring a few days of peace to an often violent world. The wars and conflicts continue elsewhere on the planet, but for a week, in this one place, there is supposed to be friendly competition. It is a time to marvel at the magnificence that is the human body and the human will to succeed and to excel.
But at the same time, are we to gloss over the significant grievances of people groups who, for a brief moment, might be able to grab the spotlight and turn it to their condition? Tibetans and Uighers, along with some other minorities living under Chinese rule, want their voice to be heard. For most, this is their only real opportunity to receive world-wide attention. With the powers of Chinese censorship, it is virtually impossible to get a message out to the rest of the world.

The Olympics has often been used as a political platform in the past, to discomfiture of many. African nations once boycotted the Olympics because of New Zealand's seeming support of Apartheid South Africa. The mass boycotts of the 80 and 84 games was brought on by the Cold War. The 88 olympics in South Korea were boycotted by the North and four other nations. Taiwan once boycotted the games because they wouldn't be allowed to compete under the name of Taiwan.
There was the infamous Munich games and the slaughter of the Israeli athletes. There was the bombing at the Atlanta games.
The 1936 games in Germany were used by the Nazis as propaganda for their regime and thus was widely denounced after the fact.

So, where does that leave us, here?
Do the Olympics function, as Pierre de Coubertin wished, as a movement for peace in the world? Or does this make the Olympics a sort of global Disneyworld, disconnected from reality and made up of plastic trees and plastic smiles?

I know that this will probably get me in trouble with my Chinese friends, but the fact of the matter is that abuses have occurred in China. The Tibetans and Uyghers and other minorities have often been pushed down, sometimes with overwhelming and violent force. The desire for independence from China is not an anarchic or pointlessly separatist movement stemming from some petty dispute. These were nations that were conquered, with people and heritages all their own. Their grievances are deep and real.

But then, is dousing the torch the proper way to express these grievances? Can't the Olympics reflect the spirit of sportsmanship and common humanity as expressed on Christmas day, 1914?

Which is more important, to strive for peace despite conflict, or to defend and uphold the weak and weary?
Or perhaps it's not so black and white? Perhaps there is a way to achieve both?

I'm sure this is all moot to most people around the world. The Games are underway. In two weeks time, they will be over and Tibet and the Uighers will fade into the background once again. What of them?

- Swansong

Alloha~

Greetings and Salutations to the readers of the ole Eyeless!

This is Swansong, hailing you all from afar.
I'm afraid that I am not as artistically inclined as my fellow contributors, Rawn and Azureon. But I hope that perhaps these rambling words of mine might on occasion entertain and perhaps even elucidate.

Stay tuned for rambling writings of ridiculous redundancy r- r... ... (hrm..) really soon!

-Swansong

*looks around* sneeze *starts to dust*

my summer so far summarized....




Interesting wall painting near the place i'm at. yet another interesting discovery.



I've been trying my hand on making copies of master copies; supposedly they're supposed to help.
Sargent copies in progress.






And more awkward sketchbook doodles, and this is where I decide that the method by which I measure my skills is this: the ability to capture the essence of the Joker and Batman. I suppose the day I can draw/paing a kick-ass Batman and Joker is the day I'll know I have finally become a master of my craft.

1. Based on the somewhat-steampunk novel The Diamond Age, which I've been dying to read and finally got to. A somewhat psychedelic read (and yet, I say less weirder than The Golden Compass... which just started getting rather. odd. especially in the end.)



2. Awkwardness Epitomized; first time I've drawn the Joker (and used gouache ever since last year), but worry not, as all the subsequent Jokers and Batmans I draw won't ever see the light of day till they shed this awkwardness. -_-;;



3. random doodle.



And as for what I've accomplished this summer ... nothing, except lots of books being consumed, a half finished website, lots of awkward sketching, .... and the crowning achievement: catching 4 mice.
So I guess I could say that instead of working on my portfolio the way I should have, I've slacked off and all I've got are the four carcasses of mice rotting (far far away from me in a trash can that is now in a landfill dump covered with more trash by now) to show.


Um, someone post something please. I feel like I'm talking to a wall. Maybe I am, and in the end I am insane!!! That all of this is just some silly world I've constructed for myself in my demented brain and the next thing I know, I awake from the haze of my frenzied dreams to find myself in a staitjacket in a disarmingly white padded room with no doors, with only a small square shoulder height window (that is padded) to look out on, looking out on a world that is pefectly concealed by trees, so I can't see them and they can't see me ....

- Azureon