Diary of a Network Geek

So, I may have mentioned once or twice that I was going to take a photography seminar this past weekend.

To say that two days with Joe McNally, 25+ year veteran of Life, National Geographic, Time and others, learning about flash and portrature was fantastic is an understatement.  I don't quite know what I was expecting, but I figured that it was mostly going to be over my head.  Still, at a mere $150 for two days worth of access to a brilliant photographer like Joe McNally, anything I might possibly pick up would be worth the money.  I'm so, so glad I took that attitude and just went in with as open a mind as possible, ready to soak up whatever I could.  I learned so much in those two days that I think my brain is going to melt and ooze out my ears.

First of all, I was completely expecting to roll out of that class with a wish list that was filled with all kinds of expensive "big" studio flash and portable power packs.  I was anticipating a list of equipment that ran into the thousands of dollars.  Instead, I was shown what tiny, hot-shoe flashes can do.  I listened to a pro talk at great length about how much we can get out of shaping the light that comes out of many different light sources, but especially how to use these little "pocket" flashes to get big effects.  It was, to say the least, an eye-opener.  It completely changed how I think about light and flash and portraiture.

Secondly, I've learned to use my camera in a totally different way.
I now sight with my left eye and use a different stance, which I now think of as the Joe McNally Hold, or the McNally Stance.  It lets me stabilize the camera better, keeping it tight in against my left shoulder and use what turns out to be my strong eye.  For years I've known that my left eye was stronger due to my slightly varied perscription, but I'd always forced myself to use my right eye, which I'd thought of as my dominant eye.
I also had gotten used to shooting in full manual mode, but now I'm changing to Aperture Priority mode as my "default".  Why?  Beacause, as Joe said, using a camera in full manual mode, is "... like driving a Ferrari to church."  That digital camera is a very sophisticated bit of electronics and not taking advantage of all that built-in smarts is, well, just a waste.  So, now, I'm trying to take full advantage of those smarts for a change.  My learning curve oof photography just got knocked down a peg or two, but I'm okay with that.  I'm hoping that it will result in some better pictures, eventually.

And, finally, based on what I saw this past weekend, the secret to great photography, somehow, is gaffer's tape.  Man, they used that stuff for everything!

Incidentally, you can see some of the photos I took at the seminar on my Flickr page; Joe McNally Seminar.

If I get time, I may write some more about what I learned at this fantastic seminar.  It's a little overwelming at times to consider all the "stuff" he poured into our heads.
Again, it was fantastic!

Do you know what the Golden Hour is?

No, it's not the hour after sex.
And, actually, it's two hours.  The so-called Golden Hour is the hour right at sunrise and sunset when the light is "perfect" for photography.  It's when the light is even and indirect and the most flattering.  In other words, it's just when you want to take beautiful, wonderful pictures of your favorite lover so as to remember them perfectly forever.
But, as lovely as that is, I'm a geek, so I was more excited about the software tool/webapp that helps you find the Golden Hour in your location, called, oddly enough, The Golden Hour Calculator.

So, there it is, the best light, especially for outdoor photography, where ever you happen to be in the world.  Go figure out your local Golden Hour and then get your camera to work!

It sounds corny, like a line from a Country song, but it's true.

If I were a superstitious man, I'd be a little worried about the fact that my last two relationships have driven women from the state.  Thankfully, I'm not.  Actually, in a way, it's convenient.  After all, I never have to worry about accidentally bumping into one of them while I'm out and about.  That's comforting, in a strange way.
But, I was more or less friendly with the most recent one after the breakup.  Obviously, I'm not talking about the Queen of the Damned here.  And, no, it's not that I miss the home-made, from scratch, mind you, apple pie.  Oh, I do miss it, but that's not the point!  With that one, I'd sort of hoped I could finally have one ex-girlfriend that I actually was on speaking terms with and not some kind of blood feud.  (And, yes, I was talking about the Queen of the Damned there, in case she's reading this.)

So, if you're reading this, sweet, adorable, Super-Fancy-Dog-Cookie-Business-Owner-Girl-Who-Baked-Me-That-Wonderful-Apple-Pie, know that when I sent that friend request on Facebook, it wasn't with the hope of a booty-call.  No, it wasn't even in hopes of getting an other delicious pie out of you.  Rather, it was about having one person who had been in a relationship with me that didn't spit and curse me under her breath when she heard my name now that it's over.  It was about a little hope for me as a human-being, that maybe, just maybe, someone, somewhere has a fond memory or two of me.
(Okay, it also may have been a little about the pie.  But, c'mon, that was fantastic pie and it had stars and big bits of raw sugar all over the top of it!)

And, if any of my other exes find me through this blog post, just assume I miss you terribly, too, and I'd send you a friend request on Facebook if I knew you were there.
You can trust me on that.
Honest.

ParanormalActivities

Originally uploaded by Network Geek
I saw Paranormal Activity Friday.

So, you might have noticed that I haven't reviewed many movies in the past couple weeks. Well, I've been busy. Stop laughing!
Anyway, I wanted to hit a movie and even though it's not my kind of film normally, a friend convinced me to go see Paranormal Activity. Now, I didn't find it scary. That's not why I don't generally care for these kinds of movies. No, rather, it's because I'm generally two or three steps ahead in the plot. So, when most people are getting scared, I'm nodding, or adjusting my internal predictions of how things are going to go. And, yes, I do keep that all inside so that I'm not ruining the movie for anyone else with me. I'm not rude. But, I'm also not often wrong when it comes to the plots of movies like this.

I will say this, I actually liked this film.
I liked that it was made on a shoestring budget and still had some pretty decent effects that the actors sold really well. I liked the little tricks they did by filming with a single camera from the point of view of footage recorded by the participants in the film. Sure, it limited them in both scope and certain aspects of cinematography, but as a concept it worked well, especially in this particular scenario.
The basic plot is simple; a couple are being "haunted" and they try to get to the bottom of it with a video camera. As it turns out, she is the one being haunted, not the house or land. The "ghost" follows her and becomes more and more aggressive as she and her fiance try to capture it on film and then also try to enlist a medium to get rid of it. Those attempts fail, incidentally, but that's only early on in the film. After that, things get much, much worse.

Now, as per usual, I won't give away too much of the plot here, but eventually we do see a ouija board, sleep walking, and footprints made by an invisible creature. Not to mention all the strange sounds and odd, little camera effects that go on. The director does a fantastic job building up the suspense until the final confrontation with the angry spirit.
There were, for me, few surprises. All I can say is go see the movie and pay close attention to all the hints and you'll see most of this coming, too. But, I promise you'll still get a surprise at the end, just like I did.

If you like scary movies, or even if you're just not scared by them and want to check one out, hit this movie. This really is the sleeper hit of the season. It's not gory and really not overly violent, though there is violence in the film. It does drag a little in the early stages, but once the momentum starts to build, it just keeps building until things explode!.
Well worth seeing before it gets squeezed out of the theaters by the more "feel good" holiday films. Paranormal Activity is certainly one of the best films of the year.
Go see it!

I have some focus problems.

Forgive me, dear readers, I know it's been weeks since I've had a decent week of real news, commentary or updates.  It's the season.  Fall always slows me down and throws me off balance.  October and November are always crazy, hectic, chaotic months for me.  Set aside the fact that everything seems to be family oriented, which serves as a reminder that it was August of 2005 when my divorce was final, and the Sunday before Thanksgiving in 2004 when The Queen of the Damned hopped on her broomstick and flew off cackling, leaving me quite effectively without family right before the holidays.

No, set that aside, because, clearly, it doesn't effect me at all.
Forget, too, that it was the Fall of 2006 when I started coming down with pneumonia that turned into a football sized tumor.  Or that it was August of 2007 when I finished chemotherapy and looked, for all intents and purposes, like a walking corpse, a living ghost.
Because, as much as I'd like to blame the slump on all that, it really has little to do with it.  What's more true is that I get endlessly, uselessly busy in October, getting ready for the social obligations of November.  Oddly, December has far fewer social obligations than November and I look forward to the relative peace of December, even without snow, and the joy of Christmas, the rebirth of light into the world.

Sadly, I've done far too little so far to prepare for November's fun and games, and I've been a little paralyzed with the Herculean task of clearing the clutter in my house.  That, along with an impending visit from my parents, and my usual Thanksgiving party, which is being a little displaced this year, is why I'm not even going to pretend to try my hand at NaNoWriMo this year.  It's also partly why I've been so long between any real updates.
I have been working quite a bit the last two weeks, often working late, sometimes far too late, to try and get things accomplished at work.  Also, I've been working out.  Yes, I know, I was doing that before, some, but now I'm doing it more.  Not only in the morning, but, when I can manage it, a second, lighter, workout in the evening.  I've been using those iPhone apps I reviewed not too long ago, FoodScan and DailyBurn, to track my inputs and outputs and discovered that I hadn't been working enough to burn off breakfast!  So, I stepped it up a bit.  I think the results are showing, too.  I've dropped a little over 10 pounds in two months, which seems pretty sustainable to me.  More importantly, I feel better physically and, I think, look better, too.
But, that takes time, dear readers, and, while the extra exercise has been helping me sleep, it's also been putting me out earlier, which means less writing time!

But, it's not all grim!
I've also been busy because I've been reading more.  Some fiction, but a little bit more non-fiction, like The Dip and Think And Grow Rich.  I've also started to work my way through the backlog of photography books I've been accumulating.  Most recently, I've been reading The Moment It Clicks by Joe McNally, and I'll read his other book on photography, The Hot Shoe Diaries, next in my non-fiction queue.  (Who knew that the advice of not bothering to light your subject's feet would produce a visibly better photo for me?)  Also, I got these two books because this coming weekend, November 7th and 8th, I have signed up for a two-day lighting and portraiture seminar taught by Mr. McNally.  And, to say that I am looking forward to it is beyond understatement.  I recognize that the only way to improve my photography is to take some kind of instruction, and, of course, get out shooting more, so I thought this would be a good opportunity to work on those meager skills.  The class shouldn't be more than 200 people, so I'm not sure how "hands on" this will be, but, from everything I've heard, McNally is a fantastic teacher, so I'm sure I'll learn something that makes the more than reasonable $150 fee money well spent.  After all, just reading a few pages of The Moment It Clicks has visibly improved my self-portraits, I think.

It may be that I've been pouring all my creative energy out either via photography or solving problems at work, but I sure don't feel like I've had anything left to write at all, much less well.  Or, it may be that I've just gotten out of the habit of writing every chance I get and not worrying about the quality of the work.
In any case, you've just gotten a bit of an update on what I've been up to lately, so, I guess, that's good enough.
For now.

There is nothing I can say about this website that will make you understand it.

Have you heard of Strobist?  You know, the lighting site that has helpful hints for photographers?  Well, Joshua Hoffine's blog is like that, but for horror photographers.
Don't go here if you are easily frightened or prone to nightmares.  Seriously.

But, for the rest of you, Happy Halloween!

Cool mazes made from, uh, maize.

No, really, this is something I've seen in the Mid-West, where I'm from, but not so much anywhere else, so when I saw an article on the creation of corn mazes, I had to share it.  Every year back in Illinois, there were always farmers who would carve giant mazes out of their fields for people to come and wander through.  Naturally, there was a small charge, but it was well worth it for a maze lover.  And, I think it kept more than one farm afloat, to be honest.  I seem to recall that the better mazes made more money from selling admission to the maze than they did from the crop itself, which is actually kind of sad.

Anyway, this article is about the fun of making them, so go check it out.

No, not a movie review, but a book review.

So, I've been reading more lately, which is great.  And, I've been doing my best to read fiction and non-fiction.
Sadly, I haven't been quite able to review it all, thanks to a brutal personal schedule that often has me out late several days in a row, just to try and squeeze in all the work and personal things to make me feel less alone.  So, while I intended to review this over the weekend, I'm just getting to it now.

In any case, I got The Dip by Seth Godin some time ago and read it just recently.  I got it because I wanted to read a book by the famous Seth Godin and, frankly, this one was the shortest.  No, seriously, I wanted to get one of his books, because I'd read about him, but I didn't want a huge investment in either money or time.  This book fit the bill.
But, also, it turned out to be good timing for me.  In a way, The Dip is an inspirational book, a book about the power of positive thinking.  It's certainly a motivational book and would fall under the broad category of "self-help books", in my opinion.

The premise is simple, really.  Godin says that effort in any worth endeavor, espcially those in the business world, has a curve.  Sort of like a learning curve, but it goes deeper than that.  The curve, which he calls the Dip, is what separates those who are successful and those who aren't.
When we start something new, whether it's a new business or a new hobby, we throw a bit of effort into it and we see some small results.  At first, a very little effort produces significant improvements and results.  But, eventually every endeavor hits a point where added efforts produce fewer or no apparent changes in skill or improvement of any kind.  This is the Dip.  Many people quit here and don't push through the Dip to get to the rest of the curve where additional efforts produce increasing results and result in mastery, eventually getting to a very high-level of performance.  The problem is, we start many, many things and can't possibly pursue them all through the Dip and on to mastery.  Also, we don't always have the skill, resources or simple ability to follow through sometimes, but we chase after these things anyway, thus wasting precious time and effort on things that won't pan out, leaving us not enough time and resources to pour into the few things we might truly follow through the Dip into mastery.

On the one hand, it's inspirational to realize that if I manage to stay faithful to the things I really find enjoyable and worth pursueing to their end, I might make it through that inevitable slump that everyone always hits.  If I can maintain my enthusiasm when things seem to be all working against me or keeping me from moving from dabbling hobbiest to skilled practitioner.  For instance, it gives me hope that my photography will hit that level where I suddenly start getting it and start seeing better and better photographs.  Sometimes, I feel like I'm on the cusp of that already.  An example of how the Dip works, for instance, is the 365 Days project on Flickr.  The goal is to take a self-portrait every day for one year.  Most people hit a creativity wall at three months or less.  Many bail out at that point, and, in fact, I almost did myself.  But some carry on through the slump, fighting the urge to just throw in the towel, waiting for the creativity to spark again.  Even then, some of us never get that creative spark back and our photographs never improve or we drop out later, midway into the Dip itself.  Quitting in the middle of the Dip, incidentally, is something Godin warns about.  Better to quit sooner, and not waste the resources to get further along only to quite later.  Or, better still, to perservere and make it through the Dip to the other side, thus achieving a new level of skill and competence.  I haven't given up on my 365 Days Project yet, so I'm hoping I'm not the only one who's seen improvements in my photographs.
And, The Dip also helped me realize that I need to waste less time on things that I know I won't follow through on and drain my resources, thusly preventing me from pouring more effort into the things I really want to do well.  Now, I'm having to look at what I'm going to "quit" to make room for more effort for my photography and my writing.  I'm a little afraid that it will be sleep I give up to make room!  But, no matter, this book pointed out some deficiencies in how and where I spend my effort.
That needs to change.

I have to admit, I was skeptical about the hype associated with Seth Godin.  I mean, how good and brilliant can one man be, especially when it comes to sounding off about business and management?  But, this book really helped me see some of what's been going wrong in my life much more clearly.
It's already motivated me to workout more and more regularly, in an effort to improve my over-all health and appearance.  And, it's provided considerable encouragement to keep working at my photography.  So, for those two things alone, it was worth getting.
I recommend The Dip for anyone who feels "stuck" or frustrated that they're not moving ahead in their personal projects.  I'm sure it's great for business, too, but I got plenty out of it for myself.
I think you will, too.  Trust me, it really is worth the read.

LawAbidingCitizen

Originally uploaded by Network Geek
I saw Law Abiding Citizen Friday night.

This was a fantastic movie.
No, really, I think this may have been one of the best action movies I've ever seen.  I was actually surprised at several points in the movie, which, frankly, is unusual for me, especially when it comes to action-thrillers.  The movie stars Gerard Butler as a father who watches his wife raped and murdered in front of his face and hears his five or six-year-old daughter murdered, while he lies stunned, helpless and potentially bleeding to death.  Only, he survives and lives to see the Assistant District Attorney, played by Jamie Foxx, make a deal with the worst of the killers to plead to a lesser charge to testify against his partner, who gets the death penalty.  Obviously, Bulter's character is less than pleased  about this deal and he vows revenge.

The movie flashes forward ten years, to the day of the execution.  What was supposed to be a painless, humane solution to a violent problem turns into a very violent solution, much to the surprise of the audience of witnesses which include the Assistant District Attorney team who put him there.
Then, while they're still trying to figure out what happened and why, someone goes after the second killer, the one who made the deal and put the other killer on death row, even though he was, in fact, the more evil of the two men.  The vigilante turns out to be Butler's character, who incapacitates the killer and dismembers him in the most gruesome ways imaginable, videoing the whole thing.
And that's just the first thirty minutes or so of the movie.  Yeah.  That was kind of my reaction, too. Damn.

So, here's the thing, if you can make it through the amazingly brutal, psychologically damaging first half-hour of this movie, the pay-offs are fantastic.  Explosions, high-level plotting and scheming, spies, remote-controled weaponized bomb disposal robots, you name it, it's in this movie.
Butler's character is a military genius, inventor, and engine of destruction who references Carl von Clausewitz, if you can wrap your head around that.  And, he's in amazing physical condition, too.  He fights a war of brutally personal scope, announcing that he will take revenge for what he lost, who he lost, by destroying the system which allowed a deal to be made giving any kind of leniency to the killers of women and children.  He claims that he's fighting "total war, like Clausewitz describes.  He's unrelenting and you find yourself rooting for him, even though, at best, he's the darkest of dark heroes.

And, of course, I'll stop giving away the plot now, but trust me when I tell you; see this movie.
If you're a fan of Gerard Butler or Jamie Foxx, they both play great parts in this movie.  Both play complicated, multi-layered characters with deep backgrounds and are finely detailed.  The scripting is good for everyone, but they have the best dialog between the two of them.
The cinematography is pretty impressive, too.  The close-up shots of a very intense Foxx and equally firey Butler fill the screen and capture your attention in a way that's hard to describe.  It's very well done and in a style unlike anything I recall seeing before.  The rest of the movie is just as visually stunning, each shot highlighting the action in that scene.  Brilliantly done.

I won't tell you how it ends, or even if the ending is happy.  It is, I promise, satisfying.
And, I assure you, this is a movie well worth seeing.  Go.  Now.

The happiest time of year!

Okay, so, maybe Halloween isn't everyone's favorite time of year, but I still think it's fun.  But, then, I've always loved the strange and odd that makes other people uncomfortable.  Back in the "Before Time", as I like to refer to my adolescence, I got really into a writer by the name of H. P. Lovecraft.  In fact, he was the inspiration for my writing under the name "J. K. Hoffman", not that Rowling person.  In any case, he created a series of myths around a terrible elder god who slept in an ancient city sunken beneath the waves of a long forgotten ocean, dreaming of devouring all of mankind who was named Cthulhu.  There were all sorts of stories about him and his kin and they were actually quite frightening and a little unnerving at the time, even for me.

But, apparently, old Cthulhu has gotten himself a new publicist and a whole new, "kid friendly" image.  No, seriously!  Check out these 14 Great Cthulhu TOYS and see if you don't agree!

And, for those of you who remember that high-school 0r junior high-school fascination with things man was not meant to know, go hit that link and have a smile at what the night terrors have become.
Happy Friday everyone!