jeffmilner.com

My cousin Don has started a photography business on the side. He’s got a website up showing some of his work. If you’re looking for a photographer in the Kootenays BC, give him a shout.

My friend Shannon Phillips is a freelance writer and journalist. When she asked me to take some photos for her new story, I jumped at the chance. I’m happy to say, the editors at Alberta Views used two of my images for the October edition article.

The article is available online (sans photos).

A week ago I was up early at 4:30am to ride down to the States with some friends to enjoy the festivities at the Sasquatch! Music Festival. After nearly 12 hours on the road, we arrived at the festival grounds, set up camp and watched as thousands of others did the same.

The Festival takes place in the most beautiful venue I’ve ever seen. It’s a gigantic amphitheatre called The Gorge. There were so many interesting people and so many great artists—check out some of the photos and videos I captured from the event:

[Sasquatch! Music Festival Slideshow - Flickr]

Last Saturday, March 28, the world turned off the lights in recognition of the environment and global climate change. Somehow I couldn’t convince my roommate that it mattered and so he spent earth hour in the glow of his room amidst a dark house on a dark street. I wondered if he would regret missing the opportunity later—as I did last year. I like to think the Earth Hour is as much about missed opportunities as taking part. Think about it.

I have to admit turning off the lights for an hour won’t do much to save the environment. It does, however, stimulate a spirit of unity and puts the problem into the forefront of our minds.

The Boston Globe’s Big Picture has posted an inspiring collection of before and after shots from Earth Hour with the lights on and off at famous locations around the world. Don’t forget to click to see the images with the lights off.

Boston Globe’s Earth Hour 2009 Photos.

A flickr set of the first photos from the Jonze/Eggers project Where The Wild Things Are.

Enjoy the trailer.

On February 9th I took part in a Strobist shoot at the U of L pool.

(video by Michael Warf)

Here are a couple of composites I made from the photos I shot that day:

A collection of writers, including my favourite, Malcolm Gladwell, offer praise to the power and poignancy of Barack Obama’s inaugural address in this worthwhile LA Times article

Also, San Fransisco’s Bush Street gets an update:

Sources 1 and 2.

Last week I went to Jamaica for a little fun in the sun. Here are some photos I took while I was there:

See my Jamaica Flickr set for more.

Thursday night Bob Dylan performed at the Enmax Centre here in Lethbridge. He played a lot of songs that I didn’t particularly recognize and a few that I only JUST barely recognized.

I’m left to assume that after 40 years of the same songs, he tries to mix it up a bit. Personally I would have preferred to hear more of my “favourite” Bob Dylan songs (the ones that come up on my iPod for example) but having said that, it’s a rare and exciting event to see a living legend.

Update: I just read on wikipedia that after Bob Dylan’s 1979 conversion to Christianity, he decided he would no longer play any of his old material.

From the article: “Dylan refused to play any of his older compositions, as well as any secular material. Though Larry Myers had assured Dylan that his old compositions were not sacrilegious, Dylan would say he would not ’sing any song which hasn’t been given to me by the Lord to sing.’ Fans wishing to hear his older songs openly expressed their disappointment. Hecklers continued to appear at his concerts, only to be answered by lectures from the stage. Dylan was firmly entrenched in his evangelical ways, and it would continue through his next album, whether his audience would follow or not.”

I’m happy to hear that Adobe will be releasing their newest version of Photoshop in just a couple of weeks. The entire Creative Suite 4 (CS4), is targeting a release date for October 15, 2008.

Here’s a quick video demonstrating one of Photoshop CS4’s amazing new abilities (which was foreshadowed here)—to scale intelligently based on the content of an image.

It opens up a whole new can of worms in the ethics of editing photos department, but at the same time, it looks REALLY fun to use.

Hit play or watch Content Aware Scaling on YouTube.

(via)