Day 96: Budding Prospects

(Nikon D90, 35mm DX, f/4, 1/640, ISO 200)

Keke.  Winston make pun.  In any case though, it is nice to see some green outside.  The snow has melted, being replaced by rain.  With it, comes some green grass and as shown above, new leaves.  To some extent, I hate the extreme cold, and with it windchills; I don't remember how I used to be able to stand it when I was a kid and it was constantly -20C outside without wind; I start complaining when it's -5 or -10 now.  Must be the extremely warm TTC buses.

Keepin' it short.  One paper left to go!

Day 95: The Finish

(Nikon D90, 35mm DX, f/1.8, 1/250, ISO 800)

Almost done the semester, with just a few more things to hand in and complete - almost through running the gauntlet of assignments, papers, and projects.  In fact, there lies only one major paper due tomorrow left before all is well.  Not bad.  Hard to imagine the regular year is already over.

As can be seen in the photo, shot some more basketball today.  I imagine I should probably start going for something besides a 35mm lens, given the difficulty of isolating subjects or focussing (hard to, when your subjects are so small within the frame).  Some might suggest moving my feet and not being a lazy ass, but it's kind of hard and dangerous to stroll onto an active basketball court, what with the potentially getting your face pancaked and all. 

Processed it in Adobe's recent Lightroom 3 Beta 2.  Even though it took all of a couple minutes, I like what I see already.  Perhaps in a couple weeks I'll get to trying out the tethered shooting option - great for Nikon shooters that want a simple tethering solution without having to invest in Nikon's pricey Camera Control Pro 2.  

Keepin' it short today.  There's only one Monday left in the semester! Woot!

Day 94: Mystery Door

(Nikon D90, 35mm DX, f/4, 1/80, ISO 200)

That's as far as I ever got to going outside all weekend.  I have no idea of what life beyond thaat door is like.  Except for the fact that the house across the street from me has a white garage.  As for the photo itself, it did not come out like that in-camera.  Played around with the tone curves and recovery slider in Lightroom, although the D90's Active D-Lighting worked pretty well to start.

For what it's worth, I've been programming and sleeping irregularly all weekend.  Ugh.  Going to keep it short today, early start to the week... again.  At least it's the second last Monday ever for the semeser! Woohoo!

More tomorrow.

Day 93: Less is More

(Nikon D90, 35mm DX, f/5.6, 1/60, ISO 400)

Bigger, isn't always better.

It dawned on me whilst I was writing code in the early-hours of Saturday morning (no pun intended).  For the first half there was just straight coding, splattering as many lines of code as was necessary to get the program to work.  Thankfully there weren't any sort of major SNAFUs or hiccups in the process, and the program now largely works as was necessary.  For the next few hours after that, I went to work trimming down code.  A line here, a line there, every line cut felt like an accomplishment.  My Computer Science teacher in High School introduced us to the concept of KISS in class (Keep It Simple, Stupid), and it's something that's stuck with me ever since. 

Not suprisingly, this concept has wormed its way into my photography as well.  I came to this realization rather late; about nine months after picking up a DSLR and right after I had shot three CCSA (Chinese Christian Softball Association) softball teams' worth of games for the season that summer in Toronto.  Several times I foudn myself burning out during post-processing; about 90 to 120 'keepers per game'.  I shot about 30 games.  Yeah.  The math ain't pretty.  

I think Scott Kelby put it best when he said something along the lines of displaying a dozen or so photos out of a batch of 100 or 200 makes you appreciate the select ones more.  In exercising greater scrutiny I come away with less, but feel I have a more desirable end result - one that I'm proud to display.  Most of the time I don't show about 75% or more of what I shoot.  A lot of the times it's because that one shot out of four was part of a four-shot burst.  Other times, there are just plain bad shots caused by the camera or the dufus behind the camera (never did like me much, har har har).  It gets to the point now that I generally don't give as much attention to online galleries or albums that are just a slew of the same photos shot over and over again.  Having already been asked to shoot for a friend's team, I look forward to the upcoming CCSA season(it's 30th!), and seeing some of the great folks I haven't seen in a few months.  In that sense, some things won't change, but I'll definitely be keeping fewer photos.  Sure, I won't have hundreds of photos capturing practically ever major and minor event during the game, but I'll definitely have a lot more fun, save a lot more time, and come away with more memories.

In concluision, shoot more (with digital, it's free anyway!), but keep less!  No one needs to see the shot where the flash didn't go off, or the one where everyone's face got smeared because the camera automatically picked a slower shutter speed.  Keep the memories, not the clutter.  After all at the end of the day it's probably that handful of shots that you're going to remember, not the other hundred.

Day 92: Lazy Friday

(Nikon D90, 35mm DX, f/1.8, 1/100, ISO 400)

Old habits die hard.  I woke up at 3 PM today. For some, it's Easter Friday, for others, it's a day off.  For me, it's just another day.  Not much to report today folks, other than the fact that I think I underexposed on the photo.  Damnit. 

Hopefully something tomorrow.

Day 91: The Last Cut is the Deepest

(Nikon D90, 35mm DX, f/1.8, 1/40, ISO 200)

That will be the closest picture you will ever get of me on this blog... ever!

Okay, I lie.  Does it count as April Fools even though the post was made well after 12 PM and on a different day for that matter?  Even if it was meant for April 1st?  Damnit.  Probably not.

In any case, today turned out to be my last haircut with my barber.  He's retiring and has already sold his house.  Only three people have cut my hair in my life.  My dad, my oldest brother, and the husband (whom I have only known as Mr. Szeto) of a couple who had been cutting my parents' hair for twenty years; pretty much since I was born.  I had known Mr. Szeto when I was a child - my parents used to bring me to their house when I was about 4 or 5 whenever they had their hair done.  I remember I used to stare at their fish tank and run around in the basement, which had been turned into an ad-hoc barber shop/hair salon.  He had a successful hairstyle business back in Hong Kong, and decided to continue it to some extent once he moved to Canada.  For about a decade, I never saw him again, until my brother was no longer able to cut my hair.  My dad brought me back to him.  Some things never change, minus the removal of the fish tank.  That was about five years ago, when I first started getting my hair cut with him.  My gut told me to bring my camera with me today, but I opted not to and pretty much regretted it once I heard the news.  One of those shots that got away.  Alas, in lieu of no pictures, I suppose it's story time then... about my hair.

Pretty much until I got into High School and even for a bit after that, my haircuts were the simple 'just cut it thin'.  It took about 15 years for me to make the switch to "leave a little bit of the front out".  Other than that, my hair has pretty much been the same.  Coincidentally, I imagine around the same time that I made the decision to actually do something with my hair - spend about 30 seconds with it after showering with the blow dryer blowing my hair straight up.  Yeah.  Whilst everyone else was gelling, perming, dyeing pink, and doing all sorts of other crazy shit with their hair, it took me several years to decide to blow-dry it up.  Despite all this my hairstyle has as become somewhat of a recognizable trademark (I think).

My friend Betty once remarked how the height of my hair is an indicator of my mood, with the higher it being reflecting the more content that I was.  I guess to some extent that could be true, though I would probably be first in line to suggest not relying on it as a scientific means of measurement.  Generally I like to compare the growth of my hair to that of a growing plant.  Soon after it's cut, it shoots straight up for about a week or two, at which point it splits and "opens" up, such that it can no longer stand up on its own and takes the form of a curvy 'm' instead.  Then it's off to the barber again!  The cycle occurs about every 4 - 6 weeks, although in this case, it'll be a new barber.

I'll miss Mr. Szeto.  I never really got to know him well due to a language barrier (side note: I am totally not fluent in Cantonese or Mandarin), but in spite of this he always had my hair looking the way I wanted it.  He was definitely a cut above the rest.

Day 90: Shades

(Nikon D90, 35mm DX, f/1.8, 1/80, ISO 200)

I need to stop falling asleep so early.  

There's been nothing but nice weather this week.  Bright, sunny, and warm temperatures all about and people beginning to break out the shorts and T-shirts.  Having worn glasses since I was about seven, I have never really had much use for sunglasses (either see extreme sunlight or don't see at all), so when I first got transition lenses four years ago, it was a nice change to having to squint out towards a field of snow or on a nice summer day.  

Clip-ons never really worked out, since I had to carry them separately in the case and put them on and off as needed/  What can I say?  I'm lazy.  About the only drawback sans price is that they take time to transition.  They're sensitive to UV, so they change (albeit to a lesser degree) on cloudy days too.

Keepin' it short.  Since there will be another post today, or in the worst case scenario, tomorrow.