So I combined two of my blog rules today to bring you Bill Nye! Last night, we got to go see Bill Nye the Science Guy at CU Boulder. It was so exciting. I loved his show when I was a kid. Bill Nye and my parents were totally my heros… :) Anyway, his talk was awesome and inspiring (also very funny)! He chose to talk a lot about climate change and what we can do about it. I found his topic choice especially interesting because I just went to another talk by David Goldstein, who works for the National Resources Defense Council, and he chose to use climate change as an example for how politics/the public view science and scientists. My friend Paul summed up his talk pretty nicely if you’re interested. I thought that Bill Nye’s talk was very appropriate and helpful in explaining climate change in a way that understandable to anyone.
ANYWAY… We weren’t allowed to bring cameras into Bill Nye’s talk… so I was left with the cell phone camera. I took this picture of the program before the talk for you guys to see. :)
Author: iampotassium
Peace Tuesday
Yep…. More fun with the new lens. This is pretty much the first picture I took with it. lol. Happiness… Hopefully I can get out later this week and actually get some cool portraits. You know… More playing!
Cobalt and I get to see Bill Nye speak tonight! SO excited. I loved his show as a kid. :)
Portrait: Up Close and Personal
This picture should be called “Someone got a new lens this weekend…” because well, that is what happened. Yes. I bit the bullet and finally let myself get a new lens. I have been wanting this lens FOREVER and I decided to take the plunge. So now I am a proud owner of a Fast 50 mm lens for my DSLR! Yay! It’s a f/1.8 which is amazing to me because my zoom lens has f/3.5 and that is what I am generally used to. Though I did play a little with my mom’s manual focus lens, which goes down to f/2.2. Anyway, quick explanation: Really low f number = you can let in a lot more light to your picture (better for indoor photography) “but” you lose a lot of depth of field (ex: my eye is in focus but my ear isn’t). There are quotes around that but because sometimes that is a good thing. The loss of depth of field can make for a pretty cool effect when only the thing that you want in focus is in focus and everything else is blurry. Of course, it is not as good if you want to take a picture of a whole landscape or something. So… something new to play with, my camera friends! You can play with the f stop on your point and shoot cameras too. Just put the camera in the AV mode and it will let you set the f number (or aperture). Then it will adjust everything else for that number of your choosing so you still get a fantastic picture. :) If you’re really brave, you can put your camera in M (for manual) and then you can adjust everything (shutter speed, ISO, f number, etc) on your own. I do that for my DSLR pictures but not for my point and shoot.
Anyway… enough camera lessons for today (though I am sure more can come later). Let’s talk about this picture. So yeah… it’s funny. This picture is taken with my new lens on my DSLR but Cobalt actually took it. Nice work, Cobalt. I love it. :) And I love you. Awwww… Happy Valentine’s Day, everyone!
Cell Phone Picture: Chemistry Climbing
Yesterday, my friend Amanda came into lab and told me she had a present for me! It turned out to be this super cute shark lego man guy. Awesomeness… I love him! Right now he is attempting some pretty serious mountain climbing up my lab desk if you ask me. Yeesh… Good luck with that, Sharkman!
And with that, I leave you to enjoy your weekends. :)
It Still Lives!
Hahaha I like this pic. I love the mountains in the background and the crazy twisting of the plant in the foreground. It looks like a zombie plant. Dead but oh still very much alive with all that curling and twirling. Ha.
By now, you guys are probably used to my love of taking pictures of pokey things but in case you are unfamiliar, I love taking pictures of pokey things (that should clear things up…). Particularly plants that stick out of nowhere like this guy. I also really like the golden field behind the plant. I can’t wait for the spring when it gets all green. I am TOTALLY going to do a Sound of Music photoshoot (The hilllllllllls are alive… with the sound of muuuuuuuuuuuuusic…). Can you see it?!
Black and White: And suddenly it gets very flat…
One of my favorite things about Boulder is how it seems to exist in a state of transition. On the one side, it has these gorgeous mountains/giant flatirons that erupt out of the earth and on the other side, it is just SO FLAT. It is just so weird to be hiking up in the hills and look down at all the flatness as far as the eye can see. I come from the land of rolling Californian hills so this strange combination never ceases to interest me…
Icy Fingers
Last night, Cobalt and I went to go see 127 Hours and when we got out after the movie, there was snow blowing EVERYWHERE. It was intense, much like the movie. When I finally got home, I was greeted by crazy snow actually all over my front door! Inspired by the neat shots from 127 Hours, I decided to attempt to photograph the snow on top of the lock on the door. It was hard because I wanted to do it with the DSLR and I secretly wanted a macro lens for it. Oh well… I’d say it turned out pretty neat anyway. Go 50 mm manual focus lens!
Portrait: So Cold
Soooo… it’s been pretty cold here recently. I think we hit a record last week of -17 degrees F one morning. Bleh. Craziness, that’s all I have to say about that. This picture was taken a few weekends ago before it got ridiculously cold. Though with the wind chill, it was still pretty nippy outside! And poor Cobalt! I dragged him outside so I could take pictures. I like this one a lot. I like his hood and the way he is looking down. I also like the tree in front of his face. I am not really sure why. :/ One thing I am sort of conflicted on is the amount of space I left above his head. I was thinking of cropping it but then I decided to just leave it. I think it makes the picture better, especially with the twigs that are out of focus on the top. Thoughts?
Cell Phone Picture: New Lab Chairs!
Last week, we got a shipment of new chairs for the lab and my whole lab migrated down to the stock room to help carry the chairs back upstairs to lab! Then we had a little chair building party because we couldn’t wait to sit in them! It was a joyous occasion seeing as we used to have really crappy desk chairs (my old chair was like a bucking bronco and it kept trying to kick me out of it!)… Plus look how comfy these new chairs look (I assure you, they are)! Also, they roll a lot. We have had a lot of fun rolling around in them this week… er… working diligently. ;)
Hope you all have good weekends! We’ve had a bit of a cold spell here but now it’s finally warming up again.
Invasion!
This picture cracks me up because it looks like poor Cobalt is about to get scooped up into a the hands of a giant! But never fear. This giant hand lurks outside a California mall enduring all kinds of harassment. Though I promise you, it is quite harmless. Cobalt and I walked past the hand a few months ago. Cobalt was like WHOA! HAND!!! and wanted to have his picture taken with it. Hilarity.
Potassium Photography 