Taken during an evening walk with Ligia in North Bethesda, MD.
The first DC TECH cocktail
Ligia and I attended the first ever DC TECH cocktail last night. We had a great time, and I brought my 5D along, of course. I took lots of photos, and posted them to Flickr. Everyone in attendance had a good time. They were all so busy networking or listening to demos that most didn’t even notice me taking photos, which made for some nice candid shots. I honestly don’t know how they could concentrate or hear each other with all that loud music the club had put on, but I guess they got the job done. The event was organized by Frank Gruber and Eric Olson. Nick O’Neill helped with the event. If you know any of the people in the photos, please let me know so I can properly identify them.
There were a lot of people in attendance. I’m glad things worked out well for Eric and Frank. The cool thing about TECH cocktails is that they give companies a chance to demo their products to interested folks without having to pay to attend. The people who attend also don’t pay. The entire thing is sponsored by helpful companies, and that’s pretty nice.
A first impression
These are but a few of the first photos I took with my Canon 5D when I got it a few short weeks ago. I got the EF 24mm f/1.4L lens at the same time, and that’s what I used to get these photos. I’m very happy with the 5D and the 24mm. To be able to get photos like these when it’s almost pitch dark out there is a fantastic experience.
I’ll write a more detailed review of the 5D soon, so stay tuned for that. Not sure how much I can add to the multitude of accolades and opinions this camera has already received, but at least I can offer my own personal take.
Two great utilities for photographers using Windows XP
I’m still on Windows XP (don’t think I’ll switch to Vista any time soon), and I’ve gotten accustomed to not being able to view thumbnails of my RAW image files in Windows Explorer. That is, until now. Just found two great little photo utilities from MS (surprise, surprise) and thought I’d share the info.
The first is called Microsoft RAW Image Thumbnailer and Viewer for Windows XP. It’s a really long name but this little utility does just that. Once it’s installed, you can see thumbnail previews of your photos right in Windows Explorer, without having to open Bridge or Lightroom. That’s pretty nice! Not only that, but this lightweight app will also let you open up the RAW files and view/print them.
The second is called Microsoft Photo Info, and it will let you edit a photo’s meta data (EXIF, IPTC) right from Windows Explorer. Once installed, it puts a “Photo Info” option on the right-click menu for any photo (RAW files as well), and it lets you open up single or multiple photos and edit the EXIF data. It’s really handy, and I’m sure it’ll work great for those folks who don’t have Bridge or Lightroom.
By the way, I also talked about editing the EXIF data in your photographs in this post, where I outlined three other EXIF editing apps for Windows. Looks like there’s plenty of choice out there, so don’t be shy, dig in and edit away. Let’s all have nice, clean, crisp meta data in our photos! 🙂
Random Harvest (1942)
The story is fantastically beautiful. A woman (Greer Garson), meets and falls in love with an amnesia patient (Ronald Colman), a convalescing officer from WWI. His life, until then a dreary, monotonous stay in an asylum, begins with their chance meeting.
They move to the country, and he begins to write. He’s quite good at it, and emboldened by his success and the prospect of making a living from writing, he proposes to her. She accepts, of course, and they settle down to a beautiful married life.
They have a boy, and one day he gets a job offer in nearby Liverpool. They’re both very happy about it, and he sets off for the city right away. On his way to the job interview, he has an accident, and a concussion brings back all memory of his previous life, erasing his current one.
Naturally, he goes back to his family home (he happens to be an aristocrat) and picks up his life, troubled as he may be by the lapse of three years from his life. His now ex-wife, desperate, searches everywhere, falls ill and the baby dies. When she sees his photo in a newspaper some time later, she applies to be his secretary, and gets the job, but does not tell him about her identity, hoping that he’ll recognize her. He does not, and things go on like that for years: he, tormented by unrecognizable wisps of memory from the past, and she, so close and yet so far from his heart.
I won’t tell you more, because I don’t want to spoil the movie for you if you haven’t seen it. Suffice it to say that it’s absolutely excellent. It’s a perfect screenplay, and Ms. Garson and Mr. Colman are absolutely marvelous in their parts, and they’ve now made my list of favorite actors and actresses. I was left speechless at the beautiful ending, and could only think “Bis, bis, bis!” I’m truly shocked that I did not hear of this movie until now, and want to find more like it. Record it, rent it or buy it, but see it. You must. You won’t regret it.
Raoul Pop 