Thursday, December 31, 2009

Pet Peeve Of Thousands

To get you up to speed, Strobist is a blog that teaches using small flashes off camera.
Not "hot" lights (continuous lights), not stage lights, not the sun, not lightning, not the little pop-up flash cameras come with, not bigger flashes mounted on the hotshoe or a bracket, but flash units off-camera.
You can also use any or all of the above, too, but without at least one flash used intelligently a photo can't be an example of Strobistry

The Strobist blog is a huge presence on the web, generating well over 100,000 hits every day.
The Strobist Flickr Group is an integral part of the whole operation, and boasts over 60,000 members. It's how we all participate and share and discuss.

Naturally, with over 60,000 people in one group there are bound to be more than a few douchebags and morons. I don't envy the moderators one bit.
For example, one of the only rules of the group is that ALL photos posted to the pool have specific lighting details provided such as flash placement, modifiers, and how the lights were triggered--this is so we can learn from each other without having to shoot messages around or ask questions.

I think the only other rule is that all photos must use off-camera flash in some way.
This falls under the category of Duh!
But every few days you'll see something like the picture above.
This time it's stage lights (shot with a fucking iPhone at that!) but it's often lightning or the moon or some other light source that the jackoff is convinced deserves a pass because it's so freaking cool.
I specialize in using all kinds of interesting light sources, but unless one of them is flash I resist the urge to "share" with the Strobist group.
There are probably a hundred groups devoted to concert photos, and likely dozens for lightning or the moon, but these people insist on polluting the Strobist pool with innappropriate shit.
Reminds me of Bill Murray biting the Baby Ruth bar in CaddyShack.

Makes even more work for the mods and admins and pisses a huge number of members off, but it never ends.
You want to bitch them out, but on the other hand it's kind of fun to try and catch these dillholes before their turds get scooped out of the pool.
I'm tempted to make this an ongoing series--venting makes me feel better.

Then there's the title: Rock Star
Some obscure 22 year old twat who joined Simple Minds for the latest tour 3 months ago is definitely NOT a Rock Star.
And neither is the dude with the bad hair who wrote and sang their only hit song a bajillion years ago and is now riding a wave of nostalgia trying to squeeze a few more euros out of The Breakfast Club movie.

Remember Don't You Forget About Me?
Despite their plea, I was more than happy to forget about Simple Minds.

.

Monday, December 21, 2009

It's A WonderWoman Life

Christmas decorations can be full of surprises.
The people across the street used blue lights to fashion a Star of David on their house, but Wonder Woman™ here cracked me up.

Wednesday, December 09, 2009

Zzakk Goes On Vacation?

Actually, Sylvia went to Cancun and Cozumel and brought back some pictures for the garage, so I'm just getting a break from shooting content--I still have to do the rest of the work.
We've never been to LA so forgive us for finding this sign unusual.
A little scary and funny, too.

The combination of an ominous Mayan icon and a Christmas tree in the same photo struck us both as perfect for this site.

Great job, Syl!

Tuesday, December 01, 2009

Fun With Decimals

Every camera I own offers an aperture option of F5.6
I'm sure there's some gearhead out there who is convinced that an aperture of F5.5999999046326 is somehow better than F5.6, and I hope to never have a conversation with him.