Sweet Lullaby

Another song gem: Sweet Lullaby as by Enya and Deep Forest. Even if you know (another version of) this wonderful song, you may not be aware that the melody and vocals are actually a public domain song, song by an African native, recorded decades ago.

About commening on the art

Somebody told me that they hesitate to comment on my photos because they think they know too little about photography and art, and was not sure if I wanted technical comments or what.

You don't have to know anything. I am pretty "eddicated" and experienced in it, and I really don't care to hear "if you moved the lamp post more to the left you'd get an L-composition" or whatever. I know all that stuff. What I want to hear is what it does for you. Just "it's pretty, I have it on my desktop now", or "it feels nice, reminds me of my grandmother's garden" is helpful. Anything deeper is welcome, but not at all necessary.

A Pink World

A friend's little daughter at three once looked out the window, very thoughtful, and after a while said to her mother: "Mom, wouldn't it be beautiful if everything was pink?"

I find this not just cute and funny, but remarkably thoughtful.

Doing things well

I googled "If a thing is worth doing, it's worth doing well," to find out who said it first. I didn't find out, but I did find a surprise: many argue against it! And many find it to be the motto of a perfectionist.
Well, that's just nonsense. "Doing things well" is not the same as "doing things perfectly", not by a long stretch.
Doing something well usually does not take much more work than doing it poorly, and it makes the doer proud, gives pleasure to those who see the result, and it ensures that the job will not need to be done again soon.

Seeing things behind appearances

(This is a follow-up on comments on the Out Of The Woods post.)

Many of the most valuable people to society are those who are able to "see things behind appearances".

Even in something as seemingly rational as computer hardware, this is true. For instance a genius like Steve Wozniak, Apple co-founder, could do things with hardware that he could not explain and which made no sense to others, but which made the machines vastly more efficient than others managed.

Changing platforms

An expert leaves Windows behind.

Wall Street Journal review of Windows Vista by Walt Mossberg.

Jung on time and space

There are these peculiar faculties of the psyche, that it isn't entirely confined to space and time, you can have dreams or visions of the future, you can see around corners and such things, only ignorance denies these facts. - Carl Jung

Merely Pretty

I stand corrected, we should not be ashamed sometimes of the "merely pretty", just because it isn't deep. So here are a few more from the woods.

Out of the woods

The small printer is also fun for printing sentimental pictures like this one, which as an "ahtiste" I would be ashamed of publishing on the web... :)

I guess I tend to shy from the scorn from those who can't tell the difference between art involving pretty scenes, and hack work involving pretty scenes. And to be sure, the difference can be subtle.

Shaken, not Stirred

Just to illustrate how much Image Stabilization can mean, this is a sample from a trip to the wood last year. There was this wonderful light as you can see, and I took many pictures of it with my otherwise wonderful Fujifilm F10. And they were ALL shaken beyond recognition. Not one was usable. If I'd had the Canon G7 at that point the picture would have been different. (Literally.)

A tiny printer

I've found out from experience that my big pro printer is not really handy when I want to give small prints to friends. So I bought the tiny Sony DPP-FP55 printer. It can print from a SD memory card, or via USB plugged into a digital camera, or from a Windoze PC. (If you use Mac and want to print pics from your computer, you can copy them to an SD card.)
It's simple to use, and much fun. The prints are like drugstore prints, 10x15 cm, and cheap. And of gorgeous quality.

I snapped the above picture of it. As you can see it's no bigger than a lunch box. The prints are my neighboring houses (which you've seen I use for testing), the recent sunrise picture, and my friends Peter and Ale.

It's the perfect thing when you are photographing people, in a social or a professional context, and you want to give them an instant print. It is almost as fast as a Polaroid photo, and the quality is much better. And of course you have the digital file for much bigger prints later, or for the web.

"White And Nerdy"

One of the funniest songs/videos yet from Weird Al Yankovic.
Check out Donny Osmond as the Big White Nerd dancer.

That's a hoot and a holler, as Trey Parker would have it.

Oh, and in case you (like me) don't know which song he took it from, it is Ridin (Dirty). It's a good song.

There's also a Making Of video. Watch it. Donny O is very funny!