New Camera

Coming Out of the Barn, originally uploaded by lacadaz.

Well the camera I've been waiting to get since it was first announced arrived last night. I worked all day so I wasn't sitting on the steps waiting for UPS. That was a good thing because when I got home at 6:20 it still hadn't been delivered. It was a few minutes later but I was pretty cranky for those few minutes. Anyway after an agonizing hour and a half for the battery to charge I spent the evening learning the in and outs. Big thanks to Ken Rockwell's guide for setting it up. Of course Ken's article on jpeg over raw got me re-thinking my workflow for the umpteenth time but that's for another post.

Anyway I got up early this morning and took my no traditional Cable Car Ride down to Aquatic Park and back to break it in. As I'm a little out of practice I didn't have the best shoot but I did get a couple I liked. I'm sorry this one doesn't show off all that the camera can do but I liked this one and this treatment the best. I will say that it was much easier to get it to do what I wanted it to than my D40. This was pronounced because I was trying to shoot from a moving Cable Car mostly before dawn with a very very slow lens. Suffice to say I'm very happy with my purchase and a big thumbs up to Abe's of Maine for delivering as promised with a rock bottom price.

Milestone

In January when I bought my new camera and started posting to flickr on a more regular basis I made a goal of a thousand total views a week or 50,000 for the year. Yesterday I hit that number. I got there with more than a little help from our Lion friends from the San Francisco Zoo. My first Lion Sex picture also hit a milestone yesterday being my first picture to get to 5,000 views. 

It's a simple truth that having my pictures looked at makes me happy. Though as I've been working on some different photo shoots lately I've been wondering how much of what I do is tailored toward getting a few more views. I contribute to award and rating groups and I'm never sure how much influence their views or lack of response changes what I do to my pictures and what I choose to share. I've been having fun with color lately but this morning I realized that as colorful as the Italian Parade was what I really wanted to do was print these shots in black and white. I guess I'm still trying to figure out what my own palette looks like and sometimes I worry about letting other people's opinions take me away from the directions I want to be. Where does my ego run off to when I start creating?

So I Took Some Anonymous Advise

So I took the advise of the "anonymous" person that left a comment on my Pride post and submitted some pictures to the SFGate. It's not like I was on assignment or anything but it was very friendly when they accepted all five of my submissions and the Reader Photo's section on the front of the gate was filled with my pictures. Here's the screen grab. Mine are the tiny black and white pictures at the bottom of the page. 

I Went out to the Bridge on Monday

Saturated Bridge, originally uploaded by lacadaz.

I had to go into the store to process something that was on a deadline so I took the opportunity to jump on the 28 and take it out to the bridge. I tried to catch a shortcut down to Fort Point but ended up in a very steep and wooded area so I had to backtrack. Nothing more embarrassing than getting lost in the woods in the middle of a city. I took a few shots and then headed home. I just finished my two days off and frankly I felt antsy all the time. No, that's not quite true. For a while there I was feeling testy. Yesterday I seemed to use most of my day researching the in's and out's of keywording photographs. I went ahead and signed up for smugmug and I'm starting to get serious about the organization and presentation of my pictures. It is a daunting process to say the least.

Maybe I'm Not a Photographer After All

Tonight I had to go back to the store after I was almost all the way home to take care of an alarm issue. I found myself on an outbound evening 41. This is not a usual bus for me. I got on at Hyde Street to a packed coach. After a couple of stops I managed to find a seat near the front. Across the aisle from me was an active young woman who was intently reading. The book she was reading was very thick and I noticed that she was coming up on the end of it. She had maybe 50 pages to go. The book was War and Peace. 

I myself have not yet gotten around to tackling that particular classic. But I couldn't help marveling that she was reaching that most perfect time when a truly great book begins it's conclusion. Her face betrayed that very thing. Brows furrowed in a combination of empathy, horror and wonderment all at the same time. The fact is that what she was projecting at that moment was much deeper than anything I could describe. 

The thing is I really didn't have to. I was wearing my new camera around my neck. It was powered on and set for an auto exposure right under my jacket. She was so engrossed in the Tolstoy that she may not have even noticed it. But I couldn't do it. I couldn't bring myself to even possibly risk breaking that spell she was under. There is still that part of me that sees taking pictures as a form of stealing. And there is part of me that is still far more married to the written word. 

My W-2 Arrived Tonight

My W-2 arrived in the mail today. I had my taxes filed within 10 minutes of walking into my apartment. As I had already pretty much spent part of the refund already I should not have been thinking about what else to buy with it. Yea, right. Within the hour I had sent B&H Photo a little slice of that future check from the government. By the end of the week you should be seeing the effect of a 55-200 mm zoom lens with built in vibration reduction. My photography obsession continues unabated. Tonight's contributions were from my commute. A couple of shots in the morning from the bus ride and some shadowy exposures from the walk from Van Ness to my apartment. 

Up Early Again

So I woke up this morning at a quarter to four and couldn't get back to sleep. Around six I just said to heck with it, got up and dressed and went out to take some more pictures. I guess this is the good thing about getting the photography bug–it's getting me out of my apartment more. Hell last night I got off the bus 10 blocks early just to walk through Chinatown to take some pictures as the stores were closing up. When I sat out this morning I was hoping that this storm would have more wind than rain. Not quite. I ended up getting pretty damp while walking around looking for shots of San Francisco in the rain. It wasn't too bad of a walk though and I ended up getting warm again at the Peet's in the Ferry Building. As usual the fruits of my labors made their way to my flickr site. 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/lacadaz/

Lightroom Kicks iPhoto Out of My Workflow

I lost one of the main reasons to use iPhoto over Lightroom this morning when I found a good flickr up-loader for it.  So now I'm tagging my photos and using the tools in Lightroom to do all my post-production work. I remain enamored with my camera. Tonight in the rain I got off the bus in North Beach and took pictures of Stockton Street shutting down for the night. I have passed this scene countless times on the bus but tonight was different for me. I ventured out more into the world. This is a fantastic byproduct of my new hobby. I've taken a load of pictures every day since I picked it up on Saturday night. Today was my most popular day on flickr. In fact since I bought this camera I haven't had less than a hundred frame views. I'm feeling pretty darn good about that to tell you the truth. 

Photo Obsession

So I've been spending more time on flickr than ever before. I joined a couple of San Francisco groups and have been sending some of my new snaps their way. By far the most interesting is Guess Where SF. The idea is to guess the location of whatever picture of the city is posted. I can see how this can become addictive and a useful kick in the pants to get out and walk the city with my camera. On the one hand it makes me want to try to find more unique locations. On the other hand it makes me try to identify more unique locations. I put up a picture of the Sunday school gates at the Christian Science Church at Franklin and California. Somebody figured it out and posted in seven minutes. I'm pretty impressed with the group so far. It has the most active members I've encountered on flickr. The picture I posted yesterday already has 84 views. I'm not telling where it is yet and no one has guessed yet. 

I'm also lurking around some other photography sites. The language on these sites is so different from what I'm used to on the net. Mostly I read news and politics and tech. You can't read more than two comments on any of those subjects without someone getting their blood pressure cranked up. People are actually encouraging to other people's opinions and art. I can't believe it's the same internet. 

A Night with My New Camera

I'm not sure how long my posts are all going to be me gushing about how much I love my new camera. At least this one and maybe even one more. I've taken several hundred pictures since I brought it home and have gone out of my way to hit areas I know are good for photography. Anyway here is the last one I took on my way home from work tonight. I'm pushing the flickr link out there again because I've put a little more into my page including updating the map portion so you can click and see exactly where I took the shot on yahoo maps. 

lacadaz on flickr

Tomorrow's Should be a Vivid Post

Well I finally did it. Tonight I snuck into Circuit City as they were shutting the doors and bought my first real camera. I should be asleep right now as I have an early morning inventory. Instead I'm trying to will the battery to charge so I can actually try out my new Nikon. I've got the afternoon off after that inventory so hopefully by tomorrow night I'll be putting some new pictures up on flickr. 

Our Talents and Our Perceptions

I watched "The Agony and the Ecstasy" tonight. I hadn't seen it in a great many years. Decades probably. I'm pretty sure I had read it sometime my in my Freshman year of high school. It fit right into what I've been thinking about lately. Over the last couple of days I've put some pictures up on flickr. Some of them I like very much. You could even say that I'm proud of them. Tonight my photostream views on flickr passed a thousand. All of this served to remind me of the fact that I generally approve of my photography far more than I do of my writing. That despite the fact that I would probably strongly consider trading my eyesight for being a talented writer. Watching Michelangelo struggle with his talent as a painter while his heart lay in marble seemed fitting somehow tonight. Of course he had that whole greatest artist that ever lived going for him. 

I have an ex whose blog I read secretly. I've gathered from her writing that she has the opposite problem from mine. She longs for the visual arts but has this incredible aptitude for the written word. I would love to write as truly and clearly as she does but I don't think she has any idea of just how inspiring her writing is. 

I'm not going to stop writing. And I'm not going to stop thinking that someday I may produce something that I can be proud of. And I'm not going to stop taking pictures. 

Took Some Pictures Today

I had an errand to run this afternoon at the wharf. I took my camera with me and before I went home I set myself up in the plaza in front of the Ferry building and took some pictures of the people coming in and out. I switched sides of The Embarcadero to get a couple of different perspectives. I don't know if it was the grey day that did it but when I came home and started working on the day's photos I found I liked all of the people shots in black and white. I've got some other pictures to put up, I'll try to do that tomorrow. Anyway, check them out on my flickr page or it looks like the tumblr feed picked them all up too. 

Giant Balls of the Day

In the spirt of the Christmas Tree of the Day posts I present Giant (Christmas) Balls of the Day. Tomorrow there will be a new giant ball picture. 

Christmas Tree of the Day

Slow going on the photo editing from the other night. I did manage to get a handful more up on flickr. Here is the best of today's images. Besides this makes it easy to put up a little bit of content and stay merry and bright. This is the tree in front of the Ritz Carlton Hotel. 

Taking Pictures

I took a walk down California Street tonight taking pictures of the Christmas lights. I finally got a decent picture of the tree in front of the Bank of America Building. I've got some more. I'll try get them up to my Flickr account tomorrow. 

My New Desktop

Check out this page on flickr for the whole explanation of how Mumbly Joe got this incredible picture of the Pigeon Point Lighthouse. It seems that once a year they light it up with the original kerosene lamps but this year they did it on one of the foggiest nights in memory which led to a hell of a picture. I've replaced my desktop and background on my phone with this one. 

San Francisco Pride Parade

I took the day off to take pictures of the Pride Parade. The first 15 are up on my Flickr page with more to come. I took over 400 pictures and about 10 short videos. I'll be spending the next week or two working on getting more posted.

My camera proved to be a little annoying with all the action going on. The processing delay seems to be over a second so it was difficult to get multiple shots. I've already got my eye on next year's tax return for a new camera. This year will be all about figuring out what features I want and need. A better auto focus comes to mind. I thought for sure that I had got this shot of my California State Senator, Carole Midgen (I-80 Pinball Wizard). My camera decided to focus on the building behind her. Disappointing.

Powell @ Sutter

I've begun uploading to Flickr the pictures I took on Wednesday while sitting on the sidewalk on Powell street leaning against this Stoli sign. I'm not done yet. I'm going to try to add some more tonight after work. I want to move on from this project before parade on Sunday. I think I'm going to be able to watch an hour or two before I have to go to work. I'll try to go early to get a better vantage point than last year.

The Kitties

Yesterday, after I had tagged all my photos, I finally decided to turn in the film rolls that I've had in my desk drawer for the past seven years. They include my trip to the World Series in New York City in 2000 with Allen. Thank god for Photoshop because 7 years in a desk drawer after being taken with my old cheap camera did not produce the best results. I'll try to salvage the New York photos later but their aren't very many good shots. There were some friendly pictures of the Three Kitties. I cleaned them up and put the best ones on my flickr account. I also upgraded my account back to pro so that all my old sets are visible again. I took some city pictures again yesterday but they need some help too. I'll get them up soon.