Wednesday, October 5, 2016

Mr. Don Will Get the Shot

As I was photographing guests in the lobby, I heard a shutter snapping away in my direction. I was lucky enough to meet Mr. Don, a published fashion industry and hair photographer based in New York City. Mr. Don Photos so eloquently creates a niche around beauty, hair, and gorgeous models.

After finding out that I was going to have the opportunity to photograph a published NYC photographer, I have to admit my adrenaline rushed a bit. Upon hanging out and talking to Mr. Don, I came to know and respect his business at a higher level. His confidence inspires me to this day. I will never forget his attitude that he will always get the shot. 

When I photograph on a daily basis, every so often his confidence will remind me to forget everything in the world except the subject at hand. Nothing else matters, just the situation under my jurisdiction. It is my job as a photographer to thread a needle and find the best shot. Every situation is different, which means every subject should be treated with a fresh mind. 

Mr. Don's portfolio displays a versatility and diverse work. He creates dynamic lighting with an elegance that deserves attention. Not only that, but Mr Don expresses creativity with composition. I will never forget taking notice of that after meeting Mr. Don the first time.

We were creating a quick shot on the middle landing of a staircase. I boomed out the main light and watched as he went to work. I will never forget, all he did was tilt the camera a few degrees to the right, causing all the lines to a rising slant. Since there were so many stairs in and throughout the photo, the rising tilt created a sense of lift, a positive vibe. In a matter of seconds, I knew that Mr. Don had a talent and creativity for photography. His portfolio reminds me of that every visit to his website.

You can see Mr. Don's work at Mr Don Photos nicely crafted website.

Wednesday, April 6, 2016

How to Format a TB Drive for Windows XP

UPDATE:
Use MacOS' Disk Utility to format a drive to MS-DOS (FAT) with a Master Boot Record scheme! This is absolutely the best way to format a large volume for use on Windows XP and Mac.


You need GParted. Get it and dd it to a flash drive. Get the latest test version for fun.

Run the "Create Partition Table" on the correct device. This will obliterate your partitions, but it will also ensure you have a clean Master Boot Record (MBR) partition table. Running this command first would have saved me hours and days of frustration.

Now, you can just simply use GParted to create new FAT32 partitions of your fresh partition table device. You do not want to have any flags like "lba" on any of them. Apply all the changes and your drive is ready to go!

Screenshots of Terminal are not working as of 25.0-4 on the Macbook. I submitted the bug, and it is still open at GParted Screenshot 0 Bytes Bug. Hope they fix that someday. Screenshots just don't take when it is of the Terminal window. Why mention Terminal?

Good question. I tried so many things with testdisk in attempt at figuring out why, when the drive is connected to Windows XP, XP will not boot. That is the quest that led me to use GParted to create a new partition table from scratch.

So, if Windows XP will not boot when your drive is connected, most likely there is a partition table funk going on. What I cannot say from knowing little about this area of expertise.

To recap and put in list form:
  1. GParted > Create Partition Table
  2. Partition FAT32 in GParted
  3. Enjoy
Have a great day and format a TB drive for Windows XP and Mac.