I started this journey a couple years ago and find myself now saying I need to find my niche. I think it’s obvious what I am passionate about though. Needed to exercise and release some stress first and foremost.
This has been a great year for sunsets in Arizona. This one in particular is just on the edge of a storm blowing dust northward. Not the most epic one but enough to create a soft glow.
The cover photo is available for sale here.
Largest format available @ 16 bit 11900 x 3940 Pixels
Top 3 Ways to Keep Up with Cyber Security
Keeping hardware up-to-date on any device is usually updated automatically by default. In the last several years, Apple, Android, Windows, Linux, and peripheral devices have wireless capabilities and software available online.
It’s good to restart your devices at least once a week according to the NSA.
Currently, we are in a code red for surveillance of Americans by Russia and China on the orders of the Pentagon’s Chief Pete Hegseth. Trump is strong-arming the GOP. Vance is looking forward to Trump’s death to move forward with a theocracy-techno state.
Meanwhile, the richest man in the world Elon Musk, is illegally destroying institutional structure keeping America Running like a liberal democracy.
Firmware is what a device like a cell phone, smart TV, printer, network router, etc uses as its operating software. For a printer to print the firmware needs to give the commands to move the paper and when and where to spray dots of ink.
Imagine a giant nuclear power plant and the firmware in the valve system has a flaw that can be exploited by a rogue agent to stop water from flowing to the cooling reactors. Then we have a nuclear meltdown because someone didn’t upgrade a valve firmware. Or in a simpler case your phone gets its contact list raided and taken over along with all your secure account information tied to it.
Software includes all code-based instructions for running the machines we use including the applications or Apps. Operating Systems like Windows and Mac are software that run software applications. MS Word is a word processing software. There’s even software for giving remote administrative access for people to work together over a network. This is critical software to keep up-to-date and usually is included in your computer or device updates.
Again the problem here is Cyber Command just kicked the door wide open for any bad actor to come along and take over a computer. A lot of times it’s just a user error like opening up a phishing e-mail or going to a nefarious website that installs malware. User behavior goes a long way in staying safe on the web.
In the end, there really is no way to stay 100% secure in this world cyber security or terra firma. But you can create hurdles to make it harder by keeping your technology up-to-date.
I caught this scene Friday night with Minnie up at Mormon Lake. Got lucky with the circumstances of heavy clouds stalled to the west.
I mentioned to Minnie in the early evening, “It might be possible to see the Aurora Borealis tonight.” Friday night’s activities were a choice between finding some chicken wings or the same old, same old. Minnie, being the adventurer she is, chose to head north with the camera gear.
It’s all kind of a blur from there as we fight traffic up the I-17. The construction project is taking the night off, but the need for extra lanes heading to Flagstaff is apparent. Minnie and I reminisce about the good ole’ days before the population influx in Arizona. She’s a native of Phoenix and I have lived here long enough to claim this as my home state now.
We find the turn-off for Lake Mary and see some LED highway warnings, “Caution! Prescribed Burn Ahead. Heavy Smoke”. The scene suddenly goes from a dark two-lane blacktop cutting through a tall pine forest to thick white smoke.
We slow down and pass an elk standing on the side of the road that suddenly appears from the white smoke. The large beast tries to orient itself after being smoked out from his grassy bed. Wandering down to the highway as an alien in a Toyota with bright lights blinds him. If I rolled down the window I could have pet the majestic elk cow as we drove past.
I provide the navigation to the best view of the Milky Way core. It’s almost perfectly South East in the night sky gently arcing north. Our galaxy is a barred spiral galaxy like the image below taken by the Hubble Space Telescope. I would show a picture of our galaxy, but the Hubble didn’t have a selfie stick long enough, so we’ll have to wait for it to exit our galaxy. Who knows if it will still be working by then.
The Hubble Telescope was launched with a major flaw distorting the pictures it took.
BBC Sky at Night Magazine
We continue through the smoke. Sometimes it looks like it’s about to clear then a swath of stale smokey air clouds the path again. The conversation intensifies as we lose sense of direction. I finally get a better view of the map and see a scenic outlook. The smoke and clouds clear as we approach our destination and we have our view of the Milky Way in the South East and the Aurora Borealis to the North.
We set up the camera with a Nikon 35mm lens and take some test shots to get the settings right. I show Minnie how to take a panoramic with multiple panning shots, then lean back and watch her go to town.
We got lucky. The smoke and heavy clouds stall to the west of us encroaching on the Aurora. To the naked eye, the Milky Way and Aurora Borealis are just faint white wispy clouds in the night sky. Through the lens are some of the colors our eyes can’t see. What a wonderful night! A couple lovers enjoying a shared passion as the sun explodes, creating geomagnetic storms that could wipe out all of life as we know it. We are protected by an atmosphere that shields us as the energy is transformed into vibrant pink and red light waves of love.
Last Friday was 2nd Friday in Downtown Mesa, Arizona where my girlfriend had a table set up for her Minazona Minerals. She had some signs handmade using preprinted hunter’s orange and black sharpie, but wanted to improve the aesthetics with a new design. Little did she know her boyfriend was a former Lead Designer for Fast Signs on Central. It was time for some quick designs, quick signs.
I promptly came home and went to work on a templated design using Adobe Illustrator. Illustrator is one of the trusted programs I use for clean professional vector graphic designs. I’m a little rusty. It felt like trying to run after years of sitting in a car. The first few steps were painful as the weight of my body impacted the ground sending a shock wave through the fat and unconditioned muscles. My hands trembled trying to remember how to create multiple artboards.
The designing was gradually increasing in speed as my brain and fingers caught up to each other. I started with one star burst to create a representation of a geode, but it just wasn’t quite good enough. Then I copied and pasted the star burst rotating it and layering them. The final touch was applying transparency adjustments at 25% and multiplying the star bursts to create a representation of crystals. Sometimes that’s all a design needs is an artistic representation. A quick stack of ovals and viola, I had the template for the table signs.
There was something missing though. Clipart! I looked to my left and to my right and those old dusty books with clip art files on CD’s were no longer beside me. Then I saw the new AI “Text to Vector Graphic” panel in Illustrator. I thought to myself, “Should I? It’s not like anyone would know.” We typed in Amethyst and the results were spectacular. Soon I was looking for rainbows, earrings, and a copper heart. Holy Cow! The results were amazing. The AI was so good it even matched my color scheme.
Now the designs were complete and ready for printing. I didn’t have my printer set-up yet. Nor did I have a program to RIP and align the designs to make efficient use of the paper and ink. My first attempt at exporting a Jpeg was a fail.
It was time for Photoshop. I imported the whole sheet to Photoshop and made short work out of quick signs. Or something cool like that. They were easy to arrange and the design was good enough it naturally made their own crop marks.
I transferred the files to a USB stick and handed them off to Minazona Minerals for her to print and cut just in time to load up the wagon and hit the dusty Apache trail to downtown Mesa, Arizona for 2nd Friday.
Here’s the table set-up playing a little with video on my phone.
After writing Natural Arizona and working with Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing I learned some important lessons.
#1 Don’t rush the process.
My thought when writing the book was I would take an artistic poetic approach. I found myself often just blandly describing the photo and story behind it. This was the result of trying to say I wrote a book. It was also a desperate attempt in my eyes to make some money from my photography.
#2 Amazon Kindle Direct is not the best option for a photo portfolio.
I’ve been in the printing industry for a while and was greatly disappointed that a world class company still requires CMYK conversion from RGB. A lot of pictures were void of vibrance and the subtle tones. Just another reason to slow down and find a publisher/printing company to produce the book.
Also Kindle Create is not made for images either. It seems it would work great for a novel. Just not anything like I created.
#3 F- the critics.
This probably could be said for anyone writing a book. It was nice not to have anyone (with the exception of my mom the editor) tell me it sucks. I would have never finished the book or had the courage to publish it. If anything I was writing the book for myself and sharing it with the world.
#4 Stick with the Programs I Know
I plan to go back and create a 2nd version with the lessons learned. I was constrained with the options of printing sizes and wrote accordingly. I spent more time trying to adjust the print and Kindle versions than actually writing. Next round is going to be using MS Word again for a draft and then InDesign for a final. Then I can control how the layout with a lot less frustration. Instead of a Kindle file I can just sell my own PDF version. The final Kindle file still isn’t formatted properly due to Kindle Creates limitations. It embarrasses me as a graphic designer and is extremely frustrating to work with. I can do better with a fixed PDF and maleable scaling with CSS and a simple line of javascript to adjust for screen size. Much like WordPress…..hmmmm.
#5 Appreciation
I am grateful for everyone that purchased the printed version and Kindle version. Or who will. Really it is just a bunch of gibberish with a bunch of pictures. Kinda like my blog.
I guess this is where I turn the afterburners on for marketing my new book Natural Arizona. Natural Arizona is a collection of my photo portfolio and short stories, thoughts, and poems. Yup much like my blog that you’re reading right now. <—-Link for SEO purposes…
Here’s an external link to my book for more SEO purposes. Now I can say I know a little bit about marketing….thanks to Yoast. <Adds skill to LinkedIn profile.> Oh wow, I am getting crazy with the cheez whiz.
Beck inspired those thoughts, so might as well.
I kinda feel like a loser. You can stop reading here if you want. I sunk myself into my renewed passion for Photography 5 years ago. I thought I was doing good enough that I could be one of those people in a van traveling the country thanks to my cooperate sponsors. Honestly I have no idea how that works. If it’s like some of these people making money as content makers, uh no thanks. Sounds like they are slaves to their brand.
Yeah I’ve been putting a lot of effort into this production of my brand, me as an artist for a while I guess. In the early days I sold paintings, mostly for a pint of Guinness or a place to stay. I wrote poetry, prose, and even some outlines for a novel, because I thought one day I’m going to be like my heroes. I gave it all up for a while to sink into oblivion. Kinda. I used to think I was an amazing poet when I was drunk. “
“I’m a driver, I’m a winner. Things are going to change I can feel it.” – Beck – Loser 2:54
Sobriety changed a lot for me. I wasn’t as carefree as I used to be. I managed to get on board with a company developing self-driving vehicles. Then went on paid vacation for 1-2 months for a triple bypass, and again for a cooperate “oh fuck!” that ended with a nice severance. One good enough to chase this dream by purchasing a beginners digital single lens reflex, what we like to call DSLR in the biz.
I took this and starting going places I had always wanted to go, but never been. I’ve tried to sell the photos for a few years now. Or my skills. I came to an understanding of myself that I am an artist. So it’s best to present my inspired creations rather than try to find that inspiration creating for others. It doesn’t hurt as much getting rejected for art related jobs anymore.
Ooops another inspired paraphrase.
There is frustration that I know many artists went to their grave with. And some others got the break they needed to be themselves and get paid for it. I would be happy with just being able to quit driving to create whatever my heart desires.
“I’m a driver, I’m a winner. Things are going to change I can feel it.” – Beck