3, 2, 1... Lunch

So the Space Shuttle Endeavor launched for the last time yesterday morning, and I wasn’t there to see it. But two weeks ago I was at the Kennedy Space Center for the first launch attempt, and the experience was truly amazing, even without a launch.

I met some great people, including the talented and brilliant Trey Ratcliff of Stuck In Customs. Here he is shooting the Vehicle Assembly Building, or Very Awesome Building as I like to call it.

The VAB is something I’d always wanted to see, and to be able to tour the inside was something I’d only dreamed of. Here’s a shot looking straight up at the ceiling. There are 520 feet between my lens and those skylights.

My favorite thing about the VAB is its history. It was built to allow vertical (the original V) assembly of the Saturn V rockets used in the Apollo missions. So it’s not a pristine, new building. It’s littered with hints at its stunning past in facilitating the single greatest accomplishment of our species. Check out this little hallway you use to access the elevators. It’s like something from the set of a John Carpenter movie in the ’80s.

I got close to Endeavor, but didn’t actually see much of her because of the Rotating Service Structure that protects the orbiter on the pad.

I did witness something historic. This was the first launch scrub that occured while the atronauts were in-route to the launch pad. We watched them drive by in their Astrovan (yes), pause at the VAB, and then turn around and head back! Only then did we realize the launch had been scrubbed.

Experiencing the reality of the difficulties and unprecictability of space flight was a bittersweet end to my trip to KSC, but the experience as a whole was something I’ll rememebr forever.

More shots in my flickr set here. Trey went back and totally owned the launch, see his shots here (I particularly love the B&W).

Plastic Bullet 1.1

Photo by Diana Stock using iPhone 4 and Plastic Bullet

You asked, we listened.

Plastic Bullet 1.1 (US$1.99, free update for current users) is available now, featuring some big new features pulled directly from your requests.

• Full-res photo developing on every iPhone
• Share your photos using Flickr and Facebook
• Faster photo developing
• Optimized for iOS4 and the iPhone 4

Read more about the new features in iTunes. You can see some full-res iPhone 4 examples on my Flickr feed — the quality is amazing.

Enjoy!

Not All is Crap in the World

I was having a bit of fun today combining the 3D Camera iPhone app (Alex Lindsay’s pick of the week on MacBreak Weekly yesterday) with Plastic Bullet (his pick a few weeks ago). After brunch at the amazing Brown Sugar Kitchen, I stopped by one of my favorite West Oakland sites: the concrete plant at Peralta and 24th.

No sooner had I started snapping my stereo pairs than I heard a loud “Hey!” In front of me, a dude in a hard-hat was pointing behind me. A guy in an orange vest was trying to get my attention.

Immediately I began subconsciously preparing my customary sanctimony. This is a public street. I’m just taking snapshots. It’s my right as an American. Today we celebrate our Independence Day. Etc.

(You may recall that I blogged a while back about a PDF you should print and keep with you called The Photographer’s Right, to help you with said sanctimoniousness.)

I turned to orange-vest man and he shouted over the truck noise “Hey, would you like to go inside? The angles are better! I’m the manager here, I can take you around!”

Say what?

Leave it to Oakland to continue to surprise even a guy who’s lived there for over ten years.

He led me around while I happily snapped, and I took his business card, expressing my sincere intention to use his location in a professional shoot if ever the right job came along.

There’s no conclusion here except that I thought I’d try to balance out all the whinging I do on this blog a bit. Not all is crap in the world.

Just the new Sony camera.

Plastic Bullet

Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.

Plastic Bullet is now live in the iTunes app store!

Red Giant’s first iPhone app, my first iPhone app. I’m kinda excited about this.

If you’ve ever shot with a Lomo, a Holga, a Diana, or any of the other plastic “toy” cameras out there, you know that part of the magic is the surprise factor. Did your photos turn out good? Or bad? Or so terrible they’re amazing? Just like a real plastic camera, Plastic Bullet never does the same thing twice. It develops your iPhone photos into literally infinite variations. They might look awful. They might look awesome. The good news is that you can keep tapping the refresh button until you get something you love. The look you love is yours and yours alone—not a canned preset than anyone can use.

Like it says in Holga: The World Through a Plastic Lens:

…as soon as you’ve pressed the button to take the shot the Holga does its own thing altogether and, depending on the camera’s mood, produces either the most enormous crap you’ve ever seen, or the most wonderful image ever to have caressed your oppressed creative soul.

I was in Seattle last weekend. I carried my Canon 5D Mark II with me wherever I went, with both my 24–70 f/2.8L and my 50mm f/1.2L. I pulled it out maybe once. I was having too much fun shooting with my crappy iPhone 3GS camera and Plastic Bullet.

Plastic Bullet is $1.99 and available now.

I can’t wait to see what you do with it! Please share your shots in the Plastic Bullet flickr pool!