2008 January Archive at ThePlotters.com

When you have nothing else to do (or even if you have, but you don’t feel like doing it), you can always play with your camera (if you don’t have one, go buy one, now). This week’s tip (like there’s going to be another next week) is how to take funny (or scary) pictures of yourself with “slow sync flash” technique. (Sorry if I use too many sentences inside brackets.)

This is how the pictures can look like:

How to do this creepy photography?

The point is to use flash and slow shutter speed together.

1. If your camera has manual settings, use the TV setting which means you will set the shutter speed manually. Then set it around 1/2 - 1/6 (seconds). If your camera doesn’t have manual settings, try to use “night mode” or something and good luck.

2. If your camera has the manual focus setting, you might want to use auto focus to yourself first: Keep the camera in your hand (as far from your face as you can) and focus to your face with auto focus (pressing the trigger half-way). Then turn it to manual focus and you’re ready to shoot. If your camera doesn’t have manual focus, well, good luck again.

3. Aim yourself and shoot. You might want to try moving at the same time and see from the display, how much movement is good and when it’s too much. When you’re moving, try to keep the camera and your face in the same distance and position, though, so only the background will be moving.

I read about this technique first on Digital Photography School. I think it’s a good blog.

So, a friend who kills immense amounts of time at work by reading online magazines forwarded me this article, It’s Way Too Easy Being Green (Slate) about all the ways that architects (and design teams, in general) have found to circumvent the principles of LEED certification for buildings and attain the “green stamp of approval” for buildings that are, fairly obviously, not intended to be any greener than necessitated by the checklist points.

The part that really struck home was the bike racks. I kid you not, the bike racks come up all the time as the picture-perfect loophole in LEED. I could go on for hours… but it really boils down to the fact that people see it as a marketing opportunity and will go to only the minimum lengths necessary to maximize the added value to their product. Is anyone else familiar with LEED? Any opinions how we (as a global society) can take the capitalist aspect out of ideas like this (or at least reduce the influence)?