The Author – Bart Busschots
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Jan
25
Photo of the Week 49 – Backlit Butterfly
Filed Under Photography on January 25, 2009 | 1 Comment
When I was starting photography my Dad gave me one very good piece of advice, keep the sun at your back! The vast majority of the time this is great advice, and I pass it on to beginners when they ask me for advice. However, like all guidelines in photography, breaking them intentionally in a thought-out way can lead to great shots. I’ve never really been great at shooting back-lit subjects, it just doesn’t work for me usually, but this shot is the exception.
I shot this back-lit Small White (Pieris rapae) butterfly in the Junior Gardens on the St. Patrick’s College Campus (AKA the NUI Maynooth South Campus) in Maynooth, Ireland.
- Camera: Nikon D40
- Lens: Nikon DX AFS 55-200mm
- Exposure: 1/400 sec
- Focal Length: 200mm
- Focal Ratio: F8
- ISO: 200
- Camera Mode: Aperture Priority
- Exposure Bias: -0.67
Jan
20
Inaugural Reflections
Filed Under Polemics & Politics on January 20, 2009 | 4 Comments
Given how historic a day today was, I’m hoping you’ll humour me and forgive a rare political post. Like millions of people all around the world I watched the inauguration live on the internet. Not TV, but the internet, a sign of things to come perhaps? Anyhow, that’s not really what I want to write about here. I just want to make three observations about today’s events from the perspective of an outsider. Or, to be more precise, from the point of view of a European gay agnostic.
Jan
19
Photo of the Week 48 – Lunar Cross (Black & White)
Filed Under Photography on January 19, 2009 | 4 Comments
As you can probably guess by the list of previous photos of the week, I’m not really into black & white photography. However, I do dabble occasionally, and particularly enjoy playing with the channel mixer to get more dramatic and contrasty images. This is my favourite black & white conversion so far. This shot of the Moon over the top of the spire of the Gunne Chapel (AKA the College Chapel) on the St. Patrick’s College Campus (AKA NUI Maynooth South Campus) in Maynooth, Ireland. The black & white conversion was done using the channel mixer in the GIMP (a free cross-platform image editor). It was shot during the day, but made more dramatic by turning the blue channel right down to zero so the sky goes black.
- Camera: Nikon D40
- Lens: Nikon DX AFS 55-200mm
- Exposure: 1/250 sec
- Focal Length: 200mm
- Focal Ratio: F22
- ISO: 800
- Camera Mode: Aperture Priority
- Processing: Converted to black & white using the channel mixer in the GIMP
Jan
18
DeskLickr – Flickrize Your Desktop on OS X
Filed Under Computers & Tech, Photography on January 18, 2009 | Leave a Comment
This week I went hunting for a piece of software to automatically change my desktop wallpaper using Flickr as the source. In particular I wanted it to use my set of desktop wallpapers on Flickr. There are solutions to do this kind of thing on Linux and Windows, but since I use OS X I had to go find one I could actually use. In the end I found just one solution that worked well, the donation-ware app DeskLickr.
DeskLickr is definitely one of those apps that does just one thing, but seems to do it well. I’ve only been using it for a few days but so far I’m very happy with it. I set it up, then forgot about it and watched my background change to a new photo every 30 minutes. It could be argued that the Flickr configuration could be a bit clearer to understand, and it could definitely be argued that it would be nice to have more options for choosing photos from Flickr, but, it works, and that’s the important thing.
Jan
11
Photo of the Week 47 – Into the Night
Filed Under Photography on January 11, 2009 | 3 Comments
As a friend of mine put it on Flickr, this photo combines my three nerdy hobbies, Astronomy, Photography, and trains. This is a 5 second exposure of a commuter train approaching Maynooth reflected in the waters of the Royal Canal in the late evening while Venus & the Moon shine over-head. This is a shot I’d tried before, and each time I learned a few more valuable lessons. So, although this is the result of a learning experience, I’m still shocked at how lucky I was to get everything to line up as well as it did. The train, the reflection, the silhouette of the tree, those things I could control, but the positions of the Moon and Venus, those were a pure bonus! Anyhow, if I had to pick my three best photos yet, this is one I’d definitely choose.
- Camera: Nikon D40
- Lens: Nikon DX AFS 18-55mm (D40 kit lens)
- Exposure: 5 sec
- Focal Length: 18mm
- Focal Ratio: F5
- ISO: 200
- Camera Mode: Manual
- Exposure Bias: -2.0
Jan
9
Considered Thoughts on the MacWorld 2009 Keynote
Filed Under Computers & Tech on January 9, 2009 | Leave a Comment
I’ve held off a while on writing this post to be sure the Apple Distortion Field had fully dissipated before I committed my thoughts to record. First and foremost, Phil did good. He was not as good as Steve, but when you compare him to that AT&T guy who came on during the iPhone Keynote back in 2007 with his cue cards, Phil was fantastic! He did show some signs of nerves if you paid close attention, but who wouldn’t on that stage!
I’ve heard a lot of very negative things about the keynote and to be honest, I doubt we’d have heard half as many if Steve had presented the keynote. The basic reality is that the iPhone announcement at MacWorld 2007 was the exception, not the norm. Just about every MacWorld keynote pails in comparison. There’s a very good reason for this, no company, not even Apple, can come up with something as revolutionary as the iPhone every year. We’re now two years on and none of the copycat devices come close the fit and polish of the iPhone. Apple have completely changed the Smart Phone industry, despite all the scoffing from people like Steve Balmer less than two years ago. The iPhone keynote was amazing, and people have very short memories, so the expectation now is earth-shattering new hardware every year, and Apple simply cannot deliver that. Sure, the expectation is unreasonable, but it’s there none-the-less.
Jan
6
Photo of the Week 46 – A Winter Night in Maynooth
Filed Under Photography on January 6, 2009 | Leave a Comment
I shot this photo last December, but since it’s so insanely cold tonight I figured this would be an appropriate time to share it as a Photo of the Week. In summer this same grass is full of people sitting out enjoying the sun chatting or studying or playing Frisbee, but now, in winter, it’s pretty much deserted except for the occasional very determined dog-walker. This area of St. Patrick’s College in Maynooth is referred to as ‘the Graff’, and the building is St. Mary’s House. You can also see the spire of the college chapel, the Gunne Chapel, in the background.
This image is composed of four images separated by 1 stop combined into an HDR image and tone-mapped with Photomatix Pro.
- Camera: Nikon D40
- Lens: Nikon DX AFS 18-55mm (D40 kit lens)
- Focal Length: 18mm
- Focal Ratio: F3.5
- ISO: 400
- Camera Mode: Aperture Priority
Jan
4
Thoughts on Next Week’s MacWorld Keynote
Filed Under Computers & Tech on January 4, 2009 | 8 Comments
So, we’re just a matter of days away from MacWorld, and when I’d traditionally be writing my “What’s Steve got up his Sleeve” post, I’m instead wondering just what it means that Phil schiller will be giving the keynote presentation instead of Steve, and that next year, there won’t even BE an Apple Keynote at MacWorld! There’s a few ways to interpret it, one is that Steve must be at death’s door. IMO not likely, to lie about his health if it really was that bad would literally be criminal, people would go jail for that! Another possibility is that Apple have nothing interesting to say so they’re sending a lackey since Jobs couldn’t be bothered giving a boring keynote. I don’t think I buy this either, Phil Schiller may not be Steve Jobs, but he’s a very big guy in Apple, I mean he’s Senior VP for World Wide Product Marketing!
What I think is much more likely is that this is the continuation of something we saw at the recent notebook event. Apple are working to dismantle the idea that Jobs IS Apple. At the notebook event Steve was more of an MC than a speaker, bringing out lots of Apple big-wigs to deliver different parts of the presentation. Having another big-wig actually run a big presentation is the next logical step. Whether or not Jobs is going anywhere any time soon, it is not in Apple’s interest for the impression that Jobs IS Apple to continue. I mean we’re almost getting to the stage where every time Jobs sneezes Apple’s stock tanks! Regardless of how well or not Steve is, that has to end because he can’t stay with Apple forever. Apple need to show that they are lead by a team who have a vision, rather than one guru without whom Apple is nothing.
So, with that out of the way, what do I think Phil will deliver for us at the keynote?