My most used tag on flickr - portrait.

And my most interesting photos continue to shuffle around!  Here’s the latest top 10.  You’ll see that this photo, which had become my 2nd most interesting photo at one time, is now off the top 10.

I have a lot of love for Squaresoft (well, now they’re SquareEnix), despite the fact that I’ve played relatively few of their games.  I think Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy 6 (originally released as Final Fantasy 3 in the US) are the pinnacle of their jRPG work.  I’ve also played Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VIII, and Chrono Cross.  I didn’t really enjoy Final Fantasy 7 nearly as much as everyone else.  I think it’s partly out of spite.  All these new jRPG fans think that Final Fantasy 7 is the greatest Final Fantasy game ever.  But they’re never played the SNES Final Fantasies.  Nothing is better than Final Fantasy 6 story-wise.  And Chrono Trigger is unmatched for the amount of differences your actions could make to the game.  When I finally got a Playstation in college, I was lucky enough that all the Final Fantasies released up to that time had become “greatest hits” and were available for $20.  I bought them all.  I finally got to play Final Fantasy 7.  I had tried before on our computer, but it just wasn’t up to snuff.  Even owning it on Playstation, it took me two attempts to get through it thanks to real life getting in the way.  When I finally finished it, I just didn’t see why everyone thought it was so awesome.  It might partially have to do with the fact that I had a 2 month gap in the middle of my playing the game, but I just didn’t get what made it so amazing.

All good things come to an end.  In this specific case I’ve decided to end my tenure reviewing Linux distros.  Being a home owner consumes a lot more of my time than being a renter.  Doing a quality distro review takes a lot of time - usually at least 2 - 4 hours.  And so it was that I came to decide I’d rather spend my time on the hobby I enjoy most - photography.  Also, I’ve grown bored with Linux.  Not that I’m giving up on running Linux on my computers.  But it just doesn’t excite me as it once did.  I’m strongly considering letting my Linux Format Magazine subscription lapse.  It was a tough decision because 90% of my blog’s traffic comes from Linux reviews.  But, with only so much time in the day, I’d rather just work on my photography.  So, very likely, this will be my last Linux review unless I get into it again.  I will still probably be blogging about Linux and technology, I just won’t be doing any full-blown reviews.  The big exception would be if I installed a new distro on one of my machines.

note:  I started writing this months ago when I did the installation and now I am finishing up by looking at the installed distro. PCLinuxOS started as an extra set of packages for Mandriva.  Interesting because Mandriva originally started as a KDE version of Red Hat.  Eventually, it became its own distro.  It became very, very popular around the same time as Ubuntu - give or take a few months.  There was a time where you couldn’t read a Linux review without someone in the comments suggesting you should check out PC Linux OS.  (Kinda like what I see happening with ArchLinux nowadays)  The distro built up lots of steam and in 2007 seemed as though it could potentially steal Ubuntu’s thunder.  Then it suddenly dissapeared from mention.  There wasn’t a full-fledged 2008 release.  According to its wikipedia page, PCLinuxOS has twice forked from Mandriva.  So, while it was based on Mandriva at that point in time, it has since diverged into its own distinct distro.  This is a very interesting distinction because this month I am also reviewing Mandriva 2009.1 and I had to postpone that review because it wouldn’t load up.  PCLinuxOS, on the other hand, did load up.  First up I had to choose my keyboard type.

[caption id="" align=“aligncenter” width=“500” caption=“The smirk makes the photo”] [/caption]

Continuing my spotlight series with Mai.

[caption id="" align=“aligncenter” width=“500” caption=“Mai smiles a LOT!”] [/caption]

People tend to really like my portraits of Mai, some of them are among my most viewed photos on flickr.

[caption id="" align=“aligncenter” width=“500” caption=“This photo, for example, has (at the time of this writing) 747 views.”] [/caption]

[caption id="" align=“aligncenter” width=“500” caption=“Who, Me?”] [/caption]

A little series I’m starting with my favorite portraits for a particular person.

[caption id="" align=“aligncenter” width=“500” caption=“Dina and a Flower at a Wedding”] [/caption]

Dina facts:

• Real Dina smiles are great smiles
• Family is really important to Dina
• Dina’s closest friends are practically family (see above bullet)
• Dina’s pretty awesome on the piano, she doesn’t play for us often enough

[caption id="" align=“aligncenter” width=“500” caption=“Dina with good friends Lauren and Frances.”] [/caption]

[caption id="" align=“aligncenter” width=“500” caption=“Dina on the DC Train”] [/caption]

Danielle’s family came to visit so we did what we always do when company comes, we went to Washington, DC. Seriously, I don’t really know what else to do. If it were Florida I would have taken them to the beach. In NYC I’d take them to Manhattan and either just walk around or go to a show. But around here I don’t really know what to do with visitors. Inner Harbor is really too small for just an hour or so. And not everyone likes the museums from DC. So if you know something to do around here, let me know.

[caption id="" align=“aligncenter” width=“500” caption=“Which 50mm lens is the best? The Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II or the Canon EF 50mm f/2.5 Compact Macro?”] [/caption]

I have as of a few months now, I have two 50mm prime lenses - the Canon EF 50mm f/2.5 Compact Macro and the Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II.

I wanted to compare them to see if one is clearly better for another. After all, if I’m going to use a prime lens, why not use the best one? Before we get to the photo comparisons, let’s take a look at the other factors.

I wanted to see how I’ve changed as a photographer so I went to my first ten photos uploaded to flickr.  The two biggest changes are that I am now really into portrait photography (although mostly natural portraits) and not quite as much into photoshop.  My first two pages are mostly photoshop-manipulated photos.  The next ten or so pages are photos documenting my life.  I got to do some exciting stuff like going to NYC for the second time (but with a lot more time to look around) and also was busy documenting my life as a college student.  I’m still into documenting my life and activities I participate in, but I’ve become more sophisticated in my techniques.  I now know about shutter speed, aperture, and ISO and I strive to use them to get the best photos I can.  I came to appreciate light and how it can work for and against the composition.  I also learned when to use flash and when it’s useless.  Before I thought no one would want to see an unaltered photo, hence the focus on the photoshopped photos.  Then I looked through photography books and learned about street photography and documentary photography.  I’ve grown quite a bit from the old days and here’s the proof.

[caption id="" align=“aligncenter” width=“500” caption=“People came to Otakon from all around the USA”] [/caption]

For the first time since moving here, I found out about Otakon ahead of time. Unfortunately, the economics didn’t work out we didn’t buy tickets. But I did go to hang out outside Otakon on Saturday to get some photos. Lessons learned:

• Remember what you learned in Hawaii and don’t be afraid to approach people. This is especially the case with Otakon. The cosplayers have spent a long time working on their costumes, sometimes up to a whole year. They want to show off their costumes. So go up to them and ask to photograph them.
• With a 1.6x crop factor camera like the Canon 400D, 28mm is not wide enough. It’s very, very crowded at Otakon. They had something like 19 000 preregistered attendees. I missed out on getting some awesome shots of costumes such as this one where the girl on the left had an amazing bottom part to her costume, but I couldn’t fit her and her friend in without backing up a lot more
• Buy tickets to Otakon! I missed out on a bunch of costumes because they were walking into the conference too quickly for me to intercept them at the door. So attend so you can see all the costumes

And now here is my photo essay on Otakon 2009.