Hello! I'm JC Medina.

In a span of one year, I’ve transitioned from a Blackberry Bold 9700, an LG Optimus V and finally ending up with refurbished iPhone 4. 

The iPhone 4 has a great camera and has effectively replaced my Lumix LX3 as my point-and-shoot of choice. All that without taking up much real estate in my pocket. 

With the popularity of Instragram and other photo sharing apps, I’ve also replaced my original workflow up taking photos with my LX3 + doing a little bit of post-process work on Picnik (shutting down soon).

In celebration of New York City’s first snowfall in 2012, I trekked to Central Park for some cameraphone fun. While my photos aren’t really Explore/Popular material, it’s definitely “better” than what I would normally shoot. This is a walkthrough of my workflow. 

I started out with Photosynth, the great Microsoft (oh, the irony) photo stitching app available in the iOS app store. It’s free and has the amazing ability to produce really nice panoramas. I previously installed the 360 Panorama App ($0.99) but found the free Photosynth app more fun to use.

Far from perfect, there’s a handy feature within the app that allows you to Auto Crop the image above. Here’s the cleaned up version. 

Looking okay so far. I then opened the Camera+ App to do some editing via filters. Since this is snow and I wanted to establish contrast between the white fluffy ice and the trees, I applied the “Night” filter on the image. I then finished it with the “Fashion” filter since it the white was almost luminous. 

I wanted to expand the white space on both end of the photo, with the intention of making the horizon look isolated. For this purpose, I used the AntiCrop application to add more white. In the spirit of Bob Ross, I even added more happy little trees on the side. 

I finished my workflow with this image. Now ready for sharing on Instagram + Path. 

2010 

2011

clientsfromhell:

Following up an online posting for a job. The client offered $20 (I assumed an hour) to manage his tech support team. However…

Client: Okay, so that’s $400 per month and a bonus for performance.

Me: What? I couldn’t even afford my cable and electricity bills on that.

Client: Oh, so you’re…

NYCSSC Dodgeball - Ball Hogs on Flickr.

I signed up for a Dodgeball league here in the city. This is my team, The Ball Hogs.

youngmanhattanite:

Yikes.

Bona

In my quest to earn the Pizzaiolo badge from Foursquare, I somehow managed to sample over 20 NYC Pizza joints in a span of two months. 

It was gross. 

Beauty and Brains. 

Radio silence. The transformation is almost complete. 

So sexy.

You can get a pack of these peanuts mixed with anchovies in any 7-11 (I think). They’re cheap and it’s practically a holiday in your mouth, with the genius addition of keffir lime leaves.

Sprinkle on rice or eat straight from the pack. This is good stuff.

Found it here

ER: Speaking of inspirational moments, in the RW article, the author describes you running 7:30 pace on the treadmill while reading.  He indicates that this raises several eyebrows at the gym.  How on earth do you do that, and what kind of reading do you get done? (Note to readers: when you run a marathon at 5:50 pace, 7:30 pace is that easy!)

TM: It’s funny because some people actually can’t believe I run that “slow.” I love the treadmill.  I feel like I can run forever on one and a lot of times I’ll actually have to talk myself into stopping.  I think it’s great for recovery because it’s a little softer surface and I love that I can run super early in the morning and not worry about the weather. I also really enjoy reading while I run. I get a lot of weird looks. Usually I read magazines or books that I hold open with office clips. I’ll even read the paper. It took me awhile to get the page flip down but now I don’t even think about it.

Saw these curiously-dressed twins walking in downtown San Francisco. Even helped them carry their groceries.

This is their backstory.

SUBJECT: kamote from my garden

Hello clan.

Last Saturday, I harvested a bucketful of sweet potatoes (kumara or kamote).  I don’t know why they came out in weird shapes.  Attached is one.

Take care all
Lina