After posting a couple of comparison images of the River Murray back in January, one of my friends pointed out that the two sets of images were from different times of the year – so there could have been some seasonal effect on the river levels.

I was not so sure – January and February promised exactly 0 mm of rain, and indeed, we have had a total of 8mm since the new year (and all of it in March).

March 2002

March 2009

I tried to find some other comparison images on the internet – there have been a lot of them printed in the local press. Unfortunately, I couldn’t readily find the dramatic images that are printed.

On the other hand, I found some more interesting reading on the Murray River, its river levels over time, and also the problems in maintaining those levels.

My colleague Adam posted a link to a neat little video on his Pligg yesterday, and I have to say, I found it outstanding.

The creator of Eclectic 3.0 pieced together 15,000 still photos taken with a tilt-shift perspective control lens to create a fake miniature effect that looks like a stop-motion video.

We found some other great examples of tilt-shift photography, like Bathtub IV and this list of images at Smashing Magazine’s blog.

Tilt-shift photography is nothing new – the lenses have been available for almost 40 years or so – but I don’t think I remember seeing it until Adam showed me those links.

It is something that I’d like to try out for myself at some point – although I can’t find a tilt-shift lens that fits the Sony Alphas (although there may be an adaptor out there). Still, I’ve discovered that there are methods of replicating this technique in Photoshop. Although, I’ll need to get Photoshop or try it in Gimpshop (which I’ve just downloaded).

A couple of years or so ago, I discovered a website called the Experimental Gameplay Project. This site is a bit mental – or at least, some of the games are. They are quite fun, but the rule on the site is to produce something that is non-standard, hasn’t been done before, breaks the mould (and probably burns it and then pee all over the ashes).

One game that stood out for me when I browsed over the collection back then was Tower of Goo – an oddly addictive game that required you to build as high a tower as possible out of cute little goo-balls.

Roll on a couple of years, and I start seeing World of Goo being advertised for the PC and the Wii. Admittedly, I’d all but forgotten the Tower of Goo, but there was that same attraction to a novel game in a sea of clones.

I finally relented over the last weekend when I saw that the game was on offer on Steam for only a quarter of its regular price.

It’s great – the game is fun, and the storyline and notes from a mysterious Sign Painter are playful and slightly twisted. The gameplay is simple, and new and improved goo is introduced at various points to add to the mix (and help you progress).

What is amazing about this independently created game (a development team of 3) is that it has outshone a huge number of more mainstream titles.

I highly recommend this game – I love it, and I’m pretty sure if you give it a chance, you will too.

Soundtrack

As I was putting this post together, I discovered that the game’s musical creator has released the soundtrack for free. It’s interesting, even with the short tracks that are used as loops in the game – when I was playing the game, I actually thought that it was Danny Elfman who had produced the music. I’m not disappointed, though – Kyle Gabler obviously has a not inconsiderable skill at producing catchy and enjoyable themes.

I took a trip to Melbourne last week. It was a nice week away – chilled out, with a lot of walking, and a lot of snapping away with the Sony.

The photos are here.

I aim to write a little travelog over the weekend – but just in case that gets delayed, I figured I should get the images up first.