Annnnnd so last night I took my new camera around campus. The weather was incredible, and I felt great. I took around two-hundred pictures, and it turns out, I totally and absolutely suck at focusing a lens. Few times in my existence have I been so frustrated as I am with my inability to take clear pictures of stationary objects with a very nice camera.
Stationary=not moving. Many were well-lit. My lens opens plenty wide to shoot in the light I had. And yet, my pictures are almost all blurry as I imagine Henry Earl’s eyesight to be. What looks clear in the viewfinder to me is apparently not clear in the least. Painful realization, especially considering the composition of the shots that turned out so otherwise poorly.
And then there’s the ISO speed. “Ryan!” I exclaimed to myself. “You’d better shoot at 1600 since it’s night out!” “Good thinking player!” *High Five* False. Little (other than simply being inept at focusing a camera lens) drives me more mad than noisy images. I don’t watch TV snow, I despise radio static (well radio in general), I don’t tolerate high-frequency hiss, and I don’t do grainy images which should be clear or do not benefit from such noise–these didn’t. And from the 20-20 hindsight chapter came the memory that while reading multiple reviews of my camera, almost all lamented image noise at ISO 1600. Painful realization #2. Awesome.
However all hope is not lost. After shrinking the images enough and utilizing my mad Photoshop skillz, a few of the set I took last night are decent. Peep them.
And it’s already been dugg so odds are most of the world has read it, but here we go anyway.
In what can only be described as an uncanny occurance of life imitating ?art? this guy was arrested after trying to bring seven hundred–seven, zero, zero–snakes on to an airplane in Cairo. Let’s just think about this, shall we. Seven hundred snakes. Smuggled on to a jet liner. Chaos in the skies, I declare. Chaos. I read this article about twenty-four hours ago and was literally in stitches for my entire lunch hour. Is this irony? I make the argument that the simple writing of that article only a couple days after I engaged in long conversations about what irony actually is just might be irony.
And there’s no way to smoothly transition here, but on to the cover songs. This morning, I was ironing my shirt when Matt Nathanson’s cover of Dire Straits’s brilliant Romeo and Juliet from his live At The Point album hit on the random playlist. Nathanson, one of my favorite perfomers and a truly excellent human being, said he played it because it’s a great song. He got that one right. And his cover is good. Not as good as the original, but good. That said, it got me thinking. Some songs really shouldn’t be covered. Especially by some bands. I had the distinct misfortune of being forced to endure, by one of my friends, Staind’s cover of Pink Floyd’s Comfortably Numb. This was, in all honesty, a markedly painful experience.
Even my favorite band of the day, Umphrey’s McGee has faltered by not leaving the perfect to the creators of the perfect. As talented a band as UM is, and as strong the reverence they hold for classic music is, leave it alone guys. Could anyone do justice to Floyd’s music? Barely, if that. No one except Muhammed Ali could sound right saying, “I’m the greatest.” and no one can do justice to Floyd or Zeppelin.
Those two are about the only bands I’ll contest covering. And really this isn’t about the cover. It’s about the cover for commercial gain. Commercial gain by a band as miserable and deplorable and talentless as Staind. (Also see Madonna’s butchering of American Pie.) This is all coming from a musician, mind you, who, is unashamed every now and then to weave in a verse or two of D’yer Mak’er into a song. That I think shows appreciation for a great song. Selling a travesty of such a song to young, musicially inexperienced fans (much the same as Staind fans are certainly) with a footnote in the liner notes is a cardinal sin. And Staind, that’s enough out of you altogether. Thanks.
I am recommending Béla Fleck and Edgar Meyer’s Music For Two. Dig it.