12 posts tagged “link”

Ever felt the urge to jazz up your photos beyond a simple levels adjustment?  I know I have.  I don't have the know-how to do awesome effects in Photoshop Elements, though, and I don't have any of those cool novelty cameras (e.g. Lomo or Holga) that do them for you.  That's why I was so happy to learn about Picnik, a website that mimics their effects.  And it's free!  (Well, there is a "Premium" option with even MORE cool stuff, but the free part is certainly good enough for my purposes.)  Here's an example of what it does:

It's a photo of the Clapp House, the former MECA admissions building recently donated to the Portland Museum of Art (to which it is adjacent).  The original of this photo was very blue.  I altered it using a mix of Picnik's "1960's" and "Cross Process" functions.  In the future, I'll tag any Picnik-edited photos with "picnik."  If it doesn't have the tag, it was most likely edited in Photoshop, if at all.

Show us your favorite t-shirt.

I have a lot of tee shirts; I collect them almost like art prints.  Most of my favorite tees come from either Threadless or Design By Humans.  They're all awesome, really, but right now I particularly love this one:

 

Today is Blog Action Day!  Take action by posting about the environment in your own way

Blog Action Day

I don't have anything prepared specifically for Blog Action Day -- if you follow East of the Sun, you probably already know my feelings on the environment -- but I wanted to make sure to take advantage of the chance to advocate for one of my favorite causes.

I can't say I have any recent photos that fit the theme, so here are some from a beach trip this summer:

I'm getting settled in at MECA (no photos yet), but I thought I'd use this break in the orientation schedule to post an amazing and art-related link to The Vanishing Point, featuring the observations and photography of urban spelunker Michael Cook.

Here's an example:

My apologies for the lack of posts recently!  They should get more frequent as summer comes to a close.

To make up for it, here's an important public safety issue you may have missed:

On Saturday, April 14, groups gathered all around the country to urge congress to "Step It Up" and cut carbon emissions 80% by 2050.  Here in Maine, we were lucky enough to have one nice, springy day before the big storm set in on Sunday, and students and townies alike turned out for the Bowdoin-organized "Polar Bear Action" rally, complete with free T-shirts, cake, and Congressman Tom Allen.  (The Bowdoin College polar bear was present as well, of course; as far as I know, it does not have a website.) 

Our rally was one of Maine's largest, with 450 people gathering to hear the speakers, eat the cake, and have a group photo taken.  Many joined the march (or "activist stroll") afterward.  It's hard to see from this picture, but the line of people extends across the mall all the way to Danny's Hot Dogs (the distant white box directly to the right of the leftmost marcher in this photo).  A side note: this could easily be the line for Danny's Hot Dogs, were it a Saturday afternoon in mid-July rather than mid-April.
Some of the students had made a large banner which read "STEP IT UP CONGRESS: CUT CO2 80% BY 2050"
As you can see, I was near the front of the line (along with my father).  We actually ended up in a photo on the Step It Up page, though we're kind of hard to see...
A lot of people dressed up for this... along with the polar bear mascot, there were a couple of cans and a superhero called "Captain Kilowatt" (not pictured).  All in all, it was a great day, and I had a lot of fun doing Good Things.  Woo!

About Step It Up 2007

More About This Event

Allow me to introduce you to one of my new favorite websites: Fresh Spam, in which artist Kipling West illustrates the subject headings of various junk emails.

This is the inside of a wing of the Barn at night, as seen from outside room 100 (a tiny little "lecture hall" where I had my psych class this fall).  The floorboards are, as you can probably tell from the photo, a tad creaky.  The nearest bathroom is around the corner at the end of this hall. So whenever got up from class (or just walked by) we could hear them walking allll the way down the hall.  And then, allll the way back.  The second floor is even creakier!

Oh, and as a followup to my library post, here's one of my favorite websites:  LibraryThing

My mother, hidden somewhere in this photo, has recently created a Vox account.  She hasn't posted anything yet, but I'm linking there in an effort to guilt her into doing so.