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Oh my!

Mon, 31 Mar 2008 19:07:00 GMT

Let’s go for one more! Now that it actually works, it is fun to post pictures…

Here are a few from Munich, as we visited Mike and Elisabeth for New Year’s. And a few more from my trip to Seattle last time. Time to post them, now that I am headed back.

Wow!

Mon, 31 Mar 2008 18:32:00 GMT

Two posts in as many days, I don’t think that has ever happened. I do need to get the gallery lists working. In the meantime, take a look at Mexico from our trip last year.

Marrakech & Other Things Too

Sun, 30 Mar 2008 21:21:00 GMT

Well, I actually got around to working on the galleries, and no they are not done. But I can now proudly present a new one (currently the only one): Marrakech. Sabine and I, fed up with work and the (admittedly mild) German winter took off to North Africa last month. Marrakech is certainly not like it was when we were there 15 years, but then again, it has not lost it’s “charm”.

In other news, I have totally rewritten and vastly improved my Radiant Assets extension: I am experimenting with assets in the database, then cached using Radiant’s page caching system. I think it is working, but I have to say, I am not entirely sure. Stay tuned.

New Server

Wed, 30 Jan 2008 09:29:33 GMT

I finally got around to moving this to my new Joyent Shared Accelerator, which I have had for oh, 4 or 5 months. Never rush anything I say. While I was at it, I updated everything, which broke the galleries. They will be back soon. Really.

Image Test

Wed, 31 Oct 2007 19:15:00 GMT

Updated

Tue, 16 Oct 2007 11:03:09 GMT

I have started the long process of actually trying to update this thing. I have moved the blog to the front page, and will soon be working on the galleries. I have a new assets plugin in the works, based on attachment_fu, but storing the images in the database. We’ll see. Please check back soon for more.

New Site Over at Bitch Kitty Racing

Wed, 30 May 2007 09:10:09 GMT

Well, me fabulous blogger that I am, I have gone and made myself another blog. One will fall, but who knows which? It is actually more of a random photo blog, but does tie into that project of projects, Bitch Kitty Racing. In any case, please check it out, there is much to be seen there, new photos, John’s underwear and the newest updates on dating and the Internet.

Something Different: Platinum Printing

Tue, 10 Apr 2007 13:53:00 GMT

Platinum printing came up again a few days ago on one of the forums I lurk about in. It is so rarely mentioned among photographers, I just had to post something.

Last year, I started do real photography with a digital camera. Up to this point, I had been using a Nikon D70, then a D200 for paid work, but for personal and fine art photos, it just didn’t work. The Nikons are beautiful cameras, but compared to my old Leica they are huge, loud and clunky. Plus, I only have one lens for it.

Enter the Leica M8. It takes all my existing lenses, is only 4mm thicker (which really bugs me) than my M6 and 4mm taller (which does not). But when you get the IR filters strapped on, the Firmware bugs worked out and the whole thing paid for, it almost seems worth it. It produces absolutely beautiful files. Noiseless, sharp and with a long tonal range.

Just right for platinum. I have been scanning M6 negatives and making platinum prints for the last three or four years. I had been trying to perfect this for the previous 6 years and never really got anything to work. Only with the Epson 2200 was the quality from inkjet printers good enough.

So platinum seemed the next logical step for the M8.

So far I have stuck with relatively small prints, something around 9×12 cm is my standard, though I do have a small portfolio of prints in the 8×10 inch realm. This may sound small, but when you are hand coating platinum solutions to rough papers, it seems much larger. Plus, the associated costs add up very quickly. Platinum and its cousin Palladium have shot up in recent years, as they are fabulously useful metals.

Assets Management and Page Tagging

Sat, 07 Apr 2007 16:54:18 GMT

Radiant is a fabulous system, but being relatively young and aimed at a very specific problem, it doesn’t have all the features I need. And as a photographer, number one on that list is image management. I have been messing around with any solution I could find for the last six months and had a very simple version of this extension running late last year. While I was at it, I added tagging, both to organize the images and as long as it was there to tag the pages. There are even some virtual pages for tag display and a simple slug based gallery system.

Here is everything you need: assets-tagging.zip

For the latest greatest guaranteed to break your system version (just joking) get the svn versions. Remember, you need both plugins at the moment, but I am working on making the tagging extension freestanding. The Assets extension needs tags for just about everything it does, so it will always require the other extension. You can find both extensions at http://svn.bitchkittyracing.com/projects/extensions.

In any case, while far from finished and totally lacking in tests (there is a long story about this, let’s just day I am working on it) it works pretty well. Please give it a try and let me know what you think. To install the extensions, just copy both extensions to the /vendor/extensions folder and be sure that the Paginator 1.0.9 and Mini-Magick folders are in the /vendor folder. Run ‘rake migrate:extensions’ and that’s it, it should work. You will end up with an Images tab and a whole slew of new tags.

I will post some examples here when I get a chance. Please email me if you have any questions or problems. And you are looking at the demo.

New Beginning

Mon, 02 Apr 2007 23:13:29 GMT

This is a totally new website. I have unfortunately just thrown the old one away, pictures and all. I needed a new start and that seemed like the way to do it. The old website had also been abandoned for some time, I think the last time I updated it was about a year ago. It was based on Textpattern, probably the best PHP system I have ever used. But it is PHP, and I hate that stuff. I don’t get and I can’t bend it to my whim.

Enter Ruby. And Radiant. Radiant bends easily and willingly. It is fun. After a day and night hacking away, I still have a smile on my face. And for a personal site, this is important.

I have been hacking away at this for many months. Actually, I think the first few redesigns were over a year ago. I built at least four designs and even my own CMS, before I realized what a folly that was. My break came with the release of Radiant 0.6rc2, a.k.a. “Mental”. The Mental Branch brought with it Extensions, essentially mini Rails applications with the lovely interface of Radiant. Anything you might need it easily added as a new tab and small framework with the Radiant application.

And that brings me to the next new thing, this site would be nothing (literally) without the photos. The are kindly provided by new Radiant extension. Which I, um wrote. I spent more time than I care to think of on it, but it has been lots of fun. Should you be interested in assets management and tagging, I will soon offer a zip including everything you need to get it up and running. If you are adventurous, check out the latest version at http://svn.bitchkitty.com/projects/extensions/assets for the assets and http://svn.bitchkitty.com/projects/extensions/metatags for tagging. You will need both.

And while you are at it, check out my other project, Bitch Kitty Racing. Don’t blame me for anything you find over there, I just keep it running.

If you have any questions, comments or want to help with the Assets extension, please feel free to email me.