Here’s something very slightly interesting. You may have seen this aerial picture, taken by paragliding photographer George Steinmetz for the National Geographic, in 2008. It’s slightly odd at first glance because there’s no horizon or sky. It’s only after you realise that you’re looking at camel shadows not at camels, that the actual camels are the tiny foreshortened whitish streaks below each shadow, that it makes sense; and it’s still disconcerting to see ephemeral shadows describing solids in a much more convincing and informative way than the images of the objects themselves do.
With that in mind, I’ve taken lots and lots of pictures of Topsy and her shadow. I’ve found it to be much harder than I’d expected but on Monday it snowed, and with a white background and plenty of bright light I’m hoping there will be more opportunity to capture the interesting poses, though I still don’t know what I’ll make with them. Here’s a few of the ones I got yesterday:
Unlike the camels, these are foreshortened.
A Bad Guide 
I admit to a soft spot for Topsy. I like your photos too, and the camel extravaganza.
May I just warn you about feral pianos?
http://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/News/Slideshow-Cambridge-residents-snap-stunning-pictures-of-street-pianos-31102012.htm
Why do you call Topsy’s shadows “foreshortened” ? I would call them elongated. What does “foreshortened” mean anyway ?
Thanks, and you’re right about Topsy, she’s worth a huge soft spot. About the pianos: I enjoyed some of the videos and the pianos themselves were in tune and in good shape. They sound good in the echoey open air. They’ll need more than plastic wrapping if they’re going to keep them there. By the way, Edinburgh University is now first choice (this week, at least).
Stu, If you elongate in one dimension you’re foreshortening in the other. My photographs foreshorten along the axis between the camera and Topsy, and make the shadows elongated, as you say. We’re looking directly down on the camel shadows, so we see a fairly undistorted camel profile in that picture. Uccello was an early perspective foreshortening enthusiast; look at the carefully constructed figure in armour, lying in the left foreground, perpendicular to the picture plane, in this battle scene.
Ah well, it’ll be feral bagpipes then.
P.S. Warn her not to jump when the one o’clock gun goes off. People laugh.
Oh… this aerial picture is incredible! I just can’t understand it.
I love Topsy’s third picture, it seems she has a friend walking along her.
My cat had some “shadow’s problem” last week:
http://melioralatent.blogspot.com.ar/2012/10/platon-segismundo-for-cats.html
Ahhh, now I “see” how this really is:
Thanks for the warning about the gun (we’re going to check the place out in a few weeks, I think). Do you have to pay extra for feral bagpipes? Can anyone play the bagpipes – could Julia or I, for instance, just pick them up and start playing?
Julia, I love your cat drama.
When I was in school one of my classmates sketched Christ on the cross on a chalkboard before class. The figure was viewed from below, the feet bigger than the head and the whole vertical dimension decreased. Underneath he wrote “Oh, Lord, why have you foreshortened me?”
So art can be short, just like life. Dalí did a top-down take on that.
When I was at school one of my classmates sketched an animal with a long bulbous nose on the blackboard, and drew a speech bubble saying “Ah’m a dildo”.
http://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/News/Video-Child-prodigy-becomes-YouTube-sensation-after-street-piano-performance-01112012.htm
You had more clever schoolmates than me…
This Cambridge’s boy is amazing! (I’m listening him again right now)
I wouldn’t try to play the bagpipes even if they say I can do it, don’t worry.
I love his expression while he’s playing.
From Wikipedia:
That kid is really something!
Being outside is not the best for pianos. It is amazing that they took all these pianos out in the fall, with the risk of humidity, rain and cold. They will have to be tuned again when they get back outside.
Last week I saw a very good film about the life of Sibelius. At one point I was surprised that they had a piano in the middle of a meadow! I don’t know how realistic that would be.
I decided that they must have thought of something. It was all arranged by the university music school.
We have an electric piano; it would need dry weather before being taken outside. Headphones are the answer, these days, but it’s not the same sound as a live piano in a meadow, probably
I think that a live piano in a meadow would soon start to sound a little off.
There’s not much reverberation in a meadow, perhaps that’s why. I think you really need the resonance of a wood floor to do a piano justice.
Not only that, but the degree of humidity and the change of temperature between night and day play havoc with the strings and the little bits of wood and leather that hold the mechanisms between keys and strings together, so leaving a piano outside for some time will affect the tension of the strings and therefore the tuning.
I never thought of using the phrase “live piano” before. It is a much better one than “acoustic piano”. Perhaps the modern type should be called a “robotic piano” instead!
One could say that a musical instrument functions properly, or makes sense, only in certain environments appropriate to the type of instrument or to the specific instrument. In a concert hall with poor acoustics, it might be hard to tell whether a Stradivarius or a fiddle is being played.
In a similar way, animals, words and any other kind of things need certain environments to be what they are. Too little food, the animals die. Too much noise or a speaker with an unfamiliar accent, you can’t hear the words. Too much humidity, the piano bites the grass.
We’re used to hear it in places with certain acoustics, so it’s fun to hear a piano in an unusual environment.
Yes, when you are used to something you take it for granted, in the sense that you tend not to notice it. Various aspects of the piano/not-piano distinction can be brought to the attention by special means (“not-piano” is a loose term for players, composers, performing venue, people who like to hear piano music, people who are not interested in pianos etc – all things that are not a piano, and therefore help to define what a piano is).
Remember the “prepared piano”? That is an unusual piano in a standard environment. Here (to hear it, you need RealPlayer installed in your browser) is a study for player piano by Conlon Nancarrow.
I didn’t know the name “prepared” piano, but we used to do that sort of thing at school. It’s the same principle as a bottleneck guitar. Player pianos – what I’d call pianolas – sound very mechanical, which itself is a composer’s opportunity, I suppose. I hadn’t heard of Conlon Nancarrow. A great name! I can’t play the link, but I’ll try to find it elsewhere.
Here is that study on youtube.
Thanks. There’s a good youtube half-hour radio documentary about him too: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SscdI6xWHp8&feature=related
He tried cooking his own goldfish (that sounds like a euphemistic metaphor for something).
The female speaker at the beginning of the docu says – if I am hearing it right – that with the player piano “you can create very thick, lugubrious scoring”. I wonder whether she knows what “lugubrious” means. Wagner created scorings that could be called “thick”, but they’re not dismal (except in the sense of godawful – I can’t stand the stuff).
I heard that. I just assumed she knew what it meant, but your interpretation (that she didn’t) is more interesting. Maybe she meant viscous.
I’m not wild about Wagner either.
Yes, something like viscous. Maybe she meant mucilaginous, or luxurious.
Nancarrow’s last wife was Yoko Nancarrow.
I’m now listening to the rest of the docu. Nancarrow’s accent is cute, as of someone who grew up in the Bronx and in Mexico. However, he hails from Texarkana.
I felt his voice didn’t go with Yoko’s description and the music and the rest (the goldfish eating). It was too round, it ought to have been high & whiny.
I’ve seen a report of complaints that a new film involving Lincoln has had him played with a high & whiny voice. The feeble excuse offered is that people at the time commented on his high & whiny voice.
Did he eat goldfish? They never mention that.
It might explain his unusual height.