Stupid People...

I hear people complain about there stocks going bad. So I think to my self, well if you got stocks in Ericsson or Nokia maybe you dumb ass should not go and buy an iPhone. You support the company that you have stocks in, and you get stocks in companys that are "close to your heart".

Another thing that have been bugging me for some time now is all this phone sales people calling that wants to take care of all my pension money. I always ask what they do with the money if they can take care of them. The all tell me the same shit. We save your money in the environment and ethics right stocks and funds. 

I tell them: Well is that where all the money is? I want you to put all my money where they get the most yield. Like in tobacco, alcohol, arms, and the sex industry. But no, that would not be ethicly right. Listen I say, when it comes to my money it does not have anything to do with ethics, you are there to make my money grow. The environment and ethics right is all fine, but when it comes to producing money...

Call me back when you have what I want. They never do.

Another Wedding

Helped out with a wedding shoot yesterday. Took some pictures even thou I consider my self to be the assistant for this "job".

Even thou it was late and the sun had set behind the trees, I am glad that my Nikon D3s preform so well even under low light. I set my ISO to 4000-8000 and the pictures is fine. Some time back I saw pictures from an cheaper camera that used ISO 2000 and thos pictures was so bad that we could not use them for anything. Well maybe icons but that is about it.

All pictures

Wrong is not always bad...

I was in the photo store the other day because I wanted to look at some cheap flashes that I had seen on the web, and I wanted to see them for my self. I dident remember the name of the flashes so I said I wanted to look at thos cheap flashes you sell. The store person took me over to the flash and lightning part of the store. I tought they looked good and stable for the price, so I did what I usaly do, I "impulse buying". When I came home I realize that this is not the flashes that I was supose to look at. This is not flashes at all. This are lights, lights that is on permanently.

But I unpack them anyway because Im to curious to try them out. Now I feel that this is better than what I was going to get. With permanent lights I can move them in to possition and get the light exactly where I want them instead of shoting with flash and adjusting them. So something wrong turned out to be good in the end anyway.

Did a test of my girlfriend and I like the result.

Fotografiska Museet

To day I went to Fotografiska museet (Museum of Photography) here in Stockholm. Right now there was a special of Robert Mapplethorpe, but it was not becuase of that I went. This Robert Mapplethorpe photos was not something that I would pay to see, they where boring and I feelt the same about almost all pictures that was in the museum. There was nothing special about the pictures at all. I expect work to be displayed in an museum to be good.

There where pictures from Liu Bolin - The Invisible Man, and thos pictures where fun to watch, but it was nothing special about them. The lightning was not special, the subject was not special, the angles was not special, but there was alot of work put in to the pictures in another way.

But then again why did they display them in a museum? It was no diffrant from body paint that I have seen in alot of diffrant ways.

So the only thing that I got out of to days visit is that I can feel good about my own pictures, because I feel that my own work is alot better than most crap that is hang in a museum.

Wedding Photographer

Me and a friend got a job as wedding photographer. This is my first wedding. It was held at the Grand Hotell in Stockholm Sweden. It is an very old building with alot of rooms, perfect place to find nice locations to shoot at. We where taking pictures all day long, and my body have not fully recoverd yet. We where doing this for 11 houers straight. Having a Nikon D3s + 70-200mm is heavy after a wild. Now I just have to go through about 2600 pictures. But it was a good experience. Not going to do that again. Not 11 houers straight anyway.

Need more memory

It does not matter if you get the latest computer and the best software and so on. Eventually the best things are not good enough. Last computer I build got 6 GB of ram. I thought that would be enough for the stuff I do. But no... 

I remember the good old days (Amiga time) when 512kB was more than you needed. As a little side note, some years ago I found an extra memory for my VIC-20. That extra memory was at 2 kB...

Quality capacitors...

We had a dance machine at Heron City that behaved strange. So we took back the computerbox and started looking in to it. After alittle time I saw the problem. All the capacitors on the graphics card had poped. Normaly they pop from the top, but this once had "jumped" out of there casing. I am most amazed that the graphics card worked at all, it started up fine and booted the game, but after a wild it crashed. 

Anyway, I changed them for new once and now it workes fine again.

Live Cam At Work

OK, the Live Cam is up and running again.

http://geekjoan.com/geeklive2.htm

Oops

DAMN elinchrom EL-Skyport

So I needed a wireless trigger system for my camera and flash. I dident know that much about this diffrent systems so I thought I go to a camera store and let them tell me a little more about them and recomend a system. They presented me this elinchrom EL-Skyport:

Fine, it was a system that you could add more recivers to later on. Came home and noticed that the cable that should go from the reciver to the flash was not included in the package. They did not say anything about that in the store... It dident have TTL... and the damn thing was broken out of the package. The reciver did not take any charge...

So I went back to the store and told my little story, they looked at me and started asking questions. I said that you are the seller, dont ask me. After a little back and forth (asking the guys in the office) it was ok for me to return it. Doh!

Anyway. I asked again. I need a system to trigger my flash wireless. With TTL and all the cables I need... ? Eh? OK, I would like the PocketWizard ( I had done a little research this time)

They told me that is more expencive. I dont care, I want something that works. Again a little back and forth he came out with this PocketWizard Flex TT5:

The store guy dident know if all the cables was included. Well, dont look at me!

After I open the package I told him that you dont need cables.

Tryed it out tonight after an easy update of the firmware, and it workes like a fucking sharm.

The nice thing is that it is both transmitter and reciver in the same gadget so you dont need to keep them apart. 

Also did some tests shooting some smoke. Flash is on the side 

I love it!

So many Games, so little time...

I have a problem. I cant deside on what game to play when the trigger finger is itching. Right now it is Team Fortress 2 or StarCraft II. I like them both and they have been with me for quite some time. But they are both very repeating games. Sure there are alot of maps and diffrent styles of games but the general ide is the same. I like TF 2 because it is fast, and you can jump in at any time play for as long as you like and then quit.

StarCraft II on the other hand is alittle more time consuming because you have to wait on other players to be able to start a game. Then it is all the preparation getting the buildings going and upgrades and so on. 

Humm, I tend to spend alittle amount of time with both of them so I dont forget the finesse about them. But to be realy good I should pick one game and practise like hell. But on the other hand, then it gets even more boring. I think I should stick to them both or just find a new game all together.

Back to the salt mine

So the inevitable happend to day. Vacation is over and it's just to head back to work. 

DAMN! I realy dont want to. Either I dont want to work or I want a new kind of job. It was so nice been free, doing what ever...

How lucky am I?

To day I found three four-leaf clovers at the same spot. Do I get to wish three times?

Samsung ML-1860

I needed a small laser printer to have a home, nothing fancy just black and white. So I was at Media Markt to day and saw this little Samsung, so I got it. The sale people there said that it was slow, but they was wrong about that. It is faster than all other lasers that I tested. I printed both text and pictures and it starts 1 sec after you hit "print out". The price dident give me a heart attack ether. At 555 SEK it was a bargen.

Picture from Samsungs website.

Greek food - Sweden vs Greece

We where at Rhodos some weeks ago, and there was greek food there. Yes I promise, it was.

I dident have that high thoughts about the food, infact I dident like it at all. They could not even make souvlaki that is the most greek food I can think of.

To day we where at a Swedish greek restaurant, and the food was fantastic. 

It could be that on Rhodos they only serve tourists and they dont giva a shit, but that is so wrong. I will never set my foot on Rhodos again just because they dont give a shit about the food they serve.

I dont get it?

We where eating at Levinsky´s in Kista Galleria to day. They have burgers, tex-mex food and alot of other greate meals. So what is it that I dont get? It is about the same price if not cheaper, it tast better, have a larger selection of food, huge plates, drink as much as you like, and there is not very much people there. So where are all this people? They are at McDonalds that is across the "street".
What is it whit people and McDonalds? I never eat at McDonalds if there are something else around, and there is almost always something else.

Image borrowed from hamburgare.org. First time I dont have a camera with me.

Tom Tits 2011

Tom Tits 2011, a photo by GeekJoan on Flickr.

Was at Tom Tits in Södertälje to day. We go there every year and it is alot of fun. Experiments for all ages.

Rhodos 2011

Rhodos 2011, a set on Flickr.

Totaly forgot to put up the pictures from Rhodos. That was one windy place. To bad the food was so damn crapy...

Sport - New Cathegory

Sport, a set on Flickr.

Added some photos.