Today Flickr combined my two favorite things in the world: photography and my ego. 🙂
[observations after the jump]Continue reading
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Category: photography
About taking pictures
Talent and tools
“Photoshopped!”
So often people ask what digital camera they should buy. That’s a tough question since invariably people suggest the camera they own. I tell people:
The best camera to have is the one you have on you.
By this, I mean, the best camera to purchase is the one that you’ll carry with you. If that means, you bought it because it “looks cute,” then go with it! If cute means you’ll carry the camera around and use it, then you’ll take far better photographs then most people.
I was thinking last night of my friend, Bill Tani’s, first ever blog post. In it, he mentions that real designers do not use the word “Photoshop” as a verb.
Since I’m not a real designer, that’s okay. But what he says makes sense. It is natural but naïve to think that talent can be found in tools. A real artist knows that in the end, Photoshop is just a tool, and a tool is just a conduit of the creative expression you find inside yourself.
After all, does a photographer say, I “Nikoned” that photograph?
“Terry” by linoleum jet
Someone might say that “It’s easy for you to say, you shoot a legendarily (expensive) camera. But did Julie “Canon” this portrait of me? Am I “Leica”ing a photo of her?
Take.
More.
Photos.
Using calls of civility to mask indecency
Cal called me out on me pointing out the Swearing Festival Celebration of Profanity event with a link to his article on civility in the public political discourse.
But really, does it prove his point? Or does it parrot the use of calls for civility to mask indecency?
I’m going to make a case that it is the latter.
[Ick, Politics. I can’t help myself. I’ll spare you from it with the jump.]Continue reading
2007-11-02 Party Dress Birthday Celebration
Against my better judgement (health), I woke up from my disco nap and headed down to Etiquette Lounge to celebrate the “party dress birthday” of Halle, Michelle, Liisa who were turning 21 (again) and Peter who was turning 30 (again).
Birthday girls and friends
Etiquette Lounge
Civic Center, San Francisco, California
Etiquette Lounge
Civic Center, San Francisco, California
Nikon D200, Tokina 16-50mm AT-X PRO f/2.8 DX, SB-800, ultimate light box
1/40sec @ f/2.8, iso 800, 16mm (24mm)
Peter turns 30 again… with friends again.
Etiquette Lounge
Civic Center, San Francisco, California
Etiquette Lounge
Civic Center, San Francisco, California
Nikon D200, Tokina 16-50mm AT-X PRO f/2.8 DX, SB-800, ultimate light box
1/40sec @ f/2.8, iso 800, 16mm (24mm)
[liberals, dress codes, and photos of peeps after the jump]Continue reading
2007-10-30 CNET’s Ad Freaks Halloween
I was really burned out from partying. But Patrick IM’d me saying that he was in the city for one night only and extrovert that he is, I knew I had to find a party at the last minute, sans costume.
Patrick
The Holy Cow
SoMa, San Francisco, California
The Holy Cow
SoMa, San Francisco, California
Nikon D200, Tokina 16-50mm AT-X PRO f/2.8 DX, SB-800, ultimate light box
1/50sec @ f/2.8, iso 640, 16mm (24mm)
Andrew Mager was kind enough to invite me to the party sponsored by CNET business.
Mager, broadcasting for Justin.TV
The Holy Cow
SoMa, San Francisco, California
The Holy Cow
SoMa, San Francisco, California
Nikon D200, Tokina 16-50mm AT-X PRO f/2.8 DX, SB-800, ultimate light box
1/60sec @ f/2.8, iso 500, 16mm (24mm)
It was a lot of fun even though I only knew ten people in the entire place, a couple people actually tried to use my name to get past the bouncer at the door—and it worked!. Can you believe that? 😀
Rock this party!
The Holy Cow
SoMa, San Francisco, California
The Holy Cow
SoMa, San Francisco, California
Nikon D200, Tokina 16-50mm AT-X PRO f/2.8 DX, SB-800, ultimate light box
1/50sec @ f/2.8, iso 640, 16mm (24mm)
Also, since this photo got insane viewage as it was uploading, I thought posting it before the jump can’t hurt. I’m putting it really small so you click on it though… 😀
Our favorite bunny
The Holy Cow
SoMa, San Francisco, California
The Holy Cow
SoMa, San Francisco, California
Nikon D200, Tokina 16-50mm AT-X PRO f/2.8 DX, SB-800, ultimate light box
1/60sec @ f/2.8, iso 320, 16mm (24mm)
[the jump]Continue reading
Collapsing the female wave-function
The solution to the greatest paradoxes of the twentieth century physics is the realization that the observer cannot be separated from the experimental design.
- General Relativity? The observer can’t tell the difference between gravity and an accelerating reference frame.
- Maxwell’s Demon? Even the observer’s computation cannot be separated from the physical system that implements it.
- Quantum Mechanics? Observation collapses probabilistic wave-functions.
There is a simple irony in the above.
A 21st century paradox, shared among my friends and with constant teasing, is how someone like me could both emphatically claim and successfully test as a heavy introvert.
The solution to this slightly less prestigious paradox is: I carry a camera.
Like quantum mechanics, my data collection device changes the experimental design.
[How a camera collapses the social wave function after the jump]Continue reading
Certain faddishness
People are all in a huff about Ballmer being, as far as I can tell, Ballmer.
“I think these things [social networks] are going to have some legs, and yet there’s a faddishness, a faddish nature about anything that basically appeals to younger people.”
—Steve Ballmer, Times Online
Now, I think Ballmer is an idiot as much as any man (or, at least, Mac fanboi)…
But am I wrong in thinking the whole idea of him saying this is so that they can purchase Facebook at a price that’s not astronomical, especially now that Yahoo! has dropped out of the running? Whether social networking is a fad or not, it’s seems good business to claim it is when you hold the money but not a product. Shit, isn’t that the first thing a VC does when they talk to a startup—try to make you and your business feel like shit? Sounds to me the same thing on a much bigger playing field.
Also is it really that bad of a quote?
“The Internet? We are not interested in it”
—Bill Gates, 1993
(For reference, this was said a year after I called home and said, “Dad, I want to quit Caltech. You know this thing Mom and I use called the Internet? It’s going to be big!” So, basically, any of the “younger people” who wasn’t a complete moron at the time had figured out that the Internet is definitely something a company like Microsoft should be interested in.)
Marc Andreessen points out, the true beauty of the Ballmer quote is it applies to nearly everything. In fact, I think I’ll be saying that as an reverse “not into pokémon”. Any time someone dismisses something I’m really into, I’ll say:
I.
Love.
This.
Quote.
I don’t think I could be screaming monkey Ballmer very well, but this, this I can do.
(By the way, if any of you are wondering why I’m behind on my photography, read Jim Goldstein’s post on digital photography: “Digital Photography: So Good, It’s Bad.” So true! Applies also to blogging about photography.)
[Thanks and thoughts.]Continue reading
'tis me fav'rite day o the year
Like last year and the year before…
Text reads: Ahoy me mateys and buxom wenches!
The day ’tis ripe fer Talk Like A Pirate.
Ye be talkin’ like a pirate or ye be a scurvy bilge rat!
Arrrrrrr!
—The Dread Pirate Terry
The day ’tis ripe fer Talk Like A Pirate.
Ye be talkin’ like a pirate or ye be a scurvy bilge rat!
Arrrrrrr!
—The Dread Pirate Terry
I think the reason I love Pirate Day so much is that I had a horrible speech impediment in grade school where I couldn’t say my r’s (you can still hear it if you listen closely, but please don’t). Now I’m making up for it with some extra Arrrrrr’s. 
[More pirate after the jump]Continue reading
The death of a lens
Weird and unfair
Somewher in ATL, Atlanta, Georgia
Somewher in ATL, Atlanta, Georgia
Nikon D200, Nikon 85mm f/1.4D
1/60sec @ f/1.4, iso 180, 85mm (127m)
I didn’t take this photo, though it is one of three such shots of the same thing on my memory card. The camera was in my luggage at the time so I can only guess that this photo was shot by the TSA during inspection all the while I waiting to board an airplane.
(I guess this sort of explains why my luggage didn’t arrive with me.)
The unfair part is when they opened my luggage, they somehow either took off the rear lens cap or didn’t replace it correctly on my Nikkor 12-24mm f/4G DX lens (a $1000 lens and my favorite lens for shooting) thus causing the rear element to collapse into the lensbody during transport.
The lesson here is to carry your photo equipment with you on the airplane. But I appreciate any suggestions on how to deal with the situation at hand. The lens is under extended warranty but I doubt Nikon is going to replace something that is clearly the TSA’s fault. (Um, yes, Nikon, it is a manufacturing defect that when someone takes off the protective lens cap and then places it back in a bag of luggage and electronics for a transcontinental flight that your rubber mount gave and the plastic ring cracked.)
This lens is dead
North Beach, San Francisco, California
North Beach, San Francisco, California
Nikon D200, Nikon 85mm f/1.4D, Canon 500D diopter
1/40sec @ f/2.8, iso 160, 85mm (127mm)
By the way, While I don’t do much airplane traveling (just twice a year), but every time I travel, my luggage is opened and searched. This is the first time since 9/11 that I haven’t had a slip in my luggage saying that to “protect me and my fellow passengers.”
Ruby, Photography, and Women
My second twitterstalk was Andrei at Caffe Trieste in North Beach. Andrei is someone everyone should be nice to for reasons I mentioned before. He’s trying to get me back into photography.
I think it’s because he has a photoblog now…
and probably figures that getting my competitive juices flowing will be the photography equivalent of dollar-nassau. But I hate to compete and the only thing that motivates me is, quite frankly, intense fear. And besides, what chance do I have? As Ed Finkler says, the man’s got scary amounts of kevorka:
This White Russian smiles
CNET Headquarters
SOMA, San Francisco, California
CNET Headquarters
SOMA, San Francisco, California
Nikon D200, Tokina 16-50mm AT-X PRO f/2.8 DX. SB-800
1/60sec @ f/2.8, iso 100, 38mm (47mm)
Go subscribe to his blog now (besides the pictures are good, quite unlike mine).
[cats, coffee, photography, ruby, and women after the jump]Continue reading