Day 166: Dave & Frankie

Day 164: Joe

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Day 163: Mary in Peril

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Day 159: Archie McArthur

Meet Archie McArthur, an Aussie entomologist visiting AMNH for a week before heading up to Harvard on Sunday. Archie was a farmer for most of his life and took an interest in ants when he retired, since becoming a world authority on certain species.  He even wrote a book. Oh ya, did I mention that he’s 89 years old?  Click to enlarge.

So in order to take the macro shot of different ant species under controlled conditions, Archie, who was a radar repairman during WWII, built his own rig complete with 4 independently controllable flashes on top, bottom, and sides. As well as a ring of LEDs which act as a ringlight to set focus. He shoots tethered into Nikon Capture and then uses a utility to merge the depth of field of a series of shots. It’s nuts and this guy thought of everything, amazing stuff.   You wish you were half as cool as Archie on your best day.

Day 154: Craig

Day 152: Self-Portrait

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Day 150: Blustery Conrad

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Day 149: Samar

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Day 147: Kyle MacDonald

This is Kyle MacDonald. You may know him as the guy who traded a red paperclip up to a house back in 2005. He’s currently in NYC because he and a bunch of artist friends went and bought everything in a bodega in the village (the owner rang everything up one by one on an old school cash register) and then set up select pieces in an art gallery on the lower east side. You can read more at: www.storebuyout.com. He’s an interesting character to say the least.

Actually we originally got in touch about my 365 Portraits project in 2007 but couldn’t make the dates work in the end. So in some ways this picture is 5 years in the making.  Nice guy, I’m sure we’ll stay in touch for future shenanigans.

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Day 143: Claudia & First Woman

Claudia is my neighborhood buddy and as you can see she’s got an adorable little girl.  The little one’s cuteness seriously almost gives my nephew Bert a run for his money. Almost.
Claudia, that’s the mom, is also a member of  The Magnetic Fields You probably already know who they are. Go buy some of their music if you don’t have it already. 69 Love Songs seems to be the favorite of most of my friends.

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