2009 January » Raji Barbir Photography

Busy busy

Jan 312009

Day 20/365

I’ve been struggling to keep up lately… This is one of many reasons:

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NURF Wars is a fourteen page screenplay (basically a comedy) I’ve been writing over the past few days. Screenplays are just blueprints for movies, so this is far from the end of my being busy. In fact, I’m directing this one, so I’m going to be more busy in the coming week than I have been in a long time.

I’m also going to be responsible for uh… everything else.

Aside from the acting and maybe some of the sound on the set (for moving shots), I’m always responsible for everything on my short films. Screenplay, planning, camera work, lighting, editing, color correction, effects, sound design, music, right up until I throw the whole thing onto DVD for my cast and crew to have.

No, I’m not trying to brag. I’m stubbornly independent. I don’t like delegating unless I can find someone who can completely blow me out of the water in performing what I could just as easily do myself.

For example, I’m sure I could do make-up for models. But I don’t. Because I already have someone who can completely crush me at it: www.jaylenebarbir.com

Having someone help you that’s good at what they do makes your life easier. Getting someone on board who sucks at what they do just to claim a larger crew, that makes your life miserable.

All this is partly why I took a picture of my video camera yesterday. It’s not so I can show off the gear I have, it’s because it’s on my mind a lot now and I’m not sure what to take pictures of day after day.

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Ok, I gotta share this one with you.

Amy’s line of “I see a bright light” in the shot above is probably what you thought it was: she’s dying. More specifically, she’s been shot and her lover watches helplessly as she dies. But there’s a joke after that. So here’s what the screenplay looks like:

AMY

I see a bright light…

JOHN

Stay with me, babe! Stay with me!

Amy points to the parking lot light.

AMY

See? Right there.

She does see THE bright light after that, but I thought that was funny and worth sharing.

My XL2

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Jan 302009

Day 19/365

I’m obviously a big Canon person. Here’s a shot of my Canon XL2.

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Panic Button

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Jan 292009

Day 18/365

I went out thinking I’d be home by 8.30pm at the latest. I came home about 15 minutes ago, just past 11pm.

So I think a photo of my car’s panic button is perfectly appropriate, don’t you think?

I haven't forgotten...

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Jan 282009

…But I rushed the crap out of this shoot…

I’m headed out for a movie and I haven’t had a second to myself until just now (and the movie of course). But seeing as the movie gets out at almost midnight, I knew I needed to post now before I left.

Day 17/365

My mom sends me these big boxes of baklava whenever she gets a chance (thanks mom!) and seeing as my brother doesn’t care for them, I get his box of baklava too (thanks brother!). This baklava is roughly… uh let’s see… carry the two… yeah, roughly twelve bazillion times better than any other baklava I’ve ever tasted.

Not a great shot, but yeah… rushed this one a bit.

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Kewl

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Jan 282009

Came across this little gem and thought I’d share.

Painting with Light

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Jan 272009

Day 16/365

I’ve always liked these light paintings people do on Flickr. So I finally tried my hand at it.

And no, I’m not apologizing for the cheese factor. I have feelings too, you know.

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Product shoot

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Jan 262009

Day 15/365

I was thinking about doing a product-type shoot yesterday, so I did that today.

This is the first camera I remember messing with. It was my dad’s camera. And yes, it’s a film camera.

After using homemade pinhole cameras to take pictures that we developped ourselves in the school’s development lab for art class, we were assigned to shoot pictures with a “real” camera.

Below was the camera I used. The Pentax ME Super.

Now, let’s get the obvious out of the way: it’s a goofy name. No way around that. Super? Yeah. Goofy. But it’s not just Super. It’s ME Super! Sure, it was probably meant as “M.E. Super”, but to my ears it sounds like “Me so Super, Me take pictures all night long!”

Then, the not-so-obvious: it was released in the same year I was born; 1979. No great reason I mention this other than the fact that it adds to the sentimental value of the camera for me.

Finally, the (hopefully) really-not-obvious: I sucked at taking pictures with it. I really just didn’t get how to operate the camera (ASA? Shutter Speed? Aperture? Exposure Compensation? Huh?) and worst of all, I didn’t understand why I couldn’t get crisp shots in low-light without a tripod. I remember going out with this thing after dark to a local school located right by the woods. The few street lights I had to illuminate my shots weren’t nearly enough light. All of my shots were blurry.

Fortunately, since then I’ve gotten a lot better. And although I can’t say that I shoot with it with as much frequency as I’d like, I do still pick it up from time to time and take a few shots. Funny though, after shooting digital for so long, when I do shoot with the Pentax, I often find myself taking a shot, looking at the back of the camera and going “Hey! Where’s my picture?!”

Digital cameras have spoiled us all.

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Selling more stuff

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Jan 252009

Day 14/365

After successfully and quickly selling the Canon GL2 video camera I blogged about just the other day, I decided to try and sell some other crap I’m sick of making room for in my teeny storage space.

I’ve always liked the body design of these zip drives. This particular model still looks very sleek to me, despite having been completely replaced by USB flash drives, iPods, etc.

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