The other day while going through the endless post of photography blogs and websites I follow, I ran across an post from DIY Photography. DIY Photography had two videos that Google made using High Speed video up to 2700 fps (frames per second). Google had three different scenarios one with a potato gun. Another with paint on a speaker, and a third was with electricity coming from a Tesla Coil.
The first video is the actual comercial. The second video is how it was done. Take a look, it is awesome to see how they played with each scenarios.
All this week I have been preparing for a trip to Orange County. I am traveling to OC in the next week for a series of Job interviews. No, it’s not for a photography job, it’s for my chosen profession of a Financial Services Professional (Equity Trader). Anyone that knows me personally, knows that I was laid-off from my job over a year ago. Yes, it was a huge disappointment, however I never thought I would be unemployed for this long. The job market has been very bleak at best.
In preparing for my upcoming interviews I realized that I didn’t have a business card. I have cards that I made for photography, but nothing for my profession. Last night I rectified this little issue. I spent a few hours before I went to bed, and made some financial business cards. I had some ideas of how I wanted my business cards to look like. I didn’t want to just use the free templates that vistaprints.com offers. I wanted to have a personal touch.
A fes days ago I was fooling around with Wordle and created a couple Wordle graphics and posted to my blog here Financial Buzz Word Bingo. I mentioned that I was going to use them for a project. I decided to use them for my financial business cards. I downloaded the photoshop .psd layout file from vistaprints.com. I used photoshop to put my business card layout together. Next, I uploaded the finished file to vistaprints.com and added the text. The next step and most important step, I had my wife prof the card before I finished. This is what my business card looks like. If you notice I didn’t add an address, because I am looking for a job in the Greater Bay Area and in Orange County. I didn’t feel that the address was as important. My wife had made the suggestion of putting my Securities Licences on the card instead. I agreed that this was more important since I worked so hard to get them during my career.
This amazing photo of Earth cost only $750 to take
Hello, Earth! Can you believe that this photo was taken by a man who attached a digital camera to a balloon? Madness. There’s actually not too much involved here. You take a helium-filled, high-altitude balloon, strap a digital camera to it, and off you go. The camera goes up (that’s 22 miles above the surface of the planet), takes a photo every five minutes, then it comes floating down to Earth on a parachute. A simple GPS, not too different from the one in your car right now, gives the location of the camera when it comes back down.
It’s the space-photography equivalent of macaroni glued to construction paper.
Total cost? Around $750. That’s less than what I spent to build the PC I’m writing this post with. Clearly Robert Harrison, the UK chap who put all of this together, is cooler than I’ll ever be.This amazing photo of Earth cost only $750 to take
The Spring Chicks are here and arriving a day early. Every year in my wife’s third grade class they hatch chicken eggs for life science. This year my wife ha 22 eggs to hatch. Not all will hatch, but they have a unusually good yield of 75% hatchlings.
Every year they day they start to hatch I arrive with my travel studio equipment and set up a little studio. Over the years a I learned a few tricks.
Take paper towels to clean up the poop.
Use a seamless background (paper) so you can throw away fouled paper
Take images within the first day of hatching. Chicks are easier to manage when the are a day old. Any older and they are hard to keep in the same spot.
Don’t drop them off the table, they break.
Here is a slide show of some of the images I took in the past. Yes, I have a warped sense of humor.
I am still working on my photo web site. It’s still a work in progress, however my free trail of Adobe Dreamweaver CS4 ends today. I have learned alot in the last 30 days.
I still have a ton of reading to do, but I need to order a copy of Dreamweaver to continue my construction.
Learning a new Language
I have been working on a new website. When I got my MacBook Pro, I also bout a year subscription to Apples Mobile Me. I built a small website in iWeb ’08. I know that iWeb ’09 has many more features then iWeb ’08, but I didn’t feel it was going to produce what I needed. The UI or user interface is great. Drag and Drop, easy setup and easy to post, as long as you had an active Mobile Me account. Like I said, iWeb is a great little program, but it was limited to what I thought I needed. Stuff I wanted to do to on my site was beyond the capabilities of iWeb.
So I am working on a new design for my website. I am using Adobe Dreamweaver CS4. I downloaded it free from Adobes website. They offer a 30-day free trial. I have used Dreamweaver before.
A few years ago, a friend and I would drive to Kearney Mesa (San Diego) twice a week to attend this free Dreamweaver class. The version we used was the Dreamweaver MX that was Macromedia product. The new version of Dreamweaver is easier to use and not as clunky, even though I thought that Dreamweaver MX was the bomb back in the day.
So if you look at my site you would say I haven’t gotten very far. Well you would be correct. This is why I have left the old website under my current domain name www.KiHoPhoto.com.Continue reading »
Today on this rainy Monday, I made in the Slow Cooker or Crock-Pot a Cayenne Chicken. It’s a take off of Grandmas Chicken and Rice. I could remember what the real recipe was, so I improvised.
It was very tasty…
(4) 1/2 Boneless, skinless chicken breasts (frozen or thawed).
(2) Cans of Cream of Mushroom soup (condensed).
1 cup of brown rice or white rice.
1/2 of medium white onion (sliced).
1/2 of whole red bell pepper.
1 Teaspoon of Cayenne Pepper. (optional)
2 1/2 cups of water.
Salt
Black Pepper
In a slow cooker or crock-pot layer all the ingredients. Fisrt pour the water in, then the rice.
Next place two pieces of chicken ontop of the rice water mixture.
Next add one can of cream of mushroom soup. Add onion and bell pepper.
Add the last two pieces of chicken, pour the last can of soup and add the cayenne pepper.
With a spoon lightly mix the soup up with the cayenne pepper.
Last turn on the slow cooker to low and let it cook for 6-8 hours. You can cook it on high for 3-4 hours. The slower the chicken cooks the more tender the chicken will be.
To serve:
Remove chicken from the slow cooker. Scoop the rice and place it on a plate. The add some of the onion and red bell pepper on the rice. Place a piece of chicken on top. Scoop some of the soup and pour it on top of it all, Serve warm.
Here is a quick post for the car enthusiast and photographer in you. In one of the posts from a favorite blog I follow DIYPhotography.net. James Evins shows us how he makes a Do-it-yourself camera rig. I have looked into getting a camera rig for several projects that I want to do. This seems to be a cheap alternative to a more expensive Rig Kit.
Follow along with his detail DIY project. I would like to get feed back with anyone who actually makes a rig for themselves.
My fist attempt of using a cut out to create bokeh. I think I only needed one star in the center, not the five or six I used. I will get better as time goes on… Blue Christmas light were the target of this image.
Bokeh is an adaptation from a a Japanese word meaning blur. In photography this term is used to describe the quality of the areas in the picture which are not in focus.
When referring to Bokeh, we can distinguish some of it characteristics:
- Is the light/dark gradient smooth or sharp?
- What shape will a small dot of light take what it is in the Bokeh area? (mirror lenses for example, create a bagel like Bokeh)
We can play with those two variants to create a special Bokeh. Click… here.
