do I have any original photos? and do I really look like Harry Styles? ......in which I discover Google reverse image search

 While doing my morning research in bed today I came across the photography of Alessandro Calabrese.

He has created a body of work using Google Reverse Image Search, creating  'an image of photographs' that is constructed using his own work along with images found using his work within the reverse image search tool.

I can't explain it well in words. I recommend that you take a peek at an interview with him that explains the process fully.

 Now I had never heard of reverse image search before today, and as I am currently having a minor existential cricis about where I go with my photography from here, I decided to have a play, to see whether I was creating any vaguely original work.

I started with a photo of myself, taken a year or two ago... as I was interested to see if I have a doppelganger.

I am looking super happy, as it was taken on the occasion of giving up my regular job to allow more time for travel and photography.

(OH please note this photo is already 'out there', so I am not giving up any deep secrets....)


Image reverse search tells me that I look like these people.....

Harry Styles.....

Help.

Alan Rickman....

it could be worse.......




Not too convincing so far...


Next up, the navigation tower at Dungeness

dungeness

Again, nothing vaguely similar, and certainly nothing from Dungeness.

towers

Then the red hut at Rye harbour; surely there must be millions of those...

it seems that my multiple exposure has tricked the search engine fairly well

legs and holiday houses....

Add caption

So lets try a regular photo of the red hut

red hut, rye harbour

 interesting....

hay bales and cornfields...

not the red hut rye harbour

I am not convinced.

How about an iconic architectural image from Canberra

Canberra architecture

it seems that shape is more important than colour

not Canberra architecture

and finally that slowly moving water in the Abisko river

Abisko revisited

Waves and surf come up.

not the Abisko river

So it seems that all of my work is totally unique......

........if you believe Google Reverse Image Search

..........which I don't.



I also came across these words from Chang Chao-Tang this morning.

'Photography is not for the satisfaction of others. Neither is it some kind of responsibility or mission. It is a means to fill a personal void'.



And to quote Amy Tan on the 'what is my work about?' subject

"what is it about? If you look too hard it will only be about 'the about''

In other words, don't worry about why or how or who for;

 Just keep taking the pictures.

a red dot and a new dress

Having worked hard at my day job last week, I have some time off for good behaviour.

I have entered the artists' world that is Rye for a few days.

It is a colourful world.

I have had coffee, tea and lunch with my artist friends, and found time to inspect the Rye Society of Artists Summer Exhibition.

I liked what I found; a bright and breezy new space with its very own cone.

Everyone seems to agree that the new venue is a success. It feels light and airy, and has been hung beautifully.

I am in the 'subtle shades of grey and black' zone, artfully hung beneath a print by Fred Cuming RA.

In the colourful zone I particularly enjoyed the works of Matt Hardman on wood panels.

Matt Hardman at Rye

And downstairs small sketches from Dungeness  by Denise Franklin.

It is a varied and inspiring exhibition, and there are lots of red dots already.

I have one, as does Fred.

Which made me so happy that I went straight up the hill to Rye and spent my 'winnings' on a new dress.

An owl displaced

A familiar venue.

Dungeness.

An owl.

Some concrete

Graffiti

Someone else's sculpture

A bit of fun.

Beside the sea.

Streaming on the intergalactic superhighway

 Dungneness sunset

OH ( other half)  has decided that we need a broadband upgrade.

Doctor Who keeps stalling during intergalactic transfers

And  footballs keeps getting stuck between the player's boot and the goal………

Daughter in Canada freezes mid sentence on Skype. Not always a pretty sight; strange contortions held until the cogs get whirring again.

It is time to embrace the super highway he says.

I have to admit to having shown little enthusiasm for this change, despite being the 'early adopter' of technology in our relationship.

Status quo versus internet black hole as everything goes pear shaped and we are left with nothing but a land-line is my preferred option.

I am quite happy with what we have now. The thought of losing contact with my friends in The Arcanum or not being able to back up or upload  my photos are my main concerns . OH is not a technical prodigy; his expertise lies elsewhere, in the land of real people.

So when the new internet box arrived through the post, my heart sank and I decided to head south, to Camber Sands, in order to be absent throughout the period of teeth gnashing and mild to moderate swearing.

Down there there is no internet ( at least where we stay), so I have to read books and work on my images of rocks on the beach .

So this morning, I got up early to be down on the beach at low tide, to see how the rocks are doing. Men in high vis clothing and cranes were in action early. They looked picturesque on the bank. Photogenic even.

I switched on my camera. 'low battery'

This is becoming a habit, and is one of the perils of trying to escape suburbia. I always leave something behind. 

I framed my first photo, and the camera died. So I am going to have to share some old images of the works, taken when the workmen had all gone home.

 After a short walk in the early morning soft and gentle sunlight I headed off to my studio to prepare for the 'Feast of Delights'.

My 'delights' are boxed sets of cards and small framed images that might do for Aunty Mabel's or Uncle Bernie's christmas presents. I am an expert on making white boxes, and find it very therapeutic after the travails of worrying about my internet connection and a very unwell family member.

Camber Collection © Caroline Fraser

Light on Water cards © Caroline Fraser

As I sat making boxes OH rang me. He was busy setting up super fast broadband.

'I need your password to BT ' quothe he.

'It is in my book of passwords' I replied, and advised him where to find it.

He duly found my notebook of passwords and read what he could of my incredibly tidy handwriting.

I realised what was written and told him what the encrypted note said.

'that's a really stupid word' was his response.

'well it works fine for me'……..( and anyway, it was meant to be a secret , thought I)

'And how was I supposed to know that from what was written?'

'you weren't…………passwords are meant to be secret……..a book of passwords that anyone could read would not really be a very good idea……….' 

(Even I know that………)

Anyway reader, the really good news is that we now have new wifi that works, which is  huge relief.

Later that day I asked OH if it is faster and fulfilling his wildest dreams.

' I guess it does…..' he replied.

 I quote verbatim here.

Not really the response I was expecting. 

'I'll only really know when I try streaming…..'


What could I say?

Nada.

But I was so relieved that we remain connected that I went into Rye to buy cakes and took them over to Dungeness for a cup of tea and watched the sun go down with gentle folk who are lucky enough to work and live in the land of big skies.

tea and smoked garlic at the Dungeness Smokehouse

Roll on the next episode of Dr Who. Then we ( OH)  will really be riding the intergalactic superhighway.

keep calm and add some RAM - the joys of computer upgrades

Shard © Caroline Fraser

I almost gave up the will to live this week.

Technology was getting the better of me.


The not very good...........

• I tried to print some photos for an exhibition selection process, but the ink cartridge didn't recognise the printer, so the printer refused to play ball. 
• I installed Photoshop CC in order to be able to use a new programme for working on my images for The Arcanum
• my Mac was going so slowly as a result of this installation ( half an hour to process each photo) that I uninstalled Photoshop CS5 to try and free up some memory and left Photoshop Creative Cloud running.
• I then bought some new ink, which my printer deigned to work with, but found that photoshop CC doesn't work with my printer, and all the images came out the wrong colour and size.
• Needless to say I couldn't find the old version of Photoshop to reinstall it. Nor can I find my library card, Tesco card, and all the other cards that I filed safely somewhere before I left for New Zealand
• I discovered Adobe Colour Utility which half solved the problem
• and in a moment of foolishness that has taught me a serious lesson I decided to install the upgrade for Bridge CC, at which point I lost Bridge altogether because the new version apparently says that my 4 year old computer is "too old", and I found that many other poor souls out there had found themselves in the same predicament.

the amazingly good........

• I copied the old BridgeCC file off my laptop ( thank you youngest child, I am indebted to you forever) and reinstalled it onto my Mac. Hey presto; we have Bridge again.
• I used Time Machine to find Photoshop CS5 and reinstall it  (thank you youngest child, I am indebted to you forever and a day)
• I installed 8GB of new RAM into my MAC ( thank you man in the Apple store who advised me to use Crucial Memory and also to use an antistatic wrist band so that I didn't destroy the machine forever)

So today, I have been pretending to cook dinner for 8 people, but each time OH ( other half) popped out to buy more missing ingredients I became techo-geek extraordinaire, unscrewing my computer, holding my breath, saying a small prayer, and finally whooping with delight when I solved all of the above problems.

AND NOW............ I can process an image in a matter of moments, and am a very happy bunny.

So here is a newly processed image, just to prove my point.

Lighthouse, Dungeness © Caroline Fraser

sail away home

sail away home © caroline fraser 2014

Big box is packed and ready to go.

Assorted socks, scruffy winter clothes, wellington boots for beach photography and a tripod are about to wend their way across the world, hopefully followed by yours truly with her summer clothes and  smarter stuff for work.

Plumber is here again.

I am feeling impatient to get started on my big trip, and the only way that I can think of to pass the time ( for I am not going to start on the ironing) is to work on some old photos, having banned myself from taking any new ones until I start my travels.

Something new from something old.

new constructions by Paddy Hamilton

I was influenced by Paddy Hamilton's   winter show ( see above) in which he has re-fashioned his garden fences into something new after the recent storms on Dungeness. I love the geometry, and the optical illusions pertaining to boxes.

So I set to, with some old images of rusty metal and wider views at Dungeness.

navigational aid for fishermen

The image above is of a navigational aid for fishermen coming in to land on the beach at Dungeness. They aligned this T -shaped wooden structure with another diamond shaped one, and headed straight for home in the days before sat nav.

Fred Cuming RA has painted it many times, and in different lights.

You can see more of his work here




Still looking for something new, and clearly influenced by Fred's work I combined two images of the rusty containers.

containers

And somehow made them look more like wood than metal.

And by the time I had finished the plumber had too, and relieved me of another couple of hundred pounds.

I think it is time to leave the country before anything else goes wrong.

treading in dangerous waters

'you cut the top off'  he said

Other half and I spent a cold, windy Saturday afternoon at Dungeness.

My clothing did not match the wind chill. It was dark, and I was grumpy.

I was grumpy because I am waiting for my visa for New Zealand.

Tracking my application's progress on the helpful visa application tracking service website merely tells me that my application was lodged 3 weeks ago. Which I already know, as I was the one who lodged it.

In person.

Any rational being would tell me that it will come when it is ready.

But I am not ( always) rational, and as all my plans depend on this small piece of bureaucracy, I am getting a little tense and irritable.

Because I really do want to go to New Zealand, and I have paid for my flights and have a job lined up in Gore, in Southland. A lot depends on this visa.

We walked and talked.

the new lighthouse with multiple exposure

We had a dangerous discussion in which I commented that when you search on the ipad for something on google, it tells you what your search history is. So no secrets then.

Other half ponders life on the beach at Dungeness, where apparently the water is deep.

I already knew that OH is interested in football, beer and getting a new car. Google confirmed my view.

BUT NOT A JAGUAR 4X4!

Who does he think we are?!

No comment.

And what is this article on ' the submissive wife?' that he has been reading?

 The Submissive Wife

is a  book from Spain that is going into the best seller lists, giving advice to new wives, and angering feminists. Apparently it 'popped up when he browsed the daily newspapers on-line'.

Well I'm afraid I couldn't let that one go. A degree of teasing was required about that one. It really got me thinking.


So what is on my Google search history?

Photography, photography, and more about photography. So no surprises there either.


We are, it seems, mostly incompatible where our primary interests are concerned.


But we do both enjoy a good walk. And plenty of other things.

once again I am some way behind, taking pictures

So we wandered, and I ranked the ISO on the camera up higher than ever before as the daylights disappeared. 2000, then 3000............ and eventually to 5000.


Lights came on.

The moon came up.

I tried some multiple exposure shots of the power station, experimenting with different blending modes in the camera.

Dungeness power station; bright blending mode

Dungeness Power station; dark blending mode

Other half sat quietly in the car listening to football on the radio until I had had enough of taking pictures in the dark.

Then home for tea.