FEEL THE BURN

I joined the gym last February 2010.  My doc had told me that either I go on a diet or exercise more.  Of course, I choice to exercise more and began to train for a USMC Mud Run back in September.  My team and I did very well, but there is still the matter of the spare tire I developed after leaving the Corps back in 2000.  My motivation for 2011 is that, this year, my 20 year high school reunion is the end of September, and the USMC Mud Run is 3 weeks later in October.  So for now, I gotta feel the BURN…

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

I had a quick thought and idea on Christmas Eve and got out the camera and tripod.  Since I had a the tree up and it was positioned perfectly next to the fireplace, it was time for a cloning shot.  You’ll have to excuse the blue painter’s tape around the fireplace since we (and I mean wifey) are painting the house’s interior trim. Anyway feel free to comment.

Cloning My Ghost Again

Here are more cloning images I did in     2009.  In the picture to the left I tried to have an “interactive”argument of showing “who” had a bigger muscle and where. I did realize my mistake of “bicep” me looking at “leg” me at the wrong angle, but how do you really correct that?

This was my attempt at “adding” more of me into a framed shot. The biggest difficulty I have faced when “posing” these shots is the lack of depth and space afforded by my stage. Since this is done in my living room, there is only so much of it that I can show that is not cluttered or “busy” with furniture or hanging framed pictures. Yes I “photoshopped” my tummy to give myself a less fat look but hey, who wouldn’t if you know how. I do also realize that the look of one of my clones and the angle makes it look a little “happy” but that was TOTALLY unintentional. I was going for the look of “look at that idiot” but it just didn’t happen.

This cloning happened during the NFL playoffs and I was attempting at a roleplaying shot. I used my AFL Carolina Cobras jersey I won at an auction and my old high school practice jersey to pull this off. Right off the bat, I had problems due to the framing of the stage and the placement of the center’s hand is off. Although everything is to scale, it would “appear” that my center’s rear is way too big and in the Qb’s face

Cloning My Ghost

Sometimes when you see my artwork(print stuff), you’ll notice that it is a bit dated. Is it a fault of my own? Sure, I haven’t had a “real” art class since high school, and even then it was my sophmore year in ’89.  I did have art classes at the School of Communication Arts, however I don’t think drawing a nude model constitutes enhancing of my art skill. Anyway, not to get off on a sidebar and this first ever blog is not about that, I wanted to show you a new photoshop skill I learned last year and have been trying to improve on since. Ghosting or cloning ; the art of creating several images of one’s self in the same photograph. I was looking up tutorials on photoshop and I stumbled upon this and thought that it would be cool to try.

The first attempt: I was watching a Carolina football game and they were losing at that point so during halftime I put my digital camera on my daughter’s Playskool table and shot this. I tried to use an interactive style shot but the main problem was that I was wearing the same outfit. I just felt that I didn’t get the whole effect of what I was going for in this shot. It did take me 1/2 hour to take and edit this photo though.

The 2nd Attempt: This time I definitly made sure to make it look like I was wearing different clothes (except I saw later that I didn’t change shorts) Same set up on the table as before. I just could not figure out a good pose.

3rd Attempt: One of my better attempts at double cloning with interaction was this playstation bit. I made sure that I had completely different clothes on and used a prop. I don’t remember entirely but I think my wifey asked why all those clothes were in a pile in the living room when she got home.

 4th Attempt: This time I wanted to try and up the ante and do some overlapping, this was a little difficult for me since you had to get the depth right or it wouldn’t work. I did a few other double clonings but by far these four examples turned out the best.

 

SEMPER FI!