what the heck?

onOne Software - DSLR Remote for Canon DSLR Cameras & iPhone

DSLR Camera Remote is the next-generation cable release for your Canon EOS DSLR camera. Just connect your camera to a WiFi enabled computer and the DSLR Camera Remote software enables you to use your Apple iPhone or iPod touch to wirelessly adjust cameras settings, fire the shutter, review images, even get a live viewfinder preview. DSLR Camera Remote is a must-have for remote shooting applications like high or low angles, self portraits and children. With its advanced timers it makes remote monitoring a snap. No internet connection required!

I am so giving this a try.....

Thanks Brantlea!

The return of Redlining?

Bank Accused of Pushing Mortgage Deals on Blacks - NYTimes.com

Wells Fargo, Ms. Jacobson said in an interview, saw the black community as fertile ground for subprime mortgages, as working-class blacks were hungry to be a part of the nation’s home-owning mania. Loan officers, she said, pushed customers who could have qualified for prime loans into subprime mortgages. Another loan officer stated in an affidavit filed last week that employees had referred to blacks as “mud people” and to subprime lending as “ghetto loans.”

“We just went right after them,” said Ms. Jacobson, who is white and said she was once the bank’s top-producing subprime loan officer nationally. “Wells Fargo mortgage had an emerging-markets unit that specifically targeted black churches, because it figured church leaders had a lot of influence and could convince congregants to take out subprime loans.”

Wow, looks like Redlining is still alive and strong.

Storm a brewing...

They are saying 18000 people without power. Hail and big thunderstorms. So the danklife client area will be down till this passes. Everything will be unplugged shortly. The client area will be back tomorrow as long as I have power.

Yowzers. [gallery link="file"]

Pocket Wizards at 1/8000th of a sec!

So I received my Mini TTi and Flex TT5 yesterday and have been testing and testing and testing. Here are some pretty exciting results all shot at 1/8000th of a second! I am using Profoto ComPact-R 300r's with the Flex TT5 plugged into one of those with the Mini on top of a Canon 5d Mark 2 to trigger it all. Then just for kicks I put up my old Vivitar 283's with some old 1970's era Wein slaves in the mix as well. As you can see from the behind the fan shot, all are being captured at 1/8000th of a sec. Feel free to check out the files and see for yourself if you don't trust my screen shots. They are also on the Pixelrust Photostream as well if you want more data. There does seem to be a touch of fall off on the camera right side of the frame but nothing that is a deal breaker.

I was chatting with the esteemed and accomplished photographer Mike Powell (they won't know I'm lying Mike!) and his thoughts on it are that the gear I am using is crappy (thanks Mike you jerk!) which means the flash duration is way longer then with good gear. So the actual strobes themselves are probably at around 1/500-1/800th of a second in duration which makes it easier for the Pocket Wizards to be in the sweet spot during the shutter release at 1/8000th. Go go crappy gear!

Also, this fan is called "Finga Choppa!" for good reason. This little guy moves at a good clip.

Also, these are test pics man, cut me some slack on the crappy lighting!

Click on the pics to see them bigger.

[gallery link="file"]

Photomatrix HDR studies

I have been doing HDR work for some time now, but after this weekends studies I thought I post some of my thoughts on it. Here are some screen grabs of a side by side comparison between a 'conservative' use of Photomatrix and one done with hand masking. Photomatrix is on the left.

[gallery link="file"]

Notice how on the overall view you may be fooled into thinking this actually looks good? Notice all the artifacting in the views at 100%? To me, that is ugly as hell and not something I am into. Plus, the HDR appears smeary because of the slight breeze at the time. The plants move and the software can not cope with that. But this also brings up why I think HDR is such a blight upon Flickr. No one prints their HDR shots. They process the shit out of them in Photoshop and then post them with no intention of printing.

Of course, I could be dating myself by saying I print my work. For all I know, that is a very old timey concept.

It's a freaking ink jet print you snobbish twit.

Giclée - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Giclée (pronounced [ʒiːˈkleɪ] "zhee-clay" or /dʒiːˈkleɪ, from French IPA: [ʒiˈkle]), is an invented name (i.e. a neologism) for the process of making fine art prints from a digital source using ink-jet printing. The word "giclée" is derived from the French language word "le gicleur" meaning "nozzle", or more specifically "gicler" meaning "to squirt, spurt, or spray"[1]. It was coined in 1991 by Jack Duganne[2],

This is a big pet peeve of mine. Just because you use a french made up name does not make it special. You are not a special unique snowflake and your art is mostly made of crap. Stay off my lawn. Damn kids.

And turn down that music too!

Jets To Brazil - Sea Anemone

the curtain's a sea anemone in the way it sways to the slow breeze i lie spread out on the floor looking at these things and most of them are yours

and it's so nice sitting very still without those old shoes i could never fill

starfish with its arms out in a daze staring at the stars through an ocean haze was i one you wished upon burned out like a lightbulb when you turned on me

and it's so nice sleeping here all alone with my ashtray and white courtesy telephone now i'm making out the shapes like the shower rod - can it take my weight? i will tell you i am fine i got some news, friend, feels like i'm dying

turtle on its back in the desert sea and you *look* like a cool drink just slightly out of reach draw myself into the shell waiting on a sign from god or a nod from hell

and it's so nice sitting very still without those old shoes i could never fill now we're turing on the lights it's the first day of my second life take my name off of the lease you can even keep the name it never suited me

Oh man!

Flickr: Camera Toss

This is a "technique" group, and the technique here is regarded by some as insanity. For we are the reckless folks on flickr that enjoy the abstract, chance, generative, physical photography that results from throwing our cameras into the air (most often at night in front of varied light sources). It is about trading risk for reward in the pursuit of art. It is not about being a photographer, it is about enabling the photography that happens naturally when you let go of the process, give up control, and add a hell of alot more variables. It is about physics, gravity, angular momentum, acceleration, direction, chaos, and timing... most of which you have tenuous control of at best!

This is pretty cool actually. The nagging Art Scholar says, 'decorative' but who gives a shit. It sounds and looks like a fun time.

Hmmm...

Is it just me or is fffound, reddit and digg suddenly filled with the same crap over and over again instead of new content? What is afoot? Are the Corps moving in and rehashing themselves with scripts instead of user generated NEW content?

I think I found a fix!

Macintosh Performance Guide: Configuring Photoshop

Bigger Tiles is critical

The Bigger Tiles plugin in particular is absolutely critical to performance. Using Photoshop CS4 11.0.1, I measured these bizarre results with and without Bigger Tiles on both a 2.8GHz 2008 Mac Pro and a 2.93GHz 2009 Mac Pro Nehalem. I confirmed with Rob-Art at barefeats.com that same behavior; the culprit seems to be the Smart Sharpen function, which runs far more slowly without Bigger Tiles.

I ran into this page yesterday and since installing these plug ins CS4 has stopped it's constant crashing. Oh man, I spent hours on the phone with Adobe tech support and never got a good answer. I rebuilt this system from the ground up to try and resolve the crashing. So if you have problems with Photoshop CS4 crashing constantly, try installing these little guys.

On a side note, some other things I have recently learned:

Itunes Genius function will crash your itunes on launch if you are not connected to the internet. My ISP went down on Saturday and that meant no music for me since it would not launch. Turn that crap off. Good luck on turning Genius off if you have no internet by the way.

If you highlight a word on the New York Times web site you will get a little question mark that will open a definition of that word. Pretty slick.

goodbye sir.

Jay Bennett, Former Member of Rock Band Wilco, Dies at 45 - Obituary (Obit) - NYTimes.com

Mr. Bennett joined Wilco in 1994, shortly after the recording of the band’s first album, “A.M.,” which was released the next year. Beginning with “Being There” in 1996, he played keyboards, guitar and various other instruments, and gradually his role grew. With “Summerteeth” in 1999 and “Yankee Hotel Foxtrot,” released in 2002, Mr. Bennett became a key part of the band’s songwriting, often as a darker foil to the more fragile style of the lead singer, Jeff Tweedy. A perfectionist in the studio, Mr. Bennett took an active hand in the recording process.

I have to say, he did add a lot to the music and the newer Wilco albums are unlistenable dentist office music to me. Bland crap.

A Ghost is Born is quite good. But the last two... wow. Amazingly horrid. I compare them to the music in the background on the Weather Channel. Someone mail Jeff Tweedy a bag of Heroin ASAP please.

In Defense of Distraction Twitter, Adderall, lifehacking, mindful jogging, power browsing, Obama’s BlackBerry, and the benefits of overstimulation.

The Benefits of Distraction and Overstimulation -- New York Magazine

One of the weaknesses of lifehacking as a weapon in the war against distraction, Mann admits, is that it tends to become extremely distracting. You can spend solid days reading reviews of filing techniques and organizational software. “On the web, there’s a certain kind of encouragement to never ask yourself how much information you really need,” he says. “But when I get to the point where I’m seeking advice twelve hours a day on how to take a nap, or what kind of notebook to buy, I’m so far off the idea of lifehacks that it’s indistinguishable from where we started. There are a lot of people out there that find this a very sticky idea, and there’s very little advice right now to tell them that the only thing to do is action, and everything else is horseshit. My wife reminds me sometimes: ‘You have all the information you need to do something right now.’ ” ...

“Where you allow your attention to go ultimately says more about you as a human being than anything that you put in your mission statement,” he continues. “It’s an indisputable receipt for your existence. And if you allow that to be squandered by other people who are as bored as you are, it’s gonna say a lot about who you are as a person.” ...

This sort of free-associative wandering is essential to the creative process; one moment of judicious unmindfulness can inspire thousands of hours of mindfulness.

Interesting piece at the New Yorker, take the time out to read it all the way through. Here are a few choice bits that got my brain a firing.

One of the key factors left out though is the sheer luxury in being able to take the time out of your day to focus on one particular task. I would say our lives have become fragmented because of technology. If you do not respond to those emails, Facebook notices or text messages people will assume something is wrong. There is a perceived sleight to a person if you do not reply to them. A social faux pas. And I would argue that we are more socially linked then ever before in history. One would wake up and have no clue what others were up too. Now I wake up to hourly updates!

Not very many of us today can afford to turn off email, not send out a quick reply, not read the trade blogs to keep up on the latest tech / trends. Not follow Facebook / Twitter / Linkedin to see what colleagues are doing. To be able to just focus on your work would be a amazing luxury.

Maybe someday I'll have the means, but for now, it's pots of coffee and endless information gathering.