Space, 1999
Jul. 28th, 2009 12:00 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
imomus
Ten years is a long time in digital camera design, so when Hisae decided to refurbish her old Nikon Coolpix 950 it felt more like time-traveling back to 1969 than 1999 -- especially with the optional fisheye lens adaptor screwed into place.A camera that, ten years ago, seemed light and expensive now seems heavy and cheap, and its 2 megapixel sensor doesn't seem anything like as spacious now as it did back then. But there's no denying the quality and quirk of the images you can get with this Nikon, once you've slipped in four AA batteries (they'll last about 30 minutes before they need replacing), screwed the lens adaptor into its mount, and twisted the rugged swivel-body into action.
Here's a fisheye documentation of our living space via the kind of lens usually reserved for Apollo capsules and Stanley Kubrick (or, for a more 1999-era reference, Chris Doyle) films.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2009-07-28 04:48 pm (UTC)I like the way the window opens into the room (easy to clean). Do you ever have to use the air conditioner? I also like the cozy corner you have created between the radiator and the computer, must be nice in winter.
My room seems much more stuck in the '80s, which is fine by me. I've mentioned the Shaker night stand and Noguchi lamp. There is also an antique mexican bookshelf (red) and a kind of aqua blue mexican hutch with a wire screen front. They are both painted in the style where it is obvious that the pieces have been painted many times over and the different base colors show through the scratches. On top of it is a lamp made of fish vertebrae my older sister made in the 70s. With a hand painted shade. Most of one wall is covered by a numbered print by Finster of a large red leopard with his wild writing all over it and the background color is the most lovely pale green which always gives me a shiver when I look at it, There are some chinese lanterns too and an antique fan.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-07-28 04:53 pm (UTC)fragrant harbour* star ferry*
Date: 2009-07-28 05:12 pm (UTC)Re: fragrant harbour* star ferry*
Date: 2009-07-28 05:13 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-07-28 09:51 pm (UTC)When I used to visit Peru, in Iquitos, I would frequent an open air market on the banks of the Amazon which sells everything from chopped up monkey parts to white larval grubs the size of your fist to barrels of coca leaves. One stall specializes in two things - the wings (sans body) of the blue morpho (http://www.tropicalwings.co.uk/bluemorpho.html) butterfly, and the wings of a large beetle (forgotten the name) which are a deep translucent emerald. Bucketfuls of them. The village children trap them in nets and mercilessly pull the wings off while they are still alive. I couldn't figure out what they were for at first until my Peruvian friend explained that the local women use their fingers to rub the blue off of the wings and apply it as eye shadow. The beetle wings are hung with a thin wire and used as earrings. It was the local cosmetics and jewelry counter :) So over the years I brought back as many as I could stuff into an empty suitcase (it always made me smile to write down butterfly wings on the customs form) and painstakingly glued them, piece by piece, like fish scales, onto the wall of my room. One half is an ethereal, shimmering blue moving into a deep, liquid emerald on the other side. When I have my pink chinese lanterns lit up (they are strung on a line up near the ceiling) the effect is simply amazing. If I do say so myself.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-07-29 12:37 am (UTC)