Photography is very much just a hobby for me. I take snapshots when I travel, and don't think much about it when I'm not. When I was younger and had lots of time on my hands, things were different. I loved taking photos, and spent a lot of time trying different things so I could improve my pictures. Once film cameras died and I moved to digital photography, I started getting even more creative because I wasn't having to pay a fortune in film and photo processing charges. Alas, it was destined not to last, because I seem to have less and less free time available as time goes on.
But then my camera died and I bought a new Nikon D90 just in time for a vacation to Hawaii. Thanks to features like "Active D-Lighting" I was getting really good photos with very little effort if I took the time to set up my shot right. This kind of sparked a photography renaissance in me, and I started experimenting again.
And the thing I've been really interested in for the past year has been High Dynamic Range Photography (HDR).
The best way to explain it is to show it. When I was at Stonehenge, I lined up this beautiful shot of the sun rising behind the stones. Unfortunately, it turned out looking like crap...
The bright sun blew out the sky and caused the camera to underexpose the dark stones. So I decided to take the shot again, but at three different exposure levels...
The long exposure blows out the sky, but reveals the details in the rocks. The short exposure paints the rocks black, but fills in the sky nicely. The medium exposure holds the shadows really well, but is murky everywhere else. If only there was a way to combine the best parts of each photo so you had great exposure over the entire image.
Well, there is, and it's called HDR Photography...
After merging the best parts of all three photos, it's easy to make tone adjustments to the color so that things really pop. The sun behind the stone now looks as I intended, with an eerie glow around Stonehenge. In fact, it looks even MORE awesome than it did in person!
And that's the problem. Most HDR photos end up looking surreal and totally fake. For a mystical place like Stonehenge, this isn't such a bad thing. But for "regular" photographs, it ends up looking strange. And most of the time it's strange in a bad way. But with some experimentation, you can make it look strange in a good way. Like this kind of boring shot of Bath Cathedral which is kind of murky thanks to overcast skies...
But in HDR, you can make it look pretty cool...
Where HDR really comes in handy is when light is scarce. Buildings at sunset can change completely...
This time I composited five separate shots with different exposures to get this...
Sure it looks fake and can be difficult for the brain to process, but you do get to see details you'd never see otherwise. The best use of HDR seems to be in moderation. In this image from Kauai's Kalalau Lookout, the deep shadows from the clouds completely bury the details...
When I just want to brighten dark areas, you can composite an HDR shot with a regular shot and end up with results that don't look quite so artificial, though you do lose some depth in the resulting image...
The danger being that you can completely change the tone of a photo if you're not careful. With this shot of a lava flow from The Big Island, for example, the rock is supposed to be dark...
But using HDR, you end up with something that has lots of detail, but no longer looks like lava...
Sometimes using HDR can ruin a shot. This photo of a Banyan Tree has a kind of spooky vibe to it, even though I'm in broad daylight...
Take three different exposures and run it as an HDR photo and you end up with something completely different...
Yes, being able to see the freaky details in the tree is kind of nice, but the mood of the shot has been destroyed. Perhaps combining the above two photos would create a happy balance, but sometimes I think HDR is best avoided.
While I don't see myself using High Dynamic Range very often, I do think it has interesting possibilities for some situations and opens up an entirely new level of creativity for photographers. With practice, I'm hoping I can get better at knowing when to use it... but even more importantly, when not to use it... to keep my photography hobby interesting and fun.
If you've got some time to kill, you can download a free demo of Photomatix (the HDR software I use) and be good to go. Then all you need is a steady hand (or a tripod) along with a camera that can do exposure bracketing (or, you could try setting the different exposures manually, but you'd have to be very careful not to move the camera in-between shots!). You need a minimum of three exposures to make a decent HDR image, but I've found that five exposures works best.
Now if only I could afford a new lens... I've long been wanting to try deep macro photography...
Bullet Sundaaaaaaaaaaaaaay! Let's get ready to Rrrrruuummmmmble!
• Tweet! Most of the time I'm too busy to pay any serious attention to Twitter, but every once in a while it's a scary insight into what I'm going through at any particular moment in time. Today was particularly telling, and had me wishing I self-censored a bit better. Oh well. Too late for that now...
So many times when I'm asked for my opinion on something, I'm tempted to say "no" immediately because more often than not the person has no interest in getting an actual opinion... they just want your praise (whether they deserve it or not). Yet I foolishly try to be friendly and helpful with my critique anyway, sometimes getting burned in the process. It's really too bad, because good constructive criticism can be so much more helpful than faint praise... if people are willing to hear it. The question is, how many times will I get burned before I learn not to offer it in the first place? At this rate, not long at all.
• Fore! Oh how I love my new iPhone 4. It is superior to my iPhone 3GS in absolutely every way... especially signal reception. I can now actually make phone calls at my home without having them fade out, go choppy, or get dropped entirely. I've had no problems with the antenna while making calls, but have had some problems while texting or using apps when I cradle the iPhone to type. It took all of one minute to learn how to shift my hand to not block the antenna, so it's pretty much a non-issue now. If you have a case for your iPhone 4, it never was an issue to begin with. Personally, if I were going case-free and couldn't adapt to "holding different," this is my favorite solution...
It's Antenn-Aid to the rescue!
And don't get me started on Apple's amazing "FaceTime" feature, which is the future made real...
But the main reason I upgraded to iPhone 4 was for the camera. My pocket camera is being held together with a rubber band and, rather than replace it, I decided to carry one less thing and just take snapshots with the iPhone 4. The camera has been so highly praised that I figured it was a realistic expectation, but was secretly worried it wouldn't live up to the hype.
And, while it is a vast improvement over previous iPhone cameras, it kinda doesn't live up to the hype. Particularly disappointing is night shooting. Sure the light sensitivity is improved, but the grain is outrageously bad... to the point of being unusable except at massively reduced sizes...
I shouldn't be surprised. The lens is just too small to accept enough light in a dim scenario like this. Shots in "normal" lighting are good... fantastic even... but it looks like my iPhone is no threat to my purchasing a new pocket camera for shooting in low-light. Darn it anyway.
Still, in every other respect, the iPhone 4 is pure WIN, and I really do love it. Heaven only knows what Apple has planned for the iPhone 5.
• Freedom? From watching the news and seeing people re-tweet Sarah Palin on Twitter, you'd think that actual terrorists were wanting to build a monument to the Islamic extremists who died during their 9/11 attacks ON TOP OF "Ground Zero" where the World Trade Center once stood. This is so absurd that it might actually be true, so I looked it up and was disappointed to discover that it was, in fact, not. Some American citizens are just wanting to build a Islamic cultural center and mosque TWO BLOCKS AWAY from Ground Zero on PRIVATE LAND. From what I've read, the mosque won't even be visible from the Ground Zero memorial that's being planned. This type of crazy shit drives me insane. The non-stop parade of lies and crazy exaggerations being sold to people for political gain on both sides of the political spectrum have me hoping for the complete collapse of democracy in this country. If people are so damn stupid as to keep falling for this kind of bullshit, then obviously they can't be trusted with democracy. If people are so hot to have somebody tell them what to think and don't care whether it's true or not, I suggest a nice dictatorship, with ME as Supreme Leader. I am more than happy to tell people what to think. Or to go fuck themselves.
UPDATE: I would have just said "Fuck you, Sarah Palin, you bigoted piece of shit," but Mayor Bloomberg is a much more eloquent and inspiring speaker than I could ever be (thanks for the tip, Etienne!)...
And now... time to put my aching head to bed.
Hopefully to sleep this time.
Thanks to nasty side-effects from prescribed drugs I was given when I was younger, I've been sliding into a nice pile of debt over the past five years. Now that I'm "cured," I finally got a loan so I can pay off my massive stack of medical bills.
After depositing the money into my bank account, I paused so I could pretend I was rich for a few minutes. It didn't suck. I sat there daydreaming of all the amazingly cool things I could do with that pile of cash, and couldn't wipe the smile off my face.
Then I wrote the checks to pay my medical bills and was snapped back to reality.
When all was said and done, I ended up having a mind-boggling $464 left over. Apparently a past payment was credited wrong or something. If I were smart, I'd have stuck the money in my savings account, long since depleted. Or perhaps put it towards a loan payment.
Instead I spent $599 on this...
I've always wanted an ultra-wide-angle lens, but I could never justify spending the money. If I have that kind of cash laying around, I'd rather spend it traveling somewhere cool. But I am already traveling to "somewhere cool" when I go on vacation in eleven days. So I decided I'd just blow the money on something I can't afford before my loan payments start and I really can't afford it.
I'll try not to think about that, and instead focus on how having this lens will make me enjoy my vacation even more. It's the little things that make life worth living, after all.
Or so I keep hearing.
Personally, I'd rather have the big pile of cash.
Since I've been to Barcelona a couple times before, I've seen all the "top sights" in the city. Rather than hunting for new things to see, I thought that I'd buy a ticket for one of those "Hop-On Hop-Off" tour busses and see some of the place they recommend. This was a huge mistake and a big waste of money. It took forever for the busses to show up, half the places they went were not at all interesting, and I would have been far better off planning things myself with a Metro Pass and an occasional taxi... probably for less money too.
Oh well. Live and learn.
I did spend some time at one of my favorite museums on earth... Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya. They have got some incredible, incredible stuff. And you don't even have to go to Barcelona to explore their collection... they've got most everything available online! Here are a few of the coolest things I saw...
Apparently, this guy really needs to pee. I feel bad for him, because he's looking a little desperate. Oh well, we've all been there...
I'm guessing that the poor state of dentistry was responsible for a lot of people being all miserable with toothaches...
ZOMG! IT'S THE ARC OF THE COVENANT!!
This is one of my favorite paintings. In the middle is Baby Jesus. Around the outside are Saints and the awesome ways they were martyred for Him...
I wonder if you get to choose which way you're going to die? There's sawed in half...
Boiled in oil...
Sliced repeatedly with a sword...
Or, my personal favorite... nails in the face... IN THE FACE!!!
But no worries... Christians definitely got their revenge during the Crusades, the Inquisition, and numerous interfaith and denominational wars. Here's part of a mural showing two Christian soldiers chillaxin on the battlefield...
Right before they go out and kill some black people...
This is much like I'd imagine a Glenn Beck rally would be like if it took place 900 years ago. Or possibly two years from now. And since we've got dumbfuck Christian ministers burning the Qur'an in "The Land of Religious Freedom and Tolerance" back in the USA, I'd say that a new round of Crusades is just around the corner.
It's so convenient how an increasing number of Christians seem to forget their own bloody past when accusing Islam of being a violent religion. Historically, Christians are among the most savagely violent and destructive people ever to have existed. And when I see all the raw hatred coming out of the so-called "Religious Right," I have to wonder if things are coming full-circle. Obviously this isn't the path chosen by ALL Christians... for now... but if the past is forgotten, I have to wonder what the future will bring...
I rode the bus around to various sites taking pictures... blah blah blah... but ended up going to another favorite location in Barcelona. Casa Milá, better known as Le Pedera. This is Gaudi's freaky apartment complex and one of his most famous works...
A lot of the stuff here is way ahead of its time. Like these HR Giger-esque doors, straight out of Alien...
But it's the roof that everybody comes here to see. It's got all kinds of interesting structures stuck to it...
After goofing around Station Diagonal for a bit, I decided to hike up Tibidabo Hill to get a shot of the sun setting...
Then it was time for delicious Patatas Bravas at a tapas bar...
Mmmmm... yummy greasy potatoes. Probably the best way you can end a day in Barcelona!
Most people on the ship seem to be taking a long bus ride into Pisa or Florence from our place of landing here in the port city of La Spezia. Since I've already been both places, I decided to try something different and visit the coastal cities of Santa Margherita and Portofino.
It turned out to be a good decision.
Both cities are absolutely beautiful... rivaling even the Amalfi Coast in Southern Italy. Santa Margherita is the larger of the two, and has a beautiful cathedral that's a little plain on the outside, but magnificent on the inside. In a disturbing turn, they seemed to be selling tribbles at the fruit markets here...
And, as if Santa Margherita wasn't beautiful enough, along comes Portofino. The city is just fantastic for tourists, and has terrific gelato...
I never get this lucky when it comes to vacation weather. I'm guessing a thunderstorm will be coming along any minute now...
Pulling into the Corsican port of Ajaccio under flawless blue skies, I'm once again thankful for my unprecedented luck with the weather. On every other cruise I've taken, there's been at least one port that's overcast and rainy.
When it came to shore excursions for Corsica I decided on the long drive to Corte, the former capitol. The tour description promised a look at Corsica's rich and interesting history, which was all I needed to know.
Surprisingly, the road to Corte in the interior of the island is pretty rugged and mountainous...
Corte itself is a nice city with some interesting places to eplore...
Another day gone. My vacation is passing all too quickly.
The internet connection onboard has been sucking even worse than usual. It's been so bad that I couldn't upload yesterday's entry despite numerous attempts. So glad I paid $150 for this.
Today is the cruise's final port of call in Villefranche. Sandwiched nicely between Monaco and Nice, it's a great place to start exploring France's Cote d' Azur...
After a great drive along the coast, the first stop was Monaco...
It's a beautiful place, with plenty of photo opportunities...
And since you can't visit Monaco without a visit to the Casino at Monte Carlo...
The interior is pretty spectacular... even if you have to pay 10 Euros to see it. I was going to go all James Bond and play some Roulette, but the lone table they had running was packed so I played slots instead. After winning 30 Euros almost immediately, I was going to cash in... but felt more than a little silly cashing in such a meager amount, and instead played it all until it was gone.
Lunch was at the famous Cafe de Paris...
After which you are given time to wander around the pricey shops and see the sights... like the infamous hairpin turn of the Monaco Road Race...
After goofing around in Monaco and Monte Carlo, the final stop was the medieval village of Eze, which was pretty cool...
And that was that. The last port excursion of the trip, and time to go back to the ship...
Just in time... the clouds are really starting to move in.
Today was pretty crazy, so it looks like it's time for a product review!
I've been so busy trying to catch up with work after my vacation that I only just this morning had time to open my new Photojojo camera-phone lenses! There are two... a wide-angle ($20) and a fisheye ($25) which you can get as a set for $40. They attach to your phone in front of your existing camera lens, and stay in place magnetically thanks to a little adhesive ring that sticks on your phone...
Here are some snapshots I took. The first image in the sequence is with no lens. The second is with the wide angle lens. The third is with the fisheye lens...
The wide angle lens is pretty nice. It adds just enough extra width to make scenery shots a little easier. It also doubles as a macro lens, which is equally impressive...
The fisheye lens is kind of goofy. It probably works better on the older iPhones with a smaller lens hole, but on iPhone 4 you get some serious vignetting in the corners because it has a bigger lens. This is disappointing, since Photojojo doesn't warn you... but, it's still a way to fit an impossible amount of stuff into your shot...
Overall, I'm happy with my purchase, with three things in mind...
On the plus side, the lenses come with keyring loops so you can always have them handy and lens caps to keep them in good shape. This is pretty sweet, though my keys are getting almost too big to manage now...
If you're wanting some lenses for your phone, head over to the Photojojo Shop!
Yesterday I was supposed to fly out of Albuquerque early in the morning. But mechanical difficulties with the plane kept pushing my flight back further and further until I was ultimately rebooked on an entirely different one. This meant getting into Seattle much later than I originally intended, where I was greeted by torrential rain and rush hour traffic. As if that weren't enough, it was snowing on the passes.
Not wanting to drive home through rain, traffic, and snow on three hours sleep, I decided to crash at my sister's house and come back home this morning.
Which was a smart move, because the drive was pretty spectacular.
At the top of the pass, it looks like all the color has been sucked from the scenery. It's drab, overcast, and depressing... yet still beautiful at the same time...
But once you get to the other side, it's another story entirely...
In the twenty+ years I've been driving over the mountains, I've never stopped along the way to take a look. I've always just enjoyed the view at 60mph. Today I did stop for some reason, and was glad that I did. And a little mad at myself that I never had before.
Sometimes its good to stop and smell the roses. Even if there aren't any roses to smell.
Just a friendly reminder to everybody... BACK UP YOUR PHOTOGRAPHS!
I have now had one person in Real Life, one person on Twitter, and another person on Facebook all lose their photos because a backup failed or something went wrong with their computer. This is such inconceivably horrifying event, that it makes me even more relieved that I am so dang paranoid about backing up everything.
One backup simply isn't enough. My Apple backup solution "Time Capsule" has died once, and become hopelessly corrupted twice (Dear Apple, YOU SUCK! FIX THIS!!). I have had drives go bad on more than one occasion. I've even physically lost a backup drive (and still have no idea what happened to it).
So I have four backups. One external dual-drive RAID set to mirror all data to both drives. Two external backups for my RAID backup that I rotate off-site. And an account with Amazon's Web Storage Services. Because even though I was on vacation just two months ago, the memories are already fading, and the photos are all I have...
Arriving in Valletta, Malta at Dawn
A Side-Street in Sidi Bou Saïd, Tunisia
Overlook from Villa Rufolo Gardens, Ravello, Italy
Looking up at the Mountain Village of Corte, Corsica, France
Oh how I love "Vivid Color Mode" and "Active-D Lighting" on my Nikon D-90! Everything looks like a postcard.
I cannot imagine losing the 40,000+ photos that have documented my life... so I make no apologies for being an annoying doom-sayer paranoid freak when it comes to advocating backups. It's an investment that is well worth the cost.
Windows of Santa Margherita Ligure, Italy...
It takes me 5 minutes to drive home. I ended up stopping half-way because the snow accumulation on my windshield was so thick that the wipers stopped working. That's pretty bad. Then again, on the way to work I saw one car in the ditch and two others smashed on a street corner. That's really bad.
Once I finally made it home, I was done with snow.
Until I decided to walk to the cemetery and see if there was enough light to take a few photos...
And now I'm done with snow.
2010 -> AUDIO -> VIDEO -> DAVE
JANUARY
• Realized the right tool for the job won't actually get me a free date with Elizabeth Hurley.
• Opened my big mouth and got the entire wine-connoisseur world pissed at me.
• AND NOW, FROM THE BLOGGER WHO BROUGHT YOU PENIS SALAD...
• Found out that somebody stole my monkey.
• Found a vagina on the sidewalk.
FEBRUARY
• Discovered that Canadians are responsible for the pussification of America, and showed them how REAL AMERICANS GET SHIT DONE!!
• Seattle FINALLY got a Hard Rock Cafe, and I got my 125th visit.
• Released my medical findings on a cure for the common cold to Twitter (and so much more).
MARCH
• That Crasher Squirrel has been showing up everywhere...
• Just like Lindsay Lohan's cootchie...
• Took my annual Birthday Vacation and ended up in Dutchyland, and Brussels, and Bucharest, and Transylvania, and Prague.
APRIL
• Explained why Roger Ebert is WRONG about video games not being art.
• Attended THE blogging event of the year... TEQUILACON 2010 VANCOUVER!
MAY
• Went to New York for a-ha's farewell tour and to hang out with awesome people while Betty White made her Emmy-winning SNL appearance.
• Got the tackiest phone call ever.
• Took a dump on Lost and then went out for pizza with RW, which ended up having far-reaching consequences you'll find out about later this year.
• Summed up my position on the BP oil spill.
JUNE
• Saw the Worst. Movie. Ever.
• WAY TO GO BLACKHAWKS!!
• Had more fun than should legally be allowed at Bitchsterdam 2!
• Rush Limbaugh is a vile piece of shit.
JULY
• Saw one of the best episodes of television ever (thank you Steven Moffat, The BBC, and Dr. Who!). I can honestly say that I think this is the only time I cried in all of 2010.
• Sarah Palin is a fucking idiot.
• Went on a tour of the USA with stops in Hollywood, San Diego for Comic Con, and Atlanta for Watermelon Beer, and Tulsa, and Kansas, and Chicago.
AUGUST
• Explained to haters who don't like being referred to as a hater that they kind are.
• Paid a visit to mah Hilly-Sue and FooDiddy in Sacramento.
• Got a visit from Muskrat and Whit in Seattle.
• Was inspired beyond my ability to express by the final words of a legend.
SEPTEMBER
• Took a Mediterranean vacation and saw such remarkable places as Barcelona, and Malta, and Tunisia, and The Amalfi Coast, and Rome, and Portofino, and Corsica, and Monaco. As if all that wasn't enough, I got to have breakfast with Mickey Mouse!
• Remembered The Golden Rule and became the biggest evil dumbass inhuman monster of them all.
OCTOBER
• Nearly crapped myself watching a television show.
• Partied down in rural Wisconsin... a good place to be!
• Got all poitical for a minute.
• Wore purple for a very important cause...
• Went to Albuquerque to gamble away my money at the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino there.
• Found out my iPhone can take some pretty decent photos if I bother to stop and look around because there's an app for that...
NOVEMBER
• Went back to Atlanta, this time for Pumpkin Beer and good friends... then a tour of THE WALKING DEAD!
• Took a look at porn and handjobs in the interest of airport security.
DECEMBER
• Want to know where to go on vacation? Here are some of my suggestions!.
• "Take your stupid war and go fuck yourself with it."
• Took some pictures in the snow.
• Took on stupid bitches and the law, and went ape-shit over net-neutrality, and was shocked as hell by a moment of lucidity from Pat Robertson.
And that was pretty much what happened with me in 2010. How about you?
Hope your 2011 is a good one, and thanks for reading!
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