I swear I'll get around to critiquing the bejeezus out of Signorile's waste of column inches, but first I thought I'd share some **PRETTY PICTURES**, 'cause I'm such a girl.

1. Like, for example, these pysanki, or Ukrainian Easter eggs, which I done made all by my own se'f back in college. The elaborate designs are produced by a wax-resist dye method analogous to batik; it's a time-consuming pain in the ass, frankly, which is why I haven't made any new pysanki in years. Anyway, the designs you see here were copied (with my own modifications) from the color photos in a Belarussian textbook about Ukrainian folkart, so they're all pretty much authentically peasant-y. The Cyrillic lettering on the egg at the upper right, by the way, spells out Paskha, the Russian word for "Easter." Possibly it's the Ukrainian word for Easter, too, but who gives a fuck? (Oh, yeah, I forgot the digital camera stuff: I shot the Easter eggs under afternoon sunlight with Fujifilm's A201, a very compact point-and-shoot digicam.)
2.Here is a nice doggy. What do you suppose he is thinking about? Probably nothing, because compared to us fabulous walking monkeys, dogs have such small brains that it's totally pathetic. They can't even eat with a fork, for Pete's sake! I like dogs anyway, though. (Taken with Sony's DSC-P30, to which I gave a mostly favorable review last month.)
3. This is me looking all rugged and old-timey at the Greek Corner diner in Park Slope. My mom says it looks as though I'd just eaten something unappetizing; in fact, the Reubens at that place are awful, but that's not the reason for the somber expression. I was just tryin' to boost my apparent IQ by not smiling. (This photo was also taken with the Sony camera; it's actually a reflection in a mirror, with the flash turned off and the focal distance set manually.)
4. I took this one on Times Square when I was testing the Casio QV-4000 for Popular Photography. Actually, this image is a montage of two photos: the Cup O'Noodles sign was pasted in from another exposure, using the smudge and clone tools in Paint Shop Pro to touch up the edges and replace the "steam."
5. Some skaters zipping around the rink at Rockefeller Plaza; this one was also taken with the Casio. My Kodak digital camera was stolen recently, and I've decided that the model I buy to replace it must have manual shutter and aperture controls so that I can get kewl effects as seen here.

posted by Throbert | 2/17/2002 07:10:00 PM |

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