art lover, reader of books, capturer of light, manipulator of pixels, teller of stories.
I had to skip the gym today since I had way too much work to do. I left for the office right after sunrise this morning and took some samples with my new Voigtlander. The manual focus is a little tricky since I have been spoiled by auto-focus for far too long! Most at f0.95 although I did tend to focus at f5.6 and then stop down so perhaps one or two aren’t wide open.
I am really looking forward to photographing Iceland and am going to get an infrared filter for one of my lenses. I’m not sure how to use IR and decided to attempt to emulate an infrared effect using Lightroom. I think that the certainly are areas of overexposure and loss of detail but I think it is a worthwhile technique to work on.
my 4×4 is rented and I am done with the planning portion of my trip! I need to get a few more things, such as my Thermarest sleeping bag mat and a new high lumen flashlight for some light painting but I will get to MEC/Sail over the next week! As you can see from the photos below, I finally got my new Fotodiox 145mm filter system for the ultra wide angle lens and my GoPro silver for diving in Silfra…. Although I did forget the micro SD card… I ordered two high speed cards but,alas, they won’t be here for another week! I also plan to do a time lapse while driving but the main purpose of the GoPro is night time lapse with the northern lights in the background. Fingers crossed for clear skies and a lot of aurora activity! And while I still haven’t gotten a new camera (GX8) I did break down and get the amazing Voigtlander 17.5mm f0.95 for some low light work. I’m still exploring the lens and getting used to full manual focusing, initial results are spectacular.
//edit – here is a link to a googleMap that I made of my points of interest
My friend PT and I went out for a quick shoot this morning. This was my first opportunity to use my new ND filter system on my Panasonic 7-14mm and, although tricky, I think a few shots came out great! As far as I can see there is no vignetting even at 7mm! The location of the sun was the biggest problem noting that flare is the biggest issue with this ultra wide lens. Other issues include dead batteries in my shutter release and my tripod. I’m glad to find these things out now and will get a new battery pack and also bring my monopod since the tripod was overkill for one second exposures.
Here are some cropped samples. That’s a shadow of me leaning on the railing taking the photo in the second one.
Outside of working too much I have spent the last while planning for my trip to Iceland. My last piece is the 4×4 rental. Iceland looks absolutely beautiful and I cannot wait to go! I went to Sail and got a great deal on both a new Marmot tent and sleeping bag, both rated to -10 and the tent is both water and wind formed. I am also checking hotels and bed/breakfasts but, fingers crossed, I will be hopping from one tent location to another with a hot spring in between a few waterfalls.
I got my Iceland photographers map! It shows all the great photo locations and can’t miss waterfalls. I’m sure that I could easily spend longer than 3 weeks photographing but it will have to do. 🙂
My dear friends are leaving to attend a wedding in Greece in a few weeks. I wonder if they will still be using the Euro or the ruble!
It appears that Greece will be unceremoniously asked to leave the EU party. After years of destabilizing austerity, the economic powers that be have decided to no longer pay the Germans and the French any more of the money that Greece has borrowed over the past decades. Tsipras has followed the streets, the demographics of unemployment meant a serious threat to social stability if the next round of budgetary demands were agreed to and, to be frank, I’m unconvinced that the EU deal was being negotiated in good faith on behalf of the IMF.
The larger questions of the future of the European Union aren’t distant ideas to contemplate: there is now little common purpose beyond defence in the European Union. The migration issue has fractured the already skittish national electorates and shown the fractures that investment euros used to plaster over.
The even bigger issue is the very real possibility that Greece will now turn eastward into the Russian orbit, putting ever greater pressure on the West in the Ukraine. Putin would position himself as the saviour of Greece!
//edit – many news outlets are pointing out that the “yes” side is more about “moral hazard” than economics.
// another edit – why does austerity mean cuts to social programs? Why doesn’t austerity mean tax increases? Aren’t both austere? The Guardian has a good piece on how the IMF is using austerity and the Euro to destroy social programs here.
Austerity + “war on terror” = fascism
A few photos from Notre Dame in Montreal. I just woke up and decided to go. I’m attempting spontaneity.
/edit – mad props to DM for his recommendation to go to Montreal. Okay, maybe not as spontaneous as I could have been. But at least I didn’t book a hotel. I checked but did not book. Oh, and that’s my late lunch below at a great little resto on St.Paul in Old Montreal.
I am not quite sure what to think. As most of you know, I have a passion for the visual. From photography to painting to landscape to sculpture to architecture to nature, the visual and its interpretation consumes a fair bit of my cerebral processing. On a separate level, how to contextualize and to think about the visual, and its aesthetics including style is an incredibly intriguing thing to ponder. But what do I make of these images created by Google AI? I think that I begin by questioning whether or not a human brain can even contextualize an artificial brain. If I assume that it is true, what can we learn about our interpretation of human art through our attempt to understand this type of non human art? Is it art? A thought perhaps left to too much coffee or wine.
//edit – here is more information from Google Research.
Racism continues to haunt America. Anyone who doesn’t recognize this fact is being disingenuous. Here is an article written by several scholars from Harvard who show that the deeper the prevalence of institutional slavery in the 19th century, the more likely white voters in those same areas today oppose affirmative action and other programs to assist the poor, largely former slave, population. This “scarring”, common in the socio-economic literature of immigrants who arrive in times of economic downturn, has not been adopted by sociologists on this issue: the legacy of slavery is prevalent and persistent. As many others have noted: the North won the War but the South won the Reconstruction. As an aside, the War Nerd earlier argued here that the North made a strategic error by not hanging the leaders of the South, a Morgenthau Plan for the Mason-Dixon.
My good friend JL, a huge U2 fan, got a chance to chat with Bono on his most recent tour in Ottawa. Even snagged an autograph 🙂
Check out around the 2 minute mark here.