Journal - Page 90 of 214

A Year in Pictures – Ashmolean Coins

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Happy Tax Day to my U.S. readers. 😛

Photographing museum exhibits is hard. The light is often low, or else glares off the glass; the glass itself is generally smudged, scratched, or both. I’ve started getting better at it, though, and this shot is possibly my finest museum photograph ever. I’ve mentioned before that I clean up my photos in Lightroom, right? Well, this one is almost completely untouched. I cropped a bit of the left edge and upped the clarity by a tick, and that’s it. Sometimes the picture just comes out right on the first try.

world’s worst ad

I play solitaire a lot on my tablet, and there’s a banner add that has been popping up on it lately which is, I think, the worst ad I’ve ever seen.

It flashes between a white bar with black text and a black bar with white text. And I do mean flashes — very nearly at the level of “isn’t there something about this kind of stimulus causing epileptic seizures?” It is phenomenally distracting. Good ad, right? Nope — because it is so. bloody. annoying. that I might light my hair on fire before voluntarily tapping it. (Nor is it in a location where I’m likely to tap it by accident.) And if you’re thinking that even annoyance-publicity is still publicity, and they’re at least getting their product into my head . . .

. . . the text of the banner is “(1) Free Game.”

That’s it. No brand name. No hint of what type of game it is. No image I might recognize if I see it again later in a less annoying context. Just a seizure-inducing, content-less banner which is so obnoxious, it’s giving me a strong inclination to stop playing solitaire entirely, so I’ll never have to see it again. Which is about as profound of an advertising failure as I can imagine.

What were they thinking?

A Year in Pictures – Squirrel in Action

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This is another lucky shot: the squirrel happened to stay still long enough for me to catch him in this great pose. Every time I look at him, I hear Eddie Izzard in my head, going on about the difference between “Executive Transvestite” and “Action Transvestite.” This, my friends, is distinctly an Action Squirrel. 🙂

sound effect

There’s a particular . . . sound effect? I don’t even know if that’s the right word to apply. It’s a quality sometimes heard in the background beat of techno songs. I have a hard time describing it in words (and can’t think of any examples to link to, since I hate the songs that do this and therefore always turn them off) — it’s kind of this muffled effect at the end of the beat that then slides into the sharp beginning of the next one — but the easiest way for me to summarize it is, it makes me feel like I’m being punched in the eardrums. Repeatedly. Ad nauseam.

I don’t suppose anybody a) knows what I’m talking about and b) can tell me whether it has a specific name?

So there’s this artist named Todd Lockwood . . .

. . . and he does bee-yoo-ti-ful book covers:

This one was revealed on Tor.com yesterday; I would have posted about it sooner, but I spent pretty much all of yesterday out of the house. Check out that link if you’d like to see commentary from Irene Gallo (art director at Tor, i.e. the person who makes book covers happen), Todd, and myself.

It’s, um. Purty. Real purty. *^_^* Don’t you agree?

A Year in Pictures – Trevi Fountain

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Getting a good shot of Trevi Fountain is exceedingly difficult. You wouldn’t know it to look at this shot, but the place was mobbed with approximately eighty billion people that day. To get this photo, I had to worm my way to the direct center of the place and up to the very edge of the fountain itself, then lean back as far as I could to take the widest shot possible. It paid off, though — and I must say that Trevi is one of those sights I found to be exactly as splendid as I had hoped.

A Year in Pictures – Belur Well

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The structure you see in the background there is the entrance tower to the twelfth-century Chennakesava Temple complex in Belur. It is huge; this is a shot up at it through the well in the courtyard (a framing I was rather proud of). The density of carving you see there is about par for the course in the temples we visited, which had me reflecting a lot on how clumsy a great deal of twelfth-century European art is by comparison.

A Year in Pictures – Irises in the Sun

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I have another photo of irises that is arguably better (one taken earlier that day in the San Francisco Botanical Garden — this is from the Japanese Tea Garden just across the road), but I happen to particularly like the way the sun comes down through the petals of the top flower in this one.

Tour update; also Mary is a genius; also interview

The full schedule for my joint tour with Mary Robinette Kowal has been posted at Tor.com:

Thursday, May 1, 6:00 p.m.
DePaul University
Chicago, IL

Friday, May 2, 7:00 p.m.
University Bookstore
Seattle, WA

Saturday, May 3, 2:00 p.m.
Powell’s Books at Cedar Hill Crossing
Portland, OR

Sunday, May 4, 3:00 p.m.
Book Bin
Salem, OR

Tuesday, May 6, 6:30 p.m.
Murder by the Book
Houston, TX

Thursday, May 8, 6:00 p.m.
Weller Book Works
Salt Lake City, UT

Saturday, May 10, 2:00 p.m.
Mysterious Galaxy (Part of the Mysterious Galaxy 21st Birthday Bash!)
San Diego, CA

Sunday, May 11, 3:00 p.m.
Borderlands Books
San Francisco, CA

And I would like to state for the record that Mary is a genius. She made a suggestion for something I could do during the events which — well, you’ll just have to wait and see, won’t you? (Yes, this is my transparent bid to build suspense and get you all to come.) I promise I’ll talk about it after the tour, for those of you who don’t live anywhere near our stops or can’t make it to the events, but for now you’ll just have to wonder. (Hint: it involves my husband marveling, once again, at what kinds of things can be written off as business expenses for a writer.)

Also, there’s a new interview with me up at Just a World Away, in which I talk a little bit about Voyage of the Basilisk (among other things).

Reminder: Design Your Own Dragon!

The entries for the Design Your Own Dragon contest have started to come in, so here’s a quick recap for those who may have missed the first announcement:

* * *

From the newly released The Tropic of Serpents and the first book in the series, A Natural History of Dragons, readers know Isabella, Lady Trent, to be the world’s preeminent dragon naturalist. She is the remarkable woman who brought the study of dragons out of the misty shadows of myth and misunderstanding into the clear light of modern science.

The world of Lady Trent is home to a myriad of different dragon species, from the fire-breathing desert drakes of Akhia to the tiny draconic cousins known as sparklings. Now you have a chance to expand the borders of dragon naturalism, by adding your own species to the mix!

All you have to do is invent a breed of dragon or draconic cousin that might fit into Lady Trent’s world. Write up a description of no more than two hundred words covering its appearance and habitat, any noteworthy behaviors, and so on. An example of a write up, Marie Brennan’s wyvern, is below. Then submit your invention to dragons.of.trent@gmail.com, with the header “DRAGON: {name}”. Marie Brennan will select one to three entries and reference them in a future installment of the Memoirs of Lady Trent. Winners will also receive a signed Advance Reader Copy of Voyage of the Basilisk, the third book in the series, when those become available (late 2014).

This contest is open to entrants worldwide. No more than three submissions per entrant; any subsequent e-mails will be deleted unread. The contest will close to entries at 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time on April 30th, and winners will be announced on May 12th.

WYVERN — A reptilian creature native to northern and eastern Anthiope, possessing hind limbs and wings, but lacking forelimbs, which disqualifies it for consideration as a “true dragon” under the criteria of Sir Richard Edgeworth. Wyverns are typically 3-4 meters in length from nose to tail, with a comparable wingspan, and light of build through the chest. Their coloration is mottled brown and green, for protective colouration in the treeless hills that are their usual habitat. They typically hunt by waiting in an elevated position and then launching into the air when prey is sighted. Their venom is paralytic, and kills the prey through asphyxiation. Wyverns are solitary except when they mate, but the male will follow the female until she lays her eggs, after which they incubate in the care of the male, who feeds them and teaches them to hunt after hatching. Juveniles rarely stay with their father for more than three months, by which point they are capable of independent sustenance.

A Year in Pictures – Highgate Staircase

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Amusingly enough, both my husband and I took this photo — identical in almost every detail. 🙂 What can I say? As with so many things in Highgate, the moss and the fallen leaves really made it.

A Year in Pictures – Malbork Eagle

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Malbork Castle has taken quite a beating over the centuries, particularly during WWII. The restoration has not yet made it through the church, and while I would be delighted to see what it looks like when it’s back in one piece, the ruined version has a great deal of charm. This bird (which might or might not be an eagle) is hanging out in the sanctuary with various other fragments, awaiting the restorers.

Books read, March 2014

I remembered two more of the ones I’d forgotten to record from January. (Courtesy of ebooks, which make it easy to look and see what I’ve been reading recently.)

(more…)

A Year in Pictures – Vatican Ceiling

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The ceilings in the Vatican are phenomenal. My pictures of the ceilings in the Vatican, sadly, are mostly not so phenomenal, because I didn’t have a tripod — but this one came out pretty well. And while on the one hand the inequality of wealth that produces things like this is not desirable, I am glad to have the results of it.

A Year in Pictures – Butterfly on a Leaf

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The thing that I’m proudest of with this shot is, it was taken at rather high zoom with my camera braced on the railing of a walkway that vibrated every time somebody took a step. This butterfly was in the “rainforest” chamber of the California Academy of Sciences, and I’m delighted that not only did I catch it sitting still (which can be damned hard with butterflies), but it came out this crisp, too.

Design Your Own Dragon!

This contest is open to entrants worldwide. No more than three submissions per entrant; any subsequent e-mails will be deleted unread. The contest will close to entries at ~~11:59 p.m. Eastern Time on April 30th~~ 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time on May 15th (note the extension!), and winners will be announced on May 26th.

Sample entry:

WYVERN — A reptilian creature native to northern and eastern Anthiope, possessing hind limbs and wings, but lacking forelimbs, which disqualifies it for consideration as a “true dragon” under the criteria of Sir Richard Edgeworth. Wyverns are typically 3-4 meters in length from nose to tail, with a comparable wingspan, and light of build through the chest. Their coloration is mottled brown and green, for protective colouration in the treeless hills that are their usual habitat. They typically hunt by waiting in an elevated position and then launching into the air when prey is sighted. Their venom is paralytic, and kills the prey through asphyxiation. Wyverns are solitary except when they mate, but the male will follow the female until she lays her eggs, after which they incubate in the care of the male, who feeds them and teaches them to hunt after hatching. Juveniles rarely stay with their father for more than three months, by which point they are capable of independent sustenance.

A Year in Pictures – Oxford Gargoyles in Vignette

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I have another shot of these same gargoyles from a slightly different angle that has some really interesting sunlight going on, but I decided to post this one because it’s one of the few times so far that I’ve made use of the “vignette” option in Lightroom. That’s what created the darkening around the edges, which is another way of making a photo look old. I particularly like the way it echoes the shape of the corner here.

A Year in Pictures – The Ghost of Malbork Castle

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Every proper castle is haunted. I was fortunate enough to catch the Ghost of Malbork Castle on film! (Or pixels, rather.)

More seriously: I have no idea what happened with my camera. I was trying to take a photo down the gallery, but my camera malfunctioned weirdly. While I was trying to figure it out, my husband decided to jump into the frame, and then the camera took a picture after all, and somehow I managed a double exposure with a single shot in digital. Like I said: no idea what happened. But it’s one of my favorite photos of Kyle. 🙂

last week’s pictures

Depending on how you approach reading my journal, you may or may not have noticed that I ran into some technical difficulties last week — the WordPress version went down at some point Tuesday or early Wednesday morning, but I didn’t notice until Friday, which means that three installments from the Year in Pictures didn’t post on schedule. They all popped up in a quick row on Friday when the site got restored, so if you missed them, here they are:

I’ll be looking for ways to prevent such lengthy outages in the future.

A Year in Pictures – Statue in the Arc de Triomphe

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I imagine this was originally part of a larger statue — maybe even a whole grouping — involving an upraised arm exhorting the brave men and women of France to victory or something in that vein.

Without the context, though, it really looks like the statue should have a speech bubble saying “Oh no you DIDN’T!”

(It’s inside the Arc de Triomphe, up where you can pause to take a breather on your way to the roof.)

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