2378-TCDD

Well, this is the first time in a long while that I have logged in to DA.  I basically stopped coming here when my artistic brain was shutting down.  There were other things that needed attention in life and I am happy to say that lately I feel a lot more creative.  I may get painting again?  I live in another country now (Japan) and spaces and supplies are not quite what I am used to so my style will likely evolve if I resume.  I take photos but use Picasa and don't have the energy to upload separately to multiple accounts, so if I make or paint something I will ad it but dont expect too many photos.  I just dont feel attached to DA after it was overrun by furry and fan-art for anime.  Once in a while someone links an artist's page to outside site and I get the sense that still, under all the slurry of teenage creative outletting, there is good art being published here.  I will check back in soon I think.
Cheers,
B

I got a new camera in Feb just in time for a trip to Tofino.  Its a Canon SX200IS which I purchased for a few reasons.  First, I needed a camera- my last one died a full year and a half earlier and every time I wanted to take photos I had to borrow Mimi's camera.  Second, this camera wasn't too expensive, with all the necessary gear (2X 4GB memory, a pelican case that fits it perfectly{always wanted a pelican case!} and a waranty {my last camera died for no reason days after the default waranty expired}) it was about 350 CAD.  Third, the camera was pretty impressive for the pricepoint it had 12MP and HD video, FITS in my POCKET (drawback of my powershot G2 was its bulk), and a fairly decent sized lens (I don't have a ton of faith in tiny lenses but thats just a personal bias).  Fourth and most importantly was that it has been added to the CHDK ported cameras list, and could be "unlocked" with an unofficial firmware update.  The Canon Hack Development Kit firmware is something like jailbreaking a phone; it allows scripting for things like time lapse photography, motion sensor photograpy, and many other things that people have put to their imaginations.  It also unlocks RAW image format that my camera didn't have as a default option, allows custom ISO settings to lower and higher ranges than the specs of my camera allowed, shutter speeds higher and lower ( i have taken 4 minute exposures with it when 15 seconds was the previous limit), bracketing of exposure and focus and ISO, file browsing, text reading, some simple games (kinda pointless but whatever), detailed options for power savings, display of red blue green and full histograms as well as file space remaining and better battery life metering.  There is more to the CHDK but I am still learning much about it.  Anyway its exciting to be able to take a cheaper camera and allow so much more to it, effectively putting it in the software features and some of the hardware features of a pro camera (obviously the optics cant get better and I cant get a better lens).  On top of that stuff, I have started learning a bit about HDR and have taken photos that well, I like them and am proud of them.  So I have taken a crapload of photos in the last 2 months in BC and Japan, and will be uploading some as I sort through them.

Cheers,
B

So we are settled in now, and starting from scratch back in Canada let us do a few things we otherwise wouldn't.  As soon as I got the apartment I went out and bought I-beam curtain rods and installed them across the living room walls.  Now we hang art suspended from rollers on the rods by monofilament lines.  We have a giant "mobile" in the center of the room, a series of thin driftwood pieces with a paper lamp on one end and a counterweight at the other.  It spins around freely, particularly when I hit my head on it.

I have destroyed several of the hand made paper paintings I made.  They would not fit in my suitcase, so I gave away what I could and crossed my fingers.  I carefully packed into the back of the suitcase my paintings.  Whalers have small dicks would only fit if I broke off a little piece, so I did.  Then with traveling some 8 thousand kilometers and staying at several places along the way, in almost 100 percent tropical humidity, I finally made it to Canada.  Of course, our great F-ing security guards in customs were these two girls who were possibly younger than me.  They were in no concern as they quickly ripped apart my bags, and broke the carefully packed paintings.  I nearly punched the bitch for it, as I had asked her to be careful and I swear she did it on purpose.  Anyway, at least Canada is safe from smugglers and terrorists right?  What a fucking joke.  I am not going to paint anything for a month or two, I need to get my life back in Vancouver.  I need to prepare a new apartment and get furnishings and start my job again and go pick miyukitanabe.deviantart.com/ up from the airport - I miss you babe! etc etc etc... and oh yeah, go into the mountains and breath good old glacier air!  I love this part of the world, I am home, yet homeless; crashing on my friends' living room floor for now.  There will be inspiration again and some new paint stains.  Just wait.

Taking the bullets out of a gun.  Unloading it one round at a time, methodically stripping it of its potential.  One at a time, the weapon becomes an object.  An ideology stripped to its fundamentals, an experience becomes a memory, a radical act is hushed silently calmed silently clik clik clik....clik...... .  . .. .... . .. .