Sunday, April 06, 2008

THE AMAZING iSIGHT CAMERA

I can't stop fooling around with the built-in iSight camera on my computer. Maybe it has to do with the quality of the lenses or the electronics.  Maybe it's the program. Anyway, you can do some serious photography with this thing.

The moody picture above was lit with a flashlight. Think about it, a flashlight!  I look like a guy who's at the end of his rope, out of work and wondering how he's going to feed his family. In reality it's just me, wondering if there's any potato chips in the house, and the camera benignly transforms that expression into high tragedy.  Of course, it also makes me look a hundred years old! 

 
Here's my favorite (above)!  I look like a demon from a Hell that burns black flame. I shot it for the Potemkin post but wasn't able to fit it in.  Once again, the lighting was done with a flashlight. 


 

 Here's (above) a bit of gritty, 50s realism.  Theater in that era was thick and serious. The words poured like molasses.  One play that comes to mind is "Krapp's last Tape." It's terrible and just about unwatchable in my opinion, but it has a following, and it has the virtue that you could film the whole thing in YouTube type close-ups. Imagine that! A serious play shot just for YouTube! 

I think I'll try a couple of really heavy, dramatic readings here. They'll suck but, what the heck, it's a blog and blogs are for fun, not for perfection.  Like Clampett used to say, "What's the worst that can happen? Is the sky going to fall down?"


 ISight does a good job on color, too. Sometimes the color looks purple and washed-out, and other times it feels like Technicolor.  In the picture above the lighting makes me look like someone in "The Conformist."




9 comments:

Stephen Worth said...

Hi Eddie

I did some photography this weekend too. A buddy and I went to Calico Ghost Town and Primm Nevada to see Merle Haggard play. Check out the pictures...

Late Night Coffee Shops

See ya
Steve

Eddie Fitzgerald said...

Steve: Holy Cow! You have a great site there! The pictures are gorgeous and the commentary is first-rate! You could have had a second career as a photographer! Cogratulations!

BTW, how did you take that panarama shot of the midway at night? It looked like it was close to 360 degrees.

Kali Fontecchio said...

Eddie, Eddie, and more Eddie. Here's some of my photography:

My room in the morning.

The desk is a mess.

BOB.

Bathroom friends.

Eddie Fitzgerald said...

Kali; Nice! I like the picture of the desk 'cause it's so cheery!

Nico said...

cool cam, Eddie! I like that this post is sparking a little bit of a photography conversation/show 'n tell. I'm really into it.

here's some of my stuff, if you like.

snowy school

hairbrush close-up

25 cents

lizard

Kali. Hee!

Stephen Worth said...

I shot four separate pictures rapid fire in a row across the whole stage, then stitched it together in Photoshop. Sometimes it's hard to get the joins just right, but with the solid black background it was easy this time. Thanks, Eddie!

your pal Steve

Anonymous said...

I was messing with the colour switches on my sister's (ugh) Macbook and since I'm colourblind I couldn't figure out how to get them back to normal. So I shot that reply to Eddie's Paris video in black and white. It had good black & white, and for some reason my real computer's camera is incapable of black & white.

So I suppose Macs are good for some things...

Anonymous said...

Eddie,

If you want to do stitch some panoramas from digital photos fairly brainlessly using your Mac, Calico from Kekus. com is fairly much drag and drop. Might cost something though, maybe there is something as nice that is free or shareware.

I sometimes want to creat panoramas to use them as animation backgrounds.

http://www.kekus.com/download/index.html

Anonymous said...

Great stuff .

"I look like a guy who's at the end of his rope, out of work and wondering how he's going to feed his family."

Hey, you could print that one on a t-shirt or a coffee mug for 2D Animators Society (sort of like the 21st century equivalent of Dead Poets Society) .