Crap... Telemarketers

I thought telemarketing went away, or was against the law or something. But low and behold I am sitting here writing an "important" blog entry (The Oprah book blah blah) and my phone rings.

Well really it's not even my home phone. It's a place, or OK a condo, I rent to people and I'm staying here this week. No I'm not in trouble.

The telemarketer starts out "Hey this is Scott and do I..blah blah blah". This guy was trying to sell me satellite TV which I'm sure the condo association would go for. Of course after a few seconds I hung up and got about my business.

As I sat back down I hadn't saved that important Oprah blog entry and I've had them magically disappear sometimes. Luckily it was still there but if the worst had happened man I don't know what I would have done. Maybe just got a shot of Jager and moved on.

Done -

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What's all the HuBub about Oprah

Giant Disclaimer here: I do not watch Oprah nor sway either way on her views. But...

I was reading the book "A New Earth - Awakening to Your Life's Purpose" by Eckhart Tolle and received an email (FW: watch this...stuff) about the book. Normally those type emails go straight to the trash bin and the sender to Internet Hell, but in this case I read it because it had something about the book.

The video was something about Oprah getting in to it on her show about Christianity, believing in God and so forth. Second Disclaimer: I am a Christian so don't start jumping my case - yet.

Anyway, IMHO and that's what counts here, the book is not about believing in one specific faith. You can apply it to any religion or way of life. The fact he talks about Christianity, Islam, Bhuddism and so forth doesn't really try to "covert" you one way or another.

The book is really just a view on life. I am not saying that I agree with everything but it certainly is not denouncing or promoting any one religion.

Feel free to let me have it!

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Would Leonardo Da Vinci use Photoshop?

Classic painting, art etc... is great. One thing that makes it great is not only the quality of work, but the fact they had to make their own materials. Michael Angelo didn't run down to Michael's and buy a block of stone (do they sell that?) and whack out a naked guy in his backyard.

While I loved my art history classes and the old school craft, I hate when people say, "Well Leonardo didn't do it that way" or "Beethoven didn't write that way".

Fact is, if Leonardo Da Vinci were alive today he would probably be a beta tester for Adobe if not writing the code himself! Beethoven would have a freakin kick ass Pro Tools rig, the latest version of Reason and talking smack with Peter Gabriel.

Come on people. These guys were ahead of their time back in the day so just imagine what they could do with the tools we have today.

Hell they may even have their own blog... "The Nude Statue Blog"

Food for thought.

EB

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The Ken Burns Effect

Have you ever watched a documentary that used stills (photos) with music for drama? Maybe the stills faded into (crossfade) one another, or slowly panned across the screen. Well this is known as the Ken Burns effect.

It is called that because the famous documentary filmmaker Ken Burns uses the effect, I hate to say effect, in many of his films. His most recent film was entitled "The War", a seven part documentary that aired on PBS.

As I got into film making I used a lot of my photos in my work. At the time I didn't realize I was using the Ken Burns effect.

For photographers though it opens up new ways to express your photographic creativity. With inexpensive video editing tools you can take your images to a new level. You will even begin to shoot differently.

To show off your work you can burn them to DVDs for playing on large screen TVs or use YouTube or Flickr's new video function to display your work.

Keep the old camera clicking. There's nothing like a moment captured in time. But look for new ways to display those moments.

In some of my upcoming posts I will offer tutorials on how to do the Ken Burns effect and tools you can use.

As always please comment or visit and connect with me socially at
http://www.earlb.com/

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Video now on Flickr

Flickr has made the leap to video...sort of. As I write this I am renderin a short sneek-peek of a documentary I am working on to upload to Flickr.

The first thing to note is that Flickr is not becoming a YouTube. You can only upload 90 seconds of video. While YouTube, MetaCafe, etc... users may find this useless for video I think it will be useful in the photography world.

Why? Because a lot of my documentaries have photos with music. This can take photographers into a new realm of people "seeing" their images. The old "Ken Burns" effect could possibly take over Flickr. Hmmm maybe I should start a Ken Burns group real quick...

Anyway if photographers grasp this concept I think they can take their photos to a new level.

Earl B

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Thousands hit by Brazil outbreak of dengue - CNN.com

Thousands hit by Brazil outbreak of dengue - CNN.com

I can certainly feel for these people. I am still recovering from my bout with Dengue fever.

In Sepetember of 2007 I caught Dengue fever in Jamaica shooting some humanitarian documentary footage in eastern Jamaica. I did not get 'sick' til I got home and ran high fevers and severe body aches.

It took me researching the CDC website to find out what I had. After I got home the CDC issued an alert about Dengue fever in Jamaica 'after' I was there. Apparently the outbreak occurred due to the water and mosquito problems after Hurricane Dean.

Anyway, I am still slowly recovering from Dengue. It can take many months to fully get over the disease.

Earl B

visit http://www.earlb.com/ for my travel documentary and dispatches

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