Doesn’t it?!

Let’s celebrate, be good to each other & finally give America a big hug! Obama!!!!

I believe.

Therefore, I feel no guilt in pounding back this life-size chocolate-chocolate cupcake at midnight whilst playing Wii tennis, Harry Potter vs. Severus Snape. After that I’m popping up so much popcorn and watching my favourite Buffy episode. Then I’ll probably cry a little, eat more cake, then watch something awesome like a Bourne movie or Alien or Transformers.

Either way, birthday celebrating and tomfoolery is required. Now if I can only sneak those cupcakes past Captain Foushad, I might get some more sugary treats tomorrow.

Happy Hip-hop-hippopotamus Birthday comments are much appreciated <3!

And now for something completely different…

Blog World hi-jinks with my bff Amanda Coolong (TechZulu), Pete Cashmore (Mashable), Snaps (the Kangaroo), USB HubMan/kid, a Zannel squooshie schwag yoyo & a lone pigeon.

Powered by my sweet Mostly Lisa Viddler Tees, 2 hours of sleep, 3 chocolate chip cookies, a large scoop of vanilla ice cream, Yahoo mints, some nuclear green coloured caffeinated drink and Las Vegas.

I’ll be the first to admit it. This video is pretty weird, but it oddly enough captures the essence of a Blogging/Tech/2.0 conference very well. That essence smelling something like a mixture of day-old deodorant, guacamole, gasoline, melting plastic, glue, warm cookies, and dusty carpet. *sigh* I guess you just had to be there.

At least this time I didn’t dive bomb a geek with a USendit airplane or lose a whole bunch of dough with Rosie O’Donnell.

Thanks to rocknrollgeek for filming, the MindTouch girl that gave Snaps a special button, and Pete $more for just lookin’ fly.

PS. I think Amanda really needs to work on her interviewing skills if she’s ever going to be considered, like a serious reporter or whatever.

The ANPW contest winners, Pros, and I were up bright eyed and bushy tailed this morning at 5am, hoping to catch a beautiful dawn in Grand Teton Ntl. Park. The actual workshop *learning Aperture* was to begin later, but at first light, the students split up into two groups to take some pictures.

I trucked it to Oxbow Bend with Pros: Scott Stulberg & Steve Simon; and contest winners, Richard and Bryan. Everyone came prepared for the cold, except Steve, who was a bit whiny and runny nosed, kinda like a baby who’s had their lollipop ripped outta their tiny little hands by a mean photographer trying to capture pure misery and tears. I guess Steve is like me, you know, “they mostly come out at night… mostly” aka morning is for sleeping, afternoons are for eating breakfast.

Scott was determined to get a great shot, so we headed down this step muddy hill to the bank of Snake River. And then we set up our tripods, then everyone laughed at mind and pushed me in the mud… well they didn’t exactly push me in the mud, but I bet they wanted too,. Jerks. *huff* Then we pointed our lenses at the iconic view and waited. And waited.

No interesting light seemed to be happening on Mt. Moran, but suddenly a slight miss of fog started floating just above the water line behind us. No one else was worried about the immediate appearance of Death Eaters, but I methodically started chanting the Patronus Charm in my head and heart. As the fog began to roll, As the fog began to roll, Scott jumped and “yahooed”, changing his camera direction to started shooting the rolling fog and silhouetted trees against the wispy, pink sky.

It was a great lesson in always looking for shots, even when you are waiting for a sunrise to happen, look around, there maybe a great shot just waiting to be found like, a silhouetted bird in the distance, or a line of photographers tripods all in a row, or even interesting shots of reflected trees in the water.

Everyone was carefully switching lenses near the water, and Scotty reminded us to always keep one hand on your tripod near water. He has tragically lost two cameras in the water, so let him be the lesson for all of us.

Scott Bourne lead Catherine and Rob to Schwabacher Landing, but immediately left when no clouds were present because without clouds, landscape shots fall a bit flat. So, they headed up the road past the landing at Teton Overlook and grabbed some amazing panoramic shots of the Southern Tetons. Rob disappeared from the group with Martin aka the “Aperture Guru” for a while and ran into a crazy one horned elk.

After breakfast, the workshop got in full gear at the beautiful Jackson Arts center where Martin blew our minds with the dynamic power of Aperture. We imported our images, learned how to compare and select our favorites, and generally found out that Aperture can do most of the things we used to do in Photoshop, but it’s waaaay less complicated. I’ll do a dedicated post on Aperture in the next few days so you guys can see how cool it is.

What photo management & editing application do you use?

“Michael Bay’s Magic Hour” by Pasquale.

I’m passionate about film. There are few things I love more than watching a great film. Even if a movie has a crap storyline or the acting is atrocious or the music is mainly comprised of midi horns, I’ll still learn something from it. Maybe it’s what not to do or maybe it’s just stunning visually.

I get a lot of my photo lighting and composition ideas from film. I’m actually just watching “The Assassination of Jesse James” and I have an uncontrollable hankering for tall wheat grass and dark and moody skies. … I’d take Roger Deakins over Mr Pitt any day. Well, maybe every other day :p

I also love learning all about the people who make films and their process. And yes, I watch all the special features. Yup, even the lame ones with just written credits or extended scenes. I do, however, hate watching deleted scenes. The scene was cut for a reason. Just leave it be. If you disagree, let’s argue! Ha! Cuz for me, you can’t beat hot n’ heavy, super geeky discussion about film.

When I was in Vegas for the NME, I ended up at a very swanky party with some of New Media’s top dogs talking/arguing about great directors. It was super fabulous. It went something like this.

What are your top 3 favourite directors?

The 19 year-old shaggy blond intern & film school n00b said, “Michael Bay. Dude. Transformers was seriously awesome!”

The 30 year old film school veteran & top dog retorted, “Michael Bay??? Scorsese. Hands down.”

The intern then shot back, “but dude… that car chase scene in Bad Boys 2 is like the best EVER!”

There was much back and forth discourse, until the fast-talking, smooth, good-looking agent, also a film school grad, gave a detailed and analytical description of his favourite directors, David Fincher, Tony Scott, Ridley Scott & James Cameron. I totally gave him a high five and we talked about how wikkid awesome James Cameron’s 3-D movie “Avatar” will be.

Then I threw in an awkward “they mostly come out at night, mostly” and waited for someone to get the film reference, but no one did, and it hung in the air like a hovering fly or perhaps something larger and more uncomfortable like a pelican.

Thankfully, the quiet intern with the dark framed designer specs broke the silence with, “I know that everyone is gonna say this lately because of Batman, but… Christopher Nolan.” I totally gave him an air high-five, because I wasn’t close enough to high five and I felt like we hadn’t reached that level of comfort yet. Eye-contact had been made, but no “safe zone” had been established.

And then the power mane loving intern pointed at me and said, “Now you! Go!”

1. Tony Scott

   Period. Some people say Tony is hit or miss. I say, he’s a visonary. He takes risks and takes jump cuts to the next level of awesome. Top Gun!? Classic. It was my absolute favourite movie when I was a kid. I even plastered my room walls with F-14 Tomcats. No Goose!!!!! Also, Spy Game (2001) is one of my top 10 movies. You know that one sequence with Brad and Robert Redford on the roof and the helicopter circling around? Yeah! That’s the stuff. The Last Boy Scout (1991), True Romance (1993), Crimson Tide (1995), Enemy of the State (1998), Man on Fire (2004)? Awesome. I love his visual style and how he always highlights sweet tech stuff and loads of gadgets. I know a lot of people didn’t like Deja Vu (2006), but seriously, it was a high tech visual orgasm of awesomeness.

2. Christopher Nolan

   knocks my socks off. His movies are so darn good. Every scene is meticulous and melts into each other. No one else could have captured Memento like Nolan. His awareness of time, structure, and lighting is insane. The Dark Knight (which I haven’t seen yet… forgive me) The Prestige (2006), Batman Begins (2005), Insomnia (2002), Memento (2000) & Following (1998).

Gosh only one more… But there’s Terry Gilliam, Paul Greengrass, Alfonso Cuarón, Sam Mendes, Francis Ford Coppola, Scorsese, Sofia Coppola, Mike Nichols, Oliver Stone, Ron Howard, Michael Mann, Steven Soderbergh, Wes Anderson, Jean-Pierre Jeunet, Pedro Almodovar, David Fincher, Christopher Guest, Gorge Clooney (who is so ridiculously talented)… Ack…

Ok. I need 3 more. I know it’s cheating, but…

3. Ridley Scott

   is Epic. Everything he does is big, bold, and beautiful. Give this man an Oscar, seriously. That fact that he didn’t win best director for Gladiator (2000) was so totally lame. Uh! I don’t think I even have to tell you why I love Ridley. I’ll let the plethora of awesome Ridley Scott films speak for themselves. My personal favs are American Gangster (2007), Black Hawk Down (2001), Blade Runner (1982), Alien (1979) (my favourite of the Alien Quadrilogy) . I can’t watch Hannibal (2001) as it scares my pants off. Also, if you haven’t seen Ridley’s first movie, The Duellists (1977), go rent it and watch the last scene. One shot. It’s intense.

4. Paul Greengrass
   is gritty and real. His four films have all been incredible. Two of them even make it into my top 10: The Bourne Ultimatum (2007) & The Bourne Supremacy (2004). And that’s something. United 93 (2006) & Bloody Sunday (2002) are also stunning. I can’t wait to see what he does next.
5. Steven Spielberg:

   is like a perfect hug. Smothers you in visual perfection and endings that make you just love the world. How could you not say Spielberg.

What are your Top 5 Favourite Directors?

I’ve been photographing Jessie Farrell and her band for almost 2 years now. Taking pictures of Jessie was how I first got into photography. I started taking pictures at gigs, her first music video (in which I made a brief cameo as a pink hatted fiddler), her big CD release, and all the moments in between & that time we went to Jamaica (that was weird that we went there).

I was so tentative and unsure of my ability at first because I didn’t know anything about photography or dSLRs in general, let alone the technical skills required to take that money shot. When I look at my old shots, I’m so embarrassed at the settings I used. But that’s how I learnt, by experimenting with settings, taking thousands of shots, and basically falling in love with the process of taking photographs. That’s what I love. Just hanging back behind the scenes and capturing subtle candid moments of people, animals, even nature. I rarely, if ever, leave my apartment without my camera. It’s basically a part of me. Gosh, this is beginning to sound sappy. Uh. Brief pause… and resume…

I almost never get to see Jessie Farrell et al. perform live, because they are on the road so much in far off Canadian places, so I was really excited to catch their performance at Festival 150 in Victoria, BC. This might be the reason I took 1000 or so photos. Eek, I know. My Air is gasping for… well.. air.

Kylee Epp.

I also blame the Canon 70-200mm IS f/2.8 lens I rented again. It has such a delicious sweet spot that makes me swoon when I hit it. Wait. That sounded bad. I’m not sexualizing photography… Ever. Stop. I’m blushing. Actually, I’m just super sunburnt because I literally have the skin tone of a sickly vampire who spends all day & night on a computer like IMing and pirating shizz.

Anyway, I supposed to be taking a little break from my blog and the computer this week, as I’ve totally done in my neck. My computer over-use injury is back with a vengence.

Ok. Ok. I’m getting off the computer now… Don’t be mad.

Jessie was recently nominated for 7 Canadian Country Music Awards, including Best Female Artist, Album, Song, Songwriter of the Year & Best Selling Album. She is also nominated for Fan’s Choice award so if you are a fan, Vote for Jessie here. Additionally, 3 of her band members were nominated for the best performers in their categories: Ryland Haggis for Bass Player of the Year; Jesse Tucker for guitar player of the year; and Jesse Godin for drummer of the year.

Ryland Haggis.

Jessie Godin.

L-R: Jesse Tucker, Kylee Epp, Jessie Farrell, Jesse Godin, Ryland Haggis.

I’m currently in negotiations with them to start my throw-back 80s, futurist/emo/punk/rock/folk/singer/songwriter band. It’s a real mix of genres, but I’m covering them all to please that fickle, yet predictable the Gen “i”.

1-2-3-4, I’m seeing Feist tomorrow! Who’s coming?

And my question to photographers and blossoming photogs:

How did you get into photography? What or who was your muse?

You must know by now, that I am a wee bit of an Apple fan girl. Obviously. It’s tough to question my loyalty to Apple. Well except the fact that I still have that late 90s Compac desktop sitting in my living room. I just can’t get rid of him, he’s like my personal WALL•E.

Nevertheless, my loyalty for Apple is unquestioned. I may not be die hard enough to say, camp out for days in front of an Apple store to pick up the first released iProduct, but I’ll properly follow the guys that are and feel a quiet self-reflective disappointment that I’m too lazy or apathetic to camp out for days in front of an Apple store. I try to make up for this by posting zany Mac-related videos.

With that being said, I’m going to say something controversial… mostly so be forewarned:

I wish Apple would fix the problems with their current iProducts BEFORE hyping, advertising, then releasing the next gen iProducts.

Especially with computers. Sure Steve, go nuts with the iPods, but your loyal, creative, freelancers and students really need consistent, bug-free machines to work all the time in order to pay rent and hand in artsy school stuff.

I don’t know about how your Macs are running, but mine are far from smooth sailing. Don’t get me started about Leopard. The worst appears to be over, but OSX continues to reek havoc on audio firewire interfaces. It’s not that Mac aren’t lovely and oh so aesthetically perfect I make cooing noises when I stroke the brushed metal, but experiencing regular kernel panics, the spinning pinwheel of death, force quitting, overheating, fan noise, and major battery fail are not memories that are adding to my love of Mr. J’s Empire of hype.

Speaking of hype, ahem, the 3G iPhone, which was just released last week, receiving such massive hype that no one actually ended up getting one. Huh? I don’t get it. Me neither. What is the world coming to when iJustine can’t get a freaking iPhone?!? And already the Apple rumour mills are churning with the pulpy goodness of new sleek and sexy MacBook Touch.

Now as someone who recently got a MacBook Air, is still paying off a Mac Pro, and is still emotionally attached to last year’s MacBook, when I hear about a next generation release or major upgrade to a better, faster, more awesome and streamlined machine than the one I just bought last week, I don’t feel anything related to happy. In fact I feel a little ill, then hysterical, then I get on the line with Apple, and then I wait, and wait, and crrrrrrrrry when my call gets disconnected.

Too much Apple. Too often. Too much exposure and hype and advertising and mainstream blah! Remember when Macs were so underground that you had to fight tooth and nail to get even an once of respect? Like that time you were thrown out of computer camp for refusing to use a PC. Oh you weren’t thrown out of computer camp? That was just me? Ok fine, but It was important for me, at the age of 12, to really lay down the law. Oh and remember when you were the only one with sweet graphics in your 4th grade essay on tornados cuz you had Paint? Yeah, those were the days. Now, anyone from Beyonce to (puke) Spencer from the Hills (don’t ask me how I know that) can use and abuse a MacBook Pro. But, it’s all good right? More money for Apple, more live John Mayer keynote performances, better products for us… Yes? Or more like a n-n-n-No!

What do you think? Has Apple’s mainstream hype and lack of product accessibility (ahem… iPhone) got you feelin’ less than perky? Or are you jacked into your feed reader jumping with glee when your Apple RSS gets all kinds of new, sweet iProducts & Software?

What do you think of Apple hype?

(Lijit tee provided by Startup Schwag.)

The mozilla team just smacked one heck of an update with Firefox 3 AKA “The Browser That Has It All” and I haven’t download it. Why? Well, in my own honest opinion, Safari is 2 legit 2 quit!

I love Safari AKA. I’m basically “exclusive” with Safari. It’s been my browser of choice for a long time now, and we’ve developed quite a strong relationship. I like the way Safari looks so apple. It’s clean, efficient and it’s bookmarking skills are quite excellent. Besides the occasional flash plug-in lockout, it’s a lean, mean, sexy browser. And it is, after all, “The World’s Best Browser”. How can you challenge that?

It might be quite a battle convincing me to use Firefox. But I know there are some feisty FF users that won’t let my dare slide! Seriously, are you gonna let me talk trash about your browser? That’s like attacking your motherboard or something.

If you think Firefox is better than Safari tell me why. Oh and let me know what plug-ins you are using and how helpful they are and stuff like that.

Introducing Silicon Valley’s favorite party game: the iPhone stack! I dare you to beat this stack of 13 iPhones!

PS. My ultra portable Canadian iPhone was rejected from the stack. It hurt. A lot. *sadness*
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I had a blast recording TWiP (This Week in Photography) with Pixel Corps’ Alex Lindsay, Podango’s Scott Bourne, Adobe’s Fred Johnson and photojournalist Steve Simon.
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