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It took years for David Archuleta to finally come out as gay. When he did, he also announced that he was stepping away from the LDS church. He said that he didn't hear from his Mother for a few days, and that he thought that she was very upset with him. After a few more days she called him. She said that she was also stepping away from the church of LDS. She told him that if the church couldn't accept him as he was, she couldn't be a part of the church, and he and she could go to hell together. So he wrote this song. Great Mom!

I've owned a bunch of film bodies over the years, including two Canon SLRs. I had a Rebel G in the mid 00s and put a number of rolls of film through it. I got rid of it, but I no longer remember the circumstances. I have to this day a Rebel K2, which is very consumer grade, but it works. Paradoxically, I exposed fewer total frames with the K2, but I worked much harder with it. Last summer I blew the metaphorical and physical dust off the K2 and ran some slide and print film through it. I still haven't developed any of the above, but that's another matter. The first task the Rebel presented me with was cleaning the ...gunk that the soft touch plastic grips had become. I had to do the same thing with the Lecia P&S I stumbled upon as well as my IR-modified PowerShot G2. Soft grips are the devil. When I got rid of the Rebel G, I kept its kit lens, which is a boring 35-80mm zoom. I also still have the K2's kit lens, which is an absolutely abysmal 28-90mm. The 28-90 is so fantastically bad it's kind of amazing. It's not "silly lo-fi lens" bad like the Holga 60mm F/8: The 28-90 is both boring and bad: not very sharp at any aperture, wretched color transmission and very poor contrast. It also has impressive amounts of barrel distortion throughout its zoom range. I'm not one who complains about distortion under normal circumstances. I shot with the infamous EF-S 17-85mm for years, which is a goddamn fisheye at the wide end. Last week I had the bright idea to clean up both the 35-80 and 28-90 and strap them to my 30MP 5D4. I actually haven't shot with the former, but I gave the latter quite a workout and it returned were a frothy mix of bad and boring. Fool that I am, I spent considerable time editing some of the better shots. Morning Glory Farm. F/13 at the wide end. The unedited photo lacked color, most sharpness and contrast. The distortion is present here but largely irrelevant. My back yard. Zoomed almost all the way in (88mm) and wide open (F/5.6). Were I shooting seriously, I'd have bumped up the ISO considerably and stopped way down. I also used a LUT, which helped add some color. Hilariously artificial skies above Sweetened Water Farm. F/14 at the wide end. The most famous little shack on MV. 35mm and F/11. As was true for all of the above images, I spent ages editing this one in Luminar 4 (including applying a LUT to it) and then Photoshop. For this one in particular I went as far as comparing this shot to other photos I'd taken of the same building to correct the barrel distortion as much as I could. I will never shoot with the 28-90 again. I'm thinking about donating it to the local charity shop. I'm going to try out the 35-80 this weekend. It can't be any worse ...can it? I'm going back to my trusty 50mm F/1.8 Mark I once this little experiment finishes.

OK, foregoing the twink harem. Still very matchy... Aqua LaDiva CD transport. Nagra Streamer. Nagra Reference Anniversary Turntable. Lyra Atlas SL Lambda MC cartridge. Nagra HD Phono. Nagra HD DAC. Nagra HD Preamp. Nagra HD Monoblock Amps. Vivid Audio Giya G1 Spirit speakers.

Accidental double exposure and accidental cat.

Rare sight in NH - northern lights visible due to a significant solar storm. It was clearly visible and photographed more impressively than it looked. Still fun.

@Absorbine_Sr already has tickets through Steve Vai's website.