Infrared Photography

This photo is a sample of Infrared Photography from LifePixel.   It is really a lovely summer day with a pond.  Click here for the series if you would like to see the original.

My favorite photography instructor, Susan Boecher, recently had an exhibit at Augsburg College in the The Gage Family Art Gallery titled “Full Faculty” and Susan displayed some infrared film photographs she took a while ago.  Since seeing the photos, I’ve been intrigued about infrared photography.  Today I found a site that will sell you an infrared filter with instructions on how to convert your camera.  Of course, when it is converted, it will no longer take “normal” photos unless you convert it back. So I put in a bid on eBay for a decent used digital camera.  Considering the conversion would be $200, I only bid $30 and quickly got outbid.  Not a big deal, but for all the infrared photos I’ve seen, they are pretty darn awesome.

In trying to decide my interest level in infrared, I did some research on infrared photography with my favorite photo blogger, Ken Rockwell.  Ken has good recommendations on just about anything related to photography and his blog is one of my favorite sites for information on photography (not the only one, but a good one nonetheless).  These are his images below.  He has a Nikon D50 converted to infrared though this photo is converted with Photoshop.  While it looks ok, I do see some differences – especially with the foliage.  Typically green foliage gives off a ton of infrared light and the foliage in the converted photo is not quite hot enough for true infrared (my opinion).  In a true photograph, those dark areas will be filled with detail (check out the series above – the dark areas of the color photo have sharp detail with an infrared camera).

 

Barack vs. Hillary

Hmmm, which to choose.  Quite some time ago, we heard Barack at the Target Center, and the day after we heard Hillary at Augsburg College.  The two of them were very different.  Barack had 20,000 attendees where Hillary had 20% of that (4,000 for you non-math folks).  Both rallies were stump speeches as well as motivational.  They were very different- Barack was motivational talking about the issues and encouraging people to stay connected because the tasks at hand are more than one man (or woman).  Hillary was more “I’m the best” type of motivation.

While just looking at the issues, both candidates look very similar, but believe me, they are quite different.  More on the two of them later.

Something really odd was that because of class, neither of us were able to caucus (Minnesota is a caucus state – boo).

Iron Man – Inventor, Businessman, Genius

Richard’s results:
You are Iron Man

Iron Man 80% Superman 60% Green Lantern 55% Spider-Man 45% Catwoman 45% Hulk 45% Batman 45% Supergirl 43% The Flash 40% Robin 28% Wonder Woman 23%

Inventor. Businessman. Genius.

Click here to take the Superhero Personality Test

Last Signs of Winter

 While walking home from the bus stop, I saw this ice sculpture next to our neighbors house.  It is always awesome to see ice cling to plants like this and is especially pretty.  A funny situation occurred while I stopped to take the photo, my neighbor caught me and asked if someone was writing in the snow.  I was not quite sure what she was talking about and did not seen any writing.  After further discussion, she mentioned someone had been writing words in the snow.  She is a wonderful neighbor though I did not ask what type of words or if the words were yellow.  I might ask the next time I see her.

Sequins Huh?

Do you know how difficult it is to find a good piece of sequins wall paper?  VERY EXTREMELY TROUBLING!  But alas, I was going to take a trip to the fabric store and make my own (illegal or not) but I did find something I liked.  And you know, along the way I found this fantastic photo of a sequined shoe.  Ouch, you would not catch me wearing these, but they are simply fantastic.

And really, sequence / sequins what is the difference.  LOTS!  Sequences are fun, exciting, but sequins are colorful and FABulous!  It is really a play on words that I’m sure you picked up.  Ross and I were brainstorming titles to the blog and we stumbled upon Fibonacci Sequins.  The tag line “Another Piece of Pi” does not show up on this theme, so look for that to show up sometime in the future. Ohh, and you know, this pink color clashes a little with the green.

It’s a Monday

Have you ever had one of those Mondays?  Of course you had.  Mine started this morning being very tired after having not slept very well.  The morning routine was pretty normal – slow.  I’m not the fastest mover in the morning, just ask Ross.  Well, I missed my first bus because I was looking at photos on Flickr (see the right side bar).  Anyway, I left this morning to take the bus by myself (normally Ross and I carpool in the morning but he was going in late after working all week).  The door at the bottom of the stairs closes quite hard and I pulled the door knob right off.

I stuck the knob into my lunch bag and kept going to work.  It was just that type of day all day long.

Happy Easter

Today we received about 1.5 inches of snow.  Happy Easter.

• Monday – 2 inches
• Tuesday – 2.5 inches
• Friday – 5 inches
• Saturday – 4 inches
• Sunday – 1 inch

Earlier in the week on Monday night we received close to 2 inches.  But of course it did not stop there, it continued to snow on Tuesday for another 2.5 inches.  I was home sick on Monday and Tuesday so I did not shovel.  We had pretty warm weather and all the snow melted pretty quickly.  Friday morning there was barely anything on the ground.  All day I’d look out from the 18th floor of our office building and there was snow with limited visibility.  Upon arriving home on Friday we had quite a bit and it was beautiful.  Saturday morning I used the snow blower until it ran out of gas and just in time.  I was doing the sidewalk down a house or two (after all our stuff was finished).  And wa-la instantly I was done!!

But today, more snow, and happy Easter – HE IS RISEN!!   There were NO crocus or tulips around to greet us on this festive day (even though it is spring already).  But in the snow were four snowpeople – here were my two favorite.  He has a snowhawk and she was well endowed.  Both of them were quite funny for along the boulevard.