WW2 Field Manual

While in New Orleans, I stumbled across this old Soldier's Handbook lying in the street. It was in horrible condition. I could barely turn the brittle pages without them falling apart. Nevertheless, in the manual are some dated diagrams depicting military tactics, nomenclature, and moral codes. Some of the diagrams had a style that reminded me of Dan Hiller's altered engravings. There were also a number of photographs, my favorite is the diagram detailing the body's pressure points.

Cover: Basic Field Manual | Soldier's Handbook | July 23, 1941

Prepared under the direction of the Chief of Staff | For sale by the Superintendent of Documents Washington, D.C. - Price $.35


From a place of concealment the scout observes position for signs of hostile occupation. Then he approaches it by a covered route.

Chroma-Key

Born in 1937, Peter Campus is an American artist who uses video to manipulate reality. In this video piece entitled "Three Transitions", he uses an effect called Chroma-Key to allow superimposition of multiple video feeds. There are multiple key techniques. This method uses a specific color contrast or shape to "cut out" one video feed allowing the other to be visible. Enjoy!

Merry Christmas

Several companies offer aerial Christmas light tours. I wish I could see this. I remember flying home for Christmas a few years ago and the cities and rural areas seemed brighter. Then I realized it was the Christmas lights. It won't be long before Google Earth is marketing this experience.

R2D2

In 1958 the IBM 7090 was a supercomputer that required a lot of space to set up and  sold for over 2 million dollars.

 "Music From Mathematics was an album of early electronic music, programmed by the boffins at Bell Laboratories way back in the early 1960s, using the then-new IBM 7090 computer"  -Link

 

Here is an mp3 from the album.

Swamp

These are some of my clips from the bayou in Louisiana. Music by Kan Kick


Still_1

Still_2

Depth of Field

Wireframe
Depth of field test.
I've been testing the depth of field in Rhino VRay. Background focus seems easy enough but I'm having trouble setting the camera aperture for foreground focus.

Crane

I was on Magazine St. a few weeks ago and there was this huge crane being setup between two buildings. I wish it was somehow attached to the buildings.

Pink Houses

Yesterday there was a Wind Advisory for south-east Louisiana including the New Orleans metro area. We went to the lower 9th ward to see The Pink Project. There were roofs in the road and pink canopies were beating in the wind. We went to the top of the viewing platform and the wind was fierce I couldn't keep my camera still to take a good night photo but the project is really beautiful with the wind at night. Coming over the canal you see the houses lit, glowing pink.

Trademarks

A spatial drawing of New Orleanian trademarks.

Zoom

Trains

I live one block from the railroad and the Mississippi River. The trains and boats are always in motion. Yesterday the train was carrying car after car of steel pipe. It was nice to see the contents on the train rather than just another train-car.