clevermonkey.org: a life in progress

Yes, we want you to wear this in public

Posted August 22, 2010 at 10:28 EDT under photos.

A. looks dubious about her new hat.

Eee eee eee eee eee eee eee eee eee eee eee eee eee!

Posted August 21, 2010 at 04:33 EDT under photos.

Here is my new toy; an Asus Eee PC 1015PED.

It actually runs Adobe Lightroom well enough for me to import this photo via the built-in SD card reader, tweak it a little, and export it to 23.

It's a nice little box, though I might lose a little hacker cred by keeping Windows on it.

That's right: putting Linux or OpenBSD on it is too inconvenient, so I'm going to opt for keeping the shipped Windows 7 Starter on it, and I might update that to Windows 7 Pro.

Take that, open-source Linux fan-boys!

Actually, since this is supposed to be a highly portable hacking and photo workstation, I have to run some sort of Windows in order to have Lightroom. I might dual-boot OpenBSD eventually, but in order for it to be a useful tool it needs to run Windows or OS X (and I'm not about to go the hackintosh route.)

The only gotcha is that, unlike OS X, getting proper dev tools onto it will be tricky. I really hate, hate, hate the Cygwin tools, so I will have to get some other POSIX toolkit onto it next week. Then I somehow have to get the Gnu toolchain on it, which should be all sorts of fun.

This is a radical feminist daddy-blog

Posted August 18, 2010 at 11:31 EDT under photos.

But I still have the time to channel my inner Anne Geddes.

These berries look poisonous

Posted August 6, 2010 at 11:44 EDT under photos.

You see tomatoes. I see all that water I carried through the house to the patio this summer.

The world needs more Lerts

Posted August 1, 2010 at 02:30 EDT under photos.

A. just back from lunch in uptown, wearing her new purple dress!

Stop staring at my numbers, mister

Posted July 26, 2010 at 12:07 EDT under photos.

For some reason, this is shaping up to be my most-viewed photo on my 23 account:

Really, this is a perfectly innocent image of a too-large t-shirt of mine that has been cleverly modified into a nursing pyjama top for ecogrrl by ecogrrl's mom. I think it's a pretty nice job.

I'm wearing a matching (but unmodified) 23 t-shirt at work today, but I doubt there would be quite as much interest in a photo of that.

Hey, Daddy-O

Posted July 9, 2010 at 12:22 EDT under photos.

Oh, by the way, I'm a father. Did I forget to mention that we were pregnant?

Of course, now that someone can call me dad un-ironically, my entire approach to this web site will have to change. Sorry about all the swearing and frothing political rants.

Kidding! Now I have the best reason of all to point out how stupid everything is!

However, mother and daughter are doing fine, though a bit tired from the ordeal. Shout out to Genesis Midwives for helping make sure the whole event went as easy as possible, and smoothing out the bumps.

Photogeekery

Posted March 24, 2010 at 07:12 EDT under photos.

Here is a before/after picture showing the new noise reduction and sharpening capabilities in the latest Lightroom 3 beta.

View full-sized to get an idea of how awesome this is. I mean, who cares about the actual photo. Look at how the colour and luminance noise has disappeared, even after the image has been captured in a screenshot and converted to JPEG!

You have no idea how much this makes me squeal like a little girl.

27. Dry

Posted February 22, 2010 at 12:48 EST under photos.

There is something wrong with this drink.

100 Snapshots.

Assignment: city lights

Posted December 1, 2009 at 09:24 EST under photos.

Assignment: city lights.

I'm working on a part II.

Hugs Don't Repeat

Posted November 9, 2009 at 10:20 EST under photos.

The latest tool our neighbours are using to build their stepped ziggurat. In HDR, naturally.

Hatters Dumbfound Religion

Posted November 9, 2009 at 10:10 EST under photos.

More wide-angle HDR goodness.

Holy Denied Revolution

Posted November 9, 2009 at 10:01 EST under photos.

Nice true wide-angle for the Nikon DX format, courtesy of my new Tokina AT-X 11-16 f/2.8. For some reason I wanted to make it all HDR.

This is the cover of my next album

Posted October 22, 2009 at 09:25 EDT under photos.

High-contrast B&W version. Straight to jpeg in-camera processing by a Canon point and shoot.

(The grainy print effect is courtesy the new grain tool in the @Lightroom 3 beta.)

43. Poetry

Posted October 21, 2009 at 09:27 EDT under photos.

Re-reading Leonard's Rum Punch while the best-seller I haven't finished yet waits in the queue.

100 Snapshots.

This is what child labour means in a tourist economy

Posted October 13, 2009 at 11:46 EDT under photos.

Boatman and tourist on the Volta, Akosombo, Ghana.

This kid worked his tail off delivering us up the Volta to the Akosombo Dam so we could take some pictures. I tipped him handsomely.

2. Stale

Posted October 11, 2009 at 09:56 EDT under photos.

100 Snapshots.

Ghana postcard

Posted October 8, 2009 at 12:19 EDT under photos.

Row of potted plants, Aburi Botanical Gardens, Ghana.

Two young women, Koforidua

Posted October 3, 2009 at 09:44 EDT under photos.

These two young ladies stopped and asked me to take their photos while we were walking through Koforidua.

I have a bunch of photos taken during our travels around Ghana's Eastern Region almost ready to go. And by almost I mean maybe I'll upload them sometime next year?

Really, instead of complaining that I'm absolutely sick of the Lomo/Lo-Fi noisy high-contrast photography I'm seeing everywhere, I decided to shut up and work on the photos I have. Especially if I'm just not going to go out and actually make any photos of my own, which is the trend lately. (But still: what is it with all the lazy high-contrast Lomofied images out there lately?)

This photo perfectly captures the relaxed vibe that Koforidua had.

The golden hour, with feather

Posted August 16, 2009 at 09:17 EDT under photos.

As is the custom among our people, I just spent four fabulous days at the fabulous cottage on Lake Huron with some fabulous folks.

Once again, I brought my beat-up Pentax K1000 with a bog-standard 28mm f/2.8 lens and shot film exclusively. I let my local photog shop develop and burn JPEGs to a CD for me. Now I'm down to slide film only, which is going to be trickier to get developed.

Afternoon light from the balcony

Posted June 9, 2009 at 11:19 EDT under photos.

Well, that light somewhat north of 750nm (+/-10) anyway.

With lens flare and wacky white balance. Though, I'm not sure the notion of neutral white has any meaning at this end of the visible spectrum.

Sunday, IR Sunday

Posted June 7, 2009 at 06:53 EDT under photos.

As promised, today I tried out my new IR photo gear, which consists of a Hoya R72 filter, a step-up ring and my old Nikon CP5000 P&S (which is quite sensitive to IR, unlike my D80.)

The filter is definitely causing all kinds of flare which creates an IR hotspot right in the centre of the lens. I may try to cook up a Photoshop layer thingy, or see if Lightroom can be coerced into fixing this. For now, I'm going to live with it. Also, this old Nikon has quite a few stuck pixels at such slow shutter speeds. Luckily, Lightroom makes it easy to automate pixel correction. A greater concern is all the high-ISO noise. Can't be helped, I guess. A brighter day and more patience with the tripod would help with that.

I wonder how portraiture under heat lamps might look? That sounds like the most uncomfortable photo shoot a photog could ever dream up, doesn't it?