Vajrapani

When I was in Bhutan, I saw a monk who told fortunes or something like that. I’m not a believer in this stuff, but it was fun. He said that I should have this guy around. It’s Vajrapani.

From Wildmind: “Vajrapani (Holder of the Thunderbolt) represents the energy of the enlightened mind, and energy that breaks through delusion. He dances wildly within a halo of flames, which represent the transformative power of Awakening. He holds a vajra (thunderbolt) in his right hand, which emphasizes the power to cut through the darkness of delusion.”

My dear teacher sent me a postcard of Vajrapani right after the monk gave me this information. I thought that was interesting.

I keep this postcard on my desk and photographed it to archive it. Recently, I’ve been playing with a paint app on my iPhone called AutoPainter3. It does, as its name suggests, automatically applies a painting style to the photograph. It’s a little heavy handed for my taste so I imported the original and the painted version into Photoshop where I could control the amount of “paint” applied. So far I’m liking it. I’m especially liking playing with my iPhone. It’s just my go to camera now!

Playing with image

Look at the Future!! Amazing video by Corning

A Day Made of Glass 2

Phone Camera Photos 2012 Exhibit

Please join us on February 3 at 6 PM at Phone Camera 2012.

Exhibit from February 4 – March 10 at 627 South Street, Honolulu, Hawaii.

I’m so honored to join many wonderful photographers in this show!

Something to be aware of – where does our stuff come from

And under what conditions are people working under? Are we imposing our standard on other countries?

From This American Life. The embed feature isn’t working, but make some time to check out this video.
Mr. Daisey and the Apple Factory
“Mike Daisey was a self-described “worshipper in the cult of Mac.” Then he saw some photos from a new iPhone, taken by workers at the factory where it was made. Mike wondered: Who makes all my crap? He traveled to China to find out.”
Here’s the link: http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/454/mr-daisey-and-the-apple-factory

“The first thing you do when you sit down at the computer”

Thought I’d share this. I’m so guilty of checking email the first thing instead of doing something creative…something I really need to be aware of.

By Seth Godin

Let me guess: check the incoming. Check email or traffic stats or messages from your boss. Check the tweets you follow or the FB status of friends.

You’ve just surrendered not only a block of time but your freshest, best chance to start something new.

If you’re a tech company or a marketer, your goal is to be the first thing people do when they start their day. If you’re an artist, a leader or someone seeking to make a difference, the first thing you do should be to lay tracks to accomplish your goals, not to hear how others have reacted/responded/insisted to what happened yesterday.

Tribute to Steve Jobs by Hugh MacLeod

Love this tribute to Steve Jobs by Hugh MacLeod.

Getting Things Done from Etsy

I love new ideas of how people handle a busy life using technology and sometimes not. Here’s a link to the post: http://www.etsy.com/blog/en/2011/how-to-get-things-done/

By Laura Chin at Etsy

How-Tuesday: Get Things Done from Etsy on Vimeo.

Unsharp Mask Tutorial from John Paul Caponigro

Unsharp Mask.

I’ve used this method ever since i took John Paul’s class many years ago. It is still the best sharpening method I’ve found.

Burning House

I found this photo blog called The Burning House where people post a photo of the things they would take if their house was burning. It says a lot about a person in a single photo…a portrait, of sorts.

Food photos

Photographing food in restaurants that are not well-lit has been a challenge. No flash and flash make the food look really unappealing. Last night I experimented with a video light that Kris bought. It didn’t work for us so we’ve been using it as an over-priced flashlight – examining Murphy’s ears and looking for dog toys misplaced under the furniture.

Here’s what I found – these are shots taken with the video light, without flash and with flash. I’m liking the results.

With flash

No flash

Using video light