April 27th, 2008

Looking to get back into modeling, Aisling came to me to help build her portfolio for the Miami lingerie market.

April 20th, 2008

Moving Past Analog Analogies

The first wave of development in digital photography was a struggle to replace film in quality and use. Now that it has, a new wave of development will push photography into new places and redefine still image creation. Digital Photography is about twenty years old; it’s acne is gone and its about time to move out of the family house, and become its own medium.

Photoshop has already begun this transition. Most features of Photoshop replace analog tools such as airbrushing and dodging and burning. Even seemingly new tools such as Unsharp Mask and Liquify have analog origins. But tools such as HDR move past the imaginings of the analog world into entirely new techniques possible only in a digital workflow. HDR is part of the new wave in photography with entirely new way of representing photographic vision.

Four attributes of digital photography have improved rapidly since the first mainstream professional digital cameras: resolution, ISO, burst-capture speed, and dynamic range (hereafter: DR). New workflows will arise from these technological advancements and each will bring complete virtualization closer. By virtualization I mean that a particular decision, now made at the time of capture will become part of the information contained in a raw file, able to be easily and accurately changed during post.

Some of these changes may not take place for decades, but some have already taken place. Exposure is virtualized in current high-end cameras. At the time of capture a photographer has to pick a certain exposure, but contained in the raw file is enough information that the exposure can manipulated during post without artifacts.

Drastically higher ISOs, burst speeds, and dynamic range will lead to the increased virtualization of photography which will shake the very foundations of still photography. If you thought the transition from film to digital was a game-changer you ain’t seen nothing yet

Read on for my thoughts on: virtualized shutter, virtualized aperture, virtualized camera position, virtualized lighting ratios, and virtualized subject matter

Read the rest of this entry »

April 20th, 2008

Olivia wanted to give a sexy, but modest present to her husband for his birthday. With her permission I am posting this visual excerpt.

April 2nd, 2008

Between work-life and home-life I have about fifty online accounts/usernames/passwords. I’ve finally created a system to manage my username and passwords which is fast and secure. What I’ve done is create an encrypted disk image with a single text file listing all of my passwords. If you’re on a mac, you can use the instructions below.

First though, two important notes:

First, for this disk image you’ll want to create an “uber password” which supersedes all of your current passwords. Even if you’re not normally careful with the types of passwords you use (my father often uses “password” as a password) you’ll want to be sure you use a secure password. If you use at least three letters, three symbols, and three numbers you can be pretty sure that any company/person capable of cracking your password probably has better things to do.

Second, this disk image will be completely secure when unmounted and completely unsecured when mounted. So make sure you use it accordingly; mount the DMG, add/remove/check a password and then unmount the volume. NEVER LEAVE THE VOLUME OPEN.

Now the step-by-step:

1) Go to Disk Utility

2) Click New Image

3) Enter your settings

A few notes on the settings:

Volume Name: do NOT use a name that includes “password”. That way if someone searches your computer for “password” this file will not come up.

Volume Size: I only use this to store a single text document, so I’ve selected 10 MB. But if you want to place other secure information make this volume as large as you ever think you’ll need to avoid having to recreate it.
4) Open KeyChain.
5) Select and Delete the password stored for your newly named disk image. Now you’ll be challenged for a password every time you open this disk image.
6) Open the disk image (i.e. double click the DMG file).
7) Open TextEdit and start a password list.
8) Save that password list to the Volume

9) Eject the volume.
If you’ve chosen a secure password then the Disk Image (DMG file) is completely secure. You can even email it to yourself (quick and easy backup) because the text file with passwords cannot be accessed without the master password.