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Photography Video Tutorial: Head-Spinning Cars

Last year at the LA Auto Show, I tried out a new photography technique. I placed a small tripod on the edge of a car’s rotating platform and took long exposure photos. The result was a static car with a blurred background. To the left is a Ford Edge (crossover SUV) from last year. The auto show’s anti-photo lighting (small, bright sources of light) actually helped add quite a bit of pop to the photo.

I have a photo set on Flickr called “Head-Spinning Autos” that currently contains nine photos using this technique, with a few more to come.

This year at the LA Auto Show, I decided to revisit the effect and show how it was done. To the right is the final photo from the video, a Mazda CX-9 (another crossover SUV). Below is the video showing how the effect was accomplished, including settings, tripod placement, and environment.

Camera: Canon Digital Rebel XT (350D)
Settings: 3.2 seconds, f/29, 28mm, ISO 100.

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Video: Making of a ‘ShalerJump’

At the last Refocus Phoenix metting, Adam Nollmeyer took some great action shots using a 3-piece lighting setup — the most sophisticated ShalerJump shoot so far!

The results were some stunning captures with very distinct lighting. We staged the jump at a memorial on Washington Street where Adam could get below my jumping start level (to increase the perceived height of the jumps). In the background, there was a building with a giant ad on it for BringBackBlue.org, and I decided to jump over it!


Awesome photos by Acme PhotographyWhile I’m on the topic of videos, I have been making a video every day since July 1st on Viddler.com. So far, these “metodays” have not been anything too exciting. I am using them as an exercise to get more proficient with video production. Tune in and watch as the quality and content get better and more interesting!

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You Think You Know (JavaScript) But You Have No Idea

For those that don’t know who Douglas Crockford is, here’s a short bio via Wikipedia:

Douglas Crockford is a senior JavaScript Architect at Yahoo Inc.. He is well known for his work in introducing JavaScript Object Notation (JSON). He has also worked on the computerization of media at Atari, Lucasfilm Ltd., and Paramount. He is the founder of two startups, Electric Communities and State Software.

I recently stumbled upon a series of videos of Douglas Crockford talking about the JavaScript language.

JavaScript is not my favorite language. Since I mainly only use the web browser implementation of the language, I have had countless experiences struggling with cross-platform incompatibility issues. Besides that, the language is great. It’s flexible, powerful, easy, and support for it is extremely widespread.

In his videos, Crockford covers a wide range of topics, from JavaScript’s history to example syntax. Many advanced JSers might find some parts of it to be a little too rudimentary, but I think there is quite a bit to learn for JavaScript programmers of any level. I’ve been writing JavaScript for over 5 years, and learned quite a few things about JavaScript that I didn’t already know.

The videos are highly recommended for anyone that uses JavaScript. The videos are even MORE highly recommended for people who know another language and are thinking about learning JavaScript.