rocketfeuille

Yeah- those damned flashes have a way of adding their own shadows.

I agree with Brains. The photographer sat down low with a wide angle lens, giving the moose's head an enlarged appearance. The hunter, being further away from the lens, appears to shrink.

I looked at the Toyota Corolla (too common, too vanilla), the Honda Civic (also too common, too vanilla), the Mazda3 (questionable Mazda reliability, looks designed for high-schoolers), the Mini Cooper (too mini for the daughter I was expecting at the time and have in the backseat of my Jetta from time to time), and the Focus (questionable reliability, ugly). Ultimately, my decision came down to the car I would enjoy driving the most. That was the Jetta. Easily the best-driving car of the lot (except for the Mini, but like I said, the Mini was too small). I also liked that it packed the longest list of standard features. Most of the other cars jumped substantially in price once they were equipped similiarly to the Jetta. And, with the daughter on the way, the Jetta's high safety rating was a major selling point. I think it got the highest possible rating for rear seat safety or the highest rating in its class. And I totally agree with mx757 on everything he's said about the diesel engine. It's great.

The longer the lens, the flatter the image. The planes are pretty spankin' close, but they're not that close. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if, in the second photo, the top plane was actually flying next to (not directly above) the bottom plane. The astounding thing about the Blue Angels photos is that they were taken with a wide angle lens (evidenced by the distortion at the edges of the frame). So the planes in those pictures are actually closer than they appear.

I've always like VW as a company, and have always found their design appealing. I bought a 2004 Jetta TDI last summer and love it. Of all the cars I considered (the Mazda3 included) it was easily the most fun to drive. No problems so far, at 22k miles. The customer service has been exceptional. The oil changes on the diesel are more expensive, but you only have to do them every 10k miles, so you're paying more less often. My routine maintenance (oil changes, etc) have not been covered by my warranty. I'm considering the Passat for my wife.

Does anyone have it? Do you usually have to pay an additional fee to your cellphone provider to access your email with your phone?

Thanks for the tips, everybody. Appreciate it.

I know this question isn't related to skydiving photography, but I figured that you guys would be the most help. I've been a serious amateur for a few years, just hobbying. Well, when some friends of mine got engaged this year, I did their engagement photos. As a result, they asked me to shoot their wedding as well. I agreed to do both for free because they're good friends and I didn't know any better. The engagement photos were pretty easy, but the only other free wedding I ever shoot will be for family. Anyway, now that people have seen the pictures they got, I've had some calls from people who want to hire me for family photos and a wedding. The problem is that I don't know how much to charge. Obviously, I'm new in the business and have very little reputation built for myself, but I honestly have no idea where to start in determining rates. I'm shooting digital, by the way. Any help or advice you guys can offer would be very much appreciated. Here's a sample.

The General in my pants.

update...

I don't own one, but have heard the BOSE iPod system and think it sounds great. On the same level as the wave radio, which is amazing. If I had the money, i would already own one.

I love my 2004 Jetta TDI. I am in love with it. Hands down, the most fun I've ever had in an economy car.

But I like it! Well, maybe I'm wrong. It's been known to happen. I have been told by at least three people that their HP iPods didn't work when they tried to use them with a Mac.

A couple of people have recommended getting the HP version of the iPod. If you ask me, I'd advise against it. The HP version is ONLY compatible with windows. The apple version, when configured on a PC, can be used on PC and Mac. If you ever go back and forth between platforms, even if it's just to use the iPod as an external drive, you'll need the cross-platform capability.

I used to be strictly Canon when I was working with film, but when I made the switch to digital, I found Nikon more appealing. I love the D70 and hated having to use a friend's digital rebel for a project. If you can wait, grab the D70s when it comes to market. The new remote cinches it as the better camera.

I'll probably be crucified for this post on such a canon-centric board, but unless you're moving up to a professional body (i.e. 20d), the nikons are the better cameras. The D70 is far superior to the digital rebel in tone, saturation, compression, and advanced shooting features. I know that the D70 doesn't have a remote switch, which is the ONLY thing I haven't loved about mine, but the D70s comes out soon and it will have a remote. And if you're not really looking to skydive with it, you won't need the remote anyway. The D70 will be dropping in price with the D70s coming out (and it comes with a better lens than the Canon anyway).

well, unfortunately for you, the scion is a car-based car. and since it has roughly the same drag coefficient as a brick, the gas mileage isn't really that great (i know, i know... it's still better than a truck.)

My wife just gave birth to our first child, Ethne Anne. We found out in the hospital that my wife's student insurance bites the big one. They encouraged us to look into medicaid. I always thought we were poor, but I never thought we were THAT poor. Turns out we are. I'm going into the local office Monday to apply, but I'm wondering if anybody here knows how hard Medicaid is to deal with... Thanks. By the way, my jumping is not an out-of-pocket expense. I'm not letting my wife and child waste away to nothing because I'm blowing the grocery money on fun...

Also, if Will doesn't want all his music on a single playlist, you can right-click the iPod mini icon on the left side of iTunes, and select 'options'. Then, click through the tabs until you find the updating options. Click the box that says you want to manually update the songs on this iPod. It will only affect his iPod, not yours, and will allow him to create and modify playlists within his library, like you might or might not have done with your iPod. Good luck.

I don't know anything about the Shuffle, but I love my iPod. Actually, I am in love with it. I got one for my birthday last year, and thought to myself, "If I ever lose this thing, that's it. It's too expensive to replace." Well, I thought I had lost it this summer, and was going crazy. I was immediately thinking of how I could come up with the money to replace it. I'm more addicted to my iPod than junkies are to heroin.

What about carryout? I'm definitely not tipping if I'm picking up my own pizza, but what do you do when you pick your food up from a restaurant like Outback or Chili's? Tip them for handing you a box and ringing up the total?

I think your husband probably feels taken-advantage-of. Giving up a weekend of skydiving is not the same as not skydiving because you have something else to do. He probably feels like you're taking advantage of the fact that you have these commitments coming up and wouldn't be skydiving anyway.

Proctor and Gamble is sure to have a list of the advertising agencies they have used over the years. Ask them if they can provide you with the contact information of the agency they had enlisted at the time and call them. Many advertising agencies archive all the work they've done. Good luck!

I read in some of the early reports on the plane that the door-side wing would be padded and reinforced... Is it? Can you exit from the wing itself?

I haven't received mine, either.