lonelyfridge

I found about The Daily Shoot project back when it first launched and took a few photos, but was too busy to keep up. I’ve started uploading the few I’ve taken over the past few months and the past two days. I’ll be primarily putting these up on Flickr, but thought I’d mirror them here.

#ds18 – Fill the frame – “A pic for Alanis”

#ds55 – Newspapers – “Black, red, and white all over”

#ds126 – Season Change – “Spring has landed”

#ds128 – Set your alarm, make a picture – “Grain elevators at 20:20″

Went on a photo expedition with some friends on Thanksgiving. Here are some of the results:

Started playing with the demo for the Silver Efex Pro plug-in for Aperture. Fantastic. Here are the first attempts:

This post is inspired by a discussion the Fender Forum.

I absolutely love Aperture. I don’t, however, do many dramatic things with it. The tools I use most often, to the least:

• Exposure adjustment (I usually underexpose on purpose)
• Contrast/Definition/Vibrancy
• Vignetting
• Shadow/Highlight
• Spot/Patch (I have some dirty lenses)
• Monochrome conversion
• Cropping & Straightening

Here’s an example shot (click on each to blow them up, click again to shrink). Before is on the left, after is right.

As I said, not very dramatic. About 80% of my best shots get adjusted a little tiny bit.

Friday was a New Guitar Dayâ„¢, ending the previous 18-month (mostly) self-imposed moratorium on guitar purchases. I received an Eastman AC710 (now called an AC712) from The Acoustic Guitar in Calgary.

This is Eastman’s take on the Martin 14-fret 000 size guitars that I just adore. The neck is made from mahogany, with a really interesting volute (second picture, above). The beautiful ebony fretboard is a dream to play on. The peghead has a rosewood veneer, a rosewood truss rod cover, and gold-plated Gotoh sealed tuners, which work very well.

The guitar’s top is made up of two pieces of engelmann spruce, which is purported to be ideal for finger picking (while sitka is the ideal for flatpickers). The guitar sounds gorgeous played either way, though. Back and sides are Indian rosewood, with beautiful grain. The guitar is beautifully bound with a five-ply mixture of woods, predominantly rosewood, which is sandwiched on either side by blonde and then black woods. The blond wood is maple, I believe, which is also used in the pinstripe inlay work on the back. I don’t know what the black wood is, though I have a hard time imagining that it’s ebony.

The guitar is finished in a thin coat of deliciously noxious nitrocellulose lacquer, so I think it’s going to age very, very well. I’ll try not to sniff it too much.

Pictures from Friday (the 13th!) evening. All done with my 50mm f/1.8.

Pirate Queen: “Actually, mustard is really growing on me.”
Me: “Like a Chia Pet?! Sweet.”

Some of the pictures that I’ve uploaded over the last little while:

I am in favour of some global warming; actually, it doesn’t need to be more than local warming. I live on a hill, the water levels can rise, but I’m tired of wearing long johns to work.

I’d rather strut like this dude:

In bed related issues, I finally caved into the Mrs.’ demands and purchased some feather pillows. I don’t want to make a note about the frequency of this, but it is notable: she was right! They are super comfy (romantic dividends will be zero, as although I caved, I referred to her as ‘the Mrs.’ Twice.).

Attention! Something is …open!

PS: Today I ate a sandwich. It was good: prosciutto & old cheddar on a croissant.