Happy valentines day eve - a photography post

The last post I made was pretty political, so this one will be a little more relaxed and on a completely different topic - photography! So I bought a new flash for my camera the other day.

Godox came out with a few small flashes recently and I thought the iA32 would work with my Leica. While it doesn't have TTL, it still does a good job and you can rotate the flash up and down easily. Getting used to shooting settings with it will take some time, but I look forward to being able to shoot outdoors without harsh shadows being cast on people's face. In theory, it should also help separate people from backgrounds. The iA32 can supposedly shoot 490 shots on a charge if you're using good rechargeable batteries. We will see how that works out in the real world. The low battery indicator is just the on/off switch flashing red, so it will definitely be important to carry some spares to switch things out. I only have one extra battery for my body anyways, so an extra set for the flash will be sufficient. I'll weave in some photos I've taken in the past on this post throughout too.

I sold my M1 Macbook Pro a few weeks ago as I didn't really utilize its full power. It was the Max processor, so definitely overpowered for my use case. I bought a base model M4 Mac Mini, which is working much better, plus, I can host various things at home in this setup. The only problem is it doesn't have a native SD card reader, which is problematic for transferring photos quickly. Regardless, I put in an order for one of those today, which should help with transferring photos to the computer.

Since I'm not hosting a business site or even trying to make it with photography, hosting sites at home seems to be the way to go. I have setup Scrypted NVR up at home which monitors several POE cameras around my house along with my Google Doorbell Camera allowing for 24/7 recording. There are a few web apps there too including Home Assistant. If you have not looked into a setup like this, you should! Securing things has come a long way with VPNs like Wireguard or if you are looking for a simpler approach, you can look at Tailscale, which is essentially Wireguard, but wrapped up in a service that is easier to setup and use.

Included in this post are a couple shots of pets from the family. One is of Justine's aunt and uncle's old dog. He passed last year and then another of our old cat Neville that passed a few years ago. Both had a lot of personality and were always around. They are both super missed. If you have been to our house lately though, there are a lot of new faces around. Two white cats named Harry and Fleur, and also a loud fluffy white dog named Albus. His breed is a Japanese Spitz. I won't include any photos of Albus in this post - more to come on him later. He probably deserves a series of posts based on how much personality he has. Regardless, here is a photo of Harry and Fleur.

Do you have plans for valentines day? We don't typically get up to too much. It is always too busy to go out and do anything, so we usually stay in and make a good dinner and then go out for dinner another day close to the day. Leave a comment below, what are you shooting with? What type of flash do you use, if any?