A fine mural.
This gorgeous mural is in San Francisco’s Little Italy.
G1, kit lens @14mm, 1/1250, f/5. ISO 320.
The original, however, cannot be approached at the right angle. It’s high up, the traffic prohibits safe access and it was in shade the day I snapped it.
Here’s the original snap:
This is where the Photoshop technique I illustrated here for correcting verticals really shines.
Since 1895.
Spotted in Little Italy, San Francisco.
G1, kit lens @14mm. 1/100, f/5.6, ISO320.
A book by Banksy.
I confess I adore Banksy’s graffiti work, not just for the powerful message but also because, like much street snapping, it has ephemeral appeal.
So when a friend mentioned his book ‘Wall and Piece’ I snapped up a copy. Like Banksy’s ethos, it’s cheap and abundantly illustrated.
Click for the Amazon US site. A poor illustration – the terrorist is actually throwing a bunch of flowers …. on the rear cover.
One of the funniest things is that he not only states how long it took to make many of the pieces – not long as he uses spray paint and stencils to reduce the risk of detection – he also adds how long those in art museums survived before the curators cottoned on to the hoax. In some cases that’s many weeks. Perhaps his finest comment, painted on the gutter outside the Tate, states ‘Mind the Crap’. This, let us recall, is the museum which gave us a crucifix in a pool of urine named ‘Piss Christ’.
His immense commercial success must give him pause for thought, given his Marxist pronouncements, but who could possibly argue with the following sentiment?
“Any advertisement in public space that gives you no choice whether you see it or not is yours. It belongs to you. It’s yours to take, re-arrange and re-use. Asking for permission is like asking to keep a rock someone just threw at your head.” He refers to this collectively as ‘Brandalism’.
As for the close of the book, his Manifesto, I won’t spoil it other than to say that this one page where he illustrates his beliefs is of such shattering intensity that it will leave you limp and in tears. The book is worth buying for these few words alone.
Banksy is a photographer by circumstance. His graffiti don’t last long so he is forced to record them for posterity.
A great artist.
Banksy does San Francisco – at Columbus Avenue and the Bankster building. G1, kit lens @34mm, 1/3200, f/5.5, ISO320.
Stone’s throw from SF City Hall.
G3, kit lens @24mm, 1/500, f/9, ISO320.
Proof.
Here’s a video which shows you what I’m going on about when it comes to the raw speed of the HP100 Hackintosh.
Click the picture to view.
Click the picture for the video.
For thoughts on the obsolescence of this machine, check this piece written two years ago. The biggest speed gain since then has been from the use of solid state drives for the OS and applications, but those thoughts were largely on point. The future doubtless holds faster CPUs, GPUs and memory but at this point HP100 is so fast in photo processing tasks that further speed adds little. Maybe LR4 and CS6 will bring with them code bloat which will dictate migration to the next generation of hardware. We will see.
Update: You can read about overclocking the i5 and i7 Ivy and Sandybridge CPUs here.
Intel released the successor to the Sandy Bridge CPU, the Ivy Bridge, in May, 2012. An update addressing Ivy Bridge use in a Hackintosh appears here.