Details of how a working photographer, Rod Mar, goes about taking a feature photo.

Rod works at the Seattle Times and shares his thought processes from the initial concept, through the shoot and including the post processing done in Photoshop.

On Monday, we ran a photo of Sonics rookie Kevin Durant that I had the privilege of shooting a couple of weeks ago.

The planning took weeks.

The shoot took about 15 minutes.

Found via Strobist.com.

In the New York Times, Thomas L. Friedman writes:

People often ask: I want to get greener, what should I do? New light bulbs? A hybrid? A solar roof? Well, all of those things are helpful. But actually, the greenest thing you can do is this: Choose the right leaders. It is so much more important to change your leaders than change your light bulbs.

Take the New York City taxi story. Two years ago, David Yassky, a City Council member, sat down with one of his backers, Jack Hidary, a technology entrepreneur, to brainstorm about how to make New York City greener — at scale. For starters, they checked with the Taxi and Limousine Commission to see what it would take to replace the old gas-guzzling Crown Victoria yellow cabs, which get around 10 miles a gallon, with better-mileage, low-emission hybrids.

On May 22, Mayor Michael Bloomberg, one of the greenest mayors in America, decided to push even further, insisting on a new rule, which the taxi commission has to approve, that will not just permit but require all cabs — 13,000 in all — to be hybrids or other low-emission vehicles that get at least 30 miles a gallon, within five years.

This is how scale change happens. When the Big Apple becomes the Green Apple, and 40 million tourists come through every year and take at least one hybrid cab ride, they’ll go back home and ask their leaders, “Why don’t we have hybrid cabs?”

So if you want to be a green college kid or a green adult, don’t fool yourself: You can change lights. You can change cars. But if you don’t change leaders, your actions are nothing more than an expression of, as Dick Cheney would say, “personal virtue.”

There will be no 12” MacBook Pro.

I’m a long time fan of the 12” PowerBook. Mine served me for more years than it should have. It is now being retired for use as a media center, as a black MacBook replaces it.

Almost everything is better. Nicer screen, faster processor, more memory, Intel Inside; you know the list.

The performance really is something. It will take some time to stop waiting for things to happen. Haskell code compiles quickly. And Ligthroom, my main reason for upgrading, is even more productive!

Here’s what I miss from my 12” PB:

• Industrial design - little things like rounded edges, the PB is nice to touch.
• Keyboard - the MacBook keyboard isn’t as nice to type on.
• Size - not much bigger but the MacBook isn’t as convenient as the 12”
• Heat - the PB stayed cooler than the MacBook, especially on long compiles

Otherwise, it is pretty much the same as the 12” PowerBook. This goes right down to the display adaptors. The SVideo/RGB video adaptor from my PowerBook works a treat. But I’m really going to miss the industrial design niceties from the Pro.