Tag: Thinking

Nassau Hall

My 52-week photography is going well. I've shot my images on weekends and posting them on the blog on Sunday evenings. I spend time during the week thinking and planning the what and where of the images I want to capture. It has worked well.

I was on 500.px and Google+ this week looking at some of the incredible HDR images captured by +Trey Ratcliff and others. This weekend I wanted to do more HDR imagery and thought that perhaps the Princeton University Chapel might be a great place to try. The chapel has very beautiful stained glass windows that reflect light all around the inside of this beautiful building.

Planning out your photo shoot is important. You want to consider what equipment you might need -- lens, tripod, etc -- and think about the lighting conditions for the time of day. You also want to make sure that you know whether the location might be crowded. You don't want to set up a tripod in a hallway that might be crowded or where people might be might get in the way of your shot.

After deciding to shoot the chapel I researched the operating hours and timing of any services. I wanted to be sure the chapel would be empty so I planned on being there around 9 AM. I wanted to create HDR images so that meant using my gPhoto Raspberry Pi kit or Sofortbild with a tripod and my AF-S DX Zoom-Nikkor 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6G. Things didn't work out the way I had planned.

When I got inside the Chapel was empty except for two people sitting near the back. I had noted the sign outside the chapel indicating that services started at 11 AM today. I looked around to find the spot down the middle of the pews to set up my tripod. Before I could even get the tripod open one of the two people yelled at me that I could not set up my tripod because of services. I played stupid, asking her what time services started. "10 AM", she insisted. I persisted, "This will only take me 10 minutes". "No", she insisted worshippers would be arriving any minute. I put my tripod down and looked around. Perhaps I could come back another day. The Chapel is open from 7 AM to 7 PM daily during the school year. After about 20 minutes -- no one came in or out during this time -- I picked up my camera bag and left feeling a bit dejected.

I tried not to let the encounter bother me. I chalked it up to meet the wrong person on a wrong day.

I walked around -- it was very cold outside -- trying to find another subject. The campus doesn't have much colour this time of the year; mostly shades of grey. My hands were starting to feel numb so I set up my tripod and captured a few exposures of the back of Nassau Hall before walking over to Panera for a hot coffee. Brr.

The image is an 8 exposure HDR (+/-1 EV steps) taken with my gPhoto-Raspberry Pi rig and combined and tone mapped in Photomatix Pro with minor adjustments in Adobe Lightroom.

  • Camera : NIKON D40
  • Lens : AF-S DX Zoom-Nikkor 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6G
  • Shutter speed ( 0EV ) : 1⁄160
  • Aperture : f/11
  • Focal length : 18mm

Do I have diabetes burn out?

I just finished reading Ginger Vieira’s post “Do YOU Experience Diabetes Burnout?” and her follow-up post “Overcome Diabetes Burnout – Step #1”. After reading the post I started to wonder, “Am I burned out?” Ginger offered a number of questions to ask myself to help me find my answer.

Are you:

  • Skipping insulin at breakfast?
  • Not taking your oral meds when you’re supposed to?
  • Not checking your blood sugar before meals?
  • Eating blatantly high-carbohydrate meals?
  • Not counting your carbohydrates?
  • Taking your insulin randomly without thinking about the carbohydrate content?

While I never skip taking my insulin and I’m not on oral meds (I’m Type 1), I noticed that in the recent past I’ve forgotten to take my insulin before my meal; sometimes I remember a few minutes after I start eating, sometime I remember at the end of the meal.

Recently I’ve become sick and tired of the poke, test, inject routine and I think subconsciously my mind makes me forget to test my BG. Recently, I went an entire week without testing. Counting carbohydrates is a pain in the ass when you are hungry and just want to eat. For some meal nutritional information is not available - cafeteria at the mall or someone’s home.
I’ve been feeling burnt out on managing diabetes for about 6 months, and I’m expressing my burnout by checking my eating whatever the frack I want and checking my BG irregularly. I blame the medical industry - physicians and medical device makers - for making the whole thing so challenging. It’s too much work to do five times a day, every day for the rest of my life.

A part of me that asks, “Why the frack bother with all this”? I have diabetes. I have it right now. I’ll have it tomorrow and the day after that. Diabetes burn out? Yes. Burnt to the ground. I’m tired of doing this.