The XBox Kinect sensor has been the focus of many independent hacks to use it for gesture interfacing with computers, and the thought came to me that this would be ideal for editing images in Ligthroom similarly to what I do with the LRPad application.

Here’s the concept; If you’re familiar with Minority Report, we see Chief John Anderton (Cruise) select and manipulate images on a clear panel. Take that and imagine using a Lightroom or Photoshop adjustment brush and applying corrections with your finger on an image displayed on the wall. No more Wacam pad and pen, no more mouse, no LRPad (well, you could keep LRPad for some of it).

With the larger image display you would have an awesome resolution to apply corrections. If insufficient, just gesture to zoom the image and continue with your adjustments. It brings new meaning to the term finger painting.

Researching some existing hacks, there has been a lot of foundation work for writing the CHI for doing a lot of the pieces I’ve just described. It appears that a relatively small amout of work would be required to put it together, and that’s where I’m headed. I’ve already ordered the Kinect sensor, the Microsoft Kinect SDK, and I’ve got the wall picked out. I’ll need a projector, but that can be purchased after I’ve proven the concept.

This has real commercial potential, and I’m interested in hearing feedback and ideas from those of you that use Lightroom, Photoshop, Illustrator, GIMP, Aperture and other image editing packages.

Meanwhile, keep an eye out here for updates on this fun project.

Here’s an example. This image was collected on Castle Creek road, south of Aspen, Colorado. As it happened, this scene opened up in front of us right when the sun was hitting a group of aspen trees in full fall regalia. Now, the picture really doesn’t do the scene justice, but it nevertheless looks amazing at full resolution. This is just one of those pictures that couldn’t be planned for unless you lived close by and could keep an eye on daily condtions.

Another example; I was Planning a full day at the Black Canyon of the Gunnison in Southwest Colorado, a location that makes the Grand Canyon jealous. An overnight rain-in-to-snow event totally obscured seeing anything beyond 30 feet, totally busting any images. I was really frustrated as I expected to get some really unique landscape images. Unfortunately, the snow and fog prevented me from taking a single shot. Discouraged, we left the location and headed for out next planned location, Arches National Park in Utah. Halfway through the drive a furious snow squall starting changing the landscape around us. I managed to find a safe spot to stop and capture this:

So, next time you want to “Plan” for that perfect image, don’t forget to look for those “Un-Planned” opportunites.

We printed it out on my Epson 2400 using 10-inch wide roll paper where it reached a whopping 36 inches. At full resolution, the image is breathtaking. Taking pictures in Seattle is always iffy, considering the frequent rain showers, but this one worked out beautifully. Contact me if you’re interested in a framed print.

Great image, Yun Young!

Later on in the afternoon, we took a quick run over to McCulloch park in Muncie, which boasts White River and some very old train bridges that made excellent backdrops for a large number of images. On this hot afternoon, the coolish waters were very refreshing. I’ll have a post with more of the location’s images later on.

I’m looking forward to the opportunity to shoot her again. Meanwhile, enjoy a small sampling of images from the shoot:

Thanks, Clairese

Thanks, Hilary!

Taylor graciously obliged my request to shoot the two of them, and we coupled that with her need for a nice senior portrait set. After spending a couple of hours with them, I’ve found a new desire to shoot animals again. It’s extremely challenging as they have their own idea of what to do, along with being prodded by the errant fly biting their legs. But as you can see, the effort is well worth the effort:

Congratulations to Katelyn and her family!

Motorists on I-65 are enjoying an interesting distraction just north of Lafayette as they enter the middle of an immense wind energy farm with wind turbines towering over 250′. The wind farm is home to over 600 wind turbines spread across 100,000 acres. The entire farm provides thousands of megawatts of clean energy to local energy users. Honestly, there really isn’t much of interest to look at on northern Indiana highways, but as I found myself looking around the countryside at the countless wind turbines, I began to wonder if the accident rate has increased on this stretch of highway.

After many trips through the area, I finally managed a short stop to get a handful of images. Pictures don’t do these turbines justice, as they are incredibly large with a total height of 372 feet, and there are so many of them. On the windy day I stopped, the 110 foot long blades made a low vibration as they slowly spun. Even though the blades turn at a seemingly slow speed of 15rpm, the tip speed is high enough to blur them in the photos.

I plan on returning to the area in the near future to take a number of night shots. It’s really hard to describe, but picture hundreds of red lights a couple hundred feet in the air, flashing on and off in unison well off to the horizon. The area truly looks like a sci-fi invasion. Meanwhile, enjoy these daytime shots of a very small fraction of the turbines in the area.