From my Facebook Wall -
so.
funny story.
we were going over camera RAW in my photography class today. and since we have computers with us in the class room and i was slightly bored ((it was so nice outside and so i didnt want to be in class)) i decided to look up “camera RAW” on google images.
no joke. your picture was like the third down. it was you taking a SP [self portrait] in a mirror..not that there arent like hundreds of those but yeah.
i started laughing out loud in class.
just thought you should know
Of course, the picture she’s referring to is courtesy of my RAW vs. JPEG post written awhile back. From a simple weblog to a Liberty University classroom. Like that.
Google: perpetually connecting.
I used to be a camera settings geek and then I met Bil Zelman –
If I had to give advice to anyone at all, it might be to know your tools inside and out, but not let them get in the way. I can go from a 125th to a 30th and from f2.8 to 5.6 while walking backwards and holding conversation without missing a beat. Add too much more to that equation and I’m paying more attention to my gear than to my subject — not a good thing.
That, and take lots and lots of pictures.
This post has been collecting dust in my ‘to read’ folder for ages (so it’s a little older) but I highly recommend it for all of the photo bugs out there. Zelman’s photos remind me of the days when I didn’t care about camera settings and rules of photography and such. We so often try to Photoshop coolness into our rather bland photos, or come up with techniques like HDR to give our photos a different look. When really, all of that’s just an excuse for poor composition to begin with.
He has such an inside-out understanding of his camera that he’s naturally able to capture even the most sporadic, candid moments creatively. Me? I can’t even change the settings on my camera without glancing at the LCD.
Hopefully, that’s about to change.
Shawn Blanc on taking an email break -
I’m thinking we should all take a break from email for 30 days. Those we have to communicate with we could call or talk to in person. Those we don’t have to work with wouldn’t be able to infringe on our time because they don’t have our phone numbers. And we may just end up having meaningful dialog with our friends and family instead of keeping in touch by sending shallow links to funny YouTube videos.
What say ye?
While these are all flaws of email, I don’t necessarily agree that abandoning email for telephone calls is a step in the right direction. Part of the reason I love email is because I’m not always available. With phones, anyone who has my number has a direct line to me at all times. Yes, certain people deserve the right to contact me at any time, but they are few and far between.
Email, on the other hand, doesn’t require both parties being ‘available’ at any point in time. I can email you whenever and you can get back to me whenever. And the best part is that I never feel like I’m interrupting you. Or actually, maybe that’s the problem.
Of course, the irony is that people will email Shawn their thoughts on this…
Seth Godin’s 7 Tips for Startups in a Down Market -
The emphasis should not be on “how do I raise money and hire people?” The emphasis should be on “how do I build value today?” Because if every day you’re doing this you’re building value—connecting with people who find you irreplaceable—then you will become irreplaceable.
This man, my esteemed readers, is a genius.
Bill Gates speaks at TED09 on education and changing the world (among other things) -
He’s much more natural talking about his foundation and saving lives than talking about technology. He should just quit Microsoft and work at the foundation full-time. Oh, wait…
charity: water has published a fantastic water promo featuring “Time Bomb” by Beck. I’m a sucker for visual text animations like, plus the topic is close to my heart.
And if you enjoyed that, wait till you see this.
The Case Against Everything Buckets –
Computers work best with structured data. Everything Buckets discourage the use of structured data. [They] cry: “throw it all in here! Search it! Maybe I’ll corrupt my proprietary database, but maybe I won’t and you’ll have the joy of sifting through a mire of RTF documents. Doesn’t that sound great?”
One giant blob of information has never sounded more appealing than an organized hierarchy of data. Maybe I’m just behind the curve.
Whoever said you couldn’t shoot something powerful and creative without an HD camera, lied. Big time. And I’m speaking to myself here.
Merlin Mann on turning off Twitter and making great stuff. Take 30 minutes of your life and watch this.
Today, Coversutra, the super-elegant and minimal iTunes controller, turns two years old. As a ‘thank you’ back to the Mac community, it’s developer, Sophia Teutschler, is giving away free licenses of Coversutra all day long.
As someone that listens to hours of music a day, Coversutra is one of those must-have apps that is always running on my Mac. Head over to the store sometime today to claim your free license.
I love this. Simon Hoegsberg spent twenty days taking pictures of people in Berlin from the same spot, and stitched it together into a 100-meter long panorama.
Via (Jorge)
