I started changing the way I live each day about two years ago, but let myself slide after about 6 months of hard work up until about 3 months ago. It takes a while to get into the habit of doing something, but once you're in a routine of doing something all the time, it becomes natural to you, it's not something you have to consciously think of. There are unhealthy habits (e.g smoking) just as there are healthy habits (taking the stairs instead of waiting for the elevator). Some just happen, others you have to work at for a while, but they eventually become part of who you are.

These are some of the healthy habits I've "picked up" over the past few months.

Eating normal times (3 times a day)
Eating healthy (low amounts of red meat, mostly fruits/vegetables/fish/chicken)
Exercising everyday (gotta get that mayorship at the gym on Foursquare!)
Drinking lots of water (I don't miss soda at all)

This is possible due to a routine: get up, work, gym, then do whatever I want the rest of the day: It's not a burden, it's a lifestyle. It might be hard to start the ball rolling, but once you do, it's just about keeping the momentum going: a object in motion stays in motion unless an outside force acts upon it.

My lifestyle a few years ago was to sleep in, sit on my butt all day if I didn't have somewhere to be, order a couple pizzas because I was too lazy to make a sandwich and knew I'd rather not make dinner either. I was tired all the time, even if I slept in. Had no energy, and was happier sitting in front of a TV all day rather than going outside and enjoying the fresh air (okay, I still have days like that I guess). A few years ago I used to get wiped out walking a tradeshow floor! Now I have tons of energy, can go go go all day, and even if I only get 5 hours of sleep, I'm able to fully function. I don't feel like I'm always hungry, and sometimes can't even finish a full meal (so many restaurants serve WAY bigger portions than they really should). I feel like a new person, and it feels great.

So why change your routine? Well if you don't try something new, maybe you don't realize what you're missing? While I was living the life I had before, I didn't consciously think about how tired I was or how I wasn't as happy as I could be. What works for me may not work for everyone (or anyone else) the whole point of this post is just to encourage you to break out of you shell, your comfort zone and see if theres a different way of viewing the world around you. You don't know what you don't know, and just because someone tells you something doesn't make it true: you have to find out for yourself. My perspective on life has changed so completely in the past few months. Tying this back into photography: try to get a different perspective that is completely the opposite of the way you would normally approach a subject this week. If you approach a subject from far away and use a long lens, get up close and go wide. If you use just ambient "natural" light, use a flash or two (or three). If you would normally use a macro lens, take an image putting it context of it's surroundings, or take a macro of something you would have never thought to get up close and personal with before. Whatever it is, break out of your shell and try something you...you just might like it!

I choose to omit several from the public record as they are either personal or effect other involve things I'm not going to discuss here. I'm a pretty open book, but there's a few things I keep close to the chest.

2012 Goals

1. ******** omitted **********
2. ******** omitted **********
3. Reevaluate myself every month and try to find my own faults and correct them
4. Make sure every day, I’m in the best shape I’ve ever been in for over a decade
5. Buy my first home
6. Travel somewhere for fun, not just for work
7. Continue to grow my photography business and reach the next milestone
8. Become better organized
9. Write more, both analytical and fictional
10. Live life to the fullest, stop and smell the roses, and make every day count

I experienced the most amazing 5 seconds of my entire life on Friday July 8th when I had the privledge of being able to watch the final launch of the Space Shuttle Atlantis from Space View Park in Titusville Florida. This was such a historic moment: the ending of an era and hopefully the beginning of a new one. Ever since I was a little kid, I've wanted to go into space, to be an astronaut and to explore the vast starry expanse thats outside the pull of Earth's gravity. An event like this wasn't quite like the moon landing in historical significance, but it marks an important chapter in the history of our journey as a civilization pushing to reach further into the unknown. NASA is putting the Space Shuttle program (which was always designed to stay within the bounds of Earth's orbit) aside to fund new ventures deeper into space, which it hopes to have ready within 5 years. In addition, companies like Space-X and Virgin Galactic are moving quickly to make commerical spaceflight a reality sometime in the next few years. I just hope I can live long enough to see the next "one step for [a] man, one leap for mankind".

I wish I had been able to get closer, but unfortunately I was not one of the lucky few to get a ticket to view it from NASA's causeway (Over 6000 people applied to get tickets: 150 were handed out). Space View Park is the next best place to be, with a view clear down the river that leads to the launchpad. Unfotunately the park is about 10 miles away, and due to foggy/windy conditions that could have scrubbed the launch, it makes it difficult to get great photographs. I was fortunate to have access to a very long lens (600mm), thanks to my friend Moshe, and was able to get photos that would have otherwise been impossible.

The lens on the left is what I was using for the launch (a 600mm with a 1.4 tele convertor giving about 840mm field of view. The little tiny speck above the dead center of the pier on the other side of the water was the launch pad, the building on the far right is at the NASA causeway, about 6 miles from the launchpad

There was quite a crowd at Space View Park when I arrived at around 11:45PM on Thursday (the night before the launch. Even arriving nearly 12 hours before the launch, I was barely able to grab one of the last parking spots at the actual park, the tens of thousands of people to show up over the next 11 hours would have to park all over the city and make the long hike to grab a spot. I took about a 2hour power nap in the back seat of my rental car before hauling my gear down to the pier area of the park. The pier itself had been roped off due to a planned short film being shot there the morning of the launch (more on that later) and also for VIP's to watch from (the mayor of Titusville, former NASA/Military employees, ect) so I setup my tripod and bazooka of a lens about 6 feet away from the roped-off pier next to some families that had been camped out for more than a day! A few hours later around 3:30/4AM, the local news crews of WESH2 (NBC affiliate) and FOX35 setup right next to me, and the three of us pretty much were in the long haul for the next 7 hours.

View of the launch pad at around 2AM, the fog was really intense early in the morning, making a clear photo from 10 miles away impossible

By 6AM, the crowd had really started to pack in and the police were making regular trips back and forth to clear an aisle of people so people could more easily access the restrooms and get back to the cars and tent setup towards the entrance of the park, while the two news anchors who had joined us were interviewing members of the crowd. It was so foggy and windy at night that it made photography of the shuttle and launch pad pretty much a futile affair. As the sun came out, the fog slowly started to creep away making daytime photos better, but there was still quite a bit of fog preventing from great clear images. Around 7AM a film crew rolled by onto the pier, and I assumed they were shooting something as part of a NASA documentary (one of the guys had a NASA IMAX shirt on and was hauling big rolls of film and Arri film camera), but as it turns out, a short film, starring Jason Ritter (John Ritters son) was being shot there. The short film is about two people that meet at a shuttle launch and fall in love. It'll be interesting to see how close to reality it will be or how much artistic twist they'll apply. If it were realisticly filmed, they'll both be bundled up in towels and jackets in beach chairs and baseball caps...as I saw most of what they filmed...it won't be realistic, but I still look forward to seeing it.

Updatae: they posted a trailer of the movie they were shooting, you can see it here

NASA helicopter which flew overhead shooting 3D footage

The rest of the morning was very much a hurry up and wait sort of event, with crowds getting tighter and tighter as the morning sped by, up until the final 30 minutes when everyone seemed to squeeze in like sardines (including a local news videographer who got there 5 minutes before the launch as squeezed in between myself and the WESH2 news team to my right, doing pilates moves to try to stay standing without getting into our shots.). Everyone held their breath as the countdown clock blared through the speakers setup throughout the park, which was fairly muffled due to the chatter of the throngs of people everywhere you looked, including the long bridge to the north. There were several boats out in the water, but nothing blocking anyone view up until about 3 minutes before the launch, when a large yacht type ship decided to park itself in the view of a huge mass of people on the right side of the dock (I was on the left). The crowds shouting in unison "MOVE, MOVE!!" some shouting obscenitys too, and the ships captain heeded the call to move...in the wrong direction, right into my view! STS-135 launched just as the idiotic/inconsiderate ship owner shifted his vessle into the line of sight of hundreds of thousands of people who had camped out for hours, some even days. Fortunately the ship didn't block my view completely as the shuttle lifted of the pad just in the knick of time. Needless to say, if you know who the ship belongs to...let me know so I can them a piece of my mind!

I'll let the photos say the rest, feel free to leave comments, ask questions, ect:

THE GALLERY OF IMAGES IS HERE ON NOAHHAYES.NET

Cruise 2011 from Noah Hayes on Vimeo.

She got in by the way...

Check out the video below or click this link to view the higher resolution version: 

Have an idea that you don't see here? Let the rest of the class know down in the comments!

1) DO use a metal thread for the tripod mount, have it well supported the the frame of the camera. Kodak! Seriously, if I try to attach one of your cameras onto a tripod, the threads are going to strip. I also had a camera that had the tripod threading mount pop out of the camera because it wasn't properly attached to the frame, this is just ridiculous.

2) DO give the camera to your grandmother and see if she can use it before you finalize the UI...this is directed at you Nikon/Fuji/Olympus...your UI's really suck. Why have a "Menu" "Home" and "*" buttons? What should be under "Home" what should be under "Menu"? There should be a "Menu" that has a easy to understand sub-structure, like "System Settings" for clock, formatting, sounds, ect. and a separate area for mode specific settings.

3) DO give consumers what they need, not what they say they want. Did you give your kid the cookie because it asked or did you give it vegetables to eat? When a consumer says "smaller with more zoom", give it more zoom, but make sure you don't sacrifice image quality for it...Nikon/Olympus, do you hear me? A wafer thin camera cannot physically have a good sized senor and lens with 5-10X optical zoom without sacrificing too much image quality...therefore those cameras should not be produced. You may sell some, but no one that buys one of them will buy a camera made by your brand ever again! (and definitely won't recommend your brand to their friends and family!)

4) DO test to make sure your auto-white balance actually can figure out the difference between daylight and tungsten. Ask Canon for help if you can't figure it out.

5) DO leave digital zoom turned off by default. It's confusing to people. If they need more zoom, tell them to buy one of your more expensive models. Doesn't that sound good to you?

6) DO include GPS. This is a very cool feature that will eventually be standard in all brands. It does drain battery life though, so have it off by default and easily switched on by the user. Please don't make this crippled GPS like what Eye-Fi offers, which requires a WiFi hotspot to know where it is.

7) DO use brushed metal, and/or semi-gloss plastics for the outer shell of the camera. Glossy metal and plastic shows way too many finger prints and looks bad. Glass screens also are easier to clean than plastic screens. Plastics just make it possible for fingerprints to be visible half a mile away.

8) DO offer models that vary in color. If you must offer non-standard colors, don't pick "puke yellow" or "nuclear waste green", show it to 10 random people on the street and if even 1 thinks it looks bad, don't use that color.

9) DO remember that underwater cameras need to give good images out of the water too, that means don't put in folded optics, even if it makes it a little thicker. If you're trying to take pictures underwater, a bigger camera means you don't lose grip and have it sink to the bottom.

10) DO make sure when the average Joe holds your camera they don't cover the lens or the flash with their fingers, if even 2 out of 10 people do...it's back to the drawing board.

1) DON'T keep adding megapixels, the high ISO noise is out of control, compact cameras take worse images now than they did 3-4 years ago. Find something new to get consumers believing is the "Holy Grail" of image quality...like maybe a good lens?

2) DON'T add 20-30 "scene modes" to the camera for marketing purposes. Just make the image quality good and the UI easy to use, and salepeople will sell it for you. No one uses the scene modes...at least not on purpose. If your hunk of plastic has 30 scene modes and the other model has 15...your's is just more unnecessarily cluttered with useless buttons, knobs or menu options.

3) DON'T bother with exposure compensation buttons on $100-200 cameras. Exposure compensation is very useful...but consumers don't know how to use it and Casio...you shouldn't need to use exposure compensation at -.07EV just to get a properly exposed picture. Ask 10 people at Starbucks what exposure compensation is, and they'll tell you it has something to do with celebrities and the tabloids...

4) DO build cameras with better lenses. A faster lens is better than having "6400 ISO"...it might cost a little more but customers won't hate the camera they just bought when they're taking photos of their kid's birthday party. Even with a sensor 6X the square area of the average compact camera, ISO 6400 is a realm still avoided at all costs with pro-DSLRs!

5) DON'T use USB based charging systems! If you're going to have a rechargeable battery, make sure it's an external charger and doesn't use a AC cable, just have the charger plug right into the outlet. Even if consumers say they want to charge the camera directly from the wall...they're wrong. It causes cameras to short out if there is a power surge and they can't charge a battery while they're using their camera to take photos. If they say they want to charge it through their computer...they're wrong! People will loose their USB cable within days, leaving them with no way to charge their camera. A block the size of the camera that holds their battery to charge it will not get lost for months or years! 

6) DON'T make proprietary accessories if you can avoid it. If you must use proprietary cables for cheaper licensing or just after-the sale revenue, make it easy for consumers to find the cables for purchase on your site.

7) DON'T advertise a brand name lens like Schneider or Carl Zeiss if they're not actually manufacturing the lens for you and simply designed it for you or if you're just licensing the name, that's being disingenuous to the end user who thinks that the name Carl Zeiss means something, when the lens is manufactured in Tawain by another OEM. I'm not saying that the lens is bad, just that BMW doesn't buy Hyundai's and slap the BMW logo on it and say they make it.

8) DON'T include a large detailed manual. A quick-start guide is sufficient and an interactive computer based guide will help consumers a lot more than a 300 page book they'll never read.

9) DON'T use touch screens unless you have buttons as well. They're small cameras that are easy to drop, a consumer shouldn't have to use one of their hands to tap the screen. If you must put a touch screen in, make sure the grip is big enough so the user doesn't knock it out of their hand. Sony? Nikon? Bueller?

10) DON'T falsely advertise resolutions. If you're going to advertise HD video. Have it record HD video, not up-rezed SD wide screen. Don't interpolate 12 megapixels from an 8MP sensor. This goes to not only every camcorder manufacturer, but all the brands that advertise on QVC and the shopping channel selling "14 megapixel" cameras for $79.99.

Think of something I missed or disagree? Let the rest of the class know in the comments!