Since I’m the general manager for GeForce at NVIDIA, you might think I’m a big gamer. Truth is, there are lots of guys here more into it than me. Don’t get me wrong, I love PC gaming, and it’s very cool to check out new games before they get released. But when I spend my free time on my PC, it’s usually not gaming. What you will find me doing is digital photography and video editing. I love it! I now have over 40,000 digital photos and hours of digital videos store on my home GeForce GTX 480 SLI system (soon to be upgraded to GTX 580 SLI!).
Though I’ve been in computer graphics for almost my entire career (I was actually once an animator and even created a radiometrically accurate render), this recent hobby really all started when my daughters were born since I wanted to share their lives with family who live pretty far away (like on a small island on Lake Superior). So as my kids have grown up I’ve been doing the normal Dad thing of capturing every possible moment of their lives with digital photos and videos. Yes, even the ultrasounds!
Since my daughters both first played soccer and now play volleyball (we are a tall family), a lot of my library is sports related and most of the video work is creating 10 minute long high energy videos to share with their teams. For these I capture hours of video footage during the season using either an HD Flip or a Sony HDR-SR11 Handycam, then edit it together with Adobe Premier Pro (GPU accelerated!) cut to whatever is the popular music of the day. The videos feature the entire team including the coaches and everyone gets their own copy. The kids and their parents (grandparents, aunts, uncles, etc.) love it!
I will also shoot around 500 digital photos at their volleyball matches, choose the best ones, edit with Photoshop to get them just right and then publish them to my website so the kids and their families can download and share their favorites. These usually end up on Facebook now a days.
It’s safe to say I’ve invested pretty heavily in my cameras and home system. As I already said, I have a GeForce GTX 480 SLI with two monitors – one a high-res 24-inch display (19×12), the other display is set up with NVIDIA 3D Vision. I now have 2TB of RAID 1 (mirrored) storage – which I will probably double pretty soon. It’s not your typical home setup – that’s for sure – but graphics and digital media are my passion. For file management, I don’t use any special software. I’ve got a folder-based system that I came up with and still follow – it works for me.
To shoot photos I use an Olympus E30 digital SLR, which I just recently bought since I wasn’t happy with the imager in my old camera. I need a really sensitive camera to shoot in low light (gymnasiums) without a flash. My new Olympus has 12 megapixels and I can set the ISO level up to 3200. I’ve matched it up with a telephoto lens that is just ridiculous, f2.8 to 3.2 with a digital zoom from 50mm to 200mm so I can snap shots in 1/500th of a second indoors. With it, I can capture fast action, close-up shots of the girls playing volleyball.
When I’m editing photos or videos, I’ll lose all track of time. I’ll stay up until 3 or 4 in the morning and get completely lost in it. I love the entire creative process.
Working at NVIDIA is a perfect fit for me. I love digital photography, digital video and real-time gaming, and I love producing products that let people like me do what we do.
Tagged: Inner Geek
