Slope-shouldered goodness

I'm not lucky enough to have a John Walker guitar and this video isn't helping my GAS for one.

Photo of the week - November 20, 2012

At the Rodin Museum in Philadelphia. iPhone 5, processed with Snapseed.

Photo of the week - November 6, 2012

At Longwood Gardens. Fuji X-Pro1 with 60mm macro lens. Processed with Snapseed on an iPad.

What I'm GAS-ing for

"GAS" = Guitar Acquisition Syndrome

Everyone knows I like guitars; nice acoustic instruments are really my only vice. If a big pile of money fell into my lap, I'd buy the following in a heartbeat:

1. A late-40's to mid-50's Martin D-28. I know that I'll never be able to afford a pre-war D-28, but one from a few years later isn't totally out of the question. Someday.

2. A mid-to-late-30's Gibson L-00 or similar. Something ultra-light, oozing with mojo. Update: ended up with one of the first Waterloo WL-14X guitars available to the public in fall of 2014. How cool are these? And at half the cost of a vintage Gibson, the price is right!

3. A Bourgeois Slope-D, Fairbanks F-35, Santa Cruz Vintage Southerner, Walker Wise River, Collings CJ (new Mass. Street Music custom; update: what they call the "CJ35" now), and a vintage Gibson J-45 or J-50 (pre-1955). Not sure why I'm so into slope-shouldered guitars right now, but I want them. All. (note, a Kopp K-35 isn't on this list because I have one :-)

4. An early-30's Martin OM-18. Probably will never happen, so a newer OM-18GE might be as close as I get. But maybe a late-30's 00-18 or 0-18 could happen some day. Ditto on a pre-war 000-18 and contemporary 000-18 Authentic. A D-18 Authentic wouldn't be too bad either.

1953 D-28...Click to embiggen. Photo from vintage-instruments.com.

Photo of the week - October 30, 2012

At Longwood Gardens. Fuji X-Pro1 with 60mm macro lens. Processed with Snapseed on an iPad.

Photo of the week - October 23, 2012

Outside of the Barnes Foundation Museum in Philadelphia. iPhone 5, processed with Snapseed.

So much stuff

Now that that we've been in the new house for about a month and are getting settled (we're about 95% unpacked), I'm thinking about "stuff"...as in "how do we have so much" of it? Now, I don't think we have much more than couples similar to us. It all fit in one medium-sized truck and three guys moved everything out of our old place and into the new house in seven hours. In the grand scheme of things, we're probably about middle of the road in terms of how much baggage we're carrying around. It's ironic that this has been running around in my head given that our new house is huge and we don't have nearly enough stuff to fill it. But it got me thinking...How much stuff do I really need? After backpacking through Europe out of one bag for three weeks, I know I can survive on less than half of a truckload of possessions. So, what would be the keepers? 

1. My iPad. I could forego physical copies of my favorite magazines (e.g., Fretboard Journal) and books. It processes images pretty well (e.g., the Snapseed app). With a data connection and Skype it can make and receive phone calls. And you can take notes and write on it (in fact, I'm writing this on it!). I've got a desktop computer at work, so if push came to shove I'd choose my iPad over a laptop in my bag. And I'd choose it over my phone. 

1b. An Apple TV to hook to whatever display/speakers I have access to. Bouncing video and music from an iPad to the Apple TV (e.g., the Tour de France streaming app) is awesome.

2. A guitar. I have several nice ones to choose from, and all of them are "lifetime" quality instruments, so I'm sure I could be happy with any of them as my only instrument. Luckily, I don't have to pick which one would be the "chosen one," but if push came to shove today, I'd probably take my D-18. One guitar, one capo, and a handful of heavy picks and I'd be all set.

3. Music…Since I ripped all of my CDs, this isn't so much of an issue since I can take the files. But my choice of an iPad make this a bit harder, since there are too many songs to fit on the tablet and I'd be without a computer (i.e., can't store everything on a hard drive). I could cop out and say that I'd run iTunes with all of my music off my work machine. Or I could go the iTunes Match route (i.e., in the cloud), if I paired things down to 25k songs, which I'm sure I could do if you made me. Videos I can get from Netflix. (update: Spotify goes a long in helping with this.)

4. A camera with a handful of lenses. Something wide, a fast/normal lens, and a portrait/macro lens. Coincidentally, this sounds like the available Fuji X-Pro1 system. Or it could be a Nikon body with the Tokina 11-16, a Nikon 24mm prime (this would be a new purchase), a 50mm prime, and the Nikon 105mm micro. I'd probably take my Nikon FM3a, with a lens or two, since shooting and developing black and white film is still awesome. 

5. A Wustof 8" Classic chef's knife, a serrated knife, and a 4" pairing knife. A nice omelette pan (like one of our All-Clad stainless ones) and a Le Creuset Dutch oven (~5 qts.). And a single-burner portable induction cooktop. We've got one of these on our counter and it rocks.

6. My desk. It was hand-built built by a friend of mine along with two matching chairs. Simple, solid, and one of a kind.

7. My bike…A LeMond Poprad cyclocross model...steel-framed goodness (that they don't make anymore, unfortunately).

8. Dropbox. This isn't a physical thing that takes up space in a bag, but Dropbox has become a core element of my workflow. All my documents are in Dropbox, so they sync between computers and I can access them via my iPad.

9. A pair of flip-flops, a pair of hiking boots, and a pair of light/causal shoes. It's likely that two out of these three would be Chacos.

10. A couple of pairs of jeans, some long-sleeve Smartwool base-layers, a few t-shirts, and a hoodie. Simple and comfortable.

Things I could give up:  

• My Legos, I guess. I'm almost 40, so those don't seem essential.
• Most of my books and journals. See above comment on the iPad and also downloadable journal articles as PDFs.
• Electric guitars (and amps). When is the last time I plugged in?

Photo of the week - August 21, 2012

Giacometti's Walking Man II and Picasso's Nude Under a Pine Tree at the Art Institute of Chicago. Fuji X-Pro1 with 35mm lens. Processed with Snapseed on an iPad.

Photo of the week - August 14, 2012

Millennium Park, Chicago. Fuji X-Pro1 with 35mm lens. Processed with Snapseed on an iPad.

Photo of the week - August 7, 2012

Ruhpolding, Germany. Nikon 10.5mm fisheye @ f/13 on a Nikon D90. Processed with Snapseed on an iPad.

Moving!

The excuse I'll give for neglecting to post anything (other than vacation pictures) recently is that we've been busy packing up for our "big" move. I say big, not because of the distance (< 5 miles), or because of the novelty (we lived in the "new" building for 4 years when we first moved to PA), but because the new place is really, really big. Like twice the size of our current place. We don't need the additional square footage at all, but the new space is just so grand that it's hard to resist. And it's close to where all of our friends live and will be a great place to have people over. And it's a 10 second walk to a bagel shop and 2 minutes from a good breakfast (and lunch and dinner) place. Plus I'll be able to ride my bike to work.

Packing always sucks. We have too much stuff, although it's actually less than when we last moved...Since we got rid of all of our CDs a few years back, gave our old/huge tube TV away, and tossed out that old grad school futon, there's actually less for us (or more accurately, the moving guys) to move.

Photo of the week - July 31, 2012

Obersee Lake, Germany. Nikon 10.5mm fisheye @ f/9 on a Nikon D90. Processed
(very minimally...just a bit of cropping) with Snapseed on an iPad.

Photo of the week - July 24, 2012

St. Bartholomew's Church on Königsee Lake, Germany. Tokina 11-16mm @ 16mm f/5 on a Nikon D90. Processed with Snapseed on an iPad.

Photo of the week - July 17, 2012

Amsterdam. Nikon 50mm @ f/16, 1/20 sec., on a D90. Processed with Snapseed on an iPad

Bob Taylor on the future of (and our expectations for) ebony

Photo of the week - July 10, 2012

Positano, Italy. Nikon 18-105mm DX VR @105mm f/5.6, on a D90. Processed with Snapseed on an iPad.

Ron Galella @ Foam

Last month in Amstedam I visited the Foam Museum ("FOto AMsterdam"). It was definitely one of the highlights of my trip. When I was there they were showing Ron Galella's work. I didn't recognize the name, but had definitely seen some of the images. He's an agressive paparazzi photographer, most well known for his photographs of (and legal tanglings with) Jackie Onassis. But he also photographed many other celebrities, including musicians. Love him or hate him, you can't argue with the images. Here are two of my favorites:

My interview with Main Line Today

A couple of months ago I was interviewed by Main Line Today magazine (a local publication that caters to the 1% in the Philly 'burbs). In case anyone is interested, here's the interview (or download a PDF here). The photo they chose is not particularly good; I wonder if all of the shots from that session were equally unflattering.

Photo of the week - July 3, 2012

Naples, Italy. Nikon 18-105mm DX VR @ 105mm f/5.6, on a D90. Processed with Snapseed on an iPad.

Travel photography gear, recap

We’ve been back from Europe for almost a week, and I’ve had time to reflect on how my photography and computing gear performed. Before the trip I mused about the gear I was planning on bringing here and here.

Atlas at the Archeological Museum in Naples (50mm lens on a Nikon D90; click to embiggen).Across the three weeks I took more than 2200 photos (about 30GB). My 64GB iPad had enough storage for all the pictures, but that’s with a minimal amount of movies/music loaded (although a lot of apps). For a longer trip, storage would be a problem. My planned strategy of uploading photos from the iPad to Dropbox worked okay when there was a good internet connection, but took a long time (i.e., had to let it upload overnight). Given the limited internet access in some of the smaller hotels and B&Bs, it would be a problem if I had to rely on this. But overall I didn’t miss having a laptop at all. Traveling with the iPad is great.

Processing photos on the iPad was better than I expected (all of the the photos posted in my albums from this trip were done on the iPad). I used the Snapseed app for the majority of the editing, although iPhoto was useful for some touch-ups since Snapseed doesn’t have a clone tool. My only complaint about Snapseed is a minor gripe about the black and white conversion tool, compared to Silver Efex (both Snapseed and Silver Efex are made by Nik): the filters in Snapseed aren’t adjustable like they are in Silver Efex. They are either on or off, and can’t be tweaked. But other than that, I’m really happy with the quality of the edits from Snapseed. 

The view from Hohensalzburg Castle, Salzburg, Austria (Tokina 11-16mm on a Nikon D90; click to embiggen).

In terms of lenses, the Tokina 11-16mm was used a lot on my D90. Other than the distortion and proneness to flaring, this is a perfect lens for the sort of travel photography I do. My guess is that 50-65% of my best pictures from the trip were with this lens. The second most used lens, at least in Amsterdam, was the 50mm f/1.4, although I ended up not using it wide open that much. But it was a good length for photographing the cyclists and architectural details around the city. I really only used the 105mm micro at the Amsterdam Botanical Gardens and Zoo, but it was great for that day. I’m wondering if a good combination/compromise would have been to pick up the Nikon 60mm f/2.8 macro and leave both the 50mm and 105mm lenses at home, but that $550 was probably better spent elsewhere. As anticipated, I only used the 10.5mm fisheye for a few shots. 

At the World Press Photo show at Oude Kerk in Amsterdam (Fuji x100; click to embiggen).The only time I really needed telephoto reach was on the Amalfi Coast leg of the trip; I was lucky to have access to the 18-105 lens that originally came with my D90, and is now on Jen’s camera. I ended up borrowing it from her a lot. It’s making me rethink not having a zoom lens to travel with. Maybe pairing the 11-16mm with a 24-70mm f/2.8 would be a good (but heavy) combination.

I used the Fuji x100 a good deal in Amsterdam, when I was traveling by myself and had plenty of time and flexibility to walk around to get the shots I wanted (especially since I was on my feet a lot, so it was refreshing to carry a minimal amount of gear from for a few hours a day). But in Italy I shot almost exclusively with my D90 given the range of the Tokina 11-16mm and Nikon 18-105mm combo.