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I’m planning to write more about this when I have some time, but I figured I’d link to a local news item about my first “organic” Modo project ending up in a nationally broadcast documentary.

Understand that this is not a suggestion that I have any great 3D modeling experience (I don’t)… it was kind of “dumb luck” to be perfectly honest.

Mahler’s Venus on History Channel

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Frankly, the model isn’t completely finished yet and, I’ve had my hands so full with work, TWiP, forthcoming TWiM producing and photo gigs that I’ve not had much time in Modo recently. I’ve got a pile of projects I want to do with it soon since the app is just insanely cool.

I’m working on a few things combining Modo models with textures I shoot digitally and equirectangular HDR panos (most recent one here) that I shoot and assemble to use for real-world lighting.

This is the model I started after spending part of Christmas screwing around in Modo and modeling an AMF bowling pin I had sitting on my desk.

I’ve been a fan of the various This Week in [insert topic here] podcasts for years. The podfather namesake of this family, so to speak, is This Week in Tech. Recorded every Sunday, TWiT is Leo Laporte’s baby that evolved from a post-TechTV recorded get together a few years back. Fast forward a bit and it has become a podcast network with several of the shows being among the most popular, cornerstone shows of the entire podcasting scene. Hell, Leo has just set up a whole studio and is gunning for about 25 hours a week of content, much of it streamed live by video now, too.

A core player in the TWiT scene is Alex Lindsay, founder and chief architect of The Pixel Corps. I became a fast fan of Alex’s work through a number of his appearances in various podcasts and, most directly, when I got hooked on This Week in Media, a podcast that he hosts with a great team of regular contributors and guests. I also found The Pixel Corps fascinating and, thanks to Alex’s generosity when I met him at MacWorld in 2007, I was given an opportunity to become a member of that awesome community. Things I’m learning there feed straight into other projects I’ll blog about later.

I started listening to Scott Bourne, too, through his various guest appearances in Leo and Alex’s shows (MacBreak Weekly being a TWiT/PixelCorps podcast as well). Scott has also become a major source of podcasts including The Apple Phone Show which was born in the run-up to Apple’s iPhone release. It is -the- show about all things iPhone. Scott is a renowned wildlife photographer, former radio host and author of quite a number of books on photography and Apple’s Aperture.

A few months ago, Scott and Alex teamed up to create a new podcast, This Week in Photography. Needless to say, this is a rather ideal combination of hosts and topic for my particular interests.

I responded to Scott’s call one day for a volunteer show note writer. In the podcasting scene, show notes are the written, web-based guides to each show that include a summary of the discussion and provide links for many of the topics (and sites) discussed in the course of a show.

After several episodes and many zillions of show note lines later (I have a bit of a reputation now for writing detailed notes), I started tossing out some guest ideas and took it upon myself to try to line one up: legendary photographer and author, Joe McNally. Joe graciously obliged, hooked up with us on Skype and did a fantastic interview. Somewhere around that time, I was very flattered (and startled) to be asked to become the producer for TWiP and help manage the guest wrangling, topics, and schedule for the show itself. I’m about eight shows into working with them now, enjoying the heck out of it and starting to get into more of a groove with the process.

The first thing I did was build an internal, private wiki that we use within TWiP. It’s evolving quickly now as our central organizing resource for each show and provides the schedule from which the hosts work as each episode is recorded. By design, a wiki provides a growing, searchable database of content and, more importantly, is by its very nature collaborative. The hosts and our regular contributors, Ron Brinkmann, Frederick Johnson and Steve Simon can all directly add notes, content, etc., throughout the week in the run-up to each show.

That’s some of the “technical” side of the process. The other side, though, is the fun of working with everyone. Getting a chance to chat with the various guests, such as Joe McNally, Rick Smolan, Richard Harrington, Christian Bloch, Bill Crow and others has been a real treat. Beyond that, it’s tremendous fun gaining insight into the production process via the show and The Pixel Corps, especially after listening to Alex detail much of the evolution of the process in other shows such as This Week in Media and Gear Media Tech.

I’m always connected via Skype during the show to chat a bit before and after with the gang and listen in on the live recording. They are also brave enough to let me pipe in once in a while during some of the episodes. It’s never been my goal to be “on air”, but I’m glad if I can bring something to the table once in a while that might be of use to listeners.

If you’ve not already, be sure to try TWiP. You can subscribe via iTunes, stream it from Pixelcorps.tv and follow the other half of the show’s content via the TWiP Blog. If you’re truly into photography, be sure to check out TWiP’s Flickr Group which has discussions and photo sharing along with a critique forum and bi-weekly contests that, yes, include prizes.

You can also interact with everyone involved via Twitter: Scott Bourne, Alex Lindsay, Ron Brinkmann, Fred Johnson (we’re still pestering Steve to get into the Twitter scene), and me.

I built a blog so that the threshold would be low enough for writing posts that I’d be inclined to do it more frequently. Instead, I still keep finding myself putting it off “just a little longer” so that I can give an entry proper attention.

I’ve got to stop that since it’s been, oh, about a YEAR since I really posted anything. I think Twitter, which some describe as “micro-blogging” has gotten me going again. That and the fact that I’ve got a million things to talk about these days.

Waaaay too many things have gone on in “the silent time” to really catch up, so I’ll just summarize a little here and then TRY to get my butt in gear to post regularly now.

I’m doing a great deal more contract photography work now, both for the college and other individuals and organizations. I enjoy it a great deal despite it adding about a half-time job to my already greater than full-time job. Busy is good, really, and the added income pays bills and buys more gear to, of course, do more work.

On a related note, I re-arranged much of my home studio / office work space and built in a new permanent desk into the corner of the room that uses up one full wall and more than half of another. It gives me about eighteen feet of continuous surface at an ideal height with cable management underneath, good lighting, etc. I’ll put up a VR of the space soon (the current one I have is outdated).

One significant and wonderful addition to the computing tools was adding an Apple 30″ Cinema Display which, some months later, I mounted on a fully articulating hydraulic arm. I can move it around most any way I like with just a finger (up, down, side to side, in, out, 180 rotation, etc). I almost can’t abide using the laptop’s own 17″ display anymore once I got spoiled by all the screen real estate of a 30″ display. Throw in OS X Leopard’s Spaces feature and you’ve got limitless screen room. With theMacBook Pro, too, I can open the lid and run both side by side which I might start doing soon with the Lightroom 2.0 Beta.

One nice thing about reworking my office space was freeing up the rest of the room for a small studio space with my strobes, etc. It’s more than enough room for portrait work, product photography, etc. It’s another reason I’m using the 30″ display and arm, too, since I can swing the monitor into a nice position to see while standing across the room and shooting tethered. Great for high resolution previews of each shot right after it has been taken.

I’m always doing various things with my camera gear. Since I last wrote, I added a second body (Canon 30D) for convenience and backup, sold my Sigma 24-70 f/2.8 and replaced it with Canon’s L-class equivalent, added an Epson P-3000 in place of my Hyperdrive, and misc other things including bags, etc. I try to keep my hardware and software list up to date here for anyone curious.

I’ve gotten involved in quite a few large new projects (podcasts, 3D modeling, etc), too, but I’ll blog about each of those separately here in a few minutes. This entry is already meandering a bit with little or no real point other than to catch up on some technical minutiae.

A lot has happened since my little flurry of posts from San Francisco and MacWorld 2007. I stopped writing from there about halfway through the trip mostly due to having come down with a friggin’ cold. I spent Wednesday evening and much of the day Thursday that week holed up in my hotel room, conserving energy so I wouldn’t miss the podcasting party at Jillian’s (a bar in Sony’s Metreon). I’m glad I did since I had a chance to chat some more, however briefly, with Leo, John Foster, Alex Lindsay, Merlin and Scott Bourne. Inspiring guys…

Unfortunately, the time between MacWorld and today has had a few small joys and one tremendous tragedy.

My Grandfather died last October. While not sudden, it was nonetheless a deeply saddening experience. A few weeks ago on January 28th, almost three months to the day we buried him, my Grandmother also died. Her death, by contrast, was quite sudden and unexpected and involved a whirlwind 48-hour escalation from discomfort to emergency surgery to, ultimately, passing away in a virtual coma. None of us were in the least prepared, especially in the wake of my Grandfather’s recent death.

I wrote a tribute to my grandfather on here the day that he died. By contrast, I’ve been silent here from just prior to my grandmother’s death through the few weeks since. My grandmother was an incredible and unique woman who easily had as much influence on my life as my grandfather. The sudden and unfair nature of her death, however, leaves me grieving not just for her, but for the combined loss of them both as grandparents. It’s not two deaths in three months but, in a way, three.

The two weeks of dawning realization prior to my grandfather’s death had a lot to do with being in the proper frame of mind to write what I did on the day that he died. I’m just not there yet with writing about my grandmother. In time…

Whatever my reasons for periods of silence on here, I need to get my ass in gear to post more frequently. Part of why I switched to a blog format from my previous static pages was to overcome the “effort barrier” that often killed spontaneity. I now have little excuse outside of a lack of discipline.

Outside of the personal events mentioned, I’ve got a somewhat blog-worthy backlog that I’m now setting out to tackle…

Dr. Henry R. Mahler, Jr., died peacefully today in the loving company of his wife, two sons, one daughter, two daughters-in-law, one granddaughter-in-law, three fellow ministers and his grandson… me.

This was the day of ultimate peace for him on a calendar that spanned ninety-five extraordinary years, and for that I am both happy and proud. At the moment, though… and especially as I select photographs and write this entry… it’s truly the saddest day of my life.

Happy grandparents with a happy grandson on my first Christmas

My thoughts are still scattered, I’m exhausted and, quite honestly, I keep stopping to cry as I edit photos and write this entry. I don’t have the clarity or energy right now to write anything extensive or especially eloquent. It will take time for all the memories that are percolating in my mind to sort themselves and come out in any meaningful way.

In the meantime, what I have are some photos I’ve selected.

Five years ago on his 90th birthday. The oldest of four brothers, he outlived them all.

These are extraordinary photographs.
Not because of their composition.

At a family birthday party in 2003

Not due to some great artistic insight.

My father and grandfather on Christmas Day in 2004

Not from megapixels or their passage through Photoshop.

In his chair in my grandparents' apartment in 2003

They are extraordinary because of the man in them. My grandfather.

Laughing with my grandmother in 2003

They are also extraordinary because of the context in which they were taken. Every single one of these photos was taken of a man surrounded by the family he loved and that loved him so dearly.

At another family birthday celebration in 2005

The same family – to a person – that was gathered around him today when he died.

My grandfather was an author and a poet and, had he grown up in a digital world, he would have taken to blogging like a fish in water. He vaguely understood the concept from conversations we had and never ceased to amuse me by calling it “the blodge”. I always knew what he meant. He did, however, pitch his typewriter and buy his first word processor in his 80′s. He was the most prolific reader I’ve ever known and, when his eyesight became too poor for the constant reading that kept his mind so active, he became a voracious audiobook listener. He listened to them on an iPod Nano… at the age of 95.

The most prolific reader I've ever known. Anytime. Any place.

I could never list all of the wonderful things he brought to my life or the countless ways he has influenced who I have become as I’ve grown up.

There is one thing in particular, though, for which I will be eternally grateful and that I know gave him tremendous joy. It’s in this photograph:

As the minister who married us on our front porch, in the company of family and friends, at the age of 92

I love him and I will miss him dearly.

I’ve had a number of my photos used in some regional magazines of late (Virginia Sportsman) as well as a few in various SBC publications. I was quite pleased and amused, though, to see that Shutterbug Magazine published two of mine in their November issue. I had submitted both several months ago for their upcoming topic of “lens effects”, thinking it unlikely that either would be used. As it turns out, they used both along with my original caption.

I wasn’t sure if they were selected until I saw it while flipping through this month’s issue in our living room the other day. As an amusing sidenote, the first time either of us saw an article that Scientific American Magazine published on my first MAME arcade was while standing in a bookshop in Paris on our honeymoon in September 2003. I’ve since found a copy of it floating around on the web translated into Chinese.