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2013-05-17 18:58:26 (14 comments, 8 reshares, 136 +1s)

Getting ready for the weekend

Happy friday!

2013-05-17 18:45:37 (0 comments, 1 reshares, 11 +1s)

I guess there is no need for any more debates in Australia ;)

Once again, thanks to +Trey Ratcliff, +Thomas Hawk and the army of photographers who came out to join us for this monumental event. A special thanks to the venerable +Peter Adams for capturing this image.

http://recordsetter.com/world-record/photowalk/29481#contentsection

2013-05-17 03:50:29 (9 comments, 1 reshares, 96 +1s)

Towards the Light

2013-05-16 18:54:30 (4 comments, 1 reshares, 86 +1s)

Flatiron Building, San Francisco

This building is very similar to the famous Flatiron Building in New York City except, well, it looks like the stopped half way and decided it was good enough.

Despite being slightly less tall, being perched so elegantly in the middle of market street, it's still a very beautiful and iconic sight in downtown San Francisco.

#glassphotowalk   #treyhawkwalk  

2013-05-16 05:31:26 (16 comments, 31 reshares, 95 +1s)

HOLLAND. THE ORIGINAL COOL

I regularly get a so hey, where's that accent from, so figured this might help :)

2013-05-16 03:35:19 (0 comments, 3 reshares, 89 +1s)

Thomas Hawk was tagged in Chris Chabot's album.

2013-05-16 18:16:12 (8 comments, 8 reshares, 56 +1s)

The Walk of Fame

Yesterday just before the big photowalk happened, +Lisa Donchak, +Barry Blanchard and I were helping +Karen Hutton out doing a virtual photowalk around downtown San Francisco.

As we made our way to the Jewish Contemporary Museum I noticed this very sharply dressed man looking all fab and famous right by these water steps - so I decided to do what I find my self doing a lot these days, I went up to him and explained that I had this awesome shot in mind and asked him to pose.

He kindly agreed, and bam this shot happened.

 #GlassPhotoWalk  #treyhawkwalk

2013-05-15 18:29:25 (10 comments, 5 reshares, 86 +1s)

Brown

Another day, another Scavenger Hunt reveal! Today's word is brown and anyone who knows me will tell you, I really love my coffee in the morning so using a few huge bags of that seemed like the way to go for me.

2013-05-14 17:10:57 (15 comments, 0 reshares, 58 +1s)

Landscape

This was such a fun Scavenger Hunt word to do, landscape. Of course the obvious choice would've been to take a landscape picture and call it well enough. But I wanted something a bit more original, with a bit of a pun.

So I came up with this, a vintage looking scene where a lady is studying a landscape painting, with a landscape behind her in the background - a double pun if you will.

Oh and in case you're wondering, that is indeed my living room, with the AT&T park as my view in the distance there

2013-05-14 02:00:47 (24 comments, 4 reshares, 57 +1s)

Freeze Motion

Day Five of the Scavenger Hunt reveals and today is all about Freeze Motion.

Man did I have a lot of fun doing this one! Doing a dust-dancer type of shoot  has been on my list of things I wanted to do for a while now and the scavenger hunt gave me the perfect excuse to finally make it happen.

To create this effect I had 2 large strip lights on the model's left and right turned to full power so that I'd be able to overpower the day light. Add a bunch of fun jumping and a few large bottles of baby powder to the mix, and this was the end result. 

Edit the results are in and this shot won a 1st place, a 3rd place and a honorable mention for Freeze motion! Yay!

2013-05-13 06:08:25 (18 comments, 0 reshares, 60 +1s)

Texture

Another day and another Scavenger Hunt reveal; And this one was interesting. I was completely stuck on what to do for texture for the longest time until this concept hit me - and once it did, well I knew that to make it happen I had to do some serious learning.

I did things in photoshop with this image that I've never done before - 3d texture warping, arcane layer blend mode options, recreating reflections and liquid in eyes.. I started over at least 3 times and spend hours on perfecting this - but I have to say I'm completely thrilled with the end result.

Edit: This was votes first place by two judges, and also scored a second place, yay!

2013-05-11 17:06:56 (7 comments, 2 reshares, 81 +1s)

Mouth

Another day and another one of my scavenger hunt photos I get to share with you. This time 'round the concept was mouth and I took a bit of a fashion flair approach to this one.

2013-05-10 19:01:24 (11 comments, 2 reshares, 94 +1s)

Regret

Today's the second day of the scavenger hunt reveals, and the topic for the day is Regret. There are so many directions you can go with that concept but I saw more of a romanticized fairy tale image in it.

So I set out to shoot this in the Presidio in San Francisco, a place where there's almost always fog in the trees - except for the morning me and my model were there .. So this is also one of the more photoshopped images I've done since when I shot this it was all clear skies and super sunny so I photoshopped in the fog that I was hoping to get in real life using a few layers of cloud textures instead.

2013-05-10 00:52:26 (12 comments, 4 reshares, 101 +1s)

Strawberry

The Scavenger Hunt reveals have begun! The Scavenger Hunt with our fabulous +Chrysta Rae is just about the most fun your can have with a camera. There are ten concepts that the scavengers must photograph, in these next ten days the albums of the 300+ people who participated and the winners are revealed.

So without further adue, here's my entry for Strawberry. Make sure to check +Chrysta Rae's stream to see the other entries.

2013-05-09 17:40:01 (18 comments, 14 reshares, 169 +1s)

First Snow in Yosemite

I took this a little while back during an amazing Yosemite trip. I couldn't believe how lucky we got with conditions. It was the end of the fall and the valley had just seen it's first snow of the season. These luscious fall colors you see here were all gone a few days after due to the cold but for that one magical weekend the seasons overlapped to bring this display of breathtaking splendor.

2013-05-08 07:35:05 (5 comments, 0 reshares, 13 +1s)

History has odd ways of popping up every once in a while

warning this gets nerdy so if you don't speak linux feel free to ignore this

So I was building a new RPM package for CentOS 6 and I figured I'd use one of the .spec files I had laying around as a template. Just so happened that was for php-pecl-apc.

As I was editing the file and I got to the bottom part of the %changelist, I noticed that the oldest entry was:

 Sun Jun 18 2006 - Chris Chabot <chabotc@xs4all.nl>- 3.0.10-1 - Initial package, templated on already existing php-json
  and php-eaccelerator packages

Waaaaiiiiiitttt a minute, I created the initial versions of this package about 7 years ago! Completely forgot about that ..

2013-05-08 06:26:58 (11 comments, 2 reshares, 95 +1s)

Pick a door, any door

2013-05-07 05:59:08 (3 comments, 0 reshares, 15 +1s)

Meeting Location:  Check Back Soon!
After-Party Location:  Check Back Soon!
Hashtag:   #GlassPhotoWalk  

How to Win Google Glass:  This will be a random selection for people at the PhotoWalk.  You can join in and take photos live with Party Mode with your Android or iPhone.  Details to come!

Join +Thomas Hawk and +Trey Ratcliff for a once-in-a-lifetime free event!  If you've never been to a photowalk, this will be a great one.  We'll help teach you more about photography and you can join in the fun!  Bring a friend or come alone.  It's a family-friendly event, and we look forward to seeing you!

Thanks to +Brian Matiash and the rest of the Google team for help in getting the whole event together.  We'll have a TON more details soon...  this will be a great celebration of photography!

2013-05-06 07:01:42 (6 comments, 4 reshares, 84 +1s)

Some more crepuscular rays

The last time I posted some crepuscular rays they were in rome, these however can be found in Venice, the wonderful and fanciful St Mark's Basilica.

2013-05-06 04:01:35 (17 comments, 1 reshares, 30 +1s)

It's rare to find one of these anymore these days.

Anyone taking bets for when kids won't even know what they're for or how to use them? Or have we passed that point already?:)

2013-05-06 01:03:46 (31 comments, 0 reshares, 28 +1s)

Am I really the only person who has to re-enter a CAPTCHA value 6 times before finally getting it right?

2013-05-04 18:41:18 (13 comments, 5 reshares, 105 +1s)

One of those San Francisco kind of days

2013-05-03 06:46:25 (9 comments, 1 reshares, 83 +1s)

Art imitating Life

2013-05-02 05:54:02 (17 comments, 10 reshares, 164 +1s)

Helix stairs

I'll never get enough of them. These can be found in the Vatican City in Rome

2013-05-01 19:04:05 (4 comments, 1 reshares, 49 +1s)

Remember When

2013-05-01 18:37:26 (2 comments, 5 reshares, 20 +1s)

Hangouts Remote Desktop: tech support with a personal touch

For those of you who play tech support for friends and family, there’s now a Hangouts app to make things easier -- powered by the same technology behind Chrome Remote Desktop. 

Hangouts Remote Desktop lets you help others by controlling their computer remotely (with their permission, of course). And because you’re both in a Hangout, you can talk with and see each other during the session.

To get started, just start a Hangout and click View More Apps > Add Apps > Hangouts Remote Desktop. 

Let us know what you think, and please keep the feedback coming!

#googleplusupdate

2013-05-01 03:09:05 (7 comments, 9 reshares, 103 +1s)

I Know You're Out There Somewhere

2013-04-30 22:39:38 (4 comments, 1 reshares, 37 +1s)

Lets get this party started, right?

2013-04-30 04:12:22 (6 comments, 1 reshares, 74 +1s)

Dreaming Away

It's good to dream away for a bit at the end of a long day. And yeah. This sunset will do

2013-04-30 04:54:45 (3 comments, 2 reshares, 45 +1s)

Just doing my thing

For the sake of art, you know?

Another one of the wonderful characters of the #howweird   street fair, I just love getting to know them all.

2013-04-29 05:45:35 (6 comments, 0 reshares, 50 +1s)

Embracing The Weird -- San Francisco, California

Blending into the environment is often times the best way to capture candid moments. So how do you blend in at San Francisco's How Weird Street Faire?

Ask +Chris Chabot  who was lining up awesome shots all day. 

2013-04-29 05:36:39 (7 comments, 1 reshares, 38 +1s)

Two hundred new friends

So I got back home from the #howweird2013  street fair an hour ago and boy was it a good time! Some festivals have this vibe that is all about togetherness, love, experimentation and having fun together; And this is very much one of those kind of parties. 

As I was splitting my time between dancing at one of the 6 sound stages and photographing many new friends I realized that way back at the beginning, when I had just gotten into photgraphy, one of the projects that really spoke to me but seemed impossible to ever achieve was the 100strangers project on flickr. The goal was to talk to and photograph, a 100 strangers.

I'm a natural introvert so needless to say, I hardly understood how I would be able to get a single one, let alone a 100. But today I've become so fond of photographing people and sharing the experience of creating am... more »

2013-04-28 19:17:31 (5 comments, 1 reshares, 46 +1s)

Riddle: What's Black & White & Tread All Over?
Answer: ?

This was my entry to the April +Style It! Shoot It! Share It! challenge hosted by the inimitable +lane langmade and +Shantha Marie Fountain. Sign-ups for the May challenge are still open, and I think spots are still available but not for much longer, so hurry if you want to take part. 

Thanks to my model Pearl Yon Mayhem #2336988
Location: Potrero Hill, San Francisco, CA, USA
Lighting Assistant +frederic schmidt 
Mystery Male Model +Chris Chabot 
Inspiration: David LaChapelle. Let's hope he doesn't sue me for mentioning that.

2013-04-28 04:50:43 (19 comments, 0 reshares, 55 +1s)

How Weird ... ?

Ok, think the double glass eye pun the monocle eye piece provides is exactly what I needed to get ready for the  #howweird2013  street fair tomorrow. What do you think? 

#selfiesunday   #bathroomselfie  (been a while since I've done a bathroom selfie +Lotus Carroll!)

2013-04-28 03:58:11 (9 comments, 0 reshares, 40 +1s)

How Weird!

Tomorrow from noon to 8pm the How Weird Street Faire is back in San Francisco! And when you tell San Franciscians, hey, lets do weird ok? boy do they bring it! The burners, the goth, the disco dancing, the fabulous - they all put on their finest weirds and get together for an afternoon of opulence and flamboyance.

It will be the most colorful spectacle of music, art, and motion you’ve ever seen downtown, so I'll certainly be there wearing my finest victorian hat and jacket, dancing to the groves. Hope to see you there!

2013-04-27 05:41:09 (9 comments, 4 reshares, 105 +1s)

Crepuscular rays

Crepuscular rays, or often also called god rays happen when the sunlight streams through a small opening in clouds, or in this case through the windows.

The Roman cathedrals like the St Peter's Basilica were very good at designing their domes so that there would always be one or two rays shining through the huge hallways, and making the most of this wonderfully dramatic effect.

2013-04-26 21:52:02 (2 comments, 0 reshares, 45 +1s)

At Smugmug inc where we're just about ready for Trey to do his awesome talk. Should be good!

2013-04-26 06:20:53 (15 comments, 20 reshares, 126 +1s)

As the night awakens

This is one of my favorite blue hour shots of San Francisco and now that Google+ supports high resolution uploads, I get to share the joy of being able to zoom in and check out those hundreds of shining windows.

It's the little things I tell ya :)

2013-04-24 23:02:25 (3 comments, 2 reshares, 79 +1s)

Reflecting

Stanford Memorial Church

2013-04-23 18:30:50 (13 comments, 7 reshares, 78 +1s)

Waiting for you

Happy Tuesday everyone! I figured I'd celebrate by joining in on the   #portraittuesday  fun (curated by +Laura Balc & +Tana Teel) for a change!

This is from a recent shoot I did in the Presidio, San Francisco with +Lizzie Gunst. I just love the fairytale endless forest kind of feel.

2013-04-22 16:51:52 (9 comments, 4 reshares, 85 +1s)

Spanish Steps

This place is often visited and documented so I decided to go a bit more Godfather in my processing to give it a original look.

Leave the gun. Take the cannoli

2013-04-22 01:27:15 (18 comments, 4 reshares, 95 +1s)

The City

It's all about perspective

2013-04-21 04:50:58 (3 comments, 0 reshares, 54 +1s)

Bay Front Park

I sometimes feel like my apartment is right on the edge of downtown San Francisco, Take a few steps north and you're in the dead center of SF.

Take a few steps south and you're in the old ship building district. Sure they're building all kinds of new buildings there now but there're still so many old docks, cranes and boats all around that it really doesn't feel like the inner city at all.

Nice to have the choice what you're in the mood for really

2013-04-20 18:37:52 (4 comments, 3 reshares, 98 +1s)

Head in the clouds

Sometimes it's so much fun to go back in the archives and see what the few years of experience allow you to do with them now.

Take this photo for instance, it was taken in Kauai during an amazing no-doors helicopter ride - but with my lack of experience the photo came out dark, grey and, well to be honest, completely boring and flat. Fortunately I did shoot in RAW mode back then already so I was able to take that shot and bring some life back into it.

It certainly looks a lot more like how I remember that helicopter ride now :)

2013-04-20 02:01:26 (13 comments, 13 reshares, 111 +1s)

The Louvre

The Louvre is just one of those places that you mind will never be able to comprehend in it's entirety. It's just to big, there's to much grandeur and beauty there, thousands of statues, ancient egyptian art - oh there's napoleon's apartments.. there's just no end to it!

2013-04-19 18:54:07 (10 comments, 8 reshares, 92 +1s)

Happy Friday!

Ok I'm a bit slow but I just realized it's Friday! And that makes me feel all, well, like this 

2013-04-19 17:13:47 (4 comments, 1 reshares, 65 +1s)

It's not always clear which door to choose

2013-05-10 03:15:54 (0 comments, 1 reshares, 8 +1s)

Joe Sterne and 2 others were tagged in Chris Chabot's album.

2013-04-19 16:52:00 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 10 +1s)

Christina Collada was tagged in Chris Chabot's album.

2013-04-19 08:24:57 (0 comments, 3 reshares, 49 +1s)

The New Exploratorium

The Exploratorium in San Francisco moved into it's new digs in Pier 15 and to celebrate the opening they had this amazing light show projected on the front of the building.

Today was the second and last day that the lightshow was up so I just had to go check it out, and I have to say it was well worth it - what a sensational mixture of light and sound! Already looking forward to checkout out the inside of it too.