Yesterdays image for Channel 4 News.
Info on how the image was created in previous post and it wasn’t just a plugin 
Tag Archive for 'hazel blears'
New image for Channel 4 News - Here.
For those of you interested in creating digital images, I’ll post a fuller explanation of how I created this tomorrow when I post the image on my blog. Sod it, here’s a run-through posted below.
This may sound a tad defensive but what the hell :
After having a conversation with a bloke whose views I respect, I think it best to clarify that, although I used a ‘plugin’ to create the brushstrokes effects, this was far from a one-click operation.
The whole image was created from scratch - clothes, background, everything.
(Believe it or not, in some countries, there is a grey area on copyright about photographic representation of images which are now in the public domain.)
As far as I know there is no plugin that will change stroke size, depth, direction, swirl and adjust colour, hue, add shadows, highlights etc. on different parts of the image.
And the only plugin I have to do some of the work has a myriad of settings which you have to mess around with to get each part looking right.
There was quite a bit of ‘manual’ work involved - honest !
Some of the layers you see above had already been merged - The hat layer, for example, was composed of several different shapes on different layers, with different brush stroke dimensions and directions, then warped and the burn and dodge tool applied.
You may see duplicate layers as well - They are in fact similar but with different sharpness and hue settings - They work with each other to create the overall effect.
The added problem when creating an image like this is keeping an eye on how it will appear at the size required for the web.
The image may look OK at a much larger size but when shrunk, you may lose sharpness and detail. This means frequently copying the merged layers, pasting into a new, flat image and resizing.
However, the benefit of reducing the size is that you can’t see all the errors I made.
NB - If you came to this post directly, you will see the updates in subsequent posts.
work in progress : Hazel Blears
If you start the music in the post below and watch this - just one character marching right now - I’ll see if I can be bothered working the whole thing up.
(the marching may be out of synch depending on when you start the music..)
What do you keep in your handbag Hazel ?
“A photo of Tony Blair, proof of my modest background - I have told you about my modest background, haven’t I ? A reproduction Lowry painting in which I played a cameo role and a picture of my brother’s bus. I have told you about my modest background haven’t I and that my brother is a bus driver ?”
What do you keep in your handbag Harriet ?
“Hazel Blears.”
Having just witnessed the smug little sycophant Hazel Blears on the BBC avoiding giving a straight answer yet again, it amazes me that she is a front runner for Deputy Leader of The Labour Party - or maybe it shouldn’t.
Asked several times about David Maclean’s Freedom Of Secrecy Amendment to the Freedom Of Information Act, she waltzed around the question of whether she would have voted for it or not (because she wasn’t in the Commons to do so.)
An exasperated Andrew Marr concluded she would have and that was the end of things.
I’m sure behind the scenes, Hazel Bliars was dancing around like a kid with a happy meal in McDonalds, telling all her friends how good she was at playing the word game called politics.
Because Hazel didn’t say she would have voted for the bill, she let someone else voice the obvious conclusion so she can still deny it as long as it suits her power hungry political aspirations.
End of spin ? Give us a f*cking break !
She claims that, in an effort to communicate with the public, she spent three days behind a checkout at Tescos.
How many people did she serve ?
One
“What do you think of this Tesco Value baked beans, Hazel? Would you buy them ?”
“Oh, I’m pretty neutral on the issue and, although some say the quality is similar to higher priced products I can understand those that expect more colourful packaging, a low salt option and a tin that hasn’t been dented deliberately.”
“But would you buy them Hazel?”
“Well, as I’m behind the counter and 45 metres away from the north end of aisle 3, I’m not in the position to pick up a tin of beans but I’m sure that those who have done so have made the right decision in their heart of hearts and I respect their values.”
“But would you buy them Hazel?”………
Three days later an exasperated customer crawls out of Tescos, leaving a queue of hundreds of others at Hazel’s checkout holding goods beyond their sell-by date, immune and distrustful to anything anyone at the store ever says to them again.
To paraphrase an old Billy Connolly sketch,
“So, Father, you’re saying that Tescos is really the Labour Party ?”
“And you know, in a way it is, son. “If you think you’re the only store in town but you keep on, pardon my Latin, bullshitting your customers enough, then you customers will vote with their feet.”
“So, Father, you’re saying Labour will get a justifiable kicking if Blears is manning the checkout ?”…..
Blears isn’t playing the game of politics to communicate with the people, otherwise she would give straight answers to straight questions.
The art of avoiding straight questions is only appreciated amongst the political ‘elite’ and careerists; if you’re good at it, you do well within your own party and bugger the electorate.
I remember Polly Toynbee claiming that politicians were essentially good people and they shouldn’t be treated with the level of cynicism that they currently experience.
Maybe there are some, Polly, but as long as all parties restrict access to, and the media only seek, approved spokespeople then all we see and hear are pathetic, morally diminutive careerists such as Hazel Blears. And we can only make a judgement on the evidence presented.
If Tony Blair is George Bush’s poodle, then Hazel Blears is Tony Blair’s pooper scooper and she hasn’t been emptied for years.
