I hate “Planking”. If you’ve never seen it, it’s when one person lies down, usually in a public place and makes their body as stiff as possible, emulating a plank. I can think of no good reason for it beyond attempting to join the steadily growing crowd of people who have done it. A recent variation of it is to have someone “Owling” in the same image, widening their eyes to look like an owl. As I’m sure you can guess, this is the realm of kids taking photographs of themselves doing something that requires absolutely no talent to post on the web.
We can haz actual fucking talent?
Enter Natsumi Hayashi and her wonderful blog imaginatively entitled “Feeble camera woman diary”. Like me, Miss Hayashi has no time for planking and anything else that takes no thought, time or planning. She sees these things as being boring and has concentrated the photos in her blog mainly on her levitation ability and her two non-levitating cats. Yeah, that’s right, this girl can float.
Housework in Professor X’s mansion was always fun.
Impressive, isn’t it. Natsumi first got the idea from an old saying in Japan, coincidentally an old saying here too – “have ones feet planted firmly on the ground”. The saying, which means to be practical, is the opposite of how Natsumi sees herself. “I’m not a practical person. In being free of gravity in the pictures, I am also not bound to societal conventions. I feel as though I am not tied to many things and able to be my true self.”
A wild breeze appeared. It’s very effective!
Natsumi achieves the effect not by actually floating, which would have been a much bigger story, but by jumping. After finding the perfect spot for her daily updates and setting the self-timer on her camera, she’ll begin jumping on the spot and can jump up to three hundred times before she gets the right photo to pull off the floating effect. “I am not sure whether people think I am strange. But when I am shooting on a train platform or famous sight-seeing place and jump over 200 times in a row, nearby people start to whisper.”, the naive young schoolgirl admits.
Natsumi hopes to get a career as a photographer off the ground with this series of photographs and has already seen some success as a result. You can find more images of her peculiar talent below as well as on her own pages.
The Dark Furie 
Amazing. Looks cool.Reminds me of a Danish television show, long time ago, before YouTube and Jackass and stuff, where they took public falling unto a new level. Just simple falling, like if you stumble over something. The thing was to fall properly (there were directions and rules, you would not want to perform a fawlty fall) and, of course, to get it on tape and send it in. You would not believe the result. Every week there would be five, six videos that people had send in, showing absolute idiots falling on their faces in public places around Denmark. It was quite hip for a year or so. There were even group falls and other variations.
That is really cool. Makes my idea of photographing myself in various places as the Earth explodes seem pretty lame.
Really like the train one.
Excuse me while I yawn. :eek:.This used to be an interesting trick with a Kodak 'Instamatic' (125 cartridge film) back in the daze.Of course, that required two people, one to manipulate the camera and one to do the jumping. :left:.And that was all about timing. You only needed to jump once, but the photographer had to time the shot just right. :rolleyes:.Of course, it was often months before we got the developed photos and saw the result but it was a fun game none the less. :up:.And when you're about eight or mind years old, you don't really care how pointless the game you play is! :p.
I had a plan to take a series of pictures without me in them, and of nothing particular occurring – I was going to call them Blandscapes, but…meh… :)I think Gavin's idea is very artistic – presumably Gavin you would make an Antonioniesque continuous slo mo video shot of the world exploding..??
Tardis and exploding Earth. Alhough I may not need a Tardis.
Falling, nothing and destroying the world. My readers have an odd taste in art…Originally posted by qlue:
Get some sleep young man.Originally posted by garlingmatthews:
Every guy needs a Tardis. :yes:
i actually thought wtf is wrong with Mik as I read this but to see the rest of the pictures made me retract that very quickly. :p
Amazing photographs. She definitely has a talent as photographer. Catching the right moment is a difference between amateur and professional.Even though she could use Photoshop to get almost the same result :left:
I find the one with the kit running by the funniest… and the last one as well:)all these pics are great, it just looks very natural for her to float there, normal… long story short: I like it.:yes:
I never understood the concept of planking. It seems ridiculous and pointless, and is not even really funny. The jumping ones are cooler, and it's funny how she can jump sideways. :up:
🙄
Unrelated: You're member of the week. Now.. accept my friend request, man. http://my.opera.com/community/blog/2011/08/20/member-of-the-week
Now that Furie is MOTW, as I type this, Furie is probably over there jumping 200 times to get the perfect Floating Furie Pic. Gotta get that hair floating jussssst right.
Mik, I am disappoint. The amount of time you devoted to saying negative things about planking/owling was far too short. :(On the plus side, this girl's future significant other is gonna have to work extra hard to make her feel like she's walking on air!
Originally posted by Suntana:
Poor deity! :awww::devil:.
:lol:I`ve seen some Photoshopped photos with person having 3 arms and that sort of mistakes :P*tries to find some old e-mails*
Originally posted by Cois:
Surely we've known the answer to that for a very long time now? 😉
Originally posted by gdare:
As true for other things as it is for photography, I'd say. Comedy especially.
Originally posted by gdare:
I hate that. Here's something that took real talent. Here's something that took a different type of talent that cheapens all of the other talents that could have been used. The whole fakery thing pisses me off (he says with a black face and white hair) and you get to a point where people are using photoshop to "fix" things so much that you wonder why they bothered paying good money for those things in the first place. This for example:
Originally posted by Zaphira:
Spot on kitten. Kim told me about it and I just couldn't grasp the concept. I needed to see a deeper meaning or purpose to this seemingly stupid posing else these people would just be fools posing like fools for the sake of being foolish without even the added value of being funny at the same time. It turns out they're being fools "ironically" which is loosely translated as "we're trying to stand out by joining the crowd as much as possible and are using the term ironic to cover our asses whenever anyone points out what sheep we're being".
Originally posted by drakinian:
Heya Drak, you didn't join this place just to comment here did you? Quick tip: I collect the brightest and best of this site on this page. :left::right::sst: Plus Kitty. Click their names and you'll be taken to some great content.And yeah, she does manage to make it seem like something everyone could do if they tried hard enough. Great talent there.
Originally posted by DotEd:
Last time I rohypnolled Espen and did vile things to his sexy little ass I made a deal with him that I would be spared from that sort of thing until I'd become the most visited blog on Opera. Slowly my visits rose, slower than most as I was very conservative with friend requests and accepting, and used the stealth blogging setting to stay off recent visitors lists, and I know I was close when the stats pages disappeared. I'm taking it as read that I'm number one now. :yes:
Originally posted by DotEd:
Lety me tell you a story. When I first joined this site I had an i-mode phone and the i-mail address I used to register wasn't very good. In fact, the address didn't receive the confirmation e-mail. I quickly changed the e-mail address associated with the account and hoped it'd reach that one. It didn't and I got booted from that account, never to return. Over that time I did manage to make one friend though, a young man starting his gaming group on this site. You're stuck with me forever!!! :devil:
Originally posted by clean:
It's the lack of a sidebar. The paragraphs get stretched horizontally and seem much shorter as a result. 😦
Originally posted by qlue:
*passes around the collection plate*
Here, perhaps? 😉
Somewhere else but this is a good example, too 😆
Does that mean, that I can have those original €500 printing plates you borrowed back?
Honestly, Photoshopping is too easy. Any idiot can do that. Using the conventional/traditional photographer's skills like this young lady, calls for respect.Originally posted by Furie:
Clean towels anybody?
Originally posted by Aqualion:
:irked:Thanks a lot. Didn`t you know that I make my daily bread working with Photoshop?:P
:whistle:
Originally posted by gdare:
An oven might be easier. :chef:
Originally posted by Furie:
Yes, you are right :awww:One of my friends, a chief in IT department in a bank, always complained he would rather be a carpenter…. :left:
efraimramsen.com writes:First, thanks for your comment, it's great hearing such nice words from another Bastion fan! So I had to check out your blog, and this post amazed me! I haven't really understood why planking got so popular. Might be fun for those shooting the pictures but it's really lame watching. Seeing someone using their fantasy and skill to create or do something new on the other hand, like this girl, that's inspiring!
Agreed 😉
Well, I didn't want to raise that point but since you mention it… :whistle:.
Carpentry is easier. Less splinters, no forks and a whole lot less cabling! :faint:.NE14-10IS :left:?
I read that as '…Less sphincters'. Sorry 😆
Natsumi is truly amazing. It`s not just the jumping (she can jump very high :eyes:), it`s making it look graceful.:cool:
Certainly unique, isn't she. 😀
People still plank? I thought they started owling instead… :rolleyes:Planking/owling is ridiculous. This girls photographs are cool! She makes it look so easy.