You've probably noticed a trend of movement here. I think I'm developing a niche (gimmick?) for this blog as a good go-to place for "moving" baseball card pictures. Since starting up this blog a few months ago, I've dusted off my meager "advanced Photoshop skills" and gotten back into the animated gif game. First there was the winking Yaz (I could look at him all day! Even in non-winking form, that card can always cheer me up). And then a somewhat scary Kirk Gibson image, followed by a speedy "slideshow" of Dick Allen's base cards. Then what really garnered me some glowing praise (sorry for the pun) was my recent post on glow-in-the-dark cards.
So might as well continue with what's working for me. Hence a new ongoing series here at Baseball Card Breakdown called Refractin' Action, featuring animated pictures of refractors and other cards that are shiny, holographic, reflective, or whatever.
Another mainstay of Baseball Card Breakdown, I try to include fitting songs with most of my posts to give readers a multimedia experience(!) when they're hanging out at BCB. This is the new Arcade Fire song, which I like to pretend is about refractor baseball cards, but I don't really think it is. The band is hit-or-miss with me, trending downward. I like a lot of songs off their first album, then a few songs off their second, and then only 1 off their third. But I dig this advance single for their 4th LP, and am looking forward to hearing the full album when it comes out. I've found out since drafting this post that this song already does have a baseball connection.
Starting with the Gibby (which wasn't very successful), I've been trying different techniques for tackling the challenging task of portraying the in-person effects of refractors into the online medium. These are just fancy words for saying it's hard to take a good, representative photo/scan of a refractor. I'm sure you all know that holding a refractor in your hand is often a completely different visual experience from seeing a photo, scan, or even video of it. But my goal is to at least get closer to bringing cards like that to life on a computer monitor. It's an ongoing project and hopefully I'll continue to improve at it. I'm trying to get it as close to real life as possible, without resorting to Photoshop trickery, so I can safely say these are real, undoctored images.
But enough talking, let's kick off this inaugural Refractin' Action post and show you what you're here for: a moving picture of a baseball card!
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| Mike Piazza 1997 Fleer - Soaring Star insert ("Stars" Parallel) |
This card was featured (in still form) in my post on glowing cards, though this is not one of the glowing cards. The twinkling stars are subtle here, but look pretty cool. It's actually quite a calming image, with the various shades of blue gently pulsating.. Relaxing to just stare at it for a while. You should bookmark this page and come back sometime when you're stressed and see if Twinkling Mike helps you chill out. haha
Ok, that's it for now! (I originally intended to have each Refractin' Action post feature multiple cards, but in the interest of posting more frequently, I think I'll keep them to one card per post.) I don't have a huge selection of refractors in my collection, so of course please feel free to donate (trade) me any more cards along these lines to add to future Refractin' Action posts.
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