Journal
Thoughts on photography, technology, music, and creative work.
Two weeks ago I shot the DV Expo in Downtown Los Angeles for WIRED News. The gallery went live on the front door of wired.com today. This is the first time I've had two pieces on the front door of WIRED News at the same time. I'm really really really looking forward to my first magazine assignment, if I ever get one!
Like most people, I've been writing since I was a kid. Unlike most professional writers I never went to college. I guess that makes me somewhat of a hack. I have been blogging for roughly 5 years now. In that time I've gone from writing on my personal blog, to writing for LAist, to writing for blogging.la, to blogdowntown and now to WIRED News.
When I first started writing for LAist, I was excited. For some reason I thought my stories were going to be edited by an editor. As it turns out, the editors at LAist, don't actually do any editing. At blogging.la, the editorial policy is clear: there is no editorial policy. When I started writing for Eric Richardson on blogdowntown, he did edit my work, which I found helpful.
When I first approached WIRED about running some of my photo galleries, they turned down my pitches by said they would keep me in mind. At DEFCON this year they contacted me and paired me with their reporter, Kim Zetter. The next time WIRED got in touch with me was to cover their NextFest show.
I ended up writing captions on a little over half of the photos that ended up in the NextFest gallery. After Nextfest I covered the ASTRO show and that time I wrote the intro as well as the captions for the entire gallery. Since then I've been doing roughly 1 or 2 galleries a week for WIRED.
Being edited is a great learning experience for me. I like to compare what I wrote to what the editor and the copy-editor end up posting as the final piece. I haven't had any humorous interaction with the copy-editors like Siel had, but I'm guessing that the WIRED copy-editors are a little more hip than the folks editing the LA Times blog.
The more I write, the easier it becomes. I've also been reading Daily Writing Tips. Today's post was a collaborative piece consisting of 34 tips from various writers. I found many of them very helpful and I hope you do too.
Last week I stopped by EVS23 and shot some photos for WIRED News. You can check the gallery here. [Screenshot above hosted by flickr.]
I have uploaded the slides from my HDR presentation last weekend at Dorkbot Socal. I am going to be giving an HDR workshop at some point in the next few months. Keep and eye out for more info about that. [Image hosted by flickr]
So a few people have asked me if there is anything in particular that I want for the Holidays. If you want to buy me a present and can't think of anything, check out my Amazon Wishlist. Thanks in advance!
*UPDATE: 545 W 127th St* Unknown liquid leak from cargo container in vacant lot; @ 50 gallons on ground; NFD - Brian Humphrey###
LA Fire Department (LAFD) via TwitterMail at 21:11
*Hazardous Material Investigation* 545 W 127th St; TG 734-B1; FS 64, No injury; No evacuation; No further details; Ch:7,13 @8:39 PM -Bri ...
You can read more on the LAFD Twitter Page. My SAR Team also has a Cave Rescue Twitter Page as does the San Bernardino SAR team.
Scott Johnson drew this poster of 56 geeks. I went through it and clipped together a composite of the geeks that I consider myself one with. Which geeks are you?
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](http://www.flickr.com/photos/eecue/407199210/ "6th Street Bridge and Downtown Los Angeles by eecue, on Flickr")
I'm giving a talk on HDR Photography this Saturday at Machine Project for Dorkbot Socal #25.
Today's digital cameras have a limited dynamic range compared to film. If you shoot a photo of a landscape with a beautiful cloudy sky, your landscape will be properly exposed, but your clouds will be washed out or vice-versa. High-Dynamic Range photography allows you to circumvent your sensor's limitations by taking multiple photos with different exposures and combining them on your computer. All you need is a camera capable of manual exposure settings, a tripod and a computer and you'll be on your way to HDR mastery. Presented by Dave Bullock.
I'll be showing (for the first time) the individual RAW files that I combine to create some of my favorite HDR shots.
Dorkbot Socal, an eclectic group of nerds, geeks, hackers, makers, builders and breakers, arranged a tour of Mister Jalopy's secret laboratory / garage / headquarters: Hooptyrides, Inc. Mister Jalopy is featured on the cover of the current Make magazine, sitting atop his "Urban Guerrilla Movie House". His Giant iPod, a wooden entertainment console containing a Mac Mini and utilizing the original controls of the console, previously appeared in Make.
Hoopytyrides HQ is located in an old, dual-bay auto shop, with many of the original accouterments still intact, including the pinups that adorn the walls of the basement machine shop, old-school hydraulic lifts and a Clayton dynamometer. Mister Jalopy describes himself as more of an assembler than a engineer, pointing out that he simply takes apart existing technology and puts it back together to better suit his needs. Either way about it, Mister Jalopy's creations are fun, functional and attainable by interested makers who want to create their own repurposed entertainment equipment.
Mister Jalopy perched on his Urban Guerrilla Movie House, a mobile pedal powered projector build from a mixture of old furniture, vintage cans, salvaged optics, an LCD monitor and a bicycle.
You can check out the rest of the photos after the jump.
Here is a selection of the portraits I shot at BarCampLA4:
You can check out the rest of the photo here in my BarcampLA4 gallery.
