le 30 novembre 2004
One day, on a whim, I bought this accordion. It was on sale at a store that was closing down. My then-girlfriend only laughed a little bit - she was with me when it happened. Only laughed a little bit...until I tried to play it! That was quite a sight and quite a sound. Sound is a good word for it too, because music would be giving me too much credit!
I took this picture in my gameroom, with the lights out, except for one spotlight shining almost opposite the camera lens. This was a tough shot to get, because the accordion kept collapsing after I expanded it! I wanted it to be more strechted out than it appears here, but I just couldn't get it to stay.
le 29 novembre 2004
While in Madrid, Spain, we managed to stumble upon the only Starbucks we saw during our trip. This sidewalk cafe was located right at a major intersection in the city, and there were some interesting handrails along the sidewalks of this intersection which were perfect for shooting pictures though.
I took this shot of one of the cooler buidings at the intersection across the street from Starbucks. You're looking through the ring of the fence at the Credit Bank of Spain (Banco Espanol de Credito). Whatever it is, I thought it looked pretty cool, as did most of the architecture in Spain. You had to look pretty hard to find an ugly building. In fact, I can't really recall any ugly ones. Too bad we don't hang on to our old architecture in this country - it's always out with the old here.
le 28 novembre 2004
I had to do it. You knew it was coming, didn't you? Before I left for Spain from my home in Pittsburgh, I dragged out the Legos and let the macro mode on my camera go to town.
This guy here, Governor Broadside, was my favorite Lego character when I was young. He was the head honcho of all the soldiers in the Imperial Guards. He led the soldiers and the fleet that made up the military in my Legoland.
For years, this guy saw innumerable battles between his armada and the renegade pirates' fleet. I spent a ridiculous number of hours and days with these legos and my friends when I was young. We had soliders, fortresses, castles, and fleets of sailing ships that were routinely destroyed and rebuilt for our Lego wars. Those were good times. I have a whole series of photos of these guys I'd like to post. It's amazing how interesting the smallest things become when you can get this close!
le 27 novembre 2004
Assignment 7: (Turn up your volume) For my Art 201 class I had to use flash to create a scripted animation. Click on the image to view the animated image. There are a couple hidden buttons. Click around!
I created it by using Flash MX 2004 and Adobe Photoshop CS. It's pretty simple: i've got the scan lines going over the TV screen and some hidden buttons scripted in a couple places that trigger some audio clips.
My roommate sent this image to me without the gocarlo.com things on it, and I thought it was hilarious because the caption at the bottom originally said that this is a mockup of what home computers were thought to be like in the future.
le 26 novembre 2004
These crazy balls were hanging from wires stretched across the streets in central Madrid. I'm not sure what they were all about, but they were everywhere. Kinda neat looking. Definitely something different. They made for some great contrast in pictures to the buildings and monuments in the background. They just seemed so out of place, especially when they actually blended with the building facades at the right angle, since you can see through these balls.
le 26 novembre 2004
Here's a peak at inside of the church where the wedding was held. Click on the picture for a better view of the ornate Baroque architecture of this magnificent church. I've been to this church twice, both times for a wedding in Zaragoza, Spain. This place is older than the United States. Being inside this church was an experience in and of itself, but then to see it full of people later on and witness a wedding ceremony take place there was simply unforgettable! I hope I can have a wedding someday that is as beautiful as the ones I've attended in Spain.
I took this photo from the back of the church, just inside of the main entry. Looking ahead you can see the pews and the altar at the front. Perhaps I will publish some of the detail shots of the art and architecture within the church. The detail found in the structure is astonishing - this photo does not do it justice. I had to disable the camera flash for this photo, as with nearly all of my photos from Spain, so as not to destroy the lighting of the scene. This meant that the camera had to be held incredibly still, or else the shot would come out blurry. Resting against a wall, post, or other stationary object usually did the trick. I'm in the market for a good monopod.
le 25 novembre 2004
I traveled to Spain last week to attend the wedding of a friend of my family. The wedding was held in a 300 year old church in Zaragoza, Spain. Everything about this city was gorgeous. Every part of this city was fascinating, beautiful, or both. I've never experienced anything like it (except for the other times I visited Spain). Not only was the city beautiful, but the citizens were extremely well-dressed and maintained. Very few people were overweight, and no one wore sweatpants or hoodies. It was like living in a movie the whole time I was there. It was like a living Hollywood set!
I took this picture in an alleyway I traveled through on the evening of the wedding. I was en route to the ceremony (held at 10PM). I came across this street sign and lamp, and it represents some of the more intriguing qualities of the city. It was kind of mysterious and romantic the way the sign and the brick wall were illumated by the lamp. There's not enough light to illuminate the whole scene, just enough for the street sign and the sillhouette of the lamp. It was pretty cool in person, and even more striking in the photograph. It would look great in black and white.
le 24 novembre 2004
I'm back from Spain! I intend to publish a gallery or two of pictures from my travels. Here's the first macro picture from the trip. Don't worry as Geoff did, the pictures aren't all macro shots of towels from the hotel. ;-)
I found this little flower while I was in Madrid, Spain. There was a small bush of them growing outside of a restaurant I stopped at on my last day overseas. This little flower was less than an inch big. They were pretty cute. I really like how its edges are accented in this picture. They look so sharp against the background. It's hard to tell from this small picture, but the petals appeared to have sparkles on them. This was taken around noon, but the sun was so low in Spain, you'd never know it.
le 23 novembre 2004
No kidding, this was the sky outside of my house this evening! I was sitting in my room, and took notice of the odd hue coming in through my window. The sky shared the texture from the river of slime in Ghostbusters II (I'm so cultured). I grabbed my camera and tripod and went outside to capture this, and when I walked outside it looked like I was on another planet. Everything was discolored by the sky. Really wild, so here it is for you to see too!
le 19 novembre 2004
Carlo's Travels
This post comes Zaragoza, Spain! I'm there right now with my family for the wedding of a friend we have here, Eduardo. Today is my first full day here (arrived yesterday evening after 24 hours of traveling by car, plane, train, and taxi)! So far my new camera has captured over 1000 photos of the trip and a lot of video.
Zaragoza is two hours East of Madrid by train. The city is beautiful, as you will see in the photos I will be posting. For now, you can enjoy a few pictures from our journey to get here, and a few from our first evening there! Check them out here. I will be in the city for a few more days, and hope to take beaucoup plus photos!
Note: Many group photos were removed at the request of someone for privacy concerns.
le 11 novembre 2004
I've been going macro-crazy with my new camera. I can't emphasize how excited I am about the quality of pictures this camera allows me to take.
I'm putting the pictures to good use. These pictures have inspired a new video, which I am currently working on. I hope to have it done before I leave for Spain next week, but with how busy things have been around here I can't be sure about that deadline.
This new video is unlike anything I've done before. It should be a real treat.
le 8 novembre 2004
Assignment 6: I had to use Adobe Illustrator to create a poster for my Art 201 class. Click on the picture to see the full poster.
The theme of the poster is Frank Sinatra. I took a shot of my iPod's screen in the dark, while it was playing one of his songs. I combined that with another shot of the iPod's glowing control icons.
I imported those photos into Illustrator, where I created a mock scroll wheel out of path-text lyrics of "I've Got the World on a String," and some transparent ovals.
The idea of the poster is to promote some kind of Frank Sinatra album of previously unreleased materials, or perhaps for some kind of iTunes Music Store exlusive album. I would like to develop this poster beyond what I have so far.
le 6 novembre 2004
I took some pretty cool action shots today. My Coolpix 4800 allows me to take a sequence of sixteen pictures in a row, and the camera turns them into one large composite of the sequence. It's pretty sweet. I cropped this image out of a composite of me spinning in my chair in low light. The camera was mounted on a tripod and Geoff pushed the button!
Not only humorous, the pictures from the series also look pretty cool. Like this one. I look like a ghost.
Click on the image to see the entire composite scaled down.
le 4 novembre 2004
My long-awaited Nikon Coolpix 4800 arrived today! It is one sweet little deal. I've never had a camera more easily operated. Of course, the photos it takes are just amazing! Finally I have serious macro capabilities and a zoom to kill (8.3x)!
The picture shown here is of the keypad to my cell phone, a SonyEricsson t637. The original resolution of this image was 4megapixels. Can you imagine the amount of detail I can see when viewing it at 100%? It's simply amazing what you can do with a macro lense that allows you to get up to one centimeter away from your subject!
It's been kind of a busy week and a busy evening (combined with poor weather), so I've not had a whole lot of opportunity for taking many pictures with the 4800. I have put together a small collection of the first pictures I've taken with it here.