Live, learn, leave
We have a new neighbor. It’s a red-tailed hawk. I spotted him Saturday hanging out on a fence at the end of our block, eating a squirrel. He must have been pretty hungry cuz he let me get right up close to take some pictures. I saw him the again on Sunday, eating some other animal. This time I guess he was tired of me and flew off into a nearby tree.
Been busy with work and with back to school. Lizzy is taking double math this year, including early morning algebra – 7:30 A.M.! But most of all I’ve been busy finishing off my origami book deliverables for my publisher.
One of the big things to do was take all the pictures. I had been working on learning my new camera, but it’s a pretty steep learning curve. I know the basics of how to operate a camera and set up a the lighting for a scene, but I learned all that back in the days of real film, and my skills are a bit rusty. My friend Bob is a photography buff and I asked him for some guidance, and one thing led to another, and now he’s doing the photography for my book. And it’s coming out great! He’s got some really high-end lenses, and a studio with some pretty advanced lighting. But most of all, he’s got a good eye and knows how to use the stuff. Stuff I’d have to work out and look up, he’s just zip, bam, click! Bob’s’s using multiple remote triggered flashes, which gives a really intense light and lets him use a very short exposure and still get very sharp, detailed image. Great for bringing out the texture of the paper. I’ve always used continuous lighting and a tripod, and mostly shoot in macro mode, but Bob uses a deep zoom and steps way back, and just holds the camera.
We did two sessions, a test a couple weeks ago and a long session last weekend. We have most of the models covered, except a few group shots and the last few models that I’m still folding. It struck me that it was very similar to a recording studio situation in music. It’s great to have someone focused on capturing the best possible image (or sound) to leave me to worry about the models (or music). In the recording studio, it’s about the mic placement. In photography, it’s all about the lighting. The whole thing is very controlled – even fabricated – to make the image look even better than the real thing.
Bob was a great collaborator too, more analogous to a producer than a desk engineer. We explored lots of ideas for how to best present the models. Bob’s great at listening to my concepts and working to achieve them, and also bringing in creative ideas of his own. For each subject, it was a fresh setup: what kind of background, how to light it, what kind of angle to use. I already had some ideas about what would work for a particular subject. For example, for big subject like a moose or elephant, shoot down low so the animal looks big. For something small like a frog or butterfly, shoot downward so the model appears actual size. Bob just took the whole thing to the next level. He brought in things like rocks and driftwood to set the models on, and it made for some really great combinations of textures.
Here’s a sample:
Here are some pics from my recent trip upstate and my parents’ anniversary party. You can see the rest at:
http://zingman.com/fotooz/2012/2012-01/index.html
Please contact me if you require the password to access the photo gallery.
Finally a day to relax. Cold and rainy outside, but a good day to sleep in and catch up on some stuff. Jeannie and the girls were out a scouting event so I had the day to relax. I worked out and had a good long piano practice, and got to work on the some of the new songs I’m writing. Another thing I did was finish off my photo galleries from 2011. These are from our trip to D.C. and Delmarva at the end of last summer, and then thru the fall to the end of the year. One thing I noticed was missing was any pictures from the Cabaret show last November. Ah well, there’s video. Maybe we’ll post some of that sometime.
http://zingman.com/fotooz/index.php
http://zingman.com/fotooz/2011/2011-07/index.html
http://zingman.com/fotooz/2011/2011-08/index.html
http://zingman.com/fotooz/2011/2011-09/index.html
Here’s something to help kick those blues away and get you thinking about summer again. I published three new photo galleries from last July and August. The first two are from our trip to upstate New York and Ontario, with stops in Fort Niagara, Niagara Falls, Toronto, the Thousand Islands, and the Adirondack Mountains. The third includes pix from some camping trips as well as before-and-after pix from the hurricane that blew thru here. As always, the galleries are meant for family so if you need a password let me know.
http://zingman.com/fotooz/index.php
http://zingman.com/fotooz/2011/2011-04/index.html
http://zingman.com/fotooz/2011/2011-05/index.html
http://zingman.com/fotooz/2011/2011-06/index.html
My week off came and went and I got a bunch of stuff done, but not as much as I’d have liked. I did work on music and origami, and on reorganizing my studio. Finished my Walrus diagrams, started diagrams for my Elephant Seal, started recording a new song “Black Swan (Singularity)”, a heavy, sort of Steely-Crimso thing I wrote on the bass. Plus it was also a good week for hanging out and catching up with family and friends. We spent a day out on Long Island and another with Martin, and went on a fun, if brief, ski trip.
This week it was back to work, and a busy week at that. In addition I spent two evening is a row hanging in the city after work. The first was the Van Halen concert and the second was a surprise visit from my friend Larry. He’s a music teacher and was in town taking a group of kids to sing at Carnegie Hall, and we had time to meet up for some sushi. Larry had a brand new iPod with Siri, and I was very impressed when he asked it “Where is a sushi place around here?” and it returned a map with a bunch of locations. It’s like he beamed in from the future or something.
Anyway one of the things I started last week was updating my Fotoz site with galleries from the last year. I like to do this every winter, if not before, and winter’s almost over. Along with that I reorganized the gallery structure, a long-needed behind-the-scenes upgrade to my site. So here are some pics, taking us thru the end of June. As always, the galleries are meant for family and friends, and password protected. If you need a password let me know.
http://zingman.com/fotooz
http://zingman.com/fotooz/2011/2011-01
http://zingman.com/fotooz/2011/2011-02
http://zingman.com/fotooz/2011/2011-03
I updated my origami site with some of the pictures I took for my book. Also update the blurbs for a bunch of models.
http://zingman.com/origami/
http://zingman.com/origami/adk_ori.php
http://zingman.com/origami/ori_animals.php#loon
http://zingman.com/origami/ori_animals.php#octopi
http://zingman.com/origami/ori_things.php#balloon
http://zingman.com/origami/ori_things.php#canoe
http://zingman.com/origami/ori_things.php#adk_chair
I updated my origami site with some of the pictures I took for my book. Also update the blurbs for a bunch of models.
http://zingman.com/origami/
http://zingman.com/origami/adk_ori.php
http://zingman.com/origami/ori_animals.php#loon
http://zingman.com/origami/ori_animals.php#octopi
http://zingman.com/origami/ori_things.php#balloon
http://zingman.com/origami/ori_things.php#canoe
http://zingman.com/origami/ori_things.php#adk_chair
Just when we thought spring was on its way, this morning we had a late season snowstorm. We had about an inch of snow here, and I had to clean off my car and all, and then predictably the trains were a mess. So here’s the perfect thing to get you in the mood for the upcoming warm weather. I just finished updating my online photo galleries, bringing thing up to date thru the end of 2010. Lots of fun stuff in there, day trips and road trips and summer fun.
http://www.zingman.com/fotooz/2010-06
http://www.zingman.com/fotooz/2010-07
http://www.zingman.com/fotooz/2010-08
http://www.zingman.com/fotooz/2010-09
http://www.zingman.com/fotooz/2010-10
http://www.zingman.com/fotooz/2010-11
These galleries are meant for friends and family, and are password protected If you think you are friends and/or family, and need a password, please send me an email.
Another thing I did over the weekend was to take some pictures for my forthcoming origami ebook. I folded new versions of three 3 models. The Canoe and Adirondack Chair are of 8″ squares on Wyndstone still had leftover from other projects. The Octopus is from an 8.5″ square of elephant poo paper (really!) that I got at an auction a few OUSA conventions ago. It’s really soft and textural and great for that model.
I also did a layout for the cover, at various resolutions and levels of cropping. This image really pushes the limits of my camera, which is just a digital point-n-shoot with a macro mode, but has no interchangeable lenses or control over the f-stop and all that. With a better camera I could probably get a sharper picture, but this will do since it only has to display the size of an iPad screen.
