Meet EVA

This is the "extravehicular activity" (EVA) suit astronauts wear for the "space walk" (also displayed at Tech Museum). I had seen numerous versions of the suit in sci-fi movies, but it was the first time I ever saw a real one.

Leonardo da Vinci at Tech Museum

Thanks to my friend Catherine, I got a discount to the Leonardo da Vinci exhibition and visited the Tech Museum today.

This is a replica of the famous Florence Duomo, designed by another Renaissance genius, Filippo Brunelleschi. The dome is double layered so you can climb from the in-between stairs to the top.

The master by himself. Though born in Florence, da Vinci spent a lot of his life in Milan. Unlike his fellow Florentine Dante and Michelangelo, he was buried in France, not Italy, the prodigal son never returned.

Notebooks of da Vinci. To my surprise, those notebooks are all very small: the small one is the size of a pocket Moleskine, the big one is about the size of a 6x9" Moleskine notebook. As you can see, his hand writing was tiny, his drawing had incredible details even in this size. Da Vinci was left handed and over the years he developed a special writing style which made it look like the notebook was up side down. Some said da Vinci was dyslexic, it doesn't look so from his notebooks.

All his life, da Vinci was fascinated by the idea of flying and he spent numerous hours designing a "flying machine" (after dissecting many many birds and comparing human ribs with bird bones). Well, it looks quite like a giant batman suit. No, the lady with a digital camera was not in his original design.

Leonardo da Vinci was a believer of physiognomy and used it a lot in his "last supper". The exhibition also shows the animated movements of the disciples in the fresco based on their postures.

Fascinated by geometric forms, da Vinci drew tons of them in his notebooks. He was also obsessed about the idea of human body as perfect equilibrium of forms. To him, the movement of a perfect body matched the movement of a planet.

Butterflies Arrived

Each fall, millions of Monarch butterflies migrate south from Canada and north U.S.. Most of them stay in Mexico, some stay in California. Year by year, thousands of butterflies come to the same trees and those famous "butterfly trees" can be found in Santa Cruz, Pacific Grove, and Santa Barbara. (The nearest one is in the Natural Bridge State Park in Santa Cruz.)

This morning I read from this month's National Geographic that the Mexican forest where these butterflies stayed the winder was heavily destroyed by logging in the past 4 years. To save it, the UNESCO had made the site a World Heritage this year but we didn't know what impact it had already done. Since my last trip to see the butterflies was ten years ago, I decided it's time to pay a visit again.

I did notice the number of butterflies seemed to be much less than what I saw ten years ago. (Ironically, there seemed to be more people coming to see the butterflies than the butterflies themselves.) Will I still see them ten years later? I don't know.

Note: those butterflies tend to stay high on the tree so make sure you bring a telescope with you.

Miti Enjoys Her "Heater"

Cats love warmth and know where to find it. The old CRT monitors were their favorite. Poor Miti just has to make do with a normal lamp.

Outliers - Malcolm Gladwell has done it again!

The day I received "Annie Leibovitz at Work", I also received "Outliers" from Amazon. I browsed through the Leibovitz book quickly and left it on my bookshelf; then I started reading "Outliers" immediately. Why? Because it's the new book by Malcolm Gladwell.

Gladwell is the author of only 3 books, but his first two books, "The Tipping Point", and "Blink" were international phenomena. (Personally I think "The Tipping Point" is great, but "Blink" just ride on its predecessor's waves.) Not only they sold like a non-fiction "The Da Vinci Code", they were studied by marketing departments and business schools world wide. A new Malcolm Gladwell book is something you pay attention to.

I had almost finished the book (only the last chapter left). How do I rank it with his two other books? I'd say it's much better than "Blink". Though it's not as refreshing as "The Tipping Point", it will be more influential.

OK, no more details of the book. I don't intend to write a book review. This is just a book impression. (Like my roommate TF used to say, you should not read a book review before you read the book.) I only want to focus on my two observations. One, Gladwell's rhetoric style; two, the most important idea in this book to me (p 267), "success is a gift".

1. Gladwell's Rhetoric Style
After the huge success of "The Tipping Point", there are tons of non-fiction books published, following the "Gladwell" formula. That is, they take a hard-to-explain and counter-intuitive fact (but has to be interesting enough), and explain it through statistic, economics, or psychology theory. Well, some of them were interesting and managed to make the best seller list, but most of them were very boring. So when I got Gladwell's new book this time, I started to pay attention to his style. Conclusion? Malcolm Gladwell is a good rhetoric and he knows how to get your attention.

He usually uses the following 2 strategies:

Strategy 1

1. present a fact and a popularly accepted cause that seems to explain it very convincingly, but with a few unexplained details
   
2. tell you he's going to argue that it's not so (by then the suspense is really high)
3. present a very counter-intuitive argument,
   
4. use his argument to re-explain the fact more convincingly, suddenly it makes better sense
5. you feel you are looking at the same thing with different eyes
   

Strategy 2

1. tell you a crisis, or something that seems unbelievable, and tell you it can be solved/explained by what he's going to tell you (How? you are definitely paying attention now)
2. provide his long-shot explanation, then explain step-by-step how the long shot is done

(He used strategy 1 in part I and strategy 2 in part II. Strategy 2 is not always successful. Sometimes the case history is so long you just want to skip it. )

It's something I can definitely learn from.

2. Success is a gift (and you do need a lot of help)

When I reach page 267, I have read through a lot of case histories the author presents and cannot but reflect on my own experience. (Just like the author will do in the next chapter.) I don't think I am successful or even an outlier like those exceptional cases the author presents, but I am not coming this far without any help either. Some are from my parents (for sure), some were from a government which provided easy access to education and very low tuition fees for higher education (sadly, not any more for the later). It is indeed a gift. And if we accept the idea that success is a gift, we also acknowledge the power we have as a society to give. If so, with the power we know we have, what more can we do?

I think if there's only one idea I can take away from this book, it will be this one.

Leibovitz by Herself

Got my "Annie Leibovitz at Work" from Amazon today. I find the book recaps a lot of things in the DVD (the photos selected are almost the same) but in more details (especially the section about equipments, you will also read her own account about the "Queen" episode). For those who like to know the nitty-gritty details of photography, get the book, otherwise, you can pretty much save your time (and money) by watching the DVD.

DVD Watch: Annie Leibovitz - Life Through A Lens

If Helmut Newton and Richard Avedon had a daughter together, it would be Annie Leibovitz. Leibovitz's photos combine Avedon's high fashion, yet, like Newton, tend to be provocative and sometimes even controversial. However, you may not agree with what Leibovitz says, but there is no deny that she is a master at her craft.

I missed Leibovitz's big retrospective exhibition in San Francisco early this early. Fortunately, I found there was a documentary (made by her sister Barbara) accompanied the exhibition and the DVD was out lately, so I happily ordered it and started to take down notes like a good student while watching it. Here is for those who are interested in how the master works.

Process and Photo Tips

• blend in with your subjects by spending time (a lot) with them, so much so that they don't even notice you are there any more. It's when you will get the fresh shots.
  
• study the master's work (yes, even Annie Leibovitz needs to do that). Leibovitz studied Barbara Morgan and Richard Avedon before shooting dance portraits of Mikhail Baryshnikov.
• get a mentor, learn how to look at your own photos with critical eyes.
• never be satisfied with a common photo, always strive for a photo which can make a difference
• do tons of research before shooting (not a surprise since most of her works are commercial and her subjects are celebrities), think film production
  
• collaborate with your subjects, listen to them and their ideas. (Before she got the shot of the famous Vanity Fair cover of Demi Moore, Leibovitz had done a few successful ones with Moore half naked, then Moore asked her if she could do a nude, well the rest is history.)
  

Best Comments

• Remember, portraits are moments you pass through each other's lives.
• You have to be able to connect to people to get the shots

What Her Celebrity Subjects Said About Her

• told Arnold Schwarzenegger while shooting in cold weather "the freeze and pain are only temporary but the shot is permanent".
• Hilary Clinton admitted getting nervous before being photographed by "one of the best photographers in the world".
• Patti Smith was surprised at her photo (is that me?) and found herself gradually grew into the person she saw
  

Interesting Observation from the DVD

• hand held almost all her shots, rarely use a tripod
• use mostly natural light with minimized strobe while shooting on location
• shot in cloudy day, the sky seems to be post-processed to give more drama
  
• have a entourage of assistants and is notorious for her hot temper as a boss (hint, you really don't want to be her assistant)
  

Equipments
Leibovitz's equipments will definitely make a lot of us envy. In short, she has all the toys. She use a Leica for personal work, a Mamiya and a Canon for some commercial work, a Leaf or Hasselblad (with those expensive digital backs) for her Vanity Fair commercial shots. Images are transmitted to a Mac through wireless on the camera immediately so she can view them on a 30" screen right after a shot on location. She also carries a small digital compact with her.

Notes from a movie theater

Since the job market now is either dead or in a coma, I decided to take a break and went to see the new James Bond movie (warning, save your money on this one). Before the movie started, I noticed a big movie commercial to promote Christmas shopping. "A bit early, isn't it", I thought. Also, who's going to spend a lot of money on Christmas shopping this year? Why even waste money doing an advertising campaign?

Then I saw this big movie commercial was actually from Walmart.

Oh, well, the economy is apparently so bad that even Walmart becomes the exciting place to do Christmas shopping. It is so bad that even for our nearest and dearest we need to go for the cheap (not Macy's, not Nordstram, honey, I got your gift at Walmart, see how much I saved). OK, maybe I am exaggerating things a bit (since I don't have any family in the States so I don't need to worry about buying Christmas gifts), but if our buying power has diminished so much that Walmart becomes our only choice of shopping, we are really in deep trouble.

I think I can probably forget about job searching this Christmas; maybe it's time to do some shopping at Walmart...

Self Portraits

After my trip to Irvine, I have to admit I start to enjoy shooting portraits. Since it's more hassle to hire a model, I decide to follow Rembrandt's good examples to do some self portraits. It's a bit challenging because I don't have any studio lighting equipments so the shooting has to solely rely on natural light. Fortunately the light from the window is pretty good (soft and even due to the clouded weather). The big mirror in my living room also makes posing easier (though it's still hard to focus). Now the only thing I have to be careful about is to minimize the clutter in my house entering the pictures.

So here is the result. What do you think?

On the Beach

Today we headed toward the beach for the photos of the newlyweds. The weather is nice, the light bright but soft, perfect for outdoor portraits. The newlyweds are in cheerful mood and I have a lot of fun shooting their photos.