Photography - I've been tackling photo organization and editing methods and choices for some time. I paid a visit to Thomas at 44wide on Friday and his simple advice for photographers (of my ilk) - just shoot in raw and use Lightroom. So I'm seeing if Lightroom (version 4 beta now available at no cost), fits my needs. But it gets complicated quick, as my wife is a little more stubborn than me and wants to stay with Photoshop Elements and doesn't want to bother with raw image processing, so I may have a setup that looks something like:
- "art" photography (raw images) processed, organized and shared with Lightroom
- occasionally dropping into Photoshop (Elements) for edit tools that I'm a fan of, but are missing from Lightroom, e.g. high pass filter.
- Casual family shots, JPGs from non-DSLR cameras, iPhone shots etc processed, organized and shared with Photoshop Elements
- exporting some art photos from Lightroom to Elements (need to do some research on how to do this properly - with the goal to avoid multiple copies of images, but ok for raws to be in Lightroom and JPGs to be in Elements)
- Note that there's a nice Picasa (Google+) plug-in for Lightroom that could help with sharing those family shots or broadening my sharing to Google+.
Music - still trying to create a formula that defines the PJMixer music taste(s). I've always said certain music fits best with certain times of the days or energy levels. Simple examples are downbeat electronica late at night, mellow folk-rock in the mornings and dance music when you need to be energized (ultimate pre-game). But a element that keeps playing with my musical neurons is the sound of horns - love 'em in electronica (Thievery Corporation) right through rock (Rolling Stones) and those big doses in soul and of course jazz. Now adding an accented female vocal element starts to shape the PJMixer formula. Then the variances for mood and time come into play, heavy bass and groove rhythms (man I can never spell that word) for urban music and later pm time slots; acoustic instrumentation for more organic sounds for daylight hours. I need to spend more time in the lab, but the formula is coming along nicely. Playlist for the dog walk this morning included Bon Iver and Noah and the Whale.
Work - I was a quite a week, resigning on Monday and trying to handle logistics of wrapping up 7 years with my old company and transitioning into the new company, starting with a quick trip to California for some training starting Valentine's Day (sorry darling). I'll now be working from home, which is a first for me, but looking forward to a change. I'm excited about the move, new challenges and some great opportunity. More later on other channels (Linkedin).
Sports - great sports day planned. Manchester United play Chelsea in just about 15 minutes. If you haven't noticed, Fox have started showing EPL games live on Sundays - great bonus for footy fans who can't afford Sportsnet World / Setanta. I'm cheering for Man U (a rare occasion) as Arsenal try to bump Chelsea out of the top 4 for a Champions League spot. After that, I've got a 3pm ultimate game with a new masters team, which works out perfectly to get home for Super Bowl sunday festivities - chili, beer plus.
Thanks Kooper.
No comments:
Post a Comment