Window Of Opportunity
At some point in mid-summer we were released from lockdown in the UK. Late summer has been a little strange, but we could more or less do whatever we wanted; go shopping, go to the gym, meet family and friends indoors. Some clubs were even allowed to open complete with partner dancing. Life was nearly back to normal.
International flights also opened up leading to hundreds of thousands of British and other European holiday makers making a dash for any destination that would have them. Spain, France, Greece and Italy were no doubt inundated by the flood of holiday makers.
There is a group of people that has been making plans to "get out" of here the minute the window opened. I don't mean going on holiday, I mean totally leave, like emigrate. The pandemic has shown us that there are parts of the world that have done a lot better than us in handling the pandemic response, or that nature has afforded a better environment to withstand the issue even with larger populations and fewer resources. This group wants to make the move to those places.
There's another thing. A subset of this group believes that there is a wider agenda related to this whole "COVID-19" thing. I put it in quotes because a lot of them even don't believe it's real at all. In their theory, it's a global agenda to vaccinate everyone with something. Something sinister. As such, they want to leave and get to a place where the governments aren't as apt at enforcing such agendas.
Whatever the case, the window is now closing. Next Monday, the UK sees the beginning of what is now being called #Lockdown2 on social media. Gatherings of larger than 6 people will then be outlawed. It's the classic easing back to lockdown.
As expected, because we are moving into Autumn and Winter, there is a resurgence of the coronavirus. Governments are going to try to do better this time, so I expect to see even more draconian measures taken. To be fair, the hospitals are also better prepared, and we all have a lot more information this time. The supermarkets are also hopefully gearing up for the hoarding rush. I hope this means people are not going to excessively stock up on toilet paper this time.
To be honest, I was also making a plan to relocate, at least for the second wave lockdowns. Somewhere with no winter would have been nice. The Canary Islands, Cape Verde, Senegal or Gambia where my four choices. Sadly it looks like I'm going to be in London through winter - cold and miserable. It's also going to be very expensive in terms of energy utility bills.
It could be much worse though. I could be in Beirut with my house blown away and a looming season of desolation. It could be much, much worse. I'm always thankful.
I'm not really on that plane
Never believe anything you see online!
Most people that are any good at photoshop, or that person with a photographic eye, would have spotted the fact that the photo of me looking out of an airplane window is a forgery. It's not even a good one, but it's just enough to fool anyone not particularly paying attention.
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With a green background it is infinitely easier to remove or replace the background than any other. I created this transparent image on a free online tool. I then layered the image unto a free stock photo of inside a passenger plane on another free tool called Canva.
The trick to make it look more realistic is to try to match the light source in the two photos. More importantly, the colour temperature and tint both make the photos merge together better. I reduced the brightness of my face a bit, and tinted it with a little violet/purple to match the ambience. Voila! A half decent fake.
Fake it till you make it
I'm loving my green screen. I bought it on Amazon for little money, but it's solving a lot of problems for me. I can now record videos with my disorganised background and clean it up in-post. I can even now record videos from a countryside lake if I want :)
Be like me, get a cheap green screen of your own
🛒 US Amazon
🛒 UK Amazon
The above are Amazon affiliate links which means if you click the correct region and buy, and your purchase fulfils all the convoluted criteria, then I may or may not get paid a tiny commission out of Amazon's pockets and not yours.
Peace & Love,
Adé