10 August, 2009
Minor Furniture Shifting
I have shuffled my Visual Cues photoblog off of the Blogger platform and into WordPress and given it a new name. (Thinking Out Loud may also be moving into WP but probably not until later in the year.)
Fresh Pixels can be found at www.vicster.net/photography. I've brought over all of your favorites from Visual Cues but I'm leaving the old Visual Cues stuff in place because y'all still get directed there from the search engines.
(Shameless Plug) A selection of prints is available for sale at www.victoriaklum.com. If you saw something on the blog that you don't see there, email me.
Labels: furniture shifting, photography, upgrading
~~ victoria on 5:44 PM ~~ 0 comments
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09 March, 2008
Simon Sunday: It's Been A Long, Icky Week
I think I took this Tuesday morning, before I packed myself off to Kaiser because my throat felt like there were 10,000,000,000 fire ants attacking it. Simon looked so gorgeous in the sunny window but I had the lensbaby on the camera and I knew there wouldn't be time to switch out lenses, so I did the best I could with it. It actually turned out pretty good, I think (I'm still getting the hang of using the lensbaby).
Thankfully, the strep test came back negative, but I've had a nasty cold all week. As always, Simon and Billie have looked after me well and Simon made sure I got plenty of bed rest (and snuggles). He has this "thing" where he'll get me to follow him to where he wants me to go, looking over his shoulder every couple of steps to make sure I hadn't gotten lost. Usually, the destination is the kitchen, but more often than not this week, he'd lead me to the bedroom. There were a few times this week where he wanted me to go back to bed but I wanted to stay at the computer for a while longer. When I'd try to adjust him on my lap, he'd nip my hand in frustration. Looking over at him now, he's crashed out in front of the window, as exhausted as I am from the all-night coughing fits and congestion and my constant shifting in bed because my throat hurt so horribly. No doubt he's also exhausted from being so disciplined all week and not taking advantage of the fact that my voice was gone-daddy-gone and I couldn't yell at him. (After a week, my voice is finally starting to come back on line, but I can only manage to squeak at the cats which brings on a new coughing fit...if they could, they'd laugh at me, I sound so ridiculous.)
To add to the chaos, we started Daylight Saving overnight. As usual, Simon just slotted right in and was ready for his breakfast at New7:00 a.m. And, as usual, I'm rather less than enthusiastic about DST (it sucks ASS). I'm just hoping Simon doesn't repeat his DST error of a few years ago when he "sprang forward" an hour every day for nearly a week. The 3:00 a.m. breakfast calls were not the least bit amusing.
Labels: cats, furkids, photography, sick, Simon, Simon Sunday
~~ victoria on 1:31 PM ~~ 0 comments
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08 May, 2007
Have I mentioned lately...
Sunset: 8 May, 2007
Originally uploaded by Planet Vicster.
...that I LOVE my commute!
Labels: extraordinaryness, ferry commuting, photography, San Francisco
~~ victoria on 10:22 PM ~~ 0 comments
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22 April, 2007
Simon Sunday: The End of Days
Day Ninety-Six: Who knows what he's stalking this time
Originally uploaded by Planet Vicster.
That is to say, the end of the 365 Days project. We lasted 100 days, which is about 93 days longer than I thought we'd go. But Simon and Billie both got really tired of me shoving the camera in their face every time they did something even remotely cute or interesting and I realized that I was depriving us of a lot of the joy in simply being present by insisting that they keep being CUTE for the camera.
This doesn't mean I won't be taking pictures of Simon and Billie anymore, or even going on any lengthy hiatus, nor is this the end of Simon Sunday. Considering all of the mishief that Simon gets up to, and how delicately beautiful Miss Billie is, who am I to horde such wonderfulness all for myself?
For now, however, the three of us are gonna do lots more snuggling, lots more playing and much less posing and image processing.
Labels: Billie, cats, family, furkids, photography, Simon, Simon Sunday
~~ victoria on 1:14 PM ~~ 0 comments
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03 January, 2007
This is not a photo blog
But this is. (Alternatively, you can clickie the linkie that says "Photography" in the left side bar to reach Visual Cues.)
I've been in the process of re-doing Visual Cues for months now and was just not getting anywhere. While a photo blog was the basic plan, I hadn't planned to do it in Blogger because of the various, um...issues they seem to be having with beta (well, technically, it's not "beta" anymore). However, I got tired of trying to wrestle with WordPress and, for the time being, it's gonna be in Blogger. At some point, probably after the next school term is over, I will just try to write a WordPress stylesheet and template from scratch, rather than keep wrestling with the default template (as several sites and a book or two suggested I do).
Of course, I will still post photos here: Simon Sunday just wouldn't be right without a photo of Simon (or Billie, when appropriate), after all! But Thinking Out Loud was starting to look like a photo blog and I wanted to rein that in before it got out of hand.
I now return you to your regular programming.
Labels: beta, photography, Visual Cues
~~ victoria on 11:18 AM ~~ 0 comments
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29 December, 2006
Investment
Hawk
Originally uploaded by Planet Vicster.
In case you were wondering what all of the fuss was about, I was (impatiently) awaiting my new Canon Digital Rebel XTi. So far, I'm really enjoying it (and, yes, I've taken several shots of the furkids which will all show up here sooner or later).
I also got the "cheap" 70-300mm lens, which, I'm discovering, is good for getting shots like this gorgeous hawk, and also for some portraiture, where I don't want to be right in someone's face.
I haven't completely sold my soul to digital. In fact, it was quite a struggle deciding between this system and getting a medium format film camera. What the decision came down to was Time and Space. To deal with a medium format system, I'd have to get a scanner that can deal with medium format negatives. Cost-wise, it was a push (a new digital rig + a couple of lenses vs. a medium format + a scanner), but I don't have any space to keep a scanner, and it would take so much more time than simply plugging the camera into a USB port and downloading.
The XTi is the 10-megapixel model, so, I think, it's a good investment for me in that I can get some decent, large-sized prints from my image files and it won't feel technologically obsolete in six months.
I'm really happy with the 70-300mm zoom lens. Considering it's the "cheap" model (not the fancy-schmancy USM-IS-go-and-fetch-my-tea-for-me one), it really gets some nice sharp images. I haven't played around with the 18-55mm "kit" lens, yet, so I don't have an opinion one way or the other on that other than it's very very light.
The only hiccup I've had was not being able to run the "Digital Photo Professional" program that comes with the camera that processes RAW files into either TIFF or JPG. It seems that any and all of the RAW conversion programs I looked at required a minimum of 512k RAM and this old eMac has but 256k. However, I discovered a way to process RAW images through the Image Browser that came on the same CD, so I can procrastinate on the RAM stick a little bit longer.
Labels: Canon, Digital Rebel XTi, impatience is my virtue, photography
~~ victoria on 9:26 PM ~~ 0 comments
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27 November, 2006
Vote early 'n' often 'n' stuff
So, I submitted a photo for JPG Magazine's Issue 8. There were a couple I wanted to submit on a couple of other subjects, but they only take a minimum 2200 pixels (wide or tall) and my PowerShot digital maxes out at 2048. Feh! I'll have to see what else I've got scanned from the film cameras, though I may not bother. I'm not sure my shots are really JPG Mag material, anyway...
Meh. Whatever. I'm going to bed.
Labels: JPG Magazine, photography
~~ victoria on 9:23 PM ~~ 0 comments
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