More infrared & color blending.

The whole reason I was at the park (see previous post) was to get some pictures in both infrared and color for blending exercises.   This time I used the tripod, so the pictures would be identical, other than the mode the camera was in.  Here’s what I came up with.

This first set was blended with the infrared layer on top of the color one, and I got the color by erasing parts of the infrared layer.

Here I decided to take out some of the sky, turning it blue instead of grey.

These two were done without erasing, instead I used a mask on the top, infrared layer.  I used a linear mask here.

I used the wave mask on this one.

This second set I made with the color picture on top, and erased the color to show the infrared layer below.

And then replaced the erased areas and used the linear mask.

And the wave mask.

This last set I started with the color layer on top at 100%, fully covering up the infrared layer.

For this one, I set the color layer at 80% opacity, letting some of the infrared layer show through.

Then I moved the infrared layer on top, set it at 80% opacity and returned the color layer to 100%, letting the color barely show through.

Then I set the infrared layer back to 100%, completely blocking out the color layer.

The next step was to take a piece of the color layer, copy and paste it as a new layer on top, then erase the edges leaving only the part I wanted to show: the fire hydrant.

And now the Taco Bell sign.

Then I added the Taco Bell building.

The brick face of one of the buildings.

And then added the wave mask to all of that.

And finally, the linear mask.

And that’s what I did on this labor day.

Labor Day Fun

I took Old Blue out for his weekly drive and as I was driving through Sugarhouse Park it caught the eye of a kid about 8 or 9 years old.

As I came up next to him, he started running on the grass along the side of the road yelling “I want a car like that, I want a car like that,…”  Since I was in the park I was going pretty slow, he managed to stay up with me for about 6 car lengths.  Yelling all the way.

Before that, I was taking some pictures with the infrared camera, and had to break out the good camera and telephoto lens to get some pictures of this.

Parents, stuffing their kids into big bubble-balls and then pushing them down the hill. 

What is this world coming to, and why didn’t anyone think of this when I was a kid?

Anyone else think that looks a lot like what NASA used when they dropped the first Mars rovers on the planet?

Picture courtesy of NASA

And some say funding for space exploration has no practical applications.

Color, infrared and a blend.

I’m going to have to play more with the blending of the two, I kind of like that last one.

In a parallel universe…

Parallelism.  The theme for the week over at:

Seems like everywhere I look there are parallels.  My house and the house two doors down look like they were made from the same cookie-cutter plan back in 1912.  Almost half the streets in my city are parallel to each other, the other half parallel also but perpendicular to the first half.

But for this set, I’m going to with a wrought iron fence around the parking lot at an old elementary school, which is now offices for Westminster College,

the shelving holding the mess in my carport build onto the garage (I was going to clean it out this summer),

and my new classroom (before the kids showed up).

Click on the banner above and go check out all the other parallels in this universe.  And add your own too.

Lead a horse to water…

I’m a big fan of the Obamas, both Barack and Michelle.  I think they have brought a dignity to the White House that hasn’t been seen in decades.  (You may not agree with his policies, but you have to admit there have been a lot fewer embarrassing blunders than the last few presidents.)

And I wholeheartedly support Michelle’s campaign to have school lunches offer more healthy options for my students.  But, as often happens in education, the people who make the implementation protocols have little, if any, knowledge of how things work when you are dealing with hundreds of teenagers.

“You can lead a teenager to healthy food, but you can’t make ‘em eat it.” - Old English proverb, tweaked to fit this post.

Our lunch ladies are required to make each and every student take 2 servings of fruits or vegetables along with their entrée.  The students are not allowed to leave the line without them, and if even one does when we’re being audited, the school is fined the entire amount of our Federal Lunch Program funding for that day.

Sounds good?  Yeah.  Every student getting two servings of fruits and vegetables at lunch.  Theoretically, and excellent idea.

Can anyone guess what’s really happening in lunchrooms across America? (Other than me eating a lot more produce at lunch, because I like that kind of stuff.)

G’head, think about it.  I’ll wait. … … … … … … … …

Yup.  Our trash bins are filled with discarded fruits and vegetables.  And since fresh produce is more expensive, the serving size of the entrées is smaller.  This I know to be true, because I often do lunch duty and am down there in the lunchroom watching it all happen.

What I suspect is also happening is that the students are spending more money at the vending machines, eating food that is less nutritious than the entrée they had for lunch.  And I’d bet that high school students are going to the nearest fast food restaurant for lunch.

So, since every good bitching deserves a reasonable alternative, here are my suggestions:

• Have all those great fruits and vegetables available to the students, but don’t force them to take what they are just going to throw away.
• Continue to serve smaller portions of the entrée, which will make the students more inclined to choose and eat the fresh produce.  (Teens are more likely to eat something if it is their choice to take it instead of having it forced on them.)
• Use the money you’ll save by ordering less produce to make more nutritious entrées, not just go back to bigger portions.

Just a thought.