The Royal Caribbean Gigapixel Project (UPDATED!)

Hey all you StudioBurns fans!
We just finished processing all the gigapixel panoramas (130 of them) from our big trip on the world’s largest passenger ship, Royal Caribbean’s Liberty of The Seas, documenting the behind the scenes stuff you never get to see, for an immersive training program being put together by Becker Multimedia.
We put this little site together with just a few selects to show people what the heck we were doing out there on the high seas.
Enjoy!

http://guywelch.com/royal_caribbean_gigapixel_project/

Have a Beer with Jay Maisel

Recently I was lucky enough to host the legendary photographer, Jay Maisel. Jay was in town to speak at the Portfolio Center and later in the week at the Center for Design Studies. Between those dates, I invited my photographer friends who also contribute to the program at PC to come over to StudioBurns and meet the legend. I brought my photo students over as well and a great time was had by all. There was great concern at first about gathering so many huge egos into a confined space (spontaneous combustion, over-consumption of oxygen, etc.), but everyone survived the photoshoot executed by Stephanie Richardson.The term ‘herding cats’ comes to mind, but in this case it was more like ‘deaf cats on crack’. Good job whipping ‘em into shape, Steph!

 

 

dirty feet- spraypaint- absolute joy

my spraypainted feet in the spraypainted grass

Just for the joy of it, I have taken up painting~ I hope that my joy in the work spreads through the work itself and becomes a beautiful contagion (contagion- a noun- a thing that is contagious). I have no formal training and avoided painting for a long time choosing chalk pastels in my more artistic moments. How can I take myself too seriously when I’m covered up to my elbows in colorful dust? Painting always seemed formal and the technique transparent, in my case, showing my complete and utter ignorant ineptitude. I am willing to risk ineptitude these days, choosing the joy of creation over talent!I welcome painting buddies… I will welcome the most talented of painters but may show some bias in my attentions toward the painterly weak (the fullest of smiles belongs here)…..

Under the Tuscan Sun

It’s hard thankless work, but somebody has to do it. Crawling around in vineyards getting grape juice on your shoes. Risking skin cancer under the Tuscan Sun. And to think I could have taken a nice safe corporate job with health insurance, a 401k  and my own fluorescent lit cubicle! Will I ever learn?!!

How to Become a Published Author

Recently, I shot a series at a church in my neighborhood. I had to put a collection together for a grant proposal and ended up liking the collection enough that I wanted to make a book. I had seen Blurb books at an APA event and decided to give the process a try. It was hard not to get a little giddy when I got the book in the mail. It’s a professionally bound hardback book complete with a dust jacket! There are some limitations. The print quality isn’t like it just came off of your epson, and there are limitations to layout and color choices. But all in all it is a fun process with a great product! If you don’t want to put one together just to see what the quality is like, you can always order one of mine! 

 

Last Tango in Buenos Aires

Tonight we went to the private home of Alejandro for dinner. It’s a beautiful apartment on the twelfth floor across from the racetrack. It was like a Latin version of a Woody Allen party. Tessa sang Opera, Enrique gave Suzanne Tango lessons and sang Tango. Alejandro and Enrique cooked risotto and vegetables for the crowd while we drank wine from Luigi Bosca. Later on a film director and crew from Buenos Aires, Barcelona and Hollywood showed up and told us about the film they’re making called ‘Negro Buenos Aires’ about the 2001 crash in Argentina. 

Travel tip #25

If it smells like shit, check your wallet. If you have a weak stomach, stop reading now. If you like a good laugh in a yeewwww sort of way, continue. I had heard of this pick-pocket technique just before I went to Madrid. Somebody comes up from behind and throws shit on you. While you’re busy being grossed out and wondering w.t.f. just happened, a good samaratin or two appear with napkins to help you clean up. Before you know it, they’re gone and so is your wallet! If I hadn’t been out with my new Argentine amigos until 4 a.m. and had had my Cafe con leche, I would have been thinking faster and maybe avoided a little trouble. Oh well, these people are as poor as dirt and they need it more than I do. Now I can just smile knowingly when someone tells me they’re ‘having a shitty day’.

Street Tango in Buenos Aires

Fred and Ginger got nothing on Francisca y Eduardo. I caught up with them in Plaza Dorrego, the oldest plaza in Buenos Aires, where they perform the Tango several times a week. It was stunning to watch them (and not get run over)!

Travel tip #24

Have small bills with you for taxi rides. If you have to pay with a large peso, you may get this for change….the counterfeit ink looks extra special after it comes out of your soaking wet wallet! It will make great journal decoration!

iphone and imac not on speaking terms

I just got a shiny new iMac which is just waiting to be cluttered to death… part of the cluttering process is transferring clunky data from all sorts of other places. In this case, I decided I would attempt to transfer my address book info from my iPhone to my iMac wirelessly. I was all excited as this was my first real experiment with bluetooth technology… so I set everything into motion. Voila, my computer sees my phone but for some reason my phone does not see my computer. There were plenty of tutorials on how to get your bluetooth device to connect to your iMac… but I had already completed all the steps… so I called Apple…It turns out.. get this…. it turns out that the iPhone isn’t set up to “talk” to other apple devices. Huh… it’s a snobby little gadget that will only talk to headsets… we might be able to fix this if we all ban together and send them letters (www.apple.com/feedback). What good is it being an Apple junkie if the club is purely aesthetic?