Mara Dyer Cover Art

So the other day, I was browsing weheartit when I stumbled upon the above image and was instantly struck with a sense of recognition. Something about the clothing, the subjects of the photo, the atmosphere of the photo itself, seemed a little familiar.

Oh, I don't know, kind of like The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer sort of familiar. So of course, I went and pulled up the book cover, and 'lo and behold, it was the same clothing! Having a personal interest in photography, and photographers whose work end up on covers, I set out to investigate further.

As it turns out, this was shot by Heather Landis, who shot a whole series of photos in this theme. (A few of them are displayed below.) Definitely pop by her website if you have time, there's tons of really awesome artwork over there.

And just some basic info about the book - The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer by Michelle Hodkin will be released on September 27th, 2011 by Simon & Schuster. Having heard a ton of great early buzz about it thus far, I'm definitely very excited for this one!

Have you found any other awesome photographers who've shot recent YA book covers?!

Happy New Year!

Here's to 2011; let's make it the best one yet! :)

berry acrobatic.

tomorrow -
today...
is a new day.

Canon A3000 IS Camera Review

The Canon Powershot A3000 IS is a decent point-&-shoot digital camera for the casual snap-shooter on a budget.

Let's start off with the pros. It bears the 'Canon' name (which is pretty much the dominating brand in digital cameras these days). The controls on the back are pretty much straight-forward classic Canon, very easy to use. There's a separate button that turns face detection on and off quickly and conveniently. Scratching won't really be an issue in regards to the body of the camera. The mode dial is located at the top of a tower-like structure dominating the right hand side, rather reminiscent of an DSLR's design. The playback button can be used to turn the camera off and on as well. The smart Auto mode is pretty cool, but most compact digitals offer some variation of it nowadays. It does, however, use optical image stabilization, which is decent. It takes fairly decent photos outdoor (see below for raw example).

Specs-wise, it's a pretty basic camera. 4x optical zoom, 10.0 mega pixels. Basic Canon functions, nothing to get too excited about. Also beware that there's no optical viewfinder. A quick Google search will yield specs stats, so I won't go into too much detail with that.

And now for some of the not so great things. It seems to have trouble shooting indoors, often opting to up the ISO, which then results in noise being fairly noticeable. The pictures in general just don't seem to come out quite as crisp as my old Canon Powershot S400 4.0 megapixel camera. Shutter-lag and shot-to-shot times tend to be on the slow side as well.
So all in all, for the casual snap-shooter, sure, the A3000 will probably suffice. It's plastic, it's simple and it's not particularly compact, but it doesn't cost a whole lot either. If you're planning on shooting a lot indoors or want super-crisp photos, spend the couple extra bucks and maybe get a higher valued model though.

Book Blogs =/= Homework Help

This is an issue I've been meaning to blog about for some time now. Let's face it - it's kind of cool to see what keywords people are using in search engines and such to end up at your blog.

But lately I've been noticing a very disturbing trend. For some time now, search phrases such as:

"North of Beautiful Characters"
"North of Beautiful themes"
"Candor book themes"
"What is the setting of [North of Beautiful] [Candor] [All Unquiet Things] [Bad Girls Don't Die] etc."
"What is the theme of [book title]"

and those are simply a few examples of a huge slew of queries that somehow lead here. Themes, setting, literary devices, characters, you name it. A few book titles seem to pop up especially much - perhaps they're being used in schools?

And then last month I got these two comments - in quick succession, no less - by an anonymous commenter: "HELP!!! What is Carter's last name?????" and "PLEASE I NEED HELP!!!! WHAT IS CARTER'S LAST NAME????"

But two particular search terms yesterday - from different search engines - really take the cake. "summary on the novel bad girls don't die that i can turn in to my teacher for a book report" and "summary on the novel bad girls don't die that i can hand in to my teacher as a report". Really, people, really? This is kind of appalling. I mean, have you no shame? To go around and attempt to commit such plagiarism... wow.

Have you guys been finding such a trend lately as well? How do you feel about it?

Recreate a Cover: The Mark

Princess Bookie's Recreate a Cover contest is on now. The basic concept is to take a YA 2010 release, and re-create a new cover for it. For my entry, I've re-done Jen Nadol's The Mark, which was published by Bloomsbury on January 19th, 2010. Pop by the Goodreads page or Jen's website to find out more about it!

All photography used is (c) Deltay/Lucid Conspiracy. (Original versions of Veil of Lashes and shh - silence.) Feedback is of course welcomed and appreciated.

The official/actual book cover is included below on the left. On the right hand side was the original book cover. I've included the little snippet-text from both on my version, one of which reads, "If you had the power to see death, would you wish it away?" while the other poses the question, "If you knew today was someone's last, would you tell?"

So, what do you think?

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year!

2009 has come and (almost) gone. It had its ups and downs, but overall, it was a pretty amazing year. Here's hoping that 2010 will be even better!

Cheers :)


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Also, as it turns out, I will be partaking in Project 365 after all for 2010 (it's basically the concept of a photo a day for 365 days). Pop on by Lucid 365 to come keep me company :)

Technorati & Digg

After seeing Presenting Lenore's post about Technorati, I was finally prodded enough to create a Technorati Profile.

Add to Technorati Favorites

If you've got one too, feel free to pop a link in the comments!
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And since this is turning into a bit of rampage, I went and registered for Digg as well; I can be found here. Any other Digg users out there who want to connect, again, just pop me a line.
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This week has been pretty much non-existent in terms of updates; things have been hectic, and I'm not feeling exactly 100% at the moment either, which kind of sucks. Hopefully everything will clear up this weekend. frd2hy48e

On the Cusp by ~deltay on deviantART

Twitter Bandwagon...

Oh no. I've gone and done it now.

I've gone and...

Joined Twitter as Lucid Conspiracy.

Who all's already there?

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On another note, I've been nominated by the awesome Aimee over at Book Dork for the Proximity Award again. Thanks Aimee!

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Break Apart Her Heart by =deltay on deviantART

Pi Day, Blog Love, and Oh Noes!

3.14, Happy Pi Day!

The super sweet Iryna over at A Garden of Books has nominated me for I [Heart] Your Blog. award, which is really exciting. Thanks muchly! So technically I'm supposed to nominate at least seven other blogs, but it seems this award has really made a round of the YA blogosphere, and I'm not really feeling up to it right now, which leads smoothly into the next point.

Alas, I seem to have come down with something. It started out with a pretty nasty cough, and then I lost my voice, and now it's just turned into a pretty icky cold. Which really sucks (hence the Oh No!) Last week was sort of a joke; Wednesday was a Snow Day, and Thursday I just stayed home sick.

But but but - now Spring Break has started! (Hopefully I'll get over this cold soon so I can actually revel in how chill this week should be.) Big plans for the week, I would really like to get some things done. For example, Kevlar Moustache. And I'll definitely have to try and schedule in some photoshoots. And of course, maybe some SAT prep and driver's test. But best of all is just the downtime to chillax. =)

Oh right! Today is also deltay's one year anniversary on deviantART (because technically I've been on dA for way longer, except under different accounts).

In other randomness, I've been looking up a lot of random videos on Youtube, and there are some really talented people on there! I seem to have rekindled my love for guitars, and now I really want to learn to play. Like, right now. But then after this week, when the horrors of IB start again... maybe I should just hang on until the summer. And my other rekindled love? Jesse McCartney's music. (No, I'm not kidding ;) He's just got such a beautiful soul.

*PS We had two Friday the 13ths in a row this year! And aww, the Zokutou wordmeter is broken. Or something.

**Kate is holding a giveaway for Violet on the Runway, Oh. My. Gods., or Spring Breakup here, so hop on over to check it out! Contest ends Sunday at midnight.

Twist Ties & Polka Dots

Semi - impromptu photoshoot today, which was nice, because it gave me the illusion that I was actually getting something done rather than just chillaxing the days away until second semester starts. The concept I was going for this time was a "stationary motion - creating lines of movement through body language" type of motif. You guys be the judge: what do you think?

Some days I really wish I had models at my beck and call to work with - it does get tedious trying to be both in front of and behind the camera, at the same time. It would be so fab to get to try different angles and shutter speeds, etc. Maybe someday, right?

On another note, are these darling bubble polka-dot shorts adorable or what? Too bad it's the middle of winter and there's mountains of snow piled high outside. Which basically equates to: way-to-cold-for-shorts season. Talk about bad timing; you know that feeling you get, the craving to wear something in particular, even though the temperature/weather is all wrong for it? So beat.

So recently I found out that The Reader by Bernhard Schlink has been made into a movie. I'd actually picked up a copy of the book second-hand at the library in early August. (Alright, alright, so maybe I'd gotten it because the cover photograph was intriguing - a sort of aged, vintage feel.) Anyway, after the move, all my books were still packed in boxes and I read The Reader and it was quite the deep, insightful read. Definitely thought-provoking. (Although I do wonder how much was lost in translation...) And better yet, Kate Winslet plays Hanna in the movie! I watched the trailer, and she isn't quite what I'd envisioned Hanna to be like (slightly more stocky, coarser hair, etc.) but it's Kate Winslet so I'm sure she's probably brilliant. Have you seen the movie yet?

Even more recently, I found out that this book is actually on the IBO's list of potential books that schools are allowed to choose! Unfortunately, mine didn't; but still, it was quite the You know you're in IB when... moment. In my defense though, I didn't know it was an IB-allowed book when I read it. ;)

In fact, I haven't done much reading at all lately. Any suggestions of recent good books?

Lights, Camera... Blog?

The Technological Age is advancing well upon us; pretty much consuming us, really. Today, I was re-inspired to give blogging another shot. After all, second semester of junior year is about to start, which should be a time for new beginnings. (Who am I kidding? I didn't even make any New Year's Resolutions for 2009.)

Personally, I always find the first post of starting a new blog the hardest. It feels like there's this huge expansive void, like it's tethering on the edge of a revelation, like the blog could literally go in any direction. At the same time, there's this feeling that maybe there should be an introduction of some sort, to start off with. It's okay - call me old-fashioned ;) Hopefully after I get this out of the way, it'll feel more relaxed and natural. I must warn you though - I can be exceptionally random at times, and tend to ramble and rant. About the oddest things.



But to ease my conscience, I guess I'll give a brief introduction of myself.

-Sixteen year old female from Ontario, Canada.
-Aspiring Photographer.
-Writer.
-Badminton Player.
-Victim of International Bacculaureate.
-Loves spontaneity.
-Wastes too much time online.
-Has random ephiphanies.

Well. That was some introduction, wasn't it? Oh, right. I can be kind of sarcastic at times as well. ;) But then again, in this day and age, aren't we all? Quite excited about this whole ordeal, really.

Alright, alright, so maybe this isn't my first try at blogging - but you know what they say; the nth time's the charm, right? Right?! Right. It feels like it's been a numbed haze recently, so hopefully 2009 will be the year of a Lucid Conspiracy.