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Way back in the dark ages (2008-2010 or so) I got on a kick reading about using off camera flash. Strobist was popular and I did a lot of reading, but didn't have the funds to get a flash that I could use. At one point I rented a canon 580ex speedlite for an event I was photographing. I tried a few things, but this was back in the day and the only advice I got was "put a plastic diffuser on the lens" and I even made my own homemade magbounce (an attachment that fits on top of the lens and directs the light forward)

A few years ago (could be quite a few years ago?) I went looking and the landscape said "go get yourself a Yonguno flash" and I almost, almost pulled the trigger on it. I have a lot of hobbies and interests though so it went on the back burner for a while. 

I got tapped recently to take some headshots for folks at work. I've done this a few times before. In general, the thing I tell myself is, I take candids of people when I am at an event, but I don't really do posed headshots (or weddings). I know that headshots is a skill and I know that I'm not really that kind of photographer. 

Well for whatever reason, this time I said, well, it's just skills right? Why can't I learn this on youtube?

I feel like I have two big things to learn. One is posing and interacting with subjects to get good smiles and facial expressions. That whole "just make a connection with your subject" thing. That whole topic is MASSIVE and giving me anxiety the more I learn about it. The anxiety is that there are so many tips and tricks and things to remember and do and what poses work for males vs females and what things to say to get people to smile genuinely except for when you don't want a big cheesy smile in a portrait and whew it's a lot.

I think when it comes to that topic, I just need experience. I am holding off asking folks to pose for me until I get the flash (it should be here tomorrow) because I want to practice with the flash. 

The second thing I need to learn is how to use a flash.  At some point in my research I discovered bounced TTL flash. Apparently it used to really suck and was unreliable (or maybe photographers just didn't trust it in the age of film). But now, there are many many adherents. And I thought they made some interesting points. 

I discovered the Godox system, so I bought a used v860iii for my camera on eBay (that's the one that is arriving tomorrow). I don't have the time to learn, or the money to buy, the equipment I would need to take the flash off camera. So I am sticking with TTL bounce flash. 

I found Neil van Niekirk's articles on TTL bounce flash. https://neilvn.com/tangents/flash-photography-techniques/bouncing-flash/

And the Black Foamie Thing: https://neilvn.com/tangents/about/black-foamie-thing/

Reading Neil's articles (and related youtube videos) makes sense to me. I understand why I was struggling to get good results with my previous experiments with the Canon speedlite I rented. He's got some good rules of thumb that seem easy to internalize and figure out. 

Today at work a co-worker brought in a Canon 10D with a 50mm 1.8 and a 420EX speedlite. Yes, a Canon 10D, in the Year of Our Lord 2024. He just got it, it was his father's and sentimental. He let me play around with taking some portraits with the flash. And immediately I found it hard to think about and difficult to figure out how to use it effectively. Part of that is the optical viewfinder and tiny screen, extremely slow review times, and the fact that the 420EX doesn't swivel backwards to the right enough to hit the right wall that I wanted to hit. It was a start, but it was disconcerting. 

And the more I think about it, the more disconcerting it feels. This begins my journey into stepping off the deep end. I feel unmoored. Let me explain. 

For the longest time the thing I did was.... I don't even call it finding good light. Taking photos, I don't think about light at all. I think about good compositions. Arranging the subject in the frame is the most important thing, the only thing, and so if I come upon a situation with "bad light" I mostly register that as part of "bad composition" and I move on. 

But with a flash? That I can control? I can decide where the light goes? It's stepping from 2 dimensional chess to 3 dimensional chess. 

You are asking me to think about controlling light itself. I have to decide where the light comes from. I don't think I can express how weird this feels. I am not God! Mankind was not meant to interfere in the affairs of heaven! 

I feel like an elderly caveman who has just been given fire. Yes fire is cool and all, I am looking forward to more of these tasty steaks, but at the same time, we got along perfectly fine without it for years. 

Then on top of realizing I don't have a fucking clue about light (how can I not understand LIGHT I have been taking photos for over 40 years for goodness sakes) I have to figure out how to talk to people I am trying to take a photo of and direct them and move them around like they are puppets and I am a marionette. 

The part of my brain that "takes photos" is nearly 100 percent non verbal. I cannot talk to other people while I am taking photos. Somehow I need to take all of this stuff I am learning about flash and all of this stuff I am learning about posing and interacting with people and systematize it and learn and cram it into my brain hole. Very fast, apparently. I have less than a month!

What is irritating is that I'm going to do fine. AND I am not going to be perfect. 

I am both very excited to learn new things and extremely burnt out at the thought of it all. 

If I had to explore exactly why I'm feeling burnt out, [Editors note: it's about here that I realized I'm turning this blog post into a therapy session, sorry to drag you along] it's probably because of the mountain of photos I have not edited yet. It's a mountain because I was somewhat on top of everything and then my son was in the hospital for a ruptured appendix and everything photo editing went out the window. I even tried to edit photos in the hospital, which was completely useless. 

Since then I have taken photos for about a year but I have edited very few. I just dump the photos off into folders that are increasingly chaotic. Not to mention the video clips I keep thinking I should be editing (and if there is anything more time consuming than editing photos, it's editing video.)

To summarize:

I love taking photos
I'm incredibly good at it
I know nothing about two aspects of photography that I'm going to need to know soon
I'm so good at photography, it's getting kinda boring
Maybe that's the rut I'm stuck in

Oh, and to top it all off! While I am bitching and still have you here. I have no way of sharing my photography! 99 percent of the stuff I do is family and friends. People! Can't post to Facebook! Facebook will train their AI on your photos. It feels ethically delinquent to post photos where AI can grab them freely. Can't post to Flickr! I forgot my password. Can't send photos to people with Google Drive! I'm running out of google drive space. Can't post photos of my kids on the public internet! There's informed consent issues with doing that. Can't print my photos, the printer is packed up in the closet! And the new laser printer has a crummy RIP so everything comes out banded in a weird way. Augh!

Still excited for the flash to get here tomorrow. 

I found this interesting analysis from Halvarflake (@HalvarFlake@mastodon.social) on Mastodon on why an AI superintelligence isn’t likely to emerge at all, let alone any time soon. 

The analysis is from a physical / information constraints standpoint and is quite interesting.
 

A lot of the narratives seem to assume that a superintelligence will somehow free itself from constraints like „cost of compute“, „cost of storing information“, „cost of acquiring information“ etc. - but if I assume that I assume an omniscient being with infinite calculation powers and deterministically computational physics, I can build a hardcore version of Maxwells Demon that incinerates half of the earth by playing extremely clever billards with all atoms in the atmosphere. No diamandoid bacteria (whatever that was supposed to mean) necessary.

I maintain that the biggest risk of AI is that powerful people use it to create tools that will have an adverse impact on less powerful people.

At work we have a Burger Club that is devoted to finding the best burgers in the Twin Cities. We've been at it for a few years now. On a recent Burger Club trip to Chips Clubhouse (my review: it's perfectly fine, grab it if you are in the area, four stars), the waiter there mentioned that the Star Tribune was sending burger reviewers out and he wanted to know if we were affiliated with them. Nope, just a coincidence!

There's a lot of types of burgers, so I am going to split this up into categories. I don't have photos of everything because I just decided to write this off the top of my head. We are supposed to take pictures when we go but I am not good at remembering to do that. 

My criteria for best burger is "Drop everything right now and go get a burger. Where do you go?" 

Best Single Patty Burger

This is your standard, single patty thick burger. Not a smash burger. I'll get into smashburger thoughts later. 

The Nook. With fantastic vibe, the Nook still has the best single patty burger. However, it's only on top by a razor thin technicality. The fries are a disappointment. They switched how they do the fries a few years ago and it's impossible to get fresh ones on the lunch rush. The solution is to order waffle fries, but those are two dollars extra. Still, this is definitely on my "Don't miss" list.

Runners up: 

Groveland Tap. This is a burger spot that was close to my old office location. So I've been there a lot. The standard cheeseburger is very good, and I've never been disappointed by one of their specialty cheeseburgers. I can't quite give it the best because it's just the slightest notch below the Nook, also over the past ten years I've eaten there SO MANY times. Very good Juicy Lucys.

Burger Dive. Another great vibe spot, I've only been there once and I definitely want to try out more of their burger menu.

Brunsons. I enjoyed my burger quite a bit here. Most of the burger club didn't like it, but they ordered the custom grind that was part beef and part thick bacon. I just got the regular burger. Also, other folks mentioned a problem with inconsistent cooks on the burgers. But my first impression was that it was good and I wanted more, so I am sticking with it. 

Best Smash Burger

Okay, first of all, there is a chain of burger places called Smash Burger. My first criteria is, if you have a smash burger on the menu, you have to have something better to offer than whatever I can get from Smash Burger. And Smash Burger is very good! 

Parlor. One problem with Parlor is they have many locations. And the rest of the Burger Club went to the St. Paul location and didn't have a great experience. However, I went to two other locations and had great experiences both times, so I've gotta give them the number one spot. The balance of meat to cheese to seasoning was all perfect. And the thing that Parlor does that is hands down better than anyone else is they get the buns toasted properly. The toasted bun stays crunchy and does not melt or fall apart, and it's a whole extra textural element that stays satisfying throughout. I had a double at the Green Room and a single at Target Center at a Timberwolves game, both great. 

Best Food Truck

Station No. 6. I've had a bit of inconsistency (they forgot the pickles on a McDowell once) but overall their standard double burger is good. Station No. 6 is one of the highest rated burger places we've seen within Burger Club, and at least one of the other folks in Burger Club says its his absolute favorite. 

Best Foofy Weird Burger

Angry Line Cook. this burger truck has a signature burger with pickled fresno peppers that was absolutely amazing, it's one of the burgers I think about the most. I had their standard burger and was less impressed. One caveat, I've never seen a food truck more unprepared for service, one time they couldn't start service when they opened because the card reader was at someone else's house and they had to drive it over. Other folks also mentioned weird menu substitutions when they run out of things, or other delays to service. But honestly, of all of the burgers on this list, the one that I would drop everything to go get is this one. 

Runner up: Red Cow. They have some amazing weird burgers. Like the Barcelona Burger, there are others too, I think I even was looking longingly at the turkey burger at one point, but I haven't tried it yet. The mushroom and swiss is okay. 

Best Classic 1/4 Pound Burger: 

This category is simple: if you transported yourself back in time to the mid 1980's, you're going to get a standard diner burger that's distinctive and different than whatever modern culinary trend folks are going to think up these days. 

Wagner's Drive In. A tiny drive in that could never be built today. It's located in Brooklyn Park, I went here recently and this is my hands down favorite classic burger joint. I had a mushroom and swiss and it was heavenly. Can't wait to go back, and the prices are VERY reasonable. 

Maybe a runners up: Lions Tap. I had a bad experience years ago (the burger just didn't taste right) and haven't been back, but I've been reading reviews and maybe I just went on a bad day. 

Today the plan is to start the beef jerky, followed by the farmers market, some errands, and watching the first LOTR movie on the big screen re-release. 

Here's what I did for the beef jerky:

Costco round roast, sliced 1/8-1/4 inch thin
Marinated in a ziplock bag in the fridge for approximately 32 hours (I had a busy day yesterday and couldn't get it in the dehydrator)
Soy sauce
Lemon Juice
Worchestershire sauce
Paprika
Black pepper
Garlic powder
Onion powder
Brown sugar
Teeny dash of tabasco sauce. I personally would add more but the kids don't like spicy. 

I just threw some of each in there. 

I have had a heck of a time making images work on my blog after updating to Drupal 10. There were some wonky settings in the crufty old database, man. 

Finally got some time today to make it work. 

Some red and green fireworks over the beach at new years, 2024.

Today I was trying to figure out why my car was starting to smell. While getting the kids out of the car, I looked over and saw the fish guts bucket, that I had yet to take out of the car and clean out. There’s a lid on the bucket but it’s been in a hot car for a couple of days.

I keep a bin of carrot ends, celery ends, onion ends and skins in the freezer. When it's Costco Rotisserie Chicken Day, we eat the chicken, then throw the freezer bin of stock vegetables in the pot as well. To this add as many celery sticks, carrots, and onions as you like. You're looking at maybe 3 carrots, 4 celery sticks, half an onion or so, total vegetables.

Optional: you can roast the vegetables ahead of time, cover them with oil, oregano, garlic powder, whatever. 20-25 minutes at a preheated 425 degree oven. Chop them up into 2 inch size chunks, don't just stick the whole carrots in there. Sprinkle with salt, maybe throw some whole peppercorns in there.

Remove as much chicken from the carcass as you are planning on using, either in the soup you make, or otherwise. Set the chicken aside and throw it in the fridge.

Take the carcass and throw it in the pot. I like to break it up into chunks but it's not necessary. Throw the vegetables in the pot as well.

Take a quart jar and fill it with water. A quart jar has four cups. Pour the water into the pot. Keep pouring water into the pot with the quart jar, keep track of how many cups it is. You want the level of the water to be a half an inch or so above the level of the stuff in the pot.

Do you have bouillon cubes? One bouillon per cup. If I am trying to economize, I will replace the bouillon with salt, maybe one scant teaspoon salt per cup. Finally, add 1 teaspoon of vinegar, either white or apple cider. This helps break down the cartilage of the chicken carcass.

What else? Some sprigs of fresh thyme, rosemary, or oregano. Or a tablespoon of dried versions of those spices. If you have white wine, a quarter cup of white wine. A splash of fish sauce. A parmesan cheese rind. Chunks of tomatoes are also great.

Simmer for at least 40 minutes, maybe even 80 minutes. Strain the broth components and discard.

BONUS CHICKEN SOUP RECIPE

Figure out what you have on hand. Pick from the following list:

• Potatoes
• Carrots
• Celery
• Onions
• Corn (sliced off the cob, or just added from a can
• Rice
• Lentils
• A can of diced tomatoes
• Tomato paste
• Pasta / noodles
• Fresh thyme or parsley
• The chicken from before

Put the stock back on the stove. Put it on medium low heat. Do you have potatoes? Chop the potatoes, throw them in. Same with anything on the above list. Put them in the soup in the order they are in the list above. Cook for at least 10 minutes after you added everything, but do a little taste test to make sure everything is cooked properly, you don't want crunchy pasta or potatoes.

You can add mushrooms too! If you want to add mushrooms, fry up the mushrooms for best flavor. To fry the mushrooms, slice them, and fry them in an empty pan over medium heat with no oil or water. The mushrooms have a lot of water in them and this will drive off a bunch of water. After 4-5 minutes, add some canola or olive oil and continue to fry them until they brown on the bottom. Then add them to the soup.

In summary, my daughter's cat typed this:

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Two avocados
Some cumin
Some garlic powder
Some salt
A few cranks of the black pepper grinder
The juice of one lemon (you could also use a lime, IDK. I know a lime is traditional but the brightness of the lemon is great.)
Optional: plenty of good paprika. The vibrant red will dull the green and make it less appealing. So I put paprika in only when I’m spreading this in a sandwich.

Use one of those pastry butter things to mash the avocado. Faster and more consistent than the fork.

The quality of this recipe depends on the freshness and the quality of the spices and the avocado. There’s nowhere to hide!