Meghan and John's engagement pictures

I shot some engagement pictures for friends at work recently. I've done engagement pictures before, but I've been getting into off-camera flash, and this was my first real attempt at mixed lighting. I have to say I'm pretty happy with the results.
After one of Katie's and my last Barnes and Noble dates, I ended up with a copy of Advanced Digital Black & White Photography, and I played with some more, well, advanced digital black and white photography.
And whenever I do shoots like this, I always end up with a picture that I didn't even notice when I shot it but it turns out to be one of my favorites. Here's that one:
And now, the part where I opine about photography: Maybe it's just me, but I find 'posing' any more than a few generic suggestions and asking for 'big smiles' just doesn't do it for me. The fun of engagement pictures (and really, wedding pictures too) is in the actual real happiness of two people, not the coordinating-but-not-matching outfits and the pretty locations and the 17 compositional rules you're supposed to follow or not follow or creatively break. That's why I love bringing Katie along when I do these sorts of things. She's so in tune with people that she's able to foster those real connections that make the pictures much more interesting. (Plus, she holds my diffuser for me!)
I got plenty of well-composed, accurately-exposed pictures of Meghan and John smiling at the camera like everyone assumes they're supposed to. But the pictures I always gravitate to—the ones that make me stop and smile as I speed past them in Aperture—are the ones I take right after the couple thinks they're done with a particular 'pose' and they let their 'I'm being photographed' guard down.
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Too cool not to share

We got back from DC almost a week ago, but I'm just now getting around to culling through my 500 or so pictures. I'll have a full gallery and whatnot up in a few days, but I stumbled across one I had to share. I wasn't blown away when I took this picture, but when I got back to the computer, the expression and angle on the lead soldier's face just seemed to fall into place. A quick trip through Aperture and Silver Efex Pro, and this is what I came up with:


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Stars on Tanks

OK, last post for the night, I promise.

While out at Yuma for work recently, I came across their display of Army equipment that had been tested at Yuma Proving Grounds. Some of the tanks were WWII- or Vietnam-era equipment that saw battle. These pictures are battle-worn stars from those tanks on the front lines. They are sized to be used as wallpapers on widescreen monitors—if you want 4:3, let me know and I'll see if I can recrop them.



P.S. Thank a vet today (or tomorrow).
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Workout Generator Applescript: How I Managed to Nerd-ify Even the Most Simple of Sports

As some of you might have noticed from my "Project Fatass" post below, I'm trying to run a 5k in May. In order to do that, I probably need to be able to run a 1k first. I'm working on that. Of course, since I use a computer---and AppleScript---for just about everything else, I figured I'd apply it to running as well. But unlike a lot of the other scripts I write, I think other people will find this useful.
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A Normal Cell Phone Ringtone (for posterity)

I get enough emails from people that found my Ask MetaFilter post that I need to repost this... for eternity. Here are two files of Motorola's "Classic" ringtone from the v600 era. One has a bit of silence baked in at the end. Try them both, and use the one that works on your phone.

(download)
(download)

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