The Brainwash Comedy Club

So Mahkayla and I headed off to The Brainwash this Friday night to watch some of the best local San Francisco comics out there. As much fun as I had this was my first time actually going to see live comedy and it was a blast. Of course there were some comics I wasn't too fond of because I either didn't share a similar experience with, or I never done drugs so when a whole act about drugs and drug experiences I don't find to be as funny but the event as a whole was very entertaining. I hope I can go every Thursday to the open mic nights and enjoy the area more as a whole.

I did shoot these images on the sx230, I was in the back of the club so the 14x optical zoom is one of my favorite features on this pocket sized powerhouse.

I am really tired right now and I am not sure where I am going with this blog post anymore but Mahkayla found a pretty awesome dog flyer that I am posting as well. I wish I could remember these comics names but I do have some of the acts on some short video.

Meanwhile down my street

 So apparently today there was a new years festival for the little Saigon district of San Francisco which is down the street from where I live. Mahkayla and I decided to visit it before I headed off to work and it was interesting to say the least. The first image I took was from my window. I am still impressed on the zoom on my sx230.  Beyond the mass amounts of people and delicious food.

So the entire street behind my house and the street Larkin which was near by house were closed off because of this event! It was huge, and the stage for the band was so loud it actually woke me up. I have no idea where this post is going anymore. I have lost track of what I was going to talk about and now I am going to eat some curry.

So soon the infrared tutorial-esk thing will be posted soon, hopefully before next week along with my continuation of the lensbaby project.

High Contrast Black and White

So one of my newer editing ways for black and white conversion deals with the channel mixer. Now using the channel mixer isn't a "new" way of doing black and white conversions by any means digitally but this is one of my favorite ways of doing the black and white conversions. With the channel mixer in monochrome and the RGB channels in their respective place shown in the screen shots. I like these particular numbers for this method for the higher contrast.


I do dodging and burning still like with all my other photographs.Which is why in the bird image there is the other layer as well. This stylized black and white I do use when there is a good amount of green, sometimes blues, but the numbers do change for the channels. Just move to taste really.

I guess this is less of a tutorial and more of a reference for the editing technique? So I guess there will be the infrared reference soon!

New Years with the Sx230

   So I decided to take my Canon Sx230 out for some low light testing with the annual fireworks display at the ferry building in San Francisco. Looking forward for the start of the new year here I figured it would be a good way to test my new camera and hang out with some of my friends. Now I knew the ferry building's fireworks were an annual thing, but I didn't realized how many people it pulled. It was like my first massive with out decent music and ravers. Over all it was a huge mess though, like any large public event.  The camera performed wonderfully in the low light circumstances considering it is just a point and shoot model. I try not to use the preset modes since I had manual but with the smaller body and having things like white balance and iso hidden from me in the menus I often forget about what iso and what white balance my camera settings are on. Often since I shoot indoors I will have it on tungsten and then when I go outside I won't notice the blue hue until later because of my slight color blindness.

Anyway this last year or so is the first year anniversary of my blog. I have been recording things I have been taking photos of for almost a year ( January 13th will be a full year). For the people who have actually read all of my stream of thought nonsense and look forward for my nonsensical ramblings about photography give yourself a pat on the back because I really have no idea what else I will put on this beyond cataloging my own growth. Which I think was the main idea anyway. I think 55 blog posts though out of the year was a pretty good indicator of what I was doing with everything. Forcing myself to sit down and thinking about what I have done has helped me as a photographer and to help keep me grounded. I know what I must accomplish and if I say something I better damn well do it!

 For other blog news, yes, I know, I haven't done the infrared tutorial and I haven't done any of the other photoshop tutorials I stated I would do. I have been working on a cool higher contrast black and white tutorial beyond the infrared, the issue is I can't figure out how to transcribe it on my blog with out sounding like a pretentious ass or mimicking someone else's tutorial style. So the two tutorials might take a while to get on but yes, I am working on them. Also there is a high chance that the next blog post will be about the toy camera function on the sx230 because I like toy cameras. I might do some comparisons to some of my older holga scans, but I am not sure how it will all work out yet. I would keep my eyes peeled, if I were you. There will be some great updates this year.

My Canon sx230

 Over the holiday season I acquired a canon powershot sx230, this nifty little camera has my favorite manual features like my 50D which is why instead of a horrible look of dismay I actually enjoy the small camera. For the people who don't know about it it has a 14x optical zoom from the 28mm lens. It also goes to ISO 3200 with an optical image stabilizer. It also has 1080p video all in one compact little body. This thing is great for taking out on the streets with out lugging my huge 50d around and the quality is stellar. The two images I brought along with this entry are taken from that camera.  Honestly I am impressed, the only thing I wish it did that it doesn't is high speed synch with it's flash but that shouldn't be expected out side of an external flash unit!

The camera also has a toy camera feature and a couple of other neat things on it that I will also make posts about examining them a bit further. The only huge downside is if I want to grab that underwater case that canon makes for it. Since that case is priced around 300 USD it might be quite some time before I take a camera underwater with me.  I might grab the case in the summer though if  the money and weather let me swim in the ocean.

Academy of Sciences

Well I went to the Academy of Sciences for the first time in Golden Gate Park and overall it was an enchanting experience. From the normal sciency stuff that I got to see and learn from the center I really enjoyed the aquarium. I am not sure why but they are always my favorite parts of zoo's and anything that has one really. There are a lot more images that might be posted in the near future but this was my little adventure on Christmas Eve. I have a couple of other things I need to post on the blog soon.

I have a couple of editing tutorials I need to finish. One that is very close to an Ansel Adams like contrast. The other is still the infrared tutorial, I did lose some of the images for my conversions but I might make some more of them. Anyways, Have a happy holiday season!

Photography Final

Well after a long week of printing, work, and league of legends, I have finally gotten to the press mounting part of my final. The photos are from the work in progress of what my final looks like. They were taken on my iPhone 4s, which I was kind of thinking about posting more images from my iPhone since it is basically a point and shoot camera. It all depends I guess on what images I take. It's been a hell of a week though and life with out a car kinda sucks for getting in cut may board around.

Well I present this final tomorrow and it took me a while to do all my mounting. For future reference it is easier to have the board that I mount on be about 1x1 inches smaller than the image. It helps for finals but not final products. Hopefully it gets a stellar grade but there are 3 images that didn't print as well as I hoped. Between all the junk going on in my life right now I am slowly becoming mentally drained as I begin to play more games now. Anyway I have almost kept this blog for a year now and wow. How a year has passed. I am still going to be posting and hopefully next year will be better and show even more improvements. I do want to go to some comedy clubs on the regular soon and start taking photos at them. Which would be pretty fun.