For the last few weeks Connor Macleod and I have been labouring away in a new spot. It’s in Squamish, up the Squamish River. There’s no gate to get there… Feel free to track it down and have a ride. Just be a nice guy and don’t shoot it… yet, we need to get our stuff together first, ie: we have a pretty sweet project planned that will be popping up on Pinkbike starting December. I’ll do a post on all that once we start picking up steam, proposal’s just got wrapped up and are starting to go out to gather funding to keep us going. For now you can check out some building shots. In a few days I’ll do a post on the branding and proposal design I did up for this.

Connor under the rock line – pre-soil:

Rock line with soil:

View of line, into gap before it funnels back into singletrack:

Standing above the Rock line, plagued with flies:

Looking down the first steep, onto the ledge, then drops into the roll:

Mossy run-in:

Dirty hands:

Old volcanic peak. Nobody has been to the summit according to trusty wikipedia.

Basically everyone uses a Mac. I’m probably one of the few who still use a PC, and I am far from the kind to just walk into the store and pick up something off the shelf, since about 2008 I’ve always been sold on custom builds. I recently purchased a new desktop and thought it would be work breaking down what I went for. It’s fast and crunches out photos without many loading bars, so I can get back to more photo related work… Like emailing.

When I built this computer I wanted something future-proof as almost every few years photo file sizes double. Currently when I’m working on a layered .tiff they sit at around 300mb each. Having a few open to work through at a time can be super intensive so I wanted to build something with fairly future-proof speed. Storage also is something that is super crucial when you are creating multiple files of that size, things add up quick. Interfaces and ports are the third consideration I put in when building this computer, USB3 will soon the the new standard, as well with Sata III (6gb/s) and e-sata possibilities.

Here’s a breakdown of the full build, and reasoning why and modifications and configurations:

1 x Intel Core i7 2600K Quad Core Unlocked Hyperthreading Processor LGA1155 3.4GHZ Sandy Bridge 8MB
– While this socket isn’t the most current it was the most value for speed. I have the processor over-clocked to 4.6ghz.

1 x Noctua NH-D14 LGA1155/1156/1366/AM3 I7/I5/PHENOM Heatpipe Cooler W/ NF-P14 140MM & NF-P12 120MM Fan
– This keeps things cool, and is the reason why my processor can run at 4.6ghz. It’s also not too loud.

1 x ASUS P8P67 WS Revolution P67 LGA1155 4PCI-E16 3PCI-E1 SATA3 USB3.0 GBLAN Sandy Bridge B3 Motherboard
– The Asus BIOS has been completely redone, and makes over-clocking something super simple, also allows for fast drive configurations. This board has 2 Sata III ports and 6 Sata II ports, this allows ample storage. This motherboard also allows me to upgrade to Intel Xeon processors.

2 x G.SKILL Ripjaws X F3-14900CL9D-8GBXL 8GB 2X4GB DDR3-1866 CL9-10-9-28 Memory
– I have not managed to max this yet which is something worth mentioning. I’m running it at 1866mhz. It’s memory so I can’t really say much more.

1 x Fractal Design Define R3 Black ATX Mid Tower Silent Computer Case 2X5.25 8X3.5INT No PS Front USB
– Designed to be quiet, and has a well thought out design for cable routing and ventilation. It doesn’t look bad (like a space ship or monster) so that’s huge points.

1 x OCZ Z-SERIES 1000W 80+ Gold Certified 24PIN ATX 83A 12V Afc Modular Power Supply W/ 1 *IR-$130.00*
– Modular supplies are nice, you don’t have 1000 octopus arms in your case, you plug in only what you need.

2 x Patriot PW120GS25SSDR Wildfire Series 120GB 2.5IN SATA3 SandForce Solid State Disk Flash Drive SSD
– These are fast. I have them running as scratch discs for Adobe, with my OS and application all on them. It was a headache to get sorted out, and I’m not too pleased with how Patriot dealt with things. If you get them just upgrade the firmware and all should be fine. That being said I did waste almost two weeks dealing with Blue Screens, Hangs and Crashes, and after viewing the Patriot forums I realised I wasn’t alone. I don’t get why a company would release a product with such major known issues.

1 x LG GH24LS70 24X SATA Lightscribe Internal DVD Writer Burner DVDRW Optical Drive Black OEM
– I put discs into it, they come back out. I make disc’s with it. Its fine, not looking for too much here.

1 x Nvidia Quadro FX 3800
– This card is pretty awesome coming from a ATI Radeon XT 1650 with 256mb. This runs with 1gb storage and is CUDA capable, for working with graphics acceleration in Photoshop, it loads the tiles faster than I can scroll through the image.

Additional Storage
- The two Wildfire drives are for the OS, apps and scratch discs, the LG DVD drive occupies a SATA port, so that leaves me with 4 more ports. Currently I have two Seagate Barracuda 1tb drives running internally, and a Wester Digital 1tb Caviar Black as an external. The two internal drives are separated as Work/Play on their own drives respectively. The external backs up the ‘Work’ Drive. In the future I’m going to move to four 3tb Western Digital HDD’s configured as a RAID1 to keep everything safe. I’ll scrap the E-SATA external for a USB3 external to bring back and forth between home and the office.

That is that for the breakdown of my new computer. Total cost was just under $2400.00, more than an iMac. Less that a Mac Pro running a similar configuration. For the future it’s easy to swap and upgrade parts without having to purchase a whole new computer… but next major build, funds providing, it will be time for a Mac Pro I think, the hard drive failures I dealt with on the Wildfire III’s was enough of a headache for me not to want to deal with custom builds any more.

Added another piece up to the “Projects” section of my site. You can read about it over there, so you don’t have to read about it twice.

Here’s a good vibes / product placement shot from the same shoot.

Just did an update following up the Romstad photos I shot back at the end of July. There is now a new section with a gallery of 15 images to go with the series, all available as prints. Have a look here:

http://derekdix.com/romstad.html

Also over the last month I’ve had the pleasure of helping out Alterna Films with their intro for 13 o’clock, which is coming out this fall. I’ve shot a bunch of behind the scenes stuff that is up on push.ca:

Part I
Part II

Here’s a couple of my favorite shots:

There was cloud floating over the city the last couple days, checking the forecast I knew it wasn’t going to last long. Sadly I didn’t manage to shoot any mountain biking but did manage to do a hike with my brother Landon, up to the peak of Hollyburn Mountain after work. The fog was dense, it looked like not many people had been up there since spring, and the snow was still plentiful. We wrapped up the adventure with a good number of shots, two of which have made it into my People section on my portfolio, so have a look.

The other week Kristen Smart aka Smash and I set out to do a shoot with her new Sombrio Kit and bike, the concept was super basic but came out well. Kristen threw on red lipstick which paired amazingly with the colour of her outfit, after getting a bit muddy she still looked smashing (HAH!) and the shots turned out great:

That’s that. 4 years wrapped up at ACAD. Got my degree, convocation is Thursday the 19th. Grad Show runs May 18 – 28. Stop by at the opening if you can!

May 18 – 28, 2011
ACAD | Main Mall, 3rd floors and Illingworth Kerr Gallery
Opening reception | May 18, 2011 | 6:00 PM – 8:00 PM

ACAD is at the core of Calgary’s creative community and each year our graduates go on to transform their fields of endeavor through their creative process, becoming important voices in the worlds of art and design in Calgary and beyond. We are proud to celebrate the remarkable work of this year’s graduating class here, at the 2011 ACAD Grad Show. This year, ACAD’s Illingworth Kerr Gallery is proud to present work by nearly 200 graduating students, including eleven recipients of ACAD’s prestigious Board of Governor Awards. We have planned a unique and extensive exhibition staged throughout our College – prepare to be surprised, awed and inspired by these talented and energetic creators. We hope you enjoy the show!

Just a quick update with some visuals, trying to keep the blog flowing more now. This shot is from the final project for my photo illustration class. The concept that we had to work with was one of the 7 sins… I was given the sin of sloth, despite it being photo illustration class nothings composited, that sloth head is a giant foam-core head.

Click for full-res.

After last year I came out with a heavily processed based project titled Animalia Canadiana.

Huge ups to Jordan Manley for taking home first place for the Saint Deep Summer Photo Challenge. If you never have heard of Jordan before I would take a poke around his website to see what this man can do… This is of course after you climb out from under your rock. It was unreal to be part of his team during this contest.

Also the party shots from Jordie Lunns Grilled Cheeze Party and the Cove Bikes Party are both up in the events section of the site… AND there also is a new page in my still life section of the last project I shot, which was mentioned in the previous post.