365.268 time it was

time it was and what a time it was it was

I just returned from a funeral for a friend I had purposely not seen in many years.

At the funeral (as at the wake on Wednesday) there were very many other friends, whom I had also not seen in many years, mostly on purpose.

Many of them looked at me as if I didn’t belong there.

Maybe I didn’t.

The ones I chatted with were the ones with whom I shared some rather negative feelings all those years ago—ranging from mild animosity to outright enmity—and the ones who glared at me were the ones I was closest to, the ones I hurt and the ones who hurt me, but also the ones I loved deeply.

It was good that we were all together, again, and in many ways it was as if nothing much had changed, though, of course, many of the roles had reversed, and now there are children and spouses in the mix.

All in all, it was quite surreal.

I would like to share a funny story about my old friend, but the sad truth is that I don’t really have many specific memories at all, and the ones I do have are too long (or too private) to share here.

I remember him always making some effort to include me in things, even if nobody really wanted me around. And the handful of times I saw him over the intervening years, he was always genuinely and thoroughly pleased to see me, quick to point out and laugh at my flaws and failures, and quick to get me laughing with him. He will be missed.

Rest in peace, MCS. The world is a far poorer place without you in it.

D7000. Nikon 75-150mm f/3.5 Zomb-E Series. ISO400, 1/15th (AP mode), f/3.5, -1EV. About 12 minutes of slider play in Aperture.

365.267 ghostly multiselfy

Yesterday, on the way to the wake, I dropped into a JoAnn’s and picked up two yards of black stretch-velvet to serve as a cheap backdrop. FYI: it wasn’t particularly cheap at $14.99/yard, but it makes a better backdrop than the one yard of cheap woven cotton I had before: just look at how black that background is!
Unfortunately, I was still unable to capture the shot I have in my head, or come up with anything worth capturing.

Fortunately, I got this one, which is interesting, sorta, and may serve to spark some ideas. Maybe.

Two things: 1) this is what you get when you let the D7000 focus the 50mm 1.8G in the dark; 2) I finally have a good reason to think about picking up a second flash, since I really need some more light on the right side of the frame, and my windshield reflector really doesn’t cut it.

Good times, mostly.

D7000. Nikkor 50mm 1.8G. ISO100, 4 seconds, f/8. SB-700, with its diffusion panel in place, at 1/16th, bare on a pole at hard camera left, triggered 3 or 4 times via a pair of Cactus v5 triggers. Virtually no post processing.

365.266 a vista I haven’t seen in awhile

I’ve not set foot in a bar in many months.

Don’t worry, I’m not drinking, and I’ll give the cigarettes away before I leave. But this seems like as good a place as any to wait for a wake to begin.

An old friend passed away last Saturday. The world is much poorer for his passing.

iPhone 4. ProCamera. Levels and tone mapping in filterstorm, plus a couple of filters and a square crop in Tiffen PhotoFX.

365.265 plush safe

It’s interesting how words work.

For example: ‘plush, safe’ is a far different sentiment than ‘plush safe.’

I would go into more detail, but I got some sad news today and sorta lost my desire to go into much of a story or analysis here. Apologies.

D7000. Nikkor 50mm f/1.8G. ISO100, 1/30th (AP mode), f/1.8, -1EV. I pushed the white balance a bit warmer (from 50 to 60, whatever that means) and bumped the vibrancy up by .1. Otherwise this is straight out of Aperture’s RAW conversion.

365.264 clipped

I wrote about 12 posts to go along with this shot, all venting about a certain online talkshow that I view via podcast from time to time, but this picture deserves better than some rant about what a group of professional photographers think about amateurs, or what they think about 365 projects, or what they think of amateurs who share their work, or anything else.

And, anyway, it’s my dinner time.

So I’ll share with you something I discovered recently, and have dubbed The Cubist Smiley(r):

`/~

D7000. Nikon 75-150mm f/3.5 Zomb-E Series. ISO100, 2 seconds (APmode), f/3.5, -1EV. A slight bit of cropping, and perhaps 2 minutes of slider play in Aperture.

365.263 if it was any closer, it would’t be

Following the most recent addition to my drip play (a straw from one of the fast food places around), which brought some size uniformity, today I moved the camera off of the stable Manfrotto tripod and on to the wobbly plastic tripod I bought on the cheap in 2003 (and cursed at every time I used it to support a camera) and used the fancy swing-out center post to help stabilize my dripping.

I also used a bowl—a red bowl I used for a candy dish at work until I stopped eating candy, and that just languishes in the cabinet most of the time now—to get a deeper pool, even though everything I’ve read about this says shallower water works better.

The new setup worked fairly well, I must say, but I still didn’t get that shot, and the splash-back was quite often well out of frame.

But I got this groovy one instead, so I’m fine with that.

D7000. Vivitar 70-210mm f/3.5 Series 1 (Kiron). ISO400, 1/250th, f/11. SB-700, zoomed to 50mm, at 1/32nd fired behind and slightly towards the pool. Some straightening (the elcheapo tripod is never square, no matter how hard I try) and about a 50% crop in aperture, plus maybe 2 minutes of slider play to sharpen things up and bring out that nice 6-pointed sunstar.

365.262 vibrant textures

On the way to move laundry from the washer to the dryer this morning, I noticed these pretty little flowers. Within seconds, the iPhone was out of my pocket, the built-in camera app was ready, and I was kneeling on the ground framing up a shot.

This could’ve been framed up better, had I laid on the ground, and could perhaps be a bit less exposed had I been out 10 or 15 minutes earlier, but neither of these were the fault of the phone.

The same could likely be said for any of the numerous phones-with-cameras on the market today, including those phones with one of the numerous Androids operating on them. (As far as the operation goes… and the same could be said about any camera operator as far as the framing and exposure goes).

So why all the vitriol?

I happen to like the iPhone4. I haven’t upgraded to the 4s, and am interested in the 5, but will wait until actual user reviews are in, and I may switch to one or another of the numerous android devices if I don’t like what I read.

Thing is, for me, the ease of use is very important. The phone is a tool at best, and a toy most of the time. I don’t want to spend time maintaining it, cursing at the vendor for not upgrading the OS in a timely manner, and (perhaps most importantly) have a workflow with my mobile photography that includes some iPhone specific applications (Hipstamatic, for one, is not satisfactorily recreated on Android, as yet, and yes, I’ve looked for similar apps).

For other users, the newest technology is of primary importance. Others enjoy rooting around in the OS, theming and re-theming, and all the other myriad and magnificent advantages that android phones hold for many people.

I don’t begrudge my neighbor his jelly bean phablet: his tales of rooting it are legendary. Nor do I begrudge my buddy and her blackberry, with which she refuses to part. Why do so many begrudge my (and others) use of an iPhone?

Are we humans really that petty that we must fire all sorts of arrows at one another over our toys?

Apparently so, and this has long been a mystery to me.

That’s why I like these flowers. “They do not toil, nor do they spin” as someone once said (peace be upon him).

iPhone 4. Built-In Camera App. ISO125, 1/120th, f/2.8 (all chosen automatically by the phone). Some straightening and about 8 minutes of noodling in Aperture (and don’t start on the software bashing either, please).

And apologies to spring this rant on you. I’ve come across a great deal of drama on the interwebs lately, largely iPhone5 bashing coming from various quarters, and it’s making me tired.