Random tangent (blog)
Ameel Khan's personal blog. This is a blog about life, technology, photography, typography, the internet, science, feminism, books, film, music, and whatever other random stuff I come across or happen to be interested in today.
Someone in my neighbourhood has the best plans for this gorgeous sunny morning. Whoever they are, I hope they have a lovely day.
Photo of a brightly coloured lawn chair and a raised dog bed lying in the front garden of a house. It’s a bright, sunny morning and the chair is set facing the sun.
So my gluten free lockdown lasagna turned out okay :)
Photo of cheese, well-browned lasagna that’s fresh out of the oven and is cooling on a rack on a kitchen counter.
Working from the office today – with indoor mask restrictions back in place across Melbourne – is going about as expected. #tumbleweeds
Selfie of a man wearing business attire and a face mask. The man is standing in an open plan office with all the desks behind him unoccupied.
(To be fair there are about ten people working on this floor, they’re just mostly on the other side of the building.)
On the plus side I got to wear my all-blue work ensemble, including a blue face mask, so that was nice. That’s, like, the opposite of the regular pandemic blues :)
Mirror selfie of a man standing in a lift. The man is wearing business attire: black leather shows, a navy blue suit, a blue check shirt, a blue sweater, and a blue face mask. He is carrying a brown leather bag.
The walk to the train station early this morning was lovely too.
Selfie of a man in front of a public garden and netball court, both of which are empty. The man is wearing a suit, dress shirt, sweater, scarf, and hat.
And there’s still plenty of fruit left even at lunchtime. (Usually at least all bananas are gone by 10am.)
Photo of two wooden boxes lying on the counter of an office kitchenette. The boxes are filled with fruit: apples, pears, and bananas.
Importantly, I got to welcome my new team member on her first day of work. So that was the obvious highlight of the day.
So win some, lose some with the whole having to wear masks indoors thing. But that’s okay: health and safety first.
Photo of a sign framed and mounted on a portable stand that’s been placed in the middle of a corridor at the entrance to an office. The sign say “Please wear a mask at all times”. Behind that is another stand installation that dispenses hand sanitizer and says “Hand sanitising station”.
On weekends I batch upload to this blog all the photos I’ve posted to Twitter over the course of that week (or, occasionally, several weeks!).
In the meantime, through the magic of technology and cloud computing working together in the background, those photos have been automatically copied from my smartphone to my computer. And, while I originally post those photos to Twitter from my phone, I usually post them to this blog from my computer.
It’s only when I’m looking at these photos on my large screen monitor that I get to fully appreciate the editing and post-processing I’ve done on them. (For which I use the Snapseed app, btw.) So I thought I’d do a bit of a show-and-tell on two of my recent photos to document what I did to them and why.
Here’s the original photo I took of a tree in autumn whose leaves had all turned shades of red. This was taken with my Google Pixel 3XL (released November 2018).
There’s a bunch of things I don’t like about this photo:
The colours are washed out. The sky is pale blue, when in real life it was a deeper blue, and the leaves of the tree had more vibrant shades of red than what you see here.
The brightness of the sun has oversaturated parts of the photo. Here you can’t make out any definition in the clouds, though when I saw them through my sunglasses they had much more depth. Also things like the pavement have almost no texture.
So what I did was reduce the highlights, added some colour saturation, and (mainly for the clouds) added a bit of the ‘HDR-scape’ filter. I also selectively increased the colour saturation on the tree. All that resulted in this image which has much more depth, colour vibrancy, and textural definition.
Here a side-by-side before and after that makes those edits much clearer. Yes, the ‘after’ photo looks darker overall, but that’s because I’ve turned down the highlights that made the ‘before’ photo too bright. Note the restored blue of the sky and the red of the tree leaves, the depth and definition of the clouds, and the texture you can see in things like the pavement.
Here’s another photo that, for opposite reasons, essentially had the same issues as the one above. This time it was the gloominess of the light that washed out the colours and led to the lack of contrast and texture.
The fix for this was basically the same: reduce highlights, add ambience (which tweaks the brightness and increases saturation), and add a touch of HDR-scape for the clouds.
Here’s the side-by-side that shows the differences more clearly. We now have more vibrant colours (look at the colourful building and the grass), more definition in the clouds, and more depth overall. And I think the darker ‘after’ photo does a better job of capturing the gloomy, overcast mood of the day.
I don’t have too many other examples to show you, to be honest. That’s mainly because, with decent lighting, the Pixel 3XL camera does a remarkably good job of creating a balanced, well exposed, nicely coloured photos. Those I just have to crop and they’re ready to go.
I will talk about what else I do to improve my photos before I share them, but that’s for another blog post.
What kind of post-processing do you do on your photos before you post them or share them anywhere? And what camera and editing software do you use? I’d love to know.
Back on the commuting life at Southern Cross Railway Station.
Photo of a train approaching its platform at a large train station. You can only see the lights and vague outline of the train that has just entered the covered portion of the station building. Another train is parked on the tracks next to the approaching train. A man in a silver puffer vest stands in the foreground, looking at his phone, while he waits for the train.
When you're different from your neighbours it’s good to be loud and proud :)
Photo of a residential footpath and street. All the trees along the road and in the houses have green or brown leaves. However one tree, which is the focus of this photo, has bright red leaves of different shades.
Ah Melbourne. Your graffiti and wall art never fail to impress. Especially with art like this.
And not only is this gorgeous, you can really only see from the train just before you reach Footscray Station!
Photo taken from a train window of a large exterior wall of a double storey warehouse. Spread across the wall is a vibrant painting for a futuristic city and an astronaut above that city who is reaching out to touch a bird that’s flying into the starry night. The painting’s background colours are those of the rainbow: going from the red of the city to the violet of the night sky.
It’s a dreary day in Melbourne today, but it is nice to be back in the office again.
Photo taken from a tall building of a city skyline on a grey, overcast day.
Turns out this is my ‘really looking forward to a chicken teriyaki bento box’ face.
Selfie of a man with glasses and a salt-and-pepper beard. The man is wearing a dark grey cap and a light grey zip-up sweatshirt. He is smiling at the camera that’s a little below his eyeline. He is indoors, but the background is blurry so you can’t make out where he is.
Hello. Here are some of my favourite 4K videos, timelapses and hyperlapses (ie moving timelapse).
First we have JeffHK’s ‘30 Days Timelapse at Sea’.
I’d been wanting to buy a 4K monitor for a while. That video of Jeff’s is what finally got me to pull the trigger on a 32” 4K Dell display. Thanks Jeff!
Jeff’s more recent '14 Days Timelapse of U.S. East Coast' is fantastic too.
And while you’re on his channel, check out his Panama and Suez canal transit videos.
Next is Mike Oblinski whose storm videos are mindbogglingly gorgeous. Like his recent ‘Monsoon 6’.
Or 'Vorticity 3’ from a few months ago:
Then we have Timelab Pro, who create some of the most fantastic 4K+ drone footage.
Their latest video is from Switzerland.
Though my recent favourite of theirs is ‘75 000 h.p. The Biggest Nuclear Icebreaker’ – which is set to Hans Zimmer’s Inception soundtrack, no less.
Next we have this lovely hyperlapse from FilmSpektakel which presents 'A Taste of Los Angeles’.
Finally there’s this timelapse that I just recently came across. It’s from The Timewriters and is a riveting ‘Travel from Rotterdam to Amsterdam in 10 minutes by boat'.
If watching these types of videos is totally your jam, by the way, search for ‘4K timelapse’ on YouTube. You’ll find so many fantastic videos.
Happy watching! And let me know if you have any favourites I should really watch.
I really love the Blueberry Broad Weave NATO strap that I got from Bark & Jack.
Its extra structure helps keep my heavier watches in place on my wrist. Like this BOLD Expedition Everest that I’d stopped wearing as much because none of my other NATO straps could handle its heft.
Dangling watches begone!
Photo of a man’s wrist with a hefty, brushed stainless steel field watch strapped to it. The watch has a vibrant blue dial colour with bright white numerals, markers, and hands. Near the top of the seconds hand is a pale orange rectangle that is easy to track as it rotates around the dial. The watch case has two crowns sticking out of it on the right side. The watch is on a strap made out of woven material constructed from thick blue and black threads.
The strap’s blue and black weave also elevates its quality, versatility, and looks. I can wear it with practically all my watches and it pairs nicely with most of my outfits.
Close-up (macro) photo of a watch strap on a man’s wrist (you can see the man’s black and white arm hair to the right of the strap). The strap is made out of nylon fabric and has a broad weave pattern of thick black and blue threads.
And, while we’re taking macros photos, here’s one of the dial as well.
Close-up (macro) photo of a watch dial. The watch case is brushed stainless steel, meaning it’s not very shiny. The dial itself is a vibrant medium blue colour. The numbers; hour- and minute-markers; and numerals printed on the watch are all a bright white colour. Above every hour marker, though, there is a small pale orange square. The watch’s hour and minute hands are chunky and slightly tapered towards the end. These are black at the base and white at the tip. The watch’s second hand is thin. It is black at the base and pale orange at the top. Two-thirds of the way up the seconds hand, where the orange colour starts, is a rectangle filled with luminous material. The brand name printed on the watch is BOLDR.
Given the year we’ve all had, our annual Australian Open (tennis) selfie is a little different this time.
Our round 3 tickets got cancelled because of the snap five-day lockdown in Melbourne, so we just went to the women's singles final instead :)
Selfie of a man and woman, both wearing face masks. They have their backs to the Rod Laver Arena tennis court, which is about half full of spectators. On the tennis court itself is Naomi Osaka, winner of the 2021 Daphne Akhurst Memorial Cup – which is awarded to the winner of the women’s singles tournament. Osaka is holding that cup and is getting her photo taken by a large group of photographers gathered at one end of the court.
Rod Laver Arena is such a gorgeous venue to watch matches in. And even at 50% capacity we managed to make plenty of noise.
Wide angle photo of Rod Laver Arena, a tennis arena with a rich blue playing surface. The seats, which are also in shades of blue, are about half full with spectators. The sun is setting behind the photographer so there is a golden glow on the seats on the far side of the arena.
Speaking of venue capacity, it was super strange seeing Grand Slam Oval so empty! But with only two matches tonight, and the whole place strictly divided into zones anyway, it makes sense.
Selfie of a man and a woman, both wearing masks, with a mostly empty food and retail sports tournament space behind them. In the background is a building a smaller tennis arena.
Give this was a finals match we got to watch a short musical pre-show, complete with bisexual lighting.
Photo of a large tennis arena with its roof closed. The arena is bathed in blue and purple lighting while a trio of singers perform from one end of the court.
As for the match itself, well here’s Naomi Osaka’s serve in slow motion.
For the match itself, will here's @naomiosaka's service in #SloMo. pic.twitter.com/nevzjM9Sbx
— Ameel Khan (@ameel) February 20, 2021
Of course at any modern sports venue the Spidercam is da real MVP.
Photo of a Spidercam camera mounted on a 360-degree gimball that’s attached to the ceiling by wires. This lets the camera zip around above the heads of the players, capturing the action from lots of different angles.
And even though we didn’t need these this year, Nadia is still a big fan!
Photo of a woman hugging a large metal fan that’s mounted on a wide cylindrical pedestal. Combined, the pedestal and fan are 50% taller than she is. On hot days these fans spray a fine spray of cold water over people passing by.
Wednesday sunset behind the massive gum tree in front of our house.
Photo of the sun setting behind a massive gum tree in a residential neighbourhood. The sky is bright blue and filled with broken, puffy clouds illuminated with golden yellow light from the setting sun.
The blackbird that keeps trying to steal Nadia’s cherry tomatoes can only get at the fruit lower down on the plant so the tomatoes in the upper branches are coming alone nicely!
Close-up photo of a tomato plant branch laden with cherry tomatoes at various stages of ripeness.
Close-up photo of a backyard cherry tomato plant with three bright red cherry tomatoes on it, along with a couple of smaller, greener ones.
Do you have a favourite tree on the street that you live?
We moved to the suburb of Newport, VIC last month and I've narrowed my list down to four…
This first one is a big broccoli. Well proportioned, nicely filled out, and colourful. But basically just broccoli. And I love it.
Photo of a paperbark tree on a residential street. The tree is shaped like a single branch of broccoli.
The second one is spade-shaped broccoli. It is massive, with a good solid trunk, and is arguably majestic.
Photo of a tall paperbark tree on a residential street. The tree is shaped like the spade playing card symbol.
Number three is a big boy. Both tall and wide, it provides plenty of shade and sounds lovely in the wind. This is a tree you'd want to hug.
Photo of a gum tree on a residential street. The tree is massive.
Number four is a spindly specimen. A tree from a lighter weight class than the others, if you will. But it has a strong zig-zaggy aesthetic that I find pleasing.
Photo of a tree on a residential street. The tree has distinct, zig-zag layers of branches.
I’m sure almost no one else is interested in what my favourite local tree is (currently leaning towards #3 btw). But, hey, if you can’t talk about this stuff on your own blog, then what even is your blog for? :)
Last week we moved house. If that sounds like a stressful thing to do during a global pandemic, let you tell you: it is. But, we made it. And we’re now all settled in the suburb of Newport – about a fifteen minute drive from where we used to live in Kingsville.
One of the best things about our new place is the large garden at the back. Maggie took a couple of days to settle in and thoroughly mark her new territory, but even on moving day she found herself a nice spot to roll in.
A red heeler dog rolls around on her back in a patch of grass in a residential lawn. In the background you can see a garden shed and a swing.
Which she was immensely pleased about.
A red dog lies comfortably on her side in a residential lawn. In the background you can see part of a garden shed and a fence.
I guess dogs donna dog, and Maggie is making the most of it :)
Yes, I’m Maggie.
How can I help you this morning?
A dog sits on a lawn with an open laptop in front of her. Her left paw is next to the laptop’s trackpad. She is looking up a the photographer who appears to have just interrupted her work.
Maintenance workers with lawn mowers and lawn edgers are doing their thing on her street today. Maggie is most displeased.
A dog behind a residential gate looks intently at something off-camera on the other side of the gate. She looks a little wary of what she’s seeing.
And outside was all dull green and grey
A dreary, overcast sky as seen through a window from inside a house.
Gorgeous skies in Melbourne today, with bands of rain clouds coming through in waves over the course of the afternoon and evening.
Cityscape from a tall building, showing a dark band of low-lying clouds in among lighter clouds higher in the sky.
This is personal website of Nadia Niaz and Ameel Zia Khan. Here we document our lives in Melbourne, Australia.
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia