My mess of a blog

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See, that’s what the app is perfect for.

Sounds perfect Wahhhh, I don’t wanna
starry-river-serval
sirfrogsworth

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Ironically, hard light is bad for recording sexy time.

It will highlight every pore, every vein, every wrinkle on your nutsack.

One day I will end this ring light fad. It is my ultimate side quest.

sirfrogsworth

It seems my lighting advice has given people a mistaken impression...

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sirfrogsworth

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These outtakes where the flash didn't go off are also AI generated.

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I like this spooky dutch angle one.

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I was just starting to learn flash and I didn't have all the equipment I needed. Since corgis are quite short, I had to put the lighting on the ground. The off camera flash was on a tipped over lightstand with a shoot-through umbrella to diffuse the light.

But I had no wireless triggers. And the only other way to trigger a flash, is with another flash. So I used the on-camera pop up flash to trigger the main flash.

But I had two issues.

First, I did not want that dinky on camera flash affecting my picture.

Second, triggering a flash with a flash is best done indoors. The flash will bounce all around the room and eventually hit the sensor so the main flash triggers. When you are outdoors, there is no bouncing.

SO... I took a little handheld makeup mirror and angled it toward my main flash. This blocked the dinky pop up flash and sent the beam of light towards the main flash to trigger it.

I was lying on the wet morning grass, holding a camera in one hand, a mirror in the other, trying to aim the mirror exactly toward the main flash, making crazy noises to get Otis's attention, and trying to get the focus point on his face so I didn't get a blurry photo. Also, Otis was much more interested in sniffing things than posing for a photo.

Here is an overhead view that might help explain.

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I await all of your comments saying my amazing drawring is clearly AI generated.

Only 30% of the time did the flash actually go off. Aiming the mirror was tricky and I was doing like 8 things at once. I wasn't even sure I got the photo I wanted. But when I came back to the computer there was one that stood out and it is one of my favorites I've ever taken.

It was the best combination of monumental effort, great discomfort, perfect foggy sunrise light, and just pure luck.

Unfortunately, people like me who use advanced sculpting light techniques are getting accused of using AI more and more. Not really sure what to do about it—other than show the 30 awful photos it took to get the good one.

My 80s sunglasses photo and spoon photo get called out the most.

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But it's just good old fashioned gradient lighting which has been used in product photography since the days of film.

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So, no need to be suspicious.

hollowedskin

Photography like sirfrogsworth's is what the fucken AIs were TRAINED on.

asexualbookbird

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@crunchycrystals he is! he has two blogs @sirfrogsworth and @thefrogman and hes been a delight for this website for as long as I've been around :)

starry-river-serval
catominor

i do think theres something sad about how largely only the literature that's considered especially good or important is intentionally preserved. i want to read stuff that ancient people thought sucked enormous balls

literaryreference

Time to take this post entirely too seriously:

  1. I often wonder if this is why you so commonly see the sentiment that we are in an era of uniquely bad literature, or at least that the fact that most books don't have artistic aspirations and are not aiming to be anything other than mindless entertainment is new. In fact what's new is the idea that everything is worth preserving (and also the internet making it easier to preserve it). The dumb artistically unambitious trash books of the past have survived only sporadically, because people thought of them as literally disposable.
  2. When I was in college I had a professor who was an expert on detective fiction. He had a longstanding beef with the idea that "Murders in the Rue Morgue" was the first detective story. He thought that it seemed way too polished to be inventing a new genre, and also that the whole orangutan business had the vibe of someone subverting preexisting audience expectations and maybe engaging in a bit of stealth parody. With the help of some student volunteers, he went trawling through old magazines and newspapers and found hundreds of detective stories from the early 1800s that just hadn't garnered enough individual attention to be remembered. This was because most of them sucked balls. He created an online archive of them, so you too can read these mostly terrible stories.
starry-river-serval
luxlightly

The extent to which people seem to think predators work on "swiper no swiping" rules is baffling and upsetting. It's based around the idea it's somehow impossible for people to lie. The "if you're a cop you have to tell me!" of safety comprehension.

"this will keep kids safe because you aren't allowed to message them if you're an adult!"

Ok but you select what age you are in the set up, right? So you can just select "minor" and message whoever you want. AND it means that every minor is clearly labeled by who you can and can't message on an adult account.

So you haven't prevented adults from messaging kids, you've just made it so they can instantly tell who to target.

"then everyone should have to provide proof of their age!"

You want me to give my birth certificate to some online game? You want a child to upload their personal information and important documents online?? If you can't understand why that isn't safe I don't know if I can help you.

And like, what if I was a parent who wanted to play a game with their kids? Sorry kiddo it's not safe, go back to playing with your friend "definitely_a_child420".

Loudly saying "you're not allowed to be a predator!" is not a safety precaution. You have to actually teach children to recognize and avoid danger.

vtrlnk
niedopalek

HALT!✋😐

did you remember to express gratitude for not having to subsistence farm today?

demetersmiling

Returning to subsistence farming as a society would be better than the capitalist hellscape we live under now. So no.

niedopalek

imma be real with you, thats a dumb as shit thing to say and you dont really believe that

cycle-of-ending

yes it is so much better for us now that we get to subsistence drive for doordash and subsistence amazon warehouse. what could be worse than growing plants that you can eat

lakevida

profound misunderstanding of all concepts mentioned but i understand your desire to share thoughts on the computer