Portraits should be pleasing
I'm currently working on a large portrait project, and it's something of a trial by fire. I have little experience taking portraits of strangers, and I'm weak at dealing with the people - I can increasingly figure out how to light properly, and even get an ok composition, but the patter of quickly putting people at their ease isn't one of my strengths. I could do with following somebody with more expertise, just to get some rough ideas.
I felt it particularly this evening, when I took someone's picture, showed them the result, and they were clearly embarrassed at the result. Not at anything I'd done badly (they thought), but at how they looked - they were ashamed by their personal appearance. They happily signed off on the picture, but were a little downcast, and I felt awful: my taking their photo had made them less happy. I hate that. That's not how it's meant to work. When taking portraits, my primary goal is to produce an image that is liked by its subject. I failed in this case, and I couldn't think of a way to fix the situation. I need to get better at this.
Improv Everywhere’s Best Game Ever
I've recently had a few spells of thinking everything's crap. The news is generally godawful (tho no more than normal, really), work's threatening to get on top of me, and I'm operating a Just In Time policy on keeping my life in order. Thankfully I come out of it quite quickly - I have a pretty cushy existence, after all - but things like this speed up the process.
Improv Everywhere turned a local kid's baseball game into an all-star extravaganza, complete with manic fans, programmes and a few large-scale surprises. Lovely stuff; made me teary-eyed at times. Check out the comment troll who thinks it sucks because being nice to people becomes 'saccharine'. Probably one of those cretins who screams 'sentimental' the moment anything nice happens in a film, because they'd hate anyone to think they were affected by anything. Ugh.
See, there was no need to pay attention to that guy. Must get a grip.
New CPU and motherboard up and running
My computer had never worked properly since I put in together in late 2005. I got random static bursts, and most USB devices would crash the system if left plugged in. I replaced the motherboard in desperation six months later, but it didn't help much - the same problems came back. Research suggested the CPU and motherboard (both of them!) conflicted in some bizarre way, but no solutions were forthcoming, and I eventually gave up removing this or that piece of hardware every few weeks to see whether it made a difference. I didn't have the money to replace both, so I lived with it. This happens sometimes with technology - it just never works right, and you end up having to buy something new. I got used to working around the problems for a couple of years, but a confluence of problems last month finally did me in. Before February it would have been a luxury, but it crossed into the sensible-decision bracket, so I didn't have to feel guilty. I was going to need more RAM and a new hard drive anyway, so I finally gave in and ordered a totally new system, this time based around Intel rather than AMD.
I'd decided early on that my priority would be processing and editing photos. I'm not bothered about playing games - I'd like to be, but nothing other than guitar hero has grabbed my attention for ages now - so I concentrated on RAM and CPU power at the expense of graphics. My friend Ben helped me choose the most appropriate equipment, and we ended up with a Q6600 quad-core processor with 4gb of RAM, plus a larger HD. It all arrived yesterday morning and I put it together in the afternoon.
The hardware setup took a few hours, after which it worked first time, which is a rarity! I then spent as long trying to talk the XP install into understanding the SATA drivers, and my twitter followers will know how frustrating that became - sorry! After that, though, everything was smooth as Captain Jack. XP is now all installed and I'm nearly done getting it all configured.
Lightroom and Photoshop are mind-bogglingly faster. Adobe products are one of the few that can take full advantage of four processors, and the extra RAM1 means much less hard-drive thrashing. I can switch between the two programs without having to shut down everything else, and this morning I was happily editing in both programs with Firefox and iTunes running in the background. This is exactly what I wanted - editing photos should be much less frustrating now, and for the next few years of my uni course.
A couple of weird little problems have solved themselves, too. I was having issues with a) my mouse double-clicking when it should be single-clicking, and b) my router dropping packets so random bits of websites would fail. Both have Just Gone Away.
I've also seen a significant speed boost in Google Docs, of all things - I guess it relies heavily on local javascript processing.
I tried not to get too wound up over the old problems - there are worse things in life than the odd crash, or having to remember to unplug a card reader - but *tempts fate* it's really very nice to have a stable system. Totally worth it.
- only 3.5gb is accessible as I couldn't stretch to a 64-bit OS [↩]
Kick-ass entertainment
Via Pootergeek, Stephen King on visceral enjoyment:
It's easy — maybe too easy — to get caught up in serious discussions of good and bad, or to grade entertainment the way teachers grade school papers (as EW does, in case you missed it). Those discussions have their place, even though we know in our hearts that all such judgments — even of the humble art produced by the pop culture — are purely subjective. And as a veteran grade-grind in my youth, I have no problem with awarding A's, B's, and the occasional F to movies, books, and CDs (which is not to say I don't also have reservations about such drive-by critiques). But artsy/intellectual discussions have little to do with how I felt when I saw Rob Zombie's The Devil's Rejects. This movie made virtually no one's top 10 list except mine, but I'll never forget some exuberant (and possibly drunk) moviegoer in the front row shouting: ''This movie KICKS ASS!'' I felt the same way. Because it did.
and:
I'm not talking about guilty pleasures here. Guilty pleasures aren't even overrated; the idea is meaningless, an elitist concept invented by smarmy intellectuals with nothing better to do. I'm talking about the pure happiness that strikes like a lightning bolt out of George Strait's blue clear sky (another sacred occasion of joy for me).
It may not come as a complete surprise to hear I agree entirely 
'This kicks ass' is a surprisingly apt way of describing the moment the ideal song starts playing on the radio, or I realise from an expression alone that a plot is going to abruptly shift, and I never saw it coming. It's like he says: a feeling of pure happiness. For my brain chemistry, Heroes has it. Byron. The West Wing. 'Blue Picadilly' by The Feeling. Neal Stephenson. George Lange's photographs. Serenity. 'Addicted to Love' by Robert Palmer. Carl Sagan. Scrubs. Not that I'm a romantic or anything.
But there can be no more subjective a reaction, and I suppose that's why critics ignore it - you can't say whether any individual is going to react in such a way1 so it becomes irrelevant to a broad discussion. But as a result I think this kind of emotional response gets looked down upon, as if it's somehow less worthy than an intellectual examination. Which isn't to say that such discussions mean nothing, although I agree with SK that it's all subjective in the end, just that they have no business suggesting such feelings of happiness are something to feel proud of/guilty about.
- it's vaguely-related that Stumbling on Happiness apparently claims research results showing that others, no matter how much they differ from you, are far more effective at judging whether something will make you happy. I must read that book [↩]
Hug a blogger
I fully support Lisa's hug-a-blogger campaign. Big hugs to anybody suffering from January blues, or indeed anybody who just wants a hug:
{{{{{{{{{{HUG}}}}}}}}}}
Atlantic Winds
It's cold. It really is. I walked from 30th St. down to Battery Park and back today, and the wind was out to get me. Brrrrr. The prevailing temperature measurement system here makes no sense, but I'd guess it's just above freezing
Yesterday was wonderful to the extent that it made me sad today. I once read a story about a woman who stored memories in jars and placed them on mantlepieces, reliving the experiences whenever she wanted. I see her inspiration.
Battery Park, the southern tip of the island, was, quite frankly, a complete mess. It's being massively redeveloped (the drawings look stunning) but currently it's just one big building site. It's a shame, but it should look great when complete. On the way I passed through the World Trade Centre Site, which was only a little changed (on the surface, anyway) from when I saw it 18 months ago. I see on the news that they're still arguing about the replacement building. Personally I say build something taller, stronger and wonderful. Sure it'll be a target, but so will whatever you put there. Of course the point of view of the man who said they should built a strip club on the site. After all, there's not much that would piss off the Islamic fundamentalists more...
I so want to see this. A Vampire musical with music and lyrics by Elton John and Bernie Taupin? Sounds great. It doesn't open until the 25th, though, and I guess ticket prices would be through the roof at first anyway. I haven't read the original Anne Rice novels, but they're going onto my wishlist once I get home.
Shall be off. Goodnight, or good morning, or that kind of thing.
Thoughts Plucked From My Head
I got covered in pooh this morning. Well, not covered. Just smeared. Gross. Meg just can't keep still when I'm attempting to clear up after her, which resulted in her lead being dragged through it, as well as the bag I was using, which promptly brushed against my clean trousers...and it was naturally quite a slimy one (you read my blog, you get the details ). While not getting covered in pooh, I listened to:
- Adam Curry's Daily Source Code - A regular feature on my playlist. He's very entertaining, and plays some cool mashups - today's (actually from last Thursday) was a combination of S Club 7's "Don't Stop Moving" and Michael Jackson's "Billie Jean", which worked far better than you'd think!
- The Productivity Show - A new show that helps you get yourself organised, although it does assume you know of the existing methodologies (Getting Things Done etc.) already.
- 5 Minutes with Wichita - I highly, highly recommend this if you want to add a surreal touch to your day - like the title says, it's just five minutes, and I bet you find yourself grinning
- In Our Time - BBC Radio 4 show presented by Melvyn Bragg that's always interesting, although at 40mins there's sometimes a little too much information to take in in one sitting.
Despite this, I had a particularly happy day. I can't say why, but I spent much of today smiling. I watched an excellent episode of Firefly last night and woke up still giggling, so that helped. There's also the fact that it's only two weeks until my exams are over. But I have a suspicion that it's mainly down to my life coaching. I've been able to do things without thinking that four weeks ago would have had me worrying for hours. I've just got to prevent myself slipping backwards, now.
Making good progress on the eBay challenge, by the way. I've sold
Hello!
Hey, thanks for coming! I'm Andrew, and this is where my headthinks come to breed. They often meander around humanism and photography, but they're flighty and you can't trust them, so anything is possible.
Do feel free to email me - I get lonely:
Your hair looks swish, by the way - have you done something new?
Recent Comments
- vicky: going up this weekend having done all the welsh peaks except 4 snowdon, cant wait
on Climbing Snowdon. - vicky: what, how can u live in the 21 c and say that, probably a sexist thing
on Climbing Snowdon. - vicky: da iawn laura, cant believe what im hearing, all this fuss, anyway love the site, and i agree, normal people who swear and curse clomb mountains cos we live in the...
on Climbing Snowdon. - Andrew: Did a few quick test shots to check the light levels, then balanced the camera on the arm of a bench, set it for a 20s exposure and hoped for the best
on ISS. - lynsey: Wow, how did you take that photograph?
on ISS.
