One of the quickest ways you can improve as a man is by listening to successful men, guys who have actually done something over a period of time. A great source of these kinds of men is college football. I’m fortunate to know a few Division 1 coaches and one of the first things I discovered after getting to know them is they are different. They are not all talk. Not only do they know the x’s and o’s of their sport, they know how to motivate and lead. Nobody survives in coaching unless they can get stuff done.
Recently sports talk radio host Paul Finebaum, did series of brief interviews with some of the biggest names in college coaching. I learned a ton from listening to them. Below is the link to the individual interviews or you can go to iTunes and subscribe.
I’ve recently gotten back into photography, so I’m trying to remember the basics. Since most guys are going to be the camera guy at family gatherings, vacations, etc, I thought I’d share this guide I ran across to taking decent pictures of people.
Portraits are the most popular type of photography, often with the most disappointing results. To properly frame a face, opt for a zoom between 120 and 150 mm, says Lynn Donaldson, who shoots for National Geographic Traveler. Any wider and you risk exaggerating features. But zoom in too much and you can add the illusion of weight, because longer lenses compress space.
Also, opt for a simple background; avoid bright light directly in front of subjects (they’ll squint) or behind them—automatic cameras darken the foreground until your subjects look like silhouettes. To counteract this, turn the flash on. “You can almost always use your flash in the sun,” Donaldson says. “It evens out skin tones and makes wrinkles and dark circles disappear.”
Another thing is how good digital cameras have gotten over the last five years. My wife shoots a Canon 20D, DSLR and it’s awesome camera that you can pickup on ebay for a reasonable price. Recently I wanted a decent camera I could keep with me all of the time and I bought a Canon Power Shot SD780IS and it’s awesome. I love this camera because it’s small enough to fit in my pocket and it shoots 720HD video. The only real complaint I have is it’s almost too small.
Here’s some video I shot with it.
This is showing the police response to the recent shooting at University of Alabama in Huntsville that I shot driving home from work.
Video I shot walking around an outdoor shopping area.
“Man, I see in Fight Club the strongest and smartest men who have ever lived. I see all this potential, and I see it squandered. An entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables, slaves with white collars. Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy stuff we don’t need. We’re the middle children of history, man; no purpose or place. We have no Great War, no Great Depression. Our Great War is a spiritual war. Our Great Depression is our lives. We’ve all been raised by television to believe that one day we’d all be millionaires and movie gods and rock stars. But we won’t; and we’re slowly learning that fact. And we’re very, very pissed off.
One of the quickest ways you can improve as a man is by listening to successful men, guys who have actually done something over a period of time. A great source of these kinds of men is college football. I’m fortunate to know a few Division 1 coaches and one of the first things I discovered after getting to know them is they are different. They are not all talk. Not only do they know the x’s and o’s of their sport, they know how to motivate and lead. Nobody survives in coaching unless they can get stuff done.
