Pretty unproductive day yesterday again. Something something stress something something.
We *finally* delivered some code at work, but then the users came back immediately and said the bug was still there. Omfg. Computers were a mistake. We should go back to stone tablets.
Met with my lender. That was the big thing. I now have clarity in my life. I closed on the house I'm currently in on 3/9. Laws for federally backed mortgages say I need to wait a full year before changing residences, but there's a loophole that says I can close on another house 2 months before the end of the year, and then officially change residences after those two months. So my earliest close date is 1/9. Since closing contracts are for 1 month, that means I can start making offers on 12/9 without potentially committing mortgage fraud and going to jail for 5-10. So now I have my deadline - get *everything* ready to go by December 9th. Additionally, I'm meeting again with my lender in early November to lock in my pre-approval, so I need to have my finances all squared away to make that work.
So,
- Get everyone on long term leases, which will help the lender get me a better deal.
- Get all financial stuff squared away. Finish changing banks, go through my statements and cull any unnecessary recurring expenses.
- Read up on general principles of STRs
- Read up on principles of interior decorating
- Find an agent.
- Crunch numbers to figure out my boundaries for making a profit.
Got my workout in with my coach. She's stoked on teaching me to clean, and I'm stoked on learning it. Workouts remain the highlights of my week.
Didn't shoot at all yesterday. Need to get back on that horse. However, I did finish sorting and editing my backlog of photos.
Casual 2:
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Messed up the framing of the shot here a bit. Should have been more diligent about that. It also feels like there is something "off" about my shot. Part of it is probably that the model is wearing more expensive pants than me, and so it doesn't quite look like he's wearing tights. But I think the other is that the model's excess ink is doing the job of contrasting with the white clothes he's wearing.
Casual 3:
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Messed up the framing on this one too. Here, I accidentally set the focus too close to the camera when lining up my shot, so all my good shots have me taking up too much of the frame compared to the shot I'm reproducing. Also, I should have shot from a higher angle. The model's expression in the reference shot is curious, humble, maybe a bit surprised. But the lower camera angle makes me give off a looking-down-my-nose-at-you vibe. Not necessarily the worst for a dating pic, I suppose, but not what I was trying to reproduce.
Casual 5:
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I have a habit of looking too far to the side in a lot of shots. I think when I'm doing a shot that requires looking to the side, I need to, review photos often to make sure I'm getting my angles right. As I mentioned in a previous post, the hoity-toity city slicker look really ain't my jam, so when getting the outfit for this shot I just went to the thrift store and grabbed the first coat that fit me well enough. As a result, in this shot I look like the captain of a fine sailing vessel, perhaps destined for the East Indies. I might actually keep the coat for costume parties.
Casual 6:
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Fucked up the angles again. My body should be rotated more camera left. Also, looking to far off to the side. Shots are a bit overexposed, too, so I should have stepped down the shutter speed a bit more.
Casual 7:
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I think it's the pose more than anything, but I look fuckin' slick in these shots. And yeah, watch is on the wrong wrist because I reversed the shot. Overall, these came out pretty good.
Casual 8:
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One minor thing here is that my legs are spread too far apart to match the model's. The bigger issue, though, is the expression. The model's expression conveys a vibe of empathizing with someone or maybe giving advice. Most of the expressions in my shots were on point in the regard that it looks like I'm responding to someone, but miss the mark in that my expression says "are you shitting me?" Might just say something about my personality.
Dog 7:
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Fucked this one up for sure. Unfortunate because it *should have been* the easiest dog shot. But my pose is totally off the mark - I'm giving off nice guy vibes, instead of the I-might-sic-my-dogs-on-you-for-fun vibes of the model. Also, absolutely fucked up the shot itself, as I forgot to increase the depth of field to account for two subjects, so Lulu is blurry in all the shots.
Dog 8:
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I gave up on trying to get an exact replica here, since Lulu is not puppy sized, and would have *hated* modelling this shot. I settled for having her lay down in my lap. Went ok. Never really got the right angle unfortunately.
Dog 10:
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This one was always a long shot, and I was actually pretty surprised with how well a lot of these shots came out. Except that I didn't notice my boxers riding up when I was shooting. Fuck. I could crop them out, but it would have been better if I just noticed during the shoot.
Dog 11:
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Lulu doesn't have nearly enough floof to really get this shot right, but the law of large numbers was in effect, and I actually got a few semi-decent shots. Unfortunately, the best ones look like I'm going in for a romantic kiss with a dog.
Hobbies 4:
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Weird problem in this shot - I really had to filter out a lot of shots where I look too confident or aggressive, and instead find shots where I look more nervous and apprehensive to match the model's expression. Also, fucked up the focus somehow... My shoe is more in focus than my face, which is annoying.
Hobbies 11:
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Absolute trash. I was just rushing to get my shot in for the day.
Sports 2:
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I simply couldn't get the camera back far enough to get my whole body in this shot. Real issue is that the model and I have *very* different proportions, and I think his bench is just legitimately taller than the one I had on hand. Low light made this shot a challenge, with the requisite longer exposure time resulting in a lot of blurred images. Should have experimented with bumping the iso a bit more.
Travel 7:
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Not bad. The bench was higher than the one in the reference shot, so I had to make some adjustments. Also, it would have been better if I just bought some white shorts instead of using the cargo shorts I had on-hand. The real challenge was getting the glasses in the right shot. When shooting, I just repetitively took them off - but way too many of the shots ended up with either glasses all the way on, or all the way off, limiting the number of shots I had to choose from later to match the reference shot. Instead, I should have tried posing in the exact position I wanted, or else taken the glasses off very slowly through the range I was trying to capture.
So, on the docket today:
- Tour a girl, see if she'll sign.
- Meal prep for the week
- Go through all the shots I took, see if any could go on my OLD profiles
- Get a physique shot
- Go through credit card statements to find cullable charges.
Oh yeah, and small victory - after working out with my friend Monday, we were hanging out in the kitchen while I still had my shirt off. My cute female roommate gave me an up-down with her eyes when she walked in. Really really obviously a case of don't shit where you eat, but a nice ego boost nonetheless.
Keto day 8: 180.5