dj whitebread
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
It has been too long...
I can't believe I've gone over a month without posting. I still blame Twitter.
I promised people a graduation post. So let's go back in time a few months...
Graduation weekend was bizarre for me. Mainly because I had already graduated. Technically, at least. I had the diploma. I even had a big party. I was officially a Dr. But here I was having a weekend of festivities to commemorate the fact. All very strange.
My parents came in town, which is always nice. We had a nice supper on Friday night after the departmental hooding ceremony. About that... very nice job by the department. Really classy and intimate event. It was nice to see my advisor Harrick. He came into the country and the timing all worked out.
Back to the meal. We went to Zoot, which has moved out onto Bee Caves out west. The food was still exceptional. My parents seemed to enjoy it as well, so it was a good pick.
Late that night my cousin David and son Ryan made it to Austin. After a little bit of chatting, we all headed to sleep. Saturday was the big Doctoral convocation for the entire Graduate School. It is amazing how many people get some type of doctoral degree in a year here at UT. It was impressive in its grandeur. Nathalie, Harry, and I all sat together so we had a good time. Afterwards, we had some people over for a pool party, but a random rain storm cut that short. (Note this is one of the few times it has rained all summer.)
Saturday night we enjoyed some Rudy's and good times. Always consistently delicious. Sunday David and Ryan headed back to Baton Rouge, and my parents followed suit early Monday morning.
The weekend was a lot of fun, and it was nice to have that last little bit of finality to my graduate career. I am always excited to get to pull out the regalia. :)
Since then we've had an active summer. June was my photography experiment. July just flew by. The heat has been brutal. We've had almost 50 days of 100+ temperatures. I cannot wait until this heat breaks. As I mentioned earlier, we've had practically no rain (which following an extremely dry spring is a very bad thing). The claim is we're supposed to have a wet Fall, so we'll see.
On the exercise front, I've been decently consistent. Not a high volume, but consistently getting on the bike like once a week and throwing in some running, yoga, and swimming for good measure. Running has unfortunately been causing me some unpleasant pains, so I am sure there is a visit to the PT in my future.
More has been going on than I can write in this one post. I am going to leave it here, with the hopes of being more consistent. I'll close it off with some pictures of my two beautiful goddaughters:
Labels: exercise, goddaughters, graduation, it's really hot here, photography, please rain
9:57 PM |
Wednesday, July 01, 2009
It's July...
So my photography experiment is over. I managed to pull it off. Sometimes it was a little rough (for example, the picture of the HEB), but I did it nonetheless. I think I did learn a lot... not much that I can put into words, per se, but I just got more comfortable with the camera. Got a better feeling for things. A lot of the settings are just automatic to me now. I don't have to think about some of the things anymore. All of this mainly comes from the repetition. Now, there are still many, many things that I still think about. And many, many things that I don't have a feel for yet. I've really just scratched the surface of this art form.
Though, I think I'm further along than I was a month ago. And really, that was the goal.
I'm going to give it a few days and then pick my top 5 from the entire month. Stay tuned.
Labels: JiBaW, photography
12:48 PM |
Tuesday, June 02, 2009
An experiment
Inspired by a a post on The Online Photographer I decided to try out a variation of his suggestion. No, I'm not going to go blow $1k on a Leica, and I'm not shooting film. But what I am doing is only using my 35mm prime lens, and I'm only shooting in B&W for the month of June. So let's set up the rules of my little experiment.
- Only shoot in B&W. His point about only considering luminance I found really interesting. I've already take some shots that I think look fantastic in color, but I'm sticking by the rules.
- I'm leaving off the flash and only using my 35mm prime lens. It's fast, it's light weight, and I want to freeze as many variables as possible.
- As long as the date says June, I'm carrying the camera with me. Campus, going out to eat, whatever. It's coming with me. (Okay, there are a few exceptions, but these are rare and specific.)
- Pick at most 10 each day that I want to share. I may pick just 1, but I'm determined to find 1 that I like, and I will force myself to pare it down to 10 at the most.
- Each week I'll pick the 10 best for the week, and then the 10 best for the month.
That's really it. We'll see how it goes. You can of course follow my progress on my photostream on Flickr. Here are my favorites from day 1 and day 2, respectively. I actually like day 2 in general more than day 1.
Labels: JiBaW, photography
9:19 PM |
