What would you do with two extra seconds?

Before going out the door in the morning, do you ever think "Boy, I sure spend a lot of time tying my shoe laces. I could be doing so many other things right now!" Umm, OK. Me neither. But since most of us can't bear to wear velcro, there is another way. Check this video out on Rocketboom.com. (Quicktime player required)

Wedding photography for fun and profit?

Well, the wedding season is in full swing with the bridal hordes flocking to the altar in massive numbers. I've been privileged to attend a few weddings this year and I'm happy for all of my friends who tied the knot. It's indeed a joyful time. Now I've been experimenting with wedding photography this year and I've learned quite a few things. I felt I should share them with my regular readers (the both of you).

1. Being successful with a wedding shoot requires complete competance with photographic technique, equipment, and most of all, people skills. That means I'll never do wedding photography as a full time job, since I'm rather lacking in these skills - especially those involving fellow human beings. "Hey you, in the white dress! Move over there! Now smile, and look happy!"


2. You need to pick out a good location beforehand. For instance, Parliament Hill in 35 degree weather during a protest march is a good example of bad location. So is a park infested with mosquitos.


3. Poses are very important during formal shots. Watch out for wierd hand positioning and 'unbalanced' placement of subjects. Be careful to avoid situations where a tree in the background appears to stick out of the grooms head. Most of all, be very, very careful when the bride wears a strapless dress. They look very nice, but when the bride is posed behind a bush or a low wall, only the shoulders and head will be visible. This in turn makes it look like she's wearing nothing. Unless the bride is an exhibitionist, she won't be pleased.


4. Techie tip: If you're using a DSLR, shoot RAW. During the fast-pace of weddings, I guarantee that YOU WILL SCREW UP. There will be times that you will mess up the metering mode or the exposure compensation. Or you may have set the wrong ISO. Or even worse, you left your camera at the wrong white balance setting. In these cases, RAW can save your butt. It's hard to recover from these mistakes when shooting JPEG, especially white balance errors, but RAW allows you to easily correct these mistakes. RAW files are big, so you'll need lots of memory card capacity. Don't have 2 Gigs? Well, beg, steal or borrow more cards. You'll be glad you did.


5. Storing wedding photos on cheap CD-Rs is not a good idea. Wedding photos are supposed to be memories that last a lifetime. CD-Rs only last for 2-5 years. If there are any pictures you want to keep, PRINT THEM OUT. I don't mean on a photo printer either, but at your favourite film processing lab. Those prints will last for decades. CD-Rs won't.

This isn't an exhaustive list, but it's the best I can do at 12 midnight! Feel free to suggest more tips.

Fight AIDS and Malaria at home

Some of you may have heard of SETI@Home, a project that puts together the computing power of thousands of computer to help compute the signals from the SETI program. The SETI program (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) utilized the screensavers of thousands of computers to create a virtual super computer. This type of technology is now being used for some worthy humanitarian purposes. Sure beats looking for little green men! :)

World Community Grid
This is an effort by IBM to create the world's largest computing grid, and is used to design new HIV drugs based on molecular structure on the Fight AIDS@Home project. It has also been used to predict the shape of human proteins for the Human Proteome Project. I've been running this on my home computer for about a year.

Africa@Home
This is a new grid computing project aimed at humanitarian causes in Africa. It was just released to the public this week, and the first project is to tackle malaria. They are trying to involve African students and university to develop and run these projects. Using normal methods, it would take 40 years to complete the required calculations. With grid computing, this can be completed within a few months. I'll be installing this on my home computer shortly.

For those who are curious about using massive computing grids to solve humanitarian problems, I encourage you to take a look at these projects and participate.

[Great news: The World Community Grid is starting to tackle a cancer project too!]

Viva Portu... Oh, never mind.

After being pre-occupied with the World Cup throughout the past few weeks, I can actually go back to Real Lifetm . Much to my chagrin, my two teams, Portugal and England, were soundly eliminated. My hats off to Portugal on a successful run; they did much better than I expected. On the other hand, my jeers and boos to England for their lackluster performance and the poor behaviour of Rooney.

Now with that out of my system, next up, Euro 2008!

Perhaps I set my expectations too low...

Well, after running a Canada Day 5k, it's time to train some more. I really need to improve my running times. My time was 28:46 and I managed to beat my goal of running under 29 minutes. So you'd think I'd be satisfied.
Errr... perhaps I should have set my goals a bit higher. I realized this while being passed by a mom pushing a baby carriage. With twins. Oh yeah, and the fact that I was 24th out of 25 in the 30-39 age category was a pointed reminder that I've got a ways to go. Alright - time to hit the trails again and prepare for the September races!

All that Jazz

I'm back from attending the Montreal Jazz Festival. This is the third or forth time I've attended and I've always enjoyed it. I strongly recommend it, even if you're not all that familiar with jazz music. The breadth of styles is vast in Jazz, and Montreal does a fantastic job showcasing everything.

I managed to catch a Molly Johnson concert at Club Soda, and I was very impressed. I was introduced to her music not too long ago, and it was a real treat to see her live. For those who like female vocal Jazz, and who want to support Canadian talent, check out her CDs.

On Photography: Digital vs. Film

Those who know me will know I really enjoy photography. I was thinking that it's about time I wrote something about it in the blog. On top of that, I might as well tackle a subject that's been popular with photographers for the past few years... It's the argument of film vs. digital. Which is better? What constitutes 'real' photography? Are digital cameras killing the 'art of photography'?

I encountered this question a number of times, most recently in the forums yesterday at DPReview.com. But it's an old question. I remember when I first started photography 9 years ago, I took a black and white photography course. Digital cameras were just being introduced into the marketplace and many of my classmates, who have been hobbists for decades, were wary of this new technology. They didn't consider the product of digital cameras 'photography'. It was something else. Something inferior, even alien. This argument is still going on. Below is an exerpt from one of my forum entries on DPReview.com on this subject, and my arguments why this film vs. digital debate is pointless.

I still shoot B&W 35mm film, but I'd say most of my colour photographs are done on digital. The reason is that I find B&W printing on fiber paper far superior to monochrome ink jet prints. However, digital color blows away film color prints.

But to address your question, digital and film photography have way more in common than purists would like to admit. Regardless of method, it all comes down to capturing light. It doesn't matter whether it's stored on a piece of silver hailde or a CCD. It doesn't matter whether you're using a Canon 350 XT or a Pentax K1000 - It's pretty much the same.

This never-ending debate of film vs. digital rarely ever addresses the fact that photography is not only about the camera. It involves lighting; the quality of the light and the direction of the light are extremely important. And of course, there's the subject matter and composition. These all make up a 'photograph'. It's not all about the camera. The fact that one uses a digital camera doesn't preclude these other components of the image.

If you think about it, there's really nothing you can do in digital that you can't do in a darkroom. It's just that digital is much more convenient. Film purists claim that digital photography allows all sorts of editing, such as color correction and changing details in the image. However, people have been doing extensive image edits since the late 19th century. There's plenty of photos out there that were doctored on film. I've seen a few examples at the National Gallery of Canada where people were added and removed. These photographs that were taken in 1915. Editing photographs isn't anything new.

Now, since digital makes things easier, does it mean it's a 'lesser art' than film photography? No. It's different than film, but it's certainly not a lesser art. Because it's simpler doesn't mean it's dumbed down or not worthy of consideration. In the film days, people would either develop film by hand or in a lab. Developing a film in a lab is easier and more convenient. Does this mean that using lab-developed film is a lesser art than printing hand-processed film? No. And neither is digital photography.

Now I've seen all sort of arguments comparing film and digital, such as dynamic range, resolution, yadda, yadda, yadda. I think these technical aspects are besides the point. I think what matters is the end product, which is the image. And in order to create the image you want, you need to use the right tool to capture the image. If digital gets you the results you want, then it's the right tool. If film gets you the results you want, then THAT's the right tool.
Use what's right for the job.