Lifeguard Lookout

Pacific Ocean near La Jolla, California (seen in the background). Lighting is 30 seconds under moonlight plus intermittent roadside headlights reflected against the top of the lifeguard station.

With this ends a straight month of posting something every day, just to see if I could do it. It's a lot of work — I'm taking a break.

Pacific 2

I'm back home in New York but my body's still on Pacific Time, so here's an early post for today.

This is the view to the right of the first ocean shot. The orange comes from the city lights reflected off the clouds and fog rolling in.

I can see two airplane trails in the large version (click the photo to make it larger).

Beacon Beckons

A funny thing happened in San Diego on the way to the beach. I turned uphill onto a scenic bypass to get a view of the valley below, and I accidentally found the gigantic San Diego Temple, with the lights turned up to 10. It was breathtaking.

I don't know what the electric bill is, or how people who live around there can sleep with the glare in their bedroom windows all night, but it's the most amazing city centerpiece I've seen.

Pacific

The conference we were presenting this week in San Diego has successfully been completed. Now to try to get home through Baltimore and Albany airports with over a foot of snow and rain expected for tomorrow.

I wanted to see the ocean before I left and got out tonight on my own. I found my way to Torrey Pines State Park, which was closed, but I used a flat spot on the gate blocking my car as a camera rest to take this 30 second exposure. Lighting provided by the waxing gibbous moon at 92% of full.

A

Great big terminal labeling in Orlando International Airport.

Smiley

The ground crew put a smiley face on my luggage tag the other day. What a great thing.

Stacked Ships

I'm in San Diego this week for work. Here's the view once you pull out of the airport — lots and lots of boats.

This half-bad grab shot out a moving shuttle bus window is serving as the backdrop for our break timer at the conference we're doing in San Diego this week. And you get to see it for free here!

Anchored

Sailboats anchored in Boston Harbor. In the distance on the right is the control tower from Logan Airport.

Anemone

Claire (3) is having a hard time remembering and saying the word "pomegranate," it's the new smelly squirt soap flavor right now in the bathroom.

When I showed her another four-syllable thing today she said it clear as a bell: anemone. All those daily viewings of Finding Nemo pay off. Anyway, I think that's what this is.

Claire loved the New England Aquarium, she still talks about it and wants to go back. She's leaning towards a career in marine biology.

Jelly

In April last year we went to the New England Aquarium in Boston. I took a lot of photos but never posted any, so it's time to get started. All the jellyfish in the place were swimming upside down. Maybe they came from the other side of the world?

No Tine Like The Present

I saw a gorgeous photo like this on Flickr and dropped everything I was doing at the moment to spend a few minutes seeing if I could do something like that.

You know what it is, right?

Deconstruction

I've been reading the Strobist blog for a couple years now — it's everything you need to know about creating really nice lighting with small flashes. My latest project to apply all this knowledge is a 70-family shoot for a church directory to be published on paper and secure website.

I had to think this setup through for a while because I don't know what I'm doing, yet still wanted it to look good. Definitely an unfair fight between requirements and resources.

Lots of firsts for me:

• three-light setup with unequal power levels (up from one light)
• side kick light to boost hair and define facial features
• brought in and lit a background for consistency shot to shot
• turned out the gym lights to avoid mixed Kelvin temperatures from overhead fluorescent
• allowing more shadow than usual to add contrast for tiny viewing sizes in print and web
• using a longer focal length and tighter aperture to compress stacked rows of people and avoid edge distortion
• trying to better arrange people

There's a lot going on all at once and my brain hurts when it's over. But the photos are turning out good so far. I'm learning a lot. For instance —

• Enlist an entourage to help
• Don't try to direct and be in the photo (see yesterday's portrait with misbehaving tykes)
• What was I thinking?!
• Don't quit my day job

Actually I'm having fun and it should be a nice finished product. Oh, and ...

HAPPY 15TH BIRTHDAY, MADELEINE!!!

This One Goes Out To the Ones I Love

Valentine's Day 2010. Malcolm (13), Jeff (Beeswax, Not Yours, Inc.), Carter (5), Joanie, Claire (3), Madeleine (15 tomorrow).

Scouting Centennial

Last week we had a Boy Scout court of honor where members of our troop received their latest awards. Jason our Scoutmaster talked about the founding of the Boy Scouts of America 100 years ago in February 1910. He also shared a touching story about the impact it had on him growing up, and also his father and grandfather, all Eagle Scouts, the highest rank in Scouting. Above is his grandfather's Eagle award, which he received as a young man in 1940 and proudly wore to school the next day.

Got an Erie Feeling About This

I did a little searching and found the arched stonework I was standing on to take the Balltown Road bridge photo shown yesterday is a piece of the Erie Canal.

Several arches extended across the Mohawk River here and supported the Rexford Aqueduct, allowing Erie Canal barge traffic to pass over the river. A river over a river — in the 1820s — pretty amazing.

I found some excellent historical information and some antique postcards illustrating the Rexford Aqueduct as it looked.

The Rexford Aqueduct is 4 miles from my house. Part of the Eighth Wonder of the World. I love the history all around us here in New York.

Balltown Over the Mohawk

I'm going through old files and keep finding shots I've never published. Here's something from last summer, just after I got my fisheye lens, when water was flowing in liquid form in upstate New York.

This is a view looking westward at sunset of Balltown Road crossing the Mohawk River. The water coming towards us is headed east to the Hudson River.

This is one of four bridges I can take to get into Albany for work. I avoid Balltown Road because it's only two lanes and gets snarled with nerdy engineers driving to work at GE and Knolls Atomic Power Lab (we'll see if this gets any comments).

I'm taking this picture standing on an arched stone extension into the waterway which I'm guessing used to be part of either the old bridge or the Erie Canal.

Material Witness 2

More pictures from RPI's Material Witness exhibit at the Albany Airport.

Taken with a "fast fifty" 50mm f/1.8 lens.

Material Witness 1

The latest exhibit at the Albany Airport art space is called Material Witness. RPI students raided some recycling bins, chopped things up, and turned it into something to look at.

When Joanie and Madeleine's plane from Salt Lake City was an hour late a couple weeks ago I took the remaining three kids to look at it. They were very good about not touching things; they were not good at abstaining from running though the place at Warp 8.

Today we have a few colorful shots, I'll save the more monochromatic pieces for tomorrow.

Focus

Carter computes some more.

Tastes Great, Less Filling

Claire starts off the New Year right with a picnic. Check out the Frisbee used as a plate. The title says the rest.

Coldplay

Weird winter in the snowbelt. It's February 8, we've had nothing but sunshine for the past several days, and the snow has just about melted off our yard. It's still cold, just no snow.

Meanwhile a few hundred miles south in Washington, DC all of my colleagues from work were snowed in today under 2 feet of white, and more snow is in the forecast tomorrow. I was the only one "in" the office today in Albany.

So in memory of snow, here are some shots of Carter and Claire from January 1, testing out my new 18-200mm lens found under a Christmas tree a week earlier. Those dead stems they're arranging so artistically used to be these.

Happy 500th post for the Grandon Fan Club!

Hang On

In the Orlando airport, on the train from the terminal to baggage claim ... and warm weather.

Hourglass

Ceiling and skylights over the terminal junction at Orlando International Airport.

This photo was a challenge, it took a while to figure out how to make it look like something to post. The ceiling came out brightly colored and garish — like many things you see in Florida.

Often the answer is try black and white to emphasize form, but that only got me partway there. A happy accident while experimenting in Photoshop suddenly made the center section go almost black, and I said 'wow' out loud. That's what I was looking for.

Swamp Thing

In Florida I borrowed a hotel bike to head over to a nature trail. It was a winding boardwalk over a swampy area full of oaks, saw palmettos, and swamp bays (where bay leaves for cooking come from). Kind of interesting all this stuff grows despite the standing water.

Paused Pose

Carter at the computer; the boy loves his video games. Getting him to pause long enough to listen to you, or take a picture, is a bonus.

Small Stars

A couple weeks ago I did a presentation on photography for a small 4-H club. When I say small, it's in more ways than one — these were six- through eight-year-old kids.

First we sat on the floor and I showed them some photos I had taken of people, places, and things to give them ideas of all there was out there to photograph. I especially encouraged them to take pictures of things down low like leaves, pinecones, bugs, and the undersides of flowers, because most pictures are taken from up high by adults, and these kids currently have a height advantage. So to speak.

We practiced some camera skills like focusing and holding very still. Then we got out the tripod and flashlight and turned out all the lamps so everyone could do a 30 second light painting. One of the dads did this one. Carter came as my helper and we had a lot of fun together.

Forty Lashes

Last week while Joanie took Madeleine to Utah and Idaho to tour college campuses and dodge paparazzi at the Sundance Film Festival, I was home taking care of the rest of the gang.

I was reading to Claire on my lap before her nap one day and there was this beautiful sunshine coming through the window onto her face. When we were done reading I grabbed my camera and got some pictures of her eyelashes in the warm sunlight.

Crystalline Entity

I found this in a little corner of our window Saturday when it got really cold. I had to use a hollow extension tube between my lens and camera to make everything more nearsighted, so I could really get in close.