Category Archives: Photo Stuff

Various life musings

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I keep having really weird, really freaky dreams. The moment I wake up, I forget almost all of it, but I’m left with this sense of intense fear and anxiety and lay there for a few moments too scared to move. Not quite sure what that means.

My final projects for both photo classes are coming along. For alternate, I plan to print various photos of Ev, with Van Dyke, onto a roll of paper towels. It turned out rather well when I printed Ben to test (although I didn’t fix it for fear of absorbing all the fixer and wasting it), so we’ll see how it goes. For color, I’m doing a more documentary-style portraiture shoot of CS life… which is to say, I’m shooting like I always do, except with my film camera instead of my digital. Dylan seems to be pleased with the results thus far… kinda ironic that I’m putting less effort into this (just shooting as I always do instead of racking my brain trying to think of things to shoot or trying to organize shoots) but it’s working out better. I want to assemble a book for the final, but I’m not sure if I’ll have enough images to do so, and if I do, I’m not sure I’ll have enough time to do so.

We’ve recieved the final assignments in all classes, so it’s all downhill from here. I’m a little worried about the graphics lab and final algo homework, but I’m sure I’ll eventually get it done. These next two weeks are going to be intense… followed by an intense week of finals (4 finals in 3 days… ew), and then it’s off to home.

Normally I’m kinda relieved to be heading home, even though I prefer it here in Pittsburgh. This year, however, that “Eh, whatever, I’ll go home” is turning into an intense feeling of longing. I don’t want to leave, despite really wanting to see my parents.
Relatedly, things in relationship land are amazing and I still feel like the luckiest guy alive.

Most of you already know I’m planning on graduating in December 2007. However, I’m contemplating becoming part time for my Fall 2007 semester. After next semester, assuming I pass all my classes, I will have exactly one requirement left to graduate, and it’ll be a CS elective. I’m planning on taking Computational Photography and Operating Systems… but there’s not really much else I want to take. That comes out to 24 units, which is less than the 36 required to be full-time. It’d be cheaper to pay for the units, especially given that I wasn’t planning on living in campus housing anyway. It’d absolve me (read: my parents) from various CMU fees too…
I dunno. Mark says it’s a good idea if I don’t really have anything else I want to take. I’m not on any scholarships that require me to be fulltime. I suppose I should discuss this with my parents.

I’m horribly behind on internship searching. I have no offers and no prospects, and it’s almost December. Blah. I guess that’s what Christmas break is for.

No pictar because I’ve been shooting all film and don’t have any of it scanned yet.

Foo

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Working on a single program for over 12 hours in a 2.5 day span does bad things to you.
It’s not even the good kind of “up coding until 2 AM” where you’re so engrossed in coding that you look at the clock and are surprised that it’s so late. It’s the kind where you’re sitting there banging your head against the desk wishing it would work the way you wanted it to and wishing that you understood what the hell you were writing.
I now have about 60 points out of 100 on the lab… at the cost of my sanity.

Yesterday was bad. Was already incredibly frustrated from coding until 2 AM the previous night. Coded pretty much all day until 9, when I went to a party-thing at dlstern/cmartens/tcauchoi’s house in a pretty bad mood. There, felt generally ignored and antisocial, so I left after a few minutes. Decided I was hungry so I went to get a pizza… came home to eat it, and completely lost it. I don’t even know. I don’t think I’ve cried that hard in a long time… but meh, it was actually kinda nice being able to just let go and cry again.

Mars and Apphia are awesome. They were there for me last night, and I don’t know where I would have been without you guys. Thank you.
Thanks to Car and Tom for letting me piccar them today.
Also, Ev, thank you for today. It meant a lot to me that you were willing to drive all the way here just to see me for a couple hours.
I guess the moral of this story is I have amazing friends. And I’m feeling better now.

Tomorrow is likely to be bad again. Today, I just needed a break, and so ended up not doing any work all day (mental health vs. failing a couple homeworks… I’d rather fail the homeworks). However, tomorrow I will need to tackle everything I didn’t do this weekend… which is to say, I need to do work for every class including work more on graphics. This is going to be a horrible week, with the best part being the analysis exam on Friday. Whee!
Oh well.

Piccars… because I’m in a piccary mood.
Ben and his brother. Roxors.

There also existed CtFwS

Today there was Car and Tom photographing.


I should go to sleep so I can wake up for 8:30 class tomorrow. I got something like 3-4 hours of sleep last night because I was just stressed and foo. That’s not a good thing.

…
I still feel kinda broken :-\

Schedulewank

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I had an awesome day. Spending time with someone you really care about is always nice, especially if you only get a few hours a week together.
Yarrr.

As for classes next semester… I rather like this schedule.
15-437: Web Application Development
15-441: Computer Networks
21-484: Graph Theory
62-245: Portrait Photography
62-360: Photographers and Photography Since World War II
It’s only 51 units, but between Networks and Mackey’s Graph Theory, I expect to be very busy. Mark’s teaching Portrait Photography, which should be awesome because Mark is awesome, and Linda is teaching the photo history course, which should also work well.
We’ll see what (more different) Mark thinks about it on Friday.
After this, assuming I get and pass all these classes, I’ll basically have one more requirement left to graduate (with a double minor in photography and math), that being a single CS elective (which will almost definetly be Computational Photography in the fall).
Thoughts or suggestions on schedule foo?

I like this picture.

I spent about 2 hours in the darkroom today making gum bichromate prints. A lot of them are turning out rather nicely… I should scan some of them or something and post them.

Life is awesome.

Foo

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Last night I watched Saw. That movie is quite possibly the most horrible thing ever, not in the sense that it was gory or anything… but because it plays with your mind in horrible ways and makes you question your own life. Meh. Amazing film. I want to watch it again sometime… but this time with someone else :-P

Microsoft rejected me… again. Oh well. I should apply to Apple, Adobe, and Fog Creek… if I can find the time -_-

The best stuff from Thursday’s photo shoot is now posted in art. You should go see it.

Guess who’s an idiot?
You know how the flash sync speed on my Nikon is 1/125 because it’s a newer camera? I metered the shoot at 1/125, and then shot both the film and the digitals at 1/125.
…
Know how the sync speed on older cameras (read: my old Canon AE-1) is 1/60?
Yeeeeah.
I can salvage most of the film that I shot, fortunately, but I still feel like a dumbass. Heh. At least now I’ll never forget again. And, of course, I have all the beautiful digitals I shot, many of which will probably end up batched in photos (depending on how much homework I manage to get done this morning).

Happy birthday to Mark Stehlik (today)! Yesterday there was yummy Mark-shaped cake.

Grant also got these adorable chocolate kisses decorated as a ghost and a pumpkin.

I’m rather fond of these photos of Jordan…

I also like how this one is out of focus… it softens the image up a lot, which I think works with the shot, I dunno.

I’m feeling especially happy this morning, and I’m not quite sure why.
I think I just feel both accomplished and cared for… and I don’t think there’s much else in life better than the combination of the two.
Plus tonight I might get a certain someone… and that would be completely awesome :)

Piccaring

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Last night was a massive studio shooting session (went until almost 1 AM) that resulted in a bunch of interesting shots. Apparently, when you get eight half-naked people into the same room, strange things start happening….
I kinda like how you can see each person’s personality even in just this single shot. Wheee.

Rest assured that the best of the portraiture as well as the diptychs I shot (which came out amazingly, thanks to Jordan’s idea) will be posted in art before the day is through. I’m just tired and full of foo right now.

I just realized I didn’t eat anything yesterday besides a Starbucks iced tea and cookie, and a couple pumpkin cookies. Maybe I should fix this.
*wanders off to find sustinance*