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06/21/2009 10:27:31 PM · #1 |
As eagerly anticipated as Shrek 3, I bring you the Team Suck Featured User for  meyers!
NikonJeb asks:
Who do you most admire from DPC, and how have they influenced your progress in life?
Wow, tough questions right off the bat! I don't know many people from DPC personally, other than a few in Team Suck.
 colorcarnival asks:
You have a variety of subjects and themes in your portfolio. Besides your children, what else do you enjoy taking pictures of the most?
Ooh, that's a toss-up between events like anime conventions and taking my camera gear along for a good long outdoor hike, and playing with my Woody (stay worksafe with me for this one..). I should probably point to my "not updated enough" photo site, //anywhere.generic.org/.
A few of my personal favorites from each theme:
  
My anime-loving friends give me a hard time for referring to anime as "cartoons" and then not watching said cartoons at the convention because I'm out taking pictures the whole time. I think I took 1600 pictures at FAnime 2008. People put a lot of work into their costumes, and like showing them off.
  
Not all hiking happens in uncharted lands far from human civilization. I've put many miles on my shoes in San Francisco and Chicago.
  
I need to go  scalvert on my background for better scoring pictures with my Woody. The first one, Expecting, is one of my favorites of all my challenge entries. I'd add it to the "under appreciated" group below, but it scored above a 5..
Melethia asks:
Pick two Suckers - any two - then pick a couple of photographs from their portfolios and try to explain what you think their "style" is, and what you like about it.
 
 raish: He sees what is often overlooked. Even examining all of his images, I only manage a glimpse into his perspective, a lucky roll before I see it.
  
purpleflutterby13: They sent their scouts out into the sun to observe this new intruder, and the gift she carried. When none returned, they plotted to use the cover of night to seek their revenge. They did not count on her mastery of fire.
You provide a very valuable service to the members of Team Suck with your results threads and now the FU interviews. What possessed you to do that in the first place? Do you volunteer for other stuff outside of DPC? (And thanks for that, by the way!)
Clearly it's because I don't contribute quality photographs!
Back in the day quiet_observation used to pick out Team Suck entries by hand. I tried to help out once, and quickly realized I lack her patience and determination. I put together a poorly written perl script to pick out our images, and group them by our subteams, and even implemented posthumous's wacky team scoring formula. I was able to get my domain host to run this perl script, and quiet_observation has been able to post results for me when I've been offline and missed doing it myself. I've rewritten everything in python (as an exercise for learning python), but my domain host doesn't support this yet, so I run the script on my home machine and post these results myself.
Back in the day, like way way back, we had Team Suck interviews. I liked this idea, and thought I could try to bring it back. As you can see in the other FU threads, I'm not shy about asking other people to help with providing insightful questions. I'm trying to keep a weekly pace, but some weeks are easier than others.
DPC is a comparatively easy thing to volunteer for; I can spend time late a night when I should be sleeping working on scripts, FU questions, etc. When I was college I volunteered tutoring/mentoring at an elementary school in Oakland, CA, and while I don't often have regular time to give I try to help out where I can.
We all have pictures we think are underappreciated - which of yours do you think is most underappreciated? What is it you like best about it?
Wow, here's a can of worms if I ever saw one.. I narrowed my picks down to those which scored under 5, and thus sufficiently under-appreciated. It's hard to answer this type of question without sounding whiny, so bear with me (and try not to send bears after me..)
 Forgotten Treasure
I was aiming to give an "alone under a streetlight" effect using a little flashlight in a cone to make the light more directional. The color of the candy detracted from the picture, so I desaturated it. Maybe some kind of texture or context in the background might have made this more, um, appealing to the voters, but I didn't want to clutter the shot.
 Zen
The airplane wasn't intended to be part of the picture, and was intentionally cropped out. What's not zen about a diagonal line, parting clouds from clear sky?
 dismal winter skies
I really liked this shot, with the dark tree contrasting against the dismal gray sky, and the soft sunlit highlight across the horizon. Not only didn't it score well, but I didn't even get a post-challenge comment from the Team Suck winner!
how do you come up with such witty announcements for often very disparate challenges when posting the link to the results thread?
A sick mind is a terrible thing to waste.
posthumous asks:
Hey ho, way to go, Chicago?
Yes we did!
purpleflutterby13 asks:
What's your favourite subject to photograph?
That'd be a toss up between the boy and the City.
Which DPC user inspired you the most and why?
I think I've improved what passes for my photography from such people like scalvert,  Gordon, Bear_Music, and Melethia. Each contributed (unknowingly) some bit of technical or perceptual expertise to me, helping me learn not only how to take picture but more importantly what pictures to take.
A genie appeared out of a magic lamp and offered you 3 photoshoots of your choice - anywhere, at any time, with anyone. What did you choose?
1 - Somewhere along the northern California coastline, in winter, with Bear_Music
2 - Madagascar in the summer, with purpleflutterby13
3 - Washington DC in autumn, with levyj413
If you could choose a superpower, what would it be and why?
My favorite power from the Heroes series: Sylar's telekinesis! (Or at least the power to take other powers, then take telekinesis). It'd be so much easier to make compositional adjustments to my photography subjects if I didn't have to get out from behind the lens. I'd also be able to get my lights anywhere I needed them, and I'd always get the prize in those crane games.
Top 5 favourite books?
Oof, this is a tough one.. I really enjoyed Wicked and Shogun, and am powering through the Dresden Files series with the Kindle app for my iPhone (books are so last century!). I'm a huge fan of the Usagi Yojimbo comics, both for Stan Sakai's artistic style and his captivating storytelling.
Top 5 favourite photos you've seen on DPC?
 I really like infrared photography, but lack the gear.
 The horrors!
 No doubt this was caused by those bunnies playing violent video games!
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06/21/2009 11:59:37 PM · #2 |
| Excellent interview, Rob! Thanks for taking the time, both to answer the interview questions and to restart the whole interview thing. AND for the weekly posts (and the mechanics behind them) of the Team Suck challenge results. |
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06/22/2009 07:22:49 AM · #3 |
Hmm, yeah, now you come to mention it, telekinesis is so the ideal photographer superpower. Never stuck with a non-ideal composition again :)
And a trip to Madagascar is so waiting to happen! Team Suck adventure, yay! :D |
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06/22/2009 07:54:08 AM · #4 |
| Wow, lots of amazing shots Rob! So tell us, how did it feel to do an FU on yourself? Inquiring minds want to know...*tilting microphone at Rob* |
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06/22/2009 08:41:27 AM · #5 |
Originally posted by snaffles:
Wow, lots of amazing shots Rob! So tell us, how did it feel to do an FU on yourself? Inquiring minds want to know...*tilting microphone at Rob* |
It was kind of like being in a room with a current girlfriend and having all the ex girlfriends there pointing out my many flaws. |
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06/22/2009 09:18:19 AM · #6 |
| This was a great read, Rob. Nice website too - but your profile photo there looks way too serious lol. |
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06/22/2009 09:55:09 AM · #7 |
Originally posted by Melethia:
Excellent interview, Rob! Thanks for taking the time, both to answer the interview questions and to restart the whole interview thing. AND for the weekly posts (and the mechanics behind them) of the Team Suck challenge results. |
This is what I was going to say, so I'll just quote Deb! LOL! Nicely done! |
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06/22/2009 10:13:17 AM · #8 |
Originally posted by colorcarnival:
This was a great read, Rob. Nice website too - but your profile photo there looks way too serious lol. |
I get that a lot; I should work on another self portrait for that. I did the Strobist Boot Camp thingy last weekend with a few people, but haven't seen any of the pictures taken of me yet. |
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06/22/2009 10:14:52 AM · #9 |
| Really interesting, Rob! I enjoyed reading it! |
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06/23/2009 10:17:14 AM · #10 |
| Rob great interview, thanks for all you do to make Team Suck run smoothly. |
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06/23/2009 12:59:27 PM · #11 |
Originally posted by meyers:
It was kind of like being in a room with a current girlfriend and having all the ex girlfriends there pointing out my many flaws. |
ROFLMSOAO!!!!
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06/23/2009 01:15:00 PM · #12 |
| nice to get a peek at the man behind the curtain... |
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