Brave New World

Imagine a world where everyone looks alike.  No one is bigger or smaller than the other.  The only thing distinguishing one another appears to be the clothes they wear.  Even then the clothes look homogenously similar.  Everything is regulated.  Diet.  Shelter.  Books.  Entertainment.  There is limited freedom.

I think this weather is driving me crazy.

Sentimental Lady

Hope your weekend was good.

The weird weather messed up my biorhythm.  Saturday was too hot to be out.  Sunday noon was great for lunch at my backyard.  But it rained that night.  Messing up my Monday. Today felt like a good day to sleep in.  But the dog needs to go out.  At least her biorhythm is consistent.  Blah, blah.  I'm trying out new photography styles.  This one seems sentimental.  Maybe even moody to a point of being nostalgic.  I blame the weather.

Cheers - R

How I overcome my fear of the dark

"Those who lack the courage will always find a philosophy to justify it." (Albert Camus)


Not a pretty picture but I'm stating the obvious. Taking a picture of a lit light bulb is not as easy as one would think. If you've ever tried it, you know that you'll most likely get a blown out picture with very little definition. To solve this problem, I shot 8 images at bracketed exposures and merge all the images in HDR.

Existential Photography

"If I could tell the story in words, I wouldn't need to lug around a camera." (Lewis Hine, famous early 20th century photographer)

"If I tell the story in words, it's because I'm a lousy photographer." (Rob Castro, infamous)

Where have all the cows gone?

The cows were driven away by the evil children of Aragog.  The Swiss villagers fearful for their lives called on Shrek to defeat the evil spiders.  But Shrek was not strong enough because the spiders were numerous.  Princess Fiona came later with cans of Baygons.  The spiders fled and Heidi was restored back to her proper place as the muse of the Swiss alps.

In my World

Rose likes old school cameras and never really got into digital - especially current point and shoots because she never like holding the camera away from her body. I don't blame her as it's usually hard to see what your shooting in the LCD screen.  I liken this style of shooting as "holding a stinky diaper".  You have to hold the camera afar if you want to inspect what you're looking at.

She wanted the look and feel of old school so I got her the highly coveted Fujifilm X100.  (I wanted the X-Pro-1 but that would require five years worth of tax refunds from the IRS.)   The X100 is a rangefinder style that famous photographers like my hero Henri Cartier-Bresson used -- he used a Leica M3, which is the gold standard for 35mm film format.  (If your uncle has one that he doesn't use, purloin it.  He probably won't miss it anyway.)

One could use the rangefinder viewer and still have the benefits of digital photography like decent sensors and quick play back.  (For those who's never shoot film style 35mm, you actually put your eye on the viewfinder to see what you're shooting. LOL.) It's mirrorless so there is no camera shaking from the mirror vibration.  No mirror equals no vibration.  No vibration equals no unintended shaky blurs.  Plus it's really retro styling.  Cool.

Now I get to test drive it.  And after yesterday's rain, it was a good day for photo ops.  This one is made up of at least 16 images stitched together in Photoshop.  Unlike my Canon shots, I never experienced problems with stitching all the images except for the long computer wait.  The final image file is huge.  Like 12 MP per image x 16 images.  That's a total of 192 MP, which beats Hasselblad's 40 MP.

Of course with a huge file, it would be extremely difficult to share the image through cyberspace.  So, I have to resize it to 740 kb.  Kind of defeats the purpose but hey at least I can boast of having a high resolution file sitting at my home computer (heh).

Hope you enjoy this one.

Last Train to London

I'm a big proponent of the rubric that one does not have to go far to capture decent images.  Of course one has to always be looking for something interesting.  It helps too if one has their camera on hand.  Consider these chic fashion babes.  They just missed the last train to London to attend the Electric Light Orchestra soiree.  Notice their existential stare as they look on towards the train that had left.  It would be a long walk to get to the party considering this was taken in Manhattan.

This is set in the future.  And they are wearing invisible hats, which act as moon block. Apparently they found out that moon exposure is more dangerous than sun exposure.  In the future, it will take only a twinkling of an eye to get from Manhattan to London by train.  But it would still take forever to go on foot.

Techie notes:  No kidding this time.  Taken with a Canon EOS Rebel XT converted to capture IR only.  No color manipulation except for tweaking the white balance, and traditional dodging and burning.

Los Feliz Retrospective

It's my third day of soul searching. Indeed, going up to the mountains was a good idea. So was shaving my hair and wearing the traditional Hebrew sackcloth. My hair has now started to grow. I'm still some ways to reach my tranquil but imperfect solitude. There I'll meet God. ETA is Friday.

In the meantime, I'm mystically posting this image. This one is a retrospective of Los Feliz at night. A bit of eclectic mix of new and recycled trends.