Jim Cameron on stage

Sunday night was the annual VES Awards. This year we honored Jim Cameron with the Lifetime Achievement Award, and Ed Catmull with the Georges Melies Award.

Bill Paxton did the introduction, which was part honor and part roast (“Jim calls his parents on his birthday to congratulate them.”).

Read more about the Visual Effects Society.

Click for a bigger version

I love the Library of Congress’ flickr photostream. They are constantly adding interesting old copyright free images. I saw this one and wanted to add to the story. The two gentlemen in the second row seem concerned, but they are the only ones.

Here’s the original image:

Original image from the Library of Congress

Team photos for our five student teams from the ETC. You can learn more about the projects at our ETC Silicon Valley blog. These are fun to take – there’s a wonderful challenge in trying to convey something about the students and their project.

Sea Anemone

I spent the late afternoon at Fitzgerald Marine Reserve near Half Moon Bay, CA. The tidepools are locally famous, and there was a very low tide at 5:30pm today – right about sunset. I thought I could get some nice tidepool creature shots and a Pacific Ocean sunset all in one trip. The sunset was a bust – low clouds kept any red from reaching us, so it just gradually got darker. But low light is a great time to be shooting in tidepools with a flash – when the sun is shining the glare from the water is a big problem, particularly on cloudy days. But with just a flash you can control the angle and get some dramatic light angles and colors.

Shot using my flash hand held off to the side, and the camera mounted on a tripod. The anemone was just below the water line.

Sea Anemone

Anemone Tentacles macro shot

Tentacle Macro

Tentacles Cluster

Shared with me at the NAMM show, and I thought I should share it with you.

Important stuff.