Do you know what day it is?

Why, it's World Tapir Day! (But you knew that, right?)

Do you know what World Tapir day is?

Neither do I. But you can find out all about it at this link. In a nutshell, I think it's basically to raise awareness about preserving tapir habitat and keeping these little critters with huge noses from going extinct.

Interesting Topic of the Day: Polaroid Manipulation

Today's interesting topic is Polaroid Manipulation.

Polaroid Manipulation is, in short, a sort of old-school, analog Photoshop. You know those old-style Polaroids that come out wet, start black and then develop into color, and that you apparently aren't supposed to shake to dry? Well, if you do shake it while it's still drying, you'll come out with a surreal, wavy, wiggly, painting-like picture, that looks almost like a reflection in water. Shaking it different ways results in different patterns of waviness. People have turned shaking the little pictures into a sort of art, telling how you have to shake just the right way to achieve just the desired effect.

The fall picture is a good example of a photo that was truly "shaken like a Polaroid peec-tchah!"



Another way people can manipulate Polaroids is with a toothpick or something of the sort, scraping the dye off in places to achieve another kind-of painting effect. They can outline things, shade things, make things look like snow, make random borders... This way of manipulating Polaroids requires slightly less practice and slightly more creativity and drawing talent. Even though it may at first sound inferior to the wiggly-wobbly picture produced by shaking a Polaroid, you can do some really awesome stuff to your photos that way, too. A good example of a scraped Polaroid is the picture of the lamp.




(photos from here and here, if you check out the Flikr pools they're in, you can find some other really cool manipulated Polaroids, too)

Observe the radish in its natural habitat...

I know you've all been wondering one simple question- what do radishes dream about?

They dream about their native Radlandia which they were so cruelly captured from, of course. (the name Radish means from Radlandia, just like French mean from France)

Just look at this rare photo of radishes in the wild- if you were from there, wouldn't you want to be back too?(photo source)