GHOST IN THE MACHINE

Last Friday night, in a very lucky encounter, we ran into Chloe Pang on 1st Avenue and Houston Street.  Although it had been more than a year since we'd seen each other, we picked up right where we'd left off eons ago.  When she mentioned that she's downtown a lot, we talked Chloe into meeting us the next day at the mural of Godzilla and Gamera to scope it out for last Sunday's blog posting on The Lazy, Hazy Days of Summer.

Chloe is arguably one of the most multi-talented people we know: a classically trained concert pianist, artist, milliner and photographer! But most importantly, she is always up for anything. Aha! How many people do you know think it a perfectly reasonable proposal to help us photograph ourselves being attacked by and putting our heads inside the open mouth of Godzilla? Not too many, we bet. On top of that, she's not only a knock out, but as you can see, she is also blessed with a wonderful sense of whimsy. The perfect accomplice!

Chloe exposed us to a new way of photographing ourselves with our iphones. The effect is what we've dubbed "the ghost in the machine". (Click on photos to enlarge.)

Perhaps if we understood it better, we could explain it to you. Suffice it to say, the result creates an interesting illusion of multiple incarnations of a person in the same frame. By chance, once again, we ended up in coordinated outfits, this time in black and white -- with straw hats -- Valerie in Kokin and Jean in Henrik Vibskov. Luckily, last Saturday, even the weather cooperated with mercifully low humidity.

Using the panorama setting on her iphone, Chloe photographed us walking across the front of the wonderfully colorful mural. In this case, where it makes Valerie look like she's chasing herself, each of the images is clear.

Through some other voodoo, Chloe could also create a wonderfully slow-mo blurred effect, enhanced by Valerie's fancy footwork.

Jean just had to get into the act.  If Valerie could be a twin, then by golly, she would be a triplet.

The sci-fi effects were perfect for Gamera and Godzilla. Needless to say, until we can figure out how to do this ourselves, we'll just sit back and enjoy Chloe's handiwork. Happy trails, people!