With just under 500 images in the photography project (seriously, 500th image anniversary coming up in June!), I’ve hit well over the original target of “an image a day for the next year”. It hasn’t even been a year yet. It’ll be a year in August sometime.

And now, the random news that I place fourth on a Google search for “sackboy”.

The ridiculous thing? I’m even above Media Molecule’s entry on that page, and they made the bloody game!

Apologies to Media Molecule if they’re at all offended by this. I run this project to spread smiles and laughter since SackBoy seems to make people smile.

Check out the SackBoy Lives Here project at www.sackboyliveshere.com

So far, I haven’t walked around much of the festival. It goes for a month starting from yesterday and ending on June 21, probably with some sort of drama like last year. There was a boat on fire that everyone wanted to see that night. It turned out it was more exciting to imagine a boat on fire.

This year, I’m seeing a lot of blue.

Maybe that’s because blue is in. Perhaps people have finally got the hang of the death star blue light from the original Antec Sonata (oh yes, I am THAT much of a geek) and now they’re saying “hey look, I can do that too”.

Or maybe they’re all being anti-drug and setting up black lights that come out as blue to stop people injecting in the street. Because people do that. Or don’t.

I’m not sure why you’d take a hit of something by state parliament. Maybe you lost a cause or something. I’m fairly sure taking a hit won’t help you find it again.

Regardless, Vivid’s on now throughout the city of Sydney. Have a walk through the town at night and take a gander. If you see anything that looks out of place, chances are it’s for Vivid. Or the Biennale. Or an expo. Or… actually, there’s lots of reasons why something can look out of place here.

Ignore that last statement. Instead, adhere to the following: go to the light!

SackBoy Looks Up

The idea revolves around the character of SackBoy from Sony’s & Media Molecule’s “LittleBigPlanet” exploring our own planet with his own heightened curiosity. He’s one of the only one of his kind and he’s got a friend there to take pictures of him.

I started this as a means of making myself smile when my ex broke up with me, but had been tossing up the idea for a while before that (practically since Sony gave me a SackBoy plushie). The original project idea was to make it a “picture-a-day” blog, but we’ve already gone past the “one picture every day” mentality and now there’s a structure to it.

Since it started in August, there have been over 150 images of SackBoy put online on SackBoy Lives Here!.

Now that I’m over my ex and all happy again, the project is geared at making people smile. That’s all it is. Making people smile. No plans to sell, no plans to make money; SackBoy Lives Here! exists to make you grin, giggle, and bust a smile.

This image is real. No Photoshop compositing. The Sea Lion really did try and have a conversation with SackBoy. I almost didn't fire the shots.

I’ve just had mini cards made for the SackBoy project because when I’m out shooting with him, people are asking me what this is for. Friends who are there go “haven’t you heard of SackBoy? This is SackBoy” so we now have cards that say “This is SackBoy.”

To see more of this project, head to the SackBoy Lives Here! website at http://www.sackboyliveshere.com

One is that I now have a CV up there… so you know, if you’re looking to hire me, use that and my review list to determine if I have any worth (to you; I have worth, you just might not see it for your purposes).

The other is that I’ve now relaunched my gallery under a different system. It’s taken a few weeks and it looks very shiny. Apologies to people suffering for loading images, it can be seen as a fairly bandwidth intensive site but I like the look & effect of it.

As of yesterday, however, I’ve modified the WPTouch default theme / plugin for WordPress and now have a mobile version of my gallery running.

To see it, simply type “spore.leighlo.com” (without the quotes) into your mobile’s web browser. I’ve tested this on Safari on the iPhone but if you’ve got other devices, feel free to tell me how it looks.

More images of it after the jump…

Grapey grapey…

I’m totally addicted to grapes.

Ok. So that was mostly a way of putting pictures of grapes on the screen while I made a parody of the old Josh Abrahams song “Addicted To Bass”. But I bet you didn’t know that it was also a test for the Talkr plugin I’ve currently got installed on this blog that lets you listen to the blog.

Go on, click the bit that says “Listen to this post” to hear the crazy computerised voice of Silicon Sarah* (not her real name) sing “Totally Addicted To Grapes”.

Or say it, anyway.

Here’s an infrared photo of a vineyard in the Hunter just in case you’re still annoyed at the lack of parody lyrics I’ve provided.

Seriously, I’m digging grapes at the moment.

]]> http://www.leighlo.com/2009/04/totally-addicted-to-grapes/feed/ 0 http://www.leighlo.com/2009/04/dirty-gritty/ http://www.leighlo.com/2009/04/dirty-gritty/#comments Mon, 20 Apr 2009 14:48:02 +0000 Leigh :) Stark http://www.leighlo.com/?p=736 While out on a photographic walk a couple of weeks ago, I decided to slap on my new infrared filter and get some shots (it’s new because my old one fit a different ring size and this one is larger).

This turned out to be a good idea as it let me flex my old infrared-enjoyment muscle. I think it’s called my “brain” or something.

Got no idea, really. But it was fun.

Plus, I love the grainy look I’ve always been able to pull out of the way I post-process things. The IR and the high-ISO that these images have only helps me think that this looks a hell of a lot better & more classic.

Of course, I could be wrong. Wait, no I can’t… it’s my opinion!

More images after the jump…

These images were shot on a part of a walk called “The Great North Walk” which actually starts in Sydney and ends in Newcastle.

Obviously, I haven’t walked the entire stretch.

However, these images come from the part of the walk we did do that day: from Woolwich to Drummoyne. In total, we walked around 12 kilometres.

These images have been processed using black & white settings designed to take advantage of infrared photography.

The rest of the pictures are below in an order that feels like a series…

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I'm not sure why I took these images. Boredom probably. I tend to take photos when I'm bored. 

Regardless, if you want to use them, have prints, or just make a comment… well… make a comment.

Now, I'm trying it in colour using some different processing techniques…

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More after the break. Tell me what you think of my concept…

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…and here's a slightly different take on "Sky Blue" that I shot in the reflection of my iPhone. There has been some extra processing to the image, but it's actually not just saturating it to hell.

Click the image to see it bigger!

Tell me what you think about this stuff. 

I apologise for this, and I apologise profusely. My site – something I hold dear to my heart – has been left by the wayside lately as I'm often just too exhausted from working at work & side projects to add something to my site.

But not this week… for I have actually taken some photos this week… so…

PREPARE TO BE OVERLOADED WITH PHOTOS!!!

Overloaded my friend… like an all you can eat buffet except replace the words "all you can eat" with "Leigh stuffing random crap down your throat while he holds your head to the wall".

This means you'll be enduring a "Leigh stuffing random crap down your throat while he hold your head to the wall BUFFET."

Oh yeah. Beat that Sizzler.

Anyway, this weekend I took some photos among other things and while I'll get to those other things later on (maybe… if I can be arsed), here are some photos that represent the theme "yellow", a theme of which I was given by way of more or less "drawing them out of a hat" (provided you consider Stubbsy's hand a hat… which it isn't… but you get the point anyway).

So…

…yellow.

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Click on the image to see it… oh you know the drill.

Click on the image for a bigger version of… well.. the image. Duh.

Why do I even bother putting enlargement caption links here? You already know what I'm going to say. You know what? Just press the damn thing. 

And there you have it. 

Yellow. Coldplay freakin' yellow.

Nobody play the song. Just go back to singing about sex and violence and drinking and bitches and hoes. No more yellow.

At least for ten minutes, okay?