25.5.12

More keys, and a trip to Planet Dumpster



Maple keys, Victoria Park, Kitchener

So enamored am I of Darin White's macro-on-the-cheap solution for BlackBerry that I couldn't resist a lunch-hour photo excursion through downtown Kitchener today. Not only can you find plenty to shoot when you get up close and personal with your surroundings, but it's also good fun to make oneself the object of quizzical, if not mildly alarmed, stares from passers-by. Of course, having the audacity to ride a bicycle on a moderately busy street can draw the same looks in this town, but I digress. Like I said in my last post, 'aberration' is a word of multi-layered meaning.

Speaking of multi-layered, I had the happy accident of discovering another set of keys to shoot today, these ones of the organic maple variety. Like the metal ones I shot the other day, these were just lying there, not doing much of anything, when I moved in with my 9900. Aside from the amazing web of veins, I like the potential suggested by maple keys, even if only a few manage to become trees.


Planet Dumpster, Joseph Street, Kitchener

I also encountered a decidedly inorganic object on my walk, a graffiti-festooned garbage bin behind an insurance building. The great thing about the macro, however, is how close you have to move in to find focus, and by then, the object often looks like something else entirely. In the case of the dumpster, it looked to me like a Google satellite view of some unexplored planet...or perhaps some badly-polluted corner of our own.

23.5.12

A new leaf

An early trial of Darin's MacGyver-esque plastic-bubble-and-Scotch-tape macro kit for BlackBerry
So, I guess it's time to change things up a bit here at aberration, which, if you hadn't noticed, is a word-nerd attempt at a clever double-entendre. All you photo people out there will know the term from the phenomenon called chromatic aberration, a distorting effect due to a particular type of lens failure. Of course, aberration is also the term for something that isn't quite, well, normal. And while I could very well be talking about myself there, I'm actually referring to the BlackBerry cameras I use to make the images on this blog, because it's not normal for people to attempt art on a BlackBerry. Is it?

I haven't posted many words here since I started this project a couple of years ago, having preferred to let the pictures do the talking, but I'm feeling suddenly chatty of late, after meeting some interesting people here in K-W with a similar penchant for aberrant behaviour, photographically speaking. People like Darin White at makebright and Mark Walton at Foto:RE, both of whom suggested, on the separate weekends that I met each of them for the first time, that we convene at 8 or 8:30 a.m. Weekend early risers? Definitely aberrant.

Anyway, anything posted here before today was taken on a BlackBerry 9700. Going forward, you'll see mostly images from my 9900, with a few 9700s thrown in. If you care to know that much, just ask and I'll tell you. You'll also see some colour here from now on, and a few photo sets instead of just singles.

I promise to post a bit more often from here on in, and if I don't, call me out like Darin did the other day. It's the reason you're reading these words right now. Thanks, Darin.

Alley, downtown Waterloo (sorry BIA types; I still can't bring myself to say Uptown)

'57 Chevy, Orlando, Florida

Horse auction, St. Jacobs

Sociable