Every so often I have both the opportunity and inspiration to write. I've been quick to lament virtually all summer that I haven't had much time for anything except for work. I've also mentioned that it's not the end of the world, as I do get overtime pay these days. Still, a part of me laments the lack of balance... I had copied a number of photo folders the other night, and was quite honestly shocked to see the date stamps of my last two folders from my camera. The first was dated July 6, 2014, and the latter was dated September 22, 2014. In other words, ~2.5 months where I did next to nothing with my DSLR. I made up for it a bit this past Sunday, but photography is something I'm fairly passionate about, so I should be doing more- like getting into Lightroom and Elements, and trying to get some of my work published as photostock. In any case, I'm quietly working to get some balance back.
I hope the photos I've shared over the past few blogs were enjoyed. Tinka and Schwarz have been seen in China, Germany and the U.S. as of this writing. I think they're both on Pinterest as well. As far as I can tell, neither is impressed.
Besides the cats, I've published a few photos of the local flora. Still, this blog is about my adventures in the wonderful world of data- my data, to be precise. I've been doing a bit of work in the Media_Title table. This table currently has 950 records, and what I've been doing recently is updating the Media_listed_as column. Quite honestly, this column doesn't do much right now, and partially duplicates data on another table (but not really), as this column and the Format column from the Media table both pull data from the Format table. What I can do in the future, however, is query against the Media_Title table and find out specific information about movies- specifically, I can see all of the media which is associated with the a title, such as a movie, soundtrack, game or book. The other table, Media, lists the boring details associated with each piece of media- UPC, ISBN, publisher, format, etc.
I had a bit of a watershed moment at work last night... a pretty "watered down" watershed- if that is possible. Maybe an epiphany is a more appropriate description; perhaps in the end it was just an "A-HA" moment. Here's what happened.
Thursday nights at my office are the busiest time of the week for my fellow Nightstalkers and yours truly. I pulled into the parking lot and had to flash Meerkat's headlamps before Anna recognized me. She was all smiles and said, "You have to read your email- we have a new supervisor." We exchanged a few more words, and then she was off to her home and I was off to the double-wide in the sky (E-Man's quaint nickname our office). I climbed the nineteen stairs, swiped my badge, and I was back in action. Not surprisingly, the data for the big job was not yet in, so I grabbed another job and checked email. I found out who the new supervisor was and fired off a quick congratulatory note, and then dove into my job. As it was a variant of one I had tackled on Wednesday, it took relatively little time to complete, as I didn't need to keep on referring back to instructions. I signed off on it, and checked email again. I generally get between 50-100 or more emails per day, and I am happy to report that as of 0630, I have a Zero Inbox: absolutely NOTHING in my inbox- everything has either been relegated to folders or deleted. Nice. While I was waiting for the evening's main event to commence, I decided to open up the database. This database is very much a work in progress, and I am only in the beginning stages with three tables. At this juncture, I don't foresee too many other tables being added, primarily because the primary reason for this database is to be a quick and dirty way of getting some basic information about previous jobs related to what someone is currently working on. Last night's "A-HA" involved a simpler and more comprehensive way of finding and classifying jobs.
Two databases. One post. Excellent.
As always, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to.
Showing posts with label Adobe Lightroom. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Adobe Lightroom. Show all posts
Friday, September 26, 2014
Monday, September 22, 2014
Goodbye Summer, 2014... the affair is officially over
As we're pretty much "officially" out of panic mode at work, I had this past Saturday off. This was really nice, as strong thunderstorms had been predicted for our area. We were thankfully spared from getting hit by the storms and had a quiet night. Sunday ended up being a "heavy" day- the humidity seemed to be off the scale, and we moped around for the better part of the day. I turned the television on around 1330, hoping to catch a part of the Chicago Bears' game. I mentioned in a previous blog that I enjoy watching the Bears. At noon on Sunday. Last week they played @1900; this week they're playing on Monday night. I work on Monday night- at this rate, I may not ever get to see a game this entire season. I could care less.
The photo above was taken with my Samsung Galaxy SIII; it shows my Nikon D3200 with dual battery grip, tripod, wired shutter release, 40mm Micro Nikkor lens and hotshoe mounted tri-axis level. It's a nice combination of equipment- I shot ~120 frames in 90 minutes. In a previous blog, I had introduced Darth Anna, Defiler of Planets. This past Friday I had brought my camera in to show her the battery grip. She seemed to be a bit puzzled about the need for two batteries, and I didn't try to explain my reasoning for the battery grip; suffice it to say that I shot for ninety minutes this afternoon without doing anything except for swapping a lens.
It turned out to be a glorious late afternoon photoshoot. There were definitely some photos that just did not happen because l had "lost the light"... that's one of those stock phrases that is SOOOOOO true; it's especially important in my subject area- railroads, where browns and reds predominate. Before this gets too boring, I want to pop in a photo that is important to me right here and right now- the very first image I captured with a DSLR (earlier this year).
No data to report, but one number: 2489. Not even a prime number... I thought it might be, but the internet said otherwise. It's the number of photo files I moved over to Adobe Lightroom. I had hoped to do a bit more than move files, but Adobe wanted updates, so I did the updates instead of real work. I have a few thousand more files on another couple of harddrives that also need to be moved over for renaming and archiving as well. One of those drives also has my music library, which is in serious need of deduping. I STILL need to replace the motherboard in Jennifer's computer. And, last but not least on my I.T. laundry list.... Mr. T. has apparently given up on his dream of building a computer with DDR4. It is his considered opinion that this new memory will not be reasonably priced in the foreseeable future. Last night, he said he had seen a 4GB stick for around 100USD; I laughed and told him that our first Windows computer had a pair of 4MB sticks that cost 78USD- and that was cheap!
In any event, Mr. T. has suggested that he can build a DDR3 PC pretty inexpensively. His plan is to wait for the Black Friday sales. In the interim, he'll be researching options... for building a dual graphics card box. I'm not seeing the "inexpensive" here.
As always, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to.
Thursday, July 24, 2014
My personal supermodel
I've been really busy at work. Jennifer understands, and even encourages my work. It's kinda nice, in a way: although I am salaried, I get time and a half for time at work past forty hours. This is pretty neat.
The past couple of weeks, however, have been rather weird. I've spent a good portion of them checking out a supermodel... all the while my on employer's dime, so to speak, and with their 100% backing and approval. I've studied her from every angle imaginable (including upside down and 90 degrees left and right of center). As I've studied her, I've become more a student of the presentation of her rather than her, actually.
I don't want to mention her name or the publication that is using her images, as this might be some sort of conflict of interest somewhere. I can say, though, that she is Caucasian, blonde (well, blonde in the images I was reviewing) and somewhere between 5'4" and 6'0" tall.
I would like to say, though, that after being forced to look at her for the past few weeks, she isn't so super-looking ... at least not to me. In retrospect, I should qualify this a bit: blondes have never been my first choice in terms of girlfriends, suitable mates, etc. Sorry, Barbie.
Still, this young woman is not unattractive. Some of her photos that I reviewed are quite alluring. I started having problems with her, however, as I viewed proof after proof after proof with her in the signoff phase, and although most of these were lo-res monochrome, they were not unflattering toward her. I should also mention that were printed using departmental class medium speed printers with average contrast, so the graphics output was generally not optimal. Still, looking at the color versions of the proofs, I could not help but note the amount of Photoshopping that had been applied to her close-up poses, in contrast to some street scene "candids" where she was featured.
What really threw me for a loop, though, was her height. There was one picture in particular that led me to believe she was a certain height- after looking up her bio on wikipedia, it turns out she is actually much taller that the picture would lead one to believe.
But, getting back to "alluring" but not attractive to me... the publication I've been proofing for is challenging me to decide what their ultimate message is. And this is where the waters are quite muddied. Because it seems that, even though it is one model in one publication with one line of clothing aimed at a fairly narrow demographic, the "product" isn't something you exchange dollars for. Rather, the "product" seems to be a bit of pleasure given in exchange for a piece of one's soul.
Heavy-handed? Judgemental? Perhaps, but you're not the one who's been staring at her on and off for the past few weeks. In one color photo, she is quite beautiful and attractive, with stunning hair and textbook makeup application. That same photo, in monochrome, shows heavily accented cheekbones, and displaying not a pretty face but a roughly outlined skull- death via glamor?
Monochrome, so often, is the true and final arbiter of the photographic medium. Who has seen Ansel Adams' works and not been moved and awed? I, too, was moved, when viewing this supermodel. But the movement was repulsive- the feeling was revulsion. It was like seeing the world of fashion with all of the veils removed for the first time.
Sorry if this been a bit of a downer- especially after not having published for over a month. If you're looking for data... I can't remember the last weekend where I had two days off. Hopefully I can get back on track and talk a bit about... hmm... Adobe Lightroom... in the next blog or so.
As always, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't ave to.
The past couple of weeks, however, have been rather weird. I've spent a good portion of them checking out a supermodel... all the while my on employer's dime, so to speak, and with their 100% backing and approval. I've studied her from every angle imaginable (including upside down and 90 degrees left and right of center). As I've studied her, I've become more a student of the presentation of her rather than her, actually.
I don't want to mention her name or the publication that is using her images, as this might be some sort of conflict of interest somewhere. I can say, though, that she is Caucasian, blonde (well, blonde in the images I was reviewing) and somewhere between 5'4" and 6'0" tall.
I would like to say, though, that after being forced to look at her for the past few weeks, she isn't so super-looking ... at least not to me. In retrospect, I should qualify this a bit: blondes have never been my first choice in terms of girlfriends, suitable mates, etc. Sorry, Barbie.
Still, this young woman is not unattractive. Some of her photos that I reviewed are quite alluring. I started having problems with her, however, as I viewed proof after proof after proof with her in the signoff phase, and although most of these were lo-res monochrome, they were not unflattering toward her. I should also mention that were printed using departmental class medium speed printers with average contrast, so the graphics output was generally not optimal. Still, looking at the color versions of the proofs, I could not help but note the amount of Photoshopping that had been applied to her close-up poses, in contrast to some street scene "candids" where she was featured.
What really threw me for a loop, though, was her height. There was one picture in particular that led me to believe she was a certain height- after looking up her bio on wikipedia, it turns out she is actually much taller that the picture would lead one to believe.
But, getting back to "alluring" but not attractive to me... the publication I've been proofing for is challenging me to decide what their ultimate message is. And this is where the waters are quite muddied. Because it seems that, even though it is one model in one publication with one line of clothing aimed at a fairly narrow demographic, the "product" isn't something you exchange dollars for. Rather, the "product" seems to be a bit of pleasure given in exchange for a piece of one's soul.
Heavy-handed? Judgemental? Perhaps, but you're not the one who's been staring at her on and off for the past few weeks. In one color photo, she is quite beautiful and attractive, with stunning hair and textbook makeup application. That same photo, in monochrome, shows heavily accented cheekbones, and displaying not a pretty face but a roughly outlined skull- death via glamor?
Monochrome, so often, is the true and final arbiter of the photographic medium. Who has seen Ansel Adams' works and not been moved and awed? I, too, was moved, when viewing this supermodel. But the movement was repulsive- the feeling was revulsion. It was like seeing the world of fashion with all of the veils removed for the first time.
Sorry if this been a bit of a downer- especially after not having published for over a month. If you're looking for data... I can't remember the last weekend where I had two days off. Hopefully I can get back on track and talk a bit about... hmm... Adobe Lightroom... in the next blog or so.
As always, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't ave to.
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