Picture Time

I've started to shoot people on the street. Um, out of context that probably sounds really really bad. I mean I'm into street photography. Right now I do not have the guts to sidle right up to people and I don't have a long lens so a lot of the shots are like this one - from behind. Once I get my new digital with a 100-400mm telephoto zoom lens I'm planning on taking a stronger approach. Feel free to comment.



The picture of this building on the Phillips Manor grounds in Sleepy Hollow has been sitting in a CF card since the summer of 2005. The original had a decent amount of parallax I tweaked out in Photoshop. I boosted the saturation a bit as well and tweaked the shadow/highlights. The lower right portion of the horizon could have benefited from a circular polarizer. Feel free to comment.

I've entered a gallery exhibition that kicks off April 1st and I'm trying to figure out if I want to use any of my digital work, some of my black and white prints or what. The exhibition is no big deal, it's open to any member of the Westchester Photographic Society. All I needed to do was add my name to a list. Even so, its fun just going through the process of evaluating my limited body of work and then matting and framing it for people to see. It's a small step but a very important first one.

Those Darn Cats

Ours is a house divided. A little after we got Macbeth, we took him to the vet for a checkup and, as wallowing in the filth of a shelter would have it, he's / has got / had ringworm. The vet instructed us to separate the kitties and go Mommie Dearest nuts with the cleanliness lest the ringworm spores settle all over the place. Plus, we also get to grab up Macbeth once a day and shoot some foul medicine into his mouth and rub his ears and neck with a topical treatment. He puts up with it pretty well instead of going into Cuisinart mode.

So, MacBeth is in the bedroom with us (smaller area, easier to clean) and Little Guy (aka Faust) has the run of the rest of the place.

Well, we are four weeks into it just about with one more week to go before we go back to the vet for an all clear.It won't be a moment too soon either. Our little cherub goes king-ass-wahoo-fucking-bunga-bunga-nuts at exactly 6AM every morning. My head's been used as a cat version of a 1m springboard, feet have been pounced, toys have been dropped on our face. Throwing them off the bed does no good either, because, this cat fetches. Let me repeat - this cat fetches. You toss it, he runs off, tackles it and hauls it back to you for another try. Remarkable. Still a pain in the ass at 6am though.

As luck would have it I was reading dooce and she pointed out how she and her husband blacked out their kid's room to make her go back to sleep after waking up at 6am. I think we need to try that.

Shocked, and then Amazed

Ok, so I'm perusing ifilm.com and come across, rather easily mind you, a purient video of Sienna Miller. Ostensibly, it's a clip from a videography of the 2003 Pirelli Calendar shoot, another piece of vile purient rubbish. Judge for yourself.

Given what I've heard, Sienna in the natural state is not rare, and one can only imagine the horrible and absolute drudgery that comes with a Pirelli calendar shoot. If that's torture, chain me to the wall. Of course, it's just not any shutter bug that does the Pirelli shoots - it's the likes of Annie Leibowitz, Richard Avedon and Herb Ritts. All true talents that I admire. Just look at the shot from Avedon on the right. Now that's January.

Alright, back to this ifilm.com clip... or rather list of film clips.

Once I got past past the distraction and of Sienna Miller, I skipped down to the "Amazing Juggling Finale" performed by Chris Bliss. Totally amazing. Choreographed, melodic juggling. Crazy ass juggling. So crazy it gets a standing ovation from a packed house. What retard street clown have you seen that happen to? Well, ok - in the street people are probably already standing but that's besides the point. They're already standing and clapping. It's never a standing ovation type clap, at least none of the performances I've ever caught in Washington Square Park. It's been more like "Yay, you have a sword, a matchbook and a bowling ball. On fire." Sure, it takes a ton of skill. But, let's face it skill is just a part of the equation. Choreography takes planning. It takes thinking. It takes inspiration. It's transcendent.

Ok - maybe it's just juggling. Maybe I'm getting entirely to worked up about it.

Nah.

The only way to make Chris Miller's perfomance better would be to clone like 50 of him and turn his act into a large scale Riverdance juggling extravaganza. There'd be fucking ballz flying everywhere. In perfect timing. It would be GREAT.

Alas, it seems Mr. Miller has moved on from juggling to just standup comedy.

Microsoft iPod

Those two words just don't go together....

I found this link over at zeldman.com, and am happy to post it here in order to boost views by 3 to 4 people. Per month. :-P

It's a parody. And it's reality. Mostly. It's the iPod, Microsoft style.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aeXAcwriid0&search=microsoft%20ipod

Web 2.0 this Web 2.0 that.

D2stuff.com just posted an article pimping the new Windows Live Search beta.

My kneejerk anti-evil empire reaction is "So what?".

Then I actually went and clicked the link to check it out. What the hell. I could be leaving for work and get in early, but that just means I'll be there longer since I'll have to stay late no matter what. Screw that shit.

Back to the point - this search thing. According to D2Stuff, it's got a Web 2.0 look. I still have no idea what that means. A quick search on "What the hell is Web 2.0" on Google turned up this result from O'Reilly Digital Media. A quick scan of the article gleans the following:

• There are a lot of blogs
• There are more and more blogs
• Content delivery is getting better (via AJAX for example)
• Hardware is getting better (man what a tiny iPod.)
• These things mix up some how and become Web 2.0

Nothing there about a certain look, though. If there is a certain look for Web 2.0, whatever the hell it is - say the way there is a certain look for graphic design sites because everyone borrows and steals from the best and from each other combined with a shared Jungian archetype of taste - it will be because of pretty much those same reasons.

What I do see though is Web 2.0 function. It's the function, wrapped up in a pretty package that makes up the "look" I think D2Stuff means. For example, the Yahoo mail beta -- you can drag and drop mail and there are lots of little widgets. It's web based, but behaves like an application. Google Maps, you can click and drag the map from sea to shining sea. On the MSN search, you scroll through a pane of results by clicking a scroll control rather than paging through a set of results. Or, you can move a little slider to control the verbosity of your results. Whatever. Yippee. I guess it's really just simulated analog.

Anyhoo, it's getting close to that time where my day gets considerably worse, so I need to go make that happen.

Another takeover

I work for Texaco , Westcon, Healthology, iVillage, NBCUniversal.

Yep. We just got bought. In a month or so I'll work for NBCUniversal. Maybe we live through it, maybe not.

That silence is my 2nd career on hold.

I took one class at SVA in Photography and decided that I'd rather join the Westchester Photographic Society than pay the 500 bucks per class in tuition and fees each semester. The WPS costs just 40 bucks a year, has a ton of members, is very active with gallery displays, competitions, shoots and tutorials. Plus they have a dark room - or so their website says.

I've wanted to join since late December 2005, but I've only been able to come to one meeting since then because I've been trapped at work every Friday, QA'ing video launches. Why the videos need to be launched on a Friday is beyond me. Or even if it's going to be on a Friday, that stuff should be done early enough so that when I look at it I'm finishing by 6PM instead of starting.

It's very very frustrating that I cannot get home in time to make a meeting that starts at 8:30PM. On a FRIDAY.

The one meeting I did make it to was definitely worthwhile. First off I got to join the club and sit through one of their competitions. For the most part, the images being judged were very very good and from my pov, of professional caliber. Some of the Photoshoped stuff was a bit too much "look at my swirl filter" for my taste, but aside from that there were some powerful compositions nonetheless.

I also found out that they've pretty much junked the darkroom. No one uses it anymore. Not one of their members. The funny thing is, they all seem to be a lot older than me and I'd thought there'd be those who want to "preserve the old ways". Nope. Not a one. I asked whether or not they would be willing to open the darkroom for me and they said that it could be done, but that I would be on my own for anything that might be missing and would have to supply my own chemicals. I have not been back for another meeting so I have no idea what might be missing that I might need. A grain enlarger? A negative carrier? A timer? I have no clue.

So, this idea has turned out to be a disaster. I can't make the meetings, I am not shooting anything and I am not developing or printing anything - and I have lots. About 4 rolls of negatives without a print made and another 5 rolls of film undeveloped. Man that just pisses me off.

Granted, I could buy a darkroom bag and some chemicals, but devleoping does not mean squat if you cannot print. And, it's not like there is room for a darkroom at all here. No basement, no space under the stairs.

Of course, I can get what I have custom printed or just sign up for another SVA class or NYU class and get it done there - but that does not fix my problem of not having a place to work permanently.

Hello digital world. It's the only way for me to go right now. I can half ass it and just get the Canon Digital Rebel SLR or I can spend the cash and get the Canon EOS SLR - about the best pro-sumer gear you can buy. Throw in a copy of Photoshop, get a bigger monitor and a printer and I am good to go. Well, almost. Theres lighting. And lenses. And flashes. And reflectors. And even if I have all of that I still need to find compelling subject matter.

Then there's the part of me that says, "Hey man. While you are at it - get one of those new Macs and a copy of Premier and Final Cut and a digital full motion camera and get busy with that idea of being a film editor. Just do it. Stop thinking and just do. Take your vacation and spend it at one of those NYU Summer Intensive classes."

So far I have not answered that voice. I remain silent and for reasons unknown, scared as hell to pull the trigger. Photography itself is great and is something I want to do, but even still represents a bit of compromise. A failure to commit. The rationalizing (or is it the objective?) part of me tells me that breaking into digital photography is a good first step. A stepping stone. Or is it just a way of putting off what I really want?

D2stuff.com relaunch.

Dennis of D2stuff.com fame has updated his site. The new design and approach represents a a focus shift from product (tools for the horror show that is FrontPage and the legions who use it but have no idea about the tools because they are most often neophytes) to content.

Go check it out. Send him an email. Tell him to write more. And if you happen to use FrontPage buy his products while you still have the chance. They do stuff. Stuff you probably had no idea you wanted the program to be able to do. Then you'll be all impressed and more productive and you'll have helped the economy and by extension, helped defeat terrorism. Or buy it anyway and then go here if that last sentense smacks of sarcasm to you.

It's also noteworthy to point out that site is valid XHTML and valid CSS and that it was built, of course, with Frontpage, the most maligned product in the web wyswig universe. See folks, it's not the product so much as it is the author. It can be done!

"Experienced programmer and business analyst builds valid site using Frontpage!" That's a sentence that most people think should be headline on the April 1 edition of Slashdot or some such. Yet here it is just March and it's been done. Stop the presses.

Sure, FP will let you churn out some hideous themes based site and sure there's the pure evil of their navigation bars and such and other "built in Features". But lets face it, that's for newbies. If you are an advanced user and you open the program and can't figure out any other course of action than that you should just close the application fire up monster.com for new career ideas.

Finally, I would like to point out the validity of D2Stuff.com to my troops at work. Boys, Mr. Derobertis is not a designer. He is not a card carrying member of WaSP, or the Meyer or Zeldman cults or a contributor to CSSZenGarden. He is, like you, an experienced programmer that works on the front end. Witness the valid code. Done with Frontpage no less.

I'm not trying to insult Dennis here - far from it. He lives and breathes Microsoft technologies and, as demonstrated, will "eat his own dogfood" and his passion and committment to what he believes in is laudable. My point is that it is not so hard to do if you just pay attention and invest some time in learning how to strucuture your markup. Lets face it - some people use "professional" level programs and can still turn out a hacked up pig of a site. And the funny thing is that same person, whose site might wind up on the front page of web pages that suck, will still deride Frontpage. It boggles my mind.

Folks - they are just tools. Bob Villa can perform with a Black & Decker Hammer or a Stanley Hammer. Feel me?

It's a brave new web standards plus CSS world out there. Put your jacket on and go visit:

www.alistapart.com - for people who make websites. Read and learn. Implement.
www.zeldman.com - patriarch of the web standards movement
www.webstandards.org/ - deals with, uh - web standards.
www.csszengarden.com - view the source. Wow. It's always the same. How can that be?
www.quirksmode.com - because browsers suck and the rest of us need guys like this.
www.w3schools.com/- the educational branch of the mothership. Learn for free.

New Shoes.

I hate shopping for clothes. Perhaps its a leftover from my childhood and all those times I got dragged to Flah's or the Dress Barn or anyplace where I would have to wait while my mom tried things on or - lord help me - I had to try things on myself and then get tugged on and spun around. Oh the trauma of plaid pants and a three way mirror. And all those freaking pins in the dressing room just scattered about waiting to go through your foot. Good times!

That being the case - my wardrobe is pretty limited. Not like two shirts limited but limited enough that after two weeks you will pretty much know my wardrobe. I am not a fashionista.

Not too long ago I broke down and bought some Sketchers and Diesel shoes. The kinda a shoe / kinda a sneaker types. Of course, I am all impressed with myself because I have made this monumental decision to get new shoes after, oh a few years.

I wear them to work.

Later on when I'm home on that first day of the new shoes I tell my wife

"No one noticed my new shoes."
"What are you - a girl?" she asked.
"Hahahha."

Gotta love her.

Coarse Political Commentary

How much of more of this does even the staunchest Bushie need to finally figure out that this administration is full of shit - a bunch of conniving, prevaricating, bubble dwelling, reality denying putzes.

To wit the pre-Katrina knowledge and inaction (on top of the 9-11 knowledge and inaction etc etc)

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11627394/?GT1=7850

But he believes! A very strong believer! Plus, he did not get a BJ in the White House. And that seems to trump everything in Idiot America.

Folks, unless you have 5 million in a hedge fund -- this is not your guy. He is not for you.

Believe it.

McCain is your guy (and look how the Bush machine did their best to slander him - they should be ashamed). Barak Obama is my guy, but I certainly respect McCain and even agree with him on many points and issues. These two US Senators represent two different points of view, but I'd back either one of them because to me they have integrity and intelligence to go along with their convictions that Bush just does not have.