Tuesday on the Web

I know that the photo below is a bit creepy.  Sure, I should have stayed and done something pretty with the beautiful orange light that was falling on my face as the afternoon got on towards sunset.  But I was rushing out the door to come home and just snapped a few in the cool mirror at the Mandarin Oriental.  It's the latest in my series of hotel self-portraits.

On the Web

Each Tuesday, I post a roundup of the best stuff I saw on the internet that week.  Enjoy! How to turn black and white photos into color photos Photojojo is an absolute must for photo-enthusiasts. Not every project they present is worth the effort (to me) and sometimes they just write to say that they have a new gizmo in their online shop, but mostly they write amazing, comprehensive tutorials on how to do fantastic, otherworldly things with photography gear you probably already have. Here is an example. XKCD: Tech Support I used to tease my husband and friends about reading this cartoon... until I started reading it myself, and now I realize how brilliant it is. "Find Big Mail" - Gmail sorter This program sorts your inbox by attachment/file size.  Good for people like me who are always sending or receiving photo attachments... Eating at the wrong time might make you fat They're looking at patterns of mice, so take this with a huge grain of salt, but a new study shows that when a mammal eats can have a big effect on how much.  Mice that were forced to sleep with "relatively dim" light gained a lot more weight than mice that slept in the dark - it messed them up as to when day and night were and thus their eating patterns got thrown off.  Interesting! Proposed credit card settlement could mean lower product prices American Express lost an important lawsuit recently that in effect allows merchants to charge multiple prices for the same goods, depending on how you pay. It has the potential to really shake up the credit card market, as "premium" (that is, cash-back, mileage, etc.) cards are a lot more costly for the retailer to process. Which Halloween candy is "healthier"? Another incredibly irritating "magazine" formatted post (that is, you'll have to click 14 times to get all the info), but a good one, explaining which Halloween candies are going to make you fatter than others.  Cuz it's not like we're not all going to get fatter during Halloween.

Out of Focus

I want to blame yoga for this feeling, but I'm not sure that's fair. See, about three weeks ago, I signed up for a gym membership.  I have no intention of getting on a treadmill or lifting weights, but I do want to take up yoga again.  I really enjoyed it in high school and I don't get any other exercise, so I figured it'd be a good move.  It was cheaper to get a whole gym membership than take individual classes in a yoga studio, so that's what I did. Only now it seems that I am constantly busy.  I come home from work, cook most of dinner, go to yoga, finish making dinner and then serve and eat.  At this point it's nearly 9pm.  Time enough to have 5 minutes of conversation with my husband, maybe read a book for half an hour and then go to sleep.  Ironically, yoga is making me so busy I feel more stressed. I've had this awful anxious feeling for about a month now.  I normally shake off these moods really easily.  In part, it's that I'm excited for everything going on with my photography.  I've definitely had some encouraging events and news over the last month (and yes, also some disappointments).  I guess I'm unsure what the other parts might be.  I feel simultaneously exhausted and amped up.  And also that there is something I should be doing that I'm not (though I don't know what). Sorry for the rant - just feeling a little weird lately.  I also am blogging to share that two nights ago I photographed Jimmy Smits, Spanish-language talk show host Cristina, Giselle Itié (from the Expendables) and several other actors and bigwigs for the National Hispanic Foundation for the Arts' Noche de Gala (not portraits, just event coverage).  To be honest, it was a bit overwhelming.  I'll have photos up eventually, after my clients have had a chance to post, etc. Next week I'll be in Duluth, Minn. so I may not be updating as frequently.  We stay in a hotel that's quite far from any of the "action" downtown.  Not that there is much going on in Duluth on a good day.  Plus, the highs are supposed to be in the fifties.  Summer ends early in Duluth.

Self-Portraits

I take a lot of self-portraits.  First, photos of people tend to be a lot more interesting than photos of just about anything else.  I'm a person, so that counts.  Plus, I'm always around.  I also think posing myself has helped me a lot in figuring out angles, shadows, etc. for photographing other people.  Still, it does make me feel a bit narcissistic. When I first started doing this, I only showed the pretty photos - the ones where I thought I looked good. self-portrait in the bathroom mirror But that gets boring really quickly.  Now I find myself making all kinds of ridiculous faces at myself and at the camera.  To get the image on the right here, this scene took place: George: "What are you doing in there?" Me: "I'm laughing so the photo looks natural." self-portrait in the bathroom mirror Is this a waste of time?  Am I totally ridiculous?  I guess I've answered that one too. self-portrait in the bathroom mirror