This photo isn’t really that great.  I chose to put it on the blog anyway, though, since the whole point is to document my learning experience.

This book is special to me because it was given to me as I graduated high school by a very dear teacher who was one of the most influential teachers I’ve ever had.  I loved reading Le Morte D’Arthur in her class.

She wrote inside the front cover, “To Josh Barnett (a curious mixture of computer tech and medievalism), When computer programming makes you feel something is missing in your life, open these pages.”

I like this photo for its focus on the title while blurring the rest of the cover, but the background is a little too saturated.  I don’t know how to fix that while taking the picture, but perhaps there is a way in post processing that I need to learn.

This is the same photo as the last, but I wanted to put it up a second time to show the powers of post processing.  I didn’t do the work on this, but a fella over on the dpreview.com forums did in order to show me what could be done.

If you flip back and forth between this image and the last one, you can see the difference.  It’s like the camera had captured all of this detail that was washed out in the original image.  Time for me to train my eye to properly post process my images!

(note: the exif data got scrubbed in his post processing, but you can check the last photo if you’re curious.)

This is my other cat, Havok.  He’s not quite as neurotic as the other, but he’s twice as curious and three times as OCD.  I’m pretty sure he got that from me.

I shot this one with the 18-55mm kit lens as well, but I had a new trick up my sleeve.  I used the SB-400 Speedlight Flash and bounced the light off of the ceiling.  It’s a must have accessory!

It was actually quite dark in my kitchen when I snapped this shot, and the flash allowed me to do 1/60s with 200 ISO.  I didn’t do any post-processing on this image except to resize it for the site.

The problem with photographing cats, though, is that they like the pretty shiny light.  I’m not sure how to convince Havok to look somewhere other than where the light is bouncing.

I snapped this picture on my first night with a DSLR.  I had no idea what I was doing (still don’t).  I was shooting with the AF-S DX Nikkor 18-55mm VR that came in the kit.

The exposure on this photo wasn’t quite right, but I was able to adjust for it a bit using ACDSee Pro 2.5.  I wouldn’t say that this is the best picture ever, but it was the best of my first night of shooting and I think it’s reasonably decent.

The model for this photo is my neurotic cat, Forge.  You’ll probably be seeing a lot of my cats on here.  Best to accept that now.

It is bittersweet that Iron Man 2 came out in early May.  It was the movie of 2010 that I was most looking forward to, but it’s sad to have that moment gone so early in the summer movie season.

Sequels are always a dicey proposition, but Marvel superheroes have had good luck in their sophomore run.  Both Spider-Man 2 and X-Men 2 were the best of their respective franchises.

Then again, this is Marvel’s first sequel as its own production company. Could Iron Man 2 possibly live up to the hype?  For the most part, Iron Man 2 is a great success.  It’s not as pristine as the first, but it will leave you satisfied.

Robert Downey Jr. is back as the heart and soul of the franchise.  His embodiment of Tony Stark is about as pitch perfect as one can imagine, and he doesn’t disappoint in the Iron Man 2.  The script called for a slightly darker tone at times, but Downey managed to keep it cohesive.

Downey Jr. is reunited with Gwyneth Paltrow as Pepper Potts, and jarringly joined by Don Cheadle taking over as James Rhodes.  Cheadle does as serviceable of a job as Terrance Howard did, but the script didn’t really give him much to work with.  A clever line near the beginning playfully let’s the audience know that Don Cheadle is not Terrence Howard.

It’s really the cast that makes this movie shine.  Everyone does the best they can with the material and really throws themselves into their respective roles.  Mickey Rourke is in vogue lately for good reason.  He plays Ivan Vanko with menace, and manages to squeeze every last bit out of the character despite his relatively few lines.

Sam Rockwell comes in as Justin Hammer.  I don’t know much about Justin Hammer in the comics, but Rockwell plays him light here.  The character comes across as a caricature of Downey’s Tony Stark.  Sometimes this works to great effect, but at other times it feels almost over the top.

I’ve not been a fan of Scarlett Johansson in the past, so I was a bit concerned when I heard she was cast as Black Widow.  I would have loved to have seen Yvonne Strahovski in the role (though it would have required a dye job).  Johansson does pretty well, though.  Downey saves her from being bland in most of her scenes, and she fully kicks butt when the time comes.

The only real problems with Iron Man 2 stem from its extremely busy plot. Though I enjoy and appreciate the unprecedented attempt at bringing all of the Marvel movies together, the entire S.H.I.E.L.D. subplot slows down the movie for no discernible reason.  I suppose that when you ink Sam Jackon to an 11 picture deal, you have to use him.

Since the bulk of the picture focuses on Tony Stark’s journey to true manhood, some character development for Pepper and Rhodey is sacrificed.  It’s never quite clear why Rhodey so readily helps Hammer weaponize the Mark II into War Machine, and Pepper isn’t nearly as strong of a woman as she was in the first.  I guess Iron Man needed someone to save other than the world.

Those points are minor quibbles in the grand scheme, though, and Favreau keeps the plot moving fast enough that you won’t bother nitpicking as you watch.  Favreau has also grown as a director since Iron Man, and more ably delivers the action scenes this time around.  He’s especially good at framing iconic scenes that you wish you could make a poster of.

I don’t know if it’s a bigger budget or 2 years of new technology, but the Iron Man and War Machine suits are more impressive and real this time around.  Vanko’s Whiplash outfit is also appropriately cool looking, though I think I prefer the simpler one from the beginning of the film to the ‘uber’ version at the end.

Though I felt that Rhodey needed some more screen time, I really did like the dynamic that War Machine added to the mix.  His use in the film was probably the better use of a ’sidekick’ than I’ve seen in any superhero movie.  Yes, even Chris O’Donnell’s oh-so-memorable Robin.

Iron Man’s not new anymore, so I don’t have the same gushing feelings of awesomeness that I had the first time around but don’t let that make you think that Iron Man 2 doesn’t deliver.  It absolutely does, and I feel confident that it will be the best big-budget movie of the summer.

Verdict: B+ Tilt: A