A Year in Pictures – Kannon atop Fukusaiji

Kannon atop Fukusaiji
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Remember that turtle head from a while ago? Here’s more context for it. I don’t have any especially good shots of the whole temple, but envision that head sticking out over the front door, the entire roof shaped like the back of a giant silver turtle, and at the top . . . this. A statue of Kannon huge enough to be seen from a mile away, with children arrayed adoringly at her feet.

I told you it was a weird place. 😛

This is one of the few photos where I haven’t just done normal editing to it. The sky was very cloudy that day, which made for very boring light; at my father’s suggestion I dropped the “aged photo” filter over it, giving the whole thing the sepia tinge you see here.

A Year in Pictures – Rose Window of La Sainte-Chapelle

Rose Window of La Sainte-Chapelle
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This is Sainte-Chapelle again, this time looking the other way in the upper sanctuary, toward the rose window. As you can see, a few of its “petals” are missing; they’re doing restorations on the stained glass elsewhere, so I don’t know if those will eventually be replaced, or whether the absence of the original glass means they’ll be left as they are. Doesn’t stop it from being absolutely lovely, though.

Supernatural Re-Watch

So I’m almost done with the revision of the third Memoir, I just turned in my next chapter for L5R, the number of pictures left to edit is down to two digits, and the next ten months are jam-packed full of time-consuming things I intend to do.

Which means it’s a perfect time to start a new giant project!

(Or at least it’s a perfect time for my brain to suggest a new giant project.)

I’ve decided I’m in a mood to re-watch Supernatural. And if I’m going to do that, I might as well blog my way through, because one of my reasons for re-watching it is to take a look at its macro-level narrative structure. Eric Kripke, the showrunner, did a remarkably good job of blending a strongly episodic, Monster of the Week format with a long-term metaplot and thematic development, and I’d like to take a look at how he did it. I won’t be blogging each episode individually, but rather commenting on structural stuff as it comes up during the course of the show.

This will involve spoilers. Lots of them. I’ll put everything behind cuts, but if you already know the show or don’t care about being spoiled, feel free to share your thoughts!

Before I get started on the actual blogging, let me share how I got into this show, and why I find it interesting enough to merit this kind of project.

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You can only go so far

Look, guys. I tried. Really I did.

Not just the usual steps, but extra steps. I culled. I culled again. I tagged early, so that I could compare crosses to crosses, statues to statues, urns to urns, and delete the ones that just weren’t on par with the rest. I deleted more when I started editing. I got rid of as much as I could.

And I still have 229 bloody photos from Highgate and Brompton Cemeteries.

It was October! There was autumn color! Leaves and branches blown down by the storm! Crows posing on crosses! Ivy eating EVERYTHING! It was like being in Japan when the cherry trees were blooming. Those places were just too damn photogenic for their own good — or rather, for mine.

I mean, this is a major improvement over where I started. I think I had more than 450 shots from those two places when I started. But still. 229 photos of crosses, crosses with ivy, statues, statues with ivy, urns, urns with ivy, obelisks, obelisks with ivy, the occasional mausoleum, and did I mention the ivy?

Between this and Zakopane, I’m sorely tempted to post nothing but cemetery shots in October. I have more than enough.

A note on the pictures

Since this came up in comments the other day — you should be able to click through on any of the photos from “A Year in Pictures” and get the largest version I have. Actual size varies wildly, since my older photos are often smaller to start with and some of my selections have been massively cropped; some of them will be OMGWTFBBQENORMOUS and others will be not that much larger than what’s posted on my site. But if you want to pull any of them down for private use, feel free. (If you want to use them for some other purpose, drop me a line and we’ll work something out.)

Proud Member of the Insect Army

“The problem is that the ‘vocal minority’ of insects who make up the new generation of writers don’t scramble for the shadows when outside lights shines on them—they bare their pincers and go for the jugular. Maybe it is a good thing that SFWA keeps them locked up. The newer members who Scalzi et al. brought in are an embarrassment to the genre.” — (name withheld) on SFF.net, during the recent unpleasantness.

I hereby declare myself a proud member of the Insect Army — not a member of SFWA, but certainly part of the “new generation of writers” and unwilling to run for cover when bigotry and stupidity rear their heads in my industry.

And if I’m willing to say that when I am massively phobic of cockroaches and abhor the damn things to the depths of my soul, you know I mean it.

A Year in Pictures – Żuraw at Night

Żuraw at Night
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The Żuraw is the old medieval crane of Gdańsk: an enormously tall building with a giant treadmill-driven pulley system inside for lifting cargo from ships. Kyle and I arrived in Gdańsk late at night and discovered our hotel was just across the Motława River from the Żuraw, and so we spent a little while admiring (and photographing) the view. The stillness of the night meant the reflection was absolutely lovely.

A Year in Pictures – Halebidu Central Hall

Halebidu Central Hall
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Like most of the temples we visited, Halebidu had multiple structures on its ground. This is the interior of the main one. Off to the right about halfway down is a small chamber with the actual shrine in it, but the whole place is (of course) intricately carved. (The ceilings are even more amazing; I’ll be posting a picture from those eventually.)

Month of Letters; Con or Bust

Just a reminder that the Month of Letters is ongoing. If you want to get a letter from Lady Trent, now’s your chance!

Also, my Con or Bust auction is now live. On offer: a signed pair of ARCs for A Natural History of Dragons and The Tropic of Serpents. Bidding currently stands at $45. Remember that this is a charity effort organized under the auspices of the Carl Brandon Society, “a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization whose mission is to increase racial and ethnic diversity in the production of and audience for speculative fiction.” Con or Bust helps fans of color attend cons they might not otherwise be able to afford.

If you need me for anything, I’ll be buried under this rock, revising the next book. 😛

Tonight’s weightlifting revelation

Increasing the weight is more difficult for the exercises you’re doing at low weights than at high.

Not just because you’re weaker in those regards and less accustomed to pushing for something harder — though that may be true — but because even a small increment is a much bigger deal. If I’m doing 25 lbs. on something and go up to 27.5, eh, okay, that’s a 10% increase. If I’m doing 5 lbs.* and go up to 7.5? That’s a 50% increase. I would probably not go from 50 lbs. to 75 on a given exercise, or 100 to 150, but at low levels, I don’t have much choice. I’ve already done the part where I add reps and sets; eventually I just have to suck it up, add the weight, and mush on.

“Mush” is more or less what certain upper body muscles feel like right now. 😛 But hey: the next time I add weight on those exercises, it will only be a 33% increase. Which is going to feel like a cakewalk, after this round.

*Why yes, I am utterly lacking** in tricep strength; thanks for asking.

**But I’m getting better!

What “photo processing” means

In the comments to my last post, Mindstalk asked:

So what does editing consist of? Are you doing major adjustments to each picture, or eyeballing each one for need for any editing, or doing batch edits?

The answer is long enough that I figured it deserved a post of its own.

First of all: no batch editing, in the sense of selecting ten or a hundred pictures and saying “Lightroom, do the following to all of them.” It wouldn’t work: what each picture needs is individual, so I’d just end up changing whatever I had done. Instead, my workflow goes roughly like this.

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