i like photography. it’s something that i enjoy and it’s something that i feel i’m pretty good at. i also like it because even though taking a photo is something anyone can do, it’s how you go about doing it that makes the big difference. it’s just like web pages. anybody can make a web page, but that doesn’t mean that your web page is going to be any good.

one of the things that i see about photographers (and i’m guilty of this too) is that once they get into the big world of SLRs, there are so many choices, options, and toys to have. what kind of camera body do you get? what kind of lenses do you get? what kind of lighting equipment do you get? what kind of studio equipment do you get? what other accessories do you get?

it’s endless, really. my friend, john, got me into the world of canon. in the world of digital photography, i think that there are two big players out there: nikon and canon. i guess i was convinced to go the canon route because i had a friend who was already a canon user and so we could share equipment…well, that and because canon had the first affordable (and i use that term loosely) digital camera body.

so anyway, since then, i’ve bought lenses, flashes, more bodies, and more accessories. i’ve made a few purchases that i regret, but i’m happy for the most part.

but whenever someone starts talking about getting new camera equipment, my eyes open wide with the whole world of possibilities that lay ahead. i don’t know why i have this reputation that i tell people to buy things that are way out of their budget. just because *I* happen to have spent a lot of money on camera gear doesn’t mean that i expect everyone else to. in fact, i REALLY hate those stuck up snobs at san jose camera who look down on everyone who doesn’t buy the best of the best. stupid camera snobs.

but what sort of alarms me is when people think that if they buy all of this crazy camera equipment that they will instantly take great pictures. that simply is not the case. it’s like the little boy who can’t shoot a basketball if his life depended on it who goes and buys all of the latest jerseys and shoes that his idols use because he thinks that if he gets all this stuff, he’ll be able to play like them. what happens, of course, is that he just looks really good at playing really bad.

but anyway, with camera gear, i’ve seen too many people spend too much money on things that they don’t appreciate or can’t use. or they will look down on other people who don’t have the best gear. i think it’s easy for lesser experienced people to believe that just because they don’t have the best gear that their pictures will suffer as a result. and that’s simply not true. just because you don’t have the best pictures doesn’t mean that you can’t take great pictures.

i once challenged a friend of mine (though he never took me up on it) to go out on some photo shoot and we’ll go and take pictures and compare the pictures. to make things fair, i said that i would even switch cameras with him so that he would have my crazy big camera and i’d have his point and shoot digital and i told him that i believe that i could still take good pictures with it.

it’s true that a nicer camera will give you better optically quality. it’s true that a nicer camera will give you better color reproduction, but i think that a good picture is one that is composed well and for that the camera doesn’t really matter.

usually i believe that it is the mark of an inexperienced photographer when they blame their equipment instead of them. maybe they are expecting too much from their equipment. maybe there are workarounds to it. that’s the nice thing about photography is that there are so many possibilities. but i think that some people blame their equipment much too soon for the fault of the pictures that come out of it. they think that they’ve outgrown their equipment when they really haven’t…they just haven’t grown.

just because you have all the toys in the world doesn’t mean that you’ll be the best at what you do.

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if i don’t get enough sleep i get rather irritable. this morning, there was a special meeting that required my attendance at 9AM. this may not seem like a big deal, except for the fact that for me to be able to make a 9AM meeting means that i would have to leave my apartment at 7AM due to traffic. this means that i would have to wake up no later than 6:30AM to get to the meeting on time. 6:30AM. that’s 2 hours earlier than i usually wake up on a good day.

when i’m tired, i’m also more prone to be irritable and less patient than i usually am. of course, this translates to potentially being pissed off at the world for the day.

i long for when this day ends…it started very painfully.

i did, however, make rice krispy treats last night. after seeing [url=http://www.daydreamy.com]gg’s treats[/url] i knew i had to make some of my own.

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i went to this club/lounge last night in sunnyvale. i can’t remember the name of it, but it was across the way from the forum. anyway, there was no cover for the place, but this organization was accepting donations to support the fight against cancer. sounds noble enought, right?

but the girl who explained what the cause is about and collected donations was too busy smoking outside the club to collect donations, holding up the line. then she explained to us, with smoke heavy on her breath about the cause.

she said something very articulate about fighting cancer and raising money for this organization, but all i heard was something like:

yeah, uhhh…i’m collecting money for the fight against cancer because, you know, cancer is bad. but uhhh, i’m going to smoke this cigarette, because, damn, it’s just so good. i mean, i know that smoking can cause cancer and i know that it’s bad and all, but i’m going to do it, anyway. that’s my right. and furthermore i’m going to raise money for organizations that fight cancer, because who wouldn’t want to fight cancer? it’s a bad thing, yo. i know cancer’s bad, i want money to fight that bad, but i’m going to invite the potential for that bad in my life too, because well…it’s just so damn good.

…

yes, cancer is a bad thing. yes, smoking isn’t the only cause of cancer. yes, i believe that there should be a fight against cancer. but ask me for donations for the fight against cancer when you so openly invite that risk into your life and it just seems wildly hypocritical to me. it inspires this anger from me because though you are doing a good thing, you are doing a bad thing for yourself…and it’s sad.

did it seem a little hypocritical that there was a crowd of organizers and/or their friends smoking outside? did it seems a little hypocritical that their smoke was wafting into the club forcing us to inhale their second hand smoke? all to help support an organization that fights cancer? just a little.

my aunt passed away after her fight with cancer. she did not smoke, nor did she live with anyone who did. she was a genuinely sweet woman and was one of the few adults that i grew up with who i felt i could talk to about anything. i believe that she had pancreatic cancer and in the past i’ve made donations to organziations like the american cancer society to aid in research to fight cancer. i believe in the cause. i believe that minimizing the suffering or abolishing the suffering through medical means is a worthy cause. she didn’t make a choice to put herself at higher risk than others. this just happened to her and i’m sorry that it did. i’m sorry that she had to go through so much suffering. it makes me sad and i wouldn’t want anyone to go through that.

now, maybe this makes me vengeful, but i believe that people should be responsible for their actions. if you are going to put yourself at risk, you should be prepared to accept the consequences of your actions. but don’t look to me to bail you out if you got yourself in a jam. you are your own person, you are fully capable of making your own decisions.

i didn’t make a contribution to the cause last night. it felt too much like bailing these people out. i don’t wish ill for them, i hope they all lead healthy, fruitful lives. and though i support the greater cause, i don’t support the way that these organizers were going about it.

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i was told something today that was shocking. shocking mostly because i was told completely contradictory information from a source that i thought was pretty reliable. now i’m finding out from the source that the information that i was originally told was incorrect.

obviously someone is lying.

if it is penny, the person who gave me the seemingly incorrect information first, who is lying, it definitely paints an unflattering picture about the motivation they had for lying.

if it is kimmy, the person who i am tending to believe, who is lying, it seems like a very big lie to make.

either way, it doesn’t make sense. why would you lie when you can so easily get caught in this lie? how would that make you look? why would you risk your credibility that much?

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is it wrong for me to be upset to see someone use a space heater to keep their room warm AND have their window open so the cold winter air can come in?

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[url=http://www.photographyblog.com]photographyblog.com[/url] has a poll asking people if the canon eos 300d was the most important product of 2003. are you kidding me? ok, so sure, canon has released a more affordable digital SLR camera. that is the most important product of 2003? no way! perhaps it is the most affordable, but does it really break any new barriers?

aside from the price barrier, canon has done nothing but reinvent the canon 10D for cheap. big deal.

if i had to choose what the most important photography-related product of 2003 had to be, i would nominate canon’s DiGiC chip. that chip coupled with the 10D delivered some of the most impressive pictures from a digital camera i’ve seen since the D30 came out.

maybe i’m just biased because i love my 10D.

but really…the 300D? just because it’s cheap, it’s the most important? i would have to disagree.

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man, it’s POURING right now. i forgot to bring a heavy jacket with me so i have a very thin jacket with me that will be just thick enough to soak all the water from the rain. this is just great. it doesn’t look like there’s an end in sight, either. the wind is howling ferociously outside and there’s little i want to do except curl up and go to bed. unfortunately, i have to go run some errands tonight, so it looks like there will be no relief for me.

i haven’t seen it rain this hard in a long time. i used to love the rain when i was younger. i would get all bundled up and then i would go stomping around in the puddles. my affinity for the rain has diminshed since then, though.

this does, however, renew my interest in going rain hiking. it would be just my luck though that it would stop raining when i finally get the opportunity to do it. i would be interested in getting the waterproof kit for the s400, though. hmmm…perhaps soon.

the big thing i don’t like about the rain is driving in it. there are a lot of accidents out there and i don’t want to get caught in any of them. when the next big lull in the rain comes, i think i will make a dash to the car and head home.

anyway, on to the rant of the moment, i’m currently evaluating some software and it’s pretty funny because i’m looking at some of this code and there’s only so much one can do to protect your software when you are writing scripts. this one guy says “do not remove my logo or else my software won’t work”. now that’s a pretty cool idea so i checked how he does this. it turns out that the first thing is program does is check to see if his logo is there. i guess if you don’t know how to program, this might be a stumbling block, but if you know even the littlest bit, it’s easy to work around. it’s funny what software programmers will try to do.

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i’ve been feeling more and more stressed out lately. what’s odd about the stress i’m feeling is that it isn’t even stress related to me personally…but my every day environment has been getting more stressful and though i don’t get affected directly i still feel the heat of the stress and it’s beginning to cut in to my personal enjoyment of every day life.

my solution? i’ve decided to more selectively block out the things that have been casuing a more stressful environment for me. we’ll see how that goes.

on to other things, i got lots of good sleep this weekend. i think that the insomnia bug has finally run out its course. i was able to sleep quite well last night without incident. i am a happy camper.

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it’s the end of the year again and i am checking out the financials of my 401k. i probably don’t pay enough attention to its performance as i should, but it seems that i did reasonably well for the funds that i elected to invest in. i think the [url=http://old.journal.ocliw.com/2003/0530.php]last time i checked[/url] on my 401k, it was back in may! damn! well, it turns out that since the may check-in, things have been doing better, and i’m getting about a 10% return on investment. better than money in the bank, i guess.

i’m kind of upset because i went through great pains when i first set up the 401k stuff so that i’d contribute a very specific amount and it turns out that the math i did was wrong. i even had someone double check the math for me, but still…no dice. so i’m actually contributing more than i wanted to into the 401k this year. bummer. that could have been money that i could have played with…now locked away forever. grrrrr.

sometimes it’s amazing how rude some people can be and not really know it. it’s for those people that i sort of pity. it is one thing to be rude and realize that your rudeness is improper. it’s another to be rude and not know that you are being rude. not only does this offend other people, but you don’t have the opportunity to better yourself because you don’t realize that what you are doing is simply WRONG.

the other day, i was looking at something and somebody took what i was examining (with great interest, mind you) out of hands so that they could look at it. was i done looking at said object? nope. did i find it incredibly rude that they would just snatch it out of my hands? yup. did i do anything about it? nope. i was in so much shock that they would just snatch it out of my hands that i couldn’t say anything.

i looked around to see if anyone else had seen what had happened and to see if i was being unreasonable at being so shocked…but then my eyes locked on to someone else’s who had seen what had happened and there was this smirk on their face and a knowing nod. yes, indeed, this had happened, and i was justified in feeling the way i did.

i was pretty upset at the time, but now that i look back on it, i actually feel bad for the person. i mean, they don’t even know the bad they did…and well, that’s sad.

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