I know, I know, I’ve neglected the blog again. I don’t do this by choice. It’s mainly due to lack of time and all the other projects I’ve managed to pick up on the side. I never really forget about this website, but I’ll admit that I put it on the back burner more than i’d like. In any case, I know you are not here to read an apoligy of why I haven’t posted anything in a while so I’ll just update.
Spent the usual week in Sanibel and loved every second of it. The trip is extremely relaxing and satisfying. It’s not everday that we can leave our normal lives to spend a week on a beach somewhere disconnected from the world. I always try my hardest to not answer phone calls and emails, but I ended up doing that on a few occasions. Regardless, the trip was fun, as it always is, and I took plenty of photos. There’s a selection of my favorites on my flickr page and a handful below.
Bang-Yao Liu created this stop-motion animation for his senior project at Savannah College of Art and Design and boy is it awesome. Half way through watching this I forgot that all the images are composed of different colored post-it notes arranged in a neat grid. Most appealing thing about this for me is the “pixel art” dynamic that this creates. Same concept as a digital pixel, only he’s using physical squares. I wonder what grade his instructor gave him for this short & sweet project.
Found a link online today regarding the infomercial that Carl is watching in Pixar’s latest film “UP”. I thought that the program he was watching was an Easter egg and as much as I tried listen to the words coming form his TV set in the scene I just couldn’t make it out. Well here it is:
Really, he is. The video below is his latest show reel where he, uh, shows-off all of his cool flips, jumps and tricks. This guy does stuff that you would only see in a movie or video game and makes it look easy. I’d love to be able to just be standing around in a line, waiting for something, and doing back flips like it’s all good.
Before Vince showed us the mind-blowing power of Sham-Wow, us peasants had to use primitive tree shavings known as “paper towels” to clean up spills. Now that Vince has hooker-punched his way out of the spot light the paper towels are making their comeback.
You know the main problem with photographing inside a nightclub? The dark atmosphere and flashing colored lights. You know the awesome thing about photographing inside a nightclub? The dark atmosphere and flashing colored lights!
Went with some friends last weekend and had a great time. We were there for the world premier of Sector 9! We also saw an acoustic performance by The Coffeehouse Gypsies among other bands. Good performances throughout and good company to share drinks with. The photos turned out better than I had hoped. The lights and colors inside the place added a new element to everything and rather than let the camera decide what settings were best, I left the shutter open at least a second for every exposure. Even when I was using flash I turned on the slow-syncro option to capture the background. I found that if I treat the different lights as characters in the frame along with the other subjects I would yield some interesting results.
I think the atmosphere is captured pretty well in the images. None of the images were “Photoshoped” aside from exposure and level adjustments. It’s basically what I was going for to begin with so I can’t complain. I just wish that compact cameras came equipped with a faster lens. The first company to put a 1.5 lens on a compact will make a lot of people happy photographers.
A small gathering of the Sanibel vacationers to enjoy some good times together and to plan out the details of the week-long vacation. The skies were black during the day, but as the evening approached the rain stopped and the darkness washed away. The skies remained cloudy for a short while, providing what is arguably the best natural lighting conditions for photography. No harsh shadows being cast and no over-exposed highlights. At night the clouds vanished and the atmosphere was as saturated in color than ever before. The decorations were a perfect compliment to the night and set the mood for this Summer.
Took some time yesterday to finally finish editing photos and uploaded them to Flickr. I’ve been experimenting with the RAW photo mode of my camera and I’ve been very pleased with the results. The only drawback to shooting purely in RAW mode is that I have to run all the photos through Photoshop and make my adjustments before importing them into iPhoto for archiving. It’s a process that’s a little more involved than I’d like ti to be, but still enjoyable none-the-less.
Main problem I foresee now is when I have a large amount of photos that I just took and I have to sit through each one color balancing. I’d like to say the resulting image is worth it, but some photos honestly are not worth the time it takes to tweak it. For right now I am extremely happy with the photos this camera is producing. I’ve had it for about 7 months now and it has exceeded all of my expectations but 1. The real test will be this June when I take it to Sanibel. I average about 800 - 1000 photos during the trip so I will leave my final impressions of the camera till after then.
For now, please enjoy some photos in no particular order:
Well it’s Friday and I’m closing up shop. Decided to stop on my own website for a moment and give everyone something to look at before the weekend. It’s a movie trailer for what might be the best movie to open this year. I don’t want to hype it up too much so I’ll let you all watch the trailer below and make your own judgment.
