Beautiful People

I've discovered Animoto

Ok, It's cheezy, but it's super cute. Aside from running around picking up prints from A&I and heading out to CSUN for ARRI nerd happy camera talk, I've discovered the cute fun that is Animoto. If you only want to mess with it for 30 seconds... its free... beyond that it will cost you.

Clearly the options for creativity become broader once you pay for the product ie: create your own titles, larger music selection, longer videos and no branding. It is a poor mans tool for slideshows and it works well. Not too bad if your not FCP savy.

Above is the first test I ran with some pix of my nieces and nephews back in Australia.

Updates & New Ideas

It has been some time since my last post. I've was away in Australia for 10 weeks over the November and December period. While home my camera had quite the journey.

2 weeks into my trip, I dropped my beloved 5DII... well, kinda... It's something that I would never do onset as an AC... put a camera in a handbag. Again, it comes back to me wanting to be able to go out and about and not carry a low-pro bag but still be able to have my DSLR. (Still waiting for over-priced womens bags to actually have a function for my camera)

I placed my bag on the plush low lying bed in the Hunter Valley at a lovely hotel my Mum was kind enough to book for our little weekender. The soft sheets and my ill placed slippery bag assured that my camera succumbed to gravity. (why-oh-why did I not put it on the deck??)

The result... a cracked filter and a scary feeling that my 28-70mm L series was out of calibration. Normally I would have cried but just a few days earlier an old friend passed away from a heart attack... he was 25. Needless to say everything was in perspective for me... the lens could be fixed or replaced at worst.

You can imagine my surprise when a trip to Canon to drop my lens off with the understanding that Canon would repair my lens up to the value of $600, the cost only turned out to be around $80!! I may have told the female operator on the phone that I loved her? I did need a new filter though, which YAY for filters!!! :) Let this be a lesson for all people with no optical flats or UV filters on their lenses.

As a result of a filterless journey for the rest of the trip (yes, I waited to return to the USA where things are ridiculously cheaper than Aus to replace the filter) I shot mostly in Australia on my trusty 50mm 1.8 $90 lens from Samys.

The pictures posted here are taken from the Sydney Tower restaurant 360 while out at dinner one night. I have a secret love affair with lights. Seriously. I love shooting light fixtures. I have been known to shoot light fixtures with an aim and blame. Night clubs and restaurants are the place to go for such shooting.

My new little task, which I am most excited about, is to enlarge one of my prints for display on my low-lying wooden coffee table which currently clashes with our wooden floor. Choosing a colour to best match our decor was easy (many thanks to my husband who really has a better eye for design than myself) Today I ordered a 32"x32" 1/4' thick glass from downtown. I'm also in the process of working out which printer and paper to use. My biggest obstacle is choosing paper that wont stick to the glass over time.