Art – Page 2 – Tao and Zen

Wednesday, June 15th 2022… Photography 101…

So, I am a fledgling photographer and I have tons of questions for the photography guys at Photography & Friends Plus. Since I am invested in Nikon and Adobe, most of my first questions will revolve around those 2 products. My questions are concerning: bracketing, stacking, raw files, and Lightroom.

I have a Nikon D810 full frame camera (yes, it’s heavy as hell with it’s telephoto lenses attached). When we sold our house, we had a professional photographer take the pictures and I was fascinated with the technique he was using – “bracketing”. I had originally purchased a Nikon D5300 with its 3 kit lenses. There were things that the camera had and things had left me wanting. One of those things I wanted was decent bracketing – or shooting pictures in succession from the same POV but just altering the exposure. You capture the lightest lights and the darkest darks and everything in between and really get a HD picture when you re-assemble them using a technique called “stacking”. There are other types of bracketing – depth of field, focus, flash, white balance but I was interested in exposure bracketing. The thing with bracketing is that you need some additional software that allows you to “stack” the images to get the final result. Astro Photography also uses this technique.

This leads me to my second question… How in the hell do I get the RAW files off the camera and onto a Windows PC? I have RAW + Fine JPG selected on my camera – the camera is creating both files. I can see them, look at them, manipulate them on the camera but when I take them off, bam! I am left with 2 jpg files. I can’t seem to get the raw files off the camera. My goal and future project is to shoot glass using these techniques. I collect Czech glass vases and want to photograph my collection. This is in preparation for another project that I have for the future! First things first. My guess is that there is something stupid that I am doing or not doing that is preventing me from getting these file off the camera as both types.

My assumption is that Lightroom Classic can do all this. Maybe not, but I see that there are drivers for raw files from Adobe. There is probably a stacking feature also, but not real sure.

-Rat

Tuesday, June 6th 2022… Damned if you do…

I am thinking of doing something slightly different with my business plan and making it a bit more encompassing and not sticking strictly to an art studio. I don’t know. It’s just a thought I had. I’ve seen galleries in different places that seemed so one dimensional. I think if I ever wanted to transition to something more retail oriented, I’d be stuck. The dream started with painting and branched out into photography. If I stuck to painting, I would need to stick to a specific type and I don’t want to limit myself. I’ve been to a couple of shops that were arts and gifts. That seems much more to my liking. Not necessarily crafts but affordable art. I don’t like to be “pigeon holed”. I want to do art on my terms.

I’ll have to think about it.

-Rat

Friday, December 10th 2021… It’s been a while…

Lets see… updates… It’s been a while… I got the new Whoop 4.0 which adds a couple of extra metrics to the 3.0 group – skin temperature and blood oxygen level, which reminds me… when I needed the metrics most, I didn’t have them. I got a cold on Monday evening, upgraded my Whoop. Felt like total crap on Tuesday thru Thursday, feel 10 times better today. But, I wanted to check my metrics to see if I had possibly contracted COVID. Don’t think so. I was worried for my wife who as you may or may not know, has a suppressed immune system. It’s Friday and I have no idea where the week went. I felt like the lights were on, but no one was home from a work perspective. I did work from home most of this week and got quite a bit done, but yesterday… I don’t recall most of yesterday – I do know I was listening to music and doing busywork.

Vikash will be heading back home on December 31, which will put quite a bit of pressure on me for most of January. I’ll have to do his stuff, plus my stuff. On the flip side, I am taking the last 2 weeks of this year off – stay-cation. Yay! Ryan is coming home on approximately the 20th. He’s scheduled to stay here. I’m excited to see him and get updates. I really haven’t spoke with him for what seems like forever.

The 4th of December was my last official bike ride of the year (yep, mother nature was kind that Saturday) and rode our typical path – but in the reverse direction. It was like a new path. I knew exactly were we were but the scenery was different! It was kind of weird – I admit. It’s only 13mi but for a weekend warrior, it was enough. I have too get a bike stand so I can change the wheels.

Watercolor class has been fun and interesting. I have done a couple of paintings lately. I’ve been working on smaller paper (8.5″ x 11″), so while color control is difficult, owing to the smaller path on the paper, the paintings are accomplished more quickly.

-Rat

Sunday, August 15th 2021 …Monday tomorrow…

So tomorrow is Monday and another weekend gone. On the positive side, there are a couple of things to report – first, i signed up for watercolor at McCord with John. I can’t wait! I first have to finish up my last watercolor – ugh. The basement is still a wreck, however, I did get a new lamp for my art space. It’s like a surgical suite now. It’s awesome. Plenty of light. At least I can see now in that dingy space. Time to clean things up.

Second, I tried to put the clipless pedals on the airdyne – no dice! First, the pedals were a bitch to get off. Can you believe that they were threaded standard? Pedals are usually reverse threads, it took me almost an hour until I changed my frame of reference and thought “what if these are not threaded the same way”? Voila, pedals came off. Didn’t matter for 2 reasons though, first of all the damn pedals are slightly difference diameter. And, there was clearly as sticker that said “Warning, do not use toe clips or straps”. After a couple of minutes of analysis, there is no way to glide or stop immediately on the airdyne. You’d risk tendon or joint damage if something were to happen. Been there. If you know me, you know the story. I have to bring the Schwinn downstairs and get it set up as a stationary bike. I have 2 Cyclops bike trainers that someone gave me. I think that only one works though. No matter – something for tomorrow night.

-Rat

Thursday, July 29th 2021…It’s been a while…

Hi All!

It’s been a bit since I last posted and while out on a bus coming home from a Cubs game, I was reminded (as i viewed the site) that I haven’t posted since May.

We went to one of those rooftop venues across from Wrigley field to watch the Cubs lose. This evening out was sponsored by my employer in celebration of a successful rollout of 2 projects, one to move our main legacy business applications to a managed service provider in Michigan and second, the successful move of our major business application to an external data center. These both were quite large projects and were a culmination of six months effort of planning, long hours, many people, and several companies. Not to mention almost flawless execution resulting in a minimal of downtime. Was it costly? Yeah, but the company is quite large and it affected all our North America operations and global connections. So it was pretty important.

I feel like I can finally breathe and relax a bit and focus on audit and our tickets that I have been putting to the side. Oh, and do a bit of training. I decided that I am going to go get my A+ again just for fun and not let it lapse, which is what i did the first time. Ideally I want to get the full suite of CompTIA’s certs. I feel like I have been so busy and have had no time to learn anything new that I could apply to business. Well, learn anything that I want to learn from a broad spectrum. I learn a lot of very specific, very targeted things all the time. And it makes me highly specific.

I’ve been riding road quite a lot lately and have really been enjoying it this year. I always wish I could ride more, but something always suffers since there are only so many hours in a day. I have been fascinated with trying to increase my power in riding and bought a relatively cheap power meter for a kind of baseline. My bud, bought me a new bike computer and I have been using it a lot. He gives me a bunch of crap for it since – really, what am I going to do with the numbers? Well, hell, my goal is to improve! Raise my VO2 max, raise my power. Kick some butt. I also bought some new clip pedals and new clip shoes. I’m going to use and install them on the air dyne in the basement and get used to them before I go out on the path and risk life and limb. I already have one reconstructed joint, I’m not willing to risk more just yet. Maybe next year 🙂

I have not taken any art classes recently (since late May) and have been dying to take one or two. I haven’t really had any disposable time. I still need to finish my painting i started. I feel like I’ve been neglecting my future.

I have a retirement class this evening. We signed up for a 2 part class through the local college. It should be interesting.

-Rat

Sunday, March 7th 2021…I’m still trying to figure it all out…

I have a camera that I’m trying to figure out. It’s complex and is not what I thought. I don’t know… maybe i have to watch a YouTube video or two. I’ve bought a couple of books and I’m no technical slouch, but wtf? You’d think it would be fairly simple. Maybe I’ll join a board and leverage someone else’s experience. It’s a beast for sure. I took a couple of pictures of tonight’s sunset. Very pretty. It really makes me appreciate the iPhone, it’s engineering and simplicity.

It won’t be long now, today was a high of 51. Come on spring. We are talking about starting to ride the trail this year. Below is my new, redesigned logo.

-Rat

3saintsartstudio.com Orland Park, Illinois (URL coming soon)

Monday, March 1st 2021… it came in like a lamb…

Today I started my metamorphosis at 5am. I started with my breath training, riding the octane with my mouth closed. I am trying to lower my resting heart rate by not exceeding my aerobic/anerobic threshold (it was a total pain in the ass trying to keep my heart rate at 121 bpm) during exercise and its especially difficult because I am motivated by my “MyZone” heart rate monitor. I finished up my pre-work morning with Oatmeal and a shower, ending with cold water for 30s (it really sucked). Oh, and I wasn’t so hot with my diet on my way into work – thank you very much… (I’m still human). I will admit I did have a boatload of energy. I went in to work today to send a tape to our VAR, I designed my logo for my new Photography business and even created a tag line for it. I’ll put it below. I have my camera ready, I’m downloading firmware updates for it, my everyday lens will be in soon. I still think I need another subject lens. I have to get my light setup ready too.

This is what I had envisioned for my business logo. We shall see where it goes. I worked till noon, drove home, stopped for 5$ Sushi Monday at a fav store of mine, ate lunch, and worked again till 5:30pm. My Day.

-Rat

Friday, February 26th 2021… Received my 2nd COVID shot yesterday…

Well, I was told under no uncertain terms that I will feel like crap today (due to the COVID shot) so don’t plan on doing anything. Luckily or unluckily I feel pretty good thus far. We shall see going forward. Since not having any initial side effects the first time, I should expect them this time. I am expected back in the office on color rotation in 2 weeks. There are 4 colors and they will be rotating in and out to limit the amount of contact at work. Ah, the joys of a lack of trust. I personally am looking forward to it since it will mean less hours working for me. When I am leaving, I will be gone. Not available 🙂

I missed my Watercolor class with John Wednesday evening. Bummer. I thought it started next week. It was dropped due to low enrollment. I felt like crap so I texted him an apology. He called me back. It was good to speak with him. He was busting my chops about the trail (he always does that) and bike riding. Last week, I was watching one of Dale Popovich’s watercolor painting workshops. Whether or not he knows it, Dale had a huge influence on me in my career directions. I don’t know if he would remember me but I also went to the American Academy back in 79-80. There was a few of us that congregated between classes (we had hourly 10min breaks) throughout an 8hr day of Art immersion. There was a guy from the south-side that he hung with who wanted to be a professional illustrator. I don’t remember his name but he had dark brown hair, wore glasses, had a chipped tooth, and rolled a mean cigarette. He was really good at illustration and i could see he looked up to Dale with a bit of skill jealousy. They were taking a class with Irving Shapiro who was a premier watercolor artist in Chicago and the dean of the school. He used to say more than once “If it was just Irv and you (Dale) in the class asking questions, he would be happy…”. Dale would reply: “He doesn’t want to hear from me…”. Anyhow, Dale and this other kid (whose name I cannot remember), met me in the hallway for one of our many breaks, and I was considering a different career choice. I was burned out, disgusted with myself, full of anxiety, and truly rudderless for the first time in my life. I had no direction. I was always going to be an artist. Now, I was going to be a disappoint to my folks, and myself. There was a community college (COD) that i was considering – it was a fledgling college of trailers next to a swamp, a 40min drive from my house . I asked them the question “What is the furthest thing from art?” Mathematics, electronics, physics… Dale replied, and that’s the direction I went. There was a few more guys I listened to. A hyper-realist named “Arno” who was a second year illustration student, and 2 second year artists named Scott and Mario and a big, tall, bushy, black haired guy named Royce (I think he was related to Sasquatch). But it was really Dale and the other guy who I listened to. Dale was one of the “cool” kids who would spend his lunch hour in the spring and summer tanning himself at the lake front. That was the Dale I remember. Wow, reflection – what a trip.

I may spin up a photography studio dedicated to stained glass windows in the Midwest. What I would really like to get is Cardinal Cupich’s blessing on my work and start building a photography portfolio. It’s still a concept but it’s gaining momentum and clarity in my mind. I think I’ll call it 3SaintsArtStudio.com (I had the domain name anyway) and link it to RedSky as a linked art studio. It would allow me to separate my painting and drawing from my photography. Now all I need is time, some drive, and a little luck

-Rat

Wednesday, February 17th 2021… “Glad I bought Dell…”

Had my first experience with Dell Customer Support this morning. Now, being an IT guy and having dealt with all manner of experienced and non-experienced types all over the globe, I had a low bar and lower expectations. I have a laptop that I purchased last January for my business. I wanted something portable that i wouldn’t have to mess with very much, easy to use, because my wife would also need it for her things. I have had good experiences with Dell at work so I went with that. Ive had my fill of building stuff at home and I’m at a point in my life where I know what I want from a number of technological perspectives. I didn’t just fall off the truck – I’ve dealt with all manner of computers and programs. I want something that can be wireless and wired, can be used for graphics programs, for manipulating photographs, create websites, program, do email, run all standard Microsoft software, run all Adobe software, run a myriad of VM’s if I should need it, and play games. In other words, “a jack of all trades”. I want a large hard drive, I want it fast, and I want horsepower. Now, all of those things together are really a hardware juggling act. So the PC that I got, is a laptop, has a SSD – which is kind of small in the grand scheme – only 200Gb. So I bought a second SSD that is 1.8Tb which requires a bit of juggling data. I have a RAID 5 NAS that’s somewhere on the order of 12Tb if I should want or need it. Hey, some day I may try recording. 🙂 A Core i7/10th Gen with 4 Cores, 8 Logical processors later.. Sorry, I went off into the weeds. Anyway, I called the Tech Support number, and was walked through a bunch of well thought out troubleshooting steps. Problem was eventually solved. What I found out was that my Bluetooth is integrated to the motherboard but has hooks into the network adapter. So I had to reinstall some drivers, restart and hard-restart the laptop. Problem solved. I think Nino, who is from the Philippines is very knowledgeable and patient. I had to kind of chuckle. I could hear a rooster crowing in the background every once in a while (he may be working from home in Hawaii). I would definitely buy Dell again. Thanks Nino and thanks Dell!

My watercolor class with John is over for this period, so its time to figure out what I want to do next from an art class perspective. Supposedly Beth Leahy was teaching a “master the method” class which focuses on artists, their lives, motivations, techniques, and history. You then mimic their technique to see what you will come up with. Sometimes, its eye-opening the hoops they (the artist) jumped through. Anyhow, I still have a ways to go on this watercolor. The color harmony is much better than my usual. I am still learning. My drawing is decent, my composition skills need some work, my color skills are lacking, my color mixing skills are decent, my color identifying skills are decent, I just need time.

-Rat

Tuesday, February 2nd 2021 …6 more weeks of winter…

Started the PowerBreathe training today. For whatever reason, I cannot for the life of me find the instructions. Spanish instructions, yep. English, nope. I decided that I am so gassed after the Octane in the morning, ill substitute it for the morning workout and use the PowerBreathe in the evening after dinner. The Octane is a recumbent elliptical. I try and push myself when I can.

Laid off the painting tonight. I think I’m going downstairs to clean and straighten for a bit.

We made Enchilada Cream of Chicken Soup tonight in the Instant Pot. It tastes yummy served with tortilla chips. So, you take the chicken out and pull it. Blend the contents, and put the chicken back. No actual cream involved – uses squash, tomato paste, a tin of hatch peppers, some beans, onions, a potato, and a hand blender for creating the “cream”.

-Rat