Only a couple of people are going to know what this is, but I gave Lane her birthday present today. She was suitably ecstatic. Then we got Alec hooked by letting her hold the Cube while watching Lane play Portal for about 10 minutes.
A local artist collaborated with me this week by using some of my photography as the background material for a music video for a song he wrote about Omaha. Take a look and enjoy.
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Monday, August 10
When People Run in Circles
CliffsNotes version of my recent Internet vacancy:
- The wedding I attended went off without a hitch (or rather, with the one expected hitch). Bride and groom on their way to Hawaii (just in time for the tropical storm). Nice weather at the family pond, everyone on time, no family quarrels, etc.
- I don't have an official tally, but I took somewhere in the vicinity of 1,600 photos (enough to fill two 4GB compact flash cards). Divide that by three since I use exposure bracketing, and then divide the formals by three because I take multiple shots per pose to account for blinking and the like, and I still have at least 200 photos to narrow down before starting the long cleanup process. I told the family I'd have albums ready in two weeks. Some of the photography was quite enjoyable and some was just monotonous, but it would have been far more stressful if my mother hadn't been running the shot sheet.
- We were scheduled to finish formal portraits at 5:30 (the ceremony started at 6) and I'd given out specific deadlines for various people (e.g., bridesmaids at 3:30). Due to people running late, at 5:15 we'd covered only about a quarter of the shot sheet and I was doing my share of panicking. When I told my mother that there was no way we were going to be done on time, she looked at me and said "Are you still on Omaha time? Because I have 4:15." Yay for time zone changes.
- I injured my hand doing the photography. Apparently 10 hours is too long to hold a 3-lb. camera lens on a 2-lb. camera. At some point during the reception I developed a sharp pain in my left palm, and since then I've been feeling little "electric shocks" in the same place whenever I flex my hand, which is consistent with a repetitive stress or carpal tunnel injury. Bloody hell.
- I also did family portraits for my brother and his family. Kelbi played along for about 15 minutes before growing bored with it.
- I did most of my dancing at the reception with Kelbi. Apparently she likes loud music and flashing lights.
- The reception played an eclectic mix of music. I'd wager I was one of the only ones there who knew the full set, considering the country bulk was punctuated with Abba and Lady GaGa. On two occasions the DJ played only the first half of a song before fading into something else because the dance floor would completely empty as soon as it started (apparently western Nebraska isn't a big Michael Jackson fan).
- I learned from my dad's mother that I have a Native American ancestor if you go back far enough (something like my grandmother's grandmother's grandmother).
- I saw a dead armadillo on the side of the Interstate. That's a first for Nebraska.
- I listened to a wide assortment of religious programming during my 12 hours of driving. Amongst the highlights:
- A fire-and-brimstone preacher who encouraged his listeners to shun Muslims because Islam is a devil-worshiping religion thats only purpose is to kill Americans. - A soft-spoken "answer man" who politely answered callers' questions about the Bible and laid out the facts that people who worship on Sunday instead of Saturday, play "revival"-style "rambunctious" (his description) music in church and wear any sort of hair styles or decorations (outside of what a "plain Christian woman" should wear), including hair extensions and dyes, are going to Hell. His one clarification to all of this was that you wouldn't go to Hell if you didn't know about these rules (his example was the Biblical figures with multiple wives, who just didn't know that polygamy was wrong), but now that the listeners had heard them (and I guess by extension the fact that you've read them here), the rules were in force. - A discussion between a radio call-in show host and (the) Stephen Baldwin that started with "Welcome to the show, Stephen in California" "Thanks, pastor. My name is Stephen Baldwin and I'm a film actor; perhaps you've heard of me or my family." "Well, Stephen, it doesn't ring any bells but I don't really watch movies. What's your question?" and then segued into a discussion on whether Christian rap music is an abomination or not, with Baldwin suggesting that if it reaches inner city kids who won't relate to more mainstream preaching it's a good thing and the host comparing it to pornography and saying it was inappropriate in all forms before hanging up and taking the next caller.
- I upgraded my parents' computer while I was there. After some quarreling, my mother and I agreed that they didn't need to pay for it. Which is apparently mother code for "I'm just going to put the check in your suitcase when you're not looking."
- The last hour of my drive was through fairly heavy fog, which was very pretty.
Since I spent an outrageous amount of money on a new lens, I figured I should at least try it out before using it for a wedding this weekend.
Although I should note that the new lens was not used for the photos of the Omaha Building or the new planet. Those came from my other "L" lens.
The picture to the right is a composite built from a photo in the firm's archive (actually hanging on the wall in my boss's office; I stole it for a weekend and scanned it at home) and one I took after walking around with a copy of the original until I found roughly the place I thought it was taken. I could use a concept called "parallax" to make that determination; only certain lines of sight would see the correct amount of window surface on the second half of the building peeking around the corner of the first, and only certain other lines of sight would see the same amount of curving sidewalk at the bottom, and if you draw a line between those you can determine the original vantage point. Unfortunately I was off a little bit (it's hard to tell exactly through the viewfinder); I should have been a little farther back and possibly higher. Fortunately, Photoshop means that no one but me will ever notice the slight amount of difference.
Courtesy of Lisa and her family (who allowed me to tag along on their annual excursion), my photo set of the sunset and fireworks display over Lake Manawa, Iowa (with the Omaha skyline in the distance).
Meghan's dance troupe (now called Raqs Awn) gave me the opportunity to test my newest lens last Friday night. Bellydance photography is probably one of the tougher shooting situations, combining as it does stage lighting (which tends to be uneven and colored), dimness and motion. I shot at F/2.8 and ISO 3200 (ouch) to avoid having to use the flash and tried my best to clean up the digital noise in Photoshop later. They won't win any awards, but they came out well enough that I think the troupe will like them.
Provided for your enjoyment, my first real experiment with the new 17-40L lens. I'm not that impressed with the photo results (the twins of course were as impressive as usual). Either I'm really out of practice or even an L-class lens doesn't make me a good photographer.
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Thursday, April 16
Photographer's Dillema
I saw an article today that melded my separate interests in photography and election procedures and brought up some interesting questions. A county election supervisor is attempting to bring misdemeanor charges against an anonymous voter who photographed his completed ballot and posted the photo online. The laws governing elections are very complex and vary from state to state, but most include some sort of prohibition against documenting your ballot (which was news to me). A little research reveals that the intent behind those laws is to increase the difficulty of using money or intimidation to coerce a voter into voting a certain way (since the shady party will want proof that the ballot was indeed cast the way the greedy and/or scared voter says it was). Okay, fine. That seems to be an antiquated method of voter fraud, but it's not unreasonable to try to curtail it. But to now apply that law to voters who voluntarily reveal their ballots with no voter fraud in mind seems to be going against the original intent: that a voter's actual vote belongs only to the voter. In the absence of evidence of fraud or intimidation, prosecuting something like this seems to be a case of following the letter of the law at the expense of its spirit.
With any luck, the DVD project is finally complete. I put the replacement batch of Jeff and Shandra's DVDs (necessitated by an unfortunate typo in the credits page - I wouldn't have cared so much if it had been an uncle or a cousin, but it's pretty bad when you misspell the bride's name . . .) in the mail today, so hopefully everyone is happy.
This project gave me the opportunity to learn iMovie and iDVD (neither of which is particularly difficult, but the quirks have a small learning curve). They worked great for capturing the video from my camcorder, editing and splicing. The special effects are limited and iDVD has a host of annoyances (like the inability to add a "Play All" button and the tendency to pick a random video on the DVD when you click "next" on the remote instead of going to the next video in the menu), but all in all they turned out well.
The DVDs themselves were my first experiments with mass DVD burning (using a disk image and OS X's Disk Utility; yes, I know Toast and its like are more efficient, but Disk Utility is free) and DVD printing (using printable DVDs and a special DVD tray in my Epson printer). I designed the DVD surfaces in Photoshop and then printed them directly onto the DVDs themselves; the results look much more professional than handwritten black Sharpie.
All told, including the time I spent fixing one typo, rerendering and reburning 5 discs, I'm estimating somewhere around 30 hours of work, of which probably 18 or so was actual hands-on work (the rest being time my computer needed to process video or burn the DVDs while I did laundry or went grocery shopping or helped indict Alberto Gonzalez on human rights abuses). Some of that was the learning curve, so future projects should be more efficient. Another factor is the final DVD sizes; I went over the DVD file size on each DVD and had to snip 3 minutes here and 5 minutes there to get below the limit (a DVD will hold about 4.2 gigabytes of data; Jeff and Shandra's DVD is 4.16 gigabytes).
My mother said everyone enjoyed them, so I'm hoping this project is done. My siblings have been mysteriously silent, however (even to some specific questions I asked them in the e-mail that accompanied the discs), so my enthusiasm for pro bono media work for them is somewhat low at the moment. I'm not sure they're understanding that hiring a third party to do this project would have cost them between $1,800 and $2,600 (depending on the market, and not counting the photography I also did at each wedding), which would put this right up there with the most expensive wedding gifts they received. I suppose that will be a point of contention the next time a desire for free media work is advanced.
It has been brought to my attention that the fact that I properly flagged the most recent photo of my dining room according to Flickr's guidelines means that most people (not being members of Flickr or not having relaxed the default settings) cannot actually see the photo. Please accept my most humble apologies and see if this one works better.
I've had the Lois Greenfield prints (the small prints in the left photo) on my dining room wall since I moved into my house, and I've had to politely decline credit for them when an assortment of visitors have asked if they were my work (I wish). Thus, I spent a few hours last weekend measuring and marking and hanging new prints of my own work (from my *other* portfolio, just to clarify that the full-size photo may not be entirely work safe).
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Saturday, October 18
Uncovered
WARNING: The following link contains nudity and is not work-friendly. Repeat, nudity, not work-friendly. Also, possibly not "my mother"-friendly, although maybe it will help her understand my artistic nude portfolio better (but I gave you the warning ahead of time in case you don't want to look anyway, mom).
Jordan Matter is a New York-based photographer who did a just splendid series of photos that I Stumbled upon last night. The series portrays a variety of "real" (not paid fashion models) women topless in New York (where apparently it's a little-known secret that such is legal) with commentary either from the women themselves or from the discussions of the people interacting around the shoot. The topics range from the unrealistic expectations of feminine beauty in American society to breast feeding to breast cancer and mastectomies to growing old without being discarded. The pictures show a world where women are women regardless of their body dimensions and are accepted for being individuals instead of objects, a world where nudity does not equal sexuality (in fact, one of the opening quotes is "In the city, nudity means something. In the wild, it just exists."). I think Mr. Matter came pretty close to knocking Lois Greenfield off as my favorite professional photographer with his synthesis of art and human commentary, something I've tried to express in my own portfolio.
Take two geeks, add a pair of high-resolution cameras and tripods, throw in some corn syrup, red food coloring and corn starch, toss in one cut-up shirt, delicately add one kitchen knife and marinate for several hours in Photoshop, and what do you get?
I arose early on Saturday to attend the 2008 Omaha Pride parade (and by "early" I mean "9:15," which doesn't seem very early to most people but is quite strenuous for the darkness-dwellers like me). The parade itself was disappointingly short (lasting a total of about 20 minutes), but the fact that Omaha even *has* a parade (and that it has grown each year) is an accomplishment.
The crowd seemed to enjoy the parade, with no discernible protesting or heckling. I did have one awkward encounter before the parade started as I was standing at 10th and Farnam messing with my camera gear. A gentleman who may or may not (based on his sports-themed attire) have been in town for the College World Series approached me to ask why people were lining up along the sidewalk. I told him it was for a parade, to which he responded "Oh, cool! A parade for what?" Internally bracing, I replied "The Omaha Gay Pride parade." "Oh," was his monotone reply, accompanied by the expected quick retreat.
Pictures from the trip Meghan and I recently took to Florida are finally up. Included in this package are a trio of new planet photos, a wide assortment of photos taken from the airplane window during the flights to and from, a day of beach photos and a collection of photos of historical St. Augustine (the oldest city in the U.S.). Some of them are standard "trip documentation" photos, but I tried to throw a handful of artistic ones in there, as well. Enjoy, and as always let me know what you think. :)
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Monday, June 9
Pixels Are the New Bragging Rights
Given my photographic proclivities, it's probably not surprising that at the moment I own four complete camera systems (granted one of them has some zooming issues due to an unfortunate fall and hasn't been out of the drawer in a few years, but it still takes perfectly good pictures), all four Canons, the most recent acquisition of which (purchased a scant two weeks ago) put a $1,300 dent on my credit card (but I got a really good deal on it!). Still, one can never have too many cameras, so for those of you who would like to take out a mortgage loan to treat me, this Hasselblad 31-megapixel camera is on sale ($9,000 off!) for a scant $18,000. :)
My status for some noticeable amount of time has been "AWOL" (an acronym that leads inexorably into the question of whether one can, in fact, be "AWL," as well). I have been entangled, perhaps even embroiled (if the plot is devious enough), in a variety of sundry events, including an out-of-state trip, a family visit and a tornado scare. Each should receive a post in turn, all of which would have been completed previously but for my inexcusable inability to process photos from said events to my standards in a reasonable amount of time. The joys of being exacting.
In the meantime, the photo to the left shows the current view from my front step (that's not a bush in the center; it's the top of a toppled tree shown more clearly from a different angle here). I have some minor tree damage in my backyard, but nothing matching this.
I spent a significant amount of time this weekend driving around (including trips on two different dirt roads) with camera in tow. I spent an hour at the Holy Family Shrine south of Omaha (a beautiful place, if you have some time to visit), then walked around midtown a bit (for a total of two pictures and meandered around downtown for a few hours before deciding that the sun and haze were not cooperating with the pictures I wanted to do of the Qwest Center.
The weather here is experiencing a moderate case of dissociative identity disorder (it's not called "multiple personality disorder" anymore, kids), alternating in three-day increments between rain, frost, wind and 70-degree sun. In other words, it's a typical Nebraska year.
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Monday, April 14
Robert Armes, This One Is For You
For the past few weeks I've been watching various sites for Canon lens deals so I can upgrade from my current walk-around lens. On Friday the following ad popped up on the local Craig's List board:
"Canon EOS 5D 12.8 Megapixel w/ EF 24-105 Kit- $1100"
Right of the bat this seemed odd to me. The poster was advertising it as "like new," having only used it for "50 shots" before deciding he didn't need a full-frame camera. The language in the ad actually showed some degree of knowledge of cameras, but at the same time he's asking $1,100 for a nearly $3,000 camera. The lens alone is worth what he was asking for the package.
So I passed. I did forward it to Lisa with a joke about how I'd give her my XTi for free if she'd buy me this one, but other than that I forgot about it.
On Saturday afternoon it was still there, and I finally broke down and sent a query about the condition and original purchase point (no harm there). As usual, I used one of my "throw away" e-mail addresses so in case it *was* a scam I could just junk the e-mail address when I started receiving spam from it. No response came on Saturday, and within about three hours the ad was removed from Craig's List. I figured the seller had found a buyer and removed the ad to keep from receiving further inquiries.
Fast forward to this morning (Monday), when I receive the following:
> -------Original Message------- > From: Robert Armes > To: [my throw-away craigslist.org address] > Subject: Canon EOS 5D 12.8 Megapixel w/ EF 24-105 Kit- $1100 > Sent: 14 Apr '08 13:14 > > Hi there, > > I still have the Kit. But the thing is that i'm in the U.K. for my > school ( i have the gear with me), if you're still interested in the sale > please let me know and maybe we can work something out . So drop me a line > if you're up for grabs! > Thank you! > > > Robert Armes > 420, Prescot Rd, Old Swan, Liverpool, Merseyside L13 3DA > United Kingdom > Ph: 44 20 3014 7453
Alarm bells. First off, he didn't answer any of my questions. Second, he's suddenly in England, two days after advertising on an Omaha posting board? For school (a long-term obligation)? Why even bother to advertise it here? Third, now we're talking shipping charges, which defeats the purpose of Craig's List (local buying and selling) and introduces the potential for scams and fraud.
So I Googled his name and a few other pieces of information from the e-mail. It took less than 15 seconds to come up with a Flickr discussion board with posts from people who have received the exact same offer (using the same name and address) on the Craig's List boards of Seattle and Chicago. Some of the contributors to the board pursued it further than I did and had received instructions for sending payment through a faked-but-authentic-sounding shipping company.
Just a reminder that things that sound too good to be true probably are.
I spent some time in the backyard (with wind and barking dogs) during the full moon last week. It's kind of sad that the neat aurora effect is likely at least partially due to pollution, but the pictures are pretty anyway.
Happy St. Patty's Day, one and all. Not being Irish or having any fondness for fermented barley, this holiday doesn't have the impact that, say, Halloween does, but I did remember my green shirt. It's perhaps a throwback to grade school and its silly "pinching" rules (and the associated cheaters who insisted that the some part of their braces or the socks under their shoes counted). Although it seems unlikely any attorney will yell "No green!" and pinch me in the elevator.
I'm happy to see a handful of groups are capitalizing on the "green" aspect of the holiday to promote green technologies. I "celebrated" a week early by buying about $40 of compact fluorescent light bulbs last week and replacing every incandescent bulb in my house (save one three-way bulb that won't accept a standard CFL). I even ordered dimmable ones for my dining room.
On my way in to work today I passed the Scottish Rite Masonic Center (as I always do, although simply because my route takes me that way, not because I'm keeping tabs on the Masons or anything). The Center always has a large sign out front with its name on it (the Center's, not the sign's). Today, they've also tacked a sheet over it to announce a corned beef dinner something-or-other. Except the sheet doesn't fully cover the sign, leaving the "S" from "Scottish" on the left, leading to an amusing advertisement for "Scorned beef."
Weekend highlights: Meghan's dance performance at the Shark Club was good (in performance and turnout), which slightly made up for her overabundance of stress (apparently cab companies in Omaha can't be bothered to help find lost keys). The twins were happy to see me (Kylie moreso because I was carrying an umbrella she could play with). I ordered my copy of CS3 (Design Premium rather than Web Premium, as I'd originally planned; I've never had much interest in hard-copy publishing, the purview of the major difference between the two, but I've recently discovered a company that will make actual hard copy books of my photos, so I guess it's time to learn InDesign). My left eyelid is *still* twitching (grrrr).
Hope everyone is having a great St. Patty's Day. :)
In an eclipse-rare event, my generation on my maternal side assembled at the same place at the same time (in nice clothes) at a location where someone (that would be me) had something resembling a photo studio set up. Voila, the first full group photo in many a blue moon.
We overspilled my backdrop to a substantial degree, so there's some Photoshop work to recreate the backdrop on both sides (I "borrowed" backdrop from a picture of Linde by herself and "threaded" it into this one). It's more or less seamless, so I'm happy with it.
The wedding itself went well. The rehearsal was, literally, 20 minutes long (we had no music, so there were many instances of "okay, at this point song 'X' will play for 3 minutes"). The rehearsal dinner (a term that has always confused me, since it seems to me that it should be the "after-rehearsal dinner," unless you're rehearsing to eat the wedding reception dinner) was very low key, punctuated only by Linde and Justin unwrapping their early wedding presents (boxer shorts and lingerie for the honeymoon).
Wedding day was very cold. The bride's family and her half of the party arrived early to start pictures (and were very patient while I retook a *lot* of photos). Due to some non-wedding pictures that were sprung on me (one of which included finding and arranging all 13 grandkids from my mother's side of the family), I was still doing photos when the guests started to arrive and missed most of the "getting the bride ready" candids that the photographer is supposed to catch. I suppose one advantage to having family do the photography is the option to "sneak in" non-wedding photos when the extended family all happens to be there.
The ceremony itself went off without a hitch (or with one hitch, I guess, although it was planned). It was the first time I'd seen my father in a tuxedo, which was interesting. I shot the entire ceremony itself without a flash using my fastest lens set to maximum ISO, so the pictures aren't blurry, but they're horribly grainy at full size. I think they're still decent for smaller prints, but I wouldn't be making 20x30 posters from them. All told, I took just shy of 400 photos at the church. The couple did in fact get married, and everyone thought it was a nice ceremony.
Between the church and the reception the bridesmaids "kidnapped" the groom; I was informed beforehand solely for the purpose of catching this shot as they exited the vehicle at the reception. Following the dinner was my slide show (I'll have a video version up eventually); it was well-received, especially my Photoshopped version of "American Gothic." I also decided to forgo the Sharpie revenge I had proposed as punishment for Haley's earlier coin assault on me, and instead added one extra photo to the slide show, a photo that earned me a laugh from 300 people and a yelled threat from Haley halfway across the auditorium (I later proposed that we were even, terms Haley initially rejected in favor of "it's so on now!", although she later relented, possibly after realizing how many other photos of her I have . . .).
The dance went well and Linde had a very good time. The only points of note were Haley's discovery that dancing with a wine glass in your hand can lead to fairly nasty cuts when someone crashes into you (necessitating assistance from her father and/or brothers to clean and rebandage the inch-long gash several times a day for the next four days) and the rather unfortunate arrival of one far-from-sober aunt who managed to fire off expletives at a variety of family members for only a few minutes before my brother and one of my uncles more or less carried her out of the auditorium and escorted her home.
The bride and groom braved icy roads on Christmas Day in return for cheap airfare to Las Vegas for the honeymoon (where "The Nutcracker" was on the agenda, although I haven't heard from them since I returned to Omaha, so I no information on how the honeymoon went).
All in all the wedding went surprisingly smoothly, and everyone enjoyed it. Congratulations, Linde and Justin. :)
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Tuesday, December 18
Unintended Praise
I had some photos developed last week. When I arrived at the store to retrieve them, I noticed immediately that, below my name on the large white envelope (I had 8x10s made), was one hand-written word: "Professional?" I thought it odd, but put it out of my mind until seeing the college-aged girl glance at the envelope and stiffen. What followed was a strange conversation:
Her: *pulling out the 8x10s* Um, are these your photos? Me: *thinking she just wants to verify she pulled the right set* Yup, those are mine. *pause* Her: You're sure they're yours? Me: Um, yeah. *longer pause* Her: Um, did you take them? Like, physically take them? Me: *with a raised eyebrow and not as friendly* Yes. I took them. *pause* Her: Okay, um, I'm going to have to have you sign a form.
She then produced a waiver of some sort from beneath the counter that said something to the effect of "I state that I own the copyright to these photos and I waive the developer of any liability in the event of copyright infringement" and indicated I sign and date it. Before signing it I quizzed her about it. As she explained it, some photo developers now "eyeball" photos coming out of the automatic machine and flag those that look "too good" (her words) to be taken on amateur equipment. The person retrieving the photos is then quizzed to verify the photos weren't downloaded and printed from an unaware professional photographer (because, as she explained, if the real photographer shows up with the unauthorized print the developer is on the hook for monetary damages).
While the event was both frustrating and flattering at the same time, I'm a little concerned and perhaps a bit amused by the subjectivity involved in minimum-wage employees judging artistic merit by merely glancing at photos, a factor that mitigates any glow one might receive from being confused with a professional photographer. If the point is to avoid copyright infringement (and I have no doubt that her explanation was accurate), eyeballing for subjective quality is going to catch only a fraction of actual violations. Digital photos, like digital music, is almost impossible to maintain exclusively. The mere fact that you can see my Flickr photos on your computer means your computer now has a copy of the photo in its cache. Still, I can see the developer's desire to avoid legal repercussions, and weeding out obvious magazine scans and famous prints is better than nothing.
Although the frustration I experienced attempting to photograph the twins in a "professional setting" on Sunday probably doesn't bode well for my future as a photographer of any sort, I did manage to Photoshop a handful of them into something presentable to friends.
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Tuesday, November 20
Wireless World
This is pretty slick. A standard digital memory card that contains the architecture and software to transmit photos from your camera directly to your computer or an online photo-sharing site. It has some distance to traverse before making it into the mainstream (for example, it's currently only available in one format, which my camera doesn't use), but the idea is definitely sound.
Halloween was enjoyed in fine fashion at Lane's house this year, starting with a visit to Vala's Pumpkin Patch. There, amidst the throngs of revelers, we roasted hot dogs (and, in Lane's case, intentionally charred a handful of marshmallows), rode the ponies, took a hayrack ride, picked out pumpkins and explored the animatronic storybook displays. The twins bonded with the petting zoo animals, and Lane spent some time with the llamas. Vala's sold handfuls of food for the animals (small green pellets that may well have been Soylent Green) in vending machines (a quarter gets you a scant handful, so I'm sure they're making a profit there), although endless streams of toddlers had already dropped so many of the pellets on the ground near the pens that buying them seemed almost pointless (I kept a near-continuous pile in my hand for the twins to plunder just by mining the ground in front of me).
Halloween itself led to quite the haul at the household, with a mountainous pile of simple sugars in colorful wrappers festooning the table under Lane's watchful eye. The twins were more interested in the trick-or-treat bags themselves, although they earned their own stashes in their skeleton costumes (stashes they're not going to get to keep, but they're still in the out-of-sight, out-of-mind stage so they're not likely to notice). The highlight of the evening came near the twins' bedtime, when a straggling group of late trick-or-treaters came to the door, one in an especially scary mask. Kylie was unconcerned, but Alec took off like a shot, wailing as she ran into the kitchen, insisted on being picked up, then insisted on being put back *down* on the other side of the baby gate that separates the kitchen from the family room, then ran to the far corner of the family room (the most distant point in the house from the front door, indicating that her spatial geometry skills function perfectly well when she's terrified), pushed an end table away from the wall and cowered behind it. She refused to come out (even when I offered to hold her), until I built her a "cave" by putting a blanket over the space between the couch and a lounger. She sprinted from the corner to the cave and sat on my lap for the next fifteen minutes, whimpering. It took Lisa to coax her out, under protest.
This led to the following observation I made to Scott: "Now we know which of your kids is going to survive the zombie apocalypse. Lane: 'Whoa, a zombie! Cool!' *bite* Kylie: 'Hi, zombie!' *bite* Alec: 'Ahhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!' *running until she's in the next county'"
(For those concerned, Alec was perfectly fine the next morning.)
Although I've never actually seen the show, Nip/Tuck has had some fascinating promos lately. This one in particular has me inspired to do a photo shoot with the same concept (and it being close to Halloween and all, prosthetic stitches should be easy to come by).
- The wedding went off without any serious hitches (I think the most pressing issues were the non-dance-friendly nature of the bridesmaids' dresses, two of the three of which broke and/or came undone during the reception, and the near-unfortunateness of planning the reception for 200 people and having 196 show up).
- I was originally supposed to video from a second floor (through a window), but my previous scouting of the spot was done on a day when the air conditioners were *not* running; the proximity to those behemoth noisemakers made the recording location worthless, so I ended up recording from the side of the crowd on the main floor (an inferior viewing angle, but at least you can hear things . . .).
- It was nearly 100 degrees. October weddings, people . . . (I've been told that's "football season," whatever that is.)
- Certain unnamed culprits (of which I was not one) vandalized my brother's house during the reception. I don't have a complete list of insults, but apparently they involved removing all the light bulbs in the house, removing the labels from all the canned goods in the pantry, putting Icy Hot on the toilet seats, putting sugar in the bed, writing on the mirrors with deodorant, rearranging the furniture, toilet-papering the outside of the house and putting all of my brother's and sister-in-law's underwear in plastic bags of water in the freezer. There is some confusion as to why exactly my brother left his house unlocked, but there is no confusion about the fact that my brother quizzed everyone involved and is keeping a list of names for future references (none of the culprits is currently married . . .). He asked me for prank advice. I suggested an inflatable kiddie pool full of Jell-O and random objects from the house in the middle of the living room floor.
- I actually danced. Albeit only with people to whom I'm related, as there were no single unrelated women within 10 years of my age (either way) to be found.
- My mother refused to dance at the reception. So Haley and I requested my parents' wedding song (Jim Croce's "Time in a Bottle") from the DJ. You can't really say no to your own wedding song.
- I prepared a 90-slide PowerPoint photo show for the reception (using primarily old photos from physical photo albums that I had to scan and clean up; how quaint). It was well-received. The Shakespeare quotes were less of a hit than the final Ogden Nash quote ("To keep your marriage brimming, with love in the wedding cup, whenever you're wrong admit it, whenever you're right shut up."). I may try to convert it to a video file later and post it (I'll have to do it eventually if I want to add it to the wedding DVD).
- I spent half an hour trying to fix my mother's EarthLink e-mail account before its user-unfriendly nature irritated me enough that I bought her a domain name (as an added bonus, now I can build my dad a Web site for his company, although he says he has so much work that I have to leave the contact info off . . .).
- Linde joked while setting up the reception hall about cheating to catch the bouquet (her solution was to tie fishing line to it and just pull it into her hands). When the time came to throw it, certain people (again unnamed) were vandalizing my brother's house and were not available, so the toss was put off. I wasn't in the room when it was later tossed, but I'm told Linde caught it fair and square. I'm also told Haley's boyfriend told her to sit down when she joined the group . . .
- I printed about 75 photos from my portfolios and put them in a photo album (not all of my family has the Internet or is familiar with Flickr . . .) and passed it around at the various events. It was generally well-reviewed. Several family members have expressed interest in hiring me to do (or guilting me into doing for free) their photography (senior pictures/wedding photos) in the future. There were several slight pauses from various reviewers, however, due to my inclusion of two pages of photos from my human studies portfolio (I picked photos that don't actually show nudity, but it's clear the models are nude). I took a lot of jokes for them . . .
- I encountered multiple people I had not seen in 10 years or more, including former teachers, friends of my parents and second cousins. It's interesting how some people change and some people stay exactly the same.
I uploaded this photo to my human form portfolio on Flickr some time ago. Shortly thereafter Cris commented on the graceful feminine curves of the image, which was pleasant feedback. Of course, it would have been nicer feedback if the image wasn't of me, and if the commentary on the feminine curves hadn't come in the form of "Dude, you have girl hips." Taking the teasing in its good-natured form, I laughed along and forgot about it.
Last week another Flickr "favorited" the image (in essense, adding a bookmark to the image to tell other viewers you liked the photo). When I peeked at this person's favorites list (the entire collection of favorited images), I found that every single photo (about 150) in the collection were of backs and hips . . . of women. Except for the picture of me.
[insert Cris's burst of triumphant laughter here]
I still maintain it's the angle and crop of the photo. :P But Cris wins this round.
You know it's going to be a long day when you're awakened two hours early by guys shoveling gravel out of the back of a truck by your house, followed by the discovery of a large puddle of water on your basement floor from the previous night's heavy rain, followed by an e-mail from Norton announcing a $55 subscription autorenewal for a program you don't even have installed anymore. I still maintain my ire at Norton (it's not "customer convenience" if I don't want the renewal, guys . . .), but at least we got a bit of rain.
I present my second attempt at a planet. The bridge was not a good shooting location (not only did it move every time someone walked across it, but the railings were so close that their angles changed drastically when I rotated the camera, creating that broken hacksaw pattern), but it was the only place I could find that was far enough away from trees and buildings to get a clear wide-angle shot of everything in sight. I'm kind of tickled that the planet has its own moon and sunset, though.
As promised, the second batch of photos taken on Sunday. These were taken at Prospect Hills cemetery (the nearest "photogenic" cemetery to my house). Some of the pictures turned out well (nine out of 50, which is a pretty good ratio), although this one made me very unhappy (I spent 15 minutes looking for that statue before I realized I'd walked by the remains of it twice).
The "planet" is a new technique I learned, involving a rather large 360-degree panoramic image (something like 30 wide-angle vertical photos stitched together) that is then run through Photoshop's polar coordinates filter. My computer was not happy about working with a photo that size, but the results are eye-catching.
It occurs to me now that I never mentioned my acquisition of the camera that took all of these. After a few months of consideration I took a deep breath and plunged into the world of dSLRs (for the non-photographers among us, those are characterized by two main traits: they have detachable lenses, and when you include multiple lenses and other accessories they're several times more expensive than a point-and-shoot; we're talking individual lenses that cost twice what my old camera did). I bought a Canon Rebel XTi about two weeks ago (along with another $500 of lenses, filters, tripods, carrying bags and remote controls). Amazon loved me that day. I bought a bag big enough to carry both the new and old cameras, because there are some situations the new camera doesn't do as well (most notably, dSLRs won't do video at all and they're not very good at infrared photography; the infrared photos I posted a few days ago were taken on the old camera). The only glitch so far has been the external battery grip, which broke three days after I started using it.
I bought some books to help me with the learning curve (which I've read is commonly somewhere around 3 months and 3,000 pictures); I now have a rough understanding of apertures, f-stops, focal lengths and shutter speeds, but I still need a lot of practice to understand how they all work together at the same time (I junked my entire first batch of 80 pictures and only kept four of the next 60). Hopefully by September I'll be happy with my photos (or a sizable minority of them, anyway).
The office move is progressing in tolerable fashion, festooned with only the occasional glitches (on my shifts, anyway). What was projected to be about 24 hours a weekend has distilled into a measly 4 (way to overcalculate, people), so the overtime pay won't be what I was expecting, but it's also far less stress. My "second shift" has already set up shop in the new building, and my "primary shift" moves tomorrow, so by Wednesday I should be permanently in my original (yet more grandiose) office building.
Jamie and I saw "A . . . My Name Is Alice" on Saturday. Fantastic show. I chastise all of you for not attending (except Cris and Mark, who attended on a different night). My favorite skit involved a secretary projecting her romance novels on her real life; Jamie favored one involving a strip club. I will refrain from psychoanalysis on those choices. Cris was at least mildly concerned about how aggressive the play might be (it being loosely affiliated with the Vagina Monologues). Having seen the Vagina Monologues (twice), I can say without hesitation they weren't comparable (or perhaps comparable in the way apples and pineapples are both fruits); it wasn't really a "for women" show as it was an "about women" show. Granted I wasn't really uncomfortable at the Vagina Monologues, either, so I may not be unbiased. In any case, it was, as noted above, fantastic.
We stuck around for a bit afterward to chat with the numerous members of the crew Jamie knew from her own theater experience (including the musical director who played the piano onstage in a wig to fit in with the "women" theme). Jamie knows a lot of theater people . . .
I spent Sunday in photography mode (to the extent permitted by 90-degree temperatures). The infrared photos appeared in my blog yesterday; the cemetery photos will likely show up tomorrow.
I also epoxied the lid onto that bird feeder (which means I have to take it apart to refill it, which is a pain); I noticed the squirrel perched below it today, but I haven't seen him actually try to open it yet.
I played around with an infrared filter downtown today. I still don't quite have it figured out (they're fuzzy and I had to monkey with them in Photoshop to get them to look right), but I think I know where I'm making the mistakes ([insert rambling commentary on custom white balance and small apertures here]).
For the curious, an infrared photography filter blocks most of the visible light spectrum but allows near infrared (not heat, which is far infrared; no Predator-esque photography for me) light through. Near infrared reflects off objects slightly differently than visible light (for example, the chlorophyll in plants shows up as white instead of green).
I've noticed lately that the bird feeder holding sunflower seeds has been emptying about three times as fast as the others. This would explain why . . .
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Friday, July 6
I'm Still Around . . . Somewhere
I could have posted these on individual days, but instead you get a hodgepodge of pictures from the Summer Arts Festival, Shakespeare on the Green and the Fourth of July, along with some fortune cookie fortunes I used to start a new Flickr group. Enjoy.
I'm sure people will be horrified to hear that this project took only 75 pictures and most of two hours in Photoshop in order to gain some semblance of realism . . .
I'm debating whether or not to spend an ungodly amount of money on a DSLR camera; consequently, it's not surprising that I've been taking more pictures the last couple of days.
There are some pros and cons to making the jump. On the pro side, eventually my photography should improve, the camera is more adaptable and expandable, my low-light and motion photography should become *much* better and the camera just feels better (I spent 15 minutes playing with one at Target the other night). On the con side, not only is the initial expenditure quite expensive (at least $200 more than the newest version of my current camera), but the entire venture becomes very expensive very quickly (as multiple $200+ lenses, flashes and other accessories add up in no time). In addition, DSLRs don't do video, something I'm accustomed to with my S2, and I've read that the learning curve to get back to where you are with a point-and-shoot is somewhere around 3 months/5,000 pictures (because you have to learn how ISO and aperture and F-stops and the like interact with each other and with the scene, whereas a point-and-shoot handles most of that automatically). I haven't decided either way yet, although I ordered a couple of books on DSLR photography to read up on the subject. We'll see.
It may be a moot point at the moment anyway, as the nice little letter from the Douglas County Assessor's Office I received today confirmed that the valuation of my house jumped $40,000 this year. That seems like a lot, and it's a bit of a sticker shock, but it actually brings it inline with what I paid for it, and thanks to the Assessor's Web site I discovered that my entire neighborhood jumped, with most of my neighbors experiencing $50,000 and even $65,000 jumps, so I got off "light." I know several people who are protesting theirs (this was a citywide thing), but really, it's a fair assessment. I don't mind paying my fair share. This will definitely jump my taxes, although at this point I don't know how much. It did introduce me to the above-linked Assessor's site, which I had not seen before; it turns out you can punch in any Omaha property owner's address or last name and see not only the valuation but also the floor plan, the sales history, the year it was built, the construction and what it looks like, so you can imagine how I entertained myself for an hour today (I know you're curious, mom, so just punch in my last name). You can even put in just a street and browse all the residents who live along it, so it was easy to check up on my neighbors.
To add to the last post, I present a roughly hewn and unpolished video of the festivities (including Alec's infamous mispronunciation of "Rich"), as well as the product of 160 photos and two hours of boredom.
To say "I enjoy photography" would be so self-evident as to be silly; even a casual glance through my Web log brings up numerous links to my Flickr account (and its at the moment 1,200 photos). A good chunk of those are of family and friends and serve the selfish purpose of personal documentation, and another chunk serves to augment various blog posts. There is, however, a section dedicated strictly to the art of photography, and an examination shows a variety of styles and subjects, from landscapes and celestial occurrences to portraits to "street photography" to macros. I won't say I'm particularly good at any of them, but I like to dabble in the various types to see what catches my fancy.
To that end, I've also experimented with the photography of the human form, which is a challenging and, when done right, intriguing medium. Because some of the photos contain mild nudity, however, I made the decision to separate them from my main account and place them in their own account; while I consider them a form of serious artistic expression I understand that not everyone will agree and I've made an effort to avoid forcing an uncomfortable situation. I'm not going to link to the account here, but I did want to let people know it exists and that I'm happy to give out the link (provided you can be mature about it and give me honest feedback). The following is a representative sample from the portfolio (and probably not work safe), so you have an idea of the contents.
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Sunday, January 28
New Toys
I spent most of the weekend with Lane and the twins. Lane is adoring the new iMac (which is essentially her own tv in her bedroom, although, alas, after the move it will be in the study/library/computer room instead). I was the big hero of the weekend due to my procurement of Blue's Clues plushies; the twins ask for that show by name, or some approximation thereof missing the "L" sounds, so it seemed appropriate. They carried the plushies around both days I was there, so I'd say they were warmly accepted.
I nearly filled up my memory card with video. After editing and compressing, I narrowed it down to a select few. The "large" and "small" ones are the same video; select your size based on your bandwidth and patience. The Blue's Clues video is the grand unveiling of the plushies (and I'm even in it, *gasp*). The Happy Dance shows off Kyle's enthusiasm. Lane and the Twins is touching (although I'm sure Lane will give me the Eyes of Death(tm) the next time she sees me). The next one documents Kyle's new love affair with the orange (she'll eat two whole ones by herself if you let her). Finally, the last one showcases Kyle's new favorite phrase. Technically it's her first multi-word complete sentence, but I'm pretty sure she thinks "wherediditgo?" is all one word so I'm not sure it counts. But it's still very cute. :)
We also have a preview of an upcoming episode of "Blue's Clues" (entitled "Blue finds the third clue and discovers the Necronomicon buried in the backyard . . ."). "Blue's Clues" is Kyle's new favorite show (she'll look longingly at the tv and say "Coos coos?"), so I bought the twins some plushies from the show. Lisa vetoed giving them a plush Cthulhu or Nyarlathotep. (The shoggoths are kind of cute, though. Maybe I can sneak one of those in.)
This is one of the chairs that has been sitting outside my office for the last week (a candidate for replacement chairs for the secretaries, I think). I've never seen a chair that reminds me of lingerie before.
And finally, courtesy of Lane, proof that America is destined to fall from its superpower status. In the words of Lane, Oh. My. God.
A hodgepodge of photos from the Omaha Botanical Garden, a series of macro shots of the frost that formed on my kitchen window during the incredibly cold snap (pretty fractals!) and some macros of a metal grille.
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Wednesday, December 27
The Lull
I'm back from Christmas, and it went much better than I had anticipated (assorted kinks, of course, but all in all pleasant). I have more pictures to touch up and post (and a longer entry to write), but I wanted to get the first batch out so my mom can snag them for prints.
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Thursday, December 14
'Tis the Season
Amazon officially moved the shipping date on my family's Christmas presents from two days ago to February 5th. Bastards. But I guess my family can look forward to getting a second round of presents in May.
Cris and I stopped by Forest Lawn Cemetery to take pictures on Sunday, but I don't think he even turned his camera on and I only had two photos turn out.
These are absolutely fabulous. Although they get stale in a hurry. So, really, you *have* to eat the whole box in one sitting. Really.
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Tuesday, November 28
Through a Glass Darkly
On a lark I rotated the reflection pictures I took a few weeks ago and reposted them, partially because I think the effect is interesting and partially because I found a Flickr group specifically for images like that.
I took some photos in the Gene Leahy Mall downtown today. The air and light must have been perfect, because the water reflected just like a mirror. I'm pretty happy with how a couple of those turned out. What do you think?
Continuing in the fine tradition of good uncles incorporating science into their fun, I provided the twins and Nick with their own examples of chemical luminescence. The glowy thingies were a big hit.
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Tuesday, October 24
Educational, and Pretty, Too
Caring, responsible uncles provide their charges with toys that incorporate the wonders of science, ya know. Although I suppose the twins have to develop language beyond "shoes" and "puppy" before I can explain how ionizing a low-pressure gas creates plasma.
While the origin of the phrase in the title has apparently been lost to time, I'm going to use it anyway. I also have some relatively large videos of the twins walking which will probably be of little interest to those who haven't actually met them.
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Saturday, September 16
In the Name of Art
I took these during the impressive storm tonight. There were good conditions for it: lightning and strong winds but no real rain (cameras and rain don't really get along so well). Unfortunately, all the lightning was above the clouds (no "bolts" to be seen), so instead I ended up walking down to the Heartland of America park, where, after taking the majority of the 113 (no joke) photos, I found myself completely drenched. As in "throw a five-gallon bucket of water at me" drenched. The main fountain shoots water in the air high enough that if it's breezy you can feel the mist blocks away, and the wind tonight was blowing hard enough to send the spray almost horizontally across the lake. I picked a spot upwind to take the skyline photos; then the bloody wind changed. When it was done 15 seconds later, my hair and the front of my clothes were completely soaked and I had to stop and dry off my glasses so I could see. The only saving note is the fact I'd just put the camera away, so it came away unscathed. I imagine it was quite comical in a sit-com sort of way. I laughed.
A few of the nonfamily photos from my trip. Haley has expressed a preference (in something approaching threatening language) that her volleyball pictures not appear in my Flickr account. Less artistic ones to come later.