words & media by dylan o'donnell
blogging from byron bay, australia
Baby Nicolas
Baby Nicolas[CC] Creative Commons Dylan O'Donnell 2010
CATEGORY: Photos - Portraits
VIEWS: 1556
UPLOADED: 2012-02-04 [ enlarge ] [ download jpg ]
Today I met my cousin's five month old son, Nicolas. He inherits our diverse family ethnicity including Portuguese, Burmese, English and Italian, as well as his mother's French and German ancestry. It was great to meet such a well tempered, engaging little boy. In post processing I tightened the levels, slightly shifted the colour balance for extra warmth and used a second layer gaussian blur with a radial gradient mask. Finally, I added unsharp mask (slightly feathered) to his big brown eyes!
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Milky Way GIF
[PD] [Public Domain] Dylan O'Donnell 2010[ enlarge ] [ exif ] [ download jpg ]
UPLOADED : 2012-01-21
CATEGORY : Photos - Astrophotography
VIEWS 4646
My first fleeting attempt at a time-lapse astrophotography animation. 30 second exposures for about 15 minutes. I was pleasantly surprised to find a galaxy (NGC2070, The Large Cloud Of Magellan) and shooting star clearly visible in the frame. It would be great to do something like this in 1080p HD over a couple of hours. Very impressed with the Nikon's low light capabilities and relative lack of ISO and heat noise in the original uncompressed files.
Brisbane Night Traffic (Animation)
[PD] [Public Domain] Dylan O'Donnell 2010[ enlarge ] [ exif ] [ download jpg ]
UPLOADED : 2011-12-31
CATEGORY : Photos - Man Made
VIEWS 7121
So I got a new camera! A Nikon. Yes, I understand my Canon readers are unsubscribing in disgust right now. This animation is made from 12 of the 600+ frames I shot using the in-built intervalometer looking out of my hotel window. Using manual settings I set the shutter to 4 second exposures every 5 seconds to create the light streaks. If you'd like to see a video reel of my first few moments of testing this DSLR go to this youtoube video, where you'll catch a glimpse of a very pregnant Anna as well.
Lightning over North Byron Bay Railway Crossing
[PD] [Public Domain] Dylan O'Donnell 2010[ enlarge ] [ exif ] [ download jpg ]
UPLOADED : 2011-10-30
CATEGORY : Photos - Weather
VIEWS 17477
There's nothing like a perfect-conditions lightning storm to compel me to pickup the camera from the bottom of the closet and blow the dust off. I spent some time taking photos ON the railway track before I realised that probably isn't very smart during an electrical storm so I moved aside. This is a combination of two frames merged as HDR (High Dynamic Range). The second frame had the sign lit by a passing car's headlights which makes the whole photo seem very evenly illuminated, though I was standing in near pitch darkness.
Unique Business Card Design
[PD] [Public Domain] Dylan O'Donnell 2010[ enlarge ] [ exif ] [ download jpg ]
UPLOADED : 2011-10-17
CATEGORY : Design
VIEWS 3814
I got given a terrible business card the other day that looked like a primary school craft project. It did however, have the guy's face on it. I saw him a few months later at the local hardware store and I remembered his face, his name, and his business!
So, I wanted to try a design concept based around this idea, but using transparent card stock and holographic foil. This first experiment turned out ok! Surprisingly, it's not very expensive either.
zen10 Monk Illustration
[PD] [Public Domain] Dylan O'Donnell 2010[ enlarge ] [ exif ] [ download jpg ]
UPLOADED : 2011-09-20
CATEGORY : Design
VIEWS 6917
I'll probably be posting a bit of design stuff now and then (sorry photo nerds), as well as other stuff I'm into. This is a quick vector illustration I did today with a stock photo as a reference for Melbourne website design company zen10 who I do loads of work for. This was done with the pen tool with mostly straight lines and shapes and a few art brushes thrown in on the edges. Subtle transparent layers of colours and shading were added for a bit more depth.
a rainbow flavoured monologue
from byron bay, nsw australia
Computers Today - A Perspective.
February 14th
Remember when we landed a man on the moon on a rocket called Apollo?
The Apollo Guidance Computer (AGC) that landed man on the moon had 36k of read-only memory and 2k of “ram”.
To put it in perspective.. here is a JPG photo of a kitten that is almost equivalent in file size to the entire computing power on the Apollo spaceship that landed man on the moon.
This file is 41k
Think about that next time you complain your first gen iPhone 3G is only 16 gigabytes .. about 440,000 times more capacity than the computer that landed man on the moon.
Tags: apollo, computers, kitten, memory
Posted in Humour, Nerdy Stuff | No Comments »
How to Opt Out of Getting Yellow Pages in Australia
February 2nd
Every year they drop the yellow pages on my doorstep and every year I’m filled with bitter disappointment for the sheer volume of waste this bygone era of information delivery has wrought on the world.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Other | No Comments »
Human Universals - A List of Human Stuff
December 15th
Donald E Brown, an American anthropologist and scholar, took the time a few decades ago to compile a list of things that all human races appear to have in common. I remember finding this list online a few years ago and pouring over it.
One of the topics that has always interested me is the question of what it means to be human. This list doesn’t answer that question and these things are not uniquely human, but we do appear to share them across disparate cultures. The modern office worker and the Eastern Eurpean cave man’s commonality is documented here, and it’s wonderful.
Tags: donald e brown, human, human universals
Posted in Other, Writing, dylans-bookmarks | No Comments »
Byron Bay, Wategos Sunset Phallus
December 11th
From the prehistoric cave walls, to ancient roman graffiti, to modern art and culture.. is there nowhere on earth that isn’t improved with the addition of an impromptu phallus, complete with vein lines and pubic scribbles?
Tags: beach, byron bay, penis
Posted in Byron and Surrounds, Humour, Photography | No Comments »
Running a Business in Byron Bay
December 7th
So I know it must seem like I’ve been pretty quiet. I used to give you guys the excuse that I had to study, but now my masters is finished I’ve no such excuse. I can say however that behind the scenes I had spent some time in negotiations for my business, DNA Digital a local australian web design company.
Rather than explain it, I’ll just link the Northern Star’s reporting of it. (Click Here to Read “Couple Weave’s Own Web” from Northern Star Newspaper) There was an official press release you can find on the DNA Digital site too. The only things I’d clarify is that I’ve been in business for 10 years, not 2 and Your Name was not a “rival”, but run by a great colleague and peer of mine.
Suffice to say running the business from Byron Bay this last year has been excellent. Mostly because of the food. I must have put on 4 kilos. Such GOOD food mere footsteps from my office is a dangerous thing to my health. No packed lunch for me. I often walk on the beach before, during or after work and love that clients are all too happy to drop in when they are on holiday. I think I see them even more regularly now than I used to!
I’m going to try and write more often. Even if it’s just interesting tidbits here and there, and not necessarily rambling discourses. Take it easy!
Tags: australian web design, byron bay, dna digital, running a business
Posted in Byron and Surrounds, Site News | No Comments »
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