#just a headshot just 'cause I wanted a concept of their markings

[turtlemurmurs]

Would y’all believe this is a fan character for Don’t Starve

[pupa-cinema]

Tanabattalion☆Returns Analysis (七夕リアン☆リターンズ考察)

By Sekihan via https://lineblog.me/omedeta/archives/9380720.html. ~~Reading the Lyrics~~ I see. I don’t understand ‘em at all🤔 Let's review them bit by bit then, shall we.    'At my side you were when you said    “Do you know what Chikuwabu is?”    Today marks 2 years of nights we’ve spent together like this    I really hope I’ll be able tell her...' Ah, so it’s a song about a couple. Yeah yeah. “Chikuwabu” is buzzword for ‘Oden noodles’ that only people from Kantou know, so the girl asking the question must be from Kantou. Meaning her boyfriend, the main character, must be from somewhere other than Kantou, yeah that makes sense. It’s like their 2nd year anniversary together then or something like that. Yeah yeah.    'I stub my pinkie toe on the edge of a cabinet    It hurt so much I got sent into shock, I kicked the bucket’ I see. The main character dies.   'I’ve tried to tell you my feelings 100 times before, but still after all this time     I still left them unsaid' So he wanted to tell her something in the intro (on that special day) but... This clutz of a main character went off and died before he could say it. What a clutz. The number of attempts he’s made at telling her this important thing is.. exactly 100 times. He keeps track huh, he’s quite the feminine main character. So his 100th attempt also ended in a failure. Yeah yeah.   'Let me stay with you   Come wake up my cold corpse (body)’ A sudden twist into horror. Even after death he still wants to stick with his girlfriend. He wishes with all his heart: Enough to turn into the walking dead. Kinda like Colin🧟‍♂️🧟‍♀️     'I won't die, I can’t die     Because I love you     My 101st confessionI pray it reaches you     The Sanzu River, the galaxy’s rivers of stars     I’ll push through all of them just to see you     Our bond holds even millions of lightyears apart     A couple’s necromance, ah what a dumbbell' Wait this is ‘Monday 9’. So the writer just wanted to reference this, I bet. “I won’t diee. Because I love you.” (✳︎'Monday 9' is the word for the dramas that air at prime time on TV  https://wiki.d-addicts.com/Getsuku_(Fuji_TV), with the show '101st Marriage Proposal' among them. A notorious line from an episode is these exact words… After a character expresses their distress and terror of falling in love, another character runs out into the rain, almost gets hit by a bus, is safe by a hair, then wails them out at his beloved. Seki’s imagination recreated this zombie style.) On the night of Tanabata, do Hikoboshi and Orihime cross the galaxy that divides them. Once a year, this is the only time they can finally see each other. That’s the common conception of the legend of Tanabata. Likewise, the main character of Tanabattalion Returns.. crosses the galaxy’s river of stars, or more like the River of Sanzu, just to see his beloved. It’s truly necromantik. (A deadly romance).  Ah what a dumbbell. (✳︎Dumbbell - Or the true word “baka-chin” is a diss coined by Takeda Tetsuya. In stories he told on his shows, his mother would call him ‘baka-chin’. )    '"I love you so much thatI could just eat you up🤤"     This here zombie’s confession rehearsal' So it’s a joke based on the way Zombies are known for eating humans. That’s actually adorable. It’s not funny but still 🥺 I feel as if I’ve heard of this “Confession Rehearsal” thing before...       'I get dressed up from happy go lucky head to toe and head out      My legs are dragging, will I make it in time…' If you’re gonna see your special someone then you gotta dress up, y’know. The reason it’s “dress up from happy head to toe” is because it's a reference to our band name Happy go Lucky Heads. (✳︎ The word “Dress-up” is “おめかしOmekashi” here. As the word has “Ome” in it just like Omedetai, Seki changes the Ome in the lyrics to be written in the same katakana way as the band name, instead of the standard hiragana spelling. Imitating the way the band Boyz || Men change every “to” in their lyric booklet to be written as “||”. 

The main character... He died and became a zombie because he stubbed his toe so His ambulation is wonky, he can’t get much speed. Even though he needs to hurry up and reach her before the night of Tanabata ends! He’s in a pickle🥺     'I won't die, I can’t die     Because I love you     My 101st confession     I hope it reaches you     With my rotting brain I     Considered and chose     A bolt nut ring     I hope it will look good on your finger' These lyrics are the same as the first chorus so I omitted some of them. (✳︎Here Seki uses the word “割愛” for “omit”… A word which has “愛(love)” in it. It has “愛” in it because it’s a bit more intense than a mere omission, it more leans towards “Force self to let go of something, even if don’t want to.”Seki's word choice is cute.) I got the idea for the engagement ring from zombies’ heads. A bold nut ring. Ahh. ‘Cause it’s the whole Monday 9 thing. Yeah yeah. So when he says “I hope it looks good on your finger” ... He must be fully committed to giving it to her. 

    'I won’t die, because I love you      I won’t die, because I’m going to make you happy' For the recording I screamed this part of the interlude. The second line is still the 'Monday 9' thing. During concerts I’ll actually straight up tell a story here. What’s wrong with being a bit like King-Show. 🥺   I say it so fast, as if a guns to my head. So I need to put a lot of brain power into making sure it’s intelligible.     'July 7th, a sunny day     I found you     There, under the night stars shooting down, was the sound gunfire      I’ve been shot in the head' "'Us staff searched long and far. Until at long last I found Her 🥺'" ↑This reference is unrelated. I just wanted to say it. (✳︎A notable line from this variety show). Now. On this Tanabata night, under the wide open starry sky, did he finally find her. The moment of truth to confess his feelings. His 101st attempt! I won’t die! Because I love you! I won’t die! Because I’m going to make you happy! (In other words: please marry me). He says! Even though he’s already dead! Alas... Instead of hearing her voice say “Yes” The last sound he ever hears is Her scream, along with the roar of gunfire. It’s said that zombies can’t die but With a headshot you’re certain to K.O. them. Just like “Shoot him in the head! (頭を狙え！)”(✳︎Seki writes it in English here then adds JP translation. Thanks Seki for being fluent in English). The classic phrase from zombie movies. Hey, who the hell shot him! Who!     'I won't die, I can’t die     Because I love youThe bolt nut ring     It hope it reaches you     The Sanzu River, the galaxy’s rivers of stars     I pushed through all of them just to see you     Our bond holds even millions of lightyears apart     A couple’s necromance, for now and forever more' If you think about it.. He’s a zombie right, It’s hard to tell if he truly has consciousness or not. So then what the hell was this all about?! You may be wondering but This is fantasy, fiction. Or... You may instead be worrying “Will he not be able to give it to her anymore...” The “I hope it reaches you” lyric holds true for this too. And as you may have already guessed, in the last chorus, as his consciousness is slipping away He sees a dream. In his dream I bet he’s succeeded in confessing to her. In giving her the ring. If he was still human this would be considered homicide,It would be a bad-end but He’s a zombie soIs it a bad-end Or a happy-end..Which.. For her, who’s still alive, and for him, who's a zombie, This is how it has to be. Though it’s impossible to know what’s truly right but. Anyway That calls it for my explanation of Tanabattalion Returns. The title is reference to Return of the Living Dead 3. My favorite of the Living Dead/Battalion series. (✳︎In Japan the title of the series was localized to ‘Battalion’ and the 3rd as 'Battalion Returns'! This is because zombies come in such huge armies, my guess is this conveyed the sheer volume more concisely to the JP audience.) This is probably the first ever love story about a zombie and stuff like this, right? IDK but. The guy who wrote this song is gonna try his best to write lyrics that’re easier to understand from now on. Promise. 

[themindfulword]

EXPRESSIVE NATURE PHOTOGRAPHY: How to capture images that'll tell a story

he best photographs tell a story rather than merely recording the scene. If a picture is worth a thousand words, how do you tell a good story, photographically? It’s not that easy to do, and many images fail to ignite the interest of the viewer because they lack a strong point of view, are poorly composed or somehow don’t express what the photographer found interesting. In other words, they fail to convey the story. Many years ago I took a few specialized photo workshops, because for a brief time, I was intending to go down the path of photojournalism as my career. Those classes turned out to be very useful, as I learned how to think in terms of “the story.” I had to create a series of images, as well as find a way to tell a story with just one image. Who would've guessed that this would help me in nature photography? Although, as photographers, we don’t employ the exact “who, what, when, where and why” concept that I learned in school for writing stories, we need to ask the same questions when creating a narrative image. A photograph can contain the who (subject), what (the action), where (sense of place), when (time of day or season) and even a why. As a photographer, it’s your job to determine what the story might be and find a way to present it in as compelling a way as possible. If you use this same thought process as writers do, you can create a more complete narrative in your composition.

Find the story in the landscape

Even a landscape picture tells a story. Begin by first figuring out what inspires you in the location. What makes the location unique? Try to establish what you want to express in the photograph. Then, look for a point of view that brings out your vision in the strongest way. Use any visual clues that help to express the story:

The lead photo from this chapter in the book Is there a process of nature, or some detail that'll express the story strongly? What elements don’t help the story that I may need to exclude? And is it the big picture, a small one, or a detail that tells the story better? If the story isn’t obvious, it should at least cause the viewer to question the image. For example, in the lead photo of this chapter, the story is about the polished rock. With its unusual shape, the rock stands out, and the image is a compelling landscape composition, but if you don’t know geology, you won’t get the story that’s presented here right off. But you will ask yourself, why's that piece of rock smooth and others around it rough? What's going on here that makes this piece stand out? The photo may inspire you to search for the answer to these questions.

Capture the telltale moments

In a storytelling photograph, any gesture or action is an important element that can enhance the story being told. Sometimes, the action is the story, with the rest of the scene supporting it. Not every photograph you make has to have action, though; many nature photographs simply celebrate the passive beauty that nature offers up to us. But in a narrative image, where you’re trying to tell us something more than “isn’t this a pretty place,” gesture and/or action can enhance the story and make a big impact. If there’s no animal or bird or exploding volcano to create action, look for other things that can imply gesture. The blurred water in a stream can be considered gesture. Dark clouds caught in the act of swirling overhead, rainbows and the splash on a rock from a little wave are all gestures that bring your stories to life.

Find the action

In photographs where animals are involved, there can be a key moment or gesture that becomes the main storyline. Getting the timing right to capture the moment when a whale breaches or a bird catches a fish is essential to telling the story.

It’s important to look for clues that tell the viewer something about the animal’s behaviour or how it interacts with its environment. The way zebras neck, for example, tell us that they’re very social animals. Whales lunge-feeding tell us how these giants eat in the ocean, and a jackal making off with a piece of a zebra tells us not only what jackals eat, but how they provide for one another. Animals experience fight-or-flight situations, run, play and engage in other activities that are amazing to watch and to photograph. These animal stories aren't unlike those of the human condition: The animals eat and sleep, and many express a bond and show nurturing to which we respond emotionally. Portraits of animals, or what I like to call “trophy headshots,” don’t express stories. They’re simply a study of a wonderful animal or bird. These do tell us about the subjects, in the sense of their features��such as the long bill on a honeycreeper that allows it access to the deep parts of a flower, or the markings on a butterfly wing that make it look like a huge eye to avoid predation. But even in a headshot, you may find gesture. It may be the direct contact of the wolf’s eyes, staring right through you; or, if the animal barks or yawns, you have gesture and you’ve managed to photograph the moment of that gesture. Gesture and moments of action simply add more expressive qualities to the picture. Look for those: Is there a moment that'll express a story strongly? Moments of nature aren’t just about the actions of animals or birds or humans. Lightning, rainbows, glaciers calving, sun rays striking the land through openings in the clouds—these are all moments of nature expressing itself, and special moments to experience and photograph.

«RELATED READ» “SELFIE” PHENOMENON: Photos have become a creation of the self rather than an extension of the self» images: Brenda Tharp Click to Post