Candid Woman

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Tammy is camera shy. The lighting was a soft, dim, restaurant stew . Which meant cranking up the IS to 1600 and grabbing the shot with the lens zoomed to max. A problem with quarter frame sensors is that they generally make it hard to narrow the depth of field and consequently tossing the foreground and background distractions into soft focus is impossible.

So what to do with a wonderful image that's steeped in noise with a scatter of eye grabbing stuff littering the plane? Why Alien Skin's Bokeh of course. And PhotoShop's native lens flare filter to discipline the nasty light patterns. And, of course, a bunch of adjustment filters to wrestle the dynamic range away from a glaring tungsten cast toward a more intimate color temperature while holding onto the dark puddles of shadow.

Tammy's a photographer and graphic designer with a sensitive eye for detail. That's what I want to capture here. Not so much a photograph as a feeling about my friend. Wuddaya think.

Gas Savings - Guaranteed!

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Got this last Thursday. My home is quite near to my magazine offices. You've seen my Beetle. Question: with less than a two mile commute, why use the VW, especially during summer's sunny days? Well, because I am a big deal executive with meetings all over the region. Because we have different Business2Business Magazines in four large counties here in Pennsylvania. Because as a member of the media elite, I am invited to all the important, decision-making, hidden rooms filled with the people who make every important thing happen. And besides, the company limo and driver are at my call, so why even think of driving?

NOT!

In fact, most days are spent in front of a my office Mac with a headset talking and writing to folks all over the footprint which our publications cover. I am virtually everywhere yet actually stuck in my office. So... I got this guaranteed-to-get me more miles to the week device which just might also get me back into shape for the European trip we're planning in the Fall (they tell me that people actually walk in Europe - yikes!).
Pretty thing, huh? And so far.. terrific fun. I haven't had a working bike for about twenty years. Wind whipping through my hair - I feel ten years old again. Wheeeeee!

Suite Moments

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Deadlines day is, like, synonymous with the last minutes of an NBA game. There's a blast of frenzy you can smell. My space at the magazines is NOT a paperless office. Note that you cannot even see the monitor on my desktop Apple. Fact is, should any of this cargo shift, limbs could snap. It takes me the best part of the morning-after-deadline, to file, clean and repack the stuff each month that gets flung around in those last moments. It is simultaneously a way hot job... and a way cool way to make a living.
Careful where you tread in here, you could splash through a puddle of adrenalin. And that's a suite thing.