I was going to use this photo for a post about how I wish I could clone myself. I even have it figured out how the process would happen. I will simply stand outside the house in front of a dual pane window (the cleaner the better so that there isn’t dirt blobs or bird poop on my clone.) I will hold up a box like apparatus (think Calvin and Hobbes and ‘The Transmogrifier’ box, only much smaller), focus until two distinct people appear in the viewfinder, and click the shutter. Then I will take one large step back, leaving my clone standing right in front of me.
I tried it several times with my Canon camera, but the process didn’t work. I think I have to practice making the two images less unfocused, and perhaps the camera is much too sophisticated for the job. I think an empty kleenex box with a cardboard toilet paper tube stuck in it would be a better starting point.
If I perfect this technology, one of us will let you know by blogging about it. The other will be off taking photos. Gee, I’m sure looking forward to having a twin!
__________________
A Similar Story about skewed perspective: Weekly Photo challenge: Distorted
Like this:
If a child is to keep alive his inborn sense of wonder, he needs the companionship of at least one adult who can share it, rediscovering with him the joy, excitement and mystery of the world we live in.
-Rachel Louise Carson
I’d like to give you a hint for this photo, but I can’t think of anything that won’t be a dead giveaway. So you are on your own. What is this a close up photo of?
_______________________
Last Week’s Macro was a Study in Scarlet. It was the dried dregs of a glass of red wine.
Like this:
Parents know how to push your buttons because, hey, they sewed them on.
Camryn Manheim
The instructions for powering up my Sony VAIO laptop are pretty simple. They are found on a sheet of paper that is filed in a folder in the cabinet in our home office. They read: “Lift the LCD screen lid – Press the power button until the power indicator light turns on.” (Apparently I either never read those instructions, or if I did, I forgot them. And really, how much use is a piece of paper in the file cabinet anyhow?)
Unlike many computers, the power button for my laptop is a large button on the right side of the machine. Most laptops have a power button that is under the lid. If a button is under a lid, it can’t be pushed until the lid is opened. If it is on the outside, it says (to me anyhow) you can push me first if you like and then open the lid – which I have been doing for two years and it almost always caused the computer to start up. Almost always.
The first time my computer would not turn on, I ended up taking it to the repair shop. They charged me $50 and told me they could find nothing wrong. Apparently they opened the lid before they pushed the ‘on’ button, but they didn’t bother to explain that to me because, well, they assumed I would already know that.
The second time my computer would not turn on, I decided I had better trouble shoot the problem myself and save the $50. In the course of poking and prodding the lifeless little beast, I must have lifted the lid ever so slightly before pressing the power button. The computer leaped into action. It dawned on me then that the lid might have to be lifted ever so slightly before the computer would start, and yes, the instructions in the file cabinet confirmed that.
There are several lessons in this little story. The first is, just because you have done something in a certain way several thousand times, don’t assume you will always get the same result the next time you try it. All it takes is the smallest alteration of one insignificant parameter (in this case the ever so slight difference between a lid that is closed, and a lid that is not quite closed) to change the result. The second lesson is, learn from the mistakes of others – you can never live long enough to make them all yourself. (Don’t thank me, I’m glad to be a lesson in what not to do.)
There are three kinds of men; the ones that learn by reading, the few who learn by observation, the rest of them have to pee on the electric fence.
Will Rogers
If Sony had a sticker on the lid of the computer that said “open the lid before pushing the ‘On’ button” would I have thought, “Gee, that is a helpful little piece of advice” or would I have thought “Duh, doesn’t everyone know that”?
_________________
I like really good signs: Stores and Signage
Like this:
Together forever (or more likely just a very long time) – a pair of rock columns in Bandelier National Monument in New Mexico. I think they look like a couple of intrepid explorers, one sitting, one standing, on a ridge at the top of the valley.
__________________
Another Rock Story: Skipping Stones, Throwing Rocks
Like this:
There’s the scarlet thread of murder running through the colourless skein of life, and our duty is to unravel it, and isolate it, and expose every inch of it.
- Holmes, in “A Study in Scarlet”, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Don’t be alarmed! This isn’t a photo of blood, but I did think it was interesting that the quotation discusses scarlet, and in this photo the scarlet ran over a colourless object. No more clues – what is this a photo of?
_________________________
Last week the Macro Monday Photo was called Spots. As many of you guessed, it was a photo of the spots on a flower petal – in this case a lovely yellow lily that my friend in Phoenix had in a vase on her kitchen table.
