So, you've been doing all this thinking about why people put images on their blogs.
Yes.
And you reckon it's for lots of reasons. Sometimes it's for artpurposes, sometimes it's to documentan event. Sometimes the images are part of a portfolio.
Then for other people, the combination of words and images are the way the author prefers to express themselves.
Uh huh.
So... why do you have images on your blog?
Lots of reasons.
Lay a few on me.
Well, partly it's because I'm doing my studies at AIM so I feel like their should be a visual component to what I produce.
That makes sense.
Also, I wanted to makes something that felt like mine, something that wasn't just a template with words.
Well, really, the words make it yours too, not just the images.
Yes, I know. But I guess the images are quicker to define it as belonging to a particular person.
You don't use photos very often.
No. I use drawings mostly. I'm not a very good photographer, and I'm easily disappointed, so I tend not to take photos.
What other visual materials do you have on your blog?
Well, I have a comic strip that I use to discuss the things I'm thinking about. It's actually turned out to be a really useful thing.
A comic? I can't really imagine you doing a comic. Am I ever in it?
One of the most pleasant and useful things about conducting your research in a public forum is that people send you links. Yesterday Vlado sent me off into the weird animated world of magic robot, with its strange little Flash narratives and games which I enjoyed a lot.
Then Claire pointed me in the direction of witold Riedel who posts beautiful images like this and these from his moleskine diary. So lovely.
Claire also sent me a link to wish jar journal - Keri Smith's blog which often has illustrations included in the posts. This site lead me to doot doot garden, which is the portfolio site of Craig Thompson and has some great examples of comic strips that are playful with the form. I'm keen to get hold of his latest book Blankets which looks good.
Walking around the MCG this morning I noticed a line of chairs, in a row. Each chair had the name of someone who was waiting to buy finals tickets. This seems like cheating to me; either you are prepared to sit there and wait, or you take you chances, but leaving a chair in place of you does not seem like fair play.
Came across a group art blog (via ::: wood s lot ::: which would, incidentally, make a good subject for discussing images in blogs too) today. I thought it was a little disappointing - the contributors are not writing very frequently, especially as I think this is a project with a limited time frame. Still, an interesting idea.
The same site that hosts Salam Pax's photo blog (which hasn't been updated since July) has a number of other interesting sites, including G. - in Baghdad and turningtables (not updated since July.) I'm also quite taken with Dragan's Eye for the patterns and repetition. Oh, and desiring machine is good too, with shots of grafitti and images from the television.
Hey! Thieu's picture got an honourable mention on A Picture's Worth which is very nice. I didn't actually realise it had a competitive element. I agree with the photo that won - a moody and unusual shot.
Thieu returned from Vietnam at 5:50 am this morning. Matty D. and I drove out to pick him up. This meant getting up at 5 am, but it was worth it. I love going to the airport. I like how excited everyone is, waiting for their friends, I like the mini family reunions that go on around you. I like trying to predict which door your family member / friend is going to come through and the little stab of each disappointment you feel whenever it's not them. Then the delight when they actually do appear, looking slightly dazed, slightly tired. It's great.
Consequently, I am at work even earlier than my usual ridiculously early time. I suspect it will be rather a long day.
I spent seven hours yesterday reading various books on Visual Rhetoric, some of which was very interesting and helpful. Some wasn't, of course. I then watched American Pie on TV, and went to bed with a very, very addled brain.
I spent a lot of time reading The Society of the Spectacle which was great, but some of it I struggled to understand, however much I wanted to.
This in particular confused me:
The struggle between tradition and innovation, which is the principle of internal cultural development in historical societies, can be carried on only through the permanent victory of innovation. Yet cultural innovation is carried by nothing other than the total historical movement which, by becoming conscious of its totality, tends to supersede its own cultural presuppositions and moves towards the suppression of all separation.
I think I understand the first bit, that historical societies "progress" (economically, I guess) by continuing to invent new things (commodities?). And I think the second bit is talking about the failure of culture to progress in this same environment, but I'm really struggling to understand what he means by "moves towards the suppression of all separation ."
After a while, the words start to swim in front of my eyes....
Scott McCloud emailed me back! I'm ridiculously excited about this, especially as I spent most of Saturday finishing off Reinventing Comics. I often finish a book and think how much I'd like to chat with the author about it, but it's not very often that I then check my email account and find that they've sent me a message.
Research Blog Came across a new research blog through my webstats this morning: Creativity Machine. It has some really great posts in it, and it is elegantly designed, too.
