Photos and the physical, nostalgia, and the why

I'm getting ready to move.

Hmm, that sounded more philosophical / metaphysical than I may have intended.

I'm getting ready to move bodies to a new apartment.  Not exactly sure when or where, but already I'm inventory'ing my things, realizing just how little I own (no furniture aside from a bed, dresser, desk, and some bookshelves) and yet how much crap I've accumulated, including both boxes of amorphous stuff and things that, well, should be valuable to me.

A plethora of photo albums.  Yearbooks.  And yet more boxes filled with an assemblage of handwritten letters, high school newspapers and term papers, and the like.

These take up space, the physical, to be frank, more than the mental or emotional.  I don't really think about the distant past all that much, for better or worse.  Don't really have close friends from high school (my fault more than theirs), and -- as a card-carrying geek then as now-- let me just bluntly admit that school days were not necessarily my best of days.

I've already scanned thousands of my old photos, probably close to 100% of them in fact, with the very awesome ScanCafe service.  But these new digital files supplement, rather than replace the physical incarnations.

Or do they?  I was just realizing that -- except for doublechecking that all my pics got appropriately scanned -- I haven't spent more than a handful of minutes over the last years perusing my hardcopy photos.  Have you?  And how about those high school yearbooks?  Ten years after high school, have you given them more than a passing glance?

And whether you answer yes or no... I think a more interesting question is why.  If you still lasciviously / lovingly / longingly linger over your old photos and yearbooks, why?  If not, why not?... and would you actually consider junking them? (or perhaps you already have?)

Very curious to hear your thoughts... :)

More photos: From Gregarious Greeks to a Korean Combo and beyond...

I’ve had the good fortune to travel a lot over the last years (mostly for fun, not business, though that’s shifting) and also am blessed with many fun and photogenic friends.

With no further ado, here’s a sample of photos I’ve recently uploaded:

Talented Tjapukais



A sexy swing dancer



Watery wires



Korean combo



Gregarious Greeks



A fab flower


Here's the entire list of my photo sets on Flickr.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/thatadamguy/sets/

Enjoy, and comment away! :-D

[Photo] And when they land, they'll do so in an organized fashion

Berlin boat tour photos and mini Canon SD700 camera review

Earlier this month I had the pleasure of taking a river cruise of sorts through Berlin... including both the former East and West parts.

I shot the photos with my new Canon SD700 camera (which I'm generally pleased but not thrilled with) and posted them on various services.

See my Berlin boat tour photos on...
- Flickr [ set | slideshow ] (strong community, many features, good privacy protection)
- Fotki [ set | slideshow not directly linkable ] (handy admin features, nice hierarchical options)
- Picasa Web Albums [ set | slideshow ] (smart pre-caching, great Picasa integration)

You may note a few funky/overly-general tags (e.g., "Places" and "Geography" and such). This is because I'm having problems debugging a hierarchical-categories-to-IPTC-script. If that doesn't mean anything to you, no worries; it's only a minor annoyance and doesn't affect the photos themselves :-D.

I did slight editing (brightness, contrast, cropping, etc.) using Corel's Paint Shop Pro X (trial version; I'm a paid user of version 8... and God what awful URLs!!!) and organized/tagged the photos using the incomparable and very affordable software called IMatch by Photools.

My thoughts on my new Canon SD700 camera:
- Startup time is wonderfully fast.
- Very easy to use.
- Feels comfortable, solid in my hands.
- Outdoor photos are consistently good, even in lower light.
- Zoom is great, even with movies.
- Movies can be taken even in quite low light!
- Battery life is amazing! I literally shot for hours a day always using the LCD, never once got a low battery warning!

But...
- The image stabilizer helps quite a bit, but still doesn't allow for very-low-light photos.
- Photos -- even at the highest quality setting -- aren't as sharp as I'd like. This is my biggest complaint.
- Battery/SD card door feels flimsy.
- The damn thing is pricey (as "low" as $449 at reputable places).
- I still envy the much thinner/lighter ultra-compacts that my friends have (even though they don't take near-as-nice photos).

* * *

Anyway, I hope you enjoy the pics, and I'd love your feedback and shoutouts and such either here in my blog comments and/or in the comments in the galleries themselves. :-D

Wheeeee! (a spontaneous dance lift)

Anne-Marie lifts unidentified but happy dancer at the 2003 San Francisco Lindy Hop Exchange.

Artful food in restaurant near Strasbourg, France

Ice cream… a wonderful pleasure that’s typically appreciated from childhood and on through adulthood.  Soothing and relaxing, ice cream is even better IMHO when presented colorfully and artfully in a nice restaurant, along with good friends and a small heavy spoon.

Completely gratuitous photo of hot zombie babes with suckers

Why?  Why not!



And here's your challenge: offer captions or other comments that are clever, witty, and not gross or disrespectful, please :-). Thanks!

Badger badger badger (snake?)

Anyone have any idea what this animal is?  I saw him in a park in St. Louis, Missouri, and I’ve been wondering ever since.  And since his home sort of complements my new blog colors, I figured it was high time to feature him here. :-D