Day Thirty Six - The Shire

Max and I went to The Shire today and kindly asked a passing Hobbit to take out photo. He did his best. It came out okay. He was also kind enough to email the photos to me via his precious. I don't even know what I'm talking about.

Okay so we filmed more today with the cows. The lighting was quite nice for photos so I set up strobes and gear and we set my camera on timer and had a bit of fun. I'm definitely getting some decent light stands, umbrellas and diffusers with my tax return. I need softer light for portraits.
Love or hate I don't care.

Nikon D200
35mm f2 at f2.8
ISO 100 at 1/250th

Vivitar 285HV to camera left at 1/2 power.
Vivitar 285HV behind the tree on the right at full power pointing up at us for rim.

Day Thirty Five - Huh

These guys loved it. I marched up to them like I had a purpose, lifted my camera and pushed the shutter. I then lowered my camera, gave them a nod and said "how ya garn?!" and wandered away.

Okay not the sharpest photo ever but I still like how it came out. That's what this 365 thing is for anyway. Learning new things and experimenting. I've realised that next time I'm taking a candid photo I'll set my fstop to something considerably higher than f2 so both subjects in the photo are in focus. I'm excited to get a 200mm lens.

Nikon D200
35mm f2


In other news, I spent the entire day today down at the arts school with Tys editing the UTAS Ad after discovering that HDV footage captured on a mac can't be played back on PC. I hate cross platforming. Important thing is, we completed the entire thing in one day, even to the point of going to the post office and sending it off. Done. Now bring on the $5G.

I also had a run-in with an angry old man too after failing to pull out of a parking space when he stopped to let me out. Apparently that's an offence. The only reason I didn't pull out is because I was waiting for the four lanes of traffic to be free so I could merge over all of them at once in order to turn right at the next intersection. I love shutting people down two generations older than me who just can't seem to grasp that things might unfold differently to how they expect them to. This guy was so irate I didn't pull out that he slammed his expensive car into the parking space in front of me, mounting the curb and knocking his wheels severely out of alignment in the process. He was steaming red for some reason and approached me. Of course I shut him down completely with my wit and sent him about his boring day until he found someone else to have a go at. I believe he even called me a young fool. Apparently minding your own business makes you a fool. Better than being an old piece of shit I suppose. Also better than paying $200 for a wheel alignment.

Anyway that's it for today. I might take some more photos later on tonight. Here's a man having breakfast in his boat.
Sam.

Day Thirty Four - Jag Alskar Dig

I have the most amazing girlfriend in the world. =)

I recieved this photo in the mail today and I haven't smiled this much in a long time! =D She's been overseas for the last 5 weeks staying with Swedish friends and is still away for another 4. I miss her like crazy but it's little things like this that keep me going. The little golden creature in the scene is one half of a set of two little hugging figures that lock together in a hug when they're together. Katie has the other one at her house. =)

Jag Alskar Dig is Swedish for I Love You.

Nikon D200
50mm f1.8 at f4
Strobist
Vivitar 285HV to camera right and above through paper diffuser at 1/16th
Vivitar 285HV behind subject and bounced off the wall at 1/16th

Definately worth clicking through to the Flickr page and viewing large.

Day Thirty Three - Thirty Five Millimetre

It's only the 6th of July. I wish it could be the 6th of August already.
This photo would have been better to do on Day Thirty Five but it wouldn't have been as relevant. I got this beauty of a lens back from a friend today who's been borrowing it for the past 4 months or so. I'd kind of forgotten I even owned it and also how much I loved it. It's bokeh is so creamy.
I took this with the 35mm today which you can also see if you can't be bothered reading the rest of this and jump to the bottom of the post.

I'm still waiting on my group certificate so i can do my tax return and hopefully get a whole heap back so I can buy new light stands, umbrellas and a new lens. But for the meantime on the top photo, I used a Vivitar 285HV on 1/16th shot through two sheets of paper to camera left to diffuse the light.
Nikon D200
50mm f1.8 at f1.8
ISO 400 at 1/200th
In the background is my Sony DCR-PD150. Only SD but I still love this bad-boy and don't think I could part with it. That said i've been shooting footage in the last couple of days with the uni cameras and I'm starting to sway a little more towards HD. I think my vigilance to SD is purely born of jealousy and lack of money these days. That and my love for the PD150. I've also managed to incorporate Coopers into my photo for the second day in a row. Funny that.

I spent the morning and the better part of the afternoon at the uni catching up with my mate Mark and capturing footage Tys and I shot a couple of days ago for the uni ad competition which is due Friday. It's a good thing I have the next few days off work as it's going to be a frustrating few days getting all this edited up and ready for submission. Beh.

Okay so here's Ratty. I found him in the back hallway last week as I was making toast. My cat was making all sorts of noise out there so naturally I went to investigate. The rat was completely stiff and lying on it's back, still in crouching position. Poor thing. I'm guessing it was a victim to poisoning. Either that or old age. But either way it had no marks on it's body at all. Kitten hadn't even sunk her teeth into it. Of course now I'd found this rat I had to put him somewhere in my brother's room. All sorts of other ideas popped into my head too but I know too well in this house you reap what you sow. So i opted for Toby's room instead. Needless to say when he got home he thrived off it and put the rat out the front on the fence post that sits right next to the footpath. He's been there ever since.

Day Thirty Two - Coopers

This weekend has really dragged. It's been colder than it has been in a long time and i'm not enjoying it at all. Yesterday was okay but today consisted of work from 5am till 2pm. Then it was more coffee and video editing followed by Beef Osso Bocco at the pub. Sunday night happy hour. I was the only patron there. Rohan, Jed and I. I like that. I love the Brisbane.
I also love Coopers. Keep that in mind if you're ever going to buy me a beer.

Day Thirty One - The Red Key

This morning Tys and I filmed a bunch of footage for our entry in the UTAS ad competition.
After about 4 hours sleep I awoke to Tys calling my phone. Getting up before 8am is always a chore and it doesn't help when it's below 10 degrees. We headed to the eastern shore to pick up his friend Tahlia who was our actor for the project. I had a good idea where I wanted to film. Initially we thought it'd be troublesome to get a cafe or restaurant to agree to us filming there without paying them a considerable amount of money. especially when we rocked up with takeaway coffees bought from different cafe. However, Chrome Cafe in North Hobart loved it. The dude even offered to move things out of the way for us. I love people like that. Gives me a little more confidence that society isn't completely fucked.
We were all done and back home by 10:30am. Quite happy with that. It all came out pretty nicely and i'll edit it out with Tys next week.

Before midday me and a bunch of BMX mates headed out to the DEC to shoot a photo of Daniel and film a final clip for the video before I send it off for replication on Monday *knock on wood*. The clip was a 360 down the 15 stair set out the front of the Derwent Entertainment Centre. You can see the stairset in the photo below. Pretty fucking nuts. Second attempt blew out his back wheel completely, as displayed also in the photo. This was a bit of a downer on things but luckily Uber Ben (who's name is actually Ben Lee, and who also bares a striking resemblance to the singer/songwriter), was willing to lend Daniel his bike. Luckily for him, Daniel slammed the three out nicely on the third attempt. Ben Lee also had swine flu a few weeks ago. He told everyone not to catch his disease. Fuck i'm hilarious.

Anyway because Daniel had three attempts at the three it also gave me a chance to shoot a photo at 10.5mm fisheye and also with the 50mm. Both came out really nicely. Hopefully you'll see one of the shots soon in a mag of some description!
That's all for today!

Peace out.
Sam.

Day Thirty - Cafe Conversations

These last thirty days have really cruised by. It'd definately not a bad thing. I need the next month to go fast. Then Katie will be home! =) Melbourne from the 23rd till the 28th of July for the premiere of our new BMX DVD. Click on to that If you haven't seen the promo yet...

Not heaps to say about today's photo. Just a shot of some cafe yuppies while i was doing the same after a trek up the mountain to shoot some footage for a friend's project.
Below's a shot from the 15 minute walk through mt wellington's icy paths to one of the lookouts.

Both with the Nikon D200 and 50mm f1.8. Worth a full view on both photos. Clicky on them and head over to flickr full resolution. There's a little magnifying glass above the photo on flickr for full size. I can't be bothered linking to it.

Day Twenty Nine - Oh Hey Doggy

First thing that comes to mind when I look at this photo is the song Gordon used to sing on Seasame St all those years ago.

"One of these things is not like the other. One of these things just doesn't belong. Can you tell which of these is not like the other by the time I finish my song."

And of course by the time he's finished singing "song", the song is in fact over. Pretty unfair really.
I should also mention that Max actually pointed out these dogs to me as we were walking through Salamanca today. They were so cute. As you can see.

Three middle aged women sitting around a table just to my left made all sorts of remarks about kodak moments and beautiful photos and something about how i should win a prize. People are funny. So are dogs.

On that note you should watch The Room. It will give today's title a little more meaning. Really.

Nikon D200
50mm f1.8 at f2

Here's another photo from today. Bokeh. Whatever.

Day Twenty Eight - Studio

It wasn't the most productive day today at all. Dull and depressing weather never gives me much of a motivation to do anything. Not getting paid enough and fucking up your plans for the week can also put a damper on things.

I bought two bits of mdf today and made a makeshift desk for all my recording and computer gear. Better than it all living on the floor beside my bed.

Another self loathing, self portrait. Enjoy. Hate. Love. Rainbow.

Day Twenty Seven - Condiments

It's almost 1am thursday. I haven't uploaded anything in two days. I guess I don't really have a decent excuse aside from work and bad weather. But they're both pretty poor excuses.

Anyway this morning I went to a cafe that had the above engraved into their pepper grinder. I'm not really sure why. I can't see anyone feeling the urge to run off with a ratty old grinder from a small cafe. Furthermore, I can't imagine how a $5 item being stolen would prompt them to lift their prices. People are idiots. But they intrigue me so much at the same time.
This shot below was taken about half an hour later from inside the car looking out.
Mail boxes.