Money’s too tight to mention
I can’t even qualify for my pension…
As I write this, I’m $30 short on rent, which is due today. Maybe I should feel as sense of shame about this, but honestly, I’m not special, everyone’s going through it right now, and I’m just too tired to continue acting as though everything is alright when it is very much not that.
Yes, I am living above my means, but (1) so is everyone else in this city, (2) admitting that feels deeply uncomfortable, and (3) my chronic television habit costs a great deal of money to legally sustain. Besides, season 3 of The Gilded Age starts in a couple of weeks from this writing, and that’s my drug of choice.
Then there are the costs of trying to divorce myself from meta’s social media platforms, such as web hosting, newsletter hosting…it seems to never end. And the fiscal and emotional pressure of it all isn’t great for my overall mental health. Let’s hope this isn’t the month that my landlord decides I’ve bounced one too many rent cheques…
One of the things I hope to do with my website/this newsletter is to set up a web store that will allow me to sell prints and Lightroom presets. Speaking of which, I’ve created a couple of presets that work pretty well for enhancing blue hour photos that feature complementary colours (i.e., blue and orange) with a slight tone curve and some slight grain. One preset adds a vignette while the other is vignette-free. I’ve used this preset with OM-5 RAW files and with my Fujifilm X-T20 RAW files and liked the results. You can download the presets for the affordable price of free.99 from Dropbox using the code FREENINETYNINE. The files will be available until Sunday, June 15, 2025. Enjoy!
Drag Me, Mama!
I’ve been experimenting with slow shutter speed photography to make my boring photographs more interesting. Slow shutter speed photography, also called “dragging the shutter”, is a technique where you leave camera’s shutter open for an extended period, allowing more light to hit the sensor and capturing motion blur or light trails. You’ve probably seen it in photos with smooth, silky waterfalls, or in fireworks photos. I used it in the featured image in this post.
It can be tough to capture motion blur during broad daylight without a tripod and additional ND filters, but thanks to the OM-5’s LiveND feature, the camera’s onboard computer does the work for me. The camera can block between two and sixteen stops of light, and I like to play around with the settings depending on the effect I hope to achieve. If I want just a slight blur, I’ll use a lower setting, but if I want people to disappear completely, I’ll use a higher setting. That can come in handy if you’re in a touristy area full of people. Set Live ND to block 16 stops of light and poof, no more people!
Because of the effects of the THC-infused pain gel I use, I’m usually in a dream state while I’m taking photos, so this technique gives me another way to “show myself” in my work. I get more duds than successful shots, but when the successful shots happen, I feel like a winner.
Do you experiment with different photo techniques in your work? Leave a comment to let me know.
This week I discovered I am a Street Rider Photographer, a vlog by Guillaume Taneux, a French photographer who lives in Osaka. Just like me, Guillame rides a bike as part of his street photography practice. The POV of his action camera results in some vertiginous shots (seriously, 360 cameras are evil and should be outlawed), but I like the spirit of the video and his commentary gives some insight into his thought process.
How fentanyl ravaged Victoria’s Pandora Avenue – Fentanyl has turned one of this province’s nicest (and most English-y) stretches into an open-air fentanyl market. I expected this in Vancouver, but to hear that it’s in Victoria breaks my heart/makes me angrier. Fuck fentanyl.
Hobi’s back! Hobi’s back! I haven’t stopped listening to this for the last 72 hours.
As always, thanks for reading! I’m hoping to make the longer newsletters a monthly feature, but keeping to a regular blogging schedule isn’t my strong suit.