Crazy Days These Days Are

Hey all,

I was planning a nice consistent rebooting of the blog this month and I am getting shot down right now. Not the crash and burn type, but I am running in emergency mode with my time.

Time has been flying by while I have been dealing with a situation at our church. I've been out of the studio and office so little to nothing is getting done I am sorry to say.

I am anticipating getting up and running by the end of the month. Like I said, it looks like Tuesdays and Thursdays will work out best but again, we will have to see.

Broken, or flying, time just does not stop. TMS is a great help, oops, that is time management soft-ware. but it only works when you have enough hours in the day to fulfill what you haver loaded in TMS. Yes I know... I should not load it up so much. That's the story of my life. Plenty of things to do and never a dull moment.

Again, looking forward to blabbing on the blog again and I will be here very soon.

Cya... Doug

Go Big or Don't Go at All

That is a popular statement for a number of topics. When it comes to men and their televisions it is most appropriate. This past March we were kicking around the idea of going somewhere warm for our vacation but we knew we would be dong more traveling in the next couple of months. With that thought, we decided to put some money into the house. More specifically our family room needed some updated furniture and a move to flat screen TV. So the search began. Would it be a 42 inch, 47, 50, 55, or 60 inch? How about technology, did we want Plasma, LCD, or the new LED units. Then there is the refresh rate... 60 Hz, 120, 240, or the newest 480 Hz models. So much to think about. Then other factor was going to be price. How could I find the very best TV and have someone pay me for it. Yes!

Ok, so that might be a little unrealistic. Being somewhat computer savvy, I know the faster a processor is, the better the computer. You would think this applies to television technology. Well it does and doesn't. Before I get ahead of myself I will admit that we had decided on the Visio 55 inch 480 Hz LED unit. It was on the cart and in checkout at Costco when my debit card crashed. It was a Saturday late afternoon and I had made some purchases on it earlier in the day. Those and the TV hit the card limiter. I headed home to get a check as Costco does not take credit cards (I really didn't want to go that route anyhow). Driving back to Costco we decided to take one last look at Best Buy. I have had very little luck with Best Buy sales people regarding the level of knowledge they have on hat they sell. But alas I ran into the exception. The whole 480 Hz thing is at this point a marketing thing and not true 480 Hz refresh technology. I found out that most bargain 240 Hz units are really 120's that have been double sampled. Without going into the nuts and bolts, it is misleading the public and marginally legal marketing. I though it was odd that Visio was the only manufacturer that had a 480 Hz set. That should have been a light bulb at he get go.

The crazy thing about this diversion into Best Buy was that there was an LG (one of my leading contenders all along) 55 inch true 240 Hz LED set that was an open box item. Not only that, it had been returned within the 30 day return that Best Buy offers. I asked the salesman two questions, why the return and how long had it been on the shelf. He said the gentleman wanted the newest Samsung which was unavailable when he purchased the LG. When the Samsung became available he brought the LG back. The unit had been on the shelf for three days.

So here I have it, last years top of the line 55 inch LG for less than half the original cost, or pay more for the Visio. That my friends is called a no-brainer.

Yes LG, Life's Good... Doug

Click-Click-Give-Give... Oh what a relief (fund) it is!

Ok, so what's wrong with this picture and the title to the post. How does the Apple website mesh with the thought of giving, donating, or anything humanitarian. Wasn't Apple under some kind of environmentalist hit list. So what gives?

Seems the people in Apple orchard like to reach out and effect people on a larger scale than is realized. Oh! Isn't it American Idol that directs millions of dollars towards different humanitarian programs. Yes Bertie, I think it is. But what is the vehicle that is being used to gather those millions. Ding-Ding-Ding, you guest it... iTunes. The uber megga successful music machine of Apple creation.

So back to the story at hand. You see that little cross at the bottom right of the Apple home page above. 

Yep, you guessed right again, it is  for the Red Cross. Go to Apple.com and click on the red cross and you will be directed to the following page.

With a simple click, you can direct funds directly to the Red Cross in support of the Earth Quake-Tsunami-Nuclear Disaster in Japan.

I am not here to pull on your heart string and plead for a donation (unless you are interested to donating to the Doug Peek Early Retirement Fund) on behalf of the Red Cross but if you want to continue to see really cool and advanced camera gear from Japan, they could use a hand up in rebuilding there country. Take some time and watch some YouTube videos from the "Japan Tsunami" and you will see more devastation than you will care to.

Anyhow after you click the amount you want to donate, all you need to do is confirm the donation.

It is billed directly to your iTunes account and viola money gets to people who can really use it. WHAT! You don't have an iTunes account! Ok so write out a check and send it to the Red Cross, I'm sure they will not return it.

Take care all... Doug

Crazy Week

Did you ever have one of this weeks that starts out wear and just gets weirder. That was my life this week. I was to airline out of Gand Rapids on Continental but waking up at 5:30 and checking the flight status revealed that basically all flight had been cancelled. The other option was to drive which I generally prefer over air lining. So I called the company to see if they could set up a car for me. That was not too bad but certainly an omen for what was to come.
After that things settled down for a couple of days. Meetings, work, meetings, work. It's a nice change from flying and traveling for an entire week but I know I would not want to do that for the rest of my life.
This weeks project was the jumping off point for a project that has been pushed back for a number of years. Maybe this time we might see it come to fruition.
When I am away from home and doing project work I tend to let the task and my creativity dictate my schedule. My schedule every day was 8:30 to 5:00 when in actuality it was often 8:00 to 8:00. I was at a downtown hotel away from the airport which I would personally would rather be closer to but I understand the company's reason for using the one we do. Anyhow... I was only booked into the hotel through Thursday. When I asked to extend my room through Sunday I was told they were sold out. Great! So Thursday at work I tell the company I would need a room for the next two nights and if it were possible one close to the airport would work well for me.
Some time late my Blackberry detonates with the high value information that I would be staying at the very same same hotel I just checked out of. Hmmm... So, I call the company again and tell them the hotel is sold out to which I was informed that we keep a block of rooms (I knew this) so they aren't really sold out. Fine!
I continue my creation into to evening and 8:30 hits about the same time my brain shuts off the creative spigot. That was going to work out well as I could make it to the room and watch Fringe (one of my favorite) and Blue Bloods. Let my brain slow down.
So I show up at the hotel at 8:50 ant the gal at the desk says to me "Are you sure you have the right hotel?" I hold the Blackberry up to her with the high value and secure information that says the name of her hotel. I then pass on the "block of room" tidbit and she says, "Well, they are all gone." Nice, I am beat, speaking to a wench worthy young lady, and have been sabotaged by people I work with because they didn't care to think about what they were doing. Simply processing data at a computer. Next!
Well, I could go on but after I got to my hotel, things settled down to a normal pace... An hour or two of chilling then off to bed. With the wacky schedule I had myself doing this week I decided to sleep in on Saturday. I did this knowing I was going to have one long day on Sat if I wanted to just drive home on Sunday.
It did at that, sixteen hours at work, got back to the hotel at 2:00 am on Sunday morning. I did managed to get done what I had planned.
For now though, it is three weeks off. Ahhhhhh
Take car all... Doug

Happy New Year 2011

I hope all of you had a wonderful weekend enjoying the new years celebrations and all. Persoanlly I have been out of town and worked the 31st and 1st but new years celebrations have never been as important and Christmas with the family. I was able to enjoy a Mid-night kiss over the phone (don't go there!) with my wife.

When It Rains....

The other day I went into the office to cut some mat board for some framing I was going to do and I heard the tell tail sound of wet carpeting. That is not right, especially with a bunch of frames and photo boxes sitting on the floor. The next hour was spent extricating those boxes and frames form the office.

I also had about thirty pieces of mat board on the carpeting. I spent another twenty minutes severing an eight by fourteen inch corner off of each board that was wicking up the water quite nicely.

With that bad news It is not as bad as what I heard from a dude last night on a flight from Chicago to Denver. He had a large camera bag on his back but the real tell was the Gitzo tri-pod he had over his shoulder. He had spent the last month and a half touring and photographing Europe and on his last stop was in Berlin. He had all his gear locked in a locker and you guessed it. Gone! Fortunately he had insurance for the gear but the sad fact was the he had two 200 GB drives full of images that were gone also. All he had left was twenty gigs of CF cards to show for his trip. Now that is sad. He was using a Canon 5D Mk II and had it set up to burn his copywrite information into the image at capture. It's a stretch but hopefully he will see an image of his some day and be able to rack the perpetrators down.

Tomorrow I'll try to get some shots up from a family session I did a couple of weeks ago.

Take care... Doug

Being Thankful

I would be remiss if I did not send out a quick Thanksgiving post. Yes this rock we call earth has its problems but we have so much to be thankful for as the God of all creation chose us to make his best yet give us the choice to accept his grace or not.

Thank you Lord... Doug

Kodak Moment - For Real

This post is funny, sad, unbelievable, and audacious all at the same time. Of those adjectives I like audacious the best as it is defined as one showing an impudent lack of respect for another. Of this story that was the bottom line be it intentional or not. I look at it as a funny experience as I had no ulterior motive in my actions. Ok... With all the lead up to this Kodak Moment what in  the world am I talking about.

Sunday I wrapped up my shooting for our churches pictorial directory. One family came in with a disposable Kodak much like the one above. The dad asked if I wouldn't mind taking a picture of them when I was done. My first reaction was "no problem, I'll be glad to." Then I got to thinking, I was not selling the images I was taking for the directory as I considered them high end snap shots. I was not spending a proper amount of time with the "client"/subject for me to consider it professional portraiture. So this guy was looking to use the occasion to snag a family portrait on the cheap.

Here is a sample of the shots I was taking and no this was not the guy with the Kodak.

The setup went like this. The background was side-lit by a pair of Alien Bees B800's at 1/8th power through a 2x CTO gel. The main light was an Elenchrom RX600 set at f/5.6 flashing through a parabolic umbrella on the left side. From the right was another RX600 set at f/2.7 through a Rotalux 39" Mini-Octa softbox as a fill light. Light control was by my little stack of a PocketWizard MiniTT1 on the hot shoe to fire the B800 on the left side with a Plus II transceiver. Stacked on top of the TT1 was the Skyport controller for the Elenchrom's. Here is a picture of the transmitters but you can read the post right here.

The second B800 was triggered by its own built-in slave trigger. I had the RX600 set-up to slave flash also in case I had a problem with the wireless. So back to the story...

I took my two or three shots (I told you it was a high end snap shot) and then grabbed the little Kodak disposable. With the click of the shutter, a pop of the little flash on the camera and all four of my mono-lights popped in all their blinding glory. Hope the dude is not expecting miracles because if he is lucky it will look at best like the one below.

A little over exposed I would presume if not completely white. Guess he will not be looking to benefit from someone else's hard work and investment of time and equipment.

Like I said, I found it to be funny and I thoroughly enjoyed doing the shooting for the church. People are funny though. But thats what makes people different.

Take care... Doug

A second New Life... It's A Blogs Life

If Coke can do it, so can we here. The new Coke was a definite flop in the soft drink industry. So what did they do about it? Back up one step, rebrand what they knew worked and called it Coke Classic. Well this is not that drastic, but it does represent a step in a direction that we ultimately decided was not working as well as what we had previously set up here in Blogger. 

The decision to return to Blogger over our in home site was made for a couple of reasons;

1. Editing the blog is available from where ever I can get online.
2. I can post from my smart phone if necessary.
3. You can comment directly on the blog
4. The Blogger software is web/blog centric while ours was not the primary function of the software.

Ok, so now you know why we have returned. I will be transferring the posts form our other site to blogger as represented by their dates of entry. This should happen over the next couple of weeks.

So let's see where we can go with this.

Take care... Doug

Independence

My post today will be correct but not necessarily politically correct. The words above have been chosen for a specific reason. First let me provide some definitions; 

Independence

...free from outside control; not depending on another's authority.

Self-Rule

...government of a country by its own people.

Separation

...the division of something into constituent or distinct elements.

Freedom

...absence of subjection to foreign domination or despotic government. 

[despotic is defined as a ruler or other
person who holds absolute power.]

or,

...the power of self-determination attributed to the will; the quality of being independent of fate or necessity.

Liberty

...the state of being free within society from oppressive restrictions imposed by authority on one's way of life, behavior, or political views.

All the above definitions are what we as a country are supposed to be. What the framers of the early documents that we have protected over the years were inspired to produce in order to establish a more perfect union. A grand experiment that no other people on earth had seen or could have envisioned. The Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution, the Bill of Rights. The words on these documents represent the many years of fighting, suffering, painful sacrifice of great men of our heritage. Click on the titles if you would like to read these amazing documents.

It is shameful to see the todays rewriting of our history so that a movement can maintain a stronghold on a mass of people in order to perpetuate their own power. We the people have been dumbed down over the last 60-70 years that people from just a couple generations ago would look at where we are today in jaw dropping disbelief. Shame on us!

We have a government who is out of control, is addicted to the cool aid of corruption that ultimate power brings. I am not talking republican vs democrat, liberal vs conservative. It is evident the drive of the current american politician is to get reelected. To the point they sacrifice the morals and values they claim put them in office. They have no compass guiding them other than that of power and control.

This is going to be a real depressing thought... I don’t think we have the internal fortitude as a people to take our country back.

Ouch!

Fortunately I do not place my trust in a bunch of power hungry individuals in Washington or our state legislatures for they do not control the destiny of our humanity. That responsibility rests squarely on the shoulders of an awesome God. If I did not know Jesus Christ as my savior and seek Him, it could be really depressing to reflect on what has transpired over the last forty years.

With that I will close this post by saying that I will have a spectacular independence day and will celebrate it with family and friends. A celebration of remembering those that have gone before me to provide the freedom and liberty I am blessed to have in these United States. At least for now.

Have a great 4th and I’ll see you next week... Doug

415

Sorry for the non-photo blog posting here but 

I just got to get this off my chest.

No... 415 is not a hotel room anymore than 911 is an emergency number. They both are in fact though very significant days of the year. While the events of 911 far exceed tax day, tax day comes every year and hopefully we will never experience a 911 event in our country again.

Here is a question. What do the following five items have in common?

• Cracker Jack
• Lincoln Highway (US-30)
• Crossword Puzzle
• Assembly Line
• 16th Amendment

They all happened in 1913 and they all remain to this day. Cracker Jack still has the toy in the box (ok they are really lame now), Lincoln Highway still runs from New York to San Francisco, there is a crossword puzzle in laterally every newspaper in the country, and all mass-production is done on an assembly line. So what is with the 16th amendment. Well it too remains in existence to the disapproval of the majority of americans. It was the year that "We the people" gave our government the authority and power to take what is ours and do with it what they, our elected officials want to.

February 3, 1913
16th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States

"The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration."

Not many words, but words that would grow over time. Not in the actual amendment, but in what has become one of the most convoluted, misunderstood, complex pieces of documentation in the history of man. The U.S. Tax Code. In 2005 the Tax Foundation reported the size of the tax code had reached 9,097,000 words. That is 303,233 words per each of the words in the amendment. Hello? The bible only has like 775,000 words or so and that has works for thousands of years. Not just about money but all of life at that. That brings me to a sidebar thought. The bulk of the tax code demonstrates the ineptness of man to take care of itself while the much slimmer Bible demonstrates the wisdom of an omniscience God  to provide us with the tool and roadmap to life.


Here is the 1040 for from 1913. It looks as confusing for 1913 than as ours does now. When will the madness end? Click here for a closer look at the form.

Yes there was taxation well before 1913. It was used back in the 1860's to pay for the Civil War. But really now. It does not take a mental giant to see the ridiculousness of spending from Washington, the willy-nilly programs that are authorized to spend OUR hard earned income. They don't even have the cahones to try and raise taxes but rather quietly increase our deficit spending limits. If I tried that it would not be too long before I was in jail. What gives them the right?

I'm not sure I could come up with the a right answer but the road we are on is not the right one.

Again my apologies for the non-photo centric blog post. Take care... Doug

Photo-Econ 101

What impact is the "big box" studios having on the single photographer, boutique and mainstream studio in this current economic environment? Well... I'm no economist but I can make my opinion known (it is my blog after all). I am not going to sit here and point fingers and blast was has happened but just to point out what I think is occurring.

Back in the day, Olan Mills was the place where you had your annual pictures take. There was the wall of backdrops, herding of the subjects, and kids that didn't want to be there in the first place. Of course one of those wanting to become a photographic escapee was usually dad. The memory is not something that encouraged a return visit anytime soon. Generally the time spent on the return trip to "select" your photos was longer than the photo session. Why is this? To be brutally honest, I believe it is because these photo-factories are so bottom line driven (read productivity) the position being driven from the home office is taking pictures costs money and selling prints makes money. Period!

With the advent and relatively low cost of entry into the business, individual photography business have exploded over the past few years. Do I think this is wrong, not at all. What I think is needed within the entry photographer psyche is a desire for education, improvement in their shooting, and a move towards quality gear. I am not saying the goal is a $30K Hasselblad H4D-50 but shooting a Rebel XTi for five years speaks volumes of where you want to take your photography. Believe me, I am not slamming a start-up photographer but do think about where you wan to be in five years.

So now we have the big-box studios and the entry photographer. These two services are really going after the same market. That of a photographic commodity, the lowest cost wins. So how does this impact the boutique and traditional or mainstream studio. I don't think the impact is as some may think. The economy probably has had a larger impact than anything else. Some people may have shifted to the big-box studio while some of their customers have stopped purchasing all together.

If you spend some time looking at pricing for the big-box vs. the larger mainstream studio, you will find the pricing structure is not all that far apart. The question still remains, how to make a living as a small studio photographer. The Econ 101 model of supply and demand does not work here, and why is that? When I took that Econ course in college back in... Well, I'll leave that alone. Anyhow, I never heard the word "emotion" during any of those lectures. Back in the 80's the word service entered the corporate culture from a marketing standpoint. Business found that people wanted good and fast service inexpensively. That was the new competitive edge. From a photographic commodity standpoint, this philosophy remains today.

The edge today is experience, an "emotional" connection with an event. How did the client feel during the time spent engaging you for your services. It is the memory of that experience that will either draw or repel future customers. This is something the big-box and mainstream studios can not compete with. Sure they can treat people really nice during the 30-40 minutes the session lasts. How about sitting down over cookies, coffee, or milk and just relax and talk about school, the kids, or just life itself. This is relationship marketing at its core. It may not for everyone or every studio, but for the ones that it works for, things are going to be just fine.

Those are my thoughts. Take care and have a wonderful weekend.

Cya... Doug

What Nation are We?

Hey all, 

If you have been following the blog for any amount of time you know that I try to focus on photography. A couple of weeks ago a friend of ours gave us a DVD set to watch. Specifically the second DVD as it was a sermon set with Charles Stanley of the First Baptist Church of Atlanta GA. The speaker was David Burton is a well versed (pardon the pun) historian on our founding fathers.

If you have any interest what so ever about the history of our founding fathers that has been missing from our schools since the late 50's and early 60's, you will want to view these videos.

All in all they it comes to about 50 minutes but once you start viewing them is seems like 20. There are two ways to view the video. First is to view the entire video on the InTouch Ministries site [here] and click on November 2009 and select the video (to the right) of November 8th. It is titled Is America a Christian Nation; or you can view the youTube videos right her in order.

Video 1 (Skip to 1:50 to start with David Burton)

Video 2

Video 3

Video 4

Video 5

I certainly hope these videos were as enlightening to you as they were to me. Granted I am no historian but I really do not like the way history has a way of changing in the last 30-50 years. I don't know, maybe it's just me.

Anyhow, thanks for letting me use this space for a moment of photo-deviation.

Cya Tomorrow... Doug


P.S. I am told that my search engine ranking goes up when I link to my website so I will be adding the following to each post from now on. That is until I find out it doesn't help.


For more information of our photography, visit us at peekfoto.

Blogcation...

So am I in the Bloghouse for not giving advance notification of my little blogcation last week. Hope not! It was a nice break. Not that I don't like to blog, nothing has changed there, it is still a fun, and somewhat cathartic outlet for me. Hopefully my original purpose is still applicable. That of providing you a small insight into who I am, and what I might be to work with collaboratively in photography.

Anyhow the week off from the blog was well spent doing other things some of which I will bring to light in the days ahead, so stay tuned.

As for now, I must get on with the day.

Cya tomorrow... Doug

Happy 2010

Well there goes another decade. Wars, rumors of wars, famine, earthquakes, tsunami's, flooding... Wow it sounds biblical. It probably is but life still goes on. From Y2K, 911, hosing bubble burst, financial collapse... We are still here. Can we call it the digital decade with social marketing, cell phones, pda's, and information sharing. Who was the fastest growing, most influential company of the digital decade. A small company started by two guys while they were in college. It is Google.

So what are we going to call 2010-2020... The "Ten's" or will a name be created from a retrospective look. I am optimistic about our country, The United States has been like a ship that may have gaping holes in her hull taking on water, and she might have a slight list now an again, she always tends to right herself in the water. Why am I optimistic? We americans (as in U.S.) have the innate ability to rise to any occasion, to withstand tumultuous conditions with our heads raised high. Don't believe what you hear from the news, life will continue if you do not know what they are saying and probably better at that.

What ever your condition, raise your head and appreciate the freedoms, liberties, and rights that we continue to command in the United States.

Have a great 2010 all... Doug

Wired for... for What?

This image was take while waiting for a ride to the Fixed Base Operator in Fl Lauderdale Fl last Saturday. It was a nice sunny day yet if I were to turn 90 degrees to the left I would be looking and an ominously dark sky that was about to bust open with rain.

Anyhow, the structure for the waiting area drew my attention. These loose wires on the structure looked like they were waiting to be adjusted or to eventually support some kind of walk covering. Upon closer inspection, these are not cables, wires or anything like that. They are steel rod that are already set in place to make the structure look like it is not finished. This is South Florida I thought to myself. So now it must fall into the realm of art. Which is truly in the eye of the beholder.

I am up for a good day of grouting so we will cya tomorrow... Doug

GUILTY!

Hey all,

On Saturday I was sitting at the Atlanta airport waiting for my flight to Ft. Lauderdale FL. After going through security I was riding an escalator down to the terminal train and saw a little alcove that was at ramp level. Thinking it would make for some interesting images I rolled on over and proceeded to dig out my XTi and 28-135 lens that I just started taking with me on the road.

Airport ramp... DSLR smart or not so smart? It really does not matter but knowing what I know about the current DSLR threat (read hysteria) against the civilized world and the overall paranoid condition we have in this country around airports and anything public, it may not have been the best idea. Anyhow here are some of the pictures.

Just some simple industrial shots of an everyday event at hundreds of airports across the country. No subversive or covert intensions just interesting photography in the moment.

So here is the verdict, I did not get abducted or even approached by security but then I still have the rest of my life to answer for my activity. One thing this did bring home to me is that I have often taken a shot at the airport with my G9 but yet this time I felt oddly in the wrong yet totally within my rights to take a picture. (I do not know if ATL has some prohibition against photography).

It is really unfortunate that we even have these feelings. Kind of like when you are doing the speed limit and see a police car and automatically feel guilty until you look at your speedometer only to find out you were doing nothing wrong.

Take care… Doug

Here We Go Again

Every now and again the subject of "photoshopping" is used as a verb. Recently the French have looked into legislation to limit how much retouching can be done to an image. This is an effort to present some form of realism to young impressionable people that for some reason they have to look like the pictures in the magazines. A while back Dove made a video to show the transformation of a model into a billboard advertisement image. The start and end pints are vastly different. Here is the link if you wanted to see it again. What the video shows is that everyone has flaws or I like to say special characteristics, and that hair and makeup works wonders, it is the art director that determines how much alteration is made to an image.

Every pixel masher has to determine to what level of manipulation is acceptable in their own eyes. In the photo journalistic world these are predetermined by a set of ethics. Basically color correct and sharpen is about all that can be done to a journalists photo. Moving anywhere from journalism goes into the realm of art and artistic impression. More or less what the artist thought they saw or wants to see. The pallet is wide open.

As for where I draw the line of "enhancement", I hope the following example will help show you where I draw the line. Below is an image of Megan Fox, a young actress that seams to be the heartthrob of many young men. In the first image she has your basic street make-up that most all ladies apply before presenting themselves to the public.

If you were to enlarge the image above you would notice areas of interest on an otherwise attractive woman. Taking a look at the image below, I have highlighted three different types of issues with the image. First is the lighter circles highlighting spot blemishes. The second area sown in yellow are areas of complexion or secularity caused by light reflecting off of moisture of oils in the skin. The third area shown in red are areas of her facial structure that could be reworked without completely changing her identity.

There are really two categories that post-processing falls into. Retouching and alteration! One simply applies digital make-up that could have been covered or tones with physical make-up. The other is altering the shape of the face, neck, or body. Generally this crosses my line of digital conduct.

The image above is an example of retouching while the image below is an example of alteration. The eyes have been enlarged, the nose bump has been smoothed, the neck stretched, and finally the chin, mouth and lower part of the nose has been lowered to elongate her face to a more oval shape. If you did not have knowledge of,  or have the image above to reference, you would still identify the image as Megan Fox.

Frankly altering a persons likeness crosses a line for me. I can understand minor movement of a bump here and there but changing bone structure I don't get into. I like digital make-up but not digital plastic surgery. If we need to make someone's hips look smaller, we didn't do a very good job of posing.

As far as digitally altering reality, there was listening to a podcast on this topic the other day on an airline flight. One of the participants said that photographers have been altering reality since the first click of the shutter. How the camera is positioned, angle, background, the entire composition is a reality the photographer creates by use of organic elements. So there is some latitude in digital alteration, but I can become a slippery slope.

The old saying of "Is it real, or is it Memorex?" can be replaced in the digital era with "Is it real, or is it Photoshop?"

Take care all... Doug

Droid Boy

Before I get going this morning, I hope you all had a very nice Thanksgiving with the important people in your family. We sure did even though one of ours was not able to make it but we are looking forward to Christmas when we all will be together.

I have been waiting and waiting and waiting with no doubt  a million other Apple addicted tech geeks. Now that the contract between Apple and AT&T is complete, the iPhone will make its way to the other cell vendors. One rumor has the "other" phone being something other than a true iPhone, something of a hybrid. As a family we are pretty much locked into the Verizon plan of free V-to-V calling. Having one type of phone or another I was in MD over Thanksgiving and my son-in-law and I went to the Verizon store for a problem with his phone.

The phone I have for my flying job is a Blackberry Bold shown below. A couple of years ago I thought

I would get used to the extra $30 charge for the internet usage and went into a Blackberry contract with Verizon. The pearl (shown below looked like it would do the trick.

Yes it is small and sleek but I gotta tell you. The keyboard is not a good design. It is a cross between a traditional phone keypad and a full QWERTY keyboard and it just does not cut it. The screen ended up being too small and all of the Blackberry's do not browse very well. So my venture to find the Verizon comparable iPhone substitute continued. Enter the Blackberry Storm.

It looked like it would be surfing bliss... Ah, but not so fast. The first time I used one of these devices in the store I could not even get the links to work on my website. The dude at the store said that something or another had to be turned on. Ok... I got it. The Storm is kind of like the PC where the iPhone is... well, an Apple product... It just works!

But alas, Motorola comes up with the Android or Droid for short. This thing is sleek and sweet. The only things I am missing that the iPhone has is the pinch technology (although it does zoom quite well) and the connectivity with the Apple applications such as iCal and iTunes.

The really nice function that it does have over the iPhone is the tactile keyboard as well as a virtual keyboard. As new toys go, the coolness will wear off over time but I hope the functionality of this device will serve me well for the next couple of years. Will I venture over to the iPhone in when Verizon is available, I am not sure at this point. I am sure I will take a close look at it though.

Take care... Doug

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is a special time of the year, the fall colors are mostly gone, the bite of coolness in the air is giving us the indication that snow and winter is not too far away. Yet we enjoy the time of fellowship with our family members and the feast that is too often the cause of overindulgence.

But yet, we are most thankful for who has made this all possible, that being a loving God and creator. Without getting too preachy here, it is important to take some time other than grace at the table to reflect on where you are in your life and why you are there. What is your purpose and how are you living in a world that s hell bent on fighting God's love and generosity on a daily basis.

As I type this I am at my daughters hose in Maryland just prior to the setting of the feast. The image above is a simple center piece on the table that I took with a new device that I will share with you all on Monday. It is pretty cool though.

Take care all and have a wonderful day of thanksgiving!

Cya... Doug