Diary of a Network Geek

You all know I love me some photography, but I love me some creative Photoshopping even more!

So, now, for the few of you who haven’t seen this, there’s a website, Worth1000.com, that has regular contests, some of which are pretty cool.  I particularly like the Celebrity Vampires contest and the Final Photo contest series.  But, there are plenty of others to fill your Friday afternoon.

Oh, and if that’s not enough?  Take a look at the brilliant work of Ian Pool on IO9.com.  He’s done a whole series of super-heroes in their non-hero lives.  But, what’s cool about that is that he’s used a lot of action figures in super creative ways and, of course, Photoshopped them.

In any case, these are two sites that should dull the pain of having to work a full week at your boring jobs where no one appreciates you.
Happy Friday!

Uh, the title says it all.

Yeah, this is for all you digital SLR photographers out there. You know white balance can be a big thing. Especially when you’re doing a bunch of shots. So, any way to make it easier for your DSLR to auto-correct white balance is a good thing. Thanks to PhotoJoJo, you can get the white balance lens cap which helps you do just that.

Seriously, I first saw this in a DVD tutorial on lighting techniques at my RitzU classes and I thought it was the slickest thing since sliced bread, but I haven’t been able to find one. Now, that’s been solved. Yea!

Yes, stupid photography toys.

C’mon, it’s the perfect thing for a Friday; Tiltshift Maker.
For those of you not familiar, “tiltshift” pictures take normal, large settings and make them seem like little, tiny diaoramas. In fact, there are very expensive lenses designed to get this very effect. But, why spend the money on that, when this website will do it for free?

Anyway, it’s Friday and you certainly must deserve a little fun by now, so enjoy!

I’m so behind, I think I’m catching up to myself!

Thanksgiving fast approaches and my house is mostly clean. Now, by “mostly clean” I think it’s important to understand what I mean. I mean that I’ve vacuumed for the first time in two years. I mean, my bathroom is so clean that a woman might actually feel safe using it! Hey, what do you want from me? It’s been two years since I’ve been in a relationship and half that time I was in the hospital slow dancing with death, so, there really hasn’t been any point in having the place clean. Now, there is, so, well, it is. Well, mostly. My office still needs work and the bedroom can always use more cleaning and the upstairs… Well, the less said about the upstairs, the better right now.

The important thing, though, is that my kitchen is clean. And, just barely in time to start baking pies tonight. Yes, pies, as in plural. With so many people coming over after their main Thanksgiving plans, I figured a few extra pies can’t hurt. I might try to get to bed early, too. If the pies don’t take too long. See, I’ve been up until the wee hours for the past several nights in a row getting ready. So, I’m getting a little short on sleep. And, I still need to whip up a playlist for background music. After all, all the running around I did Sunday to get it and rip it won’t do me any good if I can’t get it playing!
Of course, I’ll probably end up staying up late again tonight then trying to catch a nap after I start the turkey in the morning. It just seems like I’ve totally under-estimated my time on just about everything this year. It’s just taken so much longer than I expected to get everything done. Witness the fact that this post is popping up here so late! I normally have Wednesday’s post queued up Tuesday evening before I go to bed, so this is amazingly late for me. It’s also why this post probably seems a little disjointed. Of course, that may be the lack of time and sleep, too.

Oh, and for those of you who love “food porn”, know that I’ll be taking pictures of people and food tomorrow. Naturally, I’ll post the pictures to my Flickr account, so keep an eye out if you’re interested. But, if you are going to be making your own “food porn” this holiday, here is a link to some Food Photography Tips and Techniques. Enjoy and have a happy and safe Thanksgiving!

Doing the 365 thing at Flickr?

Well, this might not be the only thing you use to make some of that happen, but according to this article at ReadWrite, Daily Mugshot might help. The article talks about a site that has a set of free tools that will help you take a daily picture of yourself, to track the continual change in your outward appearance.
I may do this, just to track the changes in my face this year as I try to loose that post-chemotherapy weight that I’ve gained.

The “inside” changes are all on you.