Oh how I love new things!  New clothes.  New cars.  New music.  And especially new toys!  Sadly, with being at the very beginning end of my return to the business we’ve had no new business yet.  I want to get our new web page built and up and running before advertising our availability.  As a result I don’t currently have the money to buy this;

http://web.canon.jp/imaging/eosd/eos5dm2/index.html

But if I had the cash, I would go buy one right now!  It’s such a sweet machine!

I’ve always been interested in the debates that go on between people who love Ford and those who love Honda’s, those who love Macs and those who love Pcs, those who love Canon and those who love Nikon.  Typically my take has always been that it’s a personal preference thing but in the end Hondas and Fords both get you to your destination.

I’ve usually gone with what I can afford although in the case of the Nikon/Canon debate I had always had Canon gear since my teens so I just kind of gravitated that way.  Well, after a long time of avoiding the market I took a look today to see what’s out.  I was shocked.  My Canon 5D Mii is currently retailing for $3099 for the body.  Shortly after reading that I was talking to a friend who mentioned that he was looking at picking up a Nikon D300.  I thought that was kind of old so I looked it up and yeah, they have D700.  But for $3000 he says he doesn’t need that.  I had noticed that it was only a 12mp camera so I thought it was odd that it would cost that much but yep, 12mp camera for $3299!   The 5D Mii is a 21mp!!!    I just don’t get it.  The Canon is so much more technically superior what would cause anyone to go with the Nikon for $200 more money!? 

Well, I took a closer look.  In a side by side feature comparison they are actually very close in features.

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/compare_post.asp?method=sidebyside&cameras=canon_eos5dmkii%2Cnikon_d700&show=all

The biggest bonuses to the Canon are 21mp, ISO of 50 available, and full HD video recording. 

The biggest bonus of the Nikon is, 5 fps shooting!

So as a photojournalist, the Nikon will be an obvious choice.  For a portrait/wedding/artistic photographer, The Canon is your weapon of choice.

Okay, so there seems to be a new fad among photographers.  The 365 Project.  This is where a photographer shoots one image per day for an entire year.  I have no idea when this concept first appeared but in late 2000 or 2001 (I don’t recall off hand) I had never heard of it, and until recently, I still had not heard of anyone doing them.  But back in that late 2000 or 2001 time frame I came up with my own 365 Project idea.  I was moderately successful until mid March (2001 or 2002) when my personal life collapsed.  I stopped shooting for several months and as such the 365 project died for that year.  The image used in the header here was actually the first shot of the project. I’m sure someone had the idea long before me, but for the time being I’m going to revel in  the thought that I was the first of the current generation!

One good 365 project I’m following is the 365 days of Nathalie.  It’s interesting to see how different photographers structure their own guidelines for the project.

http://365daysofnatalie.com/

I plan on being in a position next year to do my 365 project.

UPDATE!    Just realized that two days before I posted this the 365 Days of Natalie ended.  They’ve posted a very touching video coversation between themselves about why it ended.  These projects can be very taxing on the mind and when more than one person is involved it can lead to some stressful moments.  I’m glad they gave it a try, but no one can fault them for stopping.  And hey, they still got some awesome shots!

Okay, so a few months ago I hinted that big things would be happening here at Second Sight Studio in the near future.  Well, the near future was  a little further away than originally anticipated but after much moving of homes and jobs by all involved parties, I am happy to announce that Second Sight Studio is expanding!

My good friend Mel Bettcher is coming on board as a second photographer!  As a new team we are now taking bookings for weddings, portraits, family photos, commercial assignmments and more!  She brings a unique eye and engaging spirit to the team and we’re both excited to be offering clients more service options, more varied perspectives and more overall experience.

Over the next week or two I hope to get the time to sit down and put together a redesign of www.secondsightstudio.com and have it live very soon!

If you know anyone in need of photographic services please let them know about us!

I have failed miserably at the diet.  By about 6:00pm yesterday I had begun to get extremely irritable and had a migrain rolling in.   I certainly can’t say it was the diet because I’ve had many days where I’ve barely eaten anything at all and have been just fine.  Yesterday I ate a lot of green veggies, peppers and a cantalope so I SHOULD have been fine.  I guess my physiology just didn’t want to start yesterday.   I finished my day off with with some McD’s chicken nuggets and Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension.

I’m going to look into some better tasting options and I’ll give it another go in a few days.  Or I’ll try something totally different.  I’m still going to do the eating better thing, but I’m not going to be strict about it.  Yet.

BREAKFAST – consists of half a cantalope and a can of tomato juice.

Wow, I never thought a half cantalope would fill me up so well.  I just hope it can hold me over till lunch!  So far so good.

LUNCH – consisted of the other half of my cantalope, can of tomato juice and a pile of red and yellow peppers.

Well, the cantalope from breakfast did actually last me mostly till lunch.  But I did lunch almost three hours ago and for at least the last hour I’ve been freaking STARVING!!!!!!!!  I’m going mental!  I want a steak!  I want BBQ chips!  I want honey garlic chicken wings!!!   Mmmmmmmmm

And of course a co-worker JUST walked by as I’m typing, munching away on something crispy and crunchy in a crumply sounding bag.  Damn him!  Okay, so I never told him I was doing this.  It’s not his fault.  He just doesn’t know.  He just doesn’t know.

GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

K, I’m good now.

So this blogging thing might be easier if I wasn’t working so much that all I want to do when I get home is pass out.   But I’m about try changing things up a bit so that I’m in a much better brain place and more able to do updates.

As of Friday morning I will be taking part in a little experiment of this Mayo Clinic two-week diet which promises you can lose about 20lbs in two weeks.  A lot of the information I found online about this diet says that it’s not a healthy diet, Mayo clinic has nothing to do with the diet and does not endorse it at all and generally to just stay away.

However, I was given the inforation sheet by someone who I feel to be very trustworthy who is currently giving it a try herself.  After only 4 days she’s already down 6 lbs!  And she claims to work with people who have done it and been very successful at it themselves.

I figure what the heck.  It’s only two weeks.  I’m sure that I could probably stop eating altogether and I’d be fine just from all the stored meals I’ve got right now.

So, I will write my thoughts and progress here as I go along.  First goal, stick to the plan!  Second goal, write about it.  Here we go!!!

I was gonna write a bunch of crap about stuff that you probably don’t want to read.  Suffice it to say I feel like crap for bailing on the opening party of my friend’s new studio.  I was just too tired to deal with a crowd.   Sure there’s more to it than that, but that’s the basics.   I really wanted to go too.

On a lighter note, I urge everyone who can deal with subtitles to go check out Chandni Chowk to China.   What an awesome movie!  Comedy, drama, cheese, action, adventure, okay maybe not so much adventure, kung-fu, song and dance…and Deepika Padukone…She’s so cute!  Anyway, the movie freakin’ rocks so go see it now!!!

Sleep deprivation is not a fun thing.   The first thing you really start notice about it isn’t the slow reflexes or inability to focus on tasks at hand, not for me ayways.  For me, its lapses in memory.   Not remembering to pick up something right in front of me and getting my iPhone charging cord stolen because I left it in the middle of a hallway.  Not remembering what I did with my camera and panicking over possibly having left it on some boxes at walmart only to thankfully find it on a chair in the living room.  Having no idea what day it is or if your supposed to be somewhere. 

It gets really bothersome.   It makes it difficult to learn new tasks.  It makes it hard to remember todo things that need to get done or that really should get done.  It remembering some important things difficult and forces you to really concentrate on remembering some things which in turn only causes you to forget other things.

So do yourself a favour.  Get some sleep.   Stop reading this and get some sleep.  Go.  Now.

Oh yeah!  Battlestar Galactica started again!  Awesome!  Now I just need more episodes of the 4400, Heroes, Eureka, Kyle XY, Terminator, Dr. Who and Torchwood!    Yeah……

So here I sit at the Friday night job kinda bored outta my tree.  Sure, there may be some things I can do but not really anything I can accomplish tonight and it would just get messed up again anyways.  Instead, I surf the YouTube!

Now, I in no way approve of smoking, many of you understand why, but this dude has a few cool moves with a Zippo lighter!

Zippo!

And here’s a nice trippy video.  How do people come up with this stuff?

Unkle

So anyway, shift is done right away.  Time to go home and work on my photo collection clean up some more.  Maybe I’ll even have a new/old shot to post tonight!  Maybe…

So, after more running around than I think is needed I finally find out I’m supposed to go to the Apple Store to get my phone fixed.  I showed up there this evening only to find out that I need to make an appointment to meet with one of their “Geniuses”.  So the very nice lady shows me the web site I need to go to and I start looking up the booking information.  It’s a pretty handy little system, but they don’t have a lot of openings.  Two days.  Friday.  Saturday.  Friday I work the whole day away so that’s no good.  So I click Saturday.   There’s one 15 minute block available at 5:00pm.  Right when I’m signing out of my Saturday job.  All these jobs are making it very difficult to just “live”.

So anyway, I have to check back in a day or two see if any more slots get added.  I wiped out all my data in my phone for nothing!  Fotunately I took advantage of the back up feature in iTunes…I’m restoring things now, hopefully it does everything…

Here’s a shot of the damage. Poor baby! 

 

Damaged by a curse.

Wow, what a day.  The big news of the day is that I dropped and broke the glass on my iPhone!  Probably exactly 24 hours AFTER a woman at work cursed my iPhone because she was jealous!  Then I go after work to talk to Rogers about getting it fixed.  25 minutes in line to find out that Rogers is not allowed to fix the iPhone.  After some digging I find I need to go to the Apple store in West Ed and they will likely just give me a new phone.   YAY! 

Wait…

How do I get this stuff off my phone!!!!!?