From Fish to Pixels.

Fish. The chicken of the sea some say. One thing I do know, is that it is the only "meat" that is prepared at my home. You see, my parents are pescetarians ( you can add this to your mental dictionary, no need to thank me). In their earlier years they did consume chicken and other meat, but they made a decision to only eat seafood many years before I was born. There is at any given time in the refrigerator, at least two types of fish or shellfish. If I had to choose, pink salmon might be my favorite. The fish pictured above is tilapia , its nutritional value cannot be underscored.. However, I am not a loyal follower of the sea as my parents. I place other sources of nutrition on my plate for sacrifice.

On to the reason for this post. Someday last week, mom was going to season some fish and asked if I knew how to do same. I gave a slick response, but the result was her showing me anyway.

There are two methods of seasoning fish, quick and dirty or long and precise. Both methods require your use of lime or vinegar to remove some of the "freshness" of the fish.  Quick and dirty is exactly  what it means. You purchase a bottle of fish seasoning from the grocery and smother it all over your unseasoned fish and you are done. The bottle contains various seasoning spices and to me it removes the fun that could be had from the L + P method. You can "fridge" it, or throw it in your non stick frying pan or grill. L + P requires specific steps. All the spices are added individually and because the potency of some are stronger than others, the quantity added varies. The difference between the two methods are the application of the spices and I have a feeling that the taste differs as well.

After mom showed be the ropes I decided to write it in my sketchbook. I used some whimsical icons for each step and it got me thinking I could transpose this information into a digital format !

The image above shows two things. On the left is the scan of my sketchbook and on the right is my first   attempt at a digital translation. You can see the digital layout is identical to the sketch. At first I was going to make near exact replicas of the symbols in the original, but I changed my mind. Some elements were kept such as the ice cube, but the regular fish in an ice cube wasn't hitting home. I wanted something special. I could have put an illustration of Ice Cube's face in there, but then people would think I'm a cannibal. The fact that I didn't specify what my other sources of nutrition above were, makes me all that more suspect. When I was finished, I sent my graphic art cousin a copy to get some feedback. His site here. Which brought me to attempt numero dos. A cleaner, more breathable layout, compared to my first attempt. Thanks Cuz.

This is only the beginning of these digital montages. Who knows, I might make this into a series. Sounds a bit fishy if you ask me.

Week in review

This week flew. Took mom to see Avengers for her birthday on Tuesday. She was heavily entertained and praised the movie for how good it was and how the subtle humor was skillfully placed within points in the movie. Her favorite scene was the "encounter" between Hulk and Loki. I think that was everybody's favorite scene. Was out with mother for the rest of the week running errands and mall visits, but I went to Maracas beach for some bake and shark. For those who don't know what bake is, it is bread, but instead of being placed in the oven, it is fried. It is the delicacy of choice when going to this particular beach. You cannot go to Maracas beach without having a bake and shark. Besides getting some food in the belly, the trip was also about catching up with a friend. Friday I went to West Mall, for the first time since I came back home and I just took a couple pics/sketches of things that interested me such as the handrail/balustrade detail pictured below.  Didn't get all the technical aspects of the week's goals done, but I did get my portrait project rolling with my film camera. Hope the coming weeks see me completing more of my goals.

New old media

As stated in yesterday's post, one of my summer goals is improving my photography as well as experimenting with different media. I always found film cameras and film on a whole to be "cool." The whole process of developing film and see it materialize in front of your very eyes always interested me, but not enough for me to set up a darkroom and search for the required materials and chemicals for developing. For now I'd rather send film to a shop and get the prints or just ask for them to develop the film and I scan the negatives myself. Of lately film has been pulling at my strings as the Youtubers and and blogs I follow deal heavily with the topic. Here a couple of my favorites ( Mijonju http://bit.ly/KPHEs5 & Japan Camera Hunter http://bit.ly/noQCIe) I tried resuscitation my dad's Pentax Superprogram he bought twenty years ago but to no avail. He said he carried it by the "best man to fix it", which I doubted at first, but I carried my 50D to him to fix one of the dials and he did an excellent job. So the Pentax is just a paperweight, a pretty one. One camera that my dad has that still works, is a Canon Ixus Z65, introduced in 2001. It uses APS sized film, which is a little smaller than regular 35mm film (pictured below), and has a couple neat features, such as indicators on the bottom, that tells you whether the film is in use or has reached the end of the spool. I intend to experiment with this camera and will post my findings.

Been Gone

When I started this blog, I believed that I would make regular updates. Such was the dream I had, and after a couple or so posts, this blog started to gather dust. It is summer now and I now have more time than before to make posts. Some goals I have for this summer are reading and viewing more Architectural literature, getting better at sketching, definitely improving my photography, seeing more of my country and meeting new people. One major project I wish to see completed, is to build a shelter design for the homeless in my backyard. It's a tall feat which includes making proper working drawings as well as securing capital to purchase materials. I also wish to do an internship at a firm I interned at before. Hope these things work out. The picture below is of a Spawn No.5 I picked up at a comic book fare at the local mall.