Absence

Haven't updated in a bit because of a move. Also had to put off photography for a bit because of said move. On a brighter note, picked up a Yashica-D MF TLR the other day (slightly more functions and higher quality glass than my trusty A) and look forward to running some rolls through it.

Stay tuned....

Locations

With the increasingly warm weather, I was able to go out on a photo shoot on my lunch break. Near one of my clients, was an abandoned farm house which I thought (wrongly, as it turned out) would made for a good place to shoot Black and White from my Yashica-A.

Unfortunately, the house, while large and in heavy dis-repair, was not very interesting. It was white, and square, and basically the exterior was not of much interest. A few looks inside confirmed that most of the walls were intact, and although fixtures and trash were strewn about, there simply wasn't much to shoot.

I did use up a roll of Kodak Tmax 100, but I doubt anything useful will come of it.

The moral here is as obvious as it is timeless: Only interesting subjects make for interesting photographs.

Black and White

I got my photographs back from the motorcycle graveyard that I had taken with my Yashica-A camera. Here is my favourite. I'm really pleased how accurate the camera and light meter are, especially considering they were made in the 50s.

Older Pictures

Was playing with timelapse, I was a passenger in a car running through town at dusk. This one is my favourite. Taken with a Samsung GX-1L, a Pentax *istD clone, but better and cheaper (go figure)

More

Pictures from the motorcycle graveyard that is.

Graveyard

Had the distinct pleasure of being invited to visit a motorcycle graveyard this weekend for a photography shoot. I spent many hours there, shooting both in digital and medium format B/W (with my trusty Yashica A) and wished I could have stayed for many more.

I am currently in the process of selecting the best pictures for show, but for starters, here is one of my favourites.

Seasons

I'm learning photography in a more formal structured way. I first picked up a camera when I was a building inspector, to document the things I saw. It just a functional tool, used as needed. When I left that field, I gave away the camera, or sold it, I don't remember.

Picking it back up again to use as an artistic medium, I have kept most of the things I've made with it, if for no other reason than to show the progress I've made from the early days.

Never one for cold weather, I am looking forward to Spring, when it will be warm enough to venture out and photograph the awakening of Nature. So there will be more pictures forthcoming.

Stay tuned!

Movies

I saw a few movies the other day. Movies, as opposed to "films". The word "film" conjures (to my mind anyway) up facy arty french things. Movies, on the other hand, are less pretentious.

Semantics aside, the movies were Outpost and Night Junkies. Outpost was about the ghosts of german soldiers defending their home, and Night Junkies was a vampire love story.

Outpost was one of those movies where the description on the back of the box didn't have anything to do with the movie inside. It was a fantastic film and anyone into ghost stories needs to see this. It's British, and very well done. The use of lighting and colours was exceptional.

Night Junkies (also British), I was not prepared for. Yes it's a vampire flick, and once again a writer has attempted to redefine what a vampire is. The results are actually very good, and it was a very sad film. Vampires are monsters. They are not trendy forever-young anti-heros bemoaning the loss of their humanity. They are monsters, terrifying and inhuman. The movie portrayed two lovers and their attempts to fit back into society. The results are predictable, but at the end of the film, I was left with a great sadness. Like a slow-motion train wreck, you know where it's going to end up, yet you can't turn away. Well worth checking out.

Photography

Well here is another picture. This one has been edited, using a dynamic range tonality package. Basically, you take multiple pics of the same subject, using differing f.stops, and the software integrates all the tonal ranges, resulting in deep, rich pictures. That's the theory anyway.

I'm of two minds regarding "photo-manipulation." On one hand, I think it's cheating. You are not showing what you see, but rather what you wish to see. That falls dangerously close to painting, and not photography, in my book. The whole point of photography, in my point of view, is to capture the beauty of the surroundings. If we start "adjusting" the pics, then it's not really what was there now is it?

On the other hand (besides having different fingers) it is a way to being artistic. In other words, starting with a blank canvas (the picture) and creating spark, flare, richness (the end result.)

As a result of my internal struggle between the purist in me and the artist in me, I'm making adjustments, but slowly and slightly.

Work

So I have a telephone interview set up with Northrop Grumman for sysadmin work. Supposedly the interview process is three phases. The first phase is the telephone interview with one or more people. I have no idea who these people are, they could be the janitors for all I know. Well the interview starts off pleasantly enoough with a fellow, who asks me some general info. He then introduces me to the other person there, a ladt and I gather, his boss, or at least his superior. That's when the interview went straight to hell. She was seven layers of hacked off that my resume wasn't customized for the position. I don't know about you, but tailoring a resume to fit a particular job, I find to be cheating. She spent the entire hour on the phone berating me for this oversight.

A day or so later I bring this issue up with a friend of mine who works there. He spent way too much time telling me how the hiring process goes, and that tailoring your resume is not only par for the course, but expected, and the reason the woman was so pissed is that the HR monkey who had fouond my resume had immediately set up the interview, without telling me what was expected. So basically, the woman had wasted an hour of her vaulable time talking to some unprepared idiot.

As it so happens, I would have been a pretty good fit for the job, but if I have to jump through such odd hoops, I'll pass. There are advantages to working for small companies after all.