Some lovely examples of the genre

You might have thought that 2019 was the Year of the RBOSS, and you would have been right. But just because 2019 went and ended all unexpectedly and stuff, it doesn’t mean that the genre has to end with it. Thankfully(?), there have already been some wonderful images shared on the Facebook group which originally gave us the RBOSS.

Like this puppy from one of the Masters:

Utterly spectacular. The saturation dial really turned up to 11 there. The sky literally exploding with over-excited pixels, displaying colours and hues that were actually never there.

And then there was this:

Subject matter 1/10, RBOSS level 10/10.

As Dale Carnegie famously suggested:

If life gives you lemons, make lemonade!

The amataur photographer version being:

If a sunset doesn’t give you colours, utterly destroy any semblance of reality by dragging the filter sliders all the way to the right. Twice.

And then do it again. Twice.

As one commentator wryly pointed out:

What a terrible way to find out that Iran has pushed the button.

We’re not even halfway through the first month of 2020 and already new boundaries are being explored in the world of RBOSS. Stick your shades on and join me in the quest to find the new King or Queen of over-saturation.

You have nothing to lose except your vision.

Back in time with #RBOSS

The Queen’s Pier in Ramsey in the Isle of Man is in dire need of restoration. First opened in 1886, 104 years later it finally closed and has been in a state of decay and decline ever since. But things are looking up – the Queen’s Pier Restoration Fund are slowly but surely making progress on bringing this impressive landmark back into use.

It’s painstaking, expensive work and you can help them out with some funding by clicking the link above if you so desire. And – if you’re local and feel the need – you can even volunteer to help with the ongoing work.

“Oh ya, and I also helped rebuild a 2,244ft long Victorian pier.”

Stick that on your CV and smoke it.

But there are some locals who are trying to assist in ways that you and I could only ever dream of: taking historic engineering from way back in time and dragging them kicking and screaming into the 21st Century: rejuvenating the superstructure of the Queen’s Pier via the means of #RBOSS.

This incredible image appeared on Facebook yesterday.

Amazing. You can literally see some of the stabilising cross-bars between the Victorian cast iron piles (over 40 feet in height (with 18 foot piles) on a 6° pitch) glowing brightly as they are heated to around 1200°C in order to remove impurities which might weaken the overall structure.

You can usually only do this is a specialised foundry. For the metal on the pier, this heating was last done in Stockton-upon-Tees in the 1880s: the RBOSS technology to repair these important stabilising braces on-site simply wasn’t available until now yesterday morning.

This revolutionary technique is not without risk, however. Primary dangers in flinging the saturation slider all the way to the right, saving the image and then doing it again include literally burning right through the iron which is holding the pier up (you can see this occurring on one piece of cross member) and also turning the corona of the sun a weird grey-green colour.

But in the hands of an RBOSS expert (as we undoubtedly are in this case), this method is a quick and easy way of mending a Manx landmark. It’s surely only a matter of time until Peel Castle gets an evening* makeover. Sure – that’s made of stone, which will only melt at 4000°C, but with the right software and a desire to make everything oranger than it actually is, anything is possible.

In the meantime, we’ll keep enjoying the seemingly almost unbelievable explosive colour of every daybreak in Ramsey via Facebook, while the Queen’s Pier gets rebuilt by whatever means are available.

* West coast, see?

New levels of #RBOSS

With autumn slowly setting in across the Northern hemisphere, could it be that the time for #RBOSS is done? After all, there have been no decent examples for absolutely ages and so I’m pretty sure that it’s totally dead in the wa…

OH. MY. GOD.

The title of this one was the jaunty “Going Fishing”. And what better way to spend what are clearly the final hours of the existence of our planet?

Yes, in about 7.5 billion years, the sun will reach its maximum size as a red giant: its surface will extend beyond Earth’s orbit today by 20 percent and it will shine 3,000 times brighter. It will engulf and destroy our home.

And what you see above is pretty much what things will look like the day before all that happens. There will clearly be no escape, and thus, setting sail out onto the steaming orange Irish Sea in search of whatever boiled fish remain floating upon the surface of the water won’t save you.

Personally, I’d be looking for somewhere with air-conditioning ahead of our inevitable collective destruction, but each to their own, and if frying just off the coast of Ramsey is your thing, it’s probably going to be too hot for anyone to care anyway.

Tight lines.

Scandi #RBOSS

A (quite literally) horrifying image greeted me as I skipped through Facebook yesterday evening. This was it:

Wasn’t this just another repulsive oversaturation of Ramsey Bay in a desperate attempt to garner Facebook likes for the purposes of self-validation?

Almost.

But no. Imagine my dismay when I noted that this was a sunset in Bergen, Norway (but yes, still repulsively oversaturated probably in a desperate attempt to garner Facebook likes for the purposes of self-validation).

Bergen #RBOSS. Ugh.

I thought that the Norwegians had more taste than to wander down the rather tacky road of faking just how beautiful a beautiful view can be. And much like the Manx (and those of us in Cape Town) they are really spoiled for beautiful views that honestly don’t need ruining just because you feel that you need people to click on a certain part of their screen when looking at them.

Wholly unnecessary.

This rapid dissemination of #RBOSS is hugely concerning. Like the epidemiology of measles through a stupidly unvaccinated population or the ridiculous geographical expansion of Constantia, it’s frankly terrifying and needs to be stopped.

Don’t #RBOSS.

#RBOSS continues

The original #RBOSS post is here. Do go and read it.

Here’s a tall ship in Ramsey Bay, Isle of Man this morning:

Beautiful. But then someone (slightly further away and a bit more to the left) hit the #RBOSS button to get some more Facebook likes:

Yowzers! The sky is aflame!
Vibrance and hue pushed to the max!

“Saturation is at Warp Factor 9! She cannae take anymore, Captain!”
[sound of photo editing program exploding]

Here’s the same Snapseed Criminal at it again on Monday morning:

My fok, Marelize.
Really. Don’t do this. No need.