Blog of a bald geek.

Have a look at this photo…….

View to a launch

Take a good look………. I will still be here when you get back…….

Notice anything? Down there, to the right……. Yeah….. Now there seems to be some debate on the internets as to exactly what that is. Some say its the Space Shuttle, some say its a Delta2 rocket launch.
My blog is not about exactly what it is, its about how it just stuck me of what technology came together to make this photo possible.

Just look and think…. We have at least two guys jumping out of a plane.
Simply doing that and not dieing a horrible death takes some high tech gear. They are at some altitude ( most in the know put them at between 12 and 14 thousand feet). That in self is not to be discounted. Then you have one guy with a digital camera (Ok, Robert, yeah, it might be a large format film camera, but probably not). Think about the quality and size transformation that has taken place just in that field over the past few years.
Then you have the fact that by all accounts show that they were not there by accident. They planed this jump around the launch time. Having access to any sort of rocket launch times some years ago was purely on a ‘need to know’ basis. Now it becomes a public event.
The technology of the rocket itself is also amazing. How things have progressed on that front is just astounding (I also cant help to think about the International Space Station and all the launches and tech that has gone into that).
Lastly of course, you have the internet itself. Without which I never would have seen this photo and perhaps, neither would have you.

Anyway, thanks for sticking with me through that, perhaps in my old age I look back and think about where we have come from a little more often.

These days  its all too easy to look at a picture without really looking at it and thinking about what took place for that picture to be in front of your eyes.

I occurred to me tonight, after going through my 365 Project, that the photo project is a lot like a blog.
I read my comments and looked at the photos…. Its the first time since I started that I have gone all the way through them…. There is a lot of blog type stuff in there.
Musings, jokes, thoughts and feelings all mixed in with some photos.
So, if you want to read some more blog fodder, check out my 365 Project.

(Don’t panic, I will keep the usual hit and miss blog schedule going to the best of my ability).

Before we go much further, please take a moment to read (at the very least) the definition of a hacker on this web site here…… (I will wait for you, really I will).

Ok, to answer your question, yes. I consider myself a bit of a hacker…. “Someone who is good at what he does with computers is a hacker”. Like it or not, I fall into that camp.
The point of this blog is also to talk briefly about how sometimes, using a hacker (me) to write a software hack (what I did in PHP with Google’s help this week) is the right thing to do.

I am all about using the right tool for the job. Just ask Gary (ok, perhaps not), while he was over here we had extensive, long (pointless and conclusionless) discussions about whether Windows or Linux is best. My stance then, and now, is thus; it’s a matter of using the right tool for the job.
Zim asked me the other day if my new computer would be a Mac or not.
You can read my answer by following that link, but I will repeat it here….. I firmly believe in using the right tool for the job. There are some things that Windows is really good at, some things that Linux is really good at and some things that a Mac is really good at. Why in the world would I use a sledgehammer to clean my teeth??? Perhaps you can get a Mac to host a web site, run a weather station, control Opto and host a blog, but, woza, it sounds like a tough way to go about it.

There are lots of talented engineers here at Opto, all of them real programmers, so why in the world were Google and I mashing together some PHP code to massage some data?
A few reasons; it had to be done quick. Doing something right is not always fast.
It only had to demo the concept, not be a bullet proof production version.
I was already up to speed on the project.
The engineers are working on things that will make the company money, I am able to spend the time to hack something together for a trial that may or may not make us money.

So, what in the world has all this got to do with someone sitting in say, Perth Australia? (Hi Gina).
Well, I picked up this link via Twitter from my friend Jason. Its very short article about finishing projects. It perfectly describes both my programming efforts and some of my 365 Project photos…… Some times you just have to hack something together to get the job done and nothing more.
We can often get too hung up on our big and small projects, spending time making them perfect, when really, we just need to get them done.

Sometimes, a hack(er) is the right tool to use.

I see that Photoshop is turning 20 this weekish. Good timing for what’s been on my mind a lot of late.
This web site has a nice historical look back, screen shots of old versions and a bit of history about this photo game changing software.
I would hope that most readers of my blog know that I have started what is called a ‘365 Project’.
It is where you take one photo a day every day for a year. Of course I did not come up with the idea. People have been doing it for years.

One thing that the 365 does is make you look at your own photos and others photos. I think I have looked at other peoples photos more in the last 52 days than ever before. Not just to get ideas, but for me to largely try and see where I am headed with my photography. My passion has always been night and natural light photography.
But is this where I want to stay? Are there other areas of photography that I might like to try during this year of photography?
So, I have been looking. Mostly I have been looking at 1x.com and photo.net.
To say I have been shocked is an understatement!
The bulk of the photos on those sites have been manipulated!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And most in a big way! Not just tweaked in contrast and brightness, but full on altered!
I feel that Photoshop is a large part of the reason behind this. I’m told that it is both easy to use and a lot of fun.
I’m told this because I would not know. For years I have been holding out against Photoshop and its like. If you asked me a few years back why, I would not have had a real good reason, other than the cost. Ask me now and I still don’t have a good reason (other than cost and time), but my answer now is a lot more passionate.
The more days go by, the more I am becoming firmly resolute that I am not interested in going down that path! But exactly why not was not clear in my mind.
That said, something interesting happen last night and I want to come clean about it……..

My friend Zim is a big photoshop user. ‘All’ (if he has some that are not, I do not know about them) of his photos are put though the program before he puts them up on the web. I’m told that his girlfriend Brenna was using photoshop before he was and is part of the reason he got into it.
Brenna and I had a bit of a photo shoot last night. We took about 60 photos, two were chosen as favorites.
Of the two, one was just a bit too brightly exposed on her arms compared to her face (where we wanted the viewers focus). The comment was made that ‘you could fix that in photoshop’.
Since not only do I not have it, but wont get it, that was out of the question.
So, down to the other photo. It was pretty much on the money for exposure and such. Just the same, since Brenna was both in the photo and sitting next to me when I was viewing the photos she wanted to tweak it a little before it was put on my site.
I normally use Picasa 3 to manage my photos. It allows me to import the raw photos (another blog topic), crop and set color balance and convert the raw image into black and white. (Also for another blog, its a tad annoying that even when I set the camera for b/w, the raw image from the camera is in color).
Picasa 3 did not not have the ‘effect’ Brenna was looking for. Namely, she wanted to darken the corners of the image to bring the views focus into the center of the image.
It occurred to me that I had Adobes other photo management software installed, Lightroom.
I have it on the work laptop for, uh, work. It just so happen that I had the work laptop at home this weekend to do some PHP programming.
Brenna got all excited as she could see her chance at showing me a few things and also for tweaking ‘her’ photo to her liking.
So, we opened her photo in Lightroom, changed the color balance a smige. Darkened the corners a fraction and that was that. You can see the results in my 365 Project photo album on day 52.

While this is a first for me, I have never so ‘extensively’ tweaked a photo before, I feel that I have not crossed any lines. I know its a grey area, that you could argue that I have changed the photo, that it does not show the light at the time it was taken exactly and so on, I still feel that I have not changed the photo’s structure.
Will I do this again. I don’t know.

Now we get down to the real meat of this blog and my thoughts on the subject.
When you look at the photos on 1x and photo.net, its hard not to go ‘wow’ often! I mean when I look at those photos and then mine, I felt like I should just give up now. Those other photos were just so much more ‘wow’ than mine. I also felt that since I wanted to hold to my passion for NOT post processing I could never ever take a ‘wow’ photo. I could never compete with them because I would never post process.

’Wow’ photos are made, not taken.

It was from this premise that my mind was in a bit of turmoil.
Perfect timing, enter a tweet from a friend and photographer, Robert Teague.
Robert sent a tweet out pointing to this blog entry here.
(Please take the 3-4 minutes to read it before going on with my blog).

Here in that blog from Dav was the verbalization of what was rattling around in my head.
When I wanted to be ‘wowed’ I hit up those web sites, when I want to look at something that I would hang on my wall, I am happy to look at my (and Robert’s and a few others) photos.
Here is one photo that I took that I am thinking about getting a large print of, here is another, this time, I feel my friend Doug has captured something beautiful and timeless.
Sure, you may not go ‘wow’ when you first see them, but I hope that you, the viewer, would find a sense of calm and enjoy coming home to it on your wall day after day.

So, will I start photoshopping or lightrooming my photos…? Yes, BUT ONLY if it enhances the soothing aspect of the photo. I do NOT want to get to the point where I am pushing what comes out of the camera to become a ‘wow’ photo.

My 365 Project and time on the internet has helped me see a little more clearly where I want to take my photography.
Thanks also to Brenna (and Zim), I am really happy with the photo and tweak from last night.
Might just have to print that one out and hang it on my wall……

Ok, well, my three.5 readers have spoken.
No photos of the day in the blog. I will how ever still put the odd little photo in as I used to, when its part of the blog.
The main point that you all made was that the photos will drown out the normal (normal?) blog posts and detract from the point…….

Thanks for getting back to me and I have to say I am happy with the answer. It makes sense.

Gota run, preparing for a web based training session on Pac Display hints and tips….. AKA things I learned while in a basement in Ballarat and wish I could have learned them the easy way…. Here’s my chance to give the Ben’s of the world a leg up!

Chow.

So, to get to the point real quick. What do you think of me posting my photo a day photos in the blog here?
I have gone back and done the last few to give you a feel for how it might look.
I have also changed the web address of my photo album, it is now here;
http://beno.id.au/photos.htm I have also added a menu item to point to that page, its under the ‘home’ button (top left).

So, yes, I am posting in two places, the photos are still going into the web album, and also on the blog. It really does not take me very long to do the blog, so its not like a lot of extra time or effort. It all comes down to you gentle reader…. Do you really want to see photos mixed up in the blog, or are you happy to look at a different web page?
I guess my reasoning for doing this is two fold, firstly, most of you have asked me to blog more often, so hey, here’s one blog a day! The 365 Project is not just about photos, its also a visual diary for the year, so its sort of blog related. The comments that go with each photo also add a little flavor as well (I hope).
Secondly, selfishly, I want more people to see my photos!

For those of you that have been under a rock, two things happened to bring this about. Firstly, when we moved from Australia to USA about two years ago I decided that I wanted to get back into photography more. So when I sold my old Goldwing to Gary I bought a camera. I used it for a while, but got swamped when things got busy here. Often I would go a month or more with out touching my camera, let alone posting any photos from it.
I was looking for ways to get back on the horse when I came across some stuff on the net about taking one photo per day for a year. Slowly the light came on that this is exactly what I needed.
So, practicing my sales skills I roped my sister and good photography friend Zim into the same project, and thus we launched into the year.
So far, I have to say its been a raving success. I am taking really different photos to what I normally would and I am refining my ‘natural-light-low-light-star-light’ favorite method.
Some of the photos I am not exactly proud of, they are just photos…you get what you get when its late and I have not taken anything, but same have been amazing, most have been fun to take.
Mission accomplished for me, but what do you think?

Date night a few weeks back Amy and I dropped Terry off at his usual Wednesday night Parkour session at the gym. From there, we headed up to De Luz (surprise).
We went to our usual lookout park, but this time not to just sit, look and talk at the windscreen (ok, and each other, that would be the point of date night), but this time we had the camera in hand and wanted to take some photos.

Not sure what’s with the whole sunglasses at night thing, but it was fun at the time.
It was a good night, bit windy so it was hard for Amy to keep still. I painted her in LED light for the first one, hence the blue tinge. The yellow is from the parkers on the Rover, we had a blanket over one and half covered the other, other wise it was just too much.

Anyway, there is two photos for my sister Sue who never sends me photos from home, and yet takes a squillion of them…… (Hey, had to have a jab at someone other than Gary, he tells me he’s getting sore ribs (not!))