Keepsakes
I’m a bit on the fence still about the quality of the scans I’m starting to use and that is apparent here in this image and is still my only pet peeve when it comes to the current state of digital photography. You can see it all in the shadows, the rugged looking gradients really bug me but it could be worse I suppose. I think that the newer digital cameras out today are getting better and better in these areas and its a great thing to see happening finally. This is part of what I love about using film are the amazing soft gradients and tones when it comes to shadows and darker imagery.
All the same, I have another desktop for you and its another film shot. This time around I tool out the dust because this one felt better without it, probably because its darker in nature. Its kind of a homage to all the memories many of us have crammed away in closets and corners. I like the way the afternoon light coming in through the window adds to the feeling of time gone by and a song by Jason Anderson seems to come into my mind every time I look at this photo. The song is called waiting and regret and one line of the songs reads, “A box of notes and keepsakes, I cant seem to discard..” Which should explain the name of the desktop for you.
As always, this is to be used for personal use only please and as always I do hope you enjoy it. To download the zip file containing the desktop sized version simply CLICK OR RIGHT CLICK HERE to save the attached file to that link.
Dusty
Some of you know I have been fighting my scanner, or lack there of, for some time now. I had two around the house, one was an old skinny Canon and the other a fat old Epson. Both have seen better days really, the Canon has been traveled with so many times over the years that it barely works and the image quality of the scans is always a disappointment but its all I have had because, until yesterday at least, the Epson has not been working at all.
With a little frustrated messing about with the usb connection on the scanner the computer suddenly recognized it and I went happily scanning away and finally scanned in a handful of film images I’ve been wanting to share for a while now. So the good thing about this is that this Epson scanner is able to scan at higher resolutions, ones I am happy enough with to be able to supply a few film images as desktops from time to time which is something that has been requested many times by readers.
So to celebrate the capability I humbly present to you this image taken with my great new Olympus XA that I had mention in a previous post. I do realize that there is a good bit of dust in this image and while normally I would edit all of that out I’ve decided to leave it in this time around at least to see if anyone complains. In some ways it could be seen as annoying but in another way I find that it kind of adds another dimension to the image. Kind of like how crackles and pops add to the sound of listening to an old record, a bit of dust kind of adds a nostalgic analogue feel to the image and seeing as it is a film shot I thought it would be interesting to see how it would feel if I left most of it in.
I’ve had this as my desktop today and I found that it made my desktop feel more welcoming somehow, like instead of staring at a bright crisp glossy computer display I feel like its feeling a bit more welcoming like im looking at an old photo dug up from the bottom of a shoebox somewhere… or something like that 
As always, the image here is for your personal use ONLY and I present them to you in this way out of good faith that you will respect that. To download the desktop CLICK OR RIGHT CLICK HERE to download the attached zip file.
I think I will begin making the desktop links text links at the bottom of each post, hopefully it wont be to much of an inconvenience for you, just an effort to draw attention to the rest of the content and to the bit there at the end where I mention the use of the images. Oddly enough, people out there in this world like to think that if an image is downloaded from the internet its like finding a 5 dollar bill on the ground and can simply take it and do with it what they please. anywho.. enjoy!!!
Chicago
UPDATE: It was brought to my attention that the second image here, “look up” was not at a normal desktop resolution but one that was the preview image size, I have since fixed this and you can re-download the proper sized image below..
Its frustrating sometimes having this site that I love and not really having as much time as I would like to post to it. I would love to get back to the point where I was posting once a day or even once every couple of days back in the twistedsun.net days but sometimes life takes the front seat and sometimes fiftyfootshadows see’s some slow moments in posting.
Anyways, thats just an elaborate way of saying sorry for not posting more often, maybe not the most professional thing to post but there it is. It is, after all, still my personal blog for the most part. It seems that only a handful of people read the content I post here anyhow and usually images are posted and downloaded as desktops when I post them as such without glancing for a moment to see the story or thought behind them. Its just life as a blogger I suppose. That challenge to easy interesting and relevant among so many other voices online.
So all rambling aside Ive got a couple new desktops to share with everyone. This time they are from Chicago which I visited recently and really enjoyed spending time in. These shots are no surprise really, simple skyline type deals but I still thought they were nice shots, especially because they gave me a valid use for the borrowed 14mmL I had on my 5d at the time. I hope some of you enjoy them!
Stay tuned for a new music post and a couple other things I’ve been meaning to post recently.
As always, these are not for commercial use without my permission and to download an image simply click or right click an image you would like to get and download the attached zip file. Thanks for stopping by and enjoy!
Flickr Spotlight
I’m back with another flickr spotlight and this time around I have found my way to a photographer I have been following for a long time now, YoungDoo. While going through her photos my only problem was deciding which photos to feature here as desktops because there were so many that I initially had selected as candidates and going through 5000+ photos was no short task! Knowing this I would like to mention that one of the things I find intriguing about her work is her endurance for taking photos. She seems to constantly stumble across dreamy well lit things to shoot and her style has this soft, welcoming sort of a feel to it. Even her darker images have an undeniable calm to them.
But lets take a step back, who is YoungDoo? She is a native Korean and grew up in a small village but now resides in Seoul. She is no stranger to travel, however and has ventured all over Europe, the US, Canada, Australia, and Japan. In Seoul she works as a graphic designer full time and this is how she got into photography more seriously because as a student of design she took classes where she had the chance to work with film and learn more about the technical/ interesting side of the medium.
For her photography is both therapeutic and sometimes emotional as she approaches it as a way to communicate feeling when words can not be found. This sort of visual communicating comes through clearly in her subtle imagery. I like her use of color to help these images feel alive in a quiet sort of a way.
I am more than happy that she agreed to let me share a handful of images here for the visitors of fiftyfootshadows.net as desktops. If you like what you have seen here feel free to leave a comment and/or check out her flickr stream by following this link here!
The following images are for personal use only as your desktop image, not for anything commercial. Please respect these simple terms of use which can also be found in the downloaded zip files containing the desktops. Respect these simple rules so I can continue to offer great desktops for everyone in the future! Thanks! To download an image simply click or right click the image you would like to download the attached zip file.
Turn Turn Turn
A quick post for the sake of a new desktop, same shoot as the pixelgirl shot i mentioned a while back… please, no commercial use and to download just click or right click the image below to get at the .zip. Enjoy!
Pixelgirl Presents
I have been messing about with a personal website for 10+ years now it seems. Early versions of sites that I would make were just to learn more about it and see what was possible. I used to love to make little hidden links and things all over the sites and just play with ideas. In the beginning the only people that would go to the site was family and friends I told about it.
As time went on I decided that I wanted to try and generate some traffic to my site and so I started working on a new version of the site that was more of a portfolio than a toy site. I added design work that I had done and photography and things like this and as time went on I realized that a great way to bring some people into the site would be to make some of my designs available as downloadable desktops for visitors to download. After setting this up and adding a dozen or so desktops it hit me that I had to find a way to get the word out that these were here for people to find and download so I began to search around and came across a few sites that could help me out with this. I added a link section to my site and started to trade links with all sorts of other desktop wallpaper sites. This is back when website badges were all the rage, you know, the tiny little gifs that were often animated images.
So traffic started to trickle in and I saw the statistics start to climb and by the end of the twistedsun.net days and still today actually, 15-20 thousand visitors a month which may not be a lot in comparison to some but I was always happy to see so many people enjoyed the things I was posting.
At any rate, way back in the beginning there was a few sites that really did help bring me to this sort of recognition and traffic and one of them is Pixelgirl Presents. Her site was really young at the point when I started sending images over for her to post and through time this was what really started to bring me in more visitors to the site and I am and always will be grateful to this site and others that helped me get where I am today. So if you have some time head over and check the site out, there are countless of great desktops to be found there after years of building this database of images there. If you dig back through to the earlier ones you may be able to find some classic twistedsun desktops.
Sorry for rambling on and on here, I just thought that some of you may be interested in a little bit of the history about how I got the site going. Maybe I can find some of the old versions of the site to post sometime… hmmm.. there was one that I always liked a lot but I wonder if I could find it.
As a bonus for checking out pixelgirlpresents.com you will be able to find an exclusive image from me that has been posted as a featured desktop so take a look! The image above is the photo that you can find there now which is one of my very favorites from this series. I have a couple variations on the subject that I will post here sometime as well but in the mean time head over and check it out!
Re: Corner
My old favorite corner to shoot in. The dark dirty corner of a now abandoned building. I shot a handful of different objects in the corner and this is almost all thats left. The only thing left to post form this series is a book, Green Eggs and Ham to be exact and they were my favorite of the bunch. There is just something perfect about this natural lighting set up that not only did I enjoy shooting in but I got a few ideas for future shots in the process. I just love the way they came out with no post processing at all outside of really subtle contrast change.
So enjoy the desktops and please, no commercial use of these images is allowed so give the terms of use a look over in the zip. To download just click the image you would like to have desktop size (or right click and save attached zip file).
Late
In my digging through old photos I came across these that I don’t think I ever got around to posting as desktops. Really dark and moody I know but Im sure some of you will appreciate them. I shot these while wandering the streets with my brother late one night. I just try and imagine this thing in use because as is in this dark alley its sort of menacing looking. Anyways, I threw in a black and white slightly modified one at the bottom here for those of you that may want that sort of variation of the idea.
Simply right click or right click the images and save the zip file they are linking too. Please, no commercial use without asking please, otherwise, enjoy!
