Posts tagged with "photo" - Faerye Net

Photoshoots are funny

2011-04-16T10:55:52+00:00

Recently I’ve gotten my picture taken much more than usual. No great mystery why: the Nebula nomination. I think most of us are rendered uncomfortable and self-conscious by having photos taken, especially ones we know “matter” — no matter how many candids are taken of us as children by snap-happy parents, as adults most of us are anxious about the process.

My recent adventures in digital gaze actually began a year before the Nebula nomination, when I roped my dad into trying to take an author headshot for me. The light wasn’t great and I didn’t choose my clothes all that well, but we got something I can use and currently do. The big revelation, however, was that I am horrible at posing, and even at judging my own shots. Ryan says just about every shot of me looking “serious” makes me look bored — and he has a lot more experience with my expressions than I do.

I suppose posing is like anything else where your body has to produce an effect your mind doesn’t fully understand: you have to learn to trick yourself, and without a toolbag of tricks, you’re flailing around with little hope.

A few weeks ago I went to my first ever professional photoshoot: Portland Monthly Magazine wanted a photograph to go along with a column on local Nebula nominees M.K. Hobson, Mary Robinette Kowal, and me. This was incredibly fun: there were floating antique typewriters (converted from floatless models in Mary Robinette’s collection) and flying pieces of paper and cups of free coffee from one of my favorite Portland coffeehouses, Case Study. But at several points I was asked to look “angry”, intense, like I hated the camera. And I say at several points because the other two subjects only had to be asked once.

This is actually quite funny to me, because I think I play angry reasonably well — in motion and speech. I scared a fellow student once when we did the “kill Claudio” speech from Much Ado About Nothing for class (I was Beatrice, natch.) A fellow roleplayer in my first LARP went out-of-character to make sure his buffoonish character’s chauvinistic comments weren’t actually bothering me — he said I seemed actually livid. But in stillness, apparently, my hating the camera has little effect.

It was Mary Hobson who saved the day by saying “think about Marla from Fight Club!” How could she have known I had just rewatched Fight Club — and just lost my longstanding distaste for Helena Bonham Carter thanks to The King’s Speech? I tried Marla. She hates the camera with world-weary ennui, and has complete contempt for it. The reminders to look angry ceased and the fun continued.

The other day I had a solo portrait shot by a professional photographer for my high school alma mater‘s alumni magazine (I’m trying to keep this a secret from my mom, but if she’s reading my blog this regularly she deserves to find out!) After a few different sorts of smiles and some “serious” expressions (will I look bored in those?), the photographer told me to do angry. I summoned my Marla impression at once, and he shook his head. “Whoa! Too much.”

I’m learning!

Pedantry Pays

2011-03-10T22:56:24+00:00

I have often been told that it just isn’t worth the effort to correct people on the internet, and I’ve largely been convinced. It’s sometimes rude, or a disingenuous means of avoiding substantive debate, and often the matter simply isn’t that important.

A few days ago, however, I decided I had to speak up. I saw a typo in the Norton Critical Editions’ twitter stream.

I adore Norton Criticals. Their footnotes are consistently useful, their historical contexts and critical essays interesting. The books, expensive though they are, give you a solid, rich feeling. When you have a Norton Critical in your hand, you feel you really have a handle on the text. (It is a continuing — no, really – source of regret to me that I sold back my Great Expectations back after English 10 in high school. It was so beautiful! And had both endings!) I am currently in the midst of my winter campaign through the Norton Critical War and Peace, complete with footnotes both by the modern editor and by the translator, who was friends with Tolstoy.

So I figured that if this bastion of precision, this fortress of the footnote, had promulgated a common misspelling (“Suess” for “Seuss”) they should be told; if only to prevent it being spread further by virtue of their authority. I drew my pedantry around me and corrected Norton Critical.

This was the happy result:

New policy: for every typo found in the NCE twitter feed, a free NCE. Your choice of new editions- Hamlet or Utopia.

Yes, gentle reader. I got something good and valuable – a free book, my first NCE of a drama! I can’t wait to sample the critical matter! – for telling someone they were wrong on the internet.

A red letter day, indeed.

Outstanding. Now all we need is a deck of cards...

2011-02-20T14:37:15+00:00

And a brass plaque that reads “Chekhov’s Gun”! I received many fabulous birthday presents for my thirtieth birthday, but none so geeky, and nearly none so unexpected, as this replica pulse rifle from Aliens:

Ryan got this for me without even knowing that I’ve been coveting it since age 17. He said he was afraid I would be less excited about having it around than he was. I think once he caught me petting it, that fear was dispelled!

Thanksgivering

2010-11-29T13:35:34+00:00

I only made four pies this year! I am such a slacker. Although I note that since we had our Thanksgiving gathering on Saturday rather than Thursday, my not posting the pie pics prior should not be proposed as part and parcel of my procrastination.

Maple Custard Pie, photographed by Ryan. Pumpkin in background. Pecan lurks.

As ever, the maple custard pie comes to us via Ken Haedrich’s Pie: 300 Tried-And-True Recipes for Delicious Homemade Pie. Long may it reign!

Fisheses and things

2010-11-17T23:12:13+00:00

I’m having yet more travel days – this time to Seattle for what one might call Nephewcon, if one weren’t yet over the humor of appending “con” to things. (One isn’t.) Here, however, in lieu of actual content, is my favorite of the photos I took last week:

He is a fish, obviously, but I haven’t yet researched what kind. Should any of you know, please enlighten me. I feel I should have an inkling, but I have just started Mass Effect 2 so now he looks like a Krogan to me.

Tomorrow, hopefully, I should have the time to throw some links in the meat of the letter I am going to send to several branches and nodes of government about this TSA outrage. Just because my congresspeople are going to get it on paper doesn’t mean I shouldn’t imbue it with linkjuice for you, denizens of the intertube. I will also be making a version for my state government, because this seems like a good idea.

Sidenote: when I write fiction, I tend to write skeletal drafts which need fleshing out. When I write angry letters, I tend to write more voluminous drafts which need to be trimmed to a crisp, incisive point. Now I’m going to go watch a YouTube video of kittens to relieve my civic angst.

New Etiquette Rule: Kittens vs. babies

2010-10-18T14:42:10+00:00

As we all know, technology changes the way humans communicate. New communication means new etiquette. Some of this is more or less known already: the use of Bcc when emailing groups is discreet and considerate. The blink tag is the equivalent of bringing a vuvuzela to a garden party. But I have devised — or should one say discovered? — a new etiquette rule.

Rule: While it is acceptable to impart news of a human birth without photographs, it is improper to send or post news of a pet adoption without same.

Explanation: The arrival of a baby is a major effort: usually tiring and medical, if not traumatic. The newly arrived baby is not yet at his or her best and most photogenic. A new kitten (or puppy, I suppose) is not usually adopted until already weaned, furry, playful and delightful, and the humans by whom it is adopted are by no means incapacitated by the advent. Thus, there is no reason not to include a photo with the announcement, and a strong reason to do so: the terrifying prospect of inducing prostrating kitten letdown in your friends and associates. Send a photo! Strike a blow against kitten letdown.

I have no new kitten to announce, but since I’ve said “kitten” approximately 16 times, I will allay your potential kitten letdown through the use of a photo of a kitten who is no longer a kitten and no longer mine:

Fruits of the Forest Pie

2010-07-12T13:54:23+00:00

In Ken Haedrich’s Pie: 300 Tried-And-True Recipes for Delicious Homemade Pie, he guesses that the name “Fruits of the Forest Pie” originally applied to a mixed-nut pie, since nuts do actually come from the forest. At some point the name inspired mixed fruit pies, too.

Since I’m allergic to tree nuts, the idea of a mixed nut pie is frightening: I can just handle making, say, a pecan pie for my dad, or a hazelnut pie for Ryan, but multiple types of nuts at once? What if while I’m watching one type of nut, the other two flank me, like in Jurassic Park? Mixed fruit pie doesn’t inspire these delusional ramblings, so that’s what I’ve made:

Fruits of the Forest Pie with coarse sugar glaze

The crust is, as usual, from the family recipe, while the glaze and filling are Haedrich-approved. The filling includes apple, pear, peaches, blueberries, strawberries and pineapple. Won’t find all those in any forest near you.

How I spent my Independence Day Vacation

2010-07-05T21:24:39+00:00

Photo by Ryan, who very rightly notes that the vanilla cream pie on the right (the others are Strawberry Chiffon and apple) has blue filling. For the patriotism. The gooey, gooey patriotism.

Day trip: White River Falls

2010-06-28T13:32:57+00:00

I thought I’d post a photo from the trip Ryan and I took this weekend to White River Falls State Park, just a bit south of The Dalles in our fine Beaver State.

As a side note for gadget geeks, this photo (and my other photos from the trip) were taken with my new iPhone 4. Not bad for a phone.

World Ocean Day

2010-06-08T15:23:04+00:00

Happy World Ocean Day

Today is apparently the second official World Oceans Day. I wish it were under more hopeful circumstances. I wish we could still see the ocean only as powerful and fruitful, instead of so very vulnerable.