2009. New Year, New City, New Job... Same old self

No internet connection + Busy Schedule = No Updates.
Just a quick post to let ya'll know that I'm still alive, and put up my first pic from Marseille... As seen thru my eyes...

Catching up in progress / Change of plans

I haven't had much time lately for the blog, even though I had things to blog about... Sounds familiar, uh !? Anyway, I'll try and get back at it more regularly, but It might not happen in the near future... More on that later, but until I explain why, I'll just post some of the things I would have liked to post these last few weeks...

As for the purpose of this blog, I've changed my mind a little bit.... It was supposed to be a photography-driven blog, but obviously I have not been able to post pictures regularly. And even if I could, I'm currently considering signing up for a pro flickr account, or something similar, allowing me to have unlimited bandwidth and storage space, and have people checking / commenting my pictures more easily than on a blog... If you have any recommendation about such a photo sharing service, let me know. A free one would be better, but the flickr pro account is only $25 a year, so it's pretty reasonable, and it might be the best deal out there.

The blog would then only serve as a 'news' blog, allowing people to stay up-to-date with what's going on in my life, be notified of pictures update on that potential flickr account, and share whatever comes to mind...

Be right back !

Detroit Shock, 2008 WNBA Champs !

Naah.... I did not shoot that pic myself, unfortunately :(

I've been playing Basket-Ball for more than 10 years now, and I've always loved watching NBA games on TV, well... whenever I could, given the lack of NBA exposure in France back then. It got better, and thanx to the internet, I've been able to follow the NBA very thoroughly lately, watching games regularly, daily recaps, and multiple games a day when playoff comes.

Since the WNBA started back in 1997, I had not heard much about it, let alone watched it. I did watch some Olympic Women Basket-Ball games though, and I remember being very impressed by the level of play, and unselfishness showcased during the 1996 Olympic Finals in Atlanta, between the USA and Brazil. Then I watched some more at the Olympics the next years, a couple WNBA games on TV, and also attended the Open LFB event in Paris the last 3 years (every team playing their first regular season game over the weekend in the same arena).

But this year, for the first time, I tried to really stay up to date with the WNBA season, in large part because of Candace Parker, the rookie sensation of the Los Angeles Sparks (who ended up being Rookie Of The Year and MVP of the league in his first year, by the way), and I'm very pleased I did so. I managed to watch a few regular season and playoffs games, then watched the whole Finals. It was amazing. Of course you won't get all the highlights, the athleticism and the trash talking you're used to in Men's Basket-Ball, but these women definitely know how to play ! Katie Smith, the Finals MVP, was phenomenal, Deanna Nolan impressed me with her athleticism and hustle, and Becky Hammond almost did a "McGrady" in Game 2, scoring 3 straight 3-pointers in less than a minute in the 4th quarter to try to bring her team back in the game, even though Detroit eventually hang on... The final result of the series, Detroit winning it in 3 games, does not do justice to the way the games where played, and I know I'll be back next year to watch the Shock try to repeat, see how Candace Parker does in her second season and if the likes of Becky Hammon or Diana Taurasi can lead their team to the top. Congratulations ladies and thanks for the emotions !

[Link] Design & Architecture - Dezeen

There are probably a ton of blogs dealing with design, and it may not be the best of them, but it just so happens that I found out about this one, plus it deals with both design and architecture, which I've been more and more interested in, to the point that I'm wondering if I wouldn't try and make a career of it if I could start all over again... Anyway, on this blog I've seen things I like wether it's pure design or architecture, so that it found its way into my 'daily' bookmarks, even though I rarely have the time to read it thoroughly. Give it a try !

Daiba / Tokyo Bay (Panoramics)

I got a few more panoramics that I did some time ago to put up... Here are two of them shot in Tokyo when I had the chance to go visit a friend there, back in 2005. We spent 3 weeks mostly in Tokyo, at his place, except for a few days in Kyoto, and went on for a few day trips away from Tokyo with the Shinkansen (the japanese high speed train). Took a bunch of pictures, some of them worth a look, so I'll probably post them someday.

Daiba By Night

The first one is a view of Daiba, with the Rainbow Bridge that connects it to Tokyo on the right. Daiba, a man made island built in the Tokyo Bay, is like a mini seaside resort, with beaches, bars and restaurants, a shopping center, a big ferris wheel and the huge convention center building. We only spent a day there, skating and walking around but it seemed like it would definitely be a nice place to hang out.

Tokyo Bay By Night, From The Rainbow Bridge

The second one is a 180° (or so) view of the Tokyo Bay, shot from that same bridge but on the other side... We decided to walk back from Daiba to Tokyo (it's only a 30 minutes walk) and the view is beautiful. On the left of the picture, you can spot the Tokyo Tower, which is a replica of Paris' Eiffel Tower, only a few meters taller !

Quality on both of those pictures is pretty disappointing, but that's what setting a 2003 camera (a coolpix 4300 to be exact) to 400iso will do for you :(. Concerning the panoramics, I'm too lazy to go get the .psd file and tell you for sure, but it's probably like 5 or 6 pictures stitched together with Hugin, with all the masks and the blending edited on photoshop. I guess that's a good thing I can't really tell from the panoramic how much pictures I used ;)
Just like the previous post, I can't wait to go back there with my new DSLR to take better pictures !

Georgia Dome, Atlanta (Panoramic)

Finally, my first meaningful post ! Guess what ? I couldn't find the time to look for that particular picture I was referring to earlier, but I had some other files on my computer, so let's put those up first !

[2004.09.19] Rams @ Falcons

If I remember correctly, this is the first ever panoramic image I did. It was shot at the Georgia Dome, during the Rams vs. Falcons NFL Game, in September of 2004, and it consists of 5 pictures. Back then I didn't know much about photography, let alone panoramic images, so I used my friend's all-automatic, 3-MP (yeah... 3-MP!! remember it was shot in 2004) point and shoot camera, without a tripod, without locking exposure or anything. Given the circumstances, I think the result is OK but I had to start all over with the stitching 3 times, first trying to use the software bundled with the camera (forget about it), then trying to do it all in photoshop (I gave up pretty quickly :p), before I finally found out about Hugin, an open-source GUI for Panorama tools... Thank god ! I stitched with Hugin, then exported to psd with masks, and then I had to redo all the masks because that's the one area where hugin and other tools can't be trusted (even with still images, there are issues to address, so forget about pictures with moving people and objects).

This was my first try, so I'm pretty happy about how it turned out, but I definitely need to go back and shoot some more, now that I have a decent DSLR to work with (more on that later) and a little bit more experience !

[Link] Un autre regard [Jérémie Canavesio]

When i told him I was into photography and wanted to start taking it a little bit more seriously by starting this very blog so that I could show my photographs to you, a friend of mine invited me to check out unautreregard.tk, one of his friends' website. I wasn't expecting anything like this !! The pictures are great, obviously, but what makes them a lot more special is the soundtrack he added not only to the gallery but to some of the pics individually to help you get into the picture and make it even more realistic.

My favorite is the PRÉSIDENTIABLE gallery, which reminds me a lot of the french movie "La Haine" by Matthieu Kassovitz (1995), so turn the volume up and go check it out !

[Link] The bitter*girls

This guy is amazing... I can't remember how I ended up on his blog, maybe through Fubiz a long time ago, because they have a post linking to him dating to way back in 2006. Anyway, the man behind the bitter*girls is a japanese photographer, who specialized in tilt-shift lenses, which change the focus giving you this unrealistic, model-like result. He also shoots regular stuff, and it does that very well too, but really, check out the tilt-shift shots, it's defintely worth it ! Either you like it or not, but you have to have an opinion ! Let me know ;)

[Link] A daily dose of fun - FailBlog :)

It's not like it is a big surprise, but I've had no time to dig into my old pics and start posting my favorite shots. I got a few of those in mind already, so that should be a matter of a few minutes once I get going, so check back soon ;)

In the meantime, I wanted to let ya'll know about a blog that I've been visiting every single day for a few weeks now, it's hilarious !! Well, not always, but most of the time it is! It's just a bunch of pictures of different situations where someone definitely failed at whatever they were supposed to do, or wanted to accomplish. The caption often makes it even more funny. Enjoy !!

[Link] A daily dose of inspiration - Fubiz

When i said in the previous post that I would drop a link or two, this is the one I had in mind... I've discovered this blog a while back, and I've been checking it out (almost) on a daily basis ever since. As the title says it well, you'll find there a daily dose of inspiration on everything graphics-related, wether it's video, photography, webdesign, and more. If only that inspiration was to materialize just as easily ! Have a nice day !