Weblog Specific

Here's a link to Klyment's Garage Sale so it's not a giant ugly sticky clogging the top of my blog. Thanks, Leanna, for the suggestion.

Here's a quick teaser note about what I'll be posting over the next two days:

• Details about my drum scanner purchase (Please note that my Microtek M1 scanner w/ the full Silverfast AI Studio software suite is now for sale for $675)
  
• What I'll be doing in California March 14th to 21st
• Avenue Magazine Edmonton's spring fashion feature/cover shoot (April/current issue)
  
• Architectural photography portfolio

Some other stuff that will be coming but may not be in the next two days

• HOPEFULLY some updates to my general portfolio
• Acquisition of my dream camera, the Toyo VX125 in Jade Green
• The rationale behind and purchase of some Norman lighting
• Recommendations for building a very capable photography workstation and discussions of related equipment purchasing strategies

My phone number while I am in California: 310.774.6687

- Bridal Fantasy 2009 back stage photos - Shoe Guru's new content (two shoots) - PC digital workflow hardware analysis for photographers by a computer geek turned photographer (who may still be a computer geek) - Baker Optical's interim photography update - My new Nikon Coolscan 5000 . . . again. Or maybe not . . . I can't remember - Picks from the three most recent rolls of slide film business cards - Why a digital small, medium, and view camera user would start shooting a small film rangefinder - Edmonton Fashion Week April 2009 (and a revisit of a previous Edmonton Fashion Week entry and why I append blog entries but don't edit them)

Here's what's coming up:

• Review of TriSquare's eXRS TSX300 900MHz digital two-way radio system from the point of view of a fashion photographer working on a remote location
• Pondering the upcoming Photokina 2008 (last Photokina of the decade!) in Koln, Germany
• Brief review of the Europe/Asia GSM HTC Touch Diamond PDA phone being used in Edmonton, Alberta on Fido and whether or not there is a reason to be worried about a lack of 850MHz (North American frequency) GSM support
• Why most photographers use Macs and why while I own both Macs and PCs, all of my serious photographic and printing work is done on a PC . . . plus some recommended parts for building your own fault-tolerant workstation
• Details of shooting West Edmonton Mall's Back to School campaign for RED the Agency and the most talented art director I've had the privilege of working with in Canada
• Photographic equipment purchasing strategy for the next few years

Thank you for reading.

• Epson 9800 is up and running. The output is so much better than even my custom ink sets and RIP-based custom profiles that I have begun the slow process of reprinting almost all of the pieces in my studio as well as my entire print portfolio.
• Found a way to do quick photo black to matte black ink changes using less than $6 of ink instead of the usual $50-100.
• Epson 9600 in the studio will soon be converted to a 7-tone neutral black Piezography system by Jonathan utilizing pure carbon inks
• Nanochrome inkset does not produce satisfactory results with the Epson 9600
• Breathing Color no longer has a Canadian distributor and they haven't responded to my last inquiry. Their colour profiles still suck so I've made my own. Nothing new here.
• I sort of moved in with my brother across the parking lot from the studio. He moved into a three bedroom suite.
• Kind of purchased a Sigma 30/1.4 HSM digital-specific lens for F-mount. It's cool. Returned the demo 14/2.8 - too much distortion for my taste.
• Purchased Bowens QuadX 3000W/s digitally-controlled pack and two QuadX heads - Bowens' top of the line system. Finding good speedrings with octagonal softbox support has proven to be a pain.
• Purchased optical spot assembly with Bowens mount. Strobe spot lighting with gobos now possible.
• Recent hard drive failure - a Seagate drive this time, not a Maxtor. Fortunately, all HD's in my studio machine are mirrored through RAID 1. Seagate doesn't offer online advance RMA - you have to call in for that.
• GretagMacBeth Eye-one Pro UV spectrophotometer recertified and good for another year of loyal service.
• Maurice, one of my makeup artists and hair stylists, has moved to Vancouver to study at Vancouver Film School. He's been a huge part of my development as a fashion photographer. I love you . . . I mean that in the least homosexual way possible.
• Patrick is back . . . and still single and looking. I guess he didn't meet any Japanese women (I think) good enough for him. And I mean that in the least sarcastic way possible. :-P You can usually find him working at his family restaurant. You can also see him on his blog where you'll find people with even squintier eyes than me!

Steven Matthys - Belgian professional communicator/translator, photographer, small arms and ballistics expert

Nina Jaffer - Law school candidate, University of Alberta

Iraleigh Anderson - Really, really awesome photographer, 2nd year NAIT photo program

Patrick Mah - Bilingual B Comm - marketing graduate, Chinese boy pretending to be Japanese, hairiest Asian guy I know

Allan Cheung and Darren - Photo enthusiasts, friends of Patrick

Ian Sheh - Photographer, graphic designer

Garvin Hicking - Serendipity development team member, movie enthusiast, really cool guy

Sean Kernan - Not a blog . . . so much more. Photographer.

Eolo Perfido - My favourite living photographer who does portraits

*****HERE*****

You can search the string "Rapid Fire Theatre" or "Improvaganza" in the search box in the bar on the right. Users using lower resolution screens may have to open my blog in a new window if linked from another part of my site since I have scrollbars disabled in my master layout. I'll soon become unlazy enough to think of an aesthetically pleasing solution to this problem.

After upgrading Serendipity, I remembered that the Serendipity developer that helped me out had an Amazon.de wishlist which I had tried to get him something from. The challenge is documented in German in an entry in Garvin Hicking's blog. In fact, it is also documented in this blog in another entry. Anyhow, I retried the process and I think that I may have just completed an Amazon.de wishlist transaction in German. I hope that it works.

As some of you are aware, I used a beta version of an online, database-driven gallery framework named Gallery for my newest online gallery. The upgrade from my beta version of Gallery 2 to full Gallery 2 was less than seamless . . . however, this was to be expected. The installation documentation for my earlier version of Gallery 2 warned that the database schema from the beta version of Gallery 2 that I was installing then was likely to evolve into something very different even at later stages of beta. I may consider restoring Gallery 2 from a backup file later but I'll likely black hole it and officially blackhole the Yappa Next Generation gallery system as well and start fresh since Gallery 2 has now been fully released as version 2.0.

I noticed some strange referrers on my side bar. In fact, there are two domains from which credit card application-related information is being hosted. I checked on the exact address under the webhosting domain to see what was linking my page and it, too, turned out to be a credit card-related site. Not sure what's up with this. I checked on both sites and couldn't find any links to my pages and I wasn't able to identify any random links.