Archive for January, 2010
Sony a230 full of bokeh – Photo of the Day #47
January 31st, 2010 • photography
Tags: best buy, d90, nikon d90, photo of the day, photography, project365
This was a test shot from our local Best buy that I took tonight before I bought the Nikkor 335mm f/1.8G DX lens. It’s a very fast focus lens with nice bokeh, I think it’s a tad better than my 50mm f/1.8D AF. I thought this was on spot metering given the central focus but it was on matrix metering, go figure!
Nikon D90
Nikkor 35mm f/1.8G DX @ 1.8
ISO360 @ 1/80s
Auto WB A3 (I think)
Drunk with raw emotion – Photo of the Day #46
January 30th, 2010 • photography
Tags: black weather shaman, boardriders, concert, photo of the day, photography, project365
This was taken at the Haiti benefit show at Boardriders Boca Raton. This is my buddy Cecil, who plays in Black Weather Shaman, along with two girls from the audience. After knowing Cecil for a few years, I had no idea he had this much energy, it was like a kid hopped up sugar that looks like GG Allin. The show was fantastic and we raised something like $500.
Nikon D90
Nikkor 50mm f/1.8 @ f/4
ISO1600 @ 1/15s
Spot metering with WB set to Tungsten B1
Cats do the darnedest things – Photo of the Day #45
January 29th, 2010 • 1 comment photography
Tags: cats, nikon, nikon d90, photo of the day, photography, project365
Tonight we put a mouse in our hamster ball and tossed some treats into it. Don immediately took to it and tried to get the mouse out. It took a few tries of sticking his paw in, tipping it over with his head, pushing it, and so forth before he finally got everything out. It was a lot of fun watching him try to figure it all out.
Nikon D90
Nikkor 50mm f/1.8 @ 1.8
ISO1600 @ 1/10s
Tungsten WB set to +B1
“You can’t take pictures of our food” – Photo of the Day #44
January 27th, 2010 • photography
Tags: d90, food, nikon, nikon d90, photo of the day, photography, project 365, project365
This is a nice spread of beets & ginger, alongside “vegan” pico de gallo at Whole Foods Boca Raton. People eat this stuff, I just like the pretty colors.
Now, what does the title have to do with anything? I almost got kicked out of the store for taking this photo! OF BEETS. If you don’t want people taking pics of insanely purple foods, don’t display them. This is the first time anyone has ever said anything to me about taking pictures of the food at Whole Foods. I must be giving away the secrets of how to make chopped beets mixed with ginger.
Nikon D90
Nikkor 50mm f/1.8 @ f/3.2
ISO250 @ 1/50s
Nine years ago today, something magical happened
January 27th, 2010 • 1 comment chatter
In 2000, it was just another year for the most part. The economy was doing OK, George Bush was busy trying to figure out how to be a president, and I was a freshman in college. I had been a member of the long defunct CollegeClub.com networking site, it was busy doing social networking before the term was over coined and giving us a glimpse of things MySpace and Facebook do today — none of which is extraordinary. I’d made a bunch of friends and it was all a good time. Since I’d also recently just gotten out of a pretty tough relationship, I wasn’t exactly out scouting for a hook-up. However, as time has shown, it didn’t matter what I was actually looking for, I found exactly what I was subconsciously looking for.
I started chatting on an off-again/on-again schedule with a girl whose handle was bsubaby and was attending Ball State University in Indiana. She was really cute and at least made every attempt to sound intelligent. As any college girl, she liked to go out and dance and have fun, so nothing really struck me as all that interesting to be honest. But during a break between semesters, we began talking a lot more frequently and about many different subjects. Since I was still very heavily into programming at the time and she pretty much sucked at using a computer, that was not a very heavily discussed topic.
Then something happened in December of that year, we decided to be bold and meet up for the first time. Since I was still living at home in Alabama, that was out of the question. She lived in Indiana, which was just too damned cold at that time. So, we decided to meet in one of my favorite US cities: Atlanta. Of course, it also helps that I had lived there for 10 years and knew my way around the city. It was planned for the weekend of January 27, 2001. At the airport, I was greeted by this stunning redhead whom gave me a great big hug. We had a fantastic weekend hanging out in Atlanta and talking each other’s ears off. After she left and I went back home, we talked and decided to hang out again in a few months. I believe our next meet up involved me driving to Indiana, which was a seriously long drive but fun nonetheless. This whole meeting up process lasted for quite a while, just about three years to be exact.
Who am I talking about? My beautiful girlfriend Jess. Over the last nine years, she’s put up with a lot from me and I could never be more thankful for it. I couldn’t be happier nor more proud of her. Despite all the problems of the past, she’s still here.
I never thought it’d last past a year or two, let alone nearly an entire decade. I am quite possibly one of the luckiest people in the world. Thank you.
All the pretty lights – Photo of the Day #43
January 27th, 2010 • 1 comment photography
Tags: d90, nikon d90, photo of the day, photography, project 365
This was an accidental treasure. I was coming home from picking up my Electro35 GSN prints and was sitting at a light. I set my 50mm lens to manual focus and dropped all the way to the closest focal length and snapped. This is what came out. I’ve very pleased with it, even if it was by luck. This was also a chilly night to be shooting!
The shaped blur at the bottom is a stream of cars a few seconds long.
Nikon D90
Nikkor 50mm f/1.8
1/80
Sorry for the downtime
January 26th, 2010 • chatter
Tags: downtime, server
I have no idea what was going on. I was getting ready to go to bed and found the site and server totally unresponsive. This is the 2nd time in about a week that this has happened. By the looks of it, either DB Cache Reloaded was murdering MySQL, I need to really optimize the tables, or it’s time to get some more RAM. I know two of those are correct however, I’m not 100% sure which ones. I’m going to talk to LSTN tomorrow about the costs of migrating to a new server instead of adding more RAM to this one. They’ve got some new boxes up that are faster and will come in cheaper per month than simply adding more RAM — saving $5/mo is still saving.
Anyway, everything’s back up now. Some of my stats are screwed up but no big deal. Also updated to PHP5.
Chemistry and nomnomnom – Photo of the Day #42
January 25th, 2010 • photography
Tags: funny, humor, photo of the day, photography, project 365, project365, sidekick
This is a rather delightful drawing on one of the desks in SO250 at the FAU Boca Raton campus. Found it today when I went to Weather & Climate. I have no idea what this actually has to do with chemistry, but it’s funny as hell. I want to find more of these scattered around FAU’s campus.
Taken with my Sidekick LX 2008.
A fantastic night – Photo of the Day #41
January 23rd, 2010 • photography
Tags: karaoke, nikon d90, photo of the day, photography, project 365, project365
My girlfriend Jess and our best friend Kelly. I think they had just finished dancing/singing to either “Twist n Shout” or “Magic Capret Ride”, I don’t remember which. These were taken at Singers Karaoke Club in Pompano Beach, FL. An extremely fun night had by all.
Stats:
Nikon D90
Nikkor 50mm f/1.8D AF
ISO200 @ 1/20
On-camera flash set to flash WB B1
Chili cook-offs and 35mm
January 22nd, 2010 • chatter, food
Tags: 35mm, food, photography, yashica
The weekend is almost here for me, just about 10 more minutes and I’m FREE! I’m looking forward to this weekend because not only is the KISS Country Chili Cook-off on Sunday, this is the first weekend of the month I’ll be able to take some time to shoot film. Ever since getting the battery adapter for my Yashica Electro35 GSN, I’ve been dying to take it out and shoot. However, I’d not had the funds on hand to do so and I’m not about to waste my Porta and Fuji film stock on a camera with possible issues/light leaks. Wal-mart will be graced with my presence tomorrow when I go to pick up a few rolls of Superia 400. I’ve also got a backup for the Electro35 in case this one is a bust, my father just purchased another one and shipped it to me. The new one has a different custom leather case than mine does, so now I’m wondering if Yashica produced a number of different leather cases for them. Either way, will be cool to have two of them.
Tonight we’re getting dragged off to Singers Karaoke bar down on Sample Road and 95. I hate karaoke and I’m really not looking forward to going but I think it’ll be fun to see my buddy Jeff singing. It shouldn’t be as bad I’m imagining it to be but I know it’s going to at least yield some fun laughs. I’m going to take the Nikon D90 with me, but I’m unsure if they’ll allow it in. I’d definitely get up there and sing but I know for a fact they won’t have any death metal, grindcore, or really esoteric prog rock for me to belt out. I consider that a saving grace — not that I’d actually be singing, more growling. Depending on the camera situation tonight, I may not have a Project 365 photograph to upload.
Next week, after my classes, I’m going to try and do some shooting at FAU if I have the time. There’s some great landscape and fauna there. I’m typically just in too much of a rush to snap anything. I think this will be my push to finally get a super wide angle lens as my two zooms only go to 18mm (27mm on my APS-C sensor) and that’s just not wide enough for some of the stuff at school. I’ve got some great ideas for shots at the Breezeway/quad and of some architecture. I could do some fun shots with 12-14mm from the tops of the parking garages.
As mentioned, Sunday is the KISS Country Chili Cook-off. Another fantastic chance for photos except there’s no “professional cameras” allowed so we just have to get our Exilim snuck in. I’m really wanting to go because it’ll be with all of our friends and it just happens at the Zac Brown Band is going to be playing as well. Friends, beer, chili, and great music, not much else I can ask for. Except maybe good weather! This will be my first cook-off to attend in years so hopefully it’s not the last.
Time for Singers is almost here so I’ve got to go get ready!
