Jeff Sarris

I was sleeping at semi “regular” hours at the end of 2011.

5:12am – as I head to bed

This is absolutely beautiful and may be hanging somewhere in our house in the near future.

I’m a sucker for killer information design and this guy really nailed it on this one.

So if you need a little photography cheat sheet or even if you have no interest in photography and just want something pretty to hang on your wall, you can head on over to Zazzle and pick one up.

It was a glorious day for football yesterday. I was pleasantly surprised by my second favorite team, #anyonebutgreenbay ;)

The game convinced me to finally refresh my Anyone But Green Bay T-Shirt and I’m really digging the new design. If you wanna rep your second favorite team, get the shirt here.

(Girls tee also available)

Earlier today Jeremy Cowart posted this photo and the following:

“iPhone photo. Printed at 21 inches wide on Epson 4900. Hot Press Bright Paper. #nofilter WOW.”

If there was any doubt as to the possibility of using an iPhone 4S as an everyday shooter I think this clears it up quite nicely.

Of course the camera and the software (in this case, apps) are simply tools to create your art. Jeremy’s an extremely talented photographer and he knows a thing or 2 about printing. But the tool itself has so vastly improved that simply using a camera phone we can now create and print photos that rival that of the DSLRs of yesteryear.

And we can shoot, post process and upload all from the same, magical device.

I being able to shoot, edit and instantly upload photos on the go from a top notch camera. This mobile connectivity coupled with it’s excellent optics makes the iPhone 4S my ultimate camera.

Would I ever ditch my Canon 5D Mark II for the iPhone 4S? Of course not. They’re completely different devices with differing uses. To compare the two would be like comparing a Ferrari to a gallon of milk, but the iPhone definitely has it’s place in my photographic toolkit and is something that I use in myriad ways every day.

Barring some sort of ground breaking advancement in point and shoots, their days are definitely numbered. In my mind they’re already obsolete.

Intelligent, unique people aren’t using their social media bios to tell you such. They’re proving it.

If you wouldn’t start your bio with “I’m good looking…” then don’t start it with “I’m an intelligent…”

Chris Brogan posted the following on Google+:

Pinterest: Not Exactly Getting It, Either

I wrote earlier about not exactly getting the need for Path. Pinterest, near as I can tell, is a way to collect links to things I find are of interest to me. But then what? Do people curate their boards all day? What does it do? Do you hope that people come by and say, “Hey, I like Batman, too!” or what?

WHY do you use Pinterest, is my question? Is it kind of like the feeling of making a magazine happen, only you’re the one putting it together? Give me some context.

That’s precisely my curiosity. Pinterest feels like a visually appealing bookmarking site (like an improved del.icio.us) that has found a formula to achieve mass appeal. I believe the benefit is that everyone defines exactly how they use it and many use it in different ways (wish list, crafty to do list, etc), but I’m not 100% certain.

Do you Pinterest? How do you use it and why?

I’ll never understand how some people prefer cold weather. Winter is the only time of year that I can go from feeling good and content to feeling uncomfortable, or even miserable, in the blink of an eye. I take a single step out the door and it doesn’t matter how long my body temperature was at a good level, the instant I hit the cold is the instant the chill reaches my core.

There’s something about stepping into the blistering heat that actually feels good, but bone chilling temperatures? Not so much.

So what do you say, is about the time of year to head to a tropical destination? My pasty skin seems to think so :)

Back when I had a day job I used to listen to a lot of high energy, adrenaline filled music. I sought out music riddled with anger.

I notice that now, working for myself, I listen to a lot more happy, upbeat, even pop-y tunes.

Correlation?

I highly recommend checking out Die Welle (The Wave). It’s an excellent German film based on the true story of a Palo Alto high school teacher’s 1967 classroom experiment in fascism.

The movie’s based in modern Germany and follows the one week experiment that proved to be much more effective than anticipated. I don’t want to say much beyond that, just give it a watch.

I’m surprised how much I like the Nikon v1. I’ve never really messed around with a Micro Four Thirds until today and I’d likely go with an Olympus PEN if I were to get one, but I’m surprised at just how appealing this camera, and the format in general, is.

Being a DSLR shooter (Canon 5D Mark II) I quickly dismissed the Micro Four Thirds format and wasn’t really interested in checking it out. But surprisingly I now find myself contemplating renting one just to play around. Granted, I am a sucker for camera gear, but I didn’t expect to really dig the feel of it like I did. They seem to fit quite nicely in the middle of the spectrum between the full fledged DSLR and an iPhone. (iPhone 4S being the new point and shoot)