Location: ??.????°N, -??.????°W Alt: ???m
	Photo Date: 1 October, 2008
	ISO: 100
	Aperture/Shutter: F/6.3, 1/20"
	Focal Length: 78mm
	Camera: Olympus Evolt E-510
Category: None

My experiment is concluded! I have indeed confirmed that my days are, in fact, mind numbingly boring!
Not surprising given my capture and subsequent enslavement by the bureaucratic establishment. However, as promised, I will subject you to it all in glorious and excessive detail!.

My day began with a greeting of a pile of union propiganda on my desk. Obviously dropped sometime overnight to remind us of our impending walk outs and the unique abilities we have to vote for our next employer. Not many people get this strange collaboration, but I assure you, it doesn't help our plight to fare wage any.
The colours where a nice mix however and,with a slight arrangement of bands, it seemed good enough for at least a quick shot (I'll probably email it to them actually). the shot above is, of course, the finished product. Adjacent, you can see that the limitations of my wrecked nerves and poor lighting did require some slight adjustment to the image as it came out of the camera.

Behind the Lens Details
As I've already stated, the bands did not fall naturally this way but where slightly arranged. Also, due to the low light and several different types of florescent lights, the colour is a little off.
First order of business is to assault the colour with Curves (in PS CS-3). Setting the white to the page (it was, after all, white) and the 50% grey to the baffle wall at the top of the image, gives us a pretty acurate correction of the colours. Also the histogram is still pretty intact with no drastic spikes or gaps.
Next the tone. As some colour was subdued by the lighting and subsequent Curves changes, a slight tweak to the Saturation and a bit of reinforced contrast where added to finish off the shot.
Total post-processing time: about 5 minutes, including load times.

More of my day tomorrow afternoon!

Well, it finally happened. Age caught up with me and I can officially declare myself old (by the definitions of the young).
The dreaded 'Big 3-Oh' has arrived and somehow, it's everything I imagined.
A depressing reminder of my mortality and utter failure to find immortal youth.
In order to commemorate this auspicious event, I've decided to borrow an old photography inspiration technique. Camera in tow, I'll be taking a picture of wherever I am for the course of the day. Every half and hour to an hour or so.
Posting them all, in the raw, I should be able to examine each for the pros and cons of the actual image and turn it into a bit of an educational exercise. I'll go step by step through any corrections and adjustments to show a standard work flow.
Yup, there's going to be some crap in there that would normally be filtered out by good sense, but sometimes it's important to realize that happens and discuss why a photo may not make the grade.
If I'm going to be old, I might as well be sage and wise as well.

All photo bloggers are familiar with the typical friendly, but largely uninspired comments like "That's nice" or "Awesome!".
While I'm glad you stopped by and made your visit conspicuous, and I do appreciate visits, these sorts of comments do not do much for the actual progression of the skill on display.
Even bad comments, if well constructed and thought out, can be extremely useful ... actually in many cases the disappointments of the viewers can be more helpful.
I fully welcome comments and critiques of my work regularly and, granted, may not heed all of them, but I certainly reflect upon them and my work.
The nature of pleasantry or limits of experience, for some, does tend to restrict the extent of comment they are willing to provide. In order to help educate the commenter (as there really isn't a course for it), I've found an article from the Digital Photography School website that has a few great tips on leaving better and more useful comments.
Even if you consider yourself a good commenter, it's worth a quick browse:

"How to Win Friends and Influence People - A Guide to Commenting on Other People’s Photos"

I honestly have no idea how much of my readership resides in the GTA area (my hit-stats say only 10% of my readers last month where from Canada), but for those of you that are, the Toronto Photographic and Digital Imaging Show will be at the Toronto International Centre (the one by the airport) from 2nd - 4th of May, 2008.

It seems to be largely sponsored by Henry's, with vendors from Olympus, Canon, Sony, Panasonic and Fuji.
I expect good deals on equipment and there is mention of free seminars as well.
Hey, for $15 how can you go wrong? (except for the parking that is )

For anyone in the Ajax Pickering area that has their digits into photography, might be interested in the Town of Ajax Photo Contest.
It's running until Sunday, 19 August, 2007, so there's still lots of time to get out there and take some pics of the town.
With 4 categories and 3 age groups, there's lots for everyone to try for!

Also, here's an interesting little time waster for you. Last weekend, after some minor alcohol consumption, we imbibers started evaluating our friends by the stuff we would keep, sell or burn if they died.
Hey, with a Nietzschian, an aspiring buddhist and a devout atheist, death is no taboo topic.

The neat part about the exercise, is that at the extreme ends, the keep or burn categories, you can gain interesting insight into the way you view the materialistic manifestations your friends' personalities, and they your views of them if they happen to be present.
Something to ponder on a Friday evening and a great way to determine what to purge during your next spring clean.

As a bit of an experiment, I'm going to try show-casing my images through the regular site as I once intended, although if it becomes too cluttered with the standard rants, I may split them off into a separate feed.
I've adjusted my search engines to match my gallery topics and hopefully all will go smoothly and as always, all pics will still be available through the gallery pages on the right side menu of the Cyberware.ca web page. With luck the auto-updater will post some pictures for me while I'm away ... just for your viewing pleasure (cause I know y'all will miss me so much while I'm away!)

Feel free to comment constructively on any and all images (please!).

Sparkling Rose of Spring (Click to enlarge)

	Photo Date: 27 June, 2007
	ISO: 100
	Shutter/Aperture: 1/1000, F/5.6
	Camera: Olympus E-510
	Category: Miscellaneous

A simple rose from the front yard after a few rounds with the sprinkler.

Cyberware.ca Photography

It slowly began to dawn on me a couple of weeks ago, that I origionally switched this site over to the blog style format for the purposes of posting pictures and receiving feedback on my work ... you know, those links at the top of the menu on the top right there.
Since I haven't really posted any new pictures since December , I think I'm falling short of my origional goal.

Picture was taken 26 May, 2006 (yeah, just a little late), this little guy was 'running' across my front steps after a spring thunderstorm last year.
10 minutes of harassment, in the form of a lens up his antennae, soon followed.

Understandably, I should have a veritable crap-load of pics when I get back to Canada and will more then likely be very eager to get them all posted for all to be harassed with, but I have a tonne of domestic shots just lying around on my hard drive, waiting to be exploited.

With a little effort, I should be able to get some new shots into the photo gallery and showcased through the feed.
Until now, enjoy the little guy above as a quick sampler.

Eventually, I'd even like to get some tutorial posts up as well. Techniques both for optical and digital manipulation of pictures and photographic styles that I've found particularly handy in the past.
I suppose the manifestation of that little venture will probably depend on the level of interest I get on the idea.