For the weekend, I picked up a Nikon 14-24mm from BorrowLenses.com to use for a holiday photowalk in Fairhope, Alabama on Sunday.
Another one from this outing...
A-HA! Well, not really A-hA! More like.. mehhm...
Okay, before you get critical and say, this is too busy or is poorly composed or weirdly processed, I just gotta say:
6 times I've walked past this tree and tried to get a shot of the whole tree in the frame. 6 times! I just can't find the right way to shoot this tree!!
Plus, I believe the park officials would be grumpy with me if I brought a machete with which to clear things out of the frame :)
So, this is one of those "I learned 100 ways to not make a lightbulb moments.."
.. Plus.. It's still an interesting enough scene that I wanted to share, even though I'm not thrilled with the composition.
..and finally..
I arrived at Blakeley Park around 4pm CST. I've tried a number of times to get in around sunset and always get smited by something pedestrian. Last time I attempted, it was the small order of cash.
It costs a token amount to enter and I had zero american presidents at my disposal.
Plus, I doubted this place has a card swipe machine or RFID google wallet reader :)
This time! -- Ohh this time I was prepared.. I scooted off with a crisp $10 bill and made it to the gate at 4. The park guy was great, recommending that I be gone by 5:30. As he put it, not for his convenience but so that I wouldn't be eaten by an alligator or carried off by mosquitos.
The latter was more likely.
As I walked down the boardwalk I heard plenty of critters below and I couldn't help but feel for the men who were tasked with building this boardwalk. Do they have snake-repellent boots?
At any rate, this is one of the first times I've been able to get a shot of this particular scene that I'm pleased with. In part because of the loaner lens, in part because of the good light and in part b/c of the cool atmosphere. I hope you enjoy!
Now that the Turkey is devoured and people have been able to take out their repressed angst on strangers on Black Friday, we are coming around to Santa Season, once more.
I’m a huge fan of the season, if for no other reason than for the photographic opportunities. :)
I took this shot last year, my daughter was pleading with the Santa at Bass Pro Shops, on my behalf. We had been joking that I had been bad throughout the year so/she felt inclined to use some of her Santa face/time to appeal for my reinstatement to the nice list.
I’m probably not going to be able to out-do this shot, this year. But, I’ll try!
As an idle-passerby'r in this universe and reader of things beyond my intellect, I have a passing fascination with Quantum Physics. My daughter asked me one day about a Quantum Physics book I was reading, I explained it to her ( for now ) that Quantum Physics is the construct of made-up/probably never applicable physics.
She's 7. Usually, she just blinks, calls me silly and goes about her day of DS/Wii/Homework/Cartoons/Kid-Dom.
Quantum Physics is really impossible for someone of my practical mindset to grasp. Particles with hard-to-imagine behaviors. For instance, a particle, that if you were to imagine it as a playing card (a standard plane of n width and infinite planal surface), that you could flip the playing card over and see not only the suit, the number but also any infinite number of other supposed "states'.
I mean.. What the hell? Playing cards with two sides but infinite states? Who thinks this crap up?
Some of my favorite ideas borrowed from Quantum Physics are the ideas that for every possible outcome of a situation there are matching infinite universes based on those outcomes. Maybe that means there is a universe where I attended enough college and neglected enough video games in order to understand this stuff.
I guess, somewhere, there are other pBranes housing universes where the sun doesn't set in the colorful display we see but maybe the sun sets onto silvery lakes of molten Mercury. I visited this alternate universe recently, and captured this shot.
Or.. I used an IR filter in post. Which-ever.
Intradimensional travel vs photoshop filters. They are virtually the same thing, anyway. Until someone flips over the cosmic playing card...
The Original Oyster House on the Causeway is the launching point for airboat rides along the delta. Above the launching area, there is a banquet room for large parties and such. A few times we've been at the Original Oyster House for dinner, I've eyed the deck on the banquet room as an ideal location for shots in the evenings of the distance Mobile, Alabama skyline.
Finally, last week I got permission from Original Oyster House staffers to camp out on the deck with my tripod and a Sweetwater-420. I think it's important to be a customer at a place when imposing to use their property for photography stuff.
The sunset wasn't bad/wasn't the best but we enjoyed our meal as always and I'm glad to have gotten a few shots from the outing.
I can't stand commuting.
With election season over, on this Veteran's Day I'm hopeful that our government can set aside partisan politics to make the decisions necessary to work for the American People and the American Idea.
I was troubled to hear about a Veteran's Jobs Bill that was reduced to political fodder back in late September. The bill aimed to set aside Government funds to help soldiers get back into the private workforce upon returning home. Instead of working together, the two parties came to an empasse and the bill died. The Republicans say it's unconstitutional, incorrectly proposed and not within the funding policy. The democrats say the Republicans are stonewalling the legislation.
I think most voters you speak with would say "c'mon guys... work it out."
I've heard it said that you can be a Medic in a war-zone for a branch of the US military and prepare/stabilize critically injured soldiers for the next echelon of care but those same individuals, once in the private workforce, lack the credentials necessary to be a school nurse.
It seems as though bridge-certifications, taking those soldiers credits in an experiential fashion would help things along.. But, I presume there is no room for common sense in Washington, DC. :|
The owner of this boat came to the Gulf Coast to cash in on opportunities in the BP Oil Cleanup. At those times, rumors flourished that basically anyone with any type of craft could get paid a per diem for oil cleanup services, with little supervision as how they spent their days.
Sure, plenty of well meaning folks put their boats in the water and checked in with coordinators, working their butts off in oil-cleanup related tasks. But, disasters are distractions and it's easy to make a buck in the frenzy of moments like that. Some, got paid a fair daily rate to go out on the water and spend the day, accomplishing very little work.
Did this boat owner do this? Who knows. What I DO know, is he left his craft in this slip, unmaintained until the point that it sank. He created a mess for the really nice folks that run the Marina to deal with. As the dockmaster told me, "He got his BP check and left town."
I've always been drawn to the classifications that some people trully intend to leave the world a better place through their actions while others are simply here to take what they can.
When I was younger, I was a taker, for sure.
My parents would do whatever they could legally get away with and often some things, they didn't. From their example I learned that being smart was my weapon and I could wield it freely and unexpectedly to "get" what I wanted from people.
In my younger times I was a manipulative little creep and nowhere near as smart as I thought I was.
In my personal life, through exposure to my father in law, I found a model for integrity. Through my career life, I worked for one of the most honest and decent human beings to ever occupy Earth. At first, my exposure to these guys was more of a curious novelty. I was fascinated and generally confused that they would do things for other people completely unphased by imposition and unexpecting of something in return.
Years later, my father in law passed away unexpectedly. (On April 1st, no less.)
The line of people that came to see him into the next life was something like I'd never seen before. His funeral procession spanned two towns. It was in the wake of those moments that I looked back at my own motives and learned from the model of his life.
If I scratched and clawed,lied and cheated my way up the corporate ladder, I'd gain the forced respect I always sought after but the victory party would be a lonely one. If I touched as many lives as possible through random acts of kindness, not only would I find the respect I sought but I would gain lifelong friends along the way...
To Fred, I say -- Thanks for living a life of example.
And to the creep that left the mess pictured here, in Fairhope -- "dude, not cool." :)
I went out this evening to shoot the October Moon through the telescope with an iPhone 5.
It was a mild form of disaster.
I back out a eyepiece thumbscrew out too far and drop it in the grass. After fumbling around in the dark with a flashlight for twenty minutes, I declared martial screw-it-ness and went on with the project.
As I pointed the telescope the Azimuth lock-down nut on the telescope broke off at the base. (sigh)
With my Sony NEX cameras, I'd always shoot in quadrants and then stitch the imgaes together as a composite in Photoshop. I did manage to shoot about 9 shots of the various quadrants before I put the telescope up.
Now, as I sit trying to stitch the images together the natural light fall-off totally 0wns photoshop's stacking algorithm.
On a brighter note, I thought the natural light falloff looks kinda cool, so I thought I'd share, anyway..
#firstworldproblems
:)
This week, the County Fair is in town @ Robertsdale. I suppose I'm not like alot of people I know that are bullish on the fair. I've heard alot of comments on the price of admission, the price for ride tickets, etc. In fact, as I scarfed down a $6 nacho, I overheard the people next to me bitching about $8 beer.
To me, if you are going to be a Lemming and drink Bud/Miller/PBR at a fair... Expect to be gouged. :)
At any rate.. I suppose my fond memories relate back to high school. A good friend of mine lived right across from the old fairgrounds. While, for them it was an annoyance in traffic, I always thought it was really cool to have the lights and rides right outside your front porch.
Of course, being a devious sort, fair-time often signalled a week-long war of police tape and any possible thing he could do to keep people from parking in his dad's yard. Toilet paper... was just the beginning.
This time, met up with a photography friend as as always, I had a really fun time shooting over at the fellow troublemaker, Brody, We had plenty of laughs and he showd me some tips on shooting long exposure.
Light-writing for the lazy person :)
This also made for a good opportunity to put the new iPhone camera to work. This shot is using the iPhone 5's internal panoramic sweep mode, adjusted in-camera with snapseed and slightly noise-reduced on upload to smugmug through lightroom.
The result, I thought was pretty respectable considering it came from a camera-phone..
..And of course, I toted around the D800 with a tripod. Received many odd looks but also took a slightly tighter cropped panoramic with it:
I learned in this.. that I really-really want a better wide-angle lens. The 14-24mm is calling me. :)
If you are in Baldwin County, take some time and go out to the fair. Grab some Nachos and enjoy the sights and sounds. You'll have fun -- I did!. The Eastern Shore Camera Club, goes Friday night. Jump on over to their facebook area and hook up with a great/fun group of people that enjoy the call of photography.
