This Bird Can be Such a Card!

This photo was taken on a Panasonic PV-GS320 digital video camera. Although still images taken by this camera are not as sharp as ones shot on a dedicated still camera, its images can be manipulated to produce lovely photos like this. (It is not a still frame from video. The camera captures still images on an SD card.)

This photo was enhanced using Adobe Photoshop CS3. I created several layers, manipulated each layer with different effects, and combined the layers for the full effect shown above.

The texture effect applied to the image doesn't appear to show up as well in this smaller version of the photo. The original Photoshop file dimensions are about twice as big as the full-size version you can see by clicking on the picture above. If I enlarged and darkened the texture effect on the original file, it would be too much for that version, but look fine for this smaller version.

This is the original photo. The only changes I made was cropping it to a 4:3 aspect ratio (the camera takes photos in a 16:9 aspect), and reducing the size to 640 x 480.

Wurst Fest 2007

A group of us went to WurstFest, a ten-day celebration of sausage (and all that goes with it) in early November. Wurst Fest is in the pretty small town of New Braunfels, TX. The gang we went with, as well as other friends we met at the festival, are all fans and friends of Saint Arnold Brewing.

We had a great time, listening to polka and German folk music, eating ham hocks, sauerkraut, and German potato salad, and drinking Warsteiner dark beer.

We drove our Jeep, with the top down and the doors off. I was at first a little nervous, despite I was wearing my seatbelt and holding onto the support bar, but it was fine. Driving home that evening was cold, though, because the air temps varied between 58 - 65. We had the heater on full-blast, which helped a little bit. It felt at least a little adventurous. :)

I filmed the video handheld with a Panasonic PV-GS320 mini-DV recorder and edited it in Adobe Premiere.



A slightly larger and brighter version of this video is on my personal YouTube channel.

Video Quick Fixes

I created this video from footage I shot in mid-October in Denver, Colorado. I used a Panasonic PV-GS320 and recorded the video in 16:9 widescreen. I edited the video using Adobe Premiere and made the Quicktime file with Adobe AfterEffects.



This video is as an educational tool, but it is also a calm, quiet pause during a hectic day.