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Once again it's time to remember Matt on what would be his Birthday. It would be hard for anyone who met Matt to forget him. I hope there's a better place, where you're happy Matt!

More FB chuckles

Previously I mentioned wedding photography. In general, I avoid weddings like the plague. With that said, in the 00s I attended a few and dragged along my camera. I always made it a point to be clear I was not "the" definitive article wedding photographer. This meant I didn't have to capture anything I didn't want. I've mentioned previously that 2009 was a roller coaster of a year. I did a Part 1 Recap back in February and never did another installment. That post stopped right as the year got interesting. I might resume that thread at some point, but for today the topic is solely a wedding I attended in August that year. Weirdly, I didn't make a post about it at the time in 2009. That's odd as I was actively taking photos and posting them here regularly in that era. Unfortunately, Flickr's embed codes and HC's forum software are not friends. Much has changed about the Information Age in the last couple decades and it's largely been a turn for the worse (I'm looking at you, imgur.) That means I have to dig out the image URL for every photo I want to post. With that said, let's take a plunge into 15 years ago. The wedding was held at the Hyatt Regency Boston Harbor, which sited on an absolutely gorgeous location. This shot had some exposure issues. I salvaged it by cheating like an MFer in Luminar 4. The weather was about as good as anyone could hope. I was always proud of this shot. Clever (if I do say so myself) use of fill flash. The reality of the subjects in frame is of course more complex and, well, worse than the image. The four men are all DJs. The first died of an OD on his 44th birthday. The second is a serial philanderer who failed to pay me for the last lighting gig I ever did. The middle chap would later marry the woman beside him, but was a philanderer as well. The guy on the far right has had some run-ins with the law, but is doing okay now as best I know. Back stories aside, I love the arrangement of the people in the photo. Careful observers will note that there are not photos of the wedding ceremony itself. The couple hired a professional photographer and since he was there I made it a point to not be "that guy" just sat quietly during the exchange of vows. The photographer's day job was being a paparazzo. He had a Nikon D100, which was pretty long in the tooth even in 2009. He'd outfitted it with a flash bracket that could rotate independently of the camera. It was quite a compact rig and probably suited him well during his primary vocation. The pro photographer seemed to know what he was doing, so I stayed out of his way and did what I always do. This is a photo I didn't like at the time, but a decade and a half later I have a much different eye (and am much better at editing photos.) The Hyatt has a permanent tent for outdoor functions. The cake was pretty spectacular. The couple (who are both drum n bass DJs) hired a techno DJ to play their wedding. He did a stand up job of playing exactly the kind of music one expect to hear at a wedding. I could spin (no pun intended) a good number of paragraphs about this DJ in particular, but I'll leave to this: he drove and 1986 Buick Riviera that had a CRT touchscreen and knew more about techno than anyone I ever met. Everything else about his character is best left unsaid. This is not terribly relevant, but it was only upon revisiting this photo set that I learned I had apparently lent out my spare DJ mixer for the proceedings. I still have on the mainland, I think. The first dance. I've always liked this shot. The groom dances with his mum. The bride dancers with her uncle. More on him in a bit. At the time, the groom humorously called this one "second thoughts." I took this shot and a number of the ones above with the manual focus Nikon 75-150mm F/3.5E push-pull zoom. It spits CA if one is not careful, but has the best bokeh of any lens I've ever used. Pretty sharp wide open as well. The bride and her back tattoo. The 75-150 really showing it stuff here, even if I flubbed the focus just a small amount. Small footnote: The bride's uncle is gay. This is her dancing with her uncle's husband. Gay marriage has been legal in MA for 20 years. Massholes stronk. As I mentioned, the cake was something else. I bounced my flash off the tent's ceiling. Might as well drop the other shoe. This is the only photo of the wedding ceremony. I took it and it's not very good. Two days after the wedding I got a strange email from the pro photographer (I gave him my business card.) I had taken a couple photos with him and the groom and agreed to email them to him. The relevant part of the email from him said: Feeling bad for the dude, I sent him a link to the program FileJuicer. I explained at length how it worked with corrupted memory cards and that it could salvage many of the images from it. FJ was free to use, but cost $20 for all the features. I told him that seemed like a small price to pay given the situation. He wrote back clarifying that the "issue" was that he lost the first memory card and repeated (quite rudely, I might add) his demand for all photos I took of the ceremony. Any sympathy I had for him evaporated at that moment. In 2009, 2GB pro grade CF cards were less than $50. The Nikon D100 is a 5 megapixel camera. One 2GB CF card could easily hold 1200 shots. If he was using such old cards that he needed to swap during the shoot (I strongly suspect he had 256MB cards he bought with the camera in 2002) then he's got no one to blame but himself. Even in 2009, there were pro DSLR bodies that had dual memory card slots and could be configured to write to both simultaneously. This practice was standard even back then for pros that could not afford to lose a shot. I never replied to his second email. I saw the couple a month after the wedding and had to act like I didn't know the photographer had lost all the photos of the wedding ceremony. With all of that said, the sunset over Boston harbor is quite something: 17-40L. Back to the 75-150 for a moment. The Hyatt is a pretty cool looking building. 35mm F/2, wide open. He has no idea what's in store for him. The reception continued on for quite some time. I couldn't stay for all of it because my ride out of Boston was leaving. The 50mm F/1.4 misfocused a bit (as it is wont to due) but the groom's expression is priceless. Why am I posting all these photos now? Well, the 15th anniversary of the wedding just passed. I don't do much on Faecesbook that I don't have to, but over the years I've periodically posted a few images from the wedding on the anniversary. I hadn't done so in a few years so I decided to revisit the shots I took at the time. As I've mentioned, I am much better at editing photos now than I was back then. I spent a couple evenings reworking some of the old photos that I didn't like in 2009. I selected one and posted it to FB, tagging the bride and the groom. Before doing so, I FB stalked both of them a bit. Both had profiles that said "Married to [the other one]" but not much else. To their credit, neither are big users of social media. Half an hour after I posted the photo, I had a "message request" from the brides uncle. I accepted it and he said "I'm guessing you're out of the loop. You probably want to take that image down." I asked for clarification and an hour later he said the couple separated. Welp, as the kids say. At least the photos are good. Also think twice before you hire this guy for your event.

Sonoma Sampler Including self assembly dessert

More Halibut, in Sonoma.

Speaking of which Thanks AI?

hmmm - another Fosse joint?

A bowl of tonkatsu from one of my favorite ramen joints here, Tamashi... HS

Grilled veggies and pork chop, chez moi.

Bill Evans Trio, at Ilkka Kuusisto's home, Lauttasaari, Helsinki, Finland, October 1970 (colorized)

I am not sure how I missed this one, but RIP Peter Higgs (April 8th) @ 94 I was watching some programs on gravity and particle physics, as I do, and they mentioned it. I guess I was distracted by the Eclipse and OJ at the time. A pillar in the fundamental understanding of our universe and the standard model. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Higgs If he now knows the structure of the universe, I wish there was a way for him to tell us.