Onesies and the future

click photo to enlarge
"The trouble with our times is the future is not what it used to be."
Paul Valery (1871-1945), French essayist, poet and critic

In the 1960s we had a vision of what our future would hold for us. There would definitely be flying cars. Food would come in the form of pills or some kind of gloop eaten out of toothpaste-like tubes. There would be videophones rather than telephones, and space flight would be commonplace.

As I've grown older all of these have come to pass. I read that there are now cars that can fly, babies and young children regularly suck some sort of goo from plastic sacs with spouts, phones and computers offer video and speech communication, rockets blast off weekly and bookings are being taken for space tourism. It would seem that the future has arrived. However, until recently there was one prediction that hadn't come to pass. That 60s future had people wearing what we then called "jump suits" - an all in one item of clothing, rather like tight overalls that covered the body from the neck to the ankles. But, with the arrival of the "onesie", the final piece of the jigsaw is in place and the future is definitely upon us - take that Paul Valery! Of course, for the full and complete version of that future to be a reality does require that this item of youth fashion be extended to people of all ages. So, I've ordered my onesie and I feel sure that you have too.

The future that was predicted fifty years ago missed quite a few everyday developments that have become commonplace. The big one is the internet and the world wide web. But, items such as ceramic bladed knives, car satnav and talking bus stops were also unforeseen by the futurologists, novelists, sages and seers when they looked into their crystal balls. So too were the wide range of new man-made materials including the non-slip type used in cupboard and drawer matting by caravan owners, motorhomers and others. Today's photograph shows a view down the interior of a roll of this material that we've been using to stop our granddaughter's tray slipping off the table. As you will have worked out if you read the previous post, the photograph was taken after I'd put it on an Android tablet that I was using as a light table. Unfortunately the colour of my piece of material is battleship grey, so to give the shot a bit more impact I added a digital 2-colour filter.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: LX3
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 5.1mm (24mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f2
Shutter Speed: 1/30
ISO: 200
Exposure Compensation:  0.33
Image Stabilisation: On

Tablets, light tables and wax crayons

click photo to enlarge
When I was young a comic that I bought often featured a quiz. One of the popular categories consisted of photographs or drawings of everyday objects seen from unusual angles. A ball point pen, for example, might be shown from a viewpoint where the tip pointed directly at you and would consist of a hexagon enclosing a large circle with a couple of smaller concentric circles inside. A teapot seen from directly above would be a large circle (the body) with two smaller circles within it (the lid and the central lid handle), and a couple of bars projecting from opposite sides (the spout and the handle). You get the idea. I recall competing against friends to see who could draw a commonly found object in such a way that its identity couldn't be guessed. Simple pleasures, happy days!

We have in our house, at the moment, a new, clear plastic tub of short, wide, wax crayons. They are for some young children to use. When I looked at the tub from above the other day I was reminded of that childhood game and an idea for a photograph popped into my mind. A photograph from directly above might have colour, shape and interest if I lit it imaginatively. And with that thought, particularly the word "imaginatively", I made a connection with something I'd been pondering for a while. We have an Android tablet and it had occurred to me recently that it would make a useful light table for photographing small objects. The problem was I didn't know how to make it display a completely white screen. However, that little problem was solved in a eureka moment when I realised that if I opened a PDF and turned to a blank page I'd have just what I wanted. There must be a more elegant solution to that problem but I was entirely happy with my easy-to-realise answer.

So, here is the resulting photograph. It was taken quickly, hand-held. It's not the best macro shot I've ever done, but is a useful forerunner and test for what I hope will be better images using the tablet as a light table.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 100mm macro
F No: f6.3
Shutter Speed: 80 sec
ISO: 1250
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On