what did we make: words imposed on real life

In my travels across the Internet I invariably come across really meaningful text that someone has come up with superimposed on (typically using the font Helvetica) some very pretty, abstract image of nature, city lights, a beautiful girl or otherwise gentle and mysterious photo. I can’t imagine a better way to fuse the words in your head and the things you see then by putting the two exactly on top of each other to express your deep, throbbing emotions.

Thus I decided I had to have words in real life too. How could anyone know a photo would look nice with text on it unless you were able to test it out first? Here's how you can go about putting words into your everyday lives and make them even more insightful.

All you need are:
- a couple of transparencies
- an Ikea photoframe (or any photoframe) – even multiple photoframes if you like!
- sticker letters. Make sure they’re Helvetica!
- a black sharpie. Your words don’t need color to ooze feeling.
- a pencil and scissors

1. Trace the plastic in your frame on your transparency with a pencil.

2. Have your meaningful insight ready!

3. Using your sharpie or sticker letters express your thought on the transparency however you like.

4. Cut out the transparency, put it in the frame and take as many photos with it as you please. Or just use it to make sure what you’re about to take a photo of really does look good with text placed on top of it. Bonus points for using a DSLR. Extra bonus points for using a lomography camera and then scanning it into your computer. Incredibly extra bonus points for using a polaroid camera to capture your text on the photo.

Now go see your own deep thoughts in reality and imposed on images!


If you like what I had to write on my transparencies you may purchase the set of 5 for the unbeatable price of $10! If you think I’m better at this than you are then drop me an email and I’ll create your own customized set of 5 with whatever words you want!


Check out more photos on Flickr.

what did we restart

image via ryumu
is queued on tumblr for sometime the next two days.

so here i have pulled out all the stops of online social networking and public interaction.

i've restarted using my tumblr.

some percent (though the url is titled the same as this blog - whatdidwe)

and it's nice, as i explained to dearskye (when i reference you, would you prefer me to link to your tumblr/blogspot/other location? - here it leads to your tumblr since we're on the subject already, heh) in a recent post - tumblr is simple and quick and i can queue posts endlessly to post endlessly while i go about my day (which is also a tiny bit eerie but mostly convenient and cool)

also. who doesn't love a good image? or a good reblogged image? or just somewhere to share what you look at and light up inside about or look at and immediately respond and have to tell someone even if it is just typing out what you're thinking into unanswering cyberspace.

as you have noticed. i have added here a seemingly random image. it adds interest to this large amount of text and is also slightly related in that it is queued on my tumblr as well.

edit// also the bunny makes me smile

what did we search

does anyone remember my post from may 23rd "what did we invent"?

well it's reality.



TinEye is a reverse image search engine launched early this year and apparently very successful at what it does. you upload an image or plug in the image location and tineye attempts to find it wherever it exists on the interweb. it searches for the specific image uploaded and not the content in the image (which i still dream of happening one day) and their database is still quite small in comparison to the vastness of the internet's contents. but it works! (unfortunately the images i pick to search for must be far too obscure still...wish i could figure out the credits for these images...)

check out this blog post by idee (the company that created tineye) demonstrating the catching of some blatant lying regarding photo credits. this is tineye's explanatory page on the idee website.



"TinEye is like speculative fiction, that is, it meets Clarke's Third Law. 'Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.'" - David Crow