better late than never

yes i know it's been what 5 months! but better late than never. in case you weren't sure - no Morey couldn't come but i put him there with this van morrison song

big sur

Morey and i spent several days in big sur a few weeks ago. we stayed in some cabins that had little kitchen and sat right on the river. we had a tiny deck off the kitchen and a skylight in the shower.
i brought my new toys with me and spent some time getting to know how the new anti lenses work. i had a zone plate and a keyhole optic for the lensbaby. these drop into the composer i've mentioned earlier. they are 50 mm focal length; Pinhole: f/177; Zone Plate f/19. these are TINY apertures. you can't see a thing in normal light when you look thru the lens! you must take long exposures. so i used the preview more than usual and took a million shots til i got an idea of what is going on. there is also a color shift because bright colors have higher (faster??) light waves so the light colors hit the capture sensor many more times than the darker colors. for example, it you were shooting a black and white subject the white would hit the sensor so many more times than the black that the white image spills over to the black and it looks ghost like. the color shit comes about when you have colors that tend to occur and certain frequencies, like yell0w tends to be fast and dark blue is very slow. but these colors make up most of the oranges and pinks and have an impact on green and magenta. skeptical? try it in photo shop. just try turning on and off the channels in a color image and see how surprised you are!
actually, i just messed with the channel mixer for several of these and while i'm right there's a color shift i may not be at all right about which way it's shifting!
so i'm still trying to decide if i like the images i captured!

back to work in baby steps

i have found it hard to get back to work both physically and emotionally. i still don't have quite enough energy and i feel like i really lost ground. not only ground but my camera equipment! yes when i moved back to berkeley i hit a snag - someone stole my camera backpack - which had every last thing in it because of the move. my insurance company found a way to only cover about half of the loss. not even the price of a new Rebel - let alone all the equipment lenses, gadgets, silk clothes, tripod, filters, battery charger, home current adapter and the backpack itself which was a really good one, lightweight with excellent padding and a perfect hip belt.
so even though that was about 6 months ago i have not even begun to make up the loss. economic times being what they are neither channuka nor my birthday were excuses for big spending so it's been slow.
i did get the new rebel and i got a lensbaby composer - thinking i'm still to weak for all the physical challenges of the squeeze box experience of the original lensbaby. and a small tripod. for my birthday my mom got me more new lensbaby equipment, so i have enough to get going again.
the tough work is submitting for shows and getting my stuff organized. both my digital files and my art equipment are a mess. ah well here's something i took a little bit ago it's looking straight down as usual, so i'm not sure if i should display it vertically or not.