In an effort to resemble the blog I initially ventured toward I’m going to share a post about recent mess ups.
Today, I encourage you to view the utter failures, failures so bad they have been the reason for zero new projections since May 22nd and Mind, Body Soul.
I’ve recognized obvious flaws in my tools and management of them, but I believe with a little patience and the boldness required to tell strangers (or the police) what I’m up to, some of these could have worked out. Like the poem on the half dark, half lit windows.
Had I taken 3 minutes to set up a couple tripods and been ready to explain to a just-started-dating couple who thought it would be cool to talk to the guy projecting weird poems on a building, it would have been in focus and bright enough. Blagh!
Others, though—I’m not so sure there was a possible solution at the time. They showed up so very dark.
My camera seems to do a good enough job for a square, little thing. I can adjust its size, exposure and speed. It could be improved, but this is still such an early stage, and it has worked well enough with the projector so far. The big issue is the projector itself.
I’ve reached the limit. I have seen the extent of potential of the projector. Woe is me, obviously.
The “pico” projector was never meant to shine on the sides of industrial buildings, turns out. Okay, it was obvious from the start. In the description they were being honest when they said it needs to be used in small, dark spaces.
Good news is, I had never imagined the text could ever get that big in the first place. I thought they would blur and fade after moving beyond fifteen feet from a wall. Seeing words with letters measured in feet, I realized that a dark enough space, probably enclosed, could offer a lot of fascinating opportunities.
I’m not really in a total writing slump because of this. I did back away and toward some other creative projects after, but there had been a writer’s block for me already. There didn’t seem to be a way for me to use the new projector inside. Maybe it was that my first, the Apollo Horizon 2, projector was watching in the room, which made it too awkward. Not sure.
(I have come around to using it indoors, so there will be some photos of those ventures to come.)
These aren’t the first and they won’t be the last minor dooms that, as they happen, raise my blood pressure in a matter of pico-seconds. As much as they can affect my mood, I welcome them.
It’s the failures that prove how good the rest is.
Dan Dorman 