strange loops

For the uninitiated, Cross Processing is a photography technique.

As some of you might know I am evaluating Lightroom 3 against Aperture 3 these days. (I am going to post a detailed review but its at least 20 days away). One of the things that I love about Lighroom is the presets. And most of them all “Color Creative – Color CP 2″.

I had never cross processed images before. So I am fascinated how beautiful some images can start looking once I add some CP to my usual mix of post processing steps.

Here are some examples.

Now I am thinking of committing to a project. A 30 day cross processed images project. Which means every day for the next month I will post one cross processed image on my Flickr account. (I was thinking of a 365 day project but really, who am I kidding? Maybe if I complete the 30 day project I’ll sign up for a longer one).

Wish me luck and follow me here.

Some days back I got a mail from “schmap!” asking me if I was OK with one of my photographs (a photograph clicked by me) in there Chicago schmap. And now it seems they have included it

Here’s the link to the schmap and here’s a link to the image

Feels good!

Ooooh! Ooooooh! I love it!!

This is the most awesomest thing I have bought this year.

There are enough reviews online for me not to write one of my own. But I’ll mention the most useful features here:

• Captures everything I write / draw. This is the basic promise. A very well kept one.
• Captures good audio. It’s not crystal clear or anything, but is it works well in a meeting setting. I recorded three interviews today, alongwith notes. After I get the headset that someone took by mistake, I’ll experiment with the more clear 3D recording capabilities.
• It links the audio and notes together so you can replay what you were saying when you wrote a particular word.
• It searches. Even cursive handwriting.
• And then there’s other fun stuff like drawing a paper piano and playing it. Or using a calculator by tapping the paper calculator on the inside cover of the starter notebook. Or drawing a cross for navigating the pen’s main menus. Or bookmarking audio at specific points.
• It uses dot paper for all the magic. But you are not restricted to the notebooks supplied by the company. You can print your own dot paper for free using any half decent printer!

All in all this is going to be very useful. The 2GB storage is more than enough. My 1:02:14 audio session used 12MB. So if you download the data even once a week, you’ll be alright.

I’m loving it!

Shishir Das has been unhappy for a while. One of the many reasons, for his sad state of being, was a broken Pentax DSLR camera. (I know what you are thinking… I did suggest that he buys a good Canon. But he HAD to take last minute advice from some guy loitering outside the camera shop.) Anyway, there was no way of getting the camera fixed in India.

Then, the day before, he did it! He fixed the camera by “drying” the SD card in the sun for few hours! He told me about this next morning and I remembered all my gadgets that have spent endless hours on window sills and under table lamps. Cellphones, laptops, old school portable video gaming stuff, battery chargers, earphones, what not…

… and then it suddenly dawned on me!

This whole 2012 tsunami prediction isn’t stupid at all. But more than killing humans, it’s going to make a bazillion paperweights out of all of our gadgets! That’s the real apocalypse, isn’t it?

I say we all spend the next couple of years waterproofing our gadgets. Only the dry survive!

Here’s a useful tool. The desktop version is free and available on Adobe Air (so it runs on all OSes).

I read about this tool here. It is available here for download. There’s an iPhone version too.

I am waiting for the android version

Have Fun

I have observed over the last few weeks (as part of the Staffing team) that a lot of my tasks these days are conversations. They are in the format “Talk to [x] about [y]“.

I remember my first project as a Business Analyst. There were 5-6 client stakeholders to talk to everyday. One of the patterns I had used effectively was to note down everything I wanted to cover with every person. Then I could have a single meeting with every stakeholder and cover all the topics that needed his attention. I used Microsoft OneNote for this at that time. I felt the need for a similar software.

Having an android phone, having a need and wanting to write an android application came together in the form of conversations. Its an eclipse project. I have used MotoDevStudio because I have a Droid (Milestone) and Rajat Vig said it works much better.

Of course it could have been simple post-its on my mac but how uncool would that be.

Thanks to Shishir Das who helped me get over the initial hurdles. Looking forward to writing more android applications.

Well I was looking for photo gallery kind of solutions to use in the photography section of my site. But in the end I chose to go with wordpress itself. YAPB has a very nice set of plugins that will turn your wordpress installation into an awesome photoblogging engine. I am using the Phloggin’ theme currently but that might change. There are other YAPB-ready templates that you can use.

Well then, here it is. I hope you enjoy it. There’s not a lot on there yet, but I think shipping it will make me less lazy
If you haven’t heard enough about shipping it, you got to subscribe to this.

URL : http://photography.akshaydhavle.com/
Feed : http://feeds.feedburner.com/akshaydhavle/photography

Day before yesterday, @dharmapurikar bought a Canon EOS Rebel T1i and EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS Lens. As well as the Canon EF 75-300mm Lens. We had a nice long conversation about primes and zooms, aperture, ISO, focal length, perspective, crop factor, etc. I have had very similar conversations with loads of people who are new to photography. So I thought I’ll share the resources I use the most for those of you who are interested.

Here’s a quick list

• Photo.net (website : Can get good feedback on pictures. Very serious photographers. Good learning.)
• Flickr (website : Photo Sharing. Good feedback from general public. Quite useful to start building a portfolio.)
• Chris Marquardt – Tips from the top floor (Podcast : Very informative podcast. Good frequency as well.)
• @petapixel (twitter)
• Photo Entrepreneur (Blog : various financial avenues for hobbyists, enthusiasts and professionals)
• Better Photography (Magazine)
• Smart Photography (Magazine)

The magazines are great. I find Smart Photography technically better than Better Photography. Better Photography however provides a lot of beginner tips and creative techniques. However, they are india only, I think.

The podcast is especially good. I have been listening to it continuously for an year now. Chris is very knowledgeable. He also conducts workshops in US and Europe.

Next time maybe I’ll write about my workflow. Action -> Camera -> Post Processing -> Output.

With everything else in place I couldn’t resist trying this out. I agree I usually wont use this. If I want to blog something quick I’ll use twitter. But its not bad at all for medium size posts.

I am not playing the business analyst role anymore in my company. I finished my last BA stint in Aug 09. Then after, I have been trying things out. ThoughtWorks is a great place in that respect. You can try stuff.

PM : I did a PM role for about 3 months. It didn’t go well for various reasons. For one I am not great with people. I believe that when I am PM I should be removing impediments so that my team can function well. But when the team needs to learn the ropes (technical as well as from a delivery perspective), has a tough client situation and has a PM whose never been a PM, it doesn’t go well. All I was able to help the team with was providing visibility to the client and making sure that there are no surprises.

Process Consulting : Then I did process consulting for a client. It was just 6 weeks but I loved the project. It was amazing how much better we could make things on the ground. Was a nice learning experience for me too.

Training : Then I got heavy on training. The rate at which ThoughtWorks is growing right now, demands a lot more in terms of induction. Cultural as well as technical.

I started off by doing a BA bootcamp for a couple of new BAs and then facilitated two Immersions.

Staffing : This is my latest role. A totally new area that I have never gotten to know before. Its fun. Mostly because it is scary. I feel like I don’t know anything. I am completely out of my comfort zone.

There’s tremendous amount of information (about the business, personal situations, delivery, aspirations, finance, business impact of the project, etc) to be consumed to make significantly complex decisions. There’s a lot to learn.

I have not stopped thinking about business analysis of course (I don’t think I ever can). So I’ll keep blogging about all kinds of stuff in the coming few months.