Sunday, September 24, 2006

United 93 and Gojira Reviews up

United 93:

http://www.hometheaterforum.com/htf/showthread.php...

Gojira:

http://www.hometheaterforum.com/htf/showthread.php...

Carnivorous Yellow Jackets

Somehow two weeks in a row I've gotten interesting shots of yellow jackets =)


I'm pretty sure my next lense is gonna be the 100 Macro, but until then I'm having fun with the Tamron 28-75s limited macro capabilities.

Full set at: 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/kadath/sets/721575942...

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Essentially, during the wedding I was at today, an enterprising yellow jacket attacked a piece of my leftover chicken. It made over a DOZEN sorties onto this meat, used its mandibles to SLICE off a piece, picked them up like a helicopter, and flew off, presumably to the nest. My brother in law killed a dozen yellow jackets but I wouldnt let him kill this one, it was SMART! =)

As a colorblind amateur photographer, one of the things I'm struggling with is getting consistant color casts. You'll notice these all are in the same 3 foot area yet my colors are widely varying despite individually looking 'right' when editing em down in RSP.

Friday, September 15, 2006

Thomas Hawk's Digital Connection: The Photography of Sam Bloomberg-Rissman

Thomas Hawk's Digital Connection: The Photography of Sam Bloomberg-Rissman

"trying to figure out a way to build a system where you could turn a photo sharing site into a secondary vehicle for advanced amateurs to offer their work up for sale at much fairer prices than the microstock sites are paying out today."

Good luck to them. I hope they make it work. Currently I'm not even an advanced amateur, but I still think that there HAS to be a market that can be made for solid, interesting photography that isn't from NAME BRAND photographers and pays more than the crap that the microstock sites do. It's gonna happen, but it needs genius level work to get there. Work that puts the artists first. Even the iTunes model wont work, that isnt really good for the artists and legitimizes the whole intermediary pipeline between artist and buyer.

Personally, I'd rather give away my work via a creative commons license (non commercial any way!) then to sell my soul to these microstock sites. Well, actually I do do that! All of my stuff is publise CC requiring attribution and share alike and no commercial use.

Hell, I'd be happy if there was a system to help up and comers sell enough of their work to finance better gear without hiring a lawyer to figure out the details... =)

Saturday, September 09, 2006

Butter Jacket

I've seen Yellow Jackets fly into beer, soda, water, just about every liquid there is at picnics and swim around in em for hours, pissed off but alive.  This guy flew into a cup of melted butter for steamers.  He died within 15 seconds.  I've seen insecticides take longer to kill.  Guess this means all of our sprays should be converted to butter for maximum effectiveness! 

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Predator becomes prey

A lousy day for this wasp, caught in the spiders web.  He was quite agitated, I was tempted to set him free but I didnt want to get stung in the process and didnt want to disappoint the spider who was saving him for dinner.

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Friday, September 08, 2006

He won't be here when you get back!

Or so the Colonel told me as I was feverishly taking snaps as people filed out for their lunch break.  Apparently lots of bugs wander in the front door....  =)

Testing how differently the color corrected version looks on my machine back at work, there is a vast difference on my calibrated monitor (god bless the $69 Huey!)

He Won't Be Here When You Get Back

Original from Uncalibrated Monitor, wrongly sized to boot.

He Won't Be Here When You Get Back

From Calibrated monitor, 6x4

Monday, September 04, 2006

Labor Day 06

The kids broke out the new swing I bought Katie for her birthday, as it turns out it's plenty big for Ryan and Eddie too.  I taught Ryan how to wind up the ropes and make Eddie sick =)

EddieYak2

Full Flickr set at:  Labor Day 06

Ernesto and the Whatever

Just a little proof that I actually took responsibility to watch the good vessel while Pappy was away =)

Ernesto4

Full Flickr Set at:

Ernesto Set