Science

The Naked Scientists – This has nothing to do with nudity.  It’s a British thing, like The Naked Chef.  This great British radio show covers science topics equivalent to what you’d read in Discover Magazine in the USA.  It’s informative while being entertaining, and I learn a lot every week.  (Approx 1 hour long)

Video Games

Giant Bombcast - This is a HILARIOUS podcast that is mostly about video games.  I say it’s mostly about video games because these guys often will go off on random tangents about what energy drinks they have, what they ate, what they did between video gaming, and other topics.  However, they always get back to video games and provide a really fun podcast.  Segments include What You’ve Been Playing, News of the World, New Releases and EMAILS!  My favorite parts are “What You’ve Been Playing” and “New Releases” where they often slag off the crap that ends up in Wiiware and DSiware.  It can be a bit geeky in the same way that some of the tech podcasts I listen to are geeky, (Approx 2.5 hours long)

NPR

American Public Media:  Marketplace – This is a really good economics show.  They talk about news that happened that day as well as stories that have been pre-prepared.  This podcast has really helped me to understand the recession and why it happened as well as whether it is getting any better.  (Approx 30 min long)

Talk of the Nation – Talk of the Nation is a call-in show that discusses news and politics Mon-Thurs and science on Friday.  It also has a special focus on Politics on Wed, although politics can be discussed on Mon, Tues, and Thursday as well.  The show usually has one guest on each side of an issue or one guest if they’re talking about a book or movie.  The hosts are very civil and keep opposing guests from the stupid fighting often seen on cable news networks.  They will also apologize for rude callers.  So I love this show to get a general view of the news without the BS of cable news.  I really like this show a lot.  The science section is of the same quality of The Naked Scientists, but they usually cover a bunch of stories and have a lot more call in with less time so they can’t be as thorough.  (Approx 30 min long)

Fresh Air – Fresh Air is one of NPR’s most famous shows.  It is similar in topic scope as Talk of the Nation, but without any listener call-in.  Also, it tends to have a heavier focus on cultural topics (books, movies, etc).  Terry Gross has been hosting Fresh Air for decades and is a master at interviewing her guests.  Every once in a while there is a guest host or the interview is conducted by a specialist in that industry.  (Approx 1 hour)

Wait, Wait Don’t Tell Me – This is a hilarious news quiz show that features guest panelists that rotate from a roster of regulars.  Former NPR news super-star Carl Kassel is the judge of the show.  It alternates between quizzing the guest panelists and call-in guests.  It’s been on for a little over 10 years and in the last few years has been taped in front of an audience (most of the time in Chicago).  My favorite part is when they ask their questions in the form of a limerick.  The only bad part is when they go on the road for their shows, sometimes the audio isn’t as good.  (Approx 30 min long)

On The Media – Although not always perfect and although it leans a little more left than moderate, On the Media is a good podcast about media issues.  Examples include: truth in advertising, misleading news stories on the cable networks, debunking PR-speak from the White House, and other media literacy items.  I tend to enjoy it nearly all the time and it’s a good balance to news on both sides of the spectrum, calling out CNN as often as Fox News. (Approx 1 hour long)

Media Matters – This podcast is nearly as far to the left as Fox News is to the right.  I listen to it because, other than Keith Olberman on MSNBC, there aren’t really that many places that look at the far left of issues.  I find myself often disagreeing with the people interviewed, but I find it interesting to see their point of view.  On the plus side, they tend not to trade in fear mongering like those on the right often do (I’m looking at you Glen Beck).  (Approx 1 hour long)

This American Life – This is an AWESOME podcast and is often my favorite one to listen to each week.  Ira Glass introduces a series of stories that all revolve around a particular theme.  The production rocks and the stories are nearly always very interesting.  It’s hard to properly describe it – you just need to listen to a few episodes and you’ll probably be hooked.  (Approx 1 hour long)

Computers and Technology

The Commandline Podcast – This is a pretty technical podcast.  If you aren’t a computer geek, you probably won’t enjoy it.  But if you ARE a computer geek, this show, by Thomas “Cmdline” Gideon, is a really well produced show.  Cmdline goes back and forth between a news-related podcast and a meditative-based podcast.  The meditative ones contain wisdom from Cmdline’s many years in the tech world. (Approx 30 min long)

FLOSS Weekly – This is a weekly podcast (duh!) about free, libre, and open source software.  It’s another geeky podcast and if you aren’t into the open source movement, you’ll probably find it boring.  If you DO like open source news, they tend to get interviews with really neat project maintainers and the hosts are all Titans in the open source world:  Jono Bacon, Randal Schwartz, and Leo Laporte. (Approx 60 min long) edit:  corrected to 60 min from 30 min

Linux Outlaws – A pretty good Linux podcast.  Dan (British) and Fab (German) talk about the latest news and releases in the Linux world.  As with most of the other podcasts in this category, I don’t recommend it if you’re not really into Linux.  They are approachable, but if you don’t like Linux, there isn’t much here.  They tend to run really long and it can be annoying sometimes.  Unlike Giant Bombcast, they only have two hosts so tangents don’t lead to as many funny moments.  (Approx 2.5 hours)

Shot of Jaq – Shot of Jaq is a podcast by LugRadio veterans Stuart “Aq” Langridge and Jono Bacon.  Whereas LugRadio was often 2 hours long and focused on Linux, Shot of Jaq is 10 minutes long and focused on technology in general with a slant towards FLOSS.  It’s the shortest podcast I listen to and they usually talk about interesting topics.  It takes the form of a conversation between the hosts almost as a classical Lincoln-Douglas debate as they are often on opposite sides of an issue.  (Approx 10 minutes long)

Spectrum Podcasts – This is the official podcast of IEEE Spectrum.  It’s OK.  But it’s not too long and they have decent interviews.  (Approx 15 minutes long)

This Week in Photography – A Photography podcast featuring a revolving cast of four professional photographers.  It seems to follow the same format of Giant Bombcast, except about Photography.  It starts out with general conversation followed by news.  Then there’s an interview with an industry giant, followed by picks of the week where they talk about hardware and software people should try out.  Then they read emails and end the show.  It’s pretty good if you’re into photography. (Approx 45 min long)

Tux Radar – Yet another Linux podcast.  It’s the official podcast of Linux Format Magazine.  They talk about Linux and joke around.  It’s pretty good; I’d probably give it a 7.5/10. (Approx 45 min long)

Related posts:

1. The White House Staff needs to stop smoking the drugs
2. Is it Obsolete? NPR Radio Stations
3. The Unix Ideal

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1. Photojojo Time Capsule from Early Sept
2. Photojojo’s Time Capsule
3. Photojojo for Early Jan

Click on this one and then, once it loads, right-click and set as desktop if you have a square monitor:

March 2010 - 1024x768 Desktop Calendar for Squarish Monitors

Click on this one and then, once it loads, right-click and set as desktop if you have a widescreen monitor:

March 2010 - 1680x1050 Desktop Calendar for Widescreen Monitors

Related posts:

1. January Background Calendar
2. February Background Calendar
3. Yay, It’s March!

The beach was covered with snow, but that didn’t seem to bother the seagulls. As I approached, they let me get really close and if I got closer they preferred to run rather than fly.

Related posts:

1. A Daily Photo
2. Mid-Feb Snow Haiku
3. NYC Tet Trip Day 4

The Brooklyn Bridge. It was completed in 1883 and it links Brooklyn to Manhattan. It’s also possible to take the Manhattan Bridge from Brooklyn, but it’s far less picturesque. I’ve been to the Brooklyn Bridge a few times to take pictures with the first time being when I bought my Fujifilm Finepix S7000. This was the first time I took photos from Brooklyn Bridge Park; every other time had been from on the bridge itself.

Related posts:

1. NYC Tet Trip Day 3
2. The Kodak is Gone
3. A Daily Photo: Seagull on Snow

What can I say about visiting the Lomography store that hasn’t already been said? It provides a very interesting contrast with B&H Photo Video. B&H is a photographer’s sex dream. There are cameras and lenses of all kinds everywhere (on the second floor, nowadays). A conveyor belt system brings your order to the guy taking your order and then over to where you pay. It is massive (taking up a good chunk of 9th and 34th) and it feels chaotic on a Sunday afternoon. You instantly feel as though you need to win the lotto so you can posses it all. It feels like a microcosm of NY with people trying to get every which way and pushing around.

The Lomography store, on the other hand, was empty save for Danielle, Daniel, and I. It’s has a very casual feel to it and I almost felt time slow when I entered. They only sell Lomography-style cameras and film for said cameras. But then again, B&H is for pros (and enthusiasts) and Lomography appeals to a hipster hipper crowd.

Related posts:

1. NYC Tet Trip Day 1
2. A Daily Photo: Cardinal
3. A Daily Photo: Dan’s Birthday

This is part of my NYC Tet Travelogue.

See part one here, part two here, and part three here.

Unlike the previous entries, this one was written a week after the events, but it covers events from 14 Feb 2010.

–

The Boardwalk covered in snow

For this trip, I had only three goals ahead of time.  (Actually, three is pretty ambitious considering the amount of time we had plus the tet celebrations)  I wanted to hit up the Lomography shop, go to MOMA, and take some photos at Brighton Beach.  With the first two crossed off my list, I was ready to hit up Brighton Beach that Monday morning.  I wanted to do some seagull photography and some street photography style shots of the hundreds of people that take their morning walk on the boardwalk.  Danielle’s parents often walk the boardwalk in the morning so I opted to join them.  When I got there, it turned out that the beach and boardwalk were still covered in snow and ice from the  previous week’s snow storm.  Danielle and her mother gave up and went back home.  I decided to stay and get some gull photography.  The boardwalk was too icy to walk without risking a fall, but it was no big deal to walk on the snowy beach.

So I set about walking around the beach photographing seagulls.  I also happened to see an enterprising woman taking advantage of this rare occasion to go cross country skiing across the beach.

I decided to go to Coney Island to take photos of the rids covered in snow.  On the way over there, I continued taking photos of seagulls.

It was very odd to be walking on what I knew was a beach, surrounded by seagulls and yet have the earth beneath me covered in snow.  Beaches are synonymous with Florida for me and I refused to call the ocean-front sand in Oregon a real beach since the water was too cold to enter.  So as I walked through the beach, I wondered if this was what it felt like to live in Alaska.  After all, those who leave near the coast in Alaska are used to beaches having snow through the winter.

My quest to photograph Coney Island turned out to be very fortuitous because it led to me seeing someone using a large format camera.  As I was nearing Coney Island, I saw a guy with a tripod and a huge box on top that had to either be a pinhole camera or a large format camera.  Either way I figured it would be pretty neat to talk to him.  I quickened my pace and caught up with him as he was setting up for a shot of the ocean.  I asked if I could take a photo of him and he agreed upon the condition that he could take a portrait of me.  I was excited to be photographed by such a camera so I quickly agreed.  Also, he would be spending quite a bit of money for that film and to develop it (compared to a 35mm camera or a digital camera) so I felt honored.  The photographer is named Jon Feinstein and he’s the co-founder and curatorial director of the Humble Arts Foundation.

Coney Island actually ended up being a bit of a disappointment because it was so fenced up that I couldn’t get a good shot.

Our Lunar New Year celebration was best expressed by what we did at the end of the day.  We went to one of Danielle’s aunts’ house and played traditional new year games: Vietnamese poker and Bau Cua, a game similar to the roulette wheel (without the wheel).   All the kids from the next generation were also there running around and it was a general jubilant chaos.

Put your money on which animals yout think will come up on the dice

Thus ended my trip and also my first real attempt at a travelogue.

Related posts:

1. A Daily Photo: Seagull on Snow
2. Photos from Brighton Beach’s Boardwalk
3. NYC Tet Trip Day 3

This is part of my NYC Tet Travelogue.

See part one here.

See part two here.
–

this was originally written on 14 Feb 2010

Life sure is strange.  This morning I was sure I’d be buying a Holga today.  After talking to Danielle, it even seemed that SHE would get one too.  She wanted to have one loaded with color film and one loaded with black and white film.  Then she asked a few questions.  I can’t remember the exact words, but it got me thinking.  Do I REALLY want a Holga?  I mean, the biggest attraction for me was the ability to medium format film.  As I mentioned on 12 Feb, it’s a connection with the past and a chance to shoot with better film than I ever did.  But the more I looked at other photographers’ Lomo results, the more I wondered if this was how I wanted to re-experience film.  What put me off the most is the fact that the results are so random.  I don’t understand how people go on vacations to places as far away as Asia with a Lomo as their sole means of capturing their experiences.  They could be getting completely blown out photos the whole time and come back without any photo memories.

I think, in the end, the more I read about Holgas, the most I realized they didn’t fit my personality.  The focus is not accurate and is often blurry even if you get the settings right.  There’s only one f-stop and it’s insanely small.  So you’re stuck mostly shooting outdoors on sunny days.  Sure, that’s mostly what I wanted to shoot with the Holga – like the Brighton Beach boardwalk, but still – I think the expense in film is what gets me the most.  I guess I have to admit it – I’m a cheap f-ing bastard.  The thought of spending $20 total for film and development is just too much to bear when I don’t even know if the entire roll will be crap.  Digital’s cost structure is just too awesome.

Of course, everything I listed as a negative is exactly what Lomography geeks tote is awesome about the Holga.  So, in the end, it’s like trying to get with a girl because everyone says she’s fun, but everything she likes to do for fun is exactly what I hate to do.  It’s not as much of a match as I first thought.  Again, I’ve definitely experienced that with relationships.  Girls I thought at first would be great fun to be with turned out to be people I couldn’t stand to talk to for more than a minute.

I think there’s still something attractive to me about trying film now that I know more about photography.  Enough that I’m sure I’ll try it. I don’t mind spending the development money if the photos have a reasonable chance of coming out good. I even think that maybe medium format would be fun to shoot.  But I think Holga won’t be the one I do it with.  And that’s a shame because it’s the only affordable option right now.  But, that’s also just life.

In other news, I went to the Brooklyn Bridge yesterday.  I always wanted to get a shot from below the Brooklyn Bridge.  I see lots of people take these shots and I never knew how to get there.  While researching other shots to show Danielle so she could help me figure out how to get there, I saw mention of DUMBO.  DUMBO strands for down under manhattan bridge overpass.

We ended up at a different train stop than I expected to, so we had to wander around a little.  We passed by this really neat firehouse with a painting of the Brooklyn Bridge on it.  But when I went to take a photo, they were raising the the garage door.  A guy came out with a chainsaw and he saw us and played around for the camera.  He was cutting some ice and after he was done we stuck around to see if the would close the door, but after a few minutes we were getting a bit cold and bored so we just left.

Afterwards we continued to head for DUMBO and found Brooklyn Bridge park.  I got the shots I wanted.  Well, kinda.  I think I really wanted to get closer, but I also realized that I needed a wider lens to get the exact shot I wanted.  From where I was, my EF-S 18-55mm (on my 400D 1.6x crop factor camera), could just barely get the entire bridge from Brooklyn to Manhattan in one shot.  I am anticipating getting the Sigma 10-22mm wide angle lens in the next few days (I’ve finally saved up enough money) and I’ll probably be back to try again.  I also have to figure out exactly how to get over there because the way the onramps were designed for the bridge, they a impede direct route to the bridge area by foot.

The Photo I wanted of the Brooklyn Bridge

While we were there, it appears that someone was probably shooting some portraits for an album cover.  They were definitely professional-level photographers (if not out-and-out professionals).  They had a grey Canon lens (probably EF 70-200mm f2.8L), and some assistants holding circular reflectors.  And the subject was a woman with a guitar.  So it could just as easily have been a model or fashion shoot, but we guessed it was a musician shooting for her album cover.  That wasn’t the only bit of professional stuff going on around and on the bridge.  After taking pictures we went back to the steps to ascend to the Brooklyn Bridge footpath.  For the first time, I walked from the Brooklyn side all the way to the Manhattan side.  When I first came to the Brooklyn Bridge (after getting my Fujifilm Finepix S7000) we went from Manhattan across the bridge, but we didn’t go all the way to the “Welcome to Brooklyn” sign.

Ok, she's not holding a guitar in this shot, but she was before.

We took some photos that might end up using to decorate the house (Danielle had some very definite ideas in her head for what she wanted).

Something like this, for example

Then, as we got to the Manhattan side, we saw some people filming a rap video.  It was pretty funny to see two different professional events going on in roughly the same location, but at the same time – it IS New York City.  Although it’s not commonplace, it is definitely possible to see various celebrities around the city filming movies or TV shows.  Total, we were moving for an hour with an average speed of 2.6 MPH for 2.53 miles.

"The cat in the hat and that was that! Busta Rhymes!" - Mike Birbiglia on rap

Finally we went to a french bakery where Danielle’s dad’s best friend works.  We had tea and some sandwiches and pastries.  The food was good and the the atmosphere was great.  Definitely check it out if you’re into french pastries and french sandwiches.

Related posts:

1. A Daily Photo: The Brooklyn Bridge
2. NYC Tet Trip Day 1
3. NYC Tet Trip Day 2

I think the most important thing to realize is that the art of photography is 99.9% in the eye of the photographer.  How we compose a scene is what determines the difference between art and a snapshot.  If the colors are a little too muted or if we need to lighten up the image, this doesn’t mean that the computer is creating art any more than saying that when you take your photos to be developed at the drugstore that the developing machine is creating art.  The computer is merely doing what I tell it to do.  In both the analog and the digital worlds, there has always been a need to augment what was captured by the camera.  After all, when a photograph is my artwork, and I wish for a scene to be remembered more or less colorfully, I’m merely making an artistic decision.  A bad photo can never be made good by photoshop.  A bad photo is a bad photo.  If things need to be lightened or darkened – then it was not a bad photo – there were just some technical mistakes made.

And what of photojournalism and photo documentaries?  It’s taken me a while to realize that there is no such thing as an objective photo (no matter what the non-photographic public thinks).  At the moment in which I frame a shot, I am automatically making a value judgment.  I am determining what is relevant to the photo and what I want to say with the photo.  Take, for example, a political rally.  If I find the person with the most repugnant sign (say, “The President is a Nazi”) and photograph only that person and publish this photo, I have not manipulated the scene in any way.  I captured it exactly as it happened.  Nothing unethical has taken place.  But, by singling out this one person, I am framing what the whole rally was about.  I am keeping people from seeing other, more rational signs.  But there was no “evil” computer manipulation involved in this deception.

In the end, the most important thing to realize is that photography has NEVER been as simple as clicking a shutter and getting photos back.  Only as a reaction to people manipulating photos in the dark room did people begin to specifically take photos and not do any processing to them except what was necessary to get the photograph developed.

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3. NYC Tet Trip Day 1

Dan over some cupcakes that Danielle made for him.

Related posts:

1. A Daily Photo: Northern Mockingbird
2. A Daily Photo: Lomography Store
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It was busy at the bird feeders with all the new birds. This little guy was unable to find a spot to land. I don’t know what he didn’t like about the bottom peg.

Related posts:

1. A Daily Photo: Weathering Out the Storm
2. Bird Feeder
3. A Daily Photo: Northern Mockingbird

This is one of our neighbors clearing the snow out in his yard. Not sure what he was making a path to. Perhaps for his dog to be able to get to where he goes to relieve himself?

Related posts:

1. A Daily Photo
2. A Daily Photo: Northern Mockingbird
3. A Daily Photo

In case you’ve been under a rock lately, Maryland, DC, and Virginia got rocked by a huge El Niño system over the weekend. It dumped over three feet of snow in my neighborhood and nearly three feet everywhere else. The birds weathered it pretty well. Well, it helps that I felt bad for them and kept refilling the bird feeders. They were especially aggressive on the feeders this weekend for two reasons. 1) It was cold and they needed food to heat themselves by moving and 2) We had a bunch of new, large birds join the crowds in my backyard. The new birds included Red-Winged Blackbirds, Common Grackles, and European Starlings. Neither of these birds like Sunflower seeds, so they all kept going after the bird feed mix feeders. When I ran out of bird feed mix (a few days later) and was unable to buy any because of the snow conditions, I filled the feeders with sunflower seeds and they remained untouched for most of the day until the birds figured out that’s all they were going to get. Then they finished that off. I’ll be interested to see if they stick around after conditions improve.

Related posts:

1. Bird Feeder
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3. A Daily Photo: Northern Mockingbird

Sometimes the simplest things in life give the best pleasure. I love watching animals do the things they do. I pass by this lake chock-full of geese every day on my way to work. They’re only there in the morning before they go out in search of food and whatever it is geese do during the day. I wanted to catch them when the lake was frozen over to see how they dealt with it. Basically, they mostly treated it as though the shore extended out onto the lake. I shot at least a hundred frames and put up my best few onto flickr. This one became my favorite shot of the day.

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1. A Daily Photo: Busy Feeder
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In this post I decided to take you through my thought process in lighting the photo.  Because I wanted the knife as close to the camera as possible (while still being in focus), I had to lower the intensity of the flash on the camera.  But that meant I would end up too dark, so I had use another flash to light me.  I wanted to make sure that the flash lit only me and did not add any extra light to the knife, so I put a snoot on my flash.  As we covered before, the snoot directs light forward with a very quick drop-off to darkness from the projected circle of light.

Lighting Setup

Related posts:

1. Lighting Techniques 2: How to get that flashlight look with your flash
2. Lighting Techniques 1: Getting that White Background
3. Lighting Techniques 3: How to get that shadow on the face