photography

[simgin]

Looks very peaceful, RC :) Thanks for sharing.

[ivanovnegro]

Outside of my living room:

[dkeg]

Really?! Wow, that's spectacular.

[GekkoP]

Fantastic photos guys. I suck at taking photos, but I really love yours.

[wuxmedia]

lovely shots guys.

Just before a bit of a storm:

[dkeg]

so nice to see everything getting so green, especially after this past winter. Funny how in the beginning of the spring/summer, you get so psyched to cut the lawn, smell the fresh cut grass, revel at how nice it looks. By August, turns into such a chore, and looking forward to winter when the grass is dead.

[rhowaldt]

my girl has started making jewellery, and enough people have told her it is beautiful that she wanted to try and sell some of it online. so, we made the mandatory Etsy-shop, and obviously we needed photos. luckily the camera in my HTC One is proper. however, we still felt like we needed a lightbox to get really nice photos. obviously that shit is way to expensive to buy, so i decided to just make one out of cardboard and some tissue paper. the first version i made was a bit too small and way too fragile for my tastes (if you cut holes in three sides of a regular cardboard box, there isn't much cardboard left to support its own weight in any sturdy way). this weekend i made a new version, out of two banana-boxes (which have thick cardboard and double-layered in some places). i also bought proper ducttape to use instead of silly painter's tape.

here you can see the 'bare bones' of it.

the finished lightbox. the cardboard is even strong enough to clamp the lights onto it directly (with the old version i just clamped them to chairs that i set up around the box).

a photo of the inside of the lightbox.

a photo of my copperwire tree on a overturned wooden bowl inside the lightbox.

for more pictures of the jewellery it is easier to just give you the Etsy URL instead of adding them all as attachments here, so: http://www.etsy.com/shop/MadebyAnnieKaty

the photos still dont come out exactly how i want them to be, but i am afraid i will need to get myself a proper DLSR to do that, as my HTC camera does all sorts of auto-adjustment crap that i cannot switch off, resulting sometimes in rather yellowish pictures (i have found a trick where i block the camera off and let it adjust to the blackness of my hand before taking a shot, which helps with the lights being more white)
another try will be to make these with the lightbox but in daylight conditions, hopefully adding nicer light to the whole thing and making my smartphone camera play nice.

P.S. just noticed my girl did some photo-edits on my pics that i kinda disagree on since they don't make them any prettier. we'll discuss that some time (but it might also just be my camera...)

[simgin]

Good to see, and btw Rho, your flooring is beautiful!

[rhowaldt]

^ thank you, that is my girl's flooring actually, mine is really nice as well yet it is not real wood, hers is... i'll pass the compliment on :)

[wuxmedia]

looks pretty good, but the pics look quite bad on etsy compared to the originals.
super heavy Jpeg to my eyes. 8(
nothing beats a nice camera.
Slobs the 'pro' isn't s/he? never around when you need them. 8)

[rhowaldt]

^ yeah, the Etsy shit looks bad doesn't it... i will have a look Wednesday or something. i just want proper photos on there, dogdamnit.

[wuxmedia]

BTW - I like your tree, It'd work well outside, getting a green patina on it.
"I'd buy that for a dollar"
why aren't you on etsy, or have you just not yet linked us up? 8)

[rhowaldt]

thanks Wuxy :) - no i'm not on Etsy, i don't make that many things, to be honest. the odd piece of jewellery here and there (my first piece was confiscated by my GF because she liked it so much she wanted it, the second was for my grandma and the third for my ex-wife), a bunch of crochet stuff that were mostly gifts or things for my own use, and a whole big fucking bunch of different things such as drawings, songs and writing. dabbled in polymer clay and woodburning and such as well, but nothing really finished. not much to put on Etsy. my friends have been telling me to start releasing my silly guitar songs... which i'll consider. sadly, most of them are in Dutch, so not much useful sharing.

so, from that you can gather that i am still looking for some sort of balance where i know what i actually like to do most and then start monetizing that, or something. but for now i just muck about and have fun :)

[dkeg]

birds were chirping away this today. I took a video. put it on my dropbox

https://www.dropbox.com/s/cp10sccuvu1hfs1/CAM00192.mp4

Edit: Its a large video, sorry if it doesn't play well. Maybe I can mess with the settings on my phone a bit and try again.
Edit2: try this
[yt]eYTTf37K2Ik[/yt]

[wuxmedia]

niiice bbq, man that thing could roast a family of hogs...
and nice land dude.

[rhowaldt]

^ indeed!

[wuxmedia]

and (following the video after - as a father myself) - your kids are cute beyond belief. 8)

[dkeg]

Thanks! Those are from when they were 6 month's old or so.

Edit: doh, obviously have not watched in a long time. they were 2yrs.

Yes! That grill rocks it. And it's like the least expensive choice.

[machinebacon]

Drew, thanks for the insight - of course I followed the video path, and it is so great to see your kids, and you in heavy boarding action :D Oh and I had a lol moment, when your wifey asked you "How to stop this? Press the red button?" and you were like "Uhm, yes" :D I think we guys are somehow all the same :D

[ivanovnegro]

^ That, that!!

Nice video from the patio of course.