Boiling Point

This isn't really a legit post. I just wanted to share this. It's stuff like this that really gets my blood boiling: http://bit.ly/c65Gak

Success Story of the Day

This boy's mother ordered some wallets of this picture. She asked me when ordering if I could take out the current background and replace it with a white background. I told her that I couldn't make her any promises but that I'd be more than happy to try and see what happens.

So I worked on it for a little while and tried various gradient background to try and make it look somewhat realistic, and it was looking ok, but not good enough. I then eventually came up with the idea of photographing the background and put that in behind the boy.

(I used the dog as a focus point)

After getting the colors to match and doing some blending, I made it work and I think the mother will be very pleased with the end result.

Delicious and Piping Hot in Three Microwave Minutes!!!

I've been pretty busy at work over the past month trying to juggle dance pictures (over 300 orders for just one school, and there's two schools to do) and senior orders. I'm basically doing the job of two people right now. I'm not really complaining though, I just have a lot going on right now.

The more that I've been working on these dance pictures, the stronger my desire has become to get a new laptop. It's always been in the back of my mind, more of an admiration, like "Those are really nice, I want one but don't need one," sort of thinking. Well now I need one. With the bigger file sizes that my camera produces and the new software that's come out recently, I definitely need a new one. At the present time it just takes a really long time to edit an image; it'll take anywhere from 5 second to a minute to load an image and then I'll make an adjustment and it'll take a while for it to take effect. It's really quite annoying. I can completely forget about using Aperture 3 because it's just too slow on this thing, so I can't take advantage of its new features. Photoshop CS5, which recently came out, is pretty fantastic, but I can't take full advantage of some of the new features because I'll get a window that says there's not enough memory to complete the task. I've had this thing for a good 5 years now. It's pretty much time to upgrade now.

I usually get the "You don't need a new laptop" face from Bethany whenever I mention my desire for a new laptop, and a year ago, I really didn't. But now, I really do.

Lola Freaks Out Some Geese

Test

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> Test post from my phone.

Opening Day!

Today is one of my favourite days of the year: the Detroit Tigers home opener. The only day, in my opinion, that's better is the first day of the regular baseball season. It's pretty fantastic though when both Opening Day and the Tigers home opener fall on the same day. Not this year though. So I'm sitting here at Bethany's apartment watching the game while she's off to Chicago, because I don't have cable yet. The photo above was taken last year, by the way.

I made somewhat of an impulse buy a couple days ago. I purchased a Wescott Collapsable Umbrella Light Kit. It's something I've been eyeballing for quite a while though, however, not as a kit though because until a few days ago, I didn't know these items were available as a kit. The best part is that I got it for $50 off! What a deal! And you can't beat free shipping. The only down side is that it's currently on back order. But I'm fine with that since I'm in no rush to get it.

Another item I've recently purchased is this hotshoe adapter from Flash Zebra so I can have my speedlite off of my camera. Now, the Canon 7D has a wireless flash transmitter, which I've used, and it's pretty great... sometimes. It doesn't work that well in bright daylight though, because the camera communicates with the camera via IR frequencies. Having a direct connection from camera to flash will solve this problem. Also, another thing about the wireless feature with the 7D is that in order to use it, you have to have the built in pop-up flash up, and for some reason, with that up, the camera won't allow you to use a shutter speed faster than 1/60th of a second, Having the flash directly connected to the hotshoe will give me more flexibility with the shutter speed, which will be nice, allowing me to darken ambient light more if so desired.

There's some pretty exciting things happening April 12th. Adobe is going to be releasing Creative Suite 5. I'm pretty excited about it and can't wait to see all the new features it has to offer.

That's all for now. I'm going to finish watching the Tigers now. (They're currently winning!)

Go Tigers!

-David

Untitled (how original)

I was in Florida a couple weeks ago with my parents for our yearly trip to visit my grandpa. He celebrated his 90th birthday while down there. We threw a party for him. Lots of relatives: all for of his kids (my mom, Aunt Maureen, Uncle Bob and Uncle Tom) along with two of my cousins, Brian and Sean, and a friend of Grandpa's, Ginny. He had a pretty great time with all of us there.

The weather was pretty great for the most part, beautiful sunsets every night. There were a few days where the rain made it seem like there would be no sun, but each time it cleared up just in time.

My dad and I went out a couple of times to make some photographs. It was a lot of fun going out shooting with him.

I've been back home now for a couple of weeks. I'm real glad I didn't take my mom's suggestion on waiting to move into my apartment until after we got back from Florida. I wanted to be able to just get back and not have to worry about any moving. I'm really loving the apartment life. My bank account may not agree with me, but none-the-less, it's been pretty great. I still have no cable or internet yet though. It's no biggie yet though, just so long as I get it before the regular baseball season starts. I'm opting out on getting internet to save money. I can already do 80% of what I normally do on my iPhone, and there's internet here at work. So it would seem a little silly for me get it.

That's all for now. Go out and enjoy this nice weather!