New Layout Test

Checking the image size.

Banded Hazing

Having some fun with HDR on a recent trip to California.  A small gallery can be viewed here.  Guess which is not an HDR?

The Widening Gyre

Shooting some bird activity one hazy and bright afternoon.  A small gallery  can be viewed here.

NIght Tower

The playback is choppy on this little version, so I put up a standalone page for this video.  Shot this on a recent trip to CA (obviously) crossing the Golden Gate Bridge at night. Been working on this stillmotion technique off and on, this is the result of beating my head against the desk for the last fourteen hours to figure out the best settings for playback. What you see is the result I'm most happy with. Personally, I think it's time to abandon this project and find a new subject. Of course if I lived near-by I'd reshoot this one until I was satisfied. But it's not exactly a day trip from my apartment in Fort Collins, CO. Learning curve is pretty high, at least for me. Overall this is too cool to delete.
Camera Details:
NIkon D3, 50mm f/1.4 AF-s, Cloudy White Balance, Manual Exposure Mode, 1/60 at f/1.4, ISO 1600, JPEG Basic, Small
I was sitting in the backseat and just shooting like mad with the D3. Didn't have time to meter, so I guessed. Kindda proud of that fact. Composition was dependent on which lane the driver chose and how I had the D3 wedged between the glass and the sill. Got lucky here, too. It's no less valid that I took a guess and nailed it. Guessing is the result of experience, and a tremendous learning tool. The total was 95 shots in the sequence. An additional 14 were added to each end of the video in Photoshop CS4 to create the fades. Video was compiled using QTPro importing the image sequence at 12fps.
Colour balance doesn't seem to hold after the video compression, but to watch the full HDTV size on the Cinema display is yummy red velvet against the blackness. Success is defined here by the need to abandon this for what it is, a successful experiment which yielded answers to questions that will go toward further projects of this type. After watching this a few time I got some idea of what to change on the camera's end and that should make the post-processing a bit smoother. Got an ice climbing trip planned later in the month, might be a good subject for the next installment.
Now get outside and play...

A Day With(out) Art

In 1989, as a response to the AIDS crisis, this day December 1st, was designated "A Day With(out) Art".  At the time I was living in Philadelphia and attending an art college.  During the early 90's AIDS was impossible to ignore, specially in a city like Philly.  The fear and a few of the stereotypes were eventually lessened and unfortunately the significance of this day was also lessened and in places , if recognized at all, it was forgotten.

Certainly true of the area I currently call home, as well as the blog-o-sphere I haunt.  There is a lot of info available today about new camera gear being announced, three first time authors have three new books available, one formerly reputable blogger has just given away a pile of gear to a recent contest winner, several contests were also announced, but nothing is mentioned about the significance of December 1st.

So here it is:

December 1st; A Day With(out) Art.  I encourage everyone, everywhere to engage in one meaningful and random act of kindness today (or whatever day you actually read this).  Afterward, maybe most importantly, don't tell anyone.  No twitter, no facebook, no blogging, no bragging.  Do it quietly and remember the moment.

To Absent Friends...