“Every other artist begins with a blank canvas, a piece of paper. The photographer begins with the finished product.” – Edward Steichen
Taking a photo would be faster but I need to be careful about what to leave out (license plate numbers, etc.) before sharing. Drawing a sketch would be slower but I fully control what comes in.
Recent language-based image generators can output amazing results given the right kind of input prompts (e.g., book and market), which can be tricky to produce and rely on experiences. This led me to predict the emergence of a cottage industry of “image prompt optimization” analogous to search engine optimization, and research of machine learning modules (e.g., another network) that can learn translating ordinary natural language inputs to language-generator prompts that can lead to desired outcomes.
Found this pine cone that was opened on the upper half but still closed on the lower half.
The first sketch did not clearly show the structure so I switched to a different view in the second.
Left behind by the family who owned it, the dog awaited at the front door entrance, sleeping most of the time except when being triggered by sounds coming from the outside.
If you have attended SIGGRAPH this year, you probably have noticed this Corgi cam inside the experience hall of the Vancouver convention center.
I am not sure if there was a live video feed, whether someone was behind the camera, and what was the purpose of this whole setup (except for people to play with the dog), but below is my sketch of my (imaginary) mental image of the Corgi cam based on a reference photo.
The floor-to-ceiling glass window of my hotel room provides a great view of two churches across the street, the closer one I drew after coming back from the Snap party at the Lamplighter Public House until it was too dark and continued the finish touch the next morning, as a slight change of course from the usual little time I spent with the places I stay during travels.
I didn’t realize how much I missed academic conferences until attending EGSR earlier in the summer, so I look forward to SIGGRAPH this year. And traveling to Vancouver is much easier than to Prague.
I arrived at the flight gate earlier than usual, but fortunately spotted an excellent drawing subject while waiting for boarding.
During the incoming trip I got spotted by several folks, including one MSRA intern from eons ego (who now reports to one of my former direct reports), one Adobe intern from last year (mentored by my former office mate), and one guy who reports to one of my former (and most favorite) collaborators. I didn’t recognize any of them initially as they all wore masks, which begged the question how could they recognize me given that I wore masks as well. Maybe they have better upper facial recognition capabilities than I do?
I wonder if the pandemic would fundamentally shift how evolution shapes human facial recognition.
A flower can last days, if not longer, by submerging its rear end in water.
https://youtu.be/usmhzgAXWEw
As a pseudo-miracle, I managed to wake up before 5 am for 3 straight days for the virtual SIGGRAPH Asia 2022 PC meetings (ending 10+ am), and set a personal record of reviewing 5 papers as an extra PC member, which, with the original 15 assignments, totaling 20, still less than like 22 I reviewed a few years back (but with fewer extra PC reviews which tend to have more time urgency).
Aaron Hertzmann has a recent post about expectation creep that is worth taking a look for future PC members.
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