dianaschnuth

Maybe I?m supposed to be a photographer.

This morning, around 10:30, the fog rolled in. It happened to get brighter outside the window, in my periphery, so I turned to look. And the first thought in my head was, ?I can?t wait to go to break so I can photograph that!? I carry my Lomo in my purse or my jacket pocket almost everywhere now, so I?m almost always ready for photo ops like this.

As it turns out, I couldn?t even wait till breaktime. I pulled out my Lomo, pressed it up against the window to avoid glass glare, and took a shot. Then, about fifteen minutes later, I took my break upstairs in the quiet room (as usual) and took a couple photos from the second floor windows.

It?s gotten to the point where I don?t care who sees me and thinks I?m a dork for bringing my camera to work. Everyone in my department knows that I have my little plastic camera with me wherever I go, and I take pictures of weird things (like when the squirrel outside jumped up on the windowsill). Plus, the chintzy sound of the Lomo?s shutter has made it possible for me to take photos of people who don?t realize they?ve been photographed, not even after the shutter fires—maybe they thought it was a door latching shut. 🙂

Disposable cameras: they’re not just for wedding receptions anymore.

Some inventive folks have come up with CameraMail, in which one assembles a disposable camera on an oversized postcard with the instructions that postal workers are to take photographs during the camera’s trip cross-country.

How cool is that?

Holy shit, this really works!

Courtesy of kottke.org (whose coolness I only recently came to appreciate):

To view the images in 3-D, cross your eyes until a composite image forms in the middle (it even works with the thumbnail above). From what I’ve read, a small percentage of you (5-10%) won’t be able to see the effect, so if you can’t get it to work, that might be why.

It took me a dozen times crossing my eyes to make it work right—but now that I understand how to do it, it is such a fascinating effect! The trick seems to be, first, to cross your eyes enough to perfectly overlap the two images. Don’t worry that it’s still blurry. Then, let your eyes relax and slowly focus on the scene. In a few seconds (for me, anyway), the stereograph will focus and pop out.

It’s almost as cool as those black-and-white stereographs you find in the antique stores. Maybe even cooler, since it doesn’t require extra equipment. (Or does it now…?)

Edit: Turns out this is the same concept used by those damned Magic Eye 3D illusions. Well, shit. If someone would have just *told* me to cross my eyes and look at it, I might not have spent ten years looking for the damn sailboat.