Erwin Olaf interview

The F STOP » Professional Photographers Discuss Their Craft » Erwin Olaf

Olaf: I work with several retouchers for every project. It’s like in the film industry, there’s an editor. I see myself more as a director nowadays than as a pure photographer.

F STOP: What do you like about 60s and 70s lighting? The top light?

Olaf: It communicates that we are in artificial world, because it’s not natural. I prefer a little softer, and not really hard light, but soft box light most of the time. But it is a dream world, you know.

F STOP: And everything in your shoot reinforces that?

Olaf: Yes, it comes all together and it builds up to one atmosphere.

Some very interesting points in this interview. Good read.
Thanks Jamie.

I am full of win.

Be Sad and Succeed: Scientific American

Next time you find yourself in a bad mood, don’t try to put on a happy face—instead tackle a project that has been stymieing you. Melancholy might just help you hit peak performance, reports Joseph Forgas, a professor of psychology at the University of New South Wales, in the journal Australasian Science.

I guess this means I am very succesful. Now get off my lawn.

How to get Music Free Legally!

So since the nesting instinct has reared it's head here at the compound we went out and bought a new Receiver system. So far so good, get some speaker wire to replace the cheap crap it comes with but it sounds ton's better then my previous system. The previous system being computer speakers.... so uh yeah. Back story time! I have not had a "stereo" system since 2003. I had a Bose system from the 1980's prior to that so I am not exactly a audiophile. Once I made everything digital I just went for computer speakers and airports around the house. But I have been missing the better sound quality and the wife loves her movies so we went for some surround sound.

Anyways, had a old fashioned MP3 get into the playlist last night I had to run screaming to skip the track. Most of what I have is AIFF ripped from the CD collection years ago. But some Mp3's wormed there way into the library over the years and while they work on computer / low end speakers they sound like screeching monkeys on acid on a decent system (I won't pretend this system is high end).

So this lead us to talking about the best way to get DRM free lossless files. Which it turns out you can not buy. Damn. If we could buy them, we would, we are lazy. If a album comes on random that sounds like ass, BAM, download the better version. But alas, the music industry has it's heads firmly lodged up each other's asses and won't allow this. So being stubborn as well as lazy we started trying to figure out the best to to get AIFF's of music. First point, Buy the CD's, rip the CD's, the sell them to a used CD store. So we get the AIFF's cheaper then the Amazon mp3's and the itunes drm crap. Then we though, just buy used CDs and return those. Even cheaper! But then we can up with the winner.

We are going to the Library this weekend.

Avoid ASCAP

So many, many years ago I signed up with ASCAP in a band that was doing OK. I have been trying to get out of that contract for the past 6 months now. I did not weven know I was still in the contract. Which it seems that they clutch in their demon like hands to pour over and review while they are training for Satan Lawyer School. So after months of trying to get an answer I get this gem:

This means that since you have a first quarter election date for your writer membership, your effective resignation date would be April 1, 2011, and your Resignation Notification Form must be received in the P.O. Box listed on the bottom of the Resignation Notification Form between July 1, 2010 - Oct.. 1, 2010.  If your form is received before or after the relevant date for your writer membership, it will not be considered timely and will be returned to you.

So not only is their outdated business annoying, but trying to get out of the contract is right out of dealing with the devil. I have to wait till July to send the forms in and then I won't be out from under them for another 14 months! Awesome. ASCAP is a horrible place.

Avoid ASCAP for any music business.

And there you have it.

BBC News - Why do people often vote against their own interests?

The Republicans have learnt how to stoke up resentment against the patronising liberal elite, all those do-gooders who assume they know what poor people ought to be thinking.

Right-wing politics has become a vehicle for channelling this popular anger against intellectual snobs. The result is that many of America's poorest citizens have a deep emotional attachment to a party that serves the interests of its richest.
Thomas Frank
Thomas Frank thinks that voters have become blinded to their real interests

Thomas Frank says that whatever disadvantaged Americans think they are voting for, they get something quite different:

"You vote to strike a blow against elitism and you receive a social order in which wealth is more concentrated than ever before in our life times, workers have been stripped of power, and CEOs are rewarded in a manner that is beyond imagining.

"It's like a French Revolution in reverse in which the workers come pouring down the street screaming more power to the aristocracy."

As Mr Frank sees it, authenticity has replaced economics as the driving force of modern politics. The authentic politicians are the ones who sound like they are speaking from the gut, not the cerebral cortex. Of course, they might be faking it, but it is no joke to say that in contemporary politics, if you can fake sincerity, you have got it made

This makes me a sad panda

Supreme Court rolls back campaign cash limits - Supreme Court- msnbc.com

WASHINGTON - A major ruling Thursday by the U.S. Supreme Court could change how presidential and congressional elections are funded, possibly opening the floodgates of money from corporations, unions and other groups.

The ruling is a blow to activists who have tried to limit the role of special interests in American politics.

By a 5-4 vote, the court overturned a 20-year-old ruling that said corporations can be prohibited from using money from their general treasuries to pay for campaign ads. The decision, which almost certainly will also allow labor unions to participate more freely in campaigns, threatens similar limits imposed by 24 states.

Just in case you thought this country was not bought and sold already, this should clear this up for you. Now it's sign, stamped and approved.

Astro Dude Print

Been working on a illustration for Allegra Gellar and their upcoming show. I thought a Guitar with a Keytar would be a pretty sweet visual. You can see the stand alone print I'll make, the band print and a detail at 100%. Lot's of funky half toning!

Scary stuff

Giving corporations an outsized voice in elections - latimes.com

Corporations are pitching a bizarre product -- a radical vision of the 1st Amendment. It would give corporations rather than voters a central role in our electoral process by treating corporate political spending as protected speech. If this vision becomes reality, businesses and other big-money players will spend billions either hyping their preferred candidates or running attack ads against elected officials who don't support their preferred agenda. Voters will be forced into a couch-potato role, mere viewers of the electoral spectacle bought and paid for by wealthy companies.

Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away.

How to Build a Universe That Doesn't Fall Apart Two Days Later

But the problem is a real one, not a mere intellectual game. Because today we live in a society in which spurious realities are manufactured by the media, by governments, by big corporations, by religious groups, political groups—and the electronic hardware exists by which to deliver these pseudo-worlds right into the heads of the reader, the viewer, the listener. Sometimes when I watch my eleven-year-old daughter watch TV, I wonder what she is being taught. The problem of miscuing; consider that. A TV program produced for adults is viewed by a small child. Half of what is said and done in the TV drama is probably misunderstood by the child. Maybe it's all misunderstood. And the thing is, Just how authentic is the information anyhow, even if the child correctly understood it? What is the relationship between the average TV situation comedy to reality? What about the cop shows? Cars are continually swerving out of control, crashing, and catching fire. The police are always good and they always win. Do not ignore that point: The police always win. What a lesson that is. You should not fight authority, and even if you do, you will lose. The message here is, Be passive. And—cooperate. If Officer Baretta asks you for information, give it to him, because Officer Beratta is a good man and to be trusted. He loves you, and you should love him.

Snow!

_MG_2689 copy _MG_2693 copy

_MG_2697 copyJust took a few snaps last night of the snow that hit us. The wife was none too pleased, lol!