May 2008 Archives
The problem with living where I do is that everything is calm. The most disturbing thing around is the wind moving flowers and leaves about. Normally this would be a relaxing environment that is pleasant to photo...but this week I need things in motion to make my photography assignment work.
The most dynamic and moving thing in my life is Chris, and I have already had him running and posing for me for so many shots for motion I would feel guilty asking him to pose in motion for me, or make other things move again. I live near a highway, but nothing really interesting happens there either... my best shot would be to find a fast moving train, and even those are rare and come without warning.
I have to capture motion in situations where I stop motion, blur motion (background is stable), pan (foreground is stable, background blurs) and perform a long exposure at night. The blur motion is easy when you figure out where to look and the instructions to give your guinea pig. Pan is a little harder... getting the camera and the object moving at the same time is a challenge. The long exposure at night is easy... I just have to find something interesting to go for the long exposure on.. preferably something that emits light. Stop motion will be simple as well, once I find the right thing in motion that I want to stop... I could stop motion on anything... but not just anything will show the absence of the motion but still allow for the knowledge that it is in motion.
I have to turn in my shots tomorrow night at midnight... I think I will be ready... as long as it doesn't rain tomorrow I should be able to make it work (tornado would be good though... lots of things suspended in air to capture the stop motion on).
I have been waiting for a package to arrive from Orion for the past 8 days, today it arrived. From another place, Adorama, I ordered a part as well, it arrived on Tuesday. I ordered both parts on the same day, believing that the parts were compatible parts that needed each other to function. The desired function in this case is to mount my 55mm camera to my telescope's T-mount (the lens insertion function). The part from Adorama is a 55mm to "standard" adapter. The Orion part is a "standard" to telescope adapter... considered to be a universal part. When the Orion part arrived today I tried to put it together with the Adorama part, as I thought they should fit... they didn't fit. I became immediately irritated and almost gave up on the whole project.. until I noticed that both adapters seemed to have a common end... a female thread component. I went to my telescope with the Adorama part, lined up the threads and screwed it on... it fit. So... apparently "standard" isn't really standard... it ended up being that the Adorama "standard" was the standard for telescope lens connections, and the Orion standard is the SLR camera standard.... oops. Either way, I now have a reliable way to connect my camera to my telescope... and apparently I have had that ability for several days.
Lean ground beef is rumored to be one of the most versatile foods available, but I am having difficulty with this theory. I was encouraged by Chris last night to prepare something this evening based on beef. My first thoughts were something with a tomato sauce and a pasta, second thoughts were with something like stroganoff. I went to my usual recipe resource (Cooks.com) to find some ideas, but all I could find for ground beef was pasta and stroganoff. There are no interesting foods that can be made with ground beef. If you pair beef with beans it becomes a chilli, if you pair it with anything tomato is turns into a pasta based dish, or something mexican. Beef with a cream sauce turns into a stroganoff, so I guess I'm screwed. Beef Stroganoff it is for tonight...
Education at one of the best colleges in the country? No
Having class with really hot basketball players? No
Chance to take part in an old academic tradition? No
Opportunity to become a human lab-rat? YES
Since becoming a UNC student I have been invited to join about 15 different medical studies. I get at least 2 emails per week asking me to take part in some type of medical study. This week it was the hearing and acne studies. Last week it was " Fluoxetine in Autism" and "Muscle and Jaw Function". If I were living on campus, I would be able to pay for all of my tuition, books and whatever else just by participating in these studies. I don't think I feel comfortable with being in a population that is studied this much.
Since starting my photography class I have been using a variety of services and systems for sharing, printing and storing my images. Depending upon the classification of images, they end up in different places.
First, my sharing of images. Traditionally I have shared images directly from the blog either using a link from thumbnails to the large images, or even using one of my own cute database driven tools. When sharing larger amounts of images I have been known to share individually with people who are interested, or by posting to my "main" gallery (http://www.disturbingthoughts.net/gallery2). Now I have a separate gallery for my class (http://aux.livecurt.net/ART390/) as well as my Flickr page (http://www.flickr.com/kularski/). I have to use Flickr for my online photography class, but I don't find it that useful for sharing images with people, but then some people are more familiar with it, and its easier for them. Oh, and just to make things even more fun, I have tried Picasa web (http://picasaweb.google.com/kularski). The thing I hate most about having all of these services is not the difficulty of keeping up with where my images are, but how hard it is to get them there. For Picasa Web, I upload with Picasa. For Flickr I upload with Windows Live Photo Gallery. For my two Gallery2 installations I use an extension of Windows Explorer on Windows XP, or in Vista I have to "print" my images to the Gallery2 "publisher". Why can everyone not just tap into the normal Windows Explorer publish functionality, or better yet, lets get a standard protocol for this crap so that I can use a single open-source application, probably designed by Mozilla (or as an add-on for FireFox). For my printing providers, things are a little less weird... I've used Kodak's own publisher and also a CVS/pharmacy... both of which are essentially the same, except with CVS I can theoretically pick up the prints the same day in the store. I've found that the easiest way to work with it the publishers is through Picasa, but I would still like something better than that.
Anyone have any photo sharing, printing or storing tips?
Some of my photographic adventures are boring, some are redundant, this one leaves me still feeling empty. Maybe I should have taken more time to take more pictures from more angles and not been in such a rush to eat.
There is something I failed to report on in my blog.... I decided to completely drop American History 1 from my schedule for Summer. I will take it in the fall or as a self-paced course. I started the course and just realized I wasn't into it or motivated for it at this time.
Also, last week I visited Gaston College and declared my intent to get the two degrees that I have earned from them. I will receive an Associates in General Education at the end of the summer semester and I will receive an Associates in Art at the end of the fall semester, or whenever I take American History and/or British Literature (or any literature course and history course I select). I have decided I will also take the steps toward an Associates in Fine Art at Gaston as well. Depending on how that goes, I will likely finish it off as a BFA at UNCC or another University in the area, perhaps even the Art Institute of Charlotte (yeah, right, when tuition checks write themselves).
Not that anyone cares, but I got authorization from my dean at Gaston College to transfer the Digitial Photography class back to Gaston for my AFA degree. Now I just have to get the departments to agree on what is supposed to happen to that form now that it is finished. The dean's office tells me to take it to the registrar, the registrar tells me to send it to the registrar at the other school... I am so confused. If I send the form to the other school, how will Gaston know that they are supposed to credit me the way the dean specified?
I feel like I'm loosing touch with my blog and there isn't really a lot going on right now, so mostly my updates are from the photographic side of things. Once again there are more photos I have taken available on my normal gallery at: http://www.disturbingthoughts.net/gallery2/v/album/2008-05-26/. They are a bit mix-and-match and most are a bit focused on one of my erotic interests, but they still have aesthetic value.
My second week assignment for Digital Photography is up. It was a slightly fun assignment involving exposure, noise and bracketing. Bracketing involves taking an image multiple times at different intervals away from the "normal" exposure. This is done by keeping the same ISO and shutter speed, but changing the F-Stop to a designated number of EVs (exposure values) above and below correct exposure. The noise assignment was to show the change in image quality when using ISO instead of shutter speed to compensate for a lack of light.
Whoever you are, I would like for you to STOP sending me new magazine subscriptions. I appreciate the thought, but I really have no use for this many magazines. I am more of a writer than a reader. Although... if you happen to have the urge one last time, I would love to have a subscription to "Muscle and Fitness", other than that I don't need any more magazines.
For those who aren't my admirer and haven't been around me while I have been being creeped-out by what is occuring.... since the surprise arrival of Instinct early last month, I have also begun receiving PC Photo and Men's Health. Those three aren't useful to me. BTW, anyone want those magazines?
This morning my UPS driver brought me my new 10x macro lens and my close up filter kit. It is hard to describe what this means to my photography, so I encourage my readers to take a look at the following link to see it for themselves: http://www.disturbingthoughts.net/gallery2/v/album/20080520/.
Ever since my first roll of 110mm film I have always gotten my pictures developed at a pharmacy. I don't know why, its just something I do. Maybe a little redneck, but if it is, then yeeehaw, somebody find me some nice leather boots, a saddle and some rope. Anyway, getting to the point of this already quickly derailing blog post, I had problems today with getting my photos from the pharmacist, or... lab technician, or confused old lady, whichever. Around 10PM last night (or 9PM, or 5:48PM, no one seems to know exactly when) I uploaded my pictures to the CVS Photo Store via Picasa. I received a full order confirmation, stating that my photos would be ready to pick up by 11am today. At 2PM I went into the store and very confidently asked the photo technician (who I think was busy reading her latest romance novel or something) "Ma'am, I am here to pick up my prints, my name is Kularski". She then looked in the bins (under "C" at first) and couldn't find it, she then asked me to spell it... she looked again, still... nothing. I handed her the paper confirmation and she began looking for the order... she found it.... as a failed download on the Kodak system. I figured it was no big deal and I conveyed that I was paitient and would wait for them to print. I assumed it wouldn't take long, and that they would just have to be redownloaded or something. The photo technician called several people to find out if they had been printed or to figure out what happened. A few moments later a cranky shift superviser by the name of Vonnie came and explained the difference between 1-hour digital photo and 2-3 day service. This pissed me off a bit, because she stood there, less than 6 inches from me and insulted my intelligence. I reassured her that I did it the right method. Moments and many confused looks later, people were calling Kodak to find out what had happened. After 2 hours of me waiting and the photo tech pacing between computers to try to pull and print my order, it was determined that it was beyond the capabilities of the staff on hand to correct the issue and I was asked if it would be ok if the photos were sent to the lab for me to pick up in a few days. Reluctantly I agreed to the alternative, purchased the CR2032 I needed for my JP Jornada and then headed home.
Here I am, at home, with no pictures and wondering if this is what my summer prints will be like for all of the stuff I do. Will I have to go through this shit on a weekly basis? Currently I plan to go along with things as they are and then inform the store on Thursday when I pick up my prints of my plans and make sure they can handle me once a week.
Having no exciting digital photography assignments due anytime soon, I have decided to take the camera out for some playtime. I have uploaded some images to my standard gallery of this play.
http://www.disturbingthoughts.net/gallery2/v/album/20080518/
Note: I'm doing this post directly from Flickr...
Today I went on a little mission. I woke up this morning and looked over my ad-related email (special account for that), and saw that Circuit City had the Nikon D40 available in store, and even locally at the Gastonia store, so I had to go check it out. When I got there, I was surprised to find that they not only had the D40, they also had the D60, D80 and D40X.
Upon touching the D80, I fell in love... and then I fell over from how unbalanced it was. The D60 on the other hand, was much more balanced and something that seemed to be a sensible camera. The thing I think I love most about SLR cameras is the ability to focus and zoom from the lens assembly itself. It just feels more natural than using a button to adjust such things. The weight of the SLR cameras is a bit intimidating, and the number of controls is absolutely insane, but still... they are very cool devices.
So... for a third time, I will revise my opinion of SLR cameras. I think they are great, and perhaps one of the best tools for artistic photography, but they have drawbacks in that their sensors and mirrors are easily exposed and that there are moving parts to them. On the upside, control is more absolute and there is a great amount of flexibility.
I personally don't think I am ready to go pure SLR just yet, but I think one day I might be... depending on how much I like photography after my summer course.
http://aux.livecurt.net/ART390
I have posted a special gallery installation for use during the digital photography course. All of my assignments will be posted here first. Some for comment, some just to post.
I should have more to say about this... but I don't, so there it is, have fun. BTW, like the subdomain?
I have spent the last half an hour drooling over digital camera, some of them SLR, some not. I have been looking very carefully at SLRs and trying to figure out what makes them special in digital cameras... from what I can tell... not much. The only thing different between a really good "point and shoot" digital camera and a digital SLR is that there is no special "high end" classification of digital cameras that will give you the level of control that an SLR will. From my research I have determined that Fujifilm no longer produces a consumer grade dSLR camera, they seem to be just for uber professionals. This change would be because of the great flexibility that is available in a high end digital camera with a fixed lens. SLR cameras have 2 major flaws in general, 1. they have moving parts, and 2. they expose too much of themselves. The moving mirror allows for an additional point of failure that doesn't exist in a non-SLR camera. A P&S camera will likely recover from a minor fall, but unless the mirror is locked, there could be problems on an SLR. The true reason in the past for using an SLR is to allow for using only one lens for viewfinder and for exposure. In high end digital cameras, the CCD image is sent directly to the LCD and/or to a digital viewfinder, removing the use of multiple lenses, even though they are not considered SLR, since the lens is stationary. SLR cameras also seem to expose too much of themselves to the world. The interchanging of lenses is great on an SLR if you really want to spend a few thousand dollars on all of those special lenses. The truth of lenses on digital cameras is very simple... the only things that matter now are the range of the focal length and how well it can zoom. A very good digital camera will have a very versatile lens built in that will function as a wide lens, a zoom lens and a telephoto lens, all in one with no need to change. Also, if the lens is 55mm (or some other standard) with accepting threads, filters and special additional lenses can be added. On the topic of the camera being over-exposed... if you have to unscrew something and then rescrew something, chances are... dust will be there.
Anyway, before I started down the Anti-SLR path, I was expressing my recent droolings...I have been drooling over my camera's big brother.... the Fujifilm FinePix S100FS. It is not SLR, but it is fucking awesome. It does image stabilization, has 14x zoom lens capability and also is 11.1MP, so I can do huge prints with it. My other drool-ling was the Nikon D80. It is a true dSLR camera, at 10.2 MP. I love it because its a Nikon and because it has an interchangeable lens kit. If I were to pick between the cameras for use right now I would go with the Fuji, because I don't need the flexibility of changing lenses, but the Nikon D80 is definitely a camera to grow with. I guess at the moment I will stick with my FujiFilm S5200 and be quite happy, since... well... it has a 10x optical zoom, full manual controls and it just totally kicks ass (only 5.1MP, but I'm not printing any billboards this semester).
Here is the S100FS:
The Digital Photography course at UNC appears to now be open :-) It wasn't scheduled to be available until Tuesday, but it seems as though the syllabus, course website and course Blackboard module are now open and operational. I am quite happy and will likely spend several hours diving into the course and having some fun with it.
Umm.. since my last post, it occurs to me that for some of my readers not residing in my mind, it may be helpful to be given my official summer schedule.... here it goes:
| Deptartment | Number | Title | Hrs | College |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ART | 390 | Special Topics in Studio Art: Digital Photography | 3.0 | UNC |
| HEA | 110 | Personal Health and Wellness | 3.0 | CPCC |
| HIS | 131 | American History I | 3.0 | CPCC |
All of my courses are online this summer, as they are every summer.
Me being the sort of paranoid bloke that I tend to be, I have been eagerly scouring the registries of my various institutions looking for a backup course for summer, in the event that one falls through. Usually I look in the areas of the arts, humanities (archeology, psychology, anthropology, sociology, etc) and in Information Technology. This summer I thought it might be good for a laugh to designate one of my backup courses as an IT course... particularly as CSC234 - Advanced C++ Programming... which is a course that I have been wanting to take for many semesters, but have yet to have time to actually complete. Upon looking up the course prefix to locate available sections I discovered that in none of the traditional IT departments are courses being offered this summer, nothing in CSC (Computer Science/Programming), CIS (Information Systems), CTS (Technology), DBA (Databases) or Web (duh). Normally during the summer those programs are full of students, even two years ago when the programs were being redesigned and no one knew whether the course they took would exist at the end of the summer or not (Theory was that CAA or retroactive degree catalogs would protect them, and they did. Also new course codes were given a direct conversion matrix).
I found one department that offers an interesting course as a backup for the summer term, its SGD-113, Simulation and Game Development Program. Its a course that doesn't do much for any requirements or anything, but it looks like a fun course. Unfortunately, I likely won't take the course because I am in fairly popular courses for the summer and they are not likely to have any problems. Other alternates would be something like a literature course, but that would require me being quite desperate and ready to commit myself to reading during the summer, which I have heard can be quite enjoyable and is also quite portable. I have also placed a painting class as a backup, but the only problem with that is that it requires physical class meetings, which I frown upon during summer semesters, when I like to be flexible.
Note: backup courses are selected in the unlikely event that a primary scheduled course is canceled or needs to be dropped for some special reason.
All of my grades are in now, and all of them are A's. I am like so very happy right now. I can't believe I was stressing for 3 days over what turned out to be nothing. I felt like I had done A work in my drawing class, so I shouldn't have been so worried at all, but I guess that "borderline" feeling just overcomes me.
I now know all of my grades for Spring 2008, except for my Drawing II class. All of my other instructors have either posted their grades to the registrars, or sent emails, but my Drawing II instructor is still keeping me in suspense.
I feel like I did well with the drawing course, but with the way some of the grades on the assignments went, I feel like I may have not gotten the grade I would like in the course. All of my grades that are presently known are A's. I feel like I worked extremely hard in the course this semester. My instructor even said that I had completed the most preliminary drawings of any student in the class. What I am feeling now is a form of confusion I suppose. I have been told that I have made progress and that I have tried the most attempts at the assignments, but yet I have seen the gradebook and know about how my mid-term in the course went, but somehow I still can't pull together what my final grade will be. Worse yet.... when talking to my instructor last night, she didn't seem to have a clue what our grades would be either. I am a little worried that my GPA might be harmed by this course, which would make me really sad. On the other hand, the instructor could be having issues of confidence in her own grading policies and that could be creating the feeling I am currently experiencing. The fact that the instructor hasn't turned in grades yet is absolutely killing me. I suspect that either tomorrow or Thursday, the grades will be posted and I will return either very happy with an A, or I will be sad and mopey with something less.
It is times like this that I question myself... could I have done more? Could I have pushed myself just a bit harder? I don't know. I feel like I gave this semester everything I had, but I feel like somehow I didn't accomplish a lot.
Just got an email from my online Calculus instructor....
"Good morning, Curtis
Your Test - HW - Lab average was 97.1
Your midterm - Final Average is (95 + 83)/2 = 89
Your final grade is
0.7 * 97.1 + 0.3 * 89 = 94.67 = 95 = A
Congratulations"
I'm a bit bummed that I got an 83 on my final exam, but overall I guess I'm happy that I got an A in the course and the lab... now to move on to fixing GITI, so that I can add that grade.
Now that I have a week of free time, I believe it is time to work one some stuff with GITI.
Keychain - an odd little module I wrote to move all of my software keys out of the GITI notepad and into a separate space. The module is somewhat effective at what it does, but it needs a lot of work in the area of user friendliness as well as a bit more of a pretty interface. There are some critical flaws like not being able to edit information for keys once they have been entered.
Education - This module will never truly be complete or functional. This time I plan to hook up some code I wrote in January. I wrote very elaborate code for moving classes between statuses and being able to apply grades too all of my classes at the same time and also close them at the same time (as a result of the grade posting process). Unfortunately after writing all of that code, I never connected it to itself to enable it to work. I don't remember why I did that, all I remember is that I didn't have a use for it at the time, since classes had just begun. I must make it functional before grades are posted in a few days.
Schedule - There have been some functional changes to what schedule understands recently and not all parts of the module really understand what is going on with the new changes.
I am considering writing a new grocery list module, and also fleshing out the library module more. In addition, there are a lot of things that need to be done for any type of GITI public interface to exist. Presently GITI is only for GITI users, and there are a few public components that exist but aren't part of any type of unified interface. I wish to change that and make GITI more friendly with the general web, and not just a stone face to the world that no one can do anything with. GITI has a new domain, one all to itself, so I am looking forward to utilizing that to make something public happen soon.
There are a lot of bugs that need to be fixed in GITI, but most of them are minor things or tiny repairs, perfect for this week of nothingness.
I have now finished all course work for the Spring 2008 Semester. All that remains is the formality of appearing on Monday for a final critique in Drawing II. All that remains now is to wait and see what my grades are.
I feel relieved, somewhat relaxed, but a little exhausted after looking back over the past few weeks.
