Photos by Ms. Jen with a Nokia N97.

Thurs 02.25.10 - Today was the first day in many weeks that Scruffy, Belle, and I went down to Dog Beach, the lack of which has been a combination of winter storms and Scruffy's being a bit ill a few weeks back. When we arrived today in time for the afternoon low tide a very different Dog Beach greeted us. There has been a great deal of beach erosion and re-contouring of the sand & beach due to the powerful El Nino storms we have had the last two months.

Tues. 02.23.10 - If you aren't already a fan of Heather Champ's photography, please bookmark | favorite | subscribe to the feed of her Flickr Photostream, as Heather takes delightful photographs.

I love this photo of her dog Chieka. I love the framing. I love the composition. Formally this is a brilliant piece with almost all the tones in mid to dark and then a spot of bright Chihuahua.

Lovely.

Project 52 : Week 5

If you haven't read Paul Graham's essay "Hackers and Painters" yet, and you are a maker / creator / creative, go read it.

I read it about 4 or 5 years ago for the first time and reread it this morning. Today it resounded as I have been frustrated at myself for what I perceive to be my failure at software engineering, as I when I code, I think of how I would apply paint. When I get stuck with trying to code in Python or PHP, I draw in my sketch book until I can get unstuck. Many times if I can't solve a problem, I do something else or go to bed and my brain will serve me the answer or solution while in the other activity or when I wake up.

Much like Mr. Graham describes in the essay, I build web apps and web sites much like I would build a painting or a whole dinner, I think about the whole idea, I get the ingredients or supplies ready, and then I start to make | code | create | sketch | paint. Scrub out what does not work and repaint | recode. I don't plan it the app out extensively before hand, I code in the browser. I am not the type who writes out pseudo code beforehand, or does wire frames, or designs in photoshop.

For a couple of years now, I have jokingly called myself a 'Professional Art Weirdo' whenever someone asks what I do for the living. This title always confuses other web professionals who know that I am a web / mobile developer. In 2007, I found myself at a programmer's conference full of Java folk, while in a small group setting everyone said their names and very detailed descriptions of their Java skill sets, when it was my turn, I cheekily said, "Hi, I am Jen and I am a painter." Then I passed on to the next person.

All jokes aside, I was delighted and relieved to read this essay this morning, as Mr. Graham quite nicely makes a defense for the intersection of programming and art as creative | maker disciplines rather than programming as engineering or science. I would love to see more artists learning to program and more programmers learning to paint.

Go read it.

Photos taken by Ms. Jen on Sat 01.02.10 with a Nokia N97.

Sat 01.02.09 - The thing that is either most wonderful or most baffling about Southern California, 32º to 35º latitude north, is that we don't really have a real winter, but in the time period of December and January when the rest of the northern hemisphere is socked in with snow and cold, we are having a mixed fall | spring.

January in SoCal has some trees are still shedding their yellow and red leaves just as some trees, bushes and flowers are just starting their spring blooming cycle. For years, I found this maddening, as I wanted a real fall with a real winter and then after time a real spring, not all three mashed up layered over each other in a course of 4-6 weeks.

This day after New Years Day trip to the Huntington with Erika and Julie Wanda showed me again, through the lens of the Nikon, how delightful the overlapping of autumn and spring can be when experienced in California's mixed up mediterranean climate.

Photo of Julie Wanda and Erika taken by Ms. Jen with a Nikon D70s.

Sat 01.02.10 - A week and a half ago, Julie Wanda and I go talking about what would be fun to do for New Year's Eve, I suggested that we go to dim sum and then to the Huntington Library to visit the gardens. She reminded me that she had to work on New Year's Eve until 4pm. Julie Wanda and I have a tradition to go to dim sum for lunch on New Year's Day, as we mused our options, Erika pointed out that the Huntington would be closed on New Year's Day.

After a bit of too-ing and fro-ing with the idea, we all decided that today would be the day to go to dim sum lunch at Elite Restaurant in Monterey Park and then proceed to the Huntington for a good toddle about the gardens. I brought the Nikon D70s as well as the ever present Nokia camera phone and took over 300 photos between both cameras.

A truly delightful day in lovely gardens (the camelias are blooming!) with good friends.

The above is my favorite photo of the 300, but I have about 20 more photos that I really like, but I will post them tomorrow.

Photos taken by ms. Jen with a Nokia N97.

Mon 12.28.09 - The last Monday of 2009 was an eventful day in Seal Beach, as the early morning high tide was really high and flooded the south end of Seal Beach as well as Seal Way near the pier. My morning walk route with the dogs was a bit interrupted by the water, but the wonder of it all was amazing. Most of the home owners were in good spirits as the water did not come up to their doors, but only to the first step or so.

Winter Solstice, where the Northern Hemisphere has the longest night and shortest day of the year, happened today at 9:47am PST / 17:47 UTC.

Today ushers in my favorite season of the year: Winter.

I love it. I love the chill. I love being outside at night while snow is falling. I love skiing. I love walking in the winter. I love wearing more clothes. I love the lack of sun and heat. Love it.

My greatest disappointment in living in Southern California is the lack of snow.

I realize that the reason that everyone else, all the other 16-19 million folks who share this metro area with me, lives here is the utter lack of the snow. Saturday's weather is the real reason they live here: 80F at the beach.

I can have my fantasies. Yes, I can. The last few days I have watching my European, British, and East Coast friends' Flickrstreams for photos of snow falling in the night.

Here are a few of the truly lovely winter scenes from various locales that are not SoCal from the last 48 or so hours:

All photos from friends on Flickr, please click on the photo for the larger version.

Photos taken by Ms. Jen with a Nokia N97.

Sun 12.20.09 - After a heavy work week, I found myself a bit stuffed up this weekend with an attendant sore throat, all the while praying that I not get fully sick. Today, I met up with Julie Wanda at her house so that we could go to lunch. I wanted to take photos of Figaro and Miss Kitty Le Meux, as I was taking the photos of Figaro he kept coming up to my nose and sniffing my nostrils and mouth, then backing up with a look on his face. Yes, Dr. Figaro, I have the beginnings of a cold or something.

After a stop by my brother's house and my return to home, the sunset came early as we are only one day from the winter solstice. Scruffy and I went on a walk along Seal Way and along the pier. Today it was very warm, 77F / 25C, and the air was so very clear, as I could see the mountains in full detail and Catalina Island in sharp contrast. Three oil supertankers were sitting out on the bay waiting their turn in at the Port of LB/LA, the air was so clear that one could see their names on the sides of the ship even though they were several miles out to sea.

The best of all was the couple who were having their wedding photos taken on the beach on the north side of the Seal Beach pier. A bunch of folks were standing in the parking lot and on the pier taking photos of the sunset, Catalina and the bridal couple. Truly lovely.

Mazel Tov!

Photos taken with a Nokia N97.

Sun 12.13.09 - Little did a certain Mr. G.F. Handel know that one day far in the future humans would make an annual Advent season pilgrimage to the nose bleed section of concert halls worldwide to sing along under their breaths to the Hallelujah Chorus all the while fighting a case of vertigo.

Photo by Ms. Jen with a Nokia N97.

Fri 12.11.09 - The big difference that clouds can make in a photo, yesterday was nice & bright & sunny and I could not get the N97 to focus on the rose. Today was raining, grey, and dull in light, and the N97 was able to focus beautifully on the rose.

Obviously, this Nokia N97 is from Finland and prefers cloudy, rainy weather to capture nice crystal clear images. ;o)

Fri 12.04.09 - I realize that this video is not new as it is from 2003, but I found it via a bizarre internet blackhole of which lead me to Erykah Badu at the Def Jam Poetry. Not only is the poem on the nature of fans, friends, and artists good, pointed, and twisty, but Ms. Badu's delivery drives the twists home with delightful results.

If you know of any other sources of Erykah Badu performing her poetry, please put the link in the comments.

Also highly recommended:
Bassey Ikpi's Apology to My Unborn

Tues 12.01.09 - By a chance of delicious WOM/Nokia induced trial phone fate, I currently have both a Nokia N900 and a Nokia N97 in my hot little mitts, so I have been putting both through their photographic paces to see which one is the better Nokia Nseries flagship phone / mobile device of the year 2009.

While I do love the petite-r size, design of the phone, and the lovely flip hinge (thwack!) of the Nokia N97, the Maemo operating system of the Nokia N900 is winning me over even though the form factor of the N900 is a chunky monkey with a non-thwacking sliding qwerty keyobard. Delightful form over amazing brains?

Which to choose, as both the N900 and the N97 have 5 megapixel cameras with a Carl Zeiss lens, though the N97s seems to be more wide angled than the N900, both devices have LED flashes, and good sensors as well as software to render the images and video.

Which is better in real life rather than on a tech spec? Well, let's see how the pretty form vs. hot brains perform in the all important Photo and Video departments:

November has been both a good month and a bit of a struggle. The struggle has been family/holiday/death related, as blogged about here, and the Good has been friend/family/art/music/mobile/travel/wedding/baby related.

The three bits about November that were really delightful are as follows:

1) The weather *finally* took a turn for the better. Better in my book is colder. I am happiest when the days are 55-65 F (10-17C) and when the nights are 35-50 F (3-13C). For a lady who loves a good bout of chilly weather, I am not sure why I live in Southern California. The weather here in SoCal will be happy for me through December and then will unfortunately warm up in January. Gah.

I am still interested in working in London if anyone has an opening.

2) Milestones: Lauren and Dave's wedding weekend in Seattle was lovely. I am very glad to see them married. It was also delightful to see Cindy & Matt that weekend as they were fresh of the married dept themselves. And even more delightful is that Seattle's weather was in the 40s F all weekend!

3) November has been a very creative month for me, both in terms of professional web dev/coding bits and in my creative art life of mobile photography, writing, and drawing, as well as day dreaming.

It was also inspirational, funny, and heartening to read/watch my various friends and friends of friends daily blog posts or vlog posts for NaBloPoMo or the other variations on the daily creativity theme thereof.

So all of you who participated in NaBloPoMo or NaNoWriMo or NaVloPoMo officially or unofficially, Bravo! Good job and keep up the good creative work!

Drawing and Photo by Ms. Jen with a Nokia N900.

Fri. 11.27.09 - Different folks will approach the same mobile device from a variety of perspectives, and I am here to tell you as a Professional Art Weirdo, the Nokia N900 exceeds my hopes as an Art Phone.

Yes. People. OMG. Creativity. Not. Consumption. This. Phone. Rocks.

I have spent all evening drawing, taking photos and trying out the browser. Tomorrow, I will get on X-Term and download Maemo Python and try some programming out.

The Nokia N900 has a native phone app called "Sketch", and while other mobiles I have used have had a sketch program, this is the first time that I have found the app to be usable as an actual sketching device. The feel of the N900 in my hand plus the screen ratio, on top of the line control in the sketch app, makes me feel like I am using a wee moleskine notebook. While the N900 is about a centimeter smaller in width & height as my moleskine, it does not need to be opened, instead I can use the stylus to draw with the device comfortably in my hand.

Comfortably after 20 minutes of sketching Scruffy's paw while he slept. The N900 did not feel weighty or get uncomfortable. I was able to switch between drawing with a fine line and then erasing to get the white space back. A true delight for an artist with small hands.

Then I used the camera on the N900 to take a close-up/macro photo with no flash of Scruffy's paw and the camera accurately captured the paw in the low light.

This is the mobile phone that I and other creatives dreamed of when I was doing my interviews in 2005 & 2006 for my master's thesis, 'Moleskine to Mobile: How Creative Professions Are Using Their Mobile Phones', has now arrived in one kick ass device. Multi-faceted creativity has returned to the N-Series.

Bravo!

*******
Related N900 Posts:
Nokia N900 : The Artist Phone
Nokia N900 : The Gold Standard Test
Nokia N900 - Views from the Pundit Analysts, Maemo & Python
The Nokia Flagship Face Off : Nokia N900 vs. Nokia N97 : Part I, Night Video

Photos taken by Ms. Jen with a Nikon D70s.

Tues 11.24.09 - How close can I get to my front stoop climbing rose with Thomas's Nikon D70 with a Nikkor 50mm f1.8 lens set at 1.8 f-stop before I loose all focus? That was today's experiment: how to balance up close while keeping a small area of focus and getting a lovely bokeh in the rest of the frame.

Turned out nice and dreamy.

Photo taken by Ms. Jen with a Nokia N97.

Tues 11.10.09 - I was playing round with the Night Mode on the Nokia N97's camera to see under what light conditions could I get a bit of blurred movement. While I could have used Auto setting with the flash off and gotten a crisp, sharp image of Grace and Magnus in the bright light of Tammy & Ryan's kitchen, I purposely set the N97's camera to Night to see if I could get a bit of doubling or blur.

I am happy with the way this photo turned out.

Tues 11.03.09 - Regardless of whether you are participating in National ________ Posting/Writing Month or just reading/watching others, I think the best part of the November novel writing, blog posting, vlog posting, drawing, and any other permutation, is that daily practice really does hone one's creative skills and ingrains, in a good way, the habit of the activity.

One of my favorite authors of all time, Madeleine L'Engle, frequently in articles, her books, and in writers workshops would encourage folks to write at least 30 minutes every day. She stated that with the daily habit comes the inspiration, not the other way around.

For a few years after taking the workshop with Ms. L'Engle, I would draw for 30 minutes every day. And then by the late 1990s, it became taking photos for at least a total of 15-20 minutes every day.

Rather than attempt to count up time and compare it to one creative activity, now I make sure that I reserve 30 mins to 1 hour every day for a / some creative activity be it writing, drawing, blogging, photography, or mobile blogging. By doing this regardless or schedule or busy-ness, it means that I carve out time time to slow down, time to create and explore.

Today on Twitter I started asking who of my circle of association is doing one of the Na__ __ Mo's? I found that a good variety of folk were participating in the original NaNoWriMo, NaBloPoMo, NaVloPoMo (video blogging), and NaDrawMo (drawing).

One of my Twitter friends made apologies for his lack of participation saying he was not creative, I replied back that one can blog about whatever, it doesn't have to be a story or long post. I would like to reiterate that this month is not about being the best or most polished or even the most creative, but about clearing a space for yourself to establish a new daily habit or even just to challenge yourself in something that you have always wanted to do but never did. So many of the folk who are writing novels this month have never written fiction but are doing the NaNoWriMo to really let go and loose their inhibitions about the activity.

It is not too late to join us.

Here is a list of the folks that I know in real life or via the Internets who are participating in National DoSomething Everyday Month:

NaNoWriMo:
Kasper Jespersen http://www.theasemicdreamer.com/
Steve Lawson http://www.stevelawson.net/wordpress/2009/11/nanowrimo-steve-writes-a-novel-possibly/
James McNally http://twitter.com/jmcnally/
Sudhamshu Hebbar http://www.sudhamshu.com/
Velvet Verbosity http://velvetverbosity.com/2009/11/02/nanowrimo-insane-fun/

NaBloPoMo:
Mrs. K (of course) http://www.fussy.org/
Me
Jessica Spengler http://www.wordridden.com
Vikki Chowney http://www.vikkichowney.com/
Lauren Isaacson http://www.theadnostic.com/
Laurie White http://lauriewrites.typepad.com/
Mauricio Reyes http://www.reyespowered.com/blog/?p=355
Utku Can http://utku.tumblr.com/
Ann McMeekin http://www.pixeldiva.co.uk/
Mike Maddaloni http://www.thehotiron.com

NaVloPoMo:
James Whatley http://whatleydude.com/2009/11/some-jumbled-letters-here/
Lloyd Davis http://perfectpath.co.uk/
Benny Crime http://www.vimeo.com/user1955506
Rupert Howe http://twittervlog.tv/

NaNoDrawMo:
Shaun Inman http://www.flickr.com/photos/shauninman/sets/72157622711146084/
Trey Piepmeier http://www.flickr.com/photos/trey_piepmeier/sets/72157622719962682/

All photos taken today by Ms. Jen with a Nokia n97.

Tues 11.03.09 - Today a white Euro, Nokia N97 entered my life for a bit, what is the first thing I did after making sure it was charged and had the newest firmware version 20 on it? I took it out for a photo walk.

The big October version 20 firmware update has taken care of about 98% of my previous frustrations and complaints about the N97, it is now a very nice little mobile computing machine of which the touchscreen is more responsive and the camera is taking better photos.

The design world, particularly the web design / user interface folk, have been going through a spasm of minimalism / simplicity lately with many top web folk redesigning their blogs to simple text, plain background (usually white or a light color), and a graphic line or two.

Tim Brown at Design Thinking has decided to plunge into the murky waters of design philosophy and semantics to parse out what the difference is between simplicity and minimalism as it pertains to web design / interface design. The articles does not end with his words, but the real debate begins in the comments as various designers debate what do the words and practices really mean.

Read it.

Now if you need a visual for who is the current king of minimalism, view this photo from 1982 which sums up the future of ID/UX 27 years later in one go.

'Sita Sings the Blues' is a very delightful feature indie animation film that combines 1920s jazz vocals with the ancient Indian story of Ram and Sita and the parallel story of the animator Nina Paley and her husband Dave.

Worth watching for the interplay of animation styles and narrative, of which is the interstitial bits of the three humorous arguing narrators. Even more worth watching for the gorgeous visuals.

Sita Sings the Blues

I am not much of a video recording person, I only remember to switch my camera phone or digital camera to the video mode when it occurs to me that the photo I want to take will only make contextual sense if there is sound and the image over time. I usually notice this after the person has started speaking or the action has began, thus my videos tend to be truncated.

Oops.

To top it all off, I really hate the post-production process. In other words, I hate editing video. In grad school, we had to do an intense 2 week course in video and editing, and I hated every moment of it, other than the editing instructor was a hot 40-something Irish gentleman. But not even Gerry could convince me that editing was worth my time, although I did enjoy watching him talk. Luckily for me, in my final project team we had a member in Shonagh Hurley who not only loved editing video and but could spend hours creatively editing.

Unfortunately, Shonagh is in Dublin and I am in SoCal, so when I need to trim or splice together video segments, I am a bit screwed. And why?

These photos were taken by Ms. Jen with a Nokia N86 and her Nokia N95.

Tues 10.13.09 - This afternoon I decided to conduct a test with the trial Nokia N86 camera phone that is about to go back to the folks at WOM World and my trusty & slightly rusty Nokia N95 camera phone. Originally, I had hoped to conduct the experiment using the Nokia N86 versus itself, by conducting the experiment with the Nokia N86 with the version 11 firmware with the upcoming version 20 firmware, which is rumored to have camera improvements, but alas and alack, the new firmware has not been released yet. Thus, the N86 v. the N95 in close up mode.

I wanted to test the close up / macro mode of the camera as I have noticed that the N86 for all of its 8 megapixel wonder and Carl Zeiss wide angle lens does not get very close or very sharp close ups. It may be in part to the wide angle lens and it may be in part due to the image processing software/algorithms. One of the problems that I have experienced is due to the wide angle lens, if I want to fill the photo with the subject I have to get closer and then the image goes out of focus or you keep the image in focus and it does not fill the frame (see the difference between the non-wide angle lens N95 hibiscus flower photo above and the N86 flower photo).

Photos by Ms. Jen with a Nokia N86.

Sun 10.04.09 - Today Jeremy and Jessica took me to brunch at i gigi's cafe on Western Rd on Hove, Josh Russell and Nik F met us there for a truly delightful brunch.

The food was a fresh riff off the usual breakfast and brunch foods. Each dish was well considered and beautiful as well as tasty. The best part is that each of the servers prepared the dishes on the sideboard right next to us. Fresh. Tasty. Moderately DIY.

Now when is i gigi going to open a Long Beach, Calif. cafe? ;o)

Photo taken by Ms. Jen with a Nokia N86.

Tues 09.29.09 - Upon entering the airplane in Dallas a week ago Monday, my respiratory system was working fine, half way through the flight to London, my nose was running like a spigot and I was chilled. By Saturday, the runny nose and chills had deepened into a sore throat & cough. By Sunday, I could barely speak.

Sunday morning London time, I called American Airlines to see what they thought of someone traveling sick. After talking to a very nice agent named Teresa, we both determined that I should not get on a plane yesterday and fly back home, even though as of yesterday, I had no fever. Due to the vagaries of the Mileage Awards program, the only flight open for me to fly home is next Monday.

So, now I am in London for an extra week. The last two days have been, quite frankly, a bummer as I have been ensconced in my hotel room coughing away and napping. Between coughs and naps, I can hear London outside. My favorite city outside, me inside.

So, I present to you today's photo, a view from my window. Bayswater was lovely this afternoon.

Photo taken by Ms. Jen with a Nokia N86.

Sat 09.26.09 - After Over the Air was done, I met up with Abhinav Natarajan for a photo walk in the Park (Kensington Gardens/Hyde Park). I had a fun time playing with the panorama mode on the Nokia N86 and am quite pleased with this photo.

Click on it to see a larger version.

William Neuheisel's Burning Man 2009

The title, it is true. When Mie Yaginuma blogged about how she missed Burning Man this year and included the above photo, I was immediately drawn to William Newheisel's Flickr page to find this photo.

I love it. I love the distance. I love the sky. I love the desert. The photo is evocative of a post-modern American Tibet - high desert with enigmatic decoration and art that suggests ritual and meaning.

As I continued to look at the photo, it made me think of my life right now, as I walk down a path that appears to be going somewhere, but I can't clearly see the end even though there are sign or light or prayer bell posts along the way. Am I on the right road or am I walking down a performance art piece of someone else's device?

All photos taken by Ms. Jen with a Nikon D70s.

Fri. 08.28.09 - Magnolia, aka Bird, aged 3.8 years old, decided yesterday that she was going to organize her first ever party on the behalf of her sister Grace's three month birthday party this evening. Magnolia and Tammy made cupcakes, Magnolia & Gracie were all dressed up, and Magnolia passed out Mardi Gras beads and other fun jewellery to all party attendees.

Upon arrival, I ran back to my apartment to get the Nikon D70s that Thomas lent me so that I could take photos. I had a fun time testing the D70s in a high ISO with no flash and a Nikkor 50mm 1.8F portrait lens. I am quite happy with the above photos.

All photos above were batch resized in Fireworks but no other processing as applied.

As a side note, Dan Callis and I are going to take over hosting the bi-month Seal Beach Salon along with poet Chris Davidson.

Sat 08.15.09 - A triptych of photos of Paige Hernandez, Jackie Ojeda, and Nicole Harrington taken by Ms. Jen with a Nokia D70s at Alex's Bar.

Sat 08.15.09 - A diptych of photos of Alex and Paige Hernandez taken by Ms. Jen with a Nokia D70s at Alex's Bar.

Photos taken on June 22, 2009 at Carl Zeiss AG by Ms. Jen with a Nokia N86.

The above photo essay is the last bits of Carl Zeiss Lens Factory content I wanted to post, as my videos that I took were not up to scratch. No worries, as every time I go back through my photos, I have more questions that I need to research about Zeiss that leads me deeper into Camera Lens Lust (or Lens Envy).

I would love to get a Distagon lens for my Nikon FM3a film SLF and it looks like Zeiss is working on some nice lenses for the Nikon F mount, which would work both on my SLR and the borrowed Nikon D70s from Thomas. Lens drool.

Best of all, today's find on the Zeiss website was the 'Camera Lens News', a set of articles on lenses and photography. I subscribed.

And the above photo of Stefanos wearing the Cinemizer glasses gave me a good giggle again. All the virtual reality style headsets always make me have a bit of a giggle. While I did not put them on to watch a video from a Nokia Nseries device, the others reported that it was a good to great video experience.

I will now return to drooling over a dream Distagon. ;o)

More on the Carl Zeiss Lens Factory Tour adventure and Nokia N86 (which has a Zeiss Tessar lens):
Carl Zeiss Lens Factory Tour
The Nokia N86 - Review and Photos
Dan Rubin's Spectacular Hasselblad
The Nokia N86: Phil Campbell's Off-the-Cuff Review of Video Features
The Nokia N86: Dotsisx and Ms. Jen Weigh In
Photos Moblogged from the Tour
The Carl Zeiss Factory Tour, Before Departure

Photos taken by Ms. Jen with a Nikon D70s

Thurs 08.06.09 - Last Saturday, I asked Thomas Bertling if he had an extra digital camera that I could borrow for a month or so. Thomas had a Nikon D70s camera body that he uses occasionally for strobe work and won't be using this upcoming month, thus he was willing to loan it to me if I could supply the lenses, usb cable, and compact flash card.

Luckily for me 4GB CF cards are cheap on Amazon and my Nokia N95 usb cable works great with the Nikon D70s, so the only hurdle was the lenses. My Nikon FM3a film camera's lenses have the same mount but both are manual only and don't work with the D70s's auto-focus nor with the light meter. For the first day or two, I tried to guestimate the settings but the photos were coming out a bit blurry and dark, except in bright sun.

After some doing this week, I was able to obtain an auto-focus Nikkor 50mm 1.8 lens for the time being. Today was my first afternoon that I had the time to set it all up, read the manual, and then go out for a small neighborhood photowalk. The above photos are my favorites from the 46 I shot this evening.

I like the Nikon D70s. I like switching between manual and auto-focus. I like coming home and seeing the results quickly. I still, other than resizing, don't like to do any 'processing' in Photoshop. With two of the above photos, I attempted to fiddle with curves, levels, and color, but decided that I preferred the original file to the processed one.

I realized that there are whole slews and herds of photographers out there who prefer and are happiest when they are processing images in Photoshop, but I am not one of them. I prefer the act of shooting, which is why I have so tenaciously stuck to camera phone photography for so long. In my month long test of using the Nikon D70s, I want to expand my options in the act of shooting, but will be shooting in JPG rather than RAW, so that I don't have to worry about doing something I don't enjoy which is processing images in Photoshop.

Watch this space and my Flickr stream for the results of this month long experiment. Big thanks to Thomas for the loaner camera body.

Samsung's Pixon series of camera phones is moving rapidly towards the future of mobile phones, and not because of their addition of 8 and 12 megapixel sensors, but because of the whole package of a device that adds the features of a phone with mobile internet, email, touchscreen, a physical zoom on the camera, and a camera that is the most like a compact digital camera of any camera phone to date.

What I am most impressed by is that Samsung is not resting on their laurels of 5 megapixel phones but pushing the cameras on the Pixon towards the point where the device is a competitive compact digital camera with a phone & internet connection & touchscreen user interaction. The Samsung Pixon 12 has a physical zoom, a Xenon flash, a 12 megapixel sensor, a range of ISO, touchscreen 'manual' focus, and a range of programmed modes, as well as user programmed modes. The Samsung Pixon 12 M8910 is a digital camera and a phone that I am would be more than willing to pay $600 for unlocked.

Elgar at Mobile-review.com gives a very thorough review of the Samsung Pixon 12 Megapixel camera phone. Go read his review and see the comparison photos.

On a note to end the day, as far as Ghosts of Gothic Past go, Matt Edgar whimisically blogs on the comparison between Mobile usage and Victorian Gothic tenants as espoused by John Ruskin: Mobile Gothic: a flight of fancy.

The most exciting news for the day is that Android is stepping up the mobile game with the addition of 1 gig CPU speeds coming soon, which means that Nokia can't continue to claim that 434 mhz is good enough for the flagship Nokia N97.

Nokia it is time to step up your game, both in CPU/RAM speeds and in terms of the camera on your devices. The other manufacturers are gaining both in terms of handsets & brand/market share.

By cameras, I was quite disappointed to read in two separate spaces that Nokia does not intend on engaging and competing in the compact digital camera space, but intends on keeping somewhat on top of the camera phone game. Only flaw in this plan is that Samsung, Sony-Ericsson, and others are starting to converge on the compact digital camera with a sim chip & data connection space.

In my opinion as a photographer and a person who buys & recommends camera phones to others, it behooves Nokia and others to work towards making a camera phone that can completely replace a compact digital camera in terms of optics (physical zoom), flash, sensor, and software. I and most other folks don't want to carry 2 or 3 devices, but one.

If Samsung & Sony are doing it, Nokia can to and do it better if they put a bit of will behind the effort.

Photo taken by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N95.

Sat 08.01.09 - Tanya and Paul Bonaventure held a lovely Art Night at their house this evening with paintings, photography, sculpture, dance, poetry and song all performed or executed by attendees of the party.

One of the most delightful part is when Deborah Rosen (choreographer), Laine Proctor (singer/spoken word), and three dancers did a preview piece of the show that they will be performing at the end of the month. They performed the preview in Tanya and Paul's driveway after 9pm on a warm evening, which was very appropriate to the song/dance/music. It was very lovely and I am looking forward to seeing the whole of 'Say The Body is Like This Lamp' and 'S.O.S./ Sleeping on Snow' on August 21st & 22nd.

Information on the Dance:

'Say The Body is Like This Lamp' | 'S.O.S./ Sleeping on Snow'
Dances by Alyson Boell and Deborah Rosen
August 21 & 22, 2009
8pm
at the Diavolo Theatre
616 Moulton Street, Los Angeles
Tickets:Brown Paper Tickets or 800-838-3006
alybababoell@hotmail.com

Photo taken by Ms. Jen with a Nokia N97.

Fri 07.10.09 - Purple is the hardest color for a digital camera to get right, particularly a non-DSLR digital camera. Purple requires quite a bit of computational power to take the sensor's red-green-blue/light-dark and translate it into an accurate purple. Most sensors are good with yellows and oranges, but with purple it either is skewed to the blue or to the red depending on the camera model, the manufacturer, and how much time/money were spent to get the image algorithms right.

The Nokia N97 is getting the closest to getting purple right and the color very close to spot on as any Nokia camera phone or Casio digital camera that I have used to date, although the Nokia N95 and N82 were also very good. Good on Nokia for allocating the computational resources to capture a good purple.

Bravo.

After today's investigatory adventure with my Mom, which included some shopping at Home Depot and Lyon's Art & Design Supply, I will/should have my painting studio at the Boatyard set up within the week.

Oil painting. Photography maybe my first love, but oil painting is my second. And I have not painted in a long time due to a lack of space and my computer/photo/mobile habits taking precedence. This is all about to shift a bit, in a very good way.

Since the true beauty and genius of the Nokia Nseries 8x line is the camera functions, I will start this review of the Nokia N86 with the photos that I took with the N86 while in Germany for the Carl Zeiss lens factory tour on Mon. June 22 and at the Limes Museum and surrounds in Aalen, Germany, on Tues. June 23rd before I had to hand the N86 back. All of the below photos were taken by me (Ms. Jen) with a Nokia N86 8 megapixel camera phone and later resized by Fireworks with no other retouching before uploading.

The big question that I have had over the last month is should I declare Flickr bankruptcy?

For a variety of reasons, I have not managed in the last 5-8 weeks to post my regular daily photo or two from my phone to Flickr, I have made a valiant effort to keep up here at Black Phoebe, but Flickr has fallen to the wayside.

Part of the problem started back in late April when I returned the lovely little Nokia N79 it its rightful owners and reverted back to my good, old, faithful Nokia N95 camera phone. In early May, after a firmware upgrade, I found that there was no more Shozu mobile application to download unless I wanted to purchase it. Given that I have planned to purchase a new camera phone this summer, I didn't want to commit to any new mobile software until I knew which phone I would be getting, and thus which software or app would be best for the phone in question.

Starting in May, I tried to remember to download my photos to my computer every few days and then upload them to Flickr. Anytime that I involve my computer in a part of the photo upload process, there is failure, as my computer is always a black hole for photos, which is why I started blogging directly from my phone in the first place.

The winning equation for me the last 4.5 years since I got my first internet enabled camera phone was as follows:

Take photo -> Add subject -> Send Directly From Phone to Internet = Win

This is the bad equation:

Take photo -> Save on camera or camera phone -> download to computer -> fiddle with and|or forget != Photo on Internet (quite the opposite actually of photo on the internet, the photos never leave my computer)

Because of the fact that I am not into photo processing on my computer and that photos that enter my computer very rarely leave (Hotel SoCal MBP), for the last 4.5 years ever since I got the lovely Nokia 7610 and an unlimited data package, I have used a variety of methods to daily post photos to Flickr and to this blog (or at least attempt to do it daily).

This spring's camera phone disruption has lead to me getting out of the habit of posting daily photos to Flickr. It has gotten worse. I am not a few days behind, or even a week or two, but five - Yes, 5 - weeks behind in posting photos to Flickr.

I now have 140 - 180++ plus photos from San Francisco, life around SoCal, Germany, Carl Zeiss Factory Tour, London, and Fourth of July that I could post to flickr.

Should I just do it - upload them all, name them, add them to sets, etc - or declare Flickr bankruptcy?

Photos taken by Ms. Jen with the Nokia N97.

Sun 07.05.09 - Both in yesterday's Fourth of July photo essay and in today's close-up/macro mode test, the N97 is consistently choosing a farther away than expected focal point and is not as clear/sharp as the N95 (see my previous test with the N95 & N97). With the Nokia N95 and N82, one could set the camera on Macro / Close-Up mode and get about 4 inches / 10 cm from the subject and get a good clear photo, not so with the Nokia N97, as you can see from the above photos.

The first photo on the left was taken at 5 inches from the bottle brush bloom of which the camera did not auto-focus on the bloom, but on the leaves and stalks behind. In the second photo on the right, I kept the camera about 10 inches / 25.4 cm from the subjects and was able to get a clear photo of the blooms.

Frankly, if the next firmware update comes without a 'manual' touch screen focus option, the engineers in Espoo should be spanked. Samsung has it, Sony has it, now Apple has it, Nokia's N97 needs to have the ability for the photographer to use the touchscreen to choose where the focus should be and the camera should do it.

Thurs 07.02.09 - Dan's latest installation. Photo taken by Ms. jen with a Nokia N97.

Photo taken by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N95.

Mon 06.29.09 - Speaking of Carl Zeiss lens's, Dan Rubin brought his lovely eBay steal of a Hasselblad with him to my last night in London meet up at the Phoenix Artist Club. And the Hasselblad had a Carl Zeiss lens on it. Everyone at the table was very excited when Dan brought the Hasselblad out of his bag.

Yes, photo geeks we are. All too true.

Photo taken by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N95.

Mon 06.29.09 - As I was walking back to the Tower Hill Tube station after visiting Steve and Lobelia Lawson at their house barge on the Thames near the Design Museum, I saw The Gherkin, the glass skyscraper euphemistically named after a pickle rather than a phallic symbol, framed by the Tower Bridge. I was in a rush to not be late to meet up with folks at the Phoenix Club, but I stopped nonetheless to catch this photo.

Photo taken by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N95.

Sun 06.28.09 - Much fun was had by all at the post-birthday BBQ for Ms. Vikki Chowney that Camilla Blackett held at her fabulous loft flat at the Church in Camden. This photo was taken after a flat of Kinder Eggs and a fifth of Jose Cuervo tequila was procured. The chocolate exterior's of the kinder eggs were used as shot chocolates for the tequila. It was later determined by the testers that rum worked better in the kinder eggs than tequila, as rum is more favorable to milk and white chocolate. Tequila would do better in a dark chocolate egg.

Allix formed the internal plastic kinder egg cases into jewellery for Cam.

Thurs 06.25.09 - Praise the minor and major deities that rule over YouTube and BTInternet! I have *finally* after 2 days of trying, got video uploaded. In case you were wondering, the internet connection at my hotel in London had slowed the BTInternet snail got off the salt bed intact and found a nice cool misty forest to traverse over, thus while it was still slow it was reasonably slow rather than chew my f*ing arm off slow.

Thus, here it is my video of Phil Campbell reviewing the Nokia N86's video capacities mere minutes after Anssi Mäkelä handed us the phones as we got in the car to go to the Carl Zeiss lens factory tour.

Phil was quite happy with the video capabilities of the N86, and I am more than quite happy with the photography capabilities (with the exception of the focus on the macro setting, but that can be fixed in a software update).

My full review of the N86 and my review of the Carl Zeiss factory tour upcoming.

Panorama photo taken by Ms. Jen with a Nokia N86.

Tues 06.23.09 - This panorama is a bit clunky, as I was just learning how to use it, but I love it. I love the Panorama option on the Nokia N86's camera.

Late this afternoon, I will board an airplane at LAX to travel to Stuttgart, Germany, with the eventual destination of arrival in Aalen tomorrow evening. The important detail here is that Aalen is the home of one of the two Carl Zeiss lens factories in the southern part of Germany.

Yes, that Carl Zeiss, the Carl Zeiss of gorgeous Hasselblad lens kits, the Carl Zeiss lenses that photographers drool over for their (D)SLR's, the Carl Zeiss lens that has been on every Nokia Nseries camera phone since the N90. Yes, that Carl Zeiss lens.

Now I love factory tours. Love 'em.

This love dates back to elementary school when we were taken on a tour of the Laura Scudder's peanut butter and potato chip factory in Los Angeles. I love the maze of machines, I love the idea of constructing items within this large space and seemingly endless array of processes. I have gone on tours of champagne bottling, plum jam, peanut butter, extra large printing presses, among others.

On Monday, I get to go tour the Carl Zeiss lens factory.

Photography + Great Design + High Tech Factory + Tour = HAPPY!!!

***********

The next equation I will write about in this series on the Carl Zeiss tour, will be what makes a great digital or mobile phone camera:

Lens (optics) + Sensor Chip + Algorithms + Memory

For as much as I can get ear worms of songs stuck in my head for weeks at a time, I also find that a line or two of poetry can worm into my head, reverberate, expand, and live a full multi-week life, and not exit.

Lately, I have had two lines of poetry on rotation in my head along with will.i.am's* "Chunky" from Madagascar 2, one line from "The Act" by William Carlos Williams and one line from Ursula Le Guin's "The Old Lady".

Tonight I will point you to William's "The Act" as I blogged about it when Vanessa, Edel, and I were turning it into an interactive flash piece in February of 2006:

The Act

There were the roses, in the rain.
Don't cut them, I pleaded.
They won't last, she said.
But they're so beautiful
where they are.
Agh, we were all beautiful once, she said,
and cut them and gave them to me
in my hand.

Tomorrow or the next day I will blog about Le Guin's wonderful new poetry book, Incredible Good Fortune. For now I am off to bed.

* p.s. Am I the only one who thinks that will.i.am and animation team at Dreamworks are having good fun at poking at "My Humps?"