Shake it like a....

I've never been one for Photoshop filters, considering them a cop out unless used with great subtlety and sparingly.  It must be the photo snob in me who thinks, "That's cheating!"  But I just downloaded some fun iPhone apps that make your photos looks like old school Polaroids and I must admit I do like the results, a lot!

On a side note, I was never one to use Polaroids in artistic endeavors, except as test shots for large format cameras.  Still, it's sad that they no longer make them.  The sticky goo left on your fingers with that fresh chemical smell still makes me nostalgic (and, I apologize to future children in cases these toxins have seeped into my body.)

I downloaded ShakeItPhoto ($.99) , Polomoid ($1.99), and PhotoFilters (free).  Photofilters is just the color filters included in the Polomoid app.

Polomoid is kind of annoying, because it takes your photos and seems to force a landscape orientation, ending in some weird cropping.  But I do like the filters that make your photos look as if they'd been sitting in the sun, or the chemicals have started to go funny.  I had better luck using  ShakeItPhoto to come up with a composition I liked and then the free Photofilters to tweak the colors a bit.  Any of these apps may be applied to a picture you are about to take or stored on your iphone, and you have the option to keep a copy of the original photo.

Also, ShakeItPhoto lets you shake your iphone whilte the photo "develops"  to simulate the action made immortal by Outkast's "Hey Ya!"

What is it about the Polaroid look that is so fun?  I think partially it is the framing element.  Pictures automatically look just so much more finished, official, formal, what have you, with a frame.  It makes it sort of more precious (in terms of being cute, not valuable.)  For instance, I took these three so-so pictures which I didn't feel much about and after some app action, I kinda like them a lot more.  They look more special...or maybe what I needed all along was more contrast, color pop. 

I wonder if future generations will also get the nostalgic feeling people of my (and older) generations do?  Or does anything old give off that nostalgia? Hm.  In any case, I am personally a sucker for the funky colors of old chemicals, or the cross-processed look.

I tried the look on some of my "artsy" photographs - that is, NOT snapshots, and things I had set up, lit, posed very carefully and I don't like how these two have turned out.  Maybe it's because I already cropped and framed them, or just that I had spent a lot of time getting them to look just so.  Or, this look isn't for everything...but if I can get this to be decent quality I would consider printing out some of the other "snapshots" to a larger format for home decoration, instead of just decorating my facebook or computer hard drives.

Anyhow, fun new toys, so you can expect a few fake old photographs to pop up in future posts. :)

D.I.Y #2 - onigiri

Oh!nigiri!1!  

Have you ever been watching an anime and seen the characters chowing down on onigiri and thought, damn that looks good!  I want some, but how do I make them?  Here’s how!

What are onigiri?  Basically, onigiri are rice balls with a filling (fish or picked vegetables, wrapped in seaweed for easy handling.  They are especially delicious grilled, as the rice gets nice and crispy.  That’s all – rice and filling.  I’m 90% sure the compact hand-held aspect (and cute shapes) add even more to the flavor.  The cuter a food is, the more delicious, right?

Ingredients

 1. Fresh, hot steaming rice.  You can mix some sushi vinegar in it if you like, although that is a bit untraditional.  The rice must be hot and steaming, or else it won’t stick together.

 2. Filling of your choice.  I’ve used some lightly salted salmon as the filling for mine, you can choose your own to taste.  If it is meat, pre-cook your meat and cut into small pieces.

To assemble:

1. Onigiri making is easier with molds, but you can use your hands to make triangular shapes as well.  Fill up the mold half way with the rice and insert a piece of meat.

2. cover with rice and compress

3 Flip out onto a plate.

That’s it!  Between each ball rinse out your mold in cold, salted water (and also your hands) to keep the next ball from sticking.  The salt in the water will add a bit of flavor.   Wrap and seaweed and enjoy!

I like my rice crispy so I decided to grill these. I whipped up a quick sauce of 1/3 soy sauce, 1/3 sesame seed oil, and 1/3 mirin.  Maybe there was some vinegar in there too.  Brush some onto each side of the onigiri and throw it on the grill…

(If you don’t have a grill, broiling also works pretty decently too.)

Lastly, proceed to stuff into your face, and enjoy! :D

Public places, lonely spaces

Last weekend I took a crack-of-dawn flight up to Canada to visit some family. In a favor that trumps all favors, my lovely roommate dropped me off at the airport about 4:45 am (meaning we got up at 3:30 after staying up really late watching Bring It On – probably a foolish idea). 4:45 am is an interesting time to see an airport.

I’ve always had a fascination with being at a place normally bustling with people during the deserted off hours. I think it started with school playgrounds during the middle of summer, my parents’ ice cream store after closing, even your own home in the wee hours of the night. It’s like seeing someone you know only from work on the weekends in a T shirt and shorts playing football in the park with their kids (or your teacher at the grocery store – what, you have a LIFE outside of how I know you? What is this third dimension you have?)

The airport is particularly interesting to me since it for the sole purpose of moving people from one place to another. When I think of an airport I think about excitement, joy - because I'm always trave

ling on vacation or really happy to be home. When it's empty you realize that all the feelings you have associated with a place were brought there only by you to fill that space. What does it do when no one is around?

For me it's somewhere between beautiful, sad, and eerie - seeing a secret face. When you're the only other person there it's rather intimate.

There’s another Doris Cheung out there from Vancouver who already did a whole series of photographers about places like airports with know people so I’ll refrain from making a dramatic, symbolic statement with an art exhibit and just leave you with these. I think 3 am would be an even better time, and if I only had a tripod…

This one is my favorite...taken when rushing to my proper terminal! It seems awfully symbolic to me but I will leave it to you all to find whatever meaning you like. :) I think the lighting could go moodier, but that's just me - although there's something about the slow shutter speed-drenched with light look that draws me too since I know it's pitch black outside!

For a full album view of the pictures I took, the link is here.

http://picasaweb.google.com/cheungd/SFO2009#

And in a case of life imitating art, I found out that the West End of Vancouver (Stanley Park, I think?) looks just like that famous Seurat painting that is always getting parodied, Un dimanche après-midi à l'Île de la Grande Jatte:

I just need a few people with umbrellas and that's it!