Overlooking Prague, originally uploaded by ghostmonk.

I used Camera Raw almost exclusivly for this effect. I reversed the lense vignette, shifted the Lab Colors to green and yellow, and played with the saturation and color channel settings quite drastically. (The channel settings make photo correction and manipulation a pleasure)

This type of conversion may not be for everyone, but I like the end effect.

If you check out my flickr account (by clicking this photo), you will be able to see a few other examples that use a similar effect.

Alien Car Parts, originally uploaded by ghostmonk.

This was a weird little piece of Art Tracey and I stumbled upon while roaming around Amsterdam.

It was in a tiny street-side window, with no indication of who, what or why it was done. Just a tiny hidden treasure for the acutely perceptive.

I’ve been doing quite a  bit of thinking lately on ideas around open source and cooperative social integration on a major scale. Interesting enough, on Friday the 13 Indusblue held a meeting of online professional to discuss collaboration between interactive professionals in Toronto.

It was a productive, well attended ad-hoc meeting with the basic goal to develop more open sourced ways of creating and producing excellent ideas.

What follows is a general brain dump of my ideas after this meeting. (more…)

So as the title implies, I have just started a series on the indusblue blog about the notions of a “Free Economy”.

The idea to write these articles has actually been festering for sometime now. It happened a few years ago in a one-off fashion while I was listening to a talk where Noam Chomsky described the tenets of Anarcho-syndicalism. The idea of a society centralized in the notion of creative endeavour and free from Wage-labour struck a very strong chord with me.

However, it wasn’t until I recently read an interview with Chris Anderson who was describing the main premise of his expected book “Free”, that the whole thing became clear.

Chomsky’s idea of anarchy is hard pressed to be labeled at all. In fact it reads more like an idea of natural organic growth possible in stable societies. The theory acts so similar in function to online communities like Flickr that the correlation is unmistakable, and given Chomsky’s overwhelming disdain for all things oppressively capitalist, this alternative, if possible, leads to very large and powerful conclusions.

I don’t want to give too much away right now, but I’m working on it, and I hope you take the time to visit Indusblue’s blog to get the whole skinny. Keep an eye on my indusblue profile or subscribe to the RSS.

Vented grit, embraced generalizations. Forceful vice of lazy minds. Future is uncertain, blue rage grips the moment and limps ahead mightily without wane yet without circumference. Empty waif, a general phantom etching shadows on the cold cavernous walls.

Preamble, ramble, twittered, and bedeviled, full-head long onerous somersaults amongst herds of jumpy Rhinoceros. Their struggling dumpy legs ensnared by the Savannah, Stone horns crashing into the earth, driving up the white parched bones of our ancestors. Reasoned memories.

Blunted and useless, foolish and wanting. So tempted in gentle dew covered garden, where the metallic soil spews dead noxious mercury, raptured by an ivory lily who defies its poisoned roots.

Sorrow plays a heavy hand in hope against hope.

I’ve just updated to WordPress 2.5, (which is beta and still under development), and it is sweet. Probably the most surprising thing for me the ease of switching.

I was running version 2.2 just 2 days ago, and all I had to do was swap out a bunch of files, run the update page, and presto, version 2.5 is sputtering along. Anyway, most of the changes are behind the scenes, and more for the owners/writers to enjoy.

The interface is simpler, more minimal, there’s a full-port writing mode, more plugins for the dashboard and quite a few other options. What a rush!… (Have I shown myself to be a geek yet?) I have noticed quite a few bugs, but nothing to shy away from. (more…)

A cross-breeze scent of pumpkin muffins laced in the rapture of cloves and cinnamon is the Lucid Embrace. And the herd lumbers toward their goal, linked together by the simple rules of emergence.

The beauty in the step, in the fractal necessity, is the familial hug. It illuminates the safe warmth of a guardian’s love.

(more…)

It takes three repetitions to absorb the vibrations… tangled weaving sounds, falling gently on tired burning synapses. In the vacillating motion of musical rhythm… release is being draped in the sinuous hosiery of temptation.

Zechy meconium & my beautiful baby-boy. Pattern recognition stops the wavering ether, and pushes eternity dangerously close to the singularity. A mouth-full of famous ideas swallowed and spit back up to depict the consciousness of the ape.

I mean: from chaos -> order arises -> intensifies -> implodes -> and then returns back to chaos

Circular fever, but the ape is the random variable. The specific mutation that excites the loop -> Pattern-Recognition attern-Manipulation.

Crunchy phantasmagoria, a chasm of delightful fanfare, and potential eternity.

There are hidden worlds in spectrums of blue that consume phantoms in tired ceremonies. Memories of giants playing in the forgotten wilderness float in the mist like funeral pollen, and the urgent want falls dormant on slender tongues . There is sweetness to the flourish, a gentle creeping that enraptures minds of sorrow.

A wet slug, with tittering tentacles, whinnies like a stallion before mounting a rock to stretch out its silken skin and absorb the atmospheric moisture.

Here is where brilliance is live saturation, and depth is a slow touching mineral glow.

It’s nice to look back once in a while and remember where humanity once was, to really put the present in perspective. Take advertising for instance. Socially, the politic isn’t as gullible as it once was, and many methods used to sell products of questionable sanity have since been increasingly regulated. (This can fall into a whole discussion on the balance of power, but I’ll spare you that rant for now). Take the ad at the left for instance. It looks like an early comp or mock-up for the “Socially Distinguished” cigarette Dunhill. First let me tell you where I found this ad.

My mother has this interesting ability to find value in the most unlikely of places.

For instance, she bought me a portfolio once upon a time so I could look for work. My mother, always in search of a great deal, bought the portfolio second hand. Now I don’t recommend using a second hand portfolio unless it really is top notch quality and appears to be fresh, new and slick. My mother is the type of person who can find a used item that fits this description, but as I said before, she has a unique ability. (more…)