Category: Photos

Photos: Dom’s Birthday Game Night

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

My ongoing quest to figure out and capably shoot with a CHDK-hacked Canon point-and-shoot continued, and what better setting to try working shots than with a live gathering where people would be getting drunk and doing drunk things?

Needless to say, I’m pretty sure that if I were a person with a better grasp of photographic terminology to begin with, this might be easier, but I also think that the camera I’m using itself is pretty limiting. Even before I hacked it and added the CHDK firmware, I wasn’t happy with the quality of the pictures in even the most basic optimal settings to shoot.

It’s nice to have some photographic evidence of some of the shenanigans that went down with board games, impromptu pull-up contests, and Dom busting out some drunk-retard strength, but I can’t say that I’m thrilled with the quality of the pictures outright.  For some reason, the camera randomly went into fisheye perspectives or added toy-camera corner filters without my needing to set them in the first place.

I’m this close to scrapping the hope for a good point-and-shoot, and might just make my iPhone my “night camera” at Dragon*Con this year.

But until then, at least there are some photos to remember the night by.

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Photos: Spartan Race, CHDK tests

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Because I’m stubborn, I don’t want to give up on my point-and-shoot camera just yet.  I’m clearly not as competent as I wish I were when it came to digital camera technology, so until if the day ever comes that I do, it’s a matter of trial and error when it comes to playing around with the massive number of CHDK hack settings, to find something that generates decent results in both outdoor and indoor settings.

That being said, I figured taking my beater camera to the Spartan Race would be a good opportunity to take a couple of snaps to see how they came out.  Oddly enough, I’m not entirely sure how/why a toy camera-like corner shading kept occurring on some of these, as I do not recall ever having such a setting engaged.

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Photos: Otakon Vegas

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Otakon Vegas was somewhat of a testing ground for me, being the super-n00b novice picture taker that I am.  I’m almost naive enough to believe that simply equipping a prime lens and utilizing an external flash will yield better results, but obviously, that most certainly was not the case.  In all honesty, and as much as I hate to admit it, almost 30 pictures were deemed unusable, and not worth posting at all, for a varying reasons, and never the reason of the subject(s).

Anyway, I didn’t really take that many pictures at the convention itself, and frankly I didn’t want to drag my camera out on the Strip or during my gambling escapades, because with it’s upgraded accessories, it’s kind of a pain in the ass to lug around for anything other than appropriate picture-taking times.  Aside from taking a few pictures of some select costumers, I apparently took a ton (no pun intended) of pictures from the sumo wrestling exhibition, and on Sunday, I chauffeured tagged along on an external shoot that was outside the city limits in Red Rock to close out my picture taking endeavors.

Regardless, I hope these are somewhat enjoyed, and to the maiden crop of people whom I shared a photo card with, I hope you guys are pleased with the pictures of you guys I took.

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Photos: Thanksgiving

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I can’t really say that I’m thankful for a whole lot outside of the typical generic ones, like the people around me, but one thing that I am genuinely thankful for is that my life is, although often times erring on the side of boring, but somewhat stable.

My family drives me nuts from time to time, but that’s what family does.  My job might be kind of mundane and boring, but it affords me the ability to pay the bills and sustain my fairly simple life.

The benefit to stability is the fact that when things aren’t going so well for others, I can be at my peak condition of being able to offer help and support, because things aren’t necessarily that complicated in my own life.  And it’s cyclical; it goes without saying that stability isn’t achieved without a decent support system in place for me, if and when I ever need it.

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Photos: Annual Pumpkin Carving

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I’m the kind of person who believes in the importance of having traditions and annual occurrences.  Without them, sometimes there aren’t always things to look forward to, and sometimes it’s just nice to know that there are going to be times when you know you’re going be in good company and have a good time.

Pumpkin carving at Stu and Allison’s is one of those traditions that I look forward to every year, and every year, I like to put a little bit of effort into carving out something unique and not necessarily easy.  This year, I decided to parlay my fandom of LoL into my pumpkin and carve out the most important things in the world – wards.  And since I’m apparently a try-hard overachiever, I decided to do two wards, so it didn’t seem like I was just doing it to say I placed one.

The green lights are LED lights and not actual flame, because I think burning copper or mercury or whatever it takes to generate green flame would have been somewhat of a hazard, for just pumpkin carving.  Maybe another year.

Anyway, I took a few pictures, and here they are for us to all admire the creativity and an enjoyable annual tradition.

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Photos: Disney Vacation

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Y’know, I thought that there would be more to elaborate on when I got to posting the pictures, but it’s really nothing I haven’t already said in the previous post, summing things up.

The trip to Florida was as pleasant as I had hoped it would have been, and I don’t really have any complaints.  I spent a good bit of coin on a whole lot of food and more food, and lots of alcohol, and I rode a lot of roller coasters, got sunburned, and had a fun trip.  And despite taking a vacation from my vacation with a day spent mostly by the pool, I still found myself somewhat exhausted and slept for almost 12 hours in a single night this weekend.

Looking through these pictures makes me realize that there’s a long, long, long, long path ahead of me if I ever want to feel like I’ve got somewhat adequate control over my own camera, since a good 20% of the pictures taken were blurry beyond belief and therefore unusable.  But I kept in a few here and there, because hey, there was some drunken shenanigans, and the blur only adds to the accuracy of how such things might’ve felt.

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Photos: Scarecrows in the Garden

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

As has been the case over the last two years now, I decided to hit up the Atlanta Botanical Gardens for their annual Scarecrows in the Garden exhibit where local individuals, groups and businesses throughout the area create various scarecrows that are displayed throughout the garden grounds.

None of it’s necessarily Scary Stories in the Dark caliber, but it’s sometimes nice to just walk around and see what people come up with.  And the weather this time of year is often pleasant, and it’s something that really feels like the start of the fall for me.

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