The new season of Lost is premiering tonight at 8/7c or whenever it hits the torrents. I’m literally on pins and needles as to how the Oceanic Six will get back to the island, considering it moved and stuff, and what exactly happened to those left behind. Only JJ knows for sure.
PS. Who’s your favourite Lost character?
I’m back in the frozen north, wishing I stole Dr. Kiki’s USB powered heated mittens while I was down in SF, because it is shockingly cold in Vancouver right now. I’ve just begun to unpack my huge bag o’loot whilst watching S4 of Lost. SPOILER: I really wasn’t expecting that crazy ending with Marty McFly and the hoverboard battle. What a shocker!
I was a busy beaver during my first Macworld. I practically interviewed half the exhibitors on the Expo floor… which amounted to about 10 in the end (ooh low blow). Let’s just say the turn out wasn’t as great as it was in past years. It seemed that a few exhibitors didn’t even bother showing up, or pulled out after the first day.
I spent many hours trying to find booths that had magically disappeared. Maybe they just got engulfed in a sea of iPhone cases. I mean 3G iPhone cases. Those people with 1st Gen iPhones weren’t feeling the same love from case developers. On a positive note, the people I did get to talk with seemed optimistic and enthusiastic about the new products they were launching this year, despite the economic “issues” we are all groaning about.
Lisa & Justine do a little MacBreaking.
Here is one of the many interviews I did for MacBreak with Speck Products about their new iPhone CandyShell cases.
As I say in the video, a huge pet peeve of mine is people that don’t protect their gear and then drop it. Even if a spectacularly shattered iPhone screen makes a cool photo for your flickr feed, it’s just so wasteful. Maybe it’s just because I waited over a year to get my iPhone, or maybe it’s because I signed a ridiculous 3-year rate agreement, or maybe it’s just because I love my gear, but the first thing I did when I bought a new iPhone was buy it protective armour. I’ll take the extra bulk for safety. I know you iPhone purists won’t budge, but if you don’t have a disposable income, protect your iPhone, cuz it’s a slippery sucker. That’s all I’m gonna say.
Photo by Scott Bourne.
Right after the keynote, I buzzed right over to the live MacBreak Weekly 122: Macworld Expo Podcast. I said during this interview that my first Macworld was bitter sweet. In retrospect, I feel like the keynote itself was the bitter sweet part. With Steve officially taking medical leave from Apple until June, all apple lovers, especially the fan boys & girls are feeling pretty bummed right now. Of course it was lame not seeing a Jobs’ keynote with John Mayer’s sweet sweet guitar licks and interfaith cakes (huh?). But, it was still exciting being there after watching it for so many years. The rest of the conference it self was bit lackluster, but I made amazing contacts and it was well worth me making the trip.
On Day 4, I headed to the Pixel Corps studios to record TWiP (This Week in Photography) Episode 64 with the entire TWiP team in studio. It was a hoot, especially when I brought up a fine Aussie tourist gift: The Kangaroo Scrotum Purse. Ahh, the things I say with 3 hours of sleep and a copious amount of cold medication. Nevertheless, it made for a pretty fun episode. I’m almost certain that Alex threw in a JarJar impression at one point, which is rare because he never ever does that. :P
I rounded off my SF experience with a trip to the TWiT cottage to visit Leo. I ate an In-and-Out burger on air, wore a gorilla pod on my head, made Ewoks noises, sounded incredibly knowledgeable talking about Plasma screens with Ryan Block, confused John C. Dvorak with my J.J. Abrams flashback trivia & was called a “Canadian hottie” by LeVar Burton. Borg. You can check out all this and more here: TWiT 177: There’s A Little Shatner In All Of Us.
I apologize for my lousy blogging lately. Macworld has been insane for me. I was on my feet from 7am – 3am, running around the expo doing Macbreak interviews, being a guest on Macbreak Weekly, recording TWiP, and looting booths for schwag (the most important thing at MW), and attending a few shindigs.
I plan on writing a detailed post on my reflections of Macworld and my top picks of the Expo in a few days. Before I give you my thoughts on the keynote, I’d like to hear yours.
Like say the fact that they didn’t even mention Snow Leopard or release a new mini or iMac or, like announce something cool other than the ability to DRM-free your previously bought itunes music for $0.30 a pop? 30 x 14GB of music = I don’t know, you do the math.
There is a super awesome prize for the person who makes the best comment. So breathe in and let it all out. Please don’t make Steve cry too much. Think about his hormone imbalance. Please.
Photo by Scott Meizner’s slick Canon 5D Mark II.
It’s just after midnight, the day before Macworld keynote ‘09. I can see the glow of the Moscone Center from my hotel room. I can’t quite see the line o’fanboys, but if I crane my neck a wee bit, I can see the twinkle of their MBP and a glint in their eyes. They miss Jobs. Ahh, don’t we all.
For those of you not able to come to Macworld, I’ll be covering all of its geeky goodness with the MacBreak crew. So I want to ask you:
What Macworld inside scoop would you like hear about? If you think of person, company, or Mac-related product you’d like to learn about, fire a comment here or @lisabettany on twitter or squint your eyes, distort the Space-Time continuum, and leave me a scroll somewhere near the Moscone Center. No guarantees that I’ll get it, but good effort, none-the-less.
17-35mm lens, 35mm, f/7.1, 1/125, ISO 200
I thought I’d just share this picture of a father & daughter taking a sunset stroll on the beach at Surfer’s Paradise. Such a magical moment. The Gold Coast of Australia is stunningly beautiful and a heaven to shoot. I have taken so many shots, I don’t know what to do with them all. I guess I’ll start processing them on the 17 hour flight home to Vancouver :S
To get the shot I had to crouch down as low and as close to the shoreline as possible. I waited for the waves to pull in so I could grab their reflection in the sand. Moments after I took this shot I got drenched by a huge wave. Luckily, my gear didn’t get damaged because I have such cat-like reflexes.
Chip the Papillon. 50mm f/1.4 lens, f/4, 1/400, ISO 200.
With pets, there are somewhat predictable patterns of alertness and sleepiness. Like at 6am, they are usually wide awake. “Yap yap yap! Good Morning! I’m up, why aren’t you? ” Obviously, you don’t want to photograph a pet when they are rocketing around your living room or fast asleep. Try to find a time where they are fed, happy, and partially sleepy. That way they will be patient enough to sit and pose for you. Keep a few little treats in your pockets to keep that “happy-time” glimmer in their eyes or just to give you some extra snapping time.
Photos taken of animals from above are less personal and look very observational. If you want to show the personality of your fantastic pet, then you’ll have to shoot them at their eye-level. This often means crouching or lying down in some uncomfortable position in something wet, itchy, or hard, but it’s worth it. If you have smaller pets, you can prop them up on a pillow on a chair to make it a bit easier on your knees.
Use a simple background that contrasts with the colour of your pet’s fur, feathers, scales, tentacles (?) A grey cat against a grey wall will not stand out enough. Opt for a lighter colour to make your pet pop from the background.
Indoors: Shoot in front of a big open window. Use a sheer curtain to diffuse the harsh light if it’s really sunny, or shoot a bit later in the day (about 1 hour before sunset). If you are getting a lot of shadow, use a bounce or a whiteboard to reflect light. Make sure you don’t blind your pet in the process. Meow!
Outdoors: Shoot in the shade or on a cloudy day. Make sure the light on your pet is consistent and not dappled. Harsh bits of sun mixed with shade never looks good and you can never really correct it in post. Avoid dappling! It can ruin the best of pictures.
Whatever you do compositionally, make sure your focus on the eyes is tack sharp. It’s also nice if you can get the nose in focus as well. If you have sufficient light to increase your aperture, set it around f/5.6. If not, you can try using a tripod (depending on how patient your pet is), or try shooting your pet in profile.
If you have any other tips or tricks for photographing pets or any photos you’d like to share add them to the comments.
50mm f/1.4 lens, f/4, 1/160, ISO 200.
I wanted to share the story behind this colourful photo of the mostly lovely, attack lorikeet I met at the Currumbin Sanctuary. While at the park, I took over 600 photos of fun creatures, most of them during the harsh lighting hours of 10am to 4pm. It was impossible to get a good shot of the lorikeets in this lighting. Because it was so scorching hot, most of them stayed up in the shade of the tall gum nut trees far out of the reach of my 50mm lens.
I had almost given up, when suddenly at about 5pm, the light became magical. It got all warm and soft and yummy. Everyone was leaving the park as it was closing, so I had a nice clean shot of the birds as they were happily slurping their honey water. I shot maybe 30 images of the lorikeet in different lighting conditions, (shade, direct sun, diffused light), so I felt like I had at least one good shot.
When I got home and went through all my photos, I was really disappointed with my lorikeet shots. I just didn’t see the magical shot I wanted. A couple days later I scanned the images again and found one that I felt was “decent”. I worked on it for a while in Aperture. I played a lot with the composition of the image. Check out the before shot:
This image is far too busy with the other bird in the shot and the blue metal feeder in the background. I cropped in really tight on the head, but making sure there was enough negative space around the head to create nice shapes.
I also blurred out the background even more and desaturated the green in the background slightly so it wouldn’t distract from the lorikeet. I increased the saturation and vibrancy of the feathers minorly and spent ages cleaned up all the tiny imperfections on the eye, beak and feathers.
The lessons I learnt from this experience this were:
And you never know, maybe your photo will end up on the front page of flickr explore!! :D
As you might have already guessed from the post title, I’m in Australia!
I’m here on the Gold Coast to take some great photos and take a wee bit of a hot and sunny vacation before MacWorld in January. I can’t wait to actually have a skin tone that contrasts with the pasty nocturnal geekazoids at the conference. I will laugh and say, “Haha! That used to be me! But now look at me… I’m all red and… patchy.” Oh yes, I will ride that cool train all the way to the station.
I hope you enjoy all the beautiful Aussie animals I met at the Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary, Gold Coast. I couldn’t believe how accessible the animals were, especially the kangaroos. It’s such an incredible experience to just sit in the grass with a pack of kangaroos and wallabies, petting them, taking pictures, and watching them lounge about. I’m hoping to go back again to spend some more time with these magnificent creatures and learn more about the sanctuary.
A big congrats to Rob and Lauren, two super talented wedding, portrait, and travel photographers based out of Edmonton, AB for winning this month’s Mostly Lisa Photography Contest. These two have blown me away with their ultra creative and technically perfect shots. Go check out their galleries and blog
Special mentions go to Nate and Scott Bradley their awesome shots.
If you feel inspired, here’s the next Mostly Lisa Photography Contest: Macros!
Macro Photo Submissions:
Add your best macro photo (as in ONE image) to the Mostly Lisa Photo Competition Group on FlickrThis should be a great topic for you to do over the holidays. If you need a little help go here.
Deadline:
Thursday January 10th, 2009.
I celebrate the Vancouver launch of the newest Disney on Ice show by returning to the ice after 2 years of sedentary geeky activities and a week on the Wii Fit reaching “Yoga Master” in the weird tree pose.
If you want to catch all the glitzy, figure skating action, Disney’s High School Musical: The Ice Tour runs from Nov. 27-30th at Pacific Colosseum.
Lisa Bettany is a Canadian television and podcasting personality, professional photographer, and iPhone App developer based in Vancouver, BC & San Francisco.
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