Collierville

Well here it is! Finally, the photoblog. I'm going to try and be as interesting as possible with all of this. The main thing is that we had a ton of fun. I didn't get pictures of everything, but I got enough to post and entertain with. Or not. I know most of my friends really aren't all that interested in my pictures, but that's okay. These aren't any kind of serious pictures anyway. I will be the first to admit that these are definately snapshots and not art worthy. Yep.
---Right, so here I am at about 10:30 AM, Sunday. I've just hit Martin and I'm crazy excited (obviously). I'm listening to a Nine Inch Nails "mega mix" which was pretty lame. It was mixed well, but NIN is never, ever intended to be listened to like that. Haha.. anyway, I was also pretty happy that I didn't have to turn on the AC yet. Saving gas for the win!

I forget exactly where I was at this point, but I was definately bored. I had switched music to The Fray's "How to Save a Life" which is an excellent album. I must've been driving for an hour by this point, so this is probably Milan. My windshield is nasty. Funny thing is, I was starting to get pretty hot, but still determined to keep the AC off.

I-40. The most boring stretch of highway I have ever driven. Oh and I finally turned on the AC! It was getting hot fast in that car. Darn it, I tried. I was still listening to The Fray, so I guess nothing new at this point really.

I-40 is so.. frigging.. boring. This is taken using Tungsten white balance. I think I slept this stretch of the drive, I can't remember it very well. Still, nothing exciting happening. Haha.. However, right at this moment I'm working on selling some of my photos to stock companies. Yay.

Hey! Finally! Collierville! At this point I was extremely excited. Duh. Anyhow, the roads in this area are insane. You can't tell by this photo, but trust me, there are some insane curves.. no, not even curves. Corners! Gah! Pretty dangerous if you're not paying attention. Some of them appear to be "oh, huh" curves and then quickly turn into tire screeching "OMG WTF!" corners. I'd love to drive them in a sports car, but I'd probably kill myself or someone else. :-P When I got there, I was totally exhausted from the road. Maybe not exhausted.. but definately woozie. I probably seemed high or something to her family, but it's all good. The minute I stepped out of the car and started walking towards the door, Alicia came walking out with a huge smile on her face. See, this was the first time I got to see her since she got her hair cut shorter. I was worried about it since she was talking like it wasn't good or something. It is fricking gorgeous. I never want her to ever, ever, ever, ever change her hair from this!! Agh! So yeah, I ate a sandwich and we watched some episodes of Beverly Hillbillies with the family. Good stuff, a perfect Sunday afternoon.

Gah, I'm having a very difficult time remembering everything and when it all happened. Okay, so Sunday afternoon, we went to see X-Men 3. It was fricking awesome (in my opinion). Uhhh.. After that we went back.. home. I think. Hahaha, this is confusing. The EXIF on this image says Sunday at 6:00 PM (around there). So I think we went home and hung out for a bit. Then we ate tacos (which was awesome). Yeah, soon after we went to one of the nearby parks and walked. I think. Dangit!! Agh. Okay, so we walked around the nature trails (which is where I took this craptastic picture) and got all hot. It was sort of a bad idea (guess whose idea it was). This blog is sucking because I suck at remembering. I was very distracted, you must understand. The hair.. think of the hair!

This photo says it's from Monday. Hmm. I really suck at this. Oh well, it was fun, I had a great time, I love it down there, and yay. Life is good, and will only get better. Here's some more pictures for.. I don't know. Someone will see them I guess.

Mmm, there's Hotness taking me through the woods behind their house. The have some friggin' awesome land. Okay, I'm going to bed. At least I attempted this. I'm about to give up blogging altogether. No one give's a flying fugg anyway. In fact, yeah, that's a fugging brilliant idea. Bye, last blog for a while. (Until I gain interest in blogging again for some stupid reason)
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Currently Listening To: Muse - Map of Your Head - Hullabaloo - 2002

Home

I am back from my three day vacation in Memphis! It was GREAT! I'm crazy about her and her family. Ten more days and I'm going again, that's for sure. Big photoblog coming soon!

Currently Listening To: The Fray - How to Save a Life - How to Save a Life - 2005

Breakfast With Nine Inch Nails

Listening to KROQ's Breakfast With Nine Inch Nails. It's friggin' great. You can find the streams here if you care .

Finally here a full band version of Non-Entity, not to mention the rare and unrecorded Not So Pretty Now. Even though NSPN isn't my favorite... But yeah, Hurt and Right Where It Belongs are outstanding. I love it. So yeah, perfect listening for the couple hours pre-nightshift. I doubt anyone that reads this has any true interest in NIN, but whatev. My favorite band, my blog.

The text in the photo is from the Nine Inch Nails song "The Great Below" . You'd have to listen to it to understand, or better yet, see the live performance of it from the And All That Could Have Been DVD.

MySpace Did Something Right

It's funny. Myspace has a "delete from friends" option for bulletins. That means that when I read one of these farking stupid chain posts of "I'm gonna be a mommy!" or "I'm an emo douche-bag with no social skills so I add everyone I come across on myspace and post half naked pictures of myself because I have no self-worth and will never amount to anything but a disgusting waste of space!" I can quickly terminate that "friend" . Seriously, this stuff is retarded. "O NOES! OMG I WON"T HAV LIEK SEX FOR 700 YEARS IF I DON"T ROPEST THSI!!!!11!!1!!1!" Listen you flaming rectum, if you really believe that, you probably won't have sex the rest of your life, let alone a meaningful relationship. If I could, I would slap you. But instead you'll just get the axe from my list.

NEDM

Woohoo! Almost vacation time for me! It's kind of short, but still a vacation. Tomorrow I'm working my butt off day and night shift, then it's home free. Saturday I'm going to chill, pack, and hopefully get some good photos. Probably Sunday (if not Sunday, Monday morning, waiting on a for sure from Alicia) I'll be leaving for Memphis! I won't be back till Tuesday night. I can't frickin' wait, it's going to be awesome. We're not 100% on plans, but we know we'll be seeing Over the Hedge. :-P We're not so good at that whole planning thing. Heh.. it doesn't matter, it's going to be great to just spend time with her and her family. They're all great people.. I can't wait!


Anyway! I'm obviously in a much better mood since my last post. I think it helped a lot to talk to Steven and mom about it some. Alicia is doing much better too, I think she really needed to get out of the house. Haha.. she went to the lake with some of her friends and ended up getting a crazy bad sunburn. O NOES! No hugs for Patrick?? Heh, but it should be better by the time I get there. At least well enough for a hug or two or twenty. Or schfifty-five.


So yeah, I've been doing this crazy thing lately. I've been making vocal recordings for Alicia as another thing to help take up all the space on the CD's I've been sending her (since my writing is awful). It's good fun and actually more helpful than writing/typing stuff on my mind. Of course, it's a little weird when people are here since I'm a bit shy about that sort of thing. Oh, and playing it back and hearing myself laugh is a bit lonely sounding. Haha.. kind of funny and really sad. ;-) I love Adobe Audition 2.0's effects and processes. I also love how smoothly several tracks still run with 1 GB of ram (hint hint Joel, you say 512 is good for you, try 1 GB, trust me). OH! And my absolute favorite feature is the Surround Encoder!! Hahaha, I made several audio tracks of different noises like whispers, slaps, and breathing. Sounds lame right? Well, after about 15 minutes of effects, editing, and surround encoding, it was crazy creepy. It's a little hard to get the hang of at first, but the learning curve is pretty short.



I've ranted far more than intended, so adios! OH yeah, and thanks Steven for the links. Good news about the Windows image format, that should cut down the space my gallery takes up considerably. I've seen that panoramic before, but I didn't get to spend much time on it, so it was good to get the link again. Friggin' amazing. Haha.. And I'm hungry, later.

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All photos taken with the Yashica. The first three were shot using my standard 50mm lens. The last shot was taken with my new 28mm. The first and third were shot on cheap Fuji SuperHQ 200. The second and fourth were shot on Kodak 400UC (obvious by the amount of grain.. Hehe, it's okay, I'm getting some better film soon).
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Currently Listening To: Evil Horde, RoeTaKa - Infiltrator - The Dark Side of Phobos - http://doom.ocremix.org/

Down

I am depressed. Definately. I am not handling this well at all. I constantly feel alone, not to mention I feel like a part of me is missing. When I see her, it's great. It's amazing. When we are apart, so am I. The thing that bothers me.. we're 150 miles apart and experiencing the exact same sort of depression. It bothers me, but at the same time makes me sort of glad. Glad to know that we really are that connected by heart and soul. I don't know, to other people that will come across as strange, I know. I do love her.. more and more. I've never, ever, ever in my life felt this way about someone. It honestly makes every time I've said it before to someone seem so silly. I dunno.. we'll be okay, I know that. These first couple weeks have really taken a toll on our emotions.

Of course, it doesn't help to work with a bratty 16-year old that gets a bossy attitude. Nikki, I am pissed at you first off for never once saying sorry. Second, YOU DO NOT TELL PEOPLE TO MOVE. SCREW YOU! I don't CARE! YOU SAY "EXCUSE ME" . Selfish jerk! You think you can just walk down the hall and expect everyone to get out of your way. Get off your high horse. I am SICK of having to deal with your crap. You think I'm taking my stress from Alicia being gone out on you, and you make Gerry think that too. But you know what? You've caused a LOT more stress than this situation. ESPECIALLY TODAY! Get a better attitude. You're in control of your own actions. Maybe next time you won't break a plate because you're throwing a hissy fit.

WTF Happened?!

This past drill was insane. Wow. I had a LOT on my hands. I got it all done and then some, but gah was I stressed. Why do I say "was" instead of "am" ? I just got off the phone with Alicia, that's why. But anyway, I'm insanely tired and about to go to bed at an unusually early hour for me. All I know is, I'm sitting here feeling like I never even went to drill. I feel like I'm just sore and exhausted from.. something, but I don't know what. Wow what a fast weekend. I'm hoping this week will fly by, I'm going to see Alicia the 29th and 30th! Yes!! I'm going to leave out around 6:00 AM the 29th so I can hopefully dodge most of the crazy traffic. Not sure what we're going to do, but I know it'll be great. I'll be sleeping in Enoch's (her brother) room, which is awesome because he's a science head like I was at his age. Not to mention a little goofy. He makes the same sort of jokes I used to make. The ones where everyone in the room just looks and thinks "what?" But since I know what he's talking about and used to do the same thing, I crack up, which leaves everyone in the room thinking "what does he find so funny??" Mahaha, it's great. Anyhow, I'm off to see the wizard, the wonderful wizard in my MIND. Uh.. okay that's weird. I look over at my bed. I move to the bed. I get up. I get in the bed. I pull over the covers. Then I slip into some sleep-sleep-sleep-sleep...

(for anyone confused, look up R. Kelly's latest pile of crap)
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That Time (Again)

Drill weekend. I guess it's not as bad as it could be. It's only two days and not tough at all. Especially this time. I won't have to do hardly anything at all since I pulled a muscle in my back (again) at the Malin's last night. It huuuurts. I can't even take a muscle relaxer because I have to drive tonight! How much does that suck? Oh well. The awesome thing is that I got some good days off from work this month and next so I an go down and spend some good time with Alicia! Woohoo! Okay, back to packing.

Currently Listening To: Yngwie Malmsteen - Locked & Loaded - Unleash the Fury - 2005
(this song makes me want to play CS:S)

OW! My bum!

Yesterday I noticed a huge nasty bump on my back. It resembled a spider bite. Mom and I watched it. This morning it hurt worse, was even bigger, and had started to come to a head. I feel sick to my stomach. I go to work, work for a little while and go to Dr. Seng's office to try and get an appointment for after work. He's out of town due to a death in his family. So I go back to work, feeling worse and worse. So I finally decide "whatever, if it's a spider bite, they'll fix it. If not, at least they can tell me why it's making me so sick." And I go to the ER. Lucky for me they aren't busy. So I get in and they check me out, blah blah blah, a while later the doc comes in and says at a glance "That's a staff abscess. We'll take care of that before it gets much worse." So yeah, I got a perscription for antibiotics and a shot in the bum. My leg and butt hurt hahah.. kind of funny, but it sucks. So yeah, I don't really feel much better, but a little I guess. Anyway, back to.. whatever. :-P

Currently Listening To: The Oven Timer - The Kitchen - 2006

DeviantArt is Slow

I got my first roll of 100UC (100 ISO) put on CD last night. I'm pleased with some of the results, but I definately overcompensated the exposure. Out of 34 exposures (haha, still didn't use all 36), I got eleven usable shots. That's not too bad, but I definately glad I got it put on CD instead of prints. So now I've cleaned up eleven in photoshop and I'm attempting to load them to dA. dA is busy as usual with all its gothemo kids posting "art" . By art, it's either "Yu-Gi-OMG THIS SUCKS" or a webcam/cellphone cam/crapcam shot of themselves.. taken by themselves.. in their basement.. with full undiffused flash. These morons have gotta know that it looks like crap, and yet they post it in the Art Photography section instead of Scraps or Snapshots. Gah.. I wish they'd hurry up and reach the suicide phase of their goth metamorphosis.

So anyway! I've still got a roll of BW waiting to be developed. I'll probably do that in CD and prints as I have better luck with the quality and exposure of my black & whites. Another good thing is that my ghetto rigged black cloth worked great at getting rid of the light leaks. It will definately work until my foam kit comes in. It'll look crazy ghetto, but hey, it's a classic. I'm um.. protecting it. Yeah. Protecting the leatherette backside.

Speaking of classics! I came across a Yashica n00b at the graduation reception. He had two classic Nikon F3's. They looked great, though the F3 logo looked a little scratched up on one. I talked to him for a minute and already knew he was not someone to hold a camera conversation with. He saw my camera and got this "know it all" camera guy voice saying that "the first Yashica came out in 1973 and it was a rangefinder." First off, you don't just state that to someone holding a 1972 TL-Electro. Second, the douche-bag tone was enough to make me want to kick him in the nuts. So, Mr. Look At My Classic Nikons, here's a little bit of info for you!

The first Yashica was, in fact, a rangefinder. The Yashica 35 debuted in April, 1958 for ¥18,000, featuring an f/1.9 lens. Another version of the 35 debuted at the same time with an f/2.8 lens. Before the first Yashica SLR, there were seven rangefinders introduced. Ranging in price from ¥9,800 - 28,200.

It wasn't until March, 1960 that the first Yashica SLR was introduced. I'm having a difficult time finding complete information on the Pentamatic I, but from what I can tell, it had its own mount type (not a universal like the M42 mount, though I can't confirm this), shutter speeds from 1/1000 - 1 including bulb (with the X speed at 1/60), and an analog light meter located above the shutter selector. From what I understand, it also came with an f/1.8 Yashinon 50mm lens (much like my f/1.9 Yashinon 50mm). Like I said, I'm having a difficult time finding complete information on it.

As far as large format, medium format, and twin lens cameras go, I'm unsure as to when they released those. Quite possibly before their first rangefinder. Yeah, take that camera guy. Douche. No one loves you because you think you're smart. Try a little research. Not like I put much effort into this research, but at least I verified the dates from an actual Yashica/Kyocera (they merged in the 80's) fax scan on a camera site. Yeah, I guess it's official.. I'm a photography geek.
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Currently Listening To: Dream Theater - Honor Thy Father - Train of Thought - 2003
(This song fricking rules)
Both photos taken with the Yashica on Kodak 100UC film. Taken at the Belmont graduation reception.

OMG WTF LOL

The Yashica, of course. Kodak BW400CN film. The weird "soft" areas are light leaks. I feel they actually help this image look old and rough.

There's one job that I haven't considered until now. It's unusual in a way, and then it's not. I got an e-mail in my AKO about joining the United States Postal Service, suggesting that the starting hour rate is a whopping $17/h. Apparently, military experience is a huge advantage. Who would've thought?! So for everyone that is wondering "what job will Patrick want next" , it's postal service employee! Hahaha.. But seriously, it sounds good. I can get my life started and start getting all the stuff I need for a photography studio (including, OMG, a house). I mean yeah, being a police officer is still an option, but usps is a lot safer. I'm pretty excited and really hoping that this will pull through. No reason why it shouldn't really. I meet all the requirements and all I've got to do is fill out the application online. Then they'll send me a packet including the date and time of my exam. Yes, an exam. How hard could an exam for mail carrier be? 35 lbs. on shoulders? Boohoo, 70 lbs. rucksack through basic/ait. Able to lift 70 lbs. ? Yep. Hours on foot? Roadmarches. Dogs? FISTS!!

Yeah, forget that last one. So there you go, that's the next big career plan from Mr. Potts. At least I'm gathering options now instead of just ditching the previous option. And photography is still the goal of the job. I really can't wait to talk to Alicia about this. I think she'll be much happier thinking of me being a postal worker than a cop. Hahaha.. Anyway, it's late and I am tired. I had a great time in Nashville. That was the longest graduation EVER. I mean EVER! But it was uber nice. That food at the reception was.. amazing. I can still taste the strawberries. And my ears are still burning from Jeff letting me listen to some of the worst "music" I have ever heard.

Yes, he collects terrible music. It's quite funny if not a tad depressing. ;-)
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Currently Listening To: Yellowcard - Only One - Ocean Avenue - 2003

Nashville!

Taken with the Canon A520 after yesterday's rain.

Soon I shall be leaving for Nashville to attend Kevin's graduation in the morning. I'm (of course) bringing the Yashica and some film, but I'm all out of B&W film! O NOES! But that's okay, I have a roll of 100UC in, and a roll of 400UC out. I'm bringing a tripod for some Nashville at night long exposure photography. Oh, and as for the light leaks, I don't have the foam kit yet (of course, I just bought it yesterday). So I went totally ghetto and covered the back with a piece of black cloth. I cut it from an old shirt and used thick/tight rubber bands to hold it securely to the back, cutting a notch for the viewfinder. It was either that or I cover the creases with shipping tape again. This looks ghetto, but not nearly as ghetto as shipping tape.

Oh yeah...

HAPPY GRADUATION STEVEN!!!!!!!!!!!

So anyway, I'm leaving here pretty soon. I'm pretty tired.. I can see myself having to stop and I haven't even left! That suuuucks. Oh well, be back tomorrow!

Currently Listening To: Yngwie Malmsteen - Locked & Loaded - Unleash The Fury - 2005

Open Wide

In about a week or so, I'll have this 28mm wide angle lens on my Yashica. :-D You know how much this cost me? $34 shipped. I will pass go, I will lose $34, and I will take a lot of great wide angle shots after the fact. A-thank you. And for tradition's sake, here's another photo.


Currently Listening To: Johnny Cash - San Quentin (Live) - Ring Of Fire: The Legend Of Johnny Cash - 2005

Something To Smile About

4,000 views on my dA main page! Woohoo! Never thought I'd see it. Oh, and just FYI, I was logged in when I looked, so no, I am not number 4,000. Logged in won't count on the page. And for the sake of smiles and photography, here's a photo.

Taken with the Yashica (of course) at the Collierville Fair at the Square. It was a lot of fun. This little girl was getting a balloon that was tied to the chair. She had such a cute smile, but she glanced at the camera and quickly frowned. Still cute though!

Currently Listening To: Aki Kuroda - Yuna's Determination - Piano Collections: Final Fantasy X - 2002

Ouch Again.

Yeah, I'm waking up now and it still sucks. Three months.. I was away at Basic Training/AIT for 6 months. The difference? I wasn't away from someone I truly love. It was a completely different kind of relationship. This is all new to me and I'm still not handling it as well as I thought I would. I miss her so daggum much! Agh... It's going to be a while till I can come visit her, because of drill and Kevin's graduation (which is fine, I want to go). Gahhh.. I'm definately going to write her and call her a lot.

Ouch.

She's gone. :-(
I am not handling this as well as I thought I would.

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Currently Listening To: Staind - Blow Away - 14 Shades of Grey - 2003

4,000

Taken with my poor, sick Yashica on Kodak 400UC. I had to either do an awful crop or isolate the subject, thanks to a huge red blob. After isolating, I desaturated the reds through a mask so I could reveal the reddish/orange reflectors without having the red brick reflecting on the glass. I then bumped up the saturation of yellow. Such a bright little Cooper. Too bad I didn't get a pic of the midnight blue NB Miata...
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Wow, not too long ago, I hit 3,000 pageviews on my main dA page. Well, I'm looking at 3,949 right now. :-D Of course, with the mass of recent additions, that'll be 4,000 sooner than I know it. Even better than main page views, my deviations total (all 238 of them) have received 5,826 views. Oh, and currently, I've commented 1,337 times.. hahahah. Yeah, so anyway, I'm finally getting a lot of attention on dA. Yay!

Rebecca, Alicia's sister, and Alicia. I cropped this one, burned out the distracting hair between them and put a distracting (oops) title between them. Levels didn't need adjustment thanks to Kodak's very friendly 400UC film. I was even nice enough to both of them to "clean" the image and remove some of the finer, less flatterring details that come with a face close-up.
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Currently Listening To: Tori Amos - A Sorta Fairytale - Scarlet's Walk - 2002

Photoshop!

Well, I'm working on my photos now.. I was able to fix a red blotch in one image. It's not perfect, but at least it's easier on the eyes. If anyone has a suggestion on how to tone the red down in Alicia's face without ruining the skin tone, drop me a line. Anyway, here's the before and after.

Ticked Off

First off: Wal-Mart should've said "we don't develop 135 film" instead of ruining my roll of Kodak Tmax400. That REALLY pisses me off.

Second: For some reason my camera is having a pretty bad light leak issue. Look at the image below for an example of what this does to an image.

Yeah. I am pissed.

David Bowie!

Taken with the A520 digital, cropped in CS2 as well as minor color/level adjustment. Love it. Now.

Collierville.. is gorgeous. I love it down there. The Fair at the Square is awesome and so are the Tennessee Toe Tappers. Alicia, you and the rest of the team did amazing. It's really cool and I like it a lot. Oh yeah, and I now have 4 rolls of film to develop. :-D Woohoo! Two B&W's and two colors (UC's! Woo!). But I was a moron and forgot that 400UC's are 36 exp. rolls.. I used 24 exp. of the 36. n00b.... Anyway, I can't wait to get them developed. Yay!

Taken with the Yashica, BW400CN, cropped in CS2 from original.

Currently Listening To: Yngwie Malmsteen - Now Your Ships Are Burned - Rising Force - 1984

Busy Weekend

Taken with Canon A520, cropped, levels adjusted, and color balance adjusted.

I had to work tonight.. first night in a long time. I had to work the dishroom. I didn't mind it really. I mean hey, 6 extra hours on a check is awesome. OH! Not to mention that my car insurance is now half the price it was before! Perhaps my safe driving has finally paid off. I sure hope so, $212 is much easier to handle every three months as opposed to $468. Uh.. so yeah, that's cool. This is a really scattered post. I'm crazy tired. Anyway, I posted some new stuff on dA, hope you like it. Tomorrow Alicia, mom, Brit, and I are all going to Collierville (Memphrica) for the Fair at the Square. It's going to be awesome fun. I've got a partial roll of Kodak 400UC left in the camera, plus a roll of 400Tmax, another roll of 400UC, and a trusty roll of BW400CN. :-D I can't wait.. I love this dinosaur of a camera. Speaking of love, I love you Alicia, thanks for everything. I'm sleeping now, goodnight.

Taken with Yashica, Kodak BW400CN. Cropped.

Scrabble

I like Scrabble, though I usually try and make up my own words in desperation. I played a real, scored game of Scrabble with Alicia about a week ago or so. It was fun until about halfway through, then it was mind numbing. Well, we were fairly bored at one point today. And though I can enjoy her company without being constantly entertained, I suggested a half game of Scrabble. She didn't really seem too enthused. Anyway, we didn't keep score and ended up playing a full game.. sort of. Here's the result (please click for full view)(yes, it's funny)(no, not that funny)(well yes, to me it's that funny).

Currently Listening To: Rammstein - Spiel Mit Mir - Sehnsucht - 1998

Oh! Almost Forgot!

I'm trying to see how long I can go without soda (again) as a test of self control and for health. Today is the first day... absolutely no soda. However, coffee is most certainly allowed. ;-) hopefully I can keep this up, I'm feeling better already. I think.. mahahah.

Not At Home

I'm in Alicia's dorm room right now. Nothing much going on really. Her and Brit had to do laundry and study. Though it would've been fine to just sit with Alicia through this, I decided to stay in the room and go through the 140 deviations sitting in my dA message box. I got a whooole lot done, but I'm sure it'll hit 200 again by tomorrow. Oh well, soon I'll have enough free time to keep it at a few. That's really going to suck. I'm totally not looking forward to Alicia leaving for summer. I honestly don't want her to go and wish there was a way that she could stay. But there isn't, and I'm at least happy about the fact that she'll be at home and with her family. I get to visit her too, which is really awesome since her whole family is great. We're still planning on going to the zoo, botanical gardens, and.. uh.. well.. I don't know what else exactly, but it'll be fun.

Her room looks so drab now. Before she had a ton of stuff on the walls, everything from cartoons to a picture of the pope. Very interesting. Now it's very uninteresting and blank. Makes the whole room feel cold. But anyway, I'm sure it's much worse for her, she's been in it for a lot longer. I've got to say though, this room still holds fond memories. For one, our first kiss was in here. And the time she told me happy birthday when the clock hit 12:00 AM. Sigh.. yeah. I'm excited already for when she comes back. I can't imagine how happy I'll be. Hahaha... Lots of hugs for sure.

Anyway, later I'll be posting a picture of our totally awesome Scrabble game. Let me just go ahead and say, one of the "words" was "LOLS" . Oh yes, it was fun. Oh, and I have new tires... Yay.

Currently Listening To: The Cold and Lonely Silence - Alicia's Dorm Room - Air Conditioning - 2006

The Yashica!

Finally! Now for the stuff that I'm actually somewhat proud of.

FYI: 1972 Yashica TL-Electro, Yashinon 50mm DS lens, Tiffen Polarizing filter, Kodak BW400CN film, minimal post processing in CS2 (levels, size, frame, and sometimes cropping).
Enjoy! I know I enjoyed taking the shots.. fully manual for the win!

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Nathan sitting at my computer watching Grey's Anatomy. Looks like he's doing something much more important though. Not a planned shot, I was bored and decided to snap one off. I've got to say though, if I put my digital to ISO 400 and tried to take a picture in my room, it would look horrible. This just has a nice soft grain. Well, nice in my opinion. Anyway, talking way too much about a simple snapshot.
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This is one of my absolute favorites! It's a cliche, yes, but it's actually a difficult shot to pop off with a full manual. She was walking, so I had to set my aperture and exposure, then swing the camera up and focus quick. I predicted a little with my focusing and it turned out great. In my opinion, it fits the mood of the day, minus the violent wind. But I have a lot more emotional attachment to the moment and the subject, so maybe it sucks to someone else's eyes. Not mine though, not at all. Just saying.
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With this one, I was completely unaware of the bright railing in the right of the shot. I regret that much of it, not to mention the ugly white pipes that clearly scream "this train is out of service lol". But I still dig the shot, especially the smooth metal tones. I did another version of this, cropped. The grain is a little more visible, however, I don't think it detracts from the shot.

As you can see, I took the full resolution file, cropped out the railing, framed, and resized.
The odd aspect ratio is distracting to me, but I still prefer this version.
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Gritty, rusty, and huge. I think I want to get some more photos of this beast.. hehe B&W is definately the only way to photo this train engine.
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Front shot of the train engine. Notice the people standing next to it. It is huge.
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Let me just say this.. shooting a train that's moving at a decent speed is pretty difficult with a full manual. You should've seen me fumbling the camera tried to get it wound for another shot (this is the second shot of two total) and then refocusing as fast as I could. I wish I could've done something about the big black post on the right.
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Currently Listening To: Massive Attack - Dissolved Girl - Mazzanine - 1998

The Digital

I'll start off today's photo post by showing the pictures done with the digital. Nothing you haven't seen before really, it's the sunset. But whatev, it was a nice sunset. I'm pretty sleepy, so if you read any typos, let me know and I'll fix them.
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Three pictures stitched. A few weeks ago, a friend posted pics on dA of some trees. They looked all kinds of crazy colors. The description stated that he had simply turned his white balance to "Tungsten" and took some shots. So I did the same. Neat non-photoshop effect. In a way, it's more natural than a simple levels/color balance adjustment in CS2. That's my opinion.
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Three pictures stitched. I zoomed in all the way (4x optical), set the f/stop to 8.0, and the shutter speed to max (1/2000 sec). White balance was evalutive (point camera at a white object and set), but the auto level adjustment in CS2 added a lot of extra contrast. Good thing too, it looked a little soft otherwise. My favorite bit of this photo is the fact that the sun is visible as a sphere, not a big bright blob.
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Four shots stitched. I was apparently not paying attention to composition when I took these shots. I like it for its expansiveness, but I hate the location of the "subject" . I would've rather had the sun and clouds lower in the shot, but I think it still works here for the most part.
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Five pictures stitched. Not much to say about this one other than it took well over ten attempts to upload. Stupid...
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Currently Listening To: A Perfect Circle - Gimme Gimme Gimmie - eMOTIVe - 2004