Archive for March, 2008

[03.31.08] Monday Night Recap
- March 31, 2008 -

• [Photo Challenge] So today is officially the last day for the photo challenge, but I’ll give a couple day grace period for people to send their images in. It was fun seeing the “yellow” from others perspective. In the next day or so, I’ll post the collection of images that have been sent for the first challenge (and state my ‘favorite’) as well as post the challenge for April. I’m building a new site for the photo challenge to make it easier to view the images and stay up-to-date with the challenge, but that might only be completely later in the year (I’ve got like 5 site designs/re-designs that I’m working on for the year). So if you haven’t sent it yet, SEND YOUR IMAGES NOW!
• [Under the Weather] So over the weekend I came down with a bad cold, which was terrible because I went to visit Madelyn and couldn’t hold her. I put myself on bed-rest yesterday (took a 6 hour nap), and am slowly feeling better. Because of this, I haven’t been able to do my same day / day-after photo posts, but I’ll have something at the end to get you coming back.
• [Home Opener] Today was the home opener for the Chicago Cubs, and how else would we start a season than with a rain delay followed by an extra inning loss? Zambrano pitched a great game, but I guess we just couldn’t finish. Well, it’s only 1 game in a 162-game season, so anything can happen. All this to say – I love BASEBALL!
• [JabbaWockees] As I called it, Jabba won the Best Dance Crew title (so what if all my other assumptions were wrong?). The final show was entertaining, with a great collective performance by Jabba, Kaba and Fish. I expected a much better final routine, but can’t complain…they kept me entertained all season long. I wonder what season 2 will bring- dancers on stilts? Skateboarders?
• [NCAA Tournament] For the first time in history, all four #1 teams made it to the Final Four. Impressive. And with that, there’s still a chance that I can win at least one of the pools I’m in. So this is what I need…Memphis over UCLA, Kansas over UNC (even though I had UNC in the finals for one of brackets), and Memphis winning it all. So everyone wish your good feelings on this…I think I have a free dinner riding on this!
• [Uncle Bob] The term ‘Uncle Bob’ is used among photographer’s to define that person/family member who shows up to weddings and such with their own camera, and normally hangs over the photographer’s shoulders taking all the pictures they set up and such. Now, this can pose a bit of an issue, as the people in the picture sometimes look at his camera, his flash ruins the exposure of your shots, he gets in the way of your picture, etc. Different photographers deal with it differently, and all I ask for people is to just respect the photographer. Many will let you take pictures and such, just follow their directions so that the pro’s pictures (the one the couple paid for) turn out the way they expect.
  I bring this up because this past weekend was my friend’s engagement ceremony, and they hired a photographer friend of mine, Kenny Nakai, to shoot the event. At the end of it he was going through formal portraits with everyone, and I just thought it was hilarious seeing all the other cameras. He did a great job letting people get their pictures while making sure he got his as well. Normally you’re looking through your own camera and you don’t notice it, but this is what the photographer is dealing with.

And possibly my favorite…

be sure to visit the contact page if you’re looking for a chicago wedding photographer, available nationwide.

natemathai | filed under: Modern Events, Personal, [MNR]

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[03.24.08] Monday Night Recap
- March 24, 2008 -

• [Easter] Quite possibly my favorite holiday. It really refocuses me, and helps me put everything in perspective. I hope everyone had a blessed Easter!
• [NCAA Tourney] And this is quite possibly the least productive weekend for me all year. This first weekend is the most exciting, tracking teams that I’ve never watched before. And like always, I have a few teams that lead most of the game, blow the second half, and totally mess up my brackets (thank you Georgia, Clemson). I’m still fighting strong, though, but hanging out a thread.
• [NCAA Tourney #2] I’ve made 6 different brackets, and am in 4 different pools (4 on ESPN, 1 on Facebook, 1 on Yahoo Sports). The hard thing is it takes so much effort to figure out who to cheer for! I might have one team winning in one pool but losing in another. Then I waste so much time figuring out which one is most worthwhile to win so I can win a pool…and then I need to think about which pool I have the best chance of winning, and so forth and so on. It’s tough! I need to figure out a better way to do this next year so it’s not so mind boggling.
• [Dance Crew] It happened. Jabba Wockees and Kaba Modern split the Asian vote, which kept Status Quo safe last week. Which meant Jabba and Kaba went head-to-head, causing Kaba to go home. It’s very sad- they should have both been in the finals this week. Ah well, now it’s up to Jabba to take care of the high-flying antics of Status Quo.
• [Photo Challenge] Just a reminder that there’s less than week to get your submissions in for the March Photo Challenge (Yellow). Keep shooting and get them in fast!
• [Perception] Check out this video:
  
  Did it work? It gets me thinking on so many levels…Leave a comment whether “it worked on you” or not. I’d love to get some stats on this thing.
• [Spring Break] Only in Chicago is there a ‘snow storm’ during Spring Break. Luckily (or unluckily, I guess), the corporate world doesn’t have spring breaks, so it didn’t really hurt me too much. Still sad though. But high schoolers have this week off, which should be nicer for them. Congrats!
• [Madelyn] Might as well throw some pictures in this post, huh? Enjoy!

Her eyes are HUGE!

Big sister Alexis will obviously still get her picture too…

Madelyn with daddy…

She started getting a little camera shy, I think…that can’t be a good sign :)

Big sister is doing a good job helping take care of Madelyn as well…

And that’s the end of that photoshoot! Let me know if you get sick of these (not that I’ll stop, but it’s still nice to get some feedback :) ).

be sure to visit the contact page if you’re looking for a chicago wedding photographer, available nationwide.

natemathai | filed under: Personal, [MNR]

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Hello Madelyn!
- March 19, 2008 -

I know I said I probably wouldn’t blog again this week, but I just need to get this announcement out. I’m an uncle again! On Wednesday, March 19, 2008 at 12:02pm, my sister gave birth to her second daughter, Madelyn Joy. A little bit after I started work I got a phone call saying they were at the hospital, but my sister was walking around and such so no real hurry (I thought). A few hours later, I get a call saying I have another niece! I mean, seriously?! Who said this pregnancy thing was tough? [Totally kidding...]
Well, just wanted to post a few pics of the newest one to whet your palette. I’m excited to have a new model…you’ll be seeing plenty of pictures of her in the near future!

- Last time to create your NCAA brackets is noon on Thursday, so go to ESPN, fill out a bracket, and join the nmathai photography group! HURRY!

Happy (early) Easter everyone!

be sure to visit the contact page if you’re looking for a chicago wedding photographer, available nationwide.

natemathai | filed under: Personal, announcement

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[03.17.08] Monday Night Recap
- March 17, 2008 -

• [Illinois] After a disappointing season, I was thoroughly impressed that they made to the Big 10 Finals. I mean, they were a 10 seed going in expected to lose the first game, and came one game short of an NCAA Tourney birth. Rough season, but well played at the end (minus the last game…a little disappointed).
• [Tourney Time] It’s finally here! So, I really haven’t followed college ball this season at all, but I’m still excited for the tourney. Brackets are out so start building yours! I’ve created a public group on ESPN so make a bracket and join up. It doesn’t matter what you know of the game – I used to watch the games religiously in college and still couldn’t be in the top 50% of any tournament. Hurry, brackets get locked on Thursday, March 20th!
• [Girlfriend] She’s Back! She’s on her spring break now, and it’s rough that it’s during Passion Week as my evenings are busier and I still work days (I wish we got a spring break), but we were able to hang out Saturday evening. We watched this movie called Margot at the Wedding (her choice) starring Nicole Kidman…I was lost the whole time. I really don’t think there was much of a plot or character development…it did take up quite a bit of time. I think I actually fell asleep a bit too. Ah well, better luck next time.
• [Vantage Point] Yesterday we celebrated my brother-in-law’s brother’s 30th birthday. My goodness have we all grown up. After dinner with the family, a couple of us went out and watched Vantage Point with Dennis Quaid and Forest Whitaker. I’m not going to ruin it for you guys, but it’s an interesting concept but could have been written a lot better. A lot of details could have been added to make it a top movie…for now, it’s just ‘decent’. But definitely better than that Margot movie…definitely.
• [Passion Week] A bit late as yesterday was Palm Sunday, but we are now in Passion Week, remembering the week up through Jesus’ crucifixion on the cross followed by His resurrection. I’ll be busy most nights with church stuff so I probably won’t be able to blog much. In any case, wanted to get this resource out to you all – it’s a collection of bible passages that account Jesus’ last week. It’ll be a good way to reflect during this week.

be sure to visit the contact page if you’re looking for a chicago wedding photographer, available nationwide.

natemathai | filed under: Personal, [MNR]

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#7 (2 of 12)
- March 11, 2008 -

March Photo Challenge: Yellow

This post is long overdue, but I’ve finished my second book in my race of 1 book a month for 2008, “UnChristian”. Like I stated in an earlier post, I’ve already started my next book which is “Never Eat Alone.” For now, a recap:

I was pretty excited/interested getting into this book. The premise of it is seeing how a new generation view “Christians” and the Christian faith. As a whole, its a very interesting topic, with a lot of research put behind it. A lot more research than I expected. Much of the book was stating the results of different surveys that were given, from how people view different issues pertaining to Christianity. Although it was more stats than I would have liked, there were some interesting points brought up:

• Christians seem to be too concerned with a “Get Saved” mentality, trying to convert the world and not really caring for the individual. (What happens after they ‘get saved’?
• Those outside of the faith have a smaller community of friends who do not follow the same belief. (If they are called to reach the unreached, why aren’t they interacting with them regularly?)
• There’s a perception that Christians do not live in ‘reality’…they don’t understand what’s going on the world, how society is run, and the likes. (It’s not as perfect as they make it seem).

Now, I don’t agree with every conclusion that was brought on through the research, but there are a great amount of points that need reflecting on.

Apart from Christianity, this is an important concept for people to think about. How do those around you perceive you, your community, your business? Where is the truth behind the statements? How can you change the perceptions that you are giving off so people get a true look at who you (your community | your business) really is?

And as a fun addition, here are a few images on my walk home from work today, with some fun processing. With the weather getting better, I’m excited to finally have more opportunities to get the outdoor shots that aren’t just snow!

be sure to visit the contact page if you’re looking for a chicago wedding photographer, available nationwide.

natemathai | filed under: Personal

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[03.10.08] Monday Night Recap
- March 10, 2008 -

March Photo Challenge: Yellow

• [Bulls] It was a rough weekend…we got rocked Friday night by Boston, and then got our first loss to Detroit this season yesterday…geez. Even still, we’re still fighting for a playoff spot…I love the Eastern Conference!
• [Bears] We re-signed Briggs and Rex. We lost Moose, we lost Berrian, we lost Ayanbadejo, got rid of Griese. We picked up Marty Booker…again. Lord help us.
• [Daylight Savings] To make up for ‘losing’ an hour on Sunday, I took like a 3 hour nap. Still haven’t been able to sleep in until 11am once this year yet, but an extended nap is always nice.
• [Facebook Notes] Seems facebook is really delayed in importing my blog posts…I posted Saturday afternoon and it still has uploaded that one yet. So remember, if you want to get my posts as it happens, subscribe to the feed with Google Reader!
• [Dance Crew] Yep…still impressed. They did a throwback special to Michael Jackson, and as Shane Sparks would say, they “killed it…murdered it.” The way I see it, Status Quo will be out next, then BreakSkate…then Kaba Modern meaning Jabba will take it all! You can quote me on this.
• [NCAA Tourney] I haven’t followed college basketball at all this year, and it’s on pretty much every channel now as they tourney is right around the corner. Not following it, though, just might give me the best chance as ever before because I always over-analyze everything. Is anyone doing a pool? Let me know…
• [Uncle Soon] It’s only a matter a time, but I will soon have my second niece! In a few weeks, get ready for many pictures of the new little one.

be sure to visit the contact page if you’re looking for a chicago wedding photographer, available nationwide.

natemathai | filed under: Personal, [MNR]

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Late Night Monopoly
- March 8, 2008 -

March Photo Challenge: Yellow
To keep you seeing yellow:

I saw this car just sitting outside my house on my way out last night. Right underneath a streetlight, which was the only real light shining on it. Jumped out, got a quick grab without any flash, and a bit of a boost with the raw file. It was literally ‘glowing’ when I came out of my house…
(keep sending your ‘yellow’ images to challenge@nmathaiphotography.com)

Last night a few of my friends go together to hang out, and decided (after watching the Bulls get rocked by the Celtics and a few youTube Dance Crew videos) to play a rousing game of Monopoly. To speed things up, we randomly game each player 2 property cards, and went on from there. And although I started strong, I was the first out (sad!). I had two monopolies, but didn’t have the money to really build, and then got screwed with one guy having 3 houses on Greens while another friend having a couple on Boarwalk (and I landed on both back to back). Although I didn’t last long, we played until around 1:30am, with one trade of property pretty much deciding the game. Congrats to Aby for pulling out the victory (sorry Jerry…better luck next time). It’s been awhile since I played (I think since college?)…I wish I did this more often! Here’s the ‘glimpse’:

be sure to visit the contact page if you’re looking for a chicago wedding photographer, available nationwide.

natemathai | filed under: Personal

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S.A.L.T.
- March 6, 2008 -

March Photo Challenge: YELLOW
(I’ll keep this info at the top of each blog post until I figure a better way to do this)

Last weekend I attended SALT (South Asian Leadership Training) hosted by Cornerstone Fellowship of UIC and Campus Crusades. It was a great time for leaders of college ministries to get together and connect and get energized to start off this semester strong. Here’s a glimpse of the event (for what I was there for), and you can view the entire gallery here.

In order to keep people from blinking, I told them all to keep there eyes closed until I counted to 3. This was when I said 2 (Can you spot who wasn’t following directions?)

And look! Nobody blinked!

be sure to visit the contact page if you’re looking for a chicago wedding photographer, available nationwide.

natemathai | filed under: Modern Events

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NMP Photo Challenge: March
- March 4, 2008 -

Hey everyone! OK, so I got good feedback from people interested in talking part in the monthly photo challenge, so we’ll get started now and see how it goes. Please read through the directions to help this flow as smooth as possible. I’ve been going through many different concepts for photo themes, so I’m very excited to see what people will come up with. But for the first one, I figured I’ll start very simple.

THEME: Yellow
(here’s a little something to get you seeing yellow)

DIRECTIONS | RULES | REQUIREMENTS
- Be creative! Think outside of the box. Use different angles. Just before you take the picture, think what would make the image stand out more.
- Focus on the theme. Take the picture in a way that the theme ‘jumps out’ at you (blatantly, or creatively).
- Images must be taken by you (do not submit images that are not yours…that’s just wrong).
- There is no limit to the number of images a person can submit (this might change in the future…but for now, just shoot and send!)
- Images can have basic adjustments (exposure, crop, white balance, highlight/shadows, contrast) using photoshop or your favorite image editor, but should not be drastically edited (it shouldn’t look “photoshopped”). We want to show our visions before we press the shutter, not after we sit at the computer!

SUBMISSION
- All images should be re-sized to have a maximum length of 500 pixels. (I don’t need your full-resolution images, we’re just posting them online). I’ll post directions below.
- Please do not place any sort of watermark on your images. I will provide credit and link back to you with your information presented, but I’d like to keep the individual images as pure as possible when I receive it.
- E-mail all images to challenge@nmathaiphotography.com , with the month submitted for somewhere in the subject (ie. “March Photo Challenge”).
- Please include the following information in your e-mail:

• Your name (and whether you would like me to post your it or not)
• Your website/blog (for me to link back to)
• Title of your image (if you have one)
• Vision with the image (why did you take this picture the way that you did?)

And that’s that! Just get creative, and open your eyes to the world around you. Like I said, think outside the box. Take a couple ‘safe’ shots (things that obviously fall under the category of “yellow”) and then push the envelope a bit. I know my blog readers can be an artistic bunch if you try, so go! Let me know if you have any questions on the challenge, as this is the first one, there will probably be many details to iron out as we get this thing set. For now, just get out there, see reality, and start shooting!

!!!!BONUS PHOTO TIP!!!!
Re-sizing an Image for the web

Photos can be very large in size when taken from the camera, which is great if you want to make a 16×20 canvas, but useless if you’re just e-mailing a picture to friends or posting an image on the blog. Most online photo hosting sites will shrink your images to display properly, but if you shrink it before hand, you can upload faster and upload more! So unless you’re planning on printing it, shrink it. A general rule of thumb would be to have the resolution at 72ppi/dpi for web, and 300ppi/dpi for print. Also, for my challenges, I’d like the images to be no larger that 500pixels on the largest size, because that’s just a good viewable size and easier to deal with. So here’s how you can do that.

In Photoshop:

• Go to File->Automate->Fit Image, and set both values to 500 pixels.
• Then go to File->Save As, and save it as a jpg image, at a quality of around 7-8.

Using Picasa:

• Click Export to Folder
• Under Image Size, move the slider to set it at 500.

This should shrink your images considerably and make them faster to upload/e-mail.

[You guys interested in photo tips? General photography or post-processing? Let me know and maybe I'll post things like this more often]

be sure to visit the contact page if you’re looking for a chicago wedding photographer, available nationwide.

natemathai | filed under: Personal

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[03.03.08] Monday Night Recap
- March 3, 2008 -

• [Internet] For some reason, my internet has been acting up since last night…majority of the time I can’t access any page, and sometimes it takes 5 minutes to load my homepage. It took me forever to even get to the site to post this blog…hopefully it all works well when I actually try to post it (didn’t work, hence the reason its posted on Tuesday morning).
• [SALT] Friday evening and Saturday I spent at SALT (South Asian Leadership Training), which was held at the Comfort Inn in Des Plaines, IL. I love working with college kids, and it was a great time for me to re-connect with some U of I kids. The event was co-hosted by Cornerstone Fellowship and Campus Crusades of UIC. I’ll have a photo post recap later this week (when my internet works a lot better, hopefully). For now, my ‘press pass’:



• [PassingTheTorch] It’s finally over. I spent 2007 serving as the vice president of my church’s youth fellowship, and this past Sunday was ‘officially’ my last day in that position. It was a very stretching year for myself and our church in general, and I know that God has some amazing things in store for the year to come.
• [PhotoChallenge] Last Friday I thought of having a monthly photo challenge where I post a theme and get blog readers to send in their photo interpretation of said theme, and it was met with a great response. So I’ll be posting the first theme tomorrow morning, with more details/directions as to how the process will work. I’m so excited!
• [NewBook] I did finish my book for February, which was “unChristian” by David Kinnaman. I’ll have the recap posted shortly as well (I’ve got so much to blog!). My book for March is “Never Eat Alone”, which covers the concept of purposeful relationships and building relational networks.
• [Girlfriend] My girlfriend came home this weekend for the SALT Conference, and I was able to spend some good, quality time with her. I saw her at SALT Friday and Saturday, on Sunday went to her sister’s place for dinner (Jaden is slowly starting to like me…I think…), and then she came over on Monday. Good times indeed! In a couple a weeks she’ll be back for Spring Break…that’s one whole week! I love it!

be sure to visit the contact page if you’re looking for a chicago wedding photographer, available nationwide.

natemathai | filed under: [MNR]

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