what erica, ben, and I had to drink the other night. drink of choice goes in order of names.

erica and ben with me at waffle house that morning.

lady with her absolutely fucking silent baby at waffle house with us.

"hey jay, check this shit out"

we had found the silent hill of georgia

9 minute development in xtol 1:1 (thanks to severin koller for his development times)

ben picked me up and we went driving around. stopped for gas.

both ben and i were dead tired. we tried to take naps whenever we could.

i wonder what idiot smokes in a gas station, right next to the pumps. last time i checked, gas is flammable.

ben and i went to chick-fil-a, once again taking naps whenever we could.

but i couldn't rest when there was a picture like this waiting to be made...

then we picked up erica, she still had a fever from her mono attack.

then we saw abe and his girlfriend walking by the gas station, so we gave them a ride home.

yours truly trying to explain how the m6 works to erica, she caught me off guard.

yeah, fml.

a nice package came. inside was a nice gift from a nice swedish person.

went to hang out with ben and erica. these are the resulting images

Erica found a plastic bag, and did what only she would think of doing with it.

then i took it from her

ben was concocting something.

watching movies

fin

went to the mall to check if it worked right and to get used to rf focusing/metering. here's some resulting images:

my father (indiana jones) shooting me a bird, fun times. the people around must have thought we were insane... holding a gray-card to make sure the meter worked correctly, and shooting pictures of random shit. mall cops told me to stop shooting in the mall, as it was private property. he told me to go outside in the parking lot, which is still the same private property... i think he was just pissy because i tried to be stealthy and take their picture without asking. well, needless to say, it didn't stop me from shooting.

this kid who graduated a few years back came up and was like "hello". apparently he knew me and sat with me back in the day at the lunch table. i believe he told me his name was josh or something.

carlos, a good friend of mine, found me. apparently a lot of people from kell were at the mall that day. carlos posed for a picture with my new "ballin'" camera. carlos loves him some pictures of himself. he should be at a party in bum-fuck eqypt right now if all went well with his life.

matthew tam, a kid still in high school (kell), also found me. we had world history together. cool dude.

i liked the juxtapozition of this photo. quite happy that i was able to capture it.

took a plane ride there, was quite nice being in the air again for the first time in god knows how long. it was very pretty up there. very serene. calming.

had a pretty girl sitting behind me on the way there. :)

ben and sloane walking behind me and erica. we had just left the hotel we stayed at. it's a long fucking walk from the metro to our hotel, which was a bummer. but hey, at least we got some exercise! :)

on our way to the metro. that last shot is 1/13th i think. i had first thought that i shook, but look at those ropes on the left of the frame, perfect! people move quite a lot in D.C. i guess...

1/2th, f/3.5, iso 1600

we had a funny name for our stop, which is how we remembered where to get off at... foggy bottom. hahahaha

we took a trip to bummer-town, was weird, so we left quickly

erica taking a nap on the metro. we'd all been up for 14 hours or so at this point.

the white house, big deal.

ben trying to nap on the lawn outside of the lincoln memorial

courtney taking pictures of the group on the lawn. i had the biggest crush on her back then, confessed it, she wanted us to be just friends, blah blah blah, and we're still great friends. best friends if you will. though i still have some feelings for her... she'd probably kill me if she knew i posted this picture!

what got me through that day, some good ol' american mcdonalds coca-cola from the air and space museum.

oh, and i'm just waiting on the lens to come for this beauty:

it's somewhere in isc new york, new york. should arrive either tomorrow or saturday...

later y'all.

ben being facinated by the fish, "whatt?!" is the expression on his face

taking a picture, wish I got the flash...

erica getting back from taking the "anti-kid" pills

erica jumping into bed with me and ben, we're all exausted...

ben and erica posing. I swear ben's head never changes from picture to picture...

so I did no-shave-november, here are the results:

that's before

the aftermath (lots on the floor too)

and after, before trimming of the neck and fixing some shit.

pretty much it for pictures. the 35mm I ordered (see "new stuff") arrived in New York, New York on the 6th according to USPS tracking systems. Anyone care to explain why it took the US Postal Service 4 days to update where my shit is? I expect the 35 either tomorrow or early friday. Shit, the m6 only took 2 days from being sent to get here IL. It's been 4 days since the 35 arrived in NY.

Great job USPS for being in the past.

quite happy as the m6 has already arrived, but the 35 is still somewhere in fucking sweden right now. dunno why it's taken almost 4 days since it departed from sweden. it only takes 11 or so hours to go from sweden to the u.s.

i can't think that customs takes more than 72 hours to check a fucking box with a metal/glass thing inside of it.

so i don't even know if the body works properly. yeah.

twitter has become more fun recently, so yippie.

later y'all, i'll have some scans and shit up when stuff arrives.

Looking back on it, I can't believe a year has passed me by so quickly. I find myself listening to In Rainbows more than any other album, vinyl, ep, or digital download I own. I still remember the morning of which In Rainbows was released. Me and a friend of mine (Mark Jacob) were sitting playing Valve's Portal and I had just downloaded the album, of course being the devout Radiohead fan that I am, I payed 15 £ for the album. In a way, I payed them for the version of OK Computer I have (notice I don't say own) and for In Rainbows.

I put the first song on, titled 15 Step. The opening to this song was the most incredible thing I had heard at the time. It fit with Portal perfectly, and I found myself moving around like Thom during Idioteque's drum break. It was incredible, quite a moving experiance.

Anyways, I recently purchased a book entitled IV by Chuck Klosterman. In this book, there is a section where he interviews Radiohead. I found this part one of my favorites throughout the book. It talked very breifly about how Thom writes his lyrics. I've looked around quite a bit, and In Rainbows is so immesially deep that I'll never be able to understand it in its entirety even if I was given a thousand life times to do so.

Upon listening to the song "Reckoner", which is apparently the kick track (title track) for the whole album. The lyrics go something like this:

Reckoner
You can't take it with you
Dancing for your pleasure

You are not to blame for
Bittersweet distracter
Dare not speak it's name
Dedicated to all you
All human beings

Because we separate like
Ripples on a blank shore
(In Rainbows)
Because we separate like
Ripples on a blank shore
(In Rainbows)

Reckoner
Take me with you
Dedicated to all you
All human beings

Anyways, I found this explanation on the internet:

"In Rainbows is 42m 34s, or 2554 seconds long. 2554/1.618 is the 1578th or so second of the album, which is 2m49s into Reckoner, precisely when the strings come in with the album title."

It's amazing that this holds true. I was blown away for a minute.

Also, a fellow with a masters in literary had this to say:

"Reckoner keeps reminding me of a line from the opening of Book II from Goethe’s Faust, “Life is not light but the refracted color.” The meaning is that life is not pure but mixed, like rainbows. Radiohead’s album title, “In Rainbows,” and this song from which it comes, suggest there are deals made, and reckonings to be made by the life we live and these deals mean we live multiple lives, not a singular or pure one. Thus, as the song, Reckoner, says, “Because we separate like/ripples on a blank shore.” That is to say, we fragment and in the fragmentation make and are “in rainbows.” We are clothed and bathed in the colors of life. This is the exit door from the moral dilemmas that would condemn us to hell for the choices we make, the inflexible codes that demand we live an impossibly pure life. It is redemption and is similar to the redemption of Faust at the end of the story, at least in Goethe’s version. Interestingly, the song preceding this one is currently called “Faust Arp.” This further leads me to think it was intended. And Mephistopheles, shows up in, “Videotape,” which interestingly enough is a song about a kind of redemption. The album has the vague structure, to me, of the Faust story."

It's amazing that a year later I can listen to an album and have a completely different point of view of it; and for it to have a completely different meaning to me.

"I had a chance recently to hold and shoot with both the D3 and the D700.

While the differences for the pictures is practically non-existent, the feel between the two and the speed is different.

The D3 just feels better in my hand than the d700 and grip which is slightly taller. I used the 14-24 and 24-70 on both and with the d700, because it was lighter it didn't feel quite balanced to me. It was very lens heavy, and I prefer the body being as heavy if not heavier than the lens. The D3 felt perfect (though heavy) in my hands.

Also, the shooting speed (FPS) is slightly higher on the D3 and I would be using it for sports/photojournalism obviously. With the ability to go to 11 FPS in cropped mode is quite nice, because we both know that if you need the speed, the crop isn't going to be that devastating.

I'll look into it more though. It might be nice to carry two d700s with different ranges of lenses on them rather than a single d3."

Nikon D3 (Body Only): $4,999.99
Nikon 14-24mm f/2.8 ED AF Lens: $1,539.95
Nikon 24-70mm f/2.8G ED AF Lens: $1,549.95

Total to upgrade Nikon body and lenses: $8,089.89
Total to upgrade Nikon body and lenses excluding 14-24mm: $6,539.94

Cost to switch to Canon and have same lenses as current setup: $7,910.89

Difference of cost between Nikon Upgrade vs. Canon Switch : $1,370.95

Gains for Nikon upgrade vs. Canon switch:

• Better camera build.
  ⁃ Pro camera body as opposed to a high end prosumer camera (5D Mk II):
  ⁃ Bigger, brighter viewfinder.
  ⁃ More AF Points
  ⁃ Allows individual lens compensation for front/back focusing lenses.
• Higher quality images.
  ⁃ Both full-frame, but D3 offers more options than 5D Mk II
• Able to use 85mm f/1.4.
  ⁃ Keeps cost lower than the Canon Switch
  ⁃ Only if keeping the same lens setup.
• Far better high ISO performance compared to the 5D Mk II.
  ⁃ Images at ISO 25,600 look like the 5D Mk II's 6400.
  ⁃ D3 has incredible ISO performance, making large aperture lenses unnecessary.
• Better in camera image control options.
  ⁃ B&W Filters
  ⁃ Up the contrast, sharpness, color saturation, filter color, tinting, etc.
  ⁃ Active D Lighting available.
  ⁃ Camera (when shooting raw) will decrease the exposure of bright areas (like the sky) if you didn't expose correctly for the whole frame, allowing for HDR like photographs requiring no editing to obtain correct exposure.
• Cost factor.
  ⁃ In order to keep the exactly same lens assortment, the Canon switch would cost $1,400 more than the Nikon upgrade.
  ⁃ This includes a 24-70mm f/2.8, 70-200mm f/2.8 lens, and a 85mm f/1.4 (Canon's equiv. is an 85mm f/1.2).
  ⁃ Forced to upgrade wide angle on D3 Upgrade (DX Lenses do not work in full frame). This is included in the price of the upgrade.
  ⁃ The extra $1,400 could be spent on the Nikon 14-24mm f/2.8 Lens or two SB-900 Flashguns.
  ⁃ Great, fast, sharp lens.
  ⁃ Newest flashgun by Nikon. Greatly praised.
• Knowledgeable of the Nikon Menu System and Camera Operations
  ⁃ Would have to learn how to use the 5D Mk II.

Gains for Canon switch vs. Nikon upgrade:

• 1080p movie recording.
  ⁃ Able to use lenses in canon setup.
• Lighter camera body.
  ⁃ Made using lighter parts and does not contain as much protective shock padding as the D3.
• More lenses available for Canon.
  ⁃ L Lenses include various tilt-shift and larger aperture lenses.
  ⁃ IE: 24mm f/1.4 whereas Nikon's fastest is a 24mm f/2.8.
  ⁃ (Counteracted by D3's ISO Performance.)
• CPS (Canon Professional Services).
  ⁃ Better customer care when owning numerous L quality glass and a high end body.
  ⁃ Never needed customer care with Nikon.
  ⁃ Take good care of equipment.