Greetings From Arizona

Hello readers, my friends Seth and Molly and I went on a trip to see Seth's family in Arizona. This afternoon we climbed a mountain. It was awesome. The scenery is beautiful here and Seth's family is great. Tomorrow morning we're leaving for Las Vegas. Pictures will be posted shortly after Christmas, hopefully.

Coding Blog

I'm guessing most people who actually bother to look at this blog don't care to hear me rant about programming, so I'm creating a separate blog to discuss my projects. But if you have nerdy interests like me, here's the URL:

http://codingcraig.blogspot.com

Camera Bag

... mine lacks a little legitimacy/function

Finals Week Update

So finals week is dumb. That goes without saying. I've spent waaaayyyy too much time studying. However, apart from that, I've been entertaining myself by writing an application which does the following:

• Scans my computer for music files and generates a list with information about track title, album, artist, and track number
• Allows me to check whether I have a physical copy of the album or not
• Allows me to check whether I want to keep or delete the song
• Calculates if it's worth it or not to buy the whole CD or just the songs I like (if I like 4 songs out of the CD, I could buy them online for $4.00 or maybe if the CD is old enough, I could get the whole CD from Amazon used for $3.50 or so)

Basically the objective is to make sure I don't have any illegally-acquired content, so I have some ground to stand on when I talk about copyright reform. Secondarily, it allows me to purge my library of all the crappy music that somehow smuggled itself onto my computer (I've never downloaded a rap song in my life, yet I somehow have dozens in my library?) Thirdly, I get to hone my Python skills on a somewhat fun, useful project.

In other news, I'm going on a roadtrip to Arizona pretty much as soon as finals are over--I'll be gone until Christmas Eve and it will be the first trip I've been on since I've had my camera. I hope to return with some decent pictures to play with. [Edit: Seth wants to play pokemon while we're driving to and from... win.] We likely won't have Internet most of the time and even if we do, I hope to be too busy to do much updating. Updates will come after I get back; however.

Good luck to everyone who still has finals!

Things I Like (what I have been working on in my absence)

• Open-source software
• Ubuntu (Operating System)
• easy to use (I'm seriously considering installing it on my parents' machines)
• secure
• hard to screw up
• Software Center -- get all of your programs for free from an "App-Store" like location, rather than hunting through the internet
• powerful
• I can do anything I would normally do on Windows or OSX on Ubuntu
• free
• better than OSX and Windows (surprisingly)
• people designing and developing software to better computing for everyone, simply because they enjoy it
• a lot of programs are superior to for-profit programs
• DIY (do it yourself) projects
• Programming
• Python (really easy, powerful programming language)
• learning to use a computer as a tool to create my own tools
• creating tools for other people to use (see open-source)
• Graphic Design
• open-source GD programs
• GIMP (Photoshop alternative)
• Inkscape (Illustrator alternative)
• web design
• fun blogs by graphic designers
• http://pishposhandsuch.blogspot.com/
• Web development
• web design
• Python for web

New Posts, Coming Soon!

Sorry to keep you in suspense... This week has been really busy since school has started and I've been working so much (I'm trying to save up for a new lens, probably a Canon L-series, probably their 16-35mm f/2.8L II USM--because I really want some wide-angle with some shallow DOF). Anyways, photography has been placed on the back burner, but I'll try and get some stuff up soon. In the meanwhile, I'm typing this at Starbucks and here are a few things on my mind:

• Starbucks remodeled. Looks great! New rectangular tables make me hate life less than their old round ones. Round tables seem to make a lot of their space unusable and they're really uncomfortable to rest my writing arm against. Anyways, I'm happy. Plus they can be pushed together to accommodate larger parties.
• This is a bit old, but Sbucks finally got free wifi as well. Before they more or less charged you $5 to use it as often as you like, but it was still a silly hassle-full system. Much better now!
• It was my birthday on Friday--I didn't tell anyone and I removed it from Facebook to see how many people would remember slash because I'm growing out of my pay-me-attention-on-my-birthday phase. This birthday was very much not a big deal in the conventional senses, but it was one of the best I've had in years (largely because of my humble attitude). I really felt honored that even a few people remembered at all. :)
• I love 3 day weekends. I'm accomplishing a good balance of homework, lounging, and socializing.
• I really want to get more time to work on my website--a portfolio/blog consolidation. Perhaps that will be a winter project. There really aren't enough hours in the day to work on it this month.
• I love my friends a lot.

Anyways, I'll try and get a good photo-filled post up in a few weeks. And I'll try and amend this post with some Starbucks pictures or something.

Noelle's Bonfire, General Updates

These were taken at Noelle's bonfire on Wednesday. I learned a lot about lighting as most of these are lit by a single incandescent bulb outside and flash-filled. It gives a cool effect and if I try to replicate it in the future, I know that I would use other flash units on the lower-left sides of peoples' faces to lose some of the shadows from the shed's light. Still, I think the pictures turned out well and I learned a lot from a photographic end. Additionally, people were having fun with the pictures and weren't being shy, which made it fun for me.

Alright, so this week has been a bit chaotic. School started--most of you know this--and I worked 34 hours. That's right. I've been waking up at 5 AM to be at work by 6. There hasn't been much time to shoot save for Wednesday night at the bonfire (see below).

As I mentioned above, I'm learning. I'm getting better, and it's terribly exciting for me. I love new hobbies. Guitar, web design, programming, and now photography. I'm good at none of these but I do enjoy them all very much. One of the things that I enjoy most lately, however, is reading the blogs of professional photographers. They tend to put up the shots that they enjoy--not necessarily the ones that are the popular ones, but the ones that they're proud of. For example, the author of I've Got Friends has an old Polaroid camera and shoots a lot on various kinds of film (often expired by many, many years) and he gets great shots that only appeal to a niche audience.

To me, it's relieving. I'm shooting for my own enjoyment, not personal vanity (the desire to get pats on the back). I really love learning the stuff and I love sharing what I've learned with people. That's kind of why I love shooting my friends: they get to have a part in the process and they get to share in doing what I enjoy. It kind of makes me think of kids cooking with their mom--they get to participate a little bit and have a share in the pride of a successful shoot/batch-of-cookies, depending on which side of the analogy you're following. For me as the 'photographer', it's fun to see them excited about the process.

Here are some of my great friends, most of whom I've been close with for 4 years now:
First photo: Sarah and Sally
Second photo: Sally
Third: Sarah and I
Fourth & fifth: Sarah and Sally again, Noelle and Sarah, respectively
Sixth: Sally and I
Seventh: Preston (notice his t-shirt--the irony was unintentional: I didn't even read his shirt 'til post-processing)
Eight: Noelle

Clicking any of these photos should take you to the Picasa album where you can see the pictures individually in greater resolution. Leave a comment if you have problems viewing--Picasa is very useful software but it's pretty badly broken when it comes to handling links. But that's a rant for another night. Peace out.

Edit: Check this out: http://open-eye-photography.blogspot.com/2010/02/great-star-wars-lego-scenes.html
http://open-eye-photography.blogspot.com/2010/08/churches-photography-by-dirk-wiedlein.html

Some Randoms

Some randoms. Thought the cat pictures were cute/funny. Mr Heard at the top is just an attractive man. And I really liked the lighting on the beer bottle, c/o my lamp.

"Boating" AKA "Cool people don't/can't sleep the night before class so they edit photos..."

The fam went boating today. I brought (and actually used) my camera this time. I got a few good shots. Then I came home tonight with every intent on getting to bed early but found out I couldn't sleep and (wouldn't you know it) I have to wake up in 3 hours. So I'm editing photos and blogging about it. Here's the breakdown:

Level 1 (top): sister and brother's girlfriend

Level 2: brother x 2

Level 3: brother's foot and brother's gf's back

Level 4: sister and brother's girlfriend and the latter's back again.

Hopefully I can sleep now. :-/

Beach Day!

Yay for beach day! :) Derek organized a grillout at Island Park just north of Cedar Falls. There were many geese. Andrew (top left) and his friend (top right) look a bit like Abercrombie models. And putting ice on a hot grill creates some cool steam effects.

Ahh, The Weekend

It was great having some free time today. I spent most of it working on stuff but I got to enjoy a few hours walking around town snapping pictures and enjoying some pastry/coffee at Cup of Joe. Here's the result:

Welcome

I figured I'd create a second blog exclusively for my photography and other creative endeavors--my first blog can stay devoted to my various thoughts of non-artistic natures.

I've spent most of my week perusing various photoblogs, among which my two favorites are I've Got Friends and Color Me Katie. They're just amazing blogs to look at and read. Color Me Katie inspires me to be more creative and it's just downright fun. I've Got Friends is a more serious take on photography and Eric Anderson (the blog author) takes absolutely amazing pictures, in my humble opinion.

This week I realized I'm a jack of all trades but a master of none. Especially in the techno-creative realm. I'm competent in general web design, illustrator, photoshop, and sorta photography; however, I don't excel at any of it. So I decided I would attempt to do an illustrator tutorial per week and embark on a creative endeavor of my own each month so I can apply those tutorial skills. I'm not sure I ever want to be a graphic designer, but at very least I want to possess the skills and I don't want to pay a school to teach them to me (there's enough cost involved in software/hardware for my tastes, and the web has great free resources).

Being nestled away in Cedar Falls, Iowa, there's not a lot photograph here (at least for someone as uncreative as myself), but I spent some time walking around town and here are some pictures I like from this week:

Felix, one of my two feline roommates.

 

These are pretty self-explanatory.

Post Script: I have this strange wanderlust for NYC right now. :(