Jesus Is My Friend

You GOTTA love the full on “ska” beat!

As Jenny The Bloggess points out, at about 1:40 Jesus starts to sound like someone who needs to be maced….

Apparently there is some controversy about whether this video is truly a relic of an odd past or a recent creation by dougsploitation.

All I can say is that if it’s real, it’s brilliant. If it’s fake, HE’S brilliant.

Speaking of Jesus, the Fafblog had me rolling with the latest post Sarah Palin Sarah Palin Sarah Palin!

As a Jesus-fearing moose-hunting hockey-mom mother of five who hunts moose for Jesus, Sarah Palin is kin to the wild outdoors and appreciates its bountiful splendor as she is gunning it down from her airplane. Sarah Palin understands that America is dangerously addicted to oil, and that the only cure is more oil. She also understands that nature is our natural enemy, created by a malevolent Satan to come between us and our God-given oil deposits with its hateful, clean water and its foul, pristine air. But Sarah Palin also also knows that we’ve got to leave this earth behind for our children, at least until we can find a way to drill for oil in our children. Sarah Palin is committed to exploring Baby Trig’s vast and abundant petroleum reserves.

Sarah Palin may not know if global warming is man-made. She may not know if global warming is real. She may not know what global warming is. But if global warming is caused by abortions, Sarah Palin will fight it – by banning abortion, just in case the first couple times didn’t take.

Be sure and read the whole thing.

Illuminati


The HVL-F58AM arrived today in the mail. Normally, I don’t like shooting with a flash but if I am to progress to the next level in my photography I need to explore it as an option.

My biggest pet peeve about flash photography is that images shot straight on with the built in flash or even an add-on flash unit tend to look terrible. Obviously, if you know what you are doing, you can get good results but I am not in danger of actually knowing what I am doing.

Satyr, who was instrumental in my development of available light photography, recently gave me the heads up on the new flash unit from Sony to compliment their line of dSLR cameras. I checked out the early press releases and determined that this might be the flash unit for me.

What struck me the most was the versatility of how this flash can be shaped to allow for bounce as well as proper illumination even when shooting in portrait mode. Check out this video

The flash unit just came out this month and due to a promotion from the Sony Style web site I was able to purchase one at a significant discount.

This thing is AMAZING! Out of the box and mounted on my camera, full on automatic and this is the result:

Great color, smart white balance. SWEEEEET!

Even better, with the Sony Alpha 700 it can be used right out of the box as a wireless flash. This shot was taken with the flash unit sitting to the left of the subject (Luis):

Again, full auto. Good color, nice contrast due to the light coming in from the side.

Of course the wireless aspect opens up a whole new dimension for shooting with a flash. A dimension of dramatic possibilities…

I have a lot to learn, but I am encouraged by such good and fun results minutes out of the box.

Tripping The Low-Light Fandango

My passion (photographically) is low light and available light photography. I love my lenses wide and fast and when that’s not suitable I mount the camera on tripod and shoot extended exposures.

Cynthia has recently shown an interest in this type of photography and I’ve been showing her what I know. We bought her a nice tripod and a 35mm f/2.0 lens and setup in front after dark in of the house to shoot the front door since it has leaded glass and has interesting light properties. She caught on pretty quick.

I suggested we try some new scenery and on Saturday night, after our customary Italian dinner, we proceeded on to Discovery Green to engage in some after dark shutter shenanigans.

We had a good time and Cynthia made several breakthroughs in her understanding of low-light photography. She doesn’t want to publish anything to the web yet, but I am going to share with you a shot she took that night…

The interesting thing about this photo to me is the fact that it’s an extended exposure of me taking an extended exposure shot of something else. Cynthia figured out that she could catch me holding still right after I triggered my shot, allowing her to capture me clearly at 1/2 second exposure and no flash. Good job Cynthia!

House Is Level

I was stopped no less than 4 times by readers of this blog as I was out and about and asked about the foundation repair and for a wrap up of events. I didn’t think anyone was all that interested, and I certainly did not mean leave you all in a lurch.

I am happy to say the work was completed the same day and all is well. Our home is whole and intact. Yay!

They cleaned up everything and you can hardly tell they were here at all. Here are a few parting shots of the work in progress which will give you an idea of why we might have been concerned regarding that point.

Olshan did a fine job. The house is level level level. They hauled away all the equipment, filled all the holes, replaced the displaced landscaping and poured fresh concrete on the driveway and the front porch. The doors close easily and the cracks in the dining room, the TV room and the outside wall have all closed up as the house was jacked back up into its original position.

The birds are recovering from their trauma and this will be forgotten as we pile on the treats and scritchums to make up for them having to go through this.

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