Seanzky

With all the recent hoopla about The Second Amendment, I’d like to remind folks out there that there are other purposes to guns besides killing. The right to bear arms is a very important part of our Bill of Rights. They’re also a big part of the Olympics and a way of life for many all around the world. There are crazy people out there, but there isn’t a single crazy gun in existence. With that said, there are many people out there that are responsible owners and can be trusted wielding one, not just policemen/policewomen or soldiers. What you see here though are just replicas. These are my airsoft weapons.

Once in a while, I like to spend some outdoor time with my buddies and shoot each other without causing any injury –we always wear full protection. This is much safer than paintball in some ways. In fact, you’d be very unlucky if you went home with a scratch. I used to play paintball (woods and arena/speedball) and welts were a normal thing. (For those curious, I’ve owned many, many, many markers. The last were PM/DMs and then eventually just EGOs. Our team only played with EGOs.)

What you see here from left to right is the Systema CQBR, KJW M9 Beretta, KWA SR-10, KWA USP Compact, and JG Bar-10.

If you’d like to get some stress out of your system and get some exercise in at the same time, airsoft is one of the best sports to do. Not only is it challenging, the teamwork, communication, and trust teaches discipline. The military simulations are also a lot of fun. If you think it’s easy and offers no adrenaline rush, give it a try. Running in the woods, uphill, downhill, leaping over streams, finding cover, fulfilling missions or objectives, among other things will surely get your heart pumping.

And remember, the number one rule when wielding any kind of weapon is to respect the power. Whether it’s a knife or a rifle, respect it, so that you’d never find yourself foolishly pointing it at anyone.

This… right here… is the apple of my eye. I may be biased because she’s my little girl, but I swear there’s nothing she does that I don’t consider cute. If she sneezes and a booger comes out, it’s “AWWW!”

I wish I could just fold her up and keep her in my pocket all the time. She has no idea that I look at her the same way she looks at her stuffed toys, like she’s my own plush toy.

I can stare at her all day, sniff her head all day, and bury my nose on the side of her face (cheeks, ears) all day. She’s the balance to the chaos around me.

Because of the thunderstorm today, I decided not to bring my camera to work. And what would I have taken pictures of anyway? Central Park? Again!? My wife already told me last night that all I ever do is take pictures in Central Park and that they’re all starting to look similar. In fairness to her, it’s kind of true. I told her I really didn’t have too many choices. It’s either Central Park or the streets. She said, “Be creative.” That’s not something I have a lot of anymore… and I guess it’s a good thing it rained today. While we have a few days of rain, I’ll work on that creativity thing.

Meanwhile, in my apartment, there aren’t many interesting things to photograph. Maybe except for my kids doing silly things. Aha! My kids doing silly things! Come to think of it, no, that would get boring fast… unless of course I promise to keep it to a minimum throughout this project. :)

When my son was only a couple of years old, the only way for me to get a decent picture of him was when he was focused on something else, like my wife distracting him, or I happen to get a lucky shot. Now that he’s almost 4 years old, I can actually ask him to pose. It’s actually pretty easy to ask him to stay still or hold a specific pose. It goes something like this:

ME: Stand up for a second, Evan.

EVAN: I don’t want to!

M: Ok! I guess I won’t be buying you more Pokemon toys.

E: But I want Pokemon toys! Can you buy one now, please?

M: You have to stand up first so daddy can take a picture.

E: OK!

(Evan gets up and I tell him to do a specific pose, on a specific spot.)

M: Hold it. Don’t move… stay still. Wait…

(Click.)

M: Thank you!

E: But I want Pokemon toys.

M: It’s raining right now. I’ll buy it tomorrow.

(Fingers crossed. I hope he forgets. LOL.)

One of my biggest “fail” moments in photography was when I first attempted a 365 project. It was a gigantic, epic fail because I had a lot of friends cheering me on, supporting me, anticipating the next day’s photo and I completely blew it. I just quit not even half way through it. My record was exactly 100 days.

I started out hot, planning the shots even the day before. As much as I could I would incorporate my only two speedlights to create specific images that otherwise couldn’t be achieved with just ambient lighting. I planned in advance and tried to make each shot unique not just with the subject, but the composition and lighting as well. But towards the end of the first 100, I started getting lazy and took pictures of stupid things like candies in a bowl or my son’s baby jar foods stacked in a pyramid. I used lack of time as an excuse but I just knew deep down that it was pure laziness.

And now here I am again, trying a second attempt at a 365 project. Wish me luck! I’ll need it.

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For today’s shot, my subject was my cousin’s (from another set of parents) brand new DSLR –a Canon 60D. While messing around with his camera, I noticed that the inner barrel was askew, the bottom part dipping lower than the top. I asked him if he hit the lens against the wall or dropped it. He said he didn’t. But when he took it back from my hands and played with the manual focus, to our surprise, the inner barrel popped out. Lol. When I tried to take the lens off the DSLR, it seemed stuck. It took a lot more torque to turn it than the usual amount to unmount a lens, which isn’t a while lot. It was then we knew that it was probably dropped on the floor, lens first, without him knowing. He said he recalled leaving it on his bed while he was in the shower and both of his toddlers running around. Smart. Unfortunately for him, the nifty fifty was his best lens. For now he’s back to his very old 18-55 kit and his Tamron 70-300 macro lens from his old XTi body.

Slowly, but surely, this blog is taking shape. If you’re a regular visitor, you might have noticed that there are options now to ‘Like’ my Facebook page on the header and footer. Likewise, if you like my blog and want to share it with your Google+ circles, which would be highly appreciated :), all you have to do is click the ‘+1′ button which can also be found on the header and footer above the Facebook one. You’ll also notice that when you view the full posts here on Seanzky, you can do the same for each specific and individual post. I believe these options will make it easier for myself and my readers to share content this way rather than to use the clumsy method of copying URLs, switching tabs on your browser, and pasting that URL. The best part I’ve done, I think, is that I’ve gotten rid of the comment box and replaced it with a Facebook one instead. My readers no longer have to create an account on my site via the WordPress blog or have a WordPress account in order to interact with me or with each other. All you have to do is be logged-in on your Facebook account and you can comment and interact instantly without leaving the site.

I’ve also revived my old Flickr account! I think Yahoo! did a great job bumping up the maximum upload limit to 1 terabyte. Although I experienced some glitching today, I expect that they will iron out those bugs soon. Most newly launch featured almost always causes some kind of server downtime due to heavy traffic. I can only imagine how many people jumped back on Flickr to avail of that 1TB space. The bottom line is that the upgrades they made, namely the virtually unlimited free space, will be good for Flickr and users in the long run. Feel free to check out my photostream here.

Keep in mind that the latest photographs I’ve taken will always be uploaded to my Facebook page, Google+ page and Flickr photostream. So don’t forget to check those daily!

Thank you! :)