Chicken. I've been scared into buying the expensive stuff. Why? Well hormones, of course!
It's common knowledge that unless you buy organic chicken (or foster farms), you're almost certainly buying the carcass of an animal that has been PUMPED full of steroids (either through injections, feeding, or both). This has caused me to buy expensive, organic chicken breasts.
Well a friend told me a while back that hormones/steroids are not legally allowed to be used on poultry. I immediately thought "I wish!" - and sort of dismissed it. I mean, SO MANY people say that this is the case -- even Foster Farms advertises that you should buy their chicken because it's hormone/steroid free -- so it must be true, right?
Steroids/hormones were rarely used in the first place - but were officially made illegal to use on poultry in 1959. Which begs the question, why does Foster Farms and other organic companies claim something that is true for EVERY poultry company?
It's smart marketing but also borderline fear-mongering.
I look at images like this and just wonder if this can be ethical? If they don't know, then they're ignorant - which wouldn't be a huge crime if they weren't in the business and sort of owed it to us customers to do their research. If they do know, they're just deceiving. Either way, no bueno :)
Just goes to show that if something is said enough - even in the face of the facts - it can be believed. Was this news to anyone else like it was news to me?
When I was growing up, we only got shoes at Payless shoes for like $7. When you're 11 and you're dying to have some Reebok pumps or Air Jordans like the cool kids??? Payless is your worst enemy.
The day finally came. There were some Nike's for $35 at a local store and my parents decided to stretch the budget for them. I wasn't the coolest kid in 6th grade by any measurement - but I was convinced that this was my ticket to the top! Last minute, I decided to gamble. I saw some Raiders shoes. Lightbulb! That was it. Those were going to make me cool. I put it all down on the Raiders shoes. The kids at school knew something that I didn't -- that the Raiders are a football team - not a stupid shoe. From then out, I knew gambling was not in my future :P
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(I didn't google these myself... my stats page tells me what people search when they find me, I swear! :)
If you google "booby boobs", 10,000 results come up. Somehow, I'm #15.
And the kicker? If you google "michelle obama 100% porn", 165,000 results show up. Somehow, I'm #3!
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But if you google "san diego wedding photographer" somehow I'm somewhere in the 50-100 result range. Thank goodness nearly all of my couples don't find me through google! :P
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Since my posts look WAY better with hot photos of Lindsay, here's a little ripper AA shot when we were in Africa a couple months back...
So I recently asked for ideas for a blog post... Dr. Sham Wow (his commenting name - I doubt that's his REAL name :P) said that since I'm usually positive on the blog, it'd be interesting to hear about what annoys me.
I seriously love life - hardly ever let things/people that annoy me set me off or ruin my day. But there are definitely things that annoy me! Get ready for some negative emoting :P
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1. People that mourned like crazy on Twitter, blogs, and facebook statuses about MJ's death. I'm not talking about the odd "rip MJ" - more the crying and screaming ;)
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2. Sean Hannity. Wow. I saw a clip of him recently going agro over a picture of Obama that LOOKED like he was checking a girl out. Hannity insists on stating (over and over) that the girl was only sixteen. There's a video clip of the photos - it's not even close to that. He's just turning to help someone down some steps. Talk about disrespecting our commander in chief...
I wish guys like Keith Olbermann and Sean Hannity would just go away... I'm very fair with who annoys me :)
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3. People that rejoiced like crazy on Twitter, blogs, and facebook statuses about MJ's death. Lame.
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4. People on Facebook who's political party is "Obama." Maybe not the people. I love a ton of people who have that, actually... just the idea of it. If you care enough/know enough about politics, you'll know that Obama is in fact... (gasp!) a democrat. There's nothing wrong with the term democrat, is there? :P
And I don't blame this annoyance on President Obama ;)
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5. People that are REALLY concerned with getting in line first. You know the kind - you're a little closer to the checkout line then they are, but if they run they can beat you there, you know? That guy/gal annoys me. Especially since they're typically older than me...
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6. My mom at Chick-fil-a. WOW. God bless her for enduring 52 hours of labor in a trailer out in the middle of nowhere (no lie - plus I was 10lbs!). But every time -- no seriously, every time she makes an order mistake, doesn't know what she's going to get as she's ordering, looks confused as if she's never been (after she's stood in line for several minutes). I'll go to the bathroom to wash my hands and come out... she still looks like a three year old attempting quantum physics :P
It's Chick-fil-a -- You're either getting a chicken sandwich or chicken nuggets!
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7. Stephen Merhant/Ricky Gervais (creators of the Office - the original version). I'm re-watching their incredible TV show called "EXTRAS" - a show about an extra who is trying his best to get a line in one of the films he's background on. It's amazing. What annoys me about it? There are two seasons with only six episodes and then a two hour special. I want more!
8. The guy who created Super Size Me. Guess what, dummy... of course you'll be in bad shape if you eat at McDonald's 3 times, get every meal supersized, AND have desserts after all of them! Did we really need a documentary to tell us that?
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9. Hillary Duff, Wanda Sykes, and anyone else that gets REALLY offended if you use the word "gay" but couldn't care less if you use the word "lame" (since that is referring to disabled people who can't walk).
I kind of want Lindsay to do one of these... She's way more positive than I am. I could see her saying something like "Umm, it annoys me when... when I'm not as nice to the DMV clerk as I should be?" :P
My favorite thing about PP (post processing) is the same thing that a TON of photographers hate about PP. There's some photographers that tell others not to be a "photoshopographer" - and I totally understand their point... to an extent.
I think that we need to shoot with photography in mind - substance in the image, noisy objects out, a story being told, decent exposure... I totally agree with that.
What I don't like is when people belittle end results by acting like it's less of a great image because it didn't look all that good BEFORE the PP. I'm big on pragmatism. If it works (and it isn't immoral), great! If your image looks good in the end - I don't care how great you got it straight out of camera or how terrible it looked. I really, really don't. I think technical greatness is something to strive for in photography, but that's a totally separate issue, isn't it?
The great thing about PP is that it can make a good photo great, a great photo look like you want it to, and sometimes a bad photo look cool! In photography, end result is far more important than anything else, imo ;)
Having said all of that, I totally acknowledge that there is the issue of over-processing - so no need to point that one out :) I know I've been guilty of that one :P
Anyways, here's the first image. Straight out of camera (thanks to AA)...
Here's what was done in Lightroom 2. The only thing not noted was the exposure brush that I used on Lindsay's eyes...
Here's what it looked like after LR. I like it - some might think it should stop here - but I wanted something more.
We've got Old School, Get Faded (winter), and Grainstorm. Here's the after black hammer...
My opinion? Well, since I didn't take the photo, I can go on all day about it! I freaking love it. I think Lindsay looks insane :)
Easy peasy, huh?
As always, if you're getting anything out of these, share with friends, tweet the post, and let me know here! The more I know that these posts are helping people the more it reminds me to make time to do them :)
David Jay is sort of the man and made it to where you can have a free freaking Showit Site. Obviously, it isn't going to have all the bells and whistles of the pro version - but still, it's pretty rad, if you ask me :)
You can publish 5 pages, host 30MB of data, get a free vanity URL with your name, get access to club showit - all for free. Pretty darn bueno!
