Category: photography

if you act quickly kodak will send you four free rolls of film (120 or 35). click here to go to the link.

i’m going to use the blog to beg a little. i really want to get better at portrait photography and the only way i know to do that is to practice and have other people critique what i do. this iis where the begging comes into play. i need to take photos … lots of them. in order to do this i need willing models. some of you need senior protraits and other such photos. if you are up for helping a brother out let me take your photos for free. if you like the images then you’ve got images that you can have printed and you come out great. if you don’t like them images then i get to learn why and you can use whoever you were going to use anyway. at worst you lose an hour or two. it’s a win/win situation.

SIDE NOTE – sorry austins i can’t afford to travel down to take your photos. sorry, i would love to because we miss you guys (and all of us are very proud of you).

SIDE SIDE NOTE – weekend at bernie’s has to be among the 50 worst movies ever made. i feel dumber for having spent an hour and a half watching it.

SIDE SIDE SIDE NOTE – basset hounds were not created for running. montana did not respond real well to running with me and adam today. it’s not real easy to run while you are dragging 60 pounds of basset hound behind you.

my run for the day
distance – 3.0 miles
total time – 26:46
pace – 8:55/mile

my run for the day
distance – 9.9 miles
total time – 1:44:10
pace – 10:31/mile

my cute wife surprised me with two books this afternoon. they were:

• on photography by susan sontag
• the goat lady by jane bregoli

what a great wife i have. i’m pretty excited about reading both of them because they look interesting. since, pam loves it when people personalize, write within, etc. any gift that they give to her she lived that same desire out and as usual wrote something inside the cover of each book. within “the goat lady” she wrote this great quote from mother teresa. it says:

being unwanted, unloved, uncared for, forgotten by everybody, i think
that is a much greater hunger, a much greater poverty than the person
who has nothing to eat.

that’s a powerful thought.

reading the back cover of “on photography” reminded me of a sentence i saw that brad wenner had written (i don’t remember where – sorry brad – and i’m not sure if he was quoting/stealing from someone else – sorry unknown possible originator). he said photography was a dishonest medium. i was confused by this because i figured a good photo always spoke of truth. he then went on to explain that a good photo does have truth within it but that doesn’t mean that the photo is honest. think of the lighting, the comestics, the framing. these are all designed to make a scene look a certain way – even though the scene may not really look like that in real life. for more extreme examples think of most magazine covers or the controversial photo of katie couric. are those photos honest? i thought it was an interesting thought.

my favorite line from “v for vendetta” does a good job of explaining it.

my father was a writer. you would’ve liked him. he used to say that artists use lies to tell the truth while politicians use them to cover the truth up.

once again, an interesting thought but this time from a merely average movie (i was let down by it).

well it would appear that the flickr mail was the real deal. i emailed wonbo woo the following letter yesterday:

as long as you are going to portray flickr and i in a positive light then you are more than welcome to use any of my katrina photos. personally, i would recommend slight clutter’s katrina photos over my own. i think they are great.

good luck on your piece. when will it air?

and today i received the following response:

No airdate as yet, but I’ll send you a headsup as soon as I know it. (Can you forward me a non-flickrmail email address?) I’ve been in touch with slight clutter, as well – I totally agree: her pictures are wonderful. I can’t promise anything about the editorial content as a matter of policy – but we’re working very closely with yahoo/flickr staff on the piece.

cool huh?

it’s probably a gag or something but i received this the following flickr mail today. here’s what it said:

Mr. Terrell:

My name’s Wonbo Woo – I’m a producer for ABC’s World News Tonight. We’re working on a piece about flickr, and i’ve been combing through the site looking for images that might play well in our piece. I came across the photographs you shot in the wake of Katrina…would you be willing to let us use some of them in our piece? Any help would be most appreciated.

Thanks.

-wonbo woo

cool huh?

you’ll all be glad to know that my nikon d50 has finally arrived. know i can begin taking photos with the thing. of course, i don’t really know what i am going to take photos of right now but that will come.

it’s 6:15 and the ups tracking system says that my nikon d50 has still merely departed secaucus, nj and not arrived anywhere yet. where could my d50 be? it shouldn’t take 36 hours for the ups truck to check into another spot for for the diligent ups workers to scan my box and verify that the d50 is on it’s way home to me. something most have happened to prevent it from running home to me. this leads me to two possible conclusions: 1) the ups driver realized that he/she was carrying a nikon d50 within his vehicle and decided that it was worth losing his/her career to posses the d50 and has stolen my little gem in transit. i’ve never really trusted anyone who willingly chooses to wear brown from head to toe. OR 2)the ups driver had an accident and it stuck unconscious in a ditch by the side of the road. the driver’s injuries are probably so heinous that they keep him/her from radioing in for someone to come and make his/her delivers (and get help for his/her injuries). my poor little d50 is sitting there in the dark worried for it’s poor little life and having to listen to the cries of the ups driver. i sure do hope that the ups driver regains consciousness so that he will be able to call for someone to come and pick up his/her delivers (and of course, get help for his wounds – but after the deliveries are made).

neither of these options is good. i fear the worst.

for the fun of it i thought i would write out the items that i believe will be my first acquisitions to compliment the d50 (of course, i have months and months of research and saving before i buy any of these items – after all, it took me a year of research and saving before i decided to buy this camera). here goes:

• nikon 50mm f/1.8D AF standard nikkor lens – it’s allot cheaper than the 1.4 aperture lens but it’s still good. everyone i’ve talked to says that i need to get a decent 50mm lens first thing.
• canon delux photo backpack – having a backpack to hold the d50, lubitel, holga, tripods, film, etc. would be nice and the canon bag is the best for the price that i’ve seen thus far (i.e. it’s relatively cheap). it’s says “canon” on it but i can put up with that for the price, or simply rip it off.
• nikon ml-13 wireless remote – it’s a cute little device that lets me trigger the shutter remotely.
• nikon 70-300mm f/4-5.6g AF nikkor lens or sigma 70-300mm f/4-5.6 dl macro lens – the nikor lens is a nikor and that definitely has a pull to it but the sigma lens is a macro lens and that has it’s own draw. if i had to choose today (which i don’t) i’m not sure what i would choose – maybe it would be the nikon 55-200mm f4-5.6g ed AF-s dx nikkor zoom lens.

i’ll end up researching this tuff out for quite sometime. i’ve decided to build a separate amazon wishlist to keep up with the items that i begin to consider (was i the only person on the internet who didn’t realize that you could set up more than one wishlist on amazon?).

of course, none of this matters if my camera continues to be stuck in a ditch with the unconscious ups delivery person.