The original image is stupid. That’s a given. I guess they are trying to ask why the Moon doesn’t have a bright spot and dark edges.
But the Community Note isn’t much better.
The short answer is… the Moon is bumpy and the Sun is far away.
The long answer requires me to do some math. So I apologize in advance if I get some numbers wrong. But I promise you will learn some neat things about light if you are into that.
I should note that lighting from a distant source will not always give you the most dynamic photos. It works for the Moon, but may be a bit bland or sterile for photos of people. Shadows add contrast and interest and shaping. And hard light can reveal harsh texture on faces. Which is why you should try to make the light bigger (softer) if you place it farther away.
I know all of you, my brave brigade of chumps, just want to laugh at him, but it would be for naught. He does not care what you think. Not even a teeny tiny bit. Laugh your pointless laughs. He’s just sitting there, munching uncaringly.
He barely thinks about trans people!
Sure, he has written 7 posts with over 2500 words telling me how much he hates trans women while progressively getting angrier and angrier each time I make him look foolish… but that doesn’t mean he thinks about trans people.
Perish the thought!
He thinks about them so little that he keeps tagging me—in the hopes of besting me in a debate… about trans people.
While eating a sammich and definitely not thinking about trans women’s genitals, he made sure to tag me (again) and let me know SheWon.org is a legit site with important data analysis… showing the horrors of trans women eating lots of hot dogs.
Trans people occupy his thoughts to such an infinitesimal degree that he used a silly dire corgi/wolf post to remind me he doesn’t think about trans men/women or girl/boys.
HE DOESN’T THINK ABOUT TRANS WOMEN EVER, OKAY?
Just to be sure he doesn’t think about trans people every second of his miserable life, I asked ChatGPT to analyze all 2500 words of his 7 posts from our previous debate.
I know AI chatbots are pretty controversial and I have never really used them before now. But it was the only objective judge I had access to.
I also asked why my best friend had such a hard time reading his arguments and glossed over them.
I pushed myself to go to the wholesale grocery store after a doctor’s appointment yesterday. And I went there to get bulk cheese. But when I got to the cheese aisle, it was completely empty. Every shelf was bare. I felt like I was in some apocalypse movie. I ask the guy, “Uh, where is all the cheese?” And it seems the refrigerators lost power and they had to dispose of like thousands of pounds of cheese. I used up so much energy to get 0 cheese.
I was really tired when I came home, but I really wanted to waste this transphobe’s time. I know he doesn’t care, but he seems to always need the final word. Well, final several hundred words. He needs to win this debate with me. I was too tired to generate enough material for him to get endlessly mad at. And I thought, “Man, I wish I had a robot to help me waste this dude’s time.”
I had no idea the robot would go this hard. And I feel like it is pretty accurate. Apparently writing analysis is one of the things these AI monstrosities do well. I tried reading a scientific paper about it, but it was a little dense for how tired I was.
I’m sure I’ll be accused of asking biased or trick questions. And I do feel guilty about using 700 gallons of water for an internet fight. (I won’t be doing that again.) But I did try really hard to get the robot to say something positive about my opponent, just to balance things out. And it still threw tons of shade…
I just heard a British person say “respiratory” and I’m afraid I have to cancel the English accent. It had a good run. But this bullshit cannot be allowed to continue.
I got on board with aluminium. It seemed like a lot of extra effort, but I eventually found it charming.
Schedule was silly, but there is an H in there so I let it pass.
Privacy? You know you are fucking around because you don’t say private as prih-vat.
Vitamins… okay, that is more fun to say. No objection.
And you are right about herb for the H reasons previously discussed. I will give you that.
But this… straight to word jail. No bail. No parole.
As community service, you all have to use your best New Zealand accent for a year because it makes everything sound 20% funnier.
Okay, what the shit?
Now I’m starting to wonder if there was a British pulmonologist who was trying to prank some med students and it got really out of hand.
I just heard a British person say “respiratory” and I’m afraid I have to cancel the English accent. It had a good run. But this bullshit cannot be allowed to continue.
I got on board with aluminium. It seemed like a lot of extra effort, but I eventually found it charming.
Schedule was silly, but there is an H in there so I let it pass.
Privacy? You know you are fucking around because you don’t say private as prih-vat.
Vitamins… okay, that is more fun to say. No objection.
And you are right about herb for the H reasons previously discussed. I will give you that.
But this… straight to word jail. No bail. No parole.
As community service, you all have to use your best New Zealand accent for a year because it makes everything sound 20% funnier.
If athletes are allowed to compete, they should also be allowed to win.
Every single time I see a story where a trans athlete “blows out” the competition, their performance usually ends up not being quite as dominent as claimed.
When you look at the fastest 400m times in high school competition, it greatly adjusts the context.
In running, a second can be an eternity. Most world records are only a few tenths of a second apart. And this trans athlete is a full 7 seconds away from a record set by a cisgender high school runner.
According to the New York Post, 7 seconds is a blowout.
College runners are getting times under 50 seconds. And the world record is 47.60—a full 10 seconds faster.
This trans athlete can’t help it if she is in a league with a bunch of slowpokes. She won a race. She is pretty fast in relation to her direct competition. But she is not some spectacular speed demon who will dominate women’s running.
Her time wasn’t even at scholarship level.
And the second place finisher wasn’t even close to a “decent” time.
Also…
The vast majority of the world’s top sprinters are of West African descent. Just to give you an idea of the statistics, every world record holder in the men’s 100m dash since 1968 has been Black.
So they are basically cherry picking ideal circumstances to make a trans athlete look overpowered—as Portland only has a 5% Black population.
If this race happened in Atlanta instead of Portland, the trans runner probably would have won 10th place and this wouldn’t be a news story.
How to create a moral panic 101.
We’ve got another “dominant” trans athlete going viral.
While it is true that Redmond Sullivan has had two first place finishes in tournaments since transitioning, if you look at her record, you might notice this isn’t as dominant as claimed.
First I have to explain fencing ratings.
You have individual ratings A through E. The As are top fencers and Es (or unrated) fencers are the worst. The number after the rating is the year.
So a rating of A25 means you are a top level fencer in 2025.
Then you have event classes. They are also A through E but have an additional 1 through 4 difficulty variant.
The easiest tournament is E1.
It has 6 competitors and none of them have to be rated. So you are competing against poorly ranked people and have a much higher statistical chance of winning.
This is like playing basketball with all of your nerdiest friends and “accidentally” forgetting to invite Steve who is 6'4".
The hardest tournaments are A4.
This requires at least 64 competitors and must have at least 12 A-rated, 12 B-rated, and 12 C-rated fencers.
This is like being a 40 year old playing Halo against a hundred 12-year-olds all saying rude things about your mom while repeatedly headshotting you with ease.
If you look at Redmond’s two first place finishes, they were in E1 and D1 competitions. (A D1 requires 15 people with four of them E-rated.)
She had a decent statistical chance of winning because the competitors were few and poorly rated.
If you look at her only A4 tournament, she placed 172nd.
I’m not sure I would call someone who placed 172nd particularly dominant.
She currently has a “D” rating overall.
When fencing in men’s competitions, she was rated E. And she slightly improved to a D in women’s competitions—though this is only with 3 months of data. She ended 2024 with an E rating in women’s events. So maybe she improved to a D and a half.
No offense to Redmond, but she is not anywhere close to a top level fencer no matter which league she competes in.
Stephanie Turner, the kneeling transphobe, currently has an E rating and has never finished a year better than a D. By all accounts, she is evenly matched against Redmond and had a legit chance at winning the match. But it was an A2 tournament and she really had no chance of placing highly so I guess she figured this was a good opportunity to be a dipshit.
She is a coward who only took a stand when the stakes were lowest.
I’d also like to point out that Colin Rugg was quick to mention Redmond’s first place finishes, but failed to mention that in the very tournament with this kneeling protest, she got 24th place.
It really seems like these trans athletes aren’t trying to become dominant athletes by transitioning and they are just competing because they love it.
I mean, if I ever got 172nd place I’d probably hang up my rapier and just watch Zorro movies instead.
Payton McNabb had a genuinely tragic injury from a volleyball spike to the face. There is no denying that. When you watch the video of it, it’s clear this was a brutal shot to the face.
But this tragedy was quickly capitalized on by the anti-trans propaganda machine. The context was significantly altered and an insidious narrative was constructed. Payton and her parents then jumped at the chance to monetize the incident.
You can hire Payton to dramatize her incident and repeat all of the common anti-trans talking points.
If you can’t afford to hire her as a speaker, you can request to feature her documentary, “Kill Shot: How Payton McNabb Turned Tragedy into Triumph.”
Possibly one of the most emotionally manipulative things I’ve seen in a while. After they discuss the injury you can just sense the coaching involved as they parrot every talking point.
Let’s deconstruct exactly how Payton’s injury was turned into propaganda.
First, all of the conservative news outlets reported on the incident. And they were sure to include details to give the impression this injury was severe, uncommon, and something only a trans girl could inflict.
The ball was going a blistering 70mph.
The trans girl was a towering 5'11".
Payton suffered a concussion.
The evil trans girl cackled in delight.
Of course, none of these details can be verified. The trans girl cannot tell her side of the story because if she identifies herself, it will put her in grave danger.
Let’s investigate the claims a little deeper, shall we?
First, the ball going 70mph.
Not even remotely possible.
Elite level high school girl volleyball players can spike a ball between 40 and 50mph. Boys can manage between 50 and 60mph. So that is already debunked with a simple google search.
But I went a step further and analyzed the footage using a technique I learned from Adam Savage on Mythbusters. You take a known measurement (the width of the volleyball) and count how long it takes to travel a certain distance using the framerate. The ball went roughly 426 cm in 200 milliseconds.
I did a high and low estimate and the ball was going between 43 and 47mph, as best as I can tell.
Which is in the range of what a typical elite high school girl can achieve.
In fact, the world record for any woman volleyball player is around 70 mph. This was accomplished by professional player, Paola Egonu. She is 26 years old and 6'4".
The men’s record is around 80 mph.
So they are saying this trans girl hit a volleyball as fast as the world record set by an adult professional athlete. And it was only 10mph slower than the fastest spike ever hit by anyone.
Okay, what about the trans girl being 5'11". That’s pretty tall for a girl, right?
Not for volleyball players. In fact, it is not uncommon for high school volleyball teams to have players 6 feet and above. Many college and professional teams regularly have cis women that are 6'5".
Well, there is still the fact that the girl got a concussion.
You might be thinking… “That never happens. I mean, they are just high school kids playing a game. And a kid’s game isn’t dangerous. The *only* reason Payton was injured (as her parents imply) was because a trans girl was playing.”
Did you know that women’s volleyball has become so notorious for injuries that the NIH did an entire study documenting them?
Here are some highlights…
“In total, an estimated 214,302 female athletes aged 14 to 23 years were evaluated in EDs across the United States with volleyball-related injuries between 2012 and 2021. The ankle, head, and knee were most frequently injured, often involving strains/sprains, contusions, fractures, and concussions.
While sprains and strains were the most frequent injuries, head injuries accounted for the second most common diagnosis in both groups, suggesting that clinicians should maintain a high index of suspicion for concussion when evaluating players.”
It would seem that head injuries are extremely common and there are literally thousands of cases of concussions.
Volleyball is fucking dangerous, yo.
This has to be a known danger that parents and players are aware of. They choose to take this risk despite the danger. They don’t advocate for any kind of head protection or protective gear.
The reason Payton was so seriously injured was not because of a trans girl. It’s because she was hit point blank in the face with a volleyball—just like thousands of others.
An event so common that when I was researching spike speeds and looking at highlight reels of Paola Egonu’s world record spiking, one of the clips was of her bonking another player in the head.
The only reason this woman wasn’t injured was because the ball had a chance to decelerate. In the first 400 cm of this spike, the ball is going so fast that the camera could not even see it. It just evaporated into a blur until it slowed down from air resistance. Just imagine if that woman was as close as Payton was.
Cis women are fully capable of causing these types of injuries.
To review…
They villainized a high school trans girl for hitting a ball only as fast as her cis counterparts.
They said she was a giant even though she is kinda short compared to other players.
They inferred only a trans girl could cause this type of injury even though it happens all the time.
They said she cackled like the Wicked Witch with no way to dispute the claim.
And then they gave her a bunch of money to repeat the narrative that they manufactured.
She even got to meet the president for selling her soul.
This is where anti-trans talking points come from. It is bad faith all the way down. Every claim is a lie or so twisted and out of context it might as well be a lie.
If athletes are allowed to compete, they should also be allowed to win.
Every single time I see a story where a trans athlete “blows out” the competition, their performance usually ends up not being quite as dominent as claimed.
When you look at the fastest 400m times in high school competition, it greatly adjusts the context.
In running, a second can be an eternity. Most world records are only a few tenths of a second apart. And this trans athlete is a full 7 seconds away from a record set by a cisgender high school runner.
According to the New York Post, 7 seconds is a blowout.
College runners are getting times under 50 seconds. And the world record is 47.60—a full 10 seconds faster.
This trans athlete can’t help it if she is in a league with a bunch of slowpokes. She won a race. She is pretty fast in relation to her direct competition. But she is not some spectacular speed demon who will dominate women’s running.
Her time wasn’t even at scholarship level.
And the second place finisher wasn’t even close to a “decent” time.
Also…
The vast majority of the world’s top sprinters are of West African descent. Just to give you an idea of the statistics, every world record holder in the men’s 100m dash since 1968 has been Black.
So they are basically cherry picking ideal circumstances to make a trans athlete look overpowered—as Portland only has a 5% Black population.
If this race happened in Atlanta instead of Portland, the trans runner probably would have won 10th place and this wouldn’t be a news story.
How to create a moral panic 101.
We’ve got another “dominant” trans athlete going viral.
While it is true that Redmond Sullivan has had two first place finishes in tournaments since transitioning, if you look at her record, you might notice this isn’t as dominant as claimed.
First I have to explain fencing ratings.
You have individual ratings A through E. The As are top fencers and Es (or unrated) fencers are the worst. The number after the rating is the year.
So a rating of A25 means you are a top level fencer in 2025.
Then you have event classes. They are also A through E but have an additional 1 through 4 difficulty variant.
The easiest tournament is E1.
It has 6 competitors and none of them have to be rated. So you are competing against poorly ranked people and have a much higher statistical chance of winning.
This is like playing basketball with all of your nerdiest friends and “accidentally” forgetting to invite Steve who is 6'4".
The hardest tournaments are A4.
This requires at least 64 competitors and must have at least 12 A-rated, 12 B-rated, and 12 C-rated fencers.
This is like being a 40 year old playing Halo against a hundred 12-year-olds all saying rude things about your mom while repeatedly headshotting you with ease.
If you look at Redmond’s two first place finishes, they were in E1 and D1 competitions. (A D1 requires 15 people with four of them E-rated.)
She had a decent statistical chance of winning because the competitors were few and poorly rated.
If you look at her only A4 tournament, she placed 172nd.
I’m not sure I would call someone who placed 172nd particularly dominant.
She currently has a “D” rating overall.
When fencing in men’s competitions, she was rated E. And she slightly improved to a D in women’s competitions—though this is only with 3 months of data. She ended 2024 with an E rating in women’s events. So maybe she improved to a D and a half.
No offense to Redmond, but she is not anywhere close to a top level fencer no matter which league she competes in.
Stephanie Turner, the kneeling transphobe, currently has an E rating and has never finished a year better than a D. By all accounts, she is evenly matched against Redmond and had a legit chance at winning the match. But it was an A2 tournament and she really had no chance of placing highly so I guess she figured this was a good opportunity to be a dipshit.
She is a coward who only took a stand when the stakes were lowest.
I’d also like to point out that Colin Rugg was quick to mention Redmond’s first place finishes, but failed to mention that in the very tournament with this kneeling protest, she got 24th place.
It really seems like these trans athletes aren’t trying to become dominant athletes by transitioning and they are just competing because they love it.
I mean, if I ever got 172nd place I’d probably hang up my rapier and just watch Zorro movies instead.
Frogworth! I have a question about how photography circles might view this, and I hesitate to ask reddit because it can be so... Well, you know.
But, in online painting/drawing circles, it's typically viewed as unprofessional to allow any shadow to show in a picture of a traditional piece of artwork, like a painting, ink drawing, sketch, etc. Is it the same in photography circles?
I ask because I think it's fun to play with allowing light and shade of the natural world to intrude on the drawn picture, especially when it Emphasizes the tone and emotion of the piece.
I'm definitely still gonna do it no matter what because I like how those techniques emphasize my work, but I AM curious how you lot view it!
I’ll be honest, I am not entirely sure what you are referring to. So if you could maybe give more context or examples, that might be helpful.
But I am happy to talk about the importance of shadows in photography. And hopefully by telling you everything I know about shadows, I will answer your question by accident.
Shadows are vital to most photography. One case I think of when shadows are a problem is if you are using lighting from multiple angles. This can cause some unattractive shadows forming in many directions.
(The following examples are not my photos except for the last one.)
It’s kind of a trade off. If you want sculpting light, you just have to accept the cluster of shadows.
And another example might be in a photo with a lot of dynamic range. If you have a bright sky and dark shadows, the camera may not be able to expose for both. So you have to choose which to prioritize.
Or you can do an HDR composite and combine multiple photos.
I would say for natural light genres, black and white photographers specialize in using shadows for their benefit. In many cases, they make the shadows their main subject.
I came very close to ranting about the misuse of ring lights again, but I managed to stay on topic.
Just remember, if you aren’t taking a close up picture of a face, a ring light is just a normal light with a giant hole where more light could have gone.
Okay, I snuck in a mini rant. Sorry. The rest… all shadows.
These AI dipshits have to be the least self aware people online right now.
Like, if I posted this, I would have to live out the rest of my life in the woods from the embarrassment.
YOU are the “crazy” in this scenario!
How are you not so embarrassed you have dyed your hair and moved to another country?
I just don’t understand people who are incapable of embarrassment or shame or guilt.
Honestly I feel a bit jealous. I feel shame and embarrassment for the tiniest stupid things. I don’t drink and I bought two bottles of wine for my product photography and I felt like I was breaking the law. When they were ringing me up and putting the bottles into opaque bags I felt so embarrassed.
Gotta put the wine in the naughty bags.
I’m an adult! I’m allowed to have wine! I have no moral opposition to it. I just can’t tolerate the taste. But my stupid brain makes me feel like I got away with something. And every time I look at these two unopened bottles of wine on my counter I get a little jolt of shame.
Imagine just being released from that entire realm of feelings. What must that be like?
But it’s clear without shame and guilt and embarrassment you end up being an AI dipshit, so perhaps the lesson here is to not take those feelings for granted. They have a purpose and I am lucky to feel them. I just wish the volume dial wasn’t turned up to 11 for me.
This guy thinks he was just participating in some harmless fun meme shit. And he takes 0 accountability for reveling in an entire group of artists losing their livelihood to slop. All the while proving exactly why we need those artists with a grossly embarrassing armleg.
…I thought the pic with the armleg was supposed to be sarcastic. I did not understand the gravity of the situation at all.
Yeah a lot of people are assuming this was some kind of next level meta joke.
I’m afraid not. This dude is all-in on the AI dipshittery.
These AI dipshits have to be the least self aware people online right now.
Like, if I posted this, I would have to live out the rest of my life in the woods from the embarrassment.
YOU are the “crazy” in this scenario!
How are you not so embarrassed you have dyed your hair and moved to another country?
I just don’t understand people who are incapable of embarrassment or shame or guilt.
Honestly I feel a bit jealous. I feel shame and embarrassment for the tiniest stupid things. I don’t drink and I bought two bottles of wine for my product photography and I felt like I was breaking the law. When they were ringing me up and putting the bottles into opaque bags I felt so embarrassed.
Gotta put the wine in the naughty bags.
I’m an adult! I’m allowed to have wine! I have no moral opposition to it. I just can’t tolerate the taste. But my stupid brain makes me feel like I got away with something. And every time I look at these two unopened bottles of wine on my counter I get a little jolt of shame.
Imagine just being released from that entire realm of feelings. What must that be like?
But it’s clear without shame and guilt and embarrassment you end up being an AI dipshit, so perhaps the lesson here is to not take those feelings for granted. They have a purpose and I am lucky to feel them. I just wish the volume dial wasn’t turned up to 11 for me.
This guy thinks he was just participating in some harmless fun meme shit. And he takes 0 accountability for reveling in an entire group of artists losing their livelihood to slop. All the while proving exactly why we need those artists with a grossly embarrassing armleg.
You can’t just keep adding more of them to get more macro. All you are doing is reducing the amount of light reaching the sensor and making it harder to take your photo.
All lenses have a minimum focusing distance (A) and a minimum working distance (B).
The minimum focus distance is measured from the sensor. This is the absolute closest distance where you can attain sharp focus on a subject. This is usually the spec the camera manufacturer gives you, but it isn’t very useful because it doesn’t take the length of the lens into consideration.
Minimum working distance is how close the end of your lens is to your subject. You figure this out by adding the flange distance (google it for your camera), and then add the length of your lens, and then subtract that from the minimum focus distance.
Whatever is leftover is how close you can get to stuff.
In this example, this is as close as the lens can get to the flower before it can no longer achieve sharp focus. If you get any closer, it will be blurry.
If you have a short working distance, this can be problematic for macro work. Your lens could create a shadow on your subject. You might be so close that you disturb the insects you are trying to shoot. You risk scratching your lens if you are shooting near rocks or other scratchy objects. So finding a macro lens with a decent working distance is always optimal. You can back off from your subject and get a lot of light in there and not have to worry so much about disturbing critters.
But if you don’t have a macro lens, you can increase the magnification of any lens by adding extension tubes. It is a low cost way to get into macro photography, but it isn’t a perfect solution.
There are a variety of ways to get macro level magnification.
Macro Lens
The easiest and highest quality way is to just buy a macro lens that does the level of magnification you desire. 1x is usually plenty for most people and is easy to work with. A macro lens will give you the sharpest results with little distortion and you don’t take as big of a sacrifice on the amount of light you can capture.
Macro Extension Tubes
Next easiest is extension tubes. I like these because they don’t change the quality of the lens. They are just hollow tubes. So if you have a really nice lens, tubes will not hinder its optical quality. But operating with a small working distance can be a huge pain. Also, make sure you get extension tubes with the electronic contacts. They allow your lens to still communicate with your camera so you can use autofocus and set the aperture. The ones you want will probably mention “autofocus” in their product description.
Reverse Lens Mount
These kinda suck. They flip your lens backwards so it magnifies the image. If you have ever looked through binoculars backward, they make everything look tiny and far away. Same concept.
Unfortunately there is no communication with your camera. So you have do manual focus and you have to “trick” your aperture into closing to the desired f-stop or use a lens with an aperture ring. If you don’t mind the lens being wide open, these are okay, but your depth of field is going to get razor thin.
Bellows
A less talked about option is macro bellows. You may have seen some old timey cameras with bellows.
Same thing. These work exactly like extension tubes but with much greater precision. You can dial in your working distance to the exact amount you need and you don’t have to take tubes on and off to do it. These can get pretty spendy, especially if you don’t want to lose communication with your camera body.
Technical Cameras
These are basically advanced bellows systems with tilt and shift mechanisms built in. The technical camera goes between your lens and your camera body. Since macro work has a shallow depth of field, the tilt and shift feature allows you to change the angle of the depth of field to be more advantageous. Especially if you are photographing flat subjects from an angled point of view. In some cases you can avoid focus stacking when greater depth of field is needed.
Close-up Lens
Another lower cost solution is close-up lenses (diopters). These are just magnifying lenses that screw onto the end of your normal lens. I personally don’t care for this option because these lenses are never going to have the optical quality of your actual lens. So they could greatly soften your results if they aren’t made well. You might get similar results just cropping your image and using an upscaler. It just depends on the magnification level and the quality of the glass they use.
If you don’t need professional quality, this is a very convenient, non-pain-in-the-ass way to get macro magnification. You can easily take them on and off and they can fit in your pocket. As a fun bonus, you can manually hold them in front of your smartphone if you want.
Microscope Objectives
These are microscope systems that are adapted to fit onto a regular camera body. A company called Laowa just released their Aurogon objectives which give you 10x, 20x, 35x, and 50x magnification.
These are for extremely advanced users. When you get beyond 2x, taking sharp, high quality photos becomes very difficult. You need special equipment and sliders and stabilization and your floors usually need to be concrete. Or you need some kind of super heavy table to place your subject on. I have seen one person set a block of marble on a table to keep things stable.
Some very good macro artists were able to take the 10x objective out into the woods on big, heavy tripods and get decent results, but they had years of experience to help them. For most, it really is best to work in a studio. These objectives need very long exposures or a ton of light to work well.
While these are difficult to work with, in the right hands, you can do some cool microscopy.
For a novice, I would say staying in the realm of 1-2x is probably best.
You can get a 2x macro lens for under $500 if don’t need autofocus.
Also, you can combine a few of the methods above. You can reverse a lens and attach it to another lens. You can use extension tubes with a reversed lens. Or a close-up lens with extension tubes. Lots of ways to experiment. Just remember the more complicated you make it, the harder it will be to get good results.
And if you are really serious about macro, I highly suggest investing in a focusing rail. This will allow you to do focus stacking to avoid the super shallow depth of field, but also make manual focusing much easier. (which is usually best for super close up stuff)
The most famous protest in US history was peaceful and effective.
I just don’t think these tiny protests with people waving snarky signs are doing much at the moment.
Activism and protesting need to be strategic and organized. If you can only convince 20 people to stand outside a Tesla dealership, that probably won’t do much.
If you get 250,000, that is another story.
Smaller peaceful protests can work if you do them right. Like say, filling the lobby of Trump Tower.
I think activism requires action from many vectors. Sometimes that does require civil disobedience. Vandalizing Teslas seems to be scaring people into selling them or just not buying them.
And the boycotts in Europe are plunging the stock. If Elon loses the company, that would be huge. Apparently he used his Tesla stock as collateral to buy Twitter.
But the Left’s biggest issue right now is lack of organization. We are so splintered. We are riddled with infighting. And it doesn’t help that Democratic leadership is… uninspiring.
I really hope we can get our shit together soon. I think AOC and Bernie and Tim Walz doing town halls in red districts is a good start. The Republican leadership has directed reps to avoid speaking to the people.
Numbers work. I think they work better than anything. Authorities are scared of numbers which helps with the peaceful part. And if shit goes down, the authorities end up looking bad. When police arrested 60,000 people during Gandhi’s Salt March, it was a real bad look. Because it was just a bunch of people walking and making their own salt.
I think activism needs to make our leaders fear the populace. But we also have to win hearts and minds. And sometimes those goals can be conflicting or we forget about one over the other.
There were ~90,000,000 people that did not vote in the presidential election. If we could reach them and win the House back, that could really limit the damage.
So we need to not just fuck shit up.
We need to win hearts and minds. Make some motherfucking salt.
If it were me in charge, I’d start organizing mass acts of compassion.
Set up food drives in places where egg prices are highest. Give out some free eggs.
Set up a job fair in places that have mass government job losses. Find small local businesses that are hiring. Have clothing donations for job interviews and people to help write resumes.
Set up free mobile health clinics in deep red places that are about to lose Medicaid. Free check ups for kids and veterans and anyone else. And some vaccines to piss off RFK Jr.
If we organize and help the people who Trump is hurting, we can win those hearts and minds.
Don’t give up on peaceful action as a tool. If done right, it can be more powerful than anything else.
I enjoy a good Cybertruck vandal as much as the next person, but seeing collective action on this scale gives me much more hope.
Peace can work.
Just gotta have the numbers.
I think there are too many people on the Left who fall victim to zero sum thinking or one-or-the-other solutions. Almost every systemic issue requires a multifaceted approach.
Using more than one tactic is not going to impede progress.
Despite getting the lion’s share of the credit, Dr. King was not successful on his own. He was a great organizer and put a very needed respectable face on the Civil Rights Movement. But the Black Panthers and Malcolm X and other more militant groups all contributed. Fear and peace worked together.
Non-violent activism does not work alone. But it is still an important tool. Its effectiveness is very dependent on how well you wield it.
Also… violence begets violence.
Asking people to risk prison or even their lives is… a lot.
The goal is for all of us to survive this. Wanting to live is not a privilege. There are always going to be people willing to take big risks for progress, but we cannot expect that sacrifice from everyone.
Peaceful action is all some of us are able to contribute.
Okay, let’s think this through using the basic science of electromagnetism.
This is the EM spectrum. This spectrum is basically a depiction of how energetic the waves are. High energy is on the left. Low energy is on the right.
Mobile phones receive and transmit microwaves. Microwaves are very low energy. Which means it takes a lot of effort for them to be harmful.
A real life example would be a microwave oven. It takes a thousand watts before microwaves are able to cook our food. And it still takes a while before that energy can cook the center of a Hot Pocket.
A mobile phone’s max output is 3 watts, but if it is close to a tower, it could operate as low as 0.001 watts.
UV light is much higher energy. The sun outputs a lot of UV light. You can lay out in the sun for a long time and it will give you a hell of a sunburn, but it still does not have enough energy to penetrate past a few layers of skin.
Think about that.
The power of the sun. Blasting you with UV for hours. 1000 watts per square meter. And it doesn’t even come close to reaching your brain.
Even if your brain was exposed and you blasted it directly with 3 watts of microwaves for hours and hours, it would not have the energy required to do any significant damage.
This is stupid. We can literally test and measure this.
Fun fact… our brains irradiate themselves.
Nonionizing electromagnetic energy can only harm organic material by generating heat. More energy, more heat.
Our brains generate heat. Most of that heat is in the infrared range.
Our brains are just cooking inside our domes all our life. Constantly radiating. If our brains get too hot, problems ensue.
So the only way microwave radiation can harm our brains is by heating them beyond standard operating temperature.
Our brains produce about 20 watts.
Which means our brains are irradiating themselves with 6.6 times the energy of a mobile phone at max output.
Our brains are producing dangerous radiation!
Clearly we need to shut down our brains so we don’t harm our brains.
Explain Cornelius Vanderbilt being a billionaire in his own age then. You know the guy who revolutionized Atlantic trade shipping and passenger liners making them safer and more efficient.
Oh well battling your actual monopolies at the time You know the ones that were actually given their right by Congress.
There was a time in our own history where the self-made man was very much a real thing You fuckers came in and destroyed that dream. Now if you want to make it in the world you better fucking get into politics because that’s the only field sort of left to you what’s more is that you’re oftentimes just looking at people who had some degree of investment and were able to turn that into a great deal more which frankly most people cannot fucking do so if you’re saying that it doesn’t matter the kind of person it doesn’t matter what their ability is it doesn’t matter any of their skill or intelligence or anything else why can’t you take that same amount of money and do anything but squander it.
If you were given the amount of money many of these people have you would not be able to rise to 1/10 they have.
Because do you it requires nothing from you no 16 hour work week no thinking as hard as you can and making deals a smartly as you can while you’re tired you’re stressed you’ve gotten four hours of sleep You haven’t had anything to eat You’re going from junk food to junk food because that’s what they have available. You are not capable to be a businessman and yet you’re looking at an entire profession where there are winners and losers every single day and going you know I don’t think any of the people who are winning or doing it by any degree of skill.
Cool rant.
Vanderbilt had a railroad empire in the mid 1800s.
As you know, railroad workers were famously well paid and well treated for their labor.
Working on railways was so dangerous they hired “railway surgeons” to attend to limbs being crushed and severed.
Obviously they were given a decent salary for their high risk labor, right?
A whopping $350!
Per year.
About $15,000 today.
The Commodore died of old age with an inflation adjusted net worth of over $2 billion (about $100,000,000).
He sent men to die for 350 bucks.
You cannot become a billionaire without exploiting labor.
Oh no building a rail road is incredibly dangerous work unlike all the other professions at the time that were totally safe and paid so well. Good context. Especially when you consider that this was low to no skilled labor, and you paid for their food, which allowed them to work and save up a years wages.
Also real talk, you think all labor is exploitation save for the actual kind you extort by force. Robbery to you is moral, but all voluntary action which isn’t self sacrificial, is immoral.
Dont pretend like it matters the kind of work, you dont care and it doesn’t matter to you because you see all labor as exploitation.
And again, then just get rich exploiting labor. Do it. See how well it works. See if all it takes is to get ahold of labor to exploit.
Cool second rant.
I’ve got an assignment for you.
Please build a 100 foot section of railway.
Since it requires no skills, I’m sure you can manage.
I will give you a $20 gift card to Subway during construction.
….you know that is my argument right?
That you cant build a rail road because as unskilled labor you would have to be shown how to do it, by someone managing or running the effort? Say someone who founded the entire proposition.
Or are you trying to make an argument like there is no such thing as unskilled labor.
Apparently there is because you and I would need to be taught how to do this. The difference is the scale of those skills.
Do me a favor take someone off the street and with minimal time training get him to not only build but then run a nuclear reactor. You would not be able to if that person was not a nuclear engineer. Which is the point of skilled versus unskilled labor is that the scale of that skills required is different based around how much time and knowledge needs to go in to training that person to do those particular jobs.
This is kind of the point that you’re not getting You’re making my argument for me. You’re trying to claim skilled labor exist but whenever it comes to the upper levels of that skilled labor suddenly it’s just an illusion nobody gets there by war hard work or virtuous ethics or any number of things It’s all just an illusion. According to your worldview skilled labor is something that does not fucking exist.
Fuck skill intelligent labor is something that doesn’t exist. Or virtuous labor doesn’t exist I’ve virtually existence doesn’t exist unless it is on one’s knees groveling before the worst of humankind.
I know it’s a wild fucking concept you guys because you guys will take random people off the street throw them on an island without any tools or seeds and then smile and watch as they eat each other and create the man-made hell that was thought to be at a nightmare dreamed up by guilty theologians.
Look up Stalin’s cannibal Island if you don’t know what I’m talking about.
All the labor in the world on that island did not produce a singular piece of bread but it did produce a lot of human meat particularly female breast if the survivors are to be believed. Because it was a microcosm of the Soviet Union how it operated how it thought how it worked. And that is your spiritual and actual sum.
Your labor theory of value is not only wrong it is entirely irrational.
How you guys continue on with this theory that does not make sense and cannot be made to make sense is beyond me. But then again you were likely introduced to it much later on when you were already fine with the conclusions of your system when you had already fully sold yourself to that system.
Cool third rant.
About eating… boobs?
Considering you don’t seem to understand what unskilled labor actually is, I don’t think I helped your argument, no.
Unskilled labor is generally considered to be any labor that takes minimal or no training to do.
In your example, railway workers are most certainly not unskilled—as they required extensive training by a mentor. Which you kindly demonstrated for me.
“To be shown how to do it” is called training, friend.
And are you suggesting that Commodore Cornelius was out on the train tracks teaching workers how to pound spikes and bend steel?
I do believe unskilled labor exists. As a teenager I once got a job stuffing newspapers with advertisements. It took about 10 minutes to learn. But I also think people label a lot of skilled labor as “unskilled” because they think certain jobs are beneath them. Like AOC being a bartender or fast food workers just “flipping burgers.” But both of those jobs require extensive training and skill. I personally think the stamina to be on your feet all day in a hot kitchen is a skill. But that is a different conversation.
As far as *actual* unskilled labor, it is almost always tedious, monotonous, repetitive work or it is grueling physical labor. Perhaps these jobs are easy to learn, but the labor should still be valued due to the discipline required. For repetitive jobs, people are usually sacrificing their mental health. For hard labor jobs, people are sacrificing their physical health.
These are jobs most people can’t or won’t do. But they are often essential jobs that need to be done for a company or even a society to function. If someone is breaking their back carrying boxes all day, they are most likely going to end up with chronic pain. They deserve a living wage and healthcare even if their job is easily taught to them.
I think the whole “unskilled” vs “skilled” labor debate is a distraction. The real discussion should be undervalued vs overvalued labor.
Starbucks laid off 1100 workers.
And then gave their CEO $96 million for 4 months of work.
Which labor do you think had more value?
Do you think that guy did more work than 1100 people? Do you think Starbucks would be unable to sling coffee if that guy had been laid off instead?
You came at me all grumpy idolizing the literal first robber baron because he was “self made” and I am just trying to explain…
No billionaire is self made.
In your other example you said the nuclear engineer could build a reactor and run it. That’s not true. He doesn’t know how to pour concrete. He doesn’t know the job of every technician required to run things. It’s a massive collaboration and all of the workers are vital to creating something on that scale. They all have value, including the engineer. They should all get a living wage, even if that means the people funding the project end up as millionaires instead of billionaires.
If you think I am opposed to wealth, you are mistaken. I am opposed to wealth hoarding. I am opposed to obscene wealth that can only be achieved through immoral means.
Put simply, I want all labor to be properly valued.
I’m sure Cornelius worked hard for his money. I’m sure he had many impressive skills. But no one should die with three billion in the bank. He had more money than he could spend in many lifetimes. He withheld that from the economy. And he let his workers lose their limbs or even die for a pittance.
His success was built on the back of exploited workers and that is nothing to be admired.
It is a lesson we should learn from.
In case you don’t want to read all that… I’m pretty sure I’ve figured out how to distill this person’s argument down into a sentence.
If we don’t bring back 1800s-style billionaires we’re all going to end up on a soviet island eating boobs.
And my argument would be…
Fuck The Commodore, fuck billionaires, pay people a living wage.
Also, if anyone builds the 100 foot railroad, I was serious about that gift card. That’s like 2 solid feet of sandwich artistry.
Beer is a popular subject for product photography. I’ve never really had alcohol and when I went to buy beer for the first time at the age of 35, I felt like I was doing something illegal. My brain was all, “Are they really going to let me buy the grown up juice?” despite being a grown up. “I’m just using it for photos. I swear!”
This photo was a good learning opportunity. I put a lot of thought into finding a neat mug and getting the lighting perfect. I put a little reflector behind the glass so the beer would look like it was glowing. And to really elevate things I made DIY condensation. Water and clear syrup in a spray bottle to get those cool water drops on the glass.
SO MUCH EFFORT!
I took the photo and at first glance on the little camera display I thought it was quite successful. I was feeling good about my first beer photo.
But then I looked at the photo on my computer and thought…
“This looks like a giant mug of pee.”
I suddenly realized why all product photos of beer include foam at the top.
(not my photo)
Always remember the foam.
Otherwise you’ve just taken the world’s classiest photo of a urine sample.
The photo of the beer bottle was a little more successful.
I got Corona because it was the Fast & Furious beer. Then I learned many think it tastes like piss. So perhaps my original picture was just truth in advertising.
I did actually end up trying the beer. I drank half a cup and then barfed in disgust. Almost did the same thing at my First Communion after sipping the blood of Christ. Jesus should really improve the taste of his blood. Or… just spitballing here… the sweat of Christ but it’s Sprite.
I don’t think I was ever meant to drink alcohol, is what I’m saying.
Perhaps I’ll give a fancy cocktail a chance at some point. Drown the horrible alcohol taste with fruit and sugar and novelty umbrellas.
