September 25th, 2009 | Published in Uncategorized | Comment
Following Sherwin across the Golden Gate Bridge, originally uploaded by michael ballestamon.
Had the opportunity to cross the Golden Gate Bridge last weekend with the homie Mike. It got somewhat windy that day up there, but not too bad. Anyways, a must to do if you ever have the chance.
June 16th, 2009 | Published in Music | Comment
K’naan Set List, originally uploaded by stechico.
I had the awesome opportunity to listen to K’naan last night. He had a live, acoustic performance at the Apple Store in San Francisco. I luckily got through 4th/Market early enough as there was a line forming from the entrance.
It was my first time seeing a music performance in an Apple Store as I usually just go in-and-out to check on stuff. I’m glad that I attended as it was also the first time seeing K’naan live. It was awesome. The auditorium wasn’t too big, so it was an intimate setting. The acoustics in the room was great and crisp. Not to mention, the experience and stories shared by K’naan felt like it was a VH1 Storytellers session. It was a very humbling and enlightening experience indeed.
February 6th, 2009 | Published in Technology | Comment
Well, I finally decided to give Animoto a try.
Animoto.com is a web application that creates MTV-style videos with the click of a button.
Users simply choose a song and images. Animoto then automatically generates a unique video for them. No two videos are ever the same.
Many of the post-production techniques that the founders used while working as producers for MTV, Comedy Central & ABC are used in Animoto’s patent-pending Cinematic Artificial Intelligence developed to think like an actual editor and director. The resulting video is produced in a widescreen format, containing the visual energy of a music video and the emotional impact of a movie trailer.
Animoto Productions is based in New York City with an office in San Francisco.
Here’s my first trial run video using my BYOBW 2008 photo set on Flickr.
I’m digging it. I only wish the free account gives you more time. Maybe when they get their social network going, users can vote or give props to slideshows that have “potential” to be remixed even further due to the amount of images and/or how good their soundtrack is. But I’ll let Animoto decide on that algorithm. Another thing that would be cool is the idea of using tracks from Last.fm, Pandora, or ones like it. But I’m guessing Animoto would need ample time to analyze those tracks beforehand to inject into their magic factory.
Meanwhile, the service is priced well for Personal Use, $25-30/year… just like Flickr’s. Don’t know if this is a long shot or not, but maybe incorporate a deal with Flickr of getting a discounted membership. Anyways, I can see myself purchasing a membership for Animoto. I figure editing a 3-5 minute video, and queuing music at the same time, takes a lot of time and patience and is well worth the $25-30. That’s only about a week’s worth of Lee’s Avocado Turkey sandwiches that I can pass on—not bad at all.
December 9th, 2008 | Published in Photography | Comment
The last Photojojo Safari SF will be held this upcoming Sunday, December 14th. It will be an exploration at the Presidio and Palace of Fine Arts. The meet up will be at the corner of Bay St. and Baker St. at 2:00pm.
You may RSVP here. More info about Photojojo Safaris here at http://photojojo.com/safaris/.
November 11th, 2008 | Published in Photography | Comment
Love Jump JTG, originally uploaded by stechico.
I had the pleasure of taking Kim and Ricky’s Engagement photos this past Sunday. We were initially going to roll to 2 spots: the first was the Japanese Tea Garden; and the second was Strawberry Hill. We actually didn’t get to go to Strawberry Hill as there were just tons of people visiting the Park. And there was nice weather to top it off.
Back to our story. We made our way to the Japanese Tea Garden just right next to the De Young Museum. It’s usually free on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays if I recall correctly; and only $5 per person the other days. Not too shabby.
Upon entering the gates, it completely reminded me of the great time I had when I visited Japan a couple years back. I miss that place—great food, people and culture. Not necessarily in that order, but I’d have to rank the food way up there =)
Meanwhile, it was a “party cloudy” day as the forecast said but being in the City, it can change pretty quickly. Luckily, it stayed like that most of the day and it wasn’t too cold. As you can see… Kim was just chillin’.
Most of the spots that we took photos inside were great. Either they had great lighting or was simply balanced enough as I didn’t need to use my flash. As you can tell, I kind of like natural light better at the moment[1].
Knowing this, I just had my ISO set to 100-200 most of the times and was usually on f2.8-5.6 depending on the situation. I think I shot on Manual and Av modes frequently as well. One of the things I noticed I struggled on a bit were when Kim and Ricky had some backlighting from the Sun. I was trying to get a good balance to expose their faces but also get a good exposure on the background. Luckily, there were only a couple of these shots.
Another thing I learned from my previous photo outings is that you should take a hand towel or two just in case you’d like to sit your couples on a bench or step. When we went to the Garden, I think some benches still had some wet spots due to dew and/or the sprinklers. Having the towel(s) should come in handy especially when the bride is wearing something that can get dirty easily. That, or you can use the towel(s) as padding if you are going to shoot from a low-angle and need to have some cushion for your knees and/or elbows.
All in all it was a nice shoot. I can honestly say that the Japanese Tea Garden almost had the atmosphere that I have experienced in Japan[2]. I definitely would recommend going there whether you’d like to just spend a day strolling, taking photos, and/or learning some culture.
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