Ploafmaster General

This weekend was the Whiskerino 2009 Throwdown. We had home-made beer. There was a little break dancing. Bowling. Tacos. A gigantic party/concert/party to wrap it all up. And of course, there was meeting a host of guys that turned out to be as quirky, interesting, and fun as their photos implied. It helped, of course, that we all started from the same baseline of nerdiness for having jointly participated in this Internet beard growing event. None of it would have worked had there not been a pile of decent human beings willing to push awkwardness aside and go hang out with a bunch of near-strangers for a weekend. But Sunday morning, there were a lot fewer near-strangers and a lot more new friends.

There's only a week left until the whole Whiskerino is over, but this weekend will go down as one of the best I've ever experienced.

I finally have a wide angle lens! This is my new AF NIKKOR 24mm f/2.8D, and you can expect to see it in use for the remainder of Whiskerino and many shots beyond.

This is also one of my first experiments using some light-reflective material (in this case some heavyweight white paper) to provide some fill light.

Pumped!!

Oh man, something new is on the way. Something through which light passes. Something that has a wider field of view than I normally experience.

More info on Tuesday, hopefully.

I sure hope I don't haunt your dreams...

http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=9094931&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&color=0&fullscreen=1

FACE from ploafmaster on Vimeo.

I found this video absolutely fascinating. I'm a sucker for the junction of art and process, and this video highlights just such a situation that also happens to involve the making of good espresso. Here in Richmond, I've only experienced this level of care in coffee making at Ellwood's Coffee at the top of Carytown. The first time I ordered a cappuccino there last year, in fact, the barista scrapped the initial shot of espresso because she didn't like the way it was extracting. It took a little longer for my coffee, but the result was worth the wait.

http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=8709313&server=vimeo.com&show_title=0&show_byline=0&show_portrait=0&color=ffffff&fullscreen=1

Espresso, Intelligentsia from Department of the 4th Dimension on Vimeo.

(via simplebits)

Oh man. I hope he doesn't fade away from television or entertainment, or whatever. But I'm so glad to read Conan's statement (through the New York Times) regarding NBC's bone-headed move to shift the late night schedule around.

I'll watch Conan on any network, any time slot, and I respect his decision not to participate in the sinking of a great ship as executed by an aimless network with a management team that seams to be as creative as GM's design department.

Well the fun had to end some time.

Tomorrow I return to work after a nearly 2.5 week absence. I also start my second semester of business school. I'm not excited about going back to work at all, but truth be told I'm rather tentative about my first class of the week, too.

I'm trying very hard not to be cynical about things - after all, I was loathe to take an accounting class but ended up loving the course because of a fantastic teacher - but this is a bit different. It's a course on marketing. And one of our books is about "leveraging social media." Be still my lunch.

What I'm worried about is that we'll spend a significant amount of time hearing about how "social media" is a magical nebulous tool that all businesses must learn to harness lest they fall perilously behind their competition. I'm afraid my classmates will leave the course believing that they need a Facebook page or Twitter account for their entrepreneurial endeavors. I'm afraid it will be more Comcast than 37 Signals.

I'm afraid it will further contribute to the sour image many have about MBAs, especially in the web-centric side of the IT community.

But what do I know? This is likely just anxiety, and I hope to be terribly wrong. I hope if, unfortunately, my expectations are even halfway met, that I will see it as an opportunity to research sound material for classroom discussion. I'll start to get a better sense of this tomorrow evening, I suppose. Until then...

Less than a week until Contra releases, but until then you can hear the new hotness direct from the source:

http://beggarspromo.com/daas8972530fdfhwvampireweekend/vampireweekendalbum.swf

Christmas cards with bold colors that represent different aspects of the season? Yes please.

Check out the Pantone-inspired Christmas cards (and posters).
(via Curatedmag)

UPDATE: I was able to contact VCU and received a very quick and polite response. The image has been removed.

I guess you know you're doing something right when a university steals your original photograph and uses it on the front page of their athletic department's website.

Check out this screen shot of the Men's Basketball page paying particular attention to the smaller image at the bottom center:

[I've removed this image since VCU fixed the problem.]

Now take a look at this image on RVANews' Flickr account that I provided them from Saturday night's game:



Can't VCU find any photography students to take pictures for them? I'm not sure how to get in contact with the folks who make the website because there's no obvious webmaster link or contact page. I'd be happy to let them use it if they pay me. Barring that, I'd like them to take down my image.

I wonder how many other photos they've misappropriated?

Last night I was fortunate enough to be on the floor of the Stuart C. Siegal Center at VCU to photograph the Rams defeat the Richmond Spiders 65-57. There's a photo feature of my work up on RVA News.

Today, on Thanksgiving, I'm thankful that my wife's late father was into photography.

When I started dating the woman that is now my wife her father was already inaccessible, in the late stages of a rare disorder that would take him during our last year in college. I never really got to meet the man who would have been my father-in-law.

He did, however, leave behind a wealth of well-kept camera gear largely from the 1960s. My wife used his old 1967 Nikon F in college, and eventually gave it to me as my wedding present in 2004. She knew I was taking an interest in photography and taught me to use her father's camera.

Today, while digging around my mother-in-law's garage for a prop to use in tomorrow's photo, I stumbled upon a gold mine. An early 60's Mamiya C3 TLR medium format camera. It's in almost perfect shape, and included a pistol grip, mirror finder, hood, yellow filter, and UV filter. For this shot I put the mirror finder on in place of the waist-level finder and attached the hood and grip. Everything seems to work just fine, and I plan to run a test roll through when I get home on Sunday.

Happy Thanksgiving everybody!

Peep the new hotness from Vampire Weekend - "Cousins" off their upcoming album, Contra:

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1e0u11rgd9Q&hl=en_US&fs=1&rel=0&hd=1&w=560&h=340]

I really dig the video. It's a simple conceit - basically just back and forth on a dolly - but there's a lot of clever changes and some interesting editing at points. This album drops on the 12th of January, 2010.

Yesterday I had my first paying photography gig through RVANews photographing St. Joseph's Villa as they celebrated 175 years in operation. Check out the results!

Dress-up day for Whiskerino.

Just doing my civic duty.

John Gruber created a new site collecting statements/links about whether or not certain politicians are "afraid of the terrorists." That got me thinking about what might threaten the US of A...

Here's a simple question:

How is moving the trial of an Islamic terrorist to NYC more of a threat to America than the invasion of a nation under false pretenses?

It's so nice to see the sun again here in the River City.

Not my lucky day...

I think I feel compelled to make tacos with bacon shells at least once in my life...

A double-overdose of me.

I really need to get some new subject matter for my blog posts...this is turning into a dull Daniel show. But I can't help but post my Whiskerino progress here.

Soft focus on a softening beard.

One whole week of growth,
About seventeen to go.
Itch! I must stay strong!

Just woke up. It's a busy day, and not much time for creative photo-styles from me.

BUT...gonna go see Avenue Q at the Carpenter Theater today!