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heading out

Jul 11th, 2008
by Jim Reverend.
4 comments

along the wayGood Morning from Anchorage.

Since the sun’s already up, I don’t have to worry about my desire to get any where before sunrise. It nice and overcast which means great things for photography opportunities today. I’m pretty sure I’m taking the route through Watertown this morning, though I’ve got no one to answer to so I might change my mind. A quick poke at various weather forecasts shows that it might actually be overcast and stormy in the places I could travel tomorrow. So, if it’s not too late, maybe I’ll take the ferry at Tobemory after all, instead of going through Barrie. Then I can see the Island and Bruce Peninsula all in one day.

If you really want to know where I’m at you should check out my Bright Kite stream. I’ll keep it updated as often as I can. I turned off the sync between it and Twitter because it was annoying some people. Ha.

Went the casino last night. I really, really, really love playing Craps. I love that it’s complicated for no good reason. I love all of the superstition around it. I love that (most) everyone at the table is rooting for the same thing. I love that, even at the cheapest table in the house, if you’re playing well, you still end up with $50 on the table at any given time to lose. I love that there is so much math involved if you want there to be, but, if you’d rather not think about it, you can still play along. I lost $100 last night. Not too bad considering I’d told myself I could lose $200 and then just decided I was tired after 3 hours. I’ve never been able to come out ahead in Craps. I don’t really have a gambler in me (though Craps is the exception). But, if I did he’d say that if I went in the game with more cash I’d stand a better chance of coming out ahead. Something more like $500 or $600.

Some time in the next two days I’ll become mostly unreachable via Mobile Phone or email and will remain that way for about 2 weeks. So, if you need anything, leave a message and wait a few days for me to get back to you. Since I use Google Reader to keep up with websites and even LiveJournal, there’s little chance I’ll miss anything I really care about. However, just to be safe, you right something important or really interesting, do me a favor and drop me an email with a link so I’ll be sure not to miss it.

It will be hard to find any solitude during these travels. I’ll be surrounded by my In-Laws and all of their family for the next two weeks while staying at a summer camp. I won’t be able to find a corner alone unless I’m willing to actually leave on my own. Of course I have no problem with this usually, but this makes me appear to be rude if I do it too often and actually makes me real, honest-to-goodness bear bait, if I sit too alone or too quietly, much to the amusement of my In-Laws. My attempts to talk Jess into going with me don’t usually work, either. Maybe I should just buy some bells for my shoes.

Regardless of all that, I’m still hoping to get some soul seeking done some how. I’ve been having a really hard time lately. Several of you have picked up on this and talked to me about it which I really appreciate. I have some amazing, selfless friends.

That’s enough for now. Think of me, and send lots of love for me to pick up when I reconnect now and then.

longer days

Jun 10th, 2008
by Jim Reverend.
No comments yet

This time of year, days are about an hour longer here in Providence than they are at home in Dallas. The light knocking at my window just after five o’clock this morning startled me awake — panicked that I’d had missed my alarm. Another insignificant item in a long list of things to get used to.

Despite the heat wave and high humidity here I think I’ll walk to work. It’s only a few blocks and it makes a lot more sense than pulling the car out of valet just to find another garage to park it in a few blocks down the road. I look forward to going out for a ride tonight, though. An old coastal town like this has a lot to offer a photographer like me. I’ve got a new camera to try out in accordance with my “a simple life is a better life” mantra I’ve been chanting lately.

I know many incredible people who are content to live lives that don’t center around creating something. They live what seem to be happy, full lives filled with challenge and interest centered entirely on their experience and the happiness afforded them by friendship and the consumption of those things created by others. But, no matter how hard I try, living life that way simply does not fulfill me. I need to create. I need to produce. I need to build. I need to change.

It’s been too long since I’ve shared a photograph. It’s been even longer since I made a photograph that really challenged me or moved me. This needs to change.

It isn’t much, but it’s a start. I’m going to attempt to write here every morning with no regard for how bad, or trivial, or short, or uninteresting these words might be. My hope is that the forced creativity and attempts at accountability will renew the ambition and drive that comes along with that need.

Lighter than air, her mind burned with possibilities. She loved him. She wanted him. Yet, in the end, he had no substance. This high school dropout wouldn’t be approved by her peers.

– OneWord // Substance

photo schedule – the first week

Apr 27th, 2008
by Jim Reverend.
3 comments

A few weeks ago I laid out a plan to help me better vary the kind of photograph I was putting out there. It certainly wasn’t simple or easy, but I felt like I could do it.

Last week doesn’t count thanks to the fact that I was out of town and without the technical means to publish a photo thanks to my stupid laptop. So let’s look at the week before that and see how well I did.

Breaking Out – This falls into Non-Landscape. If I were very lenient with myself, this might also be considered Other Portrait.

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Skype

Apr 21st, 2008
by Jim Reverend.
No comments yet

I’ve been using Skype off and on here and there, but, thanks to it’s Linux support, I’ve decided to make it my primary vehicle for Audio/Video Chatting, especially when away from home.

Skype Me: jimreverend
My status

Portable Ubuntu: working!

Apr 15th, 2008
by Jim Reverend.
7 comments

Thanks to a tip from Bryan, portable Ubuntu is now working for me, though not quite in the same way I envisioned it in the beginning.

I assumed that, in the end, I’d boot a real Linux partition with a real Linux boot loader. However, this is not the case. It seems that my laptop, and apparently many others, favor booting only the USB drives that contain certain partition types. Fat16 is one of them.

Booting the long way ’round (not to be confused with the wrong way ’round)
So instead of actually installing Linux, I ended up making a copy of the Ubuntu Live CD into a 750MB Fat16 partition. Then I used SYSLINUX to make that partition bootable. Then I included some Kernel options to overlay an 8GB ext3 partition on top of it at boot time in order to allow for real changes to be made to the working file system. This gives a two layered approach where the initial boot is done from Fat16, and at some point, the files in the ext3 partition are dropped on top of it and, from that point, all changes are reflected on the ext3 partition only. Then I formatted the remainder of the drive as Fat32 in order to allow it to be used as a data partition for multiple operating systems. And viola!

This has a few disadvantages. First, a 5400 Bus Powered USB drive is already pretty slow. This whole shuffle from one to the other makes it even slower. On my aging laptop I’m looking at about 4 to 5 minutes from power up to usable desktop. However, once booted, performance is as expected.

Secondly, upgrading the kernel is no longer an easy operation. Or, rather, I don’t think it will be. I haven’t actually tried it. Since the initial kernel is held on the Fat16 partition and the working system is held in the overlaid ext3 partition, I’m thinking that upgrading the kernel using standard tools would only upgrade files that couldn’t be reached at boot time. I think that, instead, if I need a kernel upgrade, I’ll have to update the kernel in the Fat16 partition, then update the support files on it and the ext3 partition. Probably a very manual process. Or, possibly, I could just recreate my Fat16 partition with a newer Live CD. I’m not sure. Anyone done this before?

Post Installation
The good news is, it’s working! Everything else is standard Linux massage, with which I’m sorely out of practice.

My Wireless PCMCIA card (Linksys WCP54G) was not immediately available. I had to use ndiswrapper and find a Windows XP driver in order to make it work. Not awesome, but it works. It’s nice that this is even an option.

Despite many people telling me otherwise, Java and Debian/Ubuntu have never been an easy thing for me to manage. The JVM that comes with Ubuntu 7.10 is a 1.5 JVM. For a specific application, I need JVM 1.6 or higher. I’m still struggling on how to upgrade this. I seem to be at the latest version available in the default repositories, but that’s using gij. Maybe I need another Java packaging or possibly another repository? Any advice?

I’m also in need of a photograph manager — tagging, sorting, thumbnails, resizing, etc. I’m hoping for something that will actually update the metadata in the file and that will read Nikon RAW (D300 NEFs). This way I can easily resynchronize in Lightroom to pick up these changes. At least that’s why my fingers are crossed. I’m looking at Google’s Picasa2 as well as GPhoto. Any other recommendations?

All in all, despite the migration pains, slow booting, and the search for new applications to fill in some gaps, I’m pleased with the results. Thanks to those who threw in their $0.02.

seeking: stark raving lunatics

Apr 4th, 2008
by Jim Reverend.
9 comments

After reading Where are all the goddam photos, something in my head clicked. Not that photographers need a new way of doing things — I’d figured that out already — but that I wasn’t the only one in this same situation trying to do this same damn thing.

Every day I see Photographers making it big. And every day I see photographers loving the craft, doing what they can, and not even trying to make it. But I didn’t realize how many people there are out there in my exact same situation. And most of them aren’t photographers.

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quick update

Apr 3rd, 2008
by Jim Reverend.
6 comments

I’m short on time, so you get a quick update.

Celeste was 3 months old over a week ago and I have yet to take her 3 month photos. Bad Daniel. Tonight, maybe. I hope.

From today until Monday we are buuuuuuuusy: Two dinner dates, two lunch dates, a nice little roadtrip with friends, a coffee gathering, a small gathering at our place, church, a crap swap, and a housewarming party — roughly in that order. And, of course, a whole bunch of work stuff too. This is a good thing, though. I like being busy and I like seeing my friends. I’m not complaining at all. Even if my lawn has to go untreated for one more weekend (though, I hope, maybe, I can squeeze it in on Saturday). Holler if you need some plans too.

I finished our taxes! Between a small penalty that I didn’t expect from when Jess quit her job, a whole lot of confusion surrounding the difference between a Traditional IRA and a Roth IRA, and a very poor record keeping job on my part last year for business expenses, we’re getting only half of what I expected back. No bueno.

I’m in the process of the great budget redesign of 2008. Yes! It will be so memorable, in fact, that my great-great-great-great-grandchildren will tell stories over an auto-safe-camp-fire with the hum of cooler-outside-air and no-more-bugs in the background telling how the Great Papa Daniel once managed to live like a king, put his family in the lap of luxury, entertain no less than four girlfriends, shower his friends with dinners, parties, and gifts, and do it all while only working 3 hours a day as an unpaid volunteer at an animal shelter. Oh yes. It will be THAT grand.

For the photo-tech people, Lightroom 2.0 beta is out [via Thomas Hawk]. If you own 1.0 you can enjoy the beta until August ’08. If you don’t you can still take a nice 30 day test drive. It’s a little buggy, but it is a beta. I love the new feature set which includes a limited set of localized changes and multiple monitor support. It’s not as awesome as LightZone, but, with the image management parts built in too, it’s hard to pass up.

Send me love today. I’ll need it.

on separation

Apr 2nd, 2008
by Jim Reverend.
No comments yet

CarpeAqua has hit the nail on the head (thanks for the link, Ryan).

Our data is on dozens of sites and for some it may be hard to keep track of every little thing you do online. [...] We feel some sort of internal need to share every single bit of our lives through every avenue we are afforded to ensure that every single person we’re connected to sees what we do. Rest assured. You are not that important. [...] Your friends will find you on the sites they are interested in joining. You don’t need to spam other sites with crossed data.

– CarpeAqua // Your Twitter is not your Blog is not your Tumblr is not your FriendFeed

Many of you think I’m a bit nuts for obsessing about separation like I do. Well, this is it! This is exactly why! Let’s say that, by chance, Mr. CarpeAqua finds my photography absolutely amazing but, despite that, he has no interest in knowing that I had no water this morning when I woke up. Maybe he could care less about my troubles with Portable Ubuntu, but finds my writing regarding my own internal struggles coping with a hectic life an an overactive brain (unlocked just to link here) incredibly interesting and enlightening. I’d rather know that he is uninterested in some aspects of me and that he is taking the bits and pieces of me that he enjoys and engaging himself fully in that than to know that he is so overwhelmed with information from me that he has no choice but to ignore it all.

I understand the need to cross-post data in cases where two services overlap and you want to participate in both. For instance, I want to share my photography with the Flickr community, the VFXY community, and with the LiveJournal community. So I post in my photoblog, and cross post to accounts on each of those services. But I try to do so in a way that separates content, either with communities, or with separate accounts entirely.

I’ve seen people doing this between Pownce and Twitter or between their blog and their LiveJournal account. This makes sense. In each of these cases the syndicated content is either a copy of the original, excerpts linking back to the original, or a subset of the original. It’s not a situation where multiple sites and multiple services are dumping all manner of content into one pile of madness. Imagine if my LiveJournal updated every time I posted a Tweet?

For those places where the lines are a little blurry I like digest posts. If I have a blog about my life, and I also happen to use Twitter to account for a very detailed breakdown of my life, making a digest of Twitter posts in the blog about my Life just makes sense. If I happen to use Tumblr to post interesting tidbits of interest to Technically minded people, then a digest of that finding its way to my Technical blog makes sense.

Having all of your content in every place all of the time is just silly, wasteful, complicated, and annoying. But, if that’s what you want, there are services that do this and do it well, like FriendFeed. Taking a look at my FriendFeed, you can see how annoying having everything in one place might be for someone who was only interested in black and white photography of the female form. But, of course, if you want EVERYTHING, then FriendFeed works for you.

So yeah. Reading the thoughts of others on this has encouraged me to separate even more. If you can’t handle a few more adds to your LiveJournal friends list or a few more notches in your Google Reader, then maybe you aren’t all that interested in the first place.

inspired

Apr 1st, 2008
by Jim Reverend.
4 comments

(NOTE: Many of the links you find in this post will lead to images that are potentially Not Safe For Work. The post itself is safe the links in it may not be. That being said, I do not believe any of this to be offensive, pornographic, or even overly sexual.)

Scott Church (scottchurch@LJ, The Art of Scott Church) recently visited Dallas. In fact, I think he may even still be here. While our photographic styles and subject matter are most often quite different I find much of his work to be an inspiration. And, from time to time I see a photograph of his that strikes me as something I’d enjoy creating.

One of the first photos he posted taken in Dallas, a candid really, I find incredibly inspiring. A woman wearing pants and an unzipped long sleeve shirt, topless underneath, applies paint by hand to a large canvas propped against the wall of what appears to be a kitchen. In the foreground is a topless toddler with paint spread accidentally on her pants and stomach. A portion of a table is visible left in the frame, and under it is an errant juice cup. From this topless painter to her, presumably, topless daughter, to the juice cup rolled under the table — this image reaches out to me. I feel like I belong here, in this warm, open, family.

Later, he publishes another incredible image. It is a moody, monochromatic image of a young woman in front of an abandoned, wooden walled building. The out-of-focus foreground grasses, darkened sky, and blurred hair give a fleeting feeling of movement, with two bare-branched trees framing the whole scene. Again I feel like I am there. I feel like I am breathing this moment in. Despite the uninvited feeling an abandoned building and thoughts of trespassing can bring, this image makes me feel as though I am very much invited and a big part of this single slice in time.

This work is yet one of many things that inspire me.

I’m driven to create more, experience more, build more, dream more, and share more, despite the obstacles that constantly present themselves. And I’m inspired to bring as many beautiful people as I can along with me for the journey — as subjects, as fans, as patrons, as co-conspirators.

Thank you to Scott Church, and others like him, who continue to dream, and create, and share with me. And thank you — all of you — for being a part of this with me.

Of course, Scott’s Journey ended in a bit of trouble with the law. Hopefully they won’t be too hard on him. If they saw these images the way I do, they’d have let him go without a second thought. (Ha. April Fools!)

revjim.net at WordPress 2.5

Apr 1st, 2008
by Jim Reverend.
4 comments

The software running this blog has been upgraded to WordPress 2.5. If you are a wordpress user, you should do the same. The new admin interface is very nice.

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