meish dot org: life, unfolding

Almost forgot to do my Mayfly project summary for 2010.

Househunting. Negotiation. Fucked over by two vendors then landlady. House! Finally! Goodbye SW14, hello Surrey. Painting. Nesting. Happier, poorer, more in love than ever.

Remember: 24 words summing up the last 365 days.

Over to you, in the comments below this time (because I haven’t got time to set up a separate page before going out for dinner).

And happy new year. Hope 2011 is a good one.

More to come, including context.

Previously:

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After writing not long ago about my favourite iPhone photography apps, I have a small update.

I don’t know if it’s got something to do with the quality of the iPhone 4 camera, or the way they’ve tweaked the algorithms in the app, but my love for CameraBag (at least its Helga setting) has dwindled. It no longer seems to be able to bring out the punch in shots.

So for punchiness these days I turn instead to Lo Mob, which comes with 28 different filters, including TTV, instant, and more. Some are more interesting than others, and I’ve been particularly pleased with the transformative effect it’s had on some of my recent shots – the black and white ones with high contrast are especially effective.

It’s almost as good as using an actual retro camera, like my beloved Holga.

Almost.

I sometimes play a game when I’m reading stuff on the internet. It’s called Commentogeddon – or, if you prefer, Crystal Ballocks. Do you want to join in?

Here’s how you play:

1. Read an article which has comments open. Since most things have comments these days – wisely or otherwise, YMMV – this can mean anything on a blog, news site, content portal or whatever. It helps if the comment count is greater than 0, but don’t read the comments just yet.

2. As you are reading the piece “above the line” (i.e the blog post, article, original content), try to predict the nature of the comments which will follow. Your prediction may concern form, tone or content of comments. For example, you might keep a mental tally (NB this is not the same as a mentalist tally) as follows:
– there will be a comment consisting of just one word
– someone will complain about the topic, insisting that this has already been discussed and concluded
– people will mention (and take issue with) the third paragraph

3. Now read the comments.

4. Award yourself a point for each comment type or form you correctly predicted would occur “below the line” as a result of the piece above it.

Over the years, you will hone your instincts to such an intuitive level that you’ll be able to accurately predict the content of any thread without needing to read it.

Whether you then decide to do so is entirely up to you.

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My lovely little sister Anna spent much of September circumnavigating the lower United States by train. Being the brilliant, webby, writery person she is, she conceived an intriguing participatory project to help while away the miles as well as atomising the memories, jotting moments onto a hundred and fifty custom-made and decorated postcards which were flung around the world to friends and strangers who had signed up to be on the receiving end.

You can read more about the snailr project, here and the original idea, here.

I received my postcard last week, but entirely failed to capture it digitally until today. But it’s fun seeing the other postcards find their way onto the web – from mental, to analogue, to digital memories – so I finally got my act together and here it is…

Front:

It reads: This is the snailr project, crossing the border n.b. please to customise this card. and i love you.

Back:

It reads: #63 I remember our mum loving reading The Night Train to us as children. As a poem, it had precisely the same tempered metre of a slow, careful train. And she sounded it out just like that, coming down heavily on enough syllables to suggest clacking tracks. I now wonder what it would have been like if she’d had access to an American version of the same poem, reflecting the Amtrak policy of blowing the horn, constantly, all through the night. I like to think she would have brought a hawk to bedtime stories. Or a stuck pig.

She’s right – our mum did read Auden’s The Night Mail to us at bedtime. A wonderful, evocative out-loud poem – and one which becomes even more vivid at the thought of a train whistle piercing the rhythmic clacking, all night long.

My sister’s ace.

Given that there’s so much going on at the moment (of which more anon), rather than leaving this place to echo silently (frequently thought of but untended) I’m going to try and get into the habit of posting a few random things whenever I get a chance – photos, links, moments – without much context.

Hot on the heels of my chapter about iphone photography in lomokev’s new photo project book, and inspired by Heather’s list of apps (and my [not so] recent upgrade to an iPhone 4) here is my list of favourite iPhone photography apps, with some examples of each in action…

I’ve tried a number of photography apps over the past three years of iPhone usage, but these three have come to be my stalwart accomplices. Crucially, they all allow me to be creative, and enhance my existing creativity, without getting in the way and making something which I don’t recognise as “my” work. I formula for a good photography app is: my skills + app = better result. So in an app I tend to be looking for something which doesn’t take over.

1. Autostitch

Unlike other panorama apps (like PhotoStitch for desktop, and the original version of Pano) which only allow you to construct a panorama from horizontally-connected image (perfect for panning around a horizon), Autostitch lets – no, encourages you to get creative with multiple overlapping images, in any direction at all. This can lead to some interesting – and sometimes quite unintended – effects.

I still boggle that this amount of intricate and elaborate processing power is packed into a tiny app on my phone. And available to anyone for less than $3. We truly live in the future.

2. Camerabag

I’m not crazy about apps that only exist to add retro effects to images, but there’s something about Camerabag’s filter settings that seem to be able to turn a lacklustre image into a much more rich and interesting one.

It’s telling that of the twelve filters available, I only use two with any regularity: Helga (which mimics Holga contrast & vignetting) and Magazine (which seems to flatten and punch things)

FWIW, I’ve also played with Hipstamatic and can see the appeal, but I’m not wild about it. For me, the fun is somewhat limited by the fact you have to take images through it, rather than being able to use it for post-processing, as well (as you can with Camerabag)

3. Diptych

Relatively new, this one allows you to quite simply combine multiple images according to a number of templates. Bosh.

I don’t use this one a lot, but it’s handy to have on the phone when I do (and a damned sight easier than downloading, opening and editing in photoshop).

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I’d love to know which photography apps you use, and rate….

I know the first rule of blogging is “never apologise” but I’m sure one of the other rules is something like “keep it up” which I have been woeful at doing recently – the terrible timing, so soon after my celebratory tenth blogiversary postings, was noted and probably deeply significant.

Lots of travel, lots of stuff happening at work, lots of really lousy things happening with regard to our housing situation (synopsis: After seven months dangling at the end of a property chain last year, we finally gave up on the place we were buying and found somewhere else with no chain. All progressed well until the owner of the house we were just about to exchange contracts on suddenly changed her mind about the sale which meant we, having given in our notice on current (rented) flat, were very nearly about to be homeless within weeks. We’ve sorted it out now, thankfully, and the hunt continues, though we are surrounded by boxes which I can’t bring myself to unpack just yet.)

So here’s something approaching content: I’ve been quietly making galleries on Flickr for a while. Here are some of my favourites…

(What big eyes you have)

(Lone tree in winter)

(Migraine-inducing carpet)

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I missed the actual tenth birthday of this blog/me blogging but I can’t let a milestone like that go unmarked, can I?

Originally started as a place to store and share links, this blog gradually became a place to playfully interact with the world, and over time that turned from introspection to exploration of the world, media, experiences and ideas. I don’t think I’m alone in that kind of journey with blogs.

I am immensely (unreasonably, perhaps even pathetically) proud of having been blogging for so long. I can say confidently that I was in at the beginning, when all this were fields. I was here before many of you young whippersnappers who have gone on to eclipse me, and blogging, and the web entirely in their success and influence. I don’t put my early involvement down to canny prescience about the way the web was turning so much as an inevitability given my proclivity for tinkering with web things, my early academic and personal interest in communicating online and my inability to shut up. Blogging and me; it was only a matter of time and technology before we found each other.

I was there. I remember the start, and the hype, popularisation, commercialisation and ubiquitisation which followed. I couldn’t possibly have known it at the time, but my blogging was to introduce me to dozens of interesting people, influence others to start doing it too, cause interesting opportunities (and worrying situations) to develop. Blogging has become part of what I am, what I do. I blog now for the same reasons I did in early 2000: because I can’t not tinker with and publish to the web.

Ten years ago, I was embarrassed to mention having a blog in polite company, because it was so difficult to understand – not just what but why. These days, even both my parents have blogs. It’s not a weird niche oddball geek thing anymore. It’s so normal it’s almost passé. Good.

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