street with the new camera

The first few weeks of the new camera where all about things that previously I couldn't shoot. Anything dark, anything moving, and pretty much anything at all once I got going. I shot 200 pictures of basically nothing the first day. I kept up that pace for at least a week. If I had somethign to shoot, it was even more. A lot of pictures. I'm beginning to come to grips with what that means. I'm going to have to blog a lot more. Maybe be a bit less cautious. Post with wild abandon. If you hate the picutes, there'll be another post along, shortly, to replace them at the top of the feed.

#rubykaraoke a while back

There's a traditon among my people, that is to say rubyists, and further, those in the n+1 friends circle of people who've worked for Engine Yard. It is, in short, to get shitty and sing ridiculous karaoke. It's a good time. PJ is often an instigator; but this time we also had Zach and Sarah, and Seemant came out for what seemed like the first time in a while. Oh, and of course Yerhot. Yes, this also means I'm almost three months behind on pictures, in a time when I've been shooting more than ever. So, I'm going to try to blog a bit more now... we'll see how that goes.

a session with Baxter or a camera test

Yeah, I know. A couple nice short posts, and then WHAM, a dozen pictures. These were taken with the rental camera, the tryout weekend. I got to Chris and Angela's house around 10am, we wer going to hang out, have a picnic and hike a bit. Sophie wasn't feeling well that morning, but I still wanted to go, and when I got there, they told me to please take as many pictures as I liked of Baxter, so I did. He's just turning one; at the time of the photos he would have been ten or eleven months at the time of the photos. We had a picnic at an old farmhouse, now run by the state park that owns this section of the coast. There were giant bushes with warrens under them, big old trees, a really good spot. Then, we walked along that coast for a bit. Our destination was a fern grotto on the beach. But first: beautiful windswept beaches where humans aren't allowed and birds rule. The birds would run forward as the waves receeded and pick at the sand, and then run back up the beach, away from the wave. Walking along cliff, all we could do was look down. When we got to the fern grotto, we rested and snacked while Baxter played with rocks, and then walked back, at which point I was fairly tired. I know this because the photos slow down somewhat. The camera test: As I've said already, I'm in love with this camera. The D750 is a really amazing tool. While walking back, I saw a bird flying the opposite direction, towards us. I was able to raise the camera, zoom, and get 3 in focus frames as it passed. It also meant I got the photo of the unicyclist on the cliff. That speed helped a lot when shooting the kid, too. Kids aren't bird-fast, but they do change constantly, and unlike adults, they're completely unpredictable. It was also nice to use focal lengths other than 50mm. I may have overused the wide angle end a bit, but it works for some of these.

back in the city

Came back to work for a few days, not many people around. In case you're wondering, I'm doing a ton of posts to get them out of the way, to try to catch up to at least last month.