Archive for the 'Life' Category

Christmas Banquet

Christmas Banquet. People we­re tal­king about it sin­ce mid-​October, ma­king it out to be the big event of the se­mes­ter, which I sup­po­se it was, though I saw it from dif­fe­rent per­specti­ve: a photographer’s.

In ca­se you didn’t know, Christmas Banquet is a big din­ner that hap­pens at the end of November. The guys ask the gi­rls to be their da­te for it, of­ten with ela­bo­ra­te pro­po­sals. I was not one of them, sin­ce I didn’t ask anyo­ne, despi­te my friends con­stant houn­ding of me to ask so­meo­ne. But I didn’t re­lent. I was plan­ning to ta­ke pic­tu­res du­ring the event, so­mething would be ma­de much mo­re dif­fi­cult by ha­ving a da­te. During the who­le month of November, I had to en­d­u­re con­stant prod­ding by well me­a­ning friends to get a da­te, whi­le at the sa­me ti­me he­a­ring about the pe­op­le that ot­hers had asked.

They star­ted sel­ling tic­kets on Thursday, Friday, and Monday. And I ma­na­ged to miss it every sin­gle ti­me! I as­ked Mr. Bryan about what to do, and he ma­de ar­ran­ge­ments and I got a se­at! I as­ked him about which ca­me­ra I was get­ting and was de­lig­h­ted to he­ar that I would be get­ting their top end stuff: a Nikon D300 with an 80-​200mm f /2.8 lens!

For Christmas Banquet, we’re ex­pected to we­ar a suit, which I had boug­ht be­fo­re school. I’ve ne­ver worn a suit be­fo­re, and it was a bit un­com­for­ta­ble. But I lived 🙂

Along with the ca­me­ra, I al­so got a flash, which was pret­ty much a re­qui­re­ment for the low lig­ht (think ro­man­tic ca­me­ra lig­ht), and a mo­no­pod, which al­lo­wed me to shoot at 1/​40th of a se­cond and get a sharp picture.

Once I had gi­ven the ca­me­ra back to Mr. Bryan, I could sa­fely say that it was one of the most en­joy­a­ble pho­to­graphic ex­pe­rien­ces I’ve ever had. The sub­jects we­re in­te­res­ting both on sta­ge and off, I didn’t feel li­mi­ted with in­fe­ri­or equip­ment, and I got gre­at food to boot!

I took 414 pic­tu­res at the Banquet, so it mig­ht be so­meti­me be­fo­re I ac­tu­al­ly get so­me up he­re. I’m al­so wor­king on a re­de­sign of the si­te which will, at be­st (me­a­ning highly un­li­ke­ly), go li­ve be­fo­re the end of Christmas bre­ak. Here’s a teaser:

Tomarrow’s my birt­hday, so I’ll be fe­as­ting on ba­na­na bre­ad all evening!

Thankgiving Pictures

Yeah, so what if we had it on the 13th? Since I hadn’t pos­ted the­se yet, I fi­gu­red to­day would be as good as any to put them up. Taken with a D70 with a 18-​50mm f/2.8, the sa­me one I took the­se shots with.

Archery

New pho­tos on my ar­chey pre­sen­ta­ti­on for English up he­re.

Vieil Armand

Last Friday, our freshmen class went on a field trip to the WWI tren­ches on a hill in Haut-​Rhin, ne­ar whe­re my pa­rents li­ve. The we­at­her was hor­ri­ble. It was cold and rai­ny, and my socks we­re damp. Was pret­ty de­pres­sing. But, I got to bring al­ong one of the yearbook’s ca­me­ras; their old Nikon D1x with a 50mm f/1.8 pri­me on it. It re­al­ly sucks bat­te­ry li­fe and two of the three bat­te­ries that I broug­ht didn’t work, so I couldn’t shoot at the end of the trip. There we­re ti­mes when I wis­hed I had a lon­ger fo­cal length, but in ge­ne­ral, the pri­me sa­tis­fied my needs. I’ll get the pic­tu­res up in the gal­le­ry even­tu­al­ly. EDIT: They are now up.

Updates

More por­trait pho­tos in the gal­le­ry, and I’ve up­da­ted the About pa­ge that you can click to on the sidebar.

Creative Zen 4GB

Got my Creative Zen 4GB ye­ster­day. Unfortunately, we couldn’t buy a ni­ce pair of he­adp­ho­nes to go with them, so I’ll ha­ve to do that so­me ot­her time.

I’m qui­te ple­a­sed with it, un­li­ke the hor­ri­ble “iceTech KEO” play­er I had boug­ht and sub­se­quent­ly bric­ked with a firm­wa­re up­da­te. Their firm­wa­re up­da­te pa­ge is a jo­ke, tel­ling you to look at the boxes for a sub­t­le dif­fe­ren­ce be­t­ween two very si­mi­lar mo­dels. I cho­se the wrong one (or both we­re wrong) and wound up with so­me et­ched si­li­con in a plas­tic case. 

Fortunately, my Zen ca­me with the la­test firm­wa­re pre­lo­a­ded, so I didn’t ha­ve to run the (much lo­wer risk) of bricking my it. It ca­me with a ton of pre­lo­a­ded con­tent, in­clu­ding a half do­zen au­di­o­book ex­cerpts from Audible​.com (one of it’s much flaun­ted capabilities).

Highly re­com­men­ded.

Now, if on­ly I could get tho­se he­adp­ho­nes