The good old “nifty fifty” is another staple in anyones lens collection. The 50mm or 85mm are great portrait lenses, and being a prime it stops down to f/1.4. The 50mm f/1.4 is a surprising good bargain for quality v price. Still though, who wouldn’t love the L version of this for some super shallow DOF at f/1.2 if needed.

What are you carrying on your camera, let me know!

Obviously the big screen is my iMac, I use the wireless keyboard and magic trackpad and love both of them. Wireless is the way to go. Hanging out underneath the iMac is my Maverick Audio TubeMagic A1 Hybrid Amplifier. This little guy is a beast on a budget. I’ve just started my journey into hi-fi audio, and at $199 this beautiful/compact tube amp packs the goods. The iMac runs into it out of it’s audio out jack into the line in jack on the amp. It’s also a great headphone amp that I’ll be waiting to put to use once I nab some Grados. The speakers are an even better deal. For about $45 total you can get these sweet bookshelf speakers made by Dayton Audio. From my experience so far I love the amp and speaker combo. Everything just sounds so good, and for about $250 you can’t beat it.

Underneath my obvious IKEA desk is my storage for all my media. I have a 1TB Western Digital external that is my time machine/bootable duplicate of my internal drive in the iMac. I can take this little hard drive on the road and boot from any other Mac if I need to. I did this last week while in MO to get a little work done. Underneath my Time Machine disk is my new toy. It’s called a Drobo and is a very cool RAID system. I have the second generation of the 4 bay setup. It has 4 3.5″ SATA hard drive bays in which I have 1TB drives in each bay. Giving me 3TB of storage after redundancy is taken out. The Drobo appears to my iMac like one giant hard drive instead of 4 separate drives. It’s RAID technology is really cool and I put all my media worth protecting on it. The cool thing about it, and one of the reasons I bought it was because it’s easily expandable. The Drobo will warn me when I’m running out of space and all I need to do is remove one of the drives and replace it with a drive with more storage on it. I don’t have to worry about the drive sizes matching or moving any files. Drobo handles all of this for me. Right now there are 3TB drives available for me to put in my Drobo, so maybe someday I’ll upgrade from 4TB to 12TB.

So that’s it, hope you like the way I work and my setup. Let me know if you have anymore questions about my setup, I’ll be sure to help you out.

As December came around I knew I was getting close to finishing and was pretty excited to post my last picture. I had finished college, moved, and started another part of my life. I was ready to end this 365 project and start another one. It’s only fitting that these sort of projects end with the year. After it was all said and done I did miss it a little bit though.

But before you look at them, I am doing another 365 project. I haven’t decided if I’m going to be posting these everyday, just every so often, or even at all. My idea behind this project is to take a self portrait with my iPhone. Shooting myself in a mirror each day. Then processing them into a black and white picture I like. I haven’t made up my mind about posting them because they may be boring by themselves,  but at the end of the year I want to put them in a quick slideshow. I think it’ll be interesting to see the changes that happen over a years time. What do you think? Now check out all 365 pictures below!

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Of course I’d never say no to taking pictures of my girlfriend, nor the chance to practice shooting on an easy “client.” So we did that too! Web design and photography has been two hot hobbies of mine this summer, but that’s all for another post in the future. For now check out the pictures we got of Mindy and let me know what you think!

We’re getting ready to tackle more of that list now that I’m back for a bit from traveling with my buds in the ‘John Tibbs’ Worship Experience’. Jokingly that’s what we like to go by, or you can call us ‘John Tibbs and the Lamplighters.’ It has been one of the best experiences of my life to travel with such great people, then on top of that we get to meet a ton of new people, live for a week with hundreds of campers, and worship with all of them! I loved going to church camp in the summer as a student, and now I’ve been able to do that for about 6 weeks. It’s just like being a camper but as “the band” we get to roam around and do just about whatever we want. It’s great! So with that said checkout part one of our summer so far. More about Mindy and the list later!

I’m very thankful to know and also to be in a relationship with Mindy. She’s a smart and strong girl, and brings a lot of fun to my life. Otherwise I would probably sit on my butt and learn about photography, web design, etc… and only get outside to play ultimate or skateboard for a little bit. The whole separation through distance hasn’t been fun, but it definitely teaches you a lot. Patience and appreciation are definitely keys to our relationship, if I can speak for the both of us. You couples who get to be with each other every day better realize the luxury you have. Thanks to modern technology a lot of the walls of long distant are worn down, but it still just isn’t the same as being physically there!

I know that this is definitely true for me and many others I’m sure, but Valentine’s used to be one of the least important holiday for me. It still isn’t that cool by itself, seems to be a waning trend amongst young kids. It just so happens to be Mindy and I’s anniversary date though. This now makes it something very worth celebrating, and I think it’s important and nice to have points like anniversaries where you can look back on where you came and also look forward to where you want to go. I wish I could celebrate love and life everyday, but I’m thankful to have someone to love and to love me.

So you tell me now…What do you think about Valentine’s Day, love, long distance relationships? Leave a comment!

[flickr album=72157623497902590 num=5 size=Square]

I’m currently on day five and have already posted my picture for today, http://flic.kr/p/7tqB87 , The project is off to a great start. It’s fun and keeps my eyes fresh. I wake up each day looking for that shot. The one that doesn’t rely on fancy equipment or expensive glass. These are solely up to my eye and the best composition I can do. I’m really enjoying that challenge because eventually I’ll start seeing things from different perspectives, I’m forcing my own eye to grow. With doing so I can only hope I become a more creative individual and definitely more appreciative of some simple photography. You should join in with me and start now, you can still do 365 days straight of pictures. It doesn’t have to be from an iPhone, or edited, etc… Just share what you are seeing. I for one would like to see!

If you have comments, or just thoughts and ideas, let me know with the comment form below! Thanks for reading, here is my daily growing Flickr set for this project.

I wanted to sum up the year in music, film, photos, events, trends, etc… I’ll post all of my favorite things of the year 2009, and I expect for you to comment and agree or disagree with me on these topics. Here’s my best of 2009

The Best of 2009

Album : Fun – Aim and Ignite

Easily album of the year for me because it really is all around fun. I’ve been following The Format and their lead man Nate Ruess for a long time. I was saddened at their end, but excited for what could come from new beginnings. The Format was my favorite band, now of course Fun is. Their bright and light pop sound and fantastic melodies sealed the deal for me. In fact I’m going to listen to this album right now. Thanks guys for getting their songs stuck in my head again! Be sure to check out their music video HERE.

Song : Arcade Fire – Wake Up

This song by Arcade Fire is permanently burned in my head, no thanks to the Where The Wild Things Are trailers I listened to this song ALL YEAR. It never ceased to perk up my mood if I was down or increase my good mood if I was already in one. It’s raw and I like it. Watch their video HERE.

Movie : 3 Way Tie (Avatar : Inglourious Basterds : Where The Wild Things Are)

Why did I end in a 3 way tie? Obviously all 3 of these movies are great, at least in my humble opinion. I feel they also cover almost all styles that anyone could like. A Sci-Fi thriller, a Wacky WWII, and a great childrens story. I chose these three as my best movies of 2009 because I’ll be watching them again and again long into 2010. They are addicting, visually awesome, and fun to watch. I recommend you watch them all!

Photo : Foreclosure and Eviction

This pretty well summed up America this year to me. Financial problems everywhere, especially in the housing market. This is a police officer making sure the house is vacant. It’s often they find after evicting people that homeless people or drug dealers get into the houses, hence his gun is drawn. 2010 will hopefully turn this financial crisis around. It’s at least taught people to be more aware of their money. That’s never a bad thing.

Event : Iran Elections

This is the event of the year for me as it was and still is an ongoing issue. The worlds relations with Iran are all on thin ice, Iran’s people’s relationship with their government is on even thinner ice. That green color will always be burned in my mind during the summer of 2009. I don’t know how to help but I hope it all turns out for the good. Click on the picture to see more pictures from the riots. WARNING the few at the end are graphic.

Internet Trend : FML, People of Walmart, MLIA

These types of sites were probably my favorite thing happening on the internet this year. These sites aren’t complex, nothing fancy about them, but they provide hours and hours of entertainment. Also it’s a plus if they have an iPhone app to compliment their site. I love to waste time reading FML’s and looking at People of Walmart. Click HERE and HERE to check out those websites, as a bonus check out Awkward Family Photos HERE

App of the Year : 2Do

This app wins for me because it is the mother of all my life. It keeps my todo’s, schedules, events, alarms, notes, shopping lists,  and more all together! Even better yet it syncs with iCal on my iMac. It’s beautiful but not free, well worth it’s weight in gold though. Whatever that means! It’s got a slick interface, and is password protected to boot. If you want to learn more about the app then here is the iTunes LINK.

That wraps up my 2009, great music, great films, issues relevant to me, etc… Let me know what you think of my choices, and also leave some of your choices. Different album, favorite movie, picture? Thanks for reading!