App of the Week: Hipstamatic

(oops, I missed a couple of weeks for apps.  But this one's brilliant!)

Shortly after acquiring an iPhone, I was told in no uncertain terms that I MUST buy Hipstamatic.  Essential.  Brilliant.  A mere $2.49AU for the basic app (you can add Hipstapaks for around $1.99 each).

What does it do?

It adds another camera option to your iPhone or iPod Touch.  You get a variety of lenses (I use John S the most) and films (my faves at present are Kodot and Float).  Choose a lens and a film (by clicking through your choices within the app), and take a photo.  As opposed to the plain vanilla of the iPhone's ordinary camera, Hipstamatic adds mood and a different look - vintage, textured, not at all plain vanilla.

iPhone camera image of our library's entrance:

and here's a Hipstamatic version of the same:

I was in Sydney recently, and took this Hipstamatic photo at Circular Quay (it's with a different film to the one above):

Moody, broody, and a different look without fancy photo-editing.  Walked past the head office of the Department of Education (my employer), which is one of the beautiful historic Sydney sandstone offices, and here's how it can look:

So how can you use it for education?

Take photos.  Not just for art, but for all sorts of other things.  One of our English teachers wanted to use the images from a book of fantasy landscapes to inspire his senior students in their creative writing.  Sure, we could have just scanned the images from the book for a photo slideshow; but take them with Hipstamatic, and they acquired another level of mood and inspiration:

Photo from Drawing and painting fantasy landscapes by Rob Alexander and Martin McKenna

But it's not a serious camera, is it?

How about featuring in a Visual Arts major work selected for inclusion in Art Express 2011 (click for more) and currently on display at the Art Gallery of NSW?

Yup.  All those portraits were taken with Hipstamatic.  Find these two images on the Art Express website here.

I've barely scraped the surface of what I might try with Hipstamatic, but it's an app I've been enjoying, for myself and for its educational possibilities.  If you'd like to see more images, there's a Flickr pool with thousands of Hipstamatic photos here.  Would a 'serious' photographer use Hipstamatic in preference to 'serious' camera gear?  New York Times photographer Damon Winter used it to illustrate a story about the Afghanistan war.  Read all about it by clicking here.

Find Hipstamatic in the App Store; the Hipstamatic website is here.

Cheers

Ruth

PS. Disclaimer: Laura Buchanan, who created that artwork, is a relation.  And she was the one who told me to get Hipstamatic.  With the evidence above, why argue?  She's clearly an expert!  We're very proud of her.

Blog headers

This weekend, I retired this blog header:

which features our fabbobananas purple word wall, and installed a new blog header, because, well, I've clearly been influenced by waaay too many refurb shows.  Or maybe I just felt like a change.

You remember this photo, taken with the iPhone app Hipstamatic (Kodot film, John S lens) last week?

Foofing it through the iPhone app TiltShift, then cropping and adding some text with a photo editor, arrived at this:

which I rather like because it includes some of the important things about the library - Keep Calm, Welcome, heart, colour, inspiration.  And I like the lairy colours.

Just like it's good to keep your library refreshed (what will you do this week?), it's good to keep your blog refreshed too.  As well as playing with some new toys.  Now to see how I can use these apps to make stuff for school...

Do you like it?

Cheers

Ruth

Glimpsing possibilities

Sydney is hilly.  The CBD, too.  Sure, some bits are flat, but the edges slope down to the harbour.  I love it when you get off at Wynyard or Martin Place stations - or you're just walking down towards Circular Quay - and you get, through the office blocks and Victorian sandstone, a glimpse of the Sydney Harbour Bridge.

Yes, it's there.  Right in the middle of the picture, below the overhanging balcony on the right, past the curved building on the left.  (I'm besotted with the Hipstamatic camera app on my iPhone at present, which accounts for the look of this photo).  The Sydney Opera House is nice, but I love the bridge. 

This photo is kinda like some of these holidays.  I'm working on a study skills program for Year 11 in Term 1, to be delivered weekly.  It's a reshaping of content I've already developed, and a reworking of other content, and a complete reprogramming of timetable/delivery.  It's been a long process of thinking, seeing things gradually coming into focus, getting glimpses of the bridges it can build and the habits/mindsets it can help establish with our new senior students.

I took this photo on a fabulous day in town going to photographic exhibitions.  Annie Leibovitz at the MCA,  Wildlife Photographer of the Year at the Australian Museum and Beach, Bush & Battlers: photographs by Jeff Carter at the State Library of NSW. 

This image (source) is The Drover's Wife by Jeff Carter (it was my favourite).  Here's what the SLNSW says about this exhibition:

The Jeff Carter photographs in Beach, Bush + Battlers have been selected from his remarkable, historically significant archive of over 50,000 works celebrating the lives of everyday Australians in rural, outback, urban and coastal communities dating from the late 1940s through to today.
Curator Sandra Byron, the leading expert on Carter's work, says about the exhibition: 'Carter's iconic images are a testament to his respect for ordinary people and his commitment to the Australian landscape and environment.'

It was a wonderful exhibition.  Worth seeing - it closes 20 Feb.  The other two close in March.  If you can get to Sydney on Australia Day, there are a bunch of other things on in the city too (program here) and one of my favourites is the vintage bus service - a chance to ride through the city on a vintage double-decker bus (for only a gold coin donation).  Just slip slop slap; the weather forecast for Wednesday is for a very hot one.

Why not pass on info about these exhibitions to your Visual Arts/Photography teachers?  And I'm going to be pointing my History and English teachers at the Jeff Carter photos too.  If the Vis Arts people are doing an excursion to Art Express, they could add in one or more of these too.

Cheers

Ruth

Amazing science photography

There are three finalists in this year's Eureka Science Photography prize.  Take a look:

http://australianmuseum.net.au/image/Breakfast-on-the-Fly
http://australianmuseum.net.au/image/Burn-Out
http://australianmuseum.net.au/image/A-kaleidoscope-of-dust-and-gas-in-Orion

and maybe share them with your Science staff?

You can also search on past Eureka Science prizewinners (there are lots of other categories as well as Science Photography - it's near the end of the list) by clicking here.

There are also Eureka teacher resources, state-specific and all!  Find them here: http://eureka.australianmuseum.net.au/teacher

No blog entry yesterday.  Yup, I know.  Not slackness, just a crazybeans day.  As happens.

Cheers

Ruth

How a book cover is designed (Blameless, by Gail Carriger)

One of my holiday reading books was Soulless, by Gail Carriger.  In a most useful comment, Tehani Wessely gave a link to this YouTube video, which shows the design process for the third book in the Parasol Protectorate series, Blameless (Soulless, Changeless, Blameless comprise the series so far).  So, in case you don't read the comments on my blog as assiduously as I do...



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yoDCiTsS7dU .  One to share with Visual Art teachers, English teachers...

Here are the three Parasol Protectorate covers so far.  I do rather like the combination of vintage and modern.

source of images is the author's website, www.gailcarriger.com

Cheers (and many thanks, Tehani!)

Ruth

PS. I do rather like the moment in the video when they go ooops, the Eiffel Tower has to go - and also watching cars being erased.  Fascinating to see the process of graphic design.

PPS.  Blameless isn't out till September. Having really enjoyed the first two, I'll be definitely reading it.  How could one not wish to know more about Alexia Tarabotti?  And parasols, vampires, dirigibles, werewolves and so forth?

PPPS Gail Carriger has one of the best author bio pieces I've read:

Ms. Carriger began writing in order to cope with being raised in obscurity by an expatriate Brit and an incurable curmudgeon. She escaped small town life and inadvertently acquired several degrees in Higher Learning. Ms. Carriger then traveled the historic cities of Europe, subsisting entirely on biscuits secreted in her handbag. She now resides in the Colonies, surrounded by fantastic shoes, where she insists on tea imported directly from London. She is fond of teeny tiny hats and tropical fruit.

Magnum photo archive

Magnum agency photographers are responsible for some of the most iconic photographic images, and their roster has included many renowned photographers.  The New York Times has an article about how the physical prints in their archive have found a new home at a university in Texas, highlighting the historical significance of these photos and "their role in helping to create the collective photo bank of modern culture".

Much of their archive has been scanned and is available to view online here.

There is also a 'photo of the week' blog which you might like to put in your blogreader (eg. Bloglines, Google Reader) to see what appears which might be useful for school.  Find it here.

One to share with your teachers of History, Visual Arts, English... and an alternative to Google Images for kids to know, too.

Cheers

Ruth

Photo inspiration: Omnia and Flickr

The student I wrote of yesterday had, among her inspirations, a photographer on Flickr who is one of the best I've ever seen. A lot of the photography kids now talk about 'omnia' and search out her photos. Whether it's nature or the world around, her lens is the most marvellous 'eye' to share through her images. Take a look here. She's an Australian, although travelling in Asia at present. Don't miss her images of plants and leaves, or the shells/beach/sand ones.

Flickr is an excellent image source option for students. The ability to search on groups (photos with a common theme) or tags (which the photographers have put on their photos themselves) means you can search on colour, or content, or so many other options.

You don't have to belong to see public images (which millions of them are).

Just remember to remind the students to acknowledge their sources. Every photo can be identified by an individual url.