B&W Lakeside moment

B&W Lakeside moment
Originally uploaded by Lone Primate.

Sort of related to my work in infrared, lately I've gotten interested in seeing what monochrome treasures might be lurking in my colour photos. I've been learning a little about channel mixing, trying to tease strong images out of the extremes and subtleties of the red, green, and blue channels. With a little help from curves, I've been delighted with some of my results. This one in particular appeals to me. Hope it appeals to you too. This is a small lake in a park in eastern Markham.

IR Jumbo jet landing 1

IR Jumbo jet landing 1
Originally uploaded by Lone Primate.

The money shot

The money shot
Originally uploaded by Lone Primate.

ABSOLUT-ly In Blue

ABSOLUT-ly In Blue
Originally uploaded by Lone Primate.

Not sure this is the kind of ad Absolut would appreciate, but it's honest. I found this bottle posed exactly as you see it here in a parking lot in North York... on my way to a Russian supermarket, ironically. :)

I think the yellow cross, reminiscent of Sweden's flag, is another nice ironic touch.

Thought I'd touch it up a little to bring out the flaggy goodness. :D

A moment with Her Majesty

A moment with Her Majesty
Originally uploaded by Lone Primate.

Bonnie looking vaguely imperial... actually, she's just guarding her eyes from the camera flash.

Digital watercolour - Countryside storm front

Digital watercolour - Countryside storm front
Originally uploaded by Lone Primate.

Faux watercolour produced from a photograph I took last summer on Duffy's Lane. The technique comes from How to Wow Photoshop for Photography by Jack Davis and Ben Willmore.

Go live in the sky

Go live in the sky
Originally uploaded by Lone Primate.

Shot on the way home this week. Finch Avenue and Seneca Hill.

Smoke and mirrors

Smoke and mirrors
Originally uploaded by Lone Primate.

Front Street at Church Street, facing west; Saturday night, Jan. 5, 2007. The lights in the sky are spotlights.

Bipartisanism, here and there

This weekend, I went beyond basic cable for the first time in 6 years or so. I'm watching A&E, and I've just seen a commerical in which President Bush I and President Clinton, sitting side by side, ask for citizens to review emergency preparations online.

Given that there are only two 'real' parties in the US, I've always found it interesting that American policitians do this kind of thing so regularly. It's very rare in Canada.

A case in point: "Liberal MP Wajid Khan crossed the floor to join the Conservative party Friday... after Liberal Leader Stephane Dion urged Khan to choose between his Liberal caucus membership and his role as special adviser to the prime minister on the Middle East and Afghanistan."

I'm glad Dion won the Liberal leadership, but this was an ass-hat move. I can't imagine a better lever going into an election than "we have the resources and the governing party had to borrow them from us, and we acquiesced", and Dion just pissed it away, Canada's version of the jealous God of the Old Testament. Yeah, this makes the Liberal Party look soooooo good. Wajid Khan was putting Canada first. Apparently, that's not in the interests of the Liberal Party.

So is voting Liberal in my interests as a Canadian? Just a thought.

An idle happy wish :)

You know, it's probably not going to happen in my lifetime (I'm 38), but I'd like to live long enough that just before I die, they're able to transfer my personality and experience into a robot. After a lifetime of "the heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to", a long retirement as a wisecracking robot in the mode of Crow from MST3K would be "a consummation devoutly to be wish'd". I'm banking my karma towards it, at any rate. :)

The sun between the earth and sky

The sun between the earth and sky
Originally uploaded by Lone Primate.

The sunset on the drive home this evening. Hard to believe it, but supposedly the days are getting longer now...

Hurray for the Allies!

US admits: Operation Blow Shit Up "not 100% effective"
Operation Blow More Shit Up being drafted planned

WASHINGTON / LONDON / OTTAWA — In a public statement today, officials of the US Defense and State Departments admitted that the program of blowing shit up, lately focused on Iraq, has not been completely effective in re-ordering the world in the image of the United States and laying the world prostrate at its feet forever and ever and ever. "Frankly, we may have made a slight miscalculation," admitted one State Department official, who confessed herself "disappointed that people in other countries seem to be possessed by a strange, unanticipated stubbornness that almost resembles pride and patriotism — except that those are, of course, uniquely American virtues."

Asked how the war in Iraq could be brought to a successful conclusion, a Defense Department spokesman said, "Obviously aerial bombardment, troops on the ground, and the deaths of hundreds of thousands of civilians is not the answer. The answer is more bombing, more troops, and more civilian deaths. Operation Blow More Shit Up is on the drawing board as we speak. As a result, I think we can safely say the war will be over by Christmas, or maybe even Thanksgiving. We've never been wrong before. I mean, after all, once we finally unleashed the Tet Offensive, we won Korea just like that."

This attitude is finding a warm reception across the pond. In a massive effort to increase sucking up, the United Kingdom is matching the US effort by stepping up Operation Kill Wogs with Operation Kill More Wogs. According to a functionary attached to the Ministry of Doing Whatever America Says, "The policy did wonders for building and securing the British Empire. It will be every bit as effective for the American Empire. Ah, I mean, for the process of enhancing global security."

Meanwhile, in Canada, government officials and high-ranking military officers expressed bemusement that Canada's ongoing Operation Spoonful of Maple Sugar Helps the Cyanide Go Down in Afghanistan is not reaping the desired results, other than getting Canadian soldiers killed in order to free up American soldiers to get killed in Iraq. "Why can't these people understand that we're there to keep the peace? They have no right to hate us; we're peacekeepers. Canadians do not fight wars, they keep peace. I thought everybody knew that. It's been that way, since, like, forever. It's in our Constitution, I think. Or maybe it's the Bible. But the point is, everywhere a Canadian steps, peace springs up around his feet. If we flatten their villages, it's peacekeeping! If we smear their families like peanut butter across the plains, it's peacekeeping! If we burn their crops, atomize their infrastructure, and eviscerate their government, it's to keep the goddamn peace! How many of these idiots do we have to kill before it sinks in? They never had peace till we arrived! We invented peace! We own peace! Peace peace peace peace, peace peace peace!"

Canadian officials, while discouraged by the failure of Afghanis to grasp that the destruction of their country and traditions at the hands of the West is entirely for their own good and that they ought to be happy about it, nevertheless expressed determination to "stay the course" with the operation, as well as with Operation Bomb Them to Democracy. When asked how people would vote with their limbs blown off, officials explained that Afghanis would be fitted with special voting prostheses that would enable them to mark an "X" with virtually no excruciating pain, "once the terrorists have been routed and the peacekeeping is over". Pressed to speculate as to when that might be, officials responded, "Oh, Christmas, probably... Maybe even Thanksgiving." When asked "of what year?" they replied, "No comment."

Yes, no, no

Some quick thoughts this morning, prompted by a quick glance or two at The Globe and Mail...

Maher Arar has endorsed the report on the events leading to his deportation to Syria for torture, and recommending more oversight for the RCMP who, to the nation's shame, were instrumental in getting him there. "We live in a great country," said Arar. Truly, can there be any finer words, or a greater reward, than to know that your country hasn't just swept an inconvenient truth under the rug, but has acted on it, admitted its error, and put changes in the works? Can anything make you feel better about home than to know that human beings really do matter, and that the country has stood by its principles and stood by the people?

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The Ontario Muncipal Board has approved the expansion of a private school in the Annex. Some of the local residents are upset. Apparently, the school caters to some 400 boys and they don't like the buses and traffic in "their" neighbourhood. This, despite the fact that Royal St. George's College has existed there for over 40 years (how many of the residents of the Annex bitching about it can say that, I wonder?).

This is kind of thing that really gets on my nerves about these people. We're not talking about a rendering plant or a missile factory or something here. We're talking about a school. It seems the the late, sainted Jane Jacobs, no less, opposed the expansion and suggested that sometimes institutions grow too large for their neighbourhoods and should move out. Who gets to decide this? What if the same people decide an institution's gotten too ethnic for their liking? After all, why stop at unsightly buses? Maybe you don't like seeing people in veils or yarmukles either.

The school and the people it serves have the same right to enjoyment of property and use of the neighbourhood as anyone else. The people and the Province of Ontario — to whom the neighbourhood really belongs — have made that clear. And if you don't like it, hey, it's a free country. Move. And take your speed bumps with you.

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Murray Mollard of the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association complains that new laws on voter ID go too far. It seems that having to produce a government photo ID or two pieces of approved ID that establish name and residency is asking too much of a voter. Canadians move around a lot, he says. Some people don't have drivers licences. Students and the homeless might be disenfranchised.

Clearly his heart's in the right place, but my God, is this some thin gruel. Producing a driver's licence in this day and age does not exactly qualify as a hardship or a disenfranchisement; virtually anyone can get one. And for those who can't, every province (as far as I know) offers a government ID card for just such eventualities.

If you move around, you better believe you'd better get your driver's licence in order... not to mention getting right with your bank, employer, creditors, and so on. Obviously, people manage this on a daily basis. If you happen to move during the one week (out of an average of 200-250 or so) in which a federal election falls and can't manage it, you probably have more on your mind than voting anyway. Showing up with your photo ID portion of your licence and your new temporary slip would probably suffice anyway. As for the homeless, how would they wind up on the voter's roll in the first place? Where would enumerators go to find them?

I agree that some people are bound to slip between the cracks. But voting is a right, not an obligation. And allow me to be blunt: it's possible to disenfranchise yourself. Given the electoral shenanegans we've seen going on just south of the border, I'm all for tightening the bolts a little. You need more ID just to open a savings account for your nine-year-old than this legislation asks for to decide the governance of an entire nation. If that means showing up with nothing more than just about everyone always have in his or her wallet anywhere, anytime, I'm fine with that.

P.S. Notice that neither a driver's licence nor proof of residency actually establishes the elector is even a citizen, though; anyone who's been in the country six weeks could produce this "proof". Amazing that citizenship is regarded that cheaply on such a practical matter in a land currently having bowel cramps over the fact that a prospective prime minister happens to have a second citizenship, isn't it?

The lie that Canada told

Canada disappoints me sometimes.

Does that sounds arrogant to you? Well, a country full of immigrants, founded upon their labour and sustained by their industry, presuming to divide the wheat from the chaff by calling for Stephane Dion to give up his French citizenship sounds arrogant to me.

A number of Canada's earliest prime ministers were not born in Canada. Several were born in the UK. At the time, there was no distinction in law between a Canadian and a Briton. But that's beside the point. We have, in our history, entrusted the stewardship of this country to people not even born here. Our Parliament, our legislatures, our city councils abound with people who have come here from elsewhere, many of whom must still possess the citizenship of the lands from which they've come, all without issue... as recently at the 1980s, John Turner was leader of the Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition, and, briefly, Prime Minister. John Turner was born in Richmond, England. But even this late in history, I don't recall anyone taking issue with this or questioning where Turner's heart might lie, not even in Quebec. I find it astounding that the same few weeks that have seen Canada embrace the Quebecois as a nation within a nation have also seen it, in virtually the same breath, throw ice water on that sentiment by shrieking with francophobia on learning Stephane Dion's mother bestowed her citizenship on her Canadian-born son.

Perhaps the greatest irony of all has to be the teapot from which this tempest flows. As I understand it, we have a conservative scribe from Alberta, Ezra Levant, to thank for saving Canada from its eventual conquest by French fifth columnists. Now, I'm going to go out on a limb here and suppose that Ezra Levant is Jewish. Maybe I'm wrong, but that's a guess. Can there be a nation on Earth that's been better-served by the broad acceptance of dual citizenship that's emerged in the past thirty or forty years than Israel? A land of four or five million people, cared for and aided by tens of millions abroad who feel they have a stake in the place. Is that what Ezra Levant fears? That Dion might feel for France what millions of Jews have felt for Israel? And if that would be wrong for him, isn't it therefore also wrong for them? Shouldn't they have to choose too? Because let's be honest — this is bigger than just Stephane Dion; we are, after all, hearing cries for Canada to conclude its policy of dual citizenship. But what of other lands? To the south of us, Michael Chertoff is Secretary of Homeland Defense, no less. Under Israeli law, Chertoff is an Israeli citizen. Does Ezra Levant lie awake a night, lashing in his own sweat in fear for the liberties of our American cousins, tormented by the thought that Chertoff's dual citizenship might undermine his ability to think and act in the best interests of the people of the United States? Call me jaded, but somehow, I doubt it.

And yet, it's perfectly fine for Ezra Levant to cast aspersions on Stephane Dion. And why? Because deep down, English Canada still really doesn't like, trust, or respect the French, here or abroad. Why mince words? It's just been made abundantly clear. Turner okay, Dion bad. The Quebec separatists whose jaws dropped a few weeks ago when Harper beat them at their own game must be rubbing their hands with glee that we've so quickly shown our true colours — Redcoats forever — as we treat Quebec in particular and a worldful of potential Canadian immigrant-hopefuls in general to the spectacle of millions (if the polls are to be believed) of Canadians demanding that a man who has dedicated the last ten years of his life to their service renounce his incidental but rightful citizenship in another country in order to demonstrate his loyalty to them. Yes, no less than The Toronto Star has made it plain that Stephane Dion, a French Canadian (in both senses), must abandon his birthright and heritage to assure us all that, as Prime Minister of Canada one day, he will not be unduly influenced by the President of France... because only then may we rest assured that he will comport himself as a true and loyal servant of the Queen of England.

Ladies and gentlemen... I give you the word absurd.

The Recognition of Independence

Today, as it turns out, is the 75th anniversary of the passing of the Statute of Westminster (Dec. 11, 1931). This was an act of the British Parliament that recognized the "white" dominions (Canada, Newfoundland, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa at the time) as the peers of the United Kingdom. Effectively, this was date that Canada (et al.) took full control and responsibility for its own foreign policy, laws, and government. No longer could or would London legislate in any manner that applied to us (without our consent), nor could it any longer nullify our laws, or send us to war, or interfere or intercede in our negotiations with other lands. Not strictly analogous to the US Declaration of Independence, it might better be described as the Recognition of Independence. For each dominion, the price was the blood shed on battlefields of the Empire in the First World War, and demand afterward that that should mean something.

The day will pass in Canada without observation or recognition. I don't know if that will be the case elsewhere in the "white" Commonwealth, but I suspect as much. It's a real shame the low-key embarrassment felt in modern Commonwealth countries about our imperial past should rob us of an opportunity to feel pride in a very key moment in our development as independent nations on the world stage, particularly when that final acknowledgement came at such a cost to a whole generation.

They do read minds...

I'm now firmly convinced that we have mind-reading computers. In fact, they've been installed in every car that has an "automatic" driver's side window. Thing is, the bugs haven't been worked out... because inevitably, when you want the thing to go right down, it reads your mind, gets it 100% wrong, and stops, requiring you to hold the button down just as though the "automatic" facility didn't exist. Want to open it a crack? It'll dive straight down to China, no matter what you want. This happens invariably, so... trick it! When you want it down, think, "just a little". When you want it part way down, think, "descend, damn you!" :)

The PMC-IR process

This is a set of instructions for “hand-tinting” a digital infrared photograph, though it could be used on any digital image, particularly a monochrome one. I call this process “PMC-IR” after the guy whose gentle proddings led me to it.

First, select one of your infrared images that you'd like to tint. This goes without saying, of course... just gives me a chance to vogue one of my shots. :)


Select Layer > New Fill Layer > Solid Color.


The New Layer dialog opens. Make sure the mode is set to Color.


The Color Picker opens. Experiment with colours and click OK when you have something that looks initially eye-pleasing.


Double-click the new layer in the Layers palette. This will open the Layer Style dialog for that layer. Use the Underlying Layer sliders to customize the range of tone to which your chosen colour will be applied. The range between the right edge of the black slider and the left edge of the white corresponds to the range of tones to which the colour will be fully applied. Initially, the black and white sliders are each unified. They can be unlinked by holding down the ALT key and then dragging them. This establishes a more gentle, less abrupt application of the colour at either end of the tonal range. In the example below, the very darkest tones tones are excluded. Middle-range dark tones have the color gradually applied to them with increasing opacity. The range between the black and white sliders is that to which the colour fully applies. The range between the separated white sliders marks the range from full application, decreasing in opacity towards white.


...Below is the result of the change in tonal application established in the previous step. Notice that they very darkest tones do not have the green cast applied, middle greys have the colour applied somewhat mutedly, and that as tones approach fuller whiteness, the cast is applied with less and less fullness as well.


The quickest way to apply another colour is to simply copy the color layer by dragging it to the New Layer button at the bottom of the Layers palette. This will result in an identical copy layer being created above the original one. To change the colour in the new layer, double-click its colour chip, which opens the Color Picker for that layer. Any colour you select will, of course, simply overlay the previous one, since this layer's tonal application is exactly the same. Double-click the layer in the Layers palette to make changes to its Underlying Layer settings. In the image below, I chose a darker green, and moved the black and white sliders to the left to apply the new colour to the darker range largely neglected by the original layer.


Color layers, like all layers, can have their application masked. In fact, they're automatically created with layer masks. I decided I wanted the lighter tones in the water to be a different colour from the trees, so I clicked in the layer's mask area to make it active. Using the paintbrush tool, I applied black to those areas of the image I did not want the original colour to be applied.


I dragged the original colour layer down to the New Layer button, which copied it. I changed the colour, selecting a pale blue, and then clicked in the mask area again to make it active. Since I wanted the blue applied to exactly the places in the image where the original green was masked out, I simply pressed CTRL+I to invert the mask. The blue was removed from the trees and applied to the water instead.


This is what the Layers palette looked like at this point.


Those are the basics of the PMC-IR technique. Obviously, more can be done; curves and levels can be applied to various layers to modify how the colours are applied, elaborate maskings are possible, as are subtler applications of colour to narrower ranges. But this, I'm sure, is enough to instruct you if you're inspired to give it a try. Hope so, because I think it's a really good use for the tonal ranges and unusual visions offered us by digital infrared photography. :)

Boo hoo, I'm rich...

This morning the front page of The Globe and Mail was concerned with the Tories renegging on a promise not to tax income trusts. The accompanying photo shows an old man who has, it says, lost $90,000 in investments as a result. The story goes on to tell the tale of another man, apparently already retired at 51, who has lost $100,000 as a result, which he claims to be 10% of his investment. He might have to look for a job, he says.

My first reaction was, wow... that's a lot of money.

But almost at once, it became... poor babies! We should all have such problems! I'm building an RRSP myself, and I expect I just lost some piece of it. But the Tories have pointed out that they did it because the projected income shortfall these shelters represent would have had to have been made up in increased income taxes.

The people affected by this change are pretty heavy-hitters on society. It's by and large the wealthiest who make the most and broadest use of society's infrastructure... multiple-vehicle families (often sporting the biggest and least fuel-efficient models) polluting the air, driving highways in constant need of repair on their way to and from cottages where they use public boat launches... or else use the airports to jet off to other countries (where they export cash at the same time), making sure they get back in plenty of time not to lose their medicare... Does it make sense to you that such people should be entitled to shelter large chunks of their wealth from paying for all that, when the corollary is that the people at the other end of the scale — people who often can't afford RRSPs and investment funds and income trusts — will have to pay more taxes, and in many cases to maintain infrastructure that they themselves never get to use? Is it fair that the wealthy and comfortable of our society should never have to compromise on their luxury, but that as a result the poorer among us should have to live lives that much meaner, that much further from even the hope of such luxuries as others take for granted? Does the upper-level manager who makes bonuses and perks really work harder than the waitress who's on her feet eight hours a day making minimum wage? Or is he just paid more? Does sitting around for forty years pushing beans really entitle you to hide more of your income from society than forty years of slinging hash, especially when the disparity is largely due to the fact your family could afford to send you to university in the first place and the waitress's couldn't?

Let's keep in mind that we, as individuals, owe nearly everything to the society in which we live. Without it, you're just some guy banging rocks together in the forest, listening to the wolves howl. 99.9% of everything any one of us has or achieves is based on the millions who came before us; when and where we happened to be born; who our parents were, what they already had, and the other advantages that had already accrued to them (which in turn were based on the same societal opportunities)... in short, virtually none of what any of us has or builds is based on some unique effort or personal virtue. Mostly, it's luck of the draw, and taking an advantage and running with it. If you're smart about it, you ought to benefit from it... but those benefits should not be absolute or infinite. The more you glean from your society, the more you owe back to it, both morally and materially. If you are in such a rarified position that you can lose $100,000 and still have a home, a car, and a future, please do not come crying foul to the society that made that possible when it requires you to contribute your fair share to maintain that same system now and into the future. You, above all, can afford to tighten your belt, where others cannot. There's a big, big difference between losing a pound of fat and losing a pound of bone. I give the Tories, of all people, full credit for acknowledging that fact, instead of ignoring it and putting the onus for action on some other party down the line.

Father knows best

This morning on the way to work, I was momentarily slowed down by a truck parked at the side of a residential street. It was vacuuming up fallen leaves. It occurs to me that, in the springtime, the same crews will be out spreading fertilizers on the same patches of city greenery to keep them healthy.

So... we take away the leaves in the autumn... and artificially replace them with chemicals in the spring. All at vast expense. How nice of mankind... how did nature ever get along without us?

I was doing some work from home last night so I left here about 4:15. I didn't go home my usual way because I stopped at Blockbuster to rent some Sopranos DVDs. When I got to the last major intersection near my home, there was a big pickup truck stopped across our lane, and I could see people, just regular folks, attending to someone lying on the ground on the other side of the truck. I saw them covering him up. I had to turn into the gas station and wind my way home by the long route as a result. I was kind of shaken by it. But there's not a peep about in the news online, so far as I can see. You'd think even if the guy just wound up in the hospital, it would be noteworthy. A couple of things, though... I'm pleased that, despite the fact I have a camera just about permanently on my hip now, it scarcely occurred to me to use it at the time... but distressed that the idea crossed my mind almost as soon as the accident was out of sight. I even considered parking and walking up there. It wasn't a strong urge, but it was there, and I wish it weren't.