This journal is mostly friends-only. If you would like to be added, just comment here. As long as I don't suspect you are a coworker digging up dirt or the person who was peeping into my window last night, I'll probably add you. Photography-related entries are usually open.

I purge occasionally. If I de-friend you, no offense, it's because I either don't read your journal or we do not communicate at all.

... and not for the first time I ask myself why my journal is still open, and this time I don't really have an answer. Methinks I'll make a backup of everything and shut down for a good long while.

Done. Feeling much better now.

It's been a little too long.

( A few moreCollapse )

Less than a week to go.

Model: Lily

I kind of forgot about this one. I was never all that happy with it, because I couldn't get the smoke quite right. Editing with smoke stock images is something that I'll probably find difficult for a while to come. Meh.

... and, just as quickly as I was laid off, I've got another screening interview set for tomorrow morning.

Heh.

It's probably a little arrogant, but I just get the feeling this job search is going to be a cakewalk now that I've got a full 8 hours/day to work on it.

It's about freakin' time. As I suspected would eventually happen after Mentor Graphics acquired Embedded Alley, I've finally been laid off. I'm not surprised at all, and have been planning for it. My own little propaganda machine is ready to spin up again, with several targeted resumes, cover letter templates, numerous outstanding references, and a familiarity with recruiting practices and numerous industries. The big differences now are that I know longer have to keep my job hunt a secret, and I actually have time to do it. The severance package is a pretty good one, and does a lot to keep my mind off of worries like finances and insurance. As long as I can land something within 3 months, we'll be fine.

The only thing I'm really lacking is a good network. I guess that has been a natural inclination of my job, working lots of hours entirely offsite. Time to start building that again; I think I'm a little rusty on that front, though, having not worried about it since before we moved here to Longmont.

Incidentally, this is why I've been so quiet here. The last few weeks have seen me preoccupied with trying to stave off losing my job, along with getting ready to lose my job. Maybe that means I'll be babbling more here for a while.

On a related note, if you're in any type of software industry, or know someone who is, and know of some software development and/or management positions, I could use all the leads I can get.

It has only now occurred to me just absurd it is to run Linux for an IntegratorCP on QEmu in Red Hat on VMWare in Windows XP. At some point, I want to run QEmu on Linux on QEmu in Red Hat on VMWare in Windows XP, and keep extending the stack until something breaks.

Model: Lily

And so the box fan finds a place in my shoot-in-the-dark experiments.

I don't know what to say about it except that I've been working on it a long time and am entranced by the model's hair caught in the flow of air over the course of a very long exposure.

Model: Lily

I've finally edited the 4 image I contracted for that shoot. I like the results, overall, but I just haven't really had the time to enjoy editing them. I'm going to have to revisit all of the ideas we shot later and take more time in editing.

Model: Lily

I think I've almost got this stuff down. It ended up being too difficult on this pass to fake a background, but otherwise, I think it's working alright.

I've really been fascinated in the run up to this project with the gender inversion involved with "imbuing" women with tentacles. The be-tentacled monsters of lore and modern media are so often ascribed with a male persona, which I think fulfills a sort of deeply buried phallic fantasy in men. A quick and thoroughly revolting saunter through sci-fi hentai should provide some insight into this, but we can see even see it in pop culture icons like Cthulhu, who is most often a "he." I think there is something subconsciously more universally terrifying about a feminine tentacled monster than the same in a masculine light, because the phallic fantasy is an extension of the "wrong" gender and no longer the domain of the masculine.

Finally got to put my light-as-energy thing into practice with a model. This still feels really rough, though. The direct lighting is to strong; think I'll have to settle with having light stands in the image and edit them out, and fire them at point blank against the model to blow the highlights in the right places while spreading the light a little more.

I just changed my hot chocolate recipe a little to make a chocolate chai-ish drink. NOM. Here's the basic recipe:

1 heaping teaspoon of cocoa powder (I use hershey's dark)
2 teaspoons sugar
2 cups milk
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1. Mix cocoa powder and sugar well in a pot. The cocoa powder will clump, break it up while mixing.

2. Run some hot tap water, and add some to the mixture. Stir thoroughly to make a paste, and be careful to get rid of remaining lumps. Add more hot water as needed. Use only enough water to make a slightly heavy paste. Miniature whisks work great for this.

3. Add milk, stir thoroughly. Be sure to get the paste off the bottom of the pot, or it will burn later.

4. Add vanilla, stir.

5. Simmer on a stove, medium heat. Stir frequently, or it will burn and form a skim.

6. Serve whenever you think it's hot enough.

To make it into a chai-ish drink, remove the vanilla, and add 1/4 teaspoon each of the following (all powdered): coriander, cardamom, ginger, and white pepper. For an extra kick, try powdered cayenne instead of white pepper. Add these ingredients during step one above.

Zoe Evelyn Alexander Davis

:D

Shoot was canceled today. It's always so hard to tell when people are lying about the reason they can't make it, especially when it's less than 24 hours' notice. I once had someone back out at the last minute saying that they forgot they had to move that day. Meh. This one has a pretty good excuse though.

And

If you are not watching alois and you like portraiture, now is a good time to start watching.

This image wasn't shot with the tentacles in mind, and I think it's pretty obvious. Nevertheless, I've now got a pretty good idea of the kind of editing that will be required to get tentacles into my shoot-in-the-dark work. I can warp them to fit the shapes I want, and I can adjust local contrast on each one individually to even it out with the rest of the image. A little work with dodge/burn should help me figure out shadows to make them fit in better, and localized blurring will definitely help in the images I shoot for later tentacling.