Sun-Bleached

I decided, this morning - err... afternoon, that I would venture out into the scorching heat and take some pictures. This task, by the way, was made doubly-hard by the fact that my car currently lacks air-conditioning - an experience that brings back shades of "the big e".

I like taking pictures of industrial... well, thingamajigs. Good news! There's plenty of thingamajigs at the Boat Yard at Calf's Pasture in Norwalk. And on a blindingly sunny day there are some cool textures that come alive. Shooting here was a bit of a nervous experience - I kept expecting someone to shout: "get out" or "private property" or "TERRORIST!". Fortunately everyone there seemed to be doing there own thing... and I'm not entirely sure I don't have every right to go there. Whateve.


Driving up the access road I noticed a crane barge that I thought would make an interesting subject. When I walked closer I discovered that what I was actually looking at is a crane that had simply been driven onto a barge. I don't know if that's how they usually do it, or not, but I think it's kind of cool.

Cats Turns a Corner

Yes, that's right. Cats.

For those of you who don't know, I'm currently designing the set and lights for Staples Summer Theatre's production of Cats. This is quite a feat considering we have a huge stage (54' at the apron) and only three people on the crew. All of whom have full-time jobs or other daytime obligations. But yesterday was a turning point for our production (at least from a technical perspective).
So far everything is half done. The lights are hung but not focused. The thrust is built but not painted. The tire is assembled but not screwed to the deck. Yesterday's momentous occasion was the completion of the first piece of set/lighting.


Megan stands in awe (ok, not so much) of our glorious creation. Moonie is made up of a 44" circle cut out of 1/2" plywood, a cardboard backing, and a string of x-mas lights, also fabric and staples to finish it all up.
I'm extremely satisfied by the rough - cratery - texture that the x-mas lights are projecting onto the back of the fabric. And the softness added by the black scrim in the foreground really makes it work. I used 2x 1/16" AC cable to secure it to the fourth electrical - the cable is so thin you can't see it from the front row. Even with the cyc lighting up. Unfortunately some of this coolness is going to be lost when we run a power cable. Alas.

Never the less.... Go team!

We now pause the silence to bring you this brief intermission [NAP]

Yes, that's right - this message marks an intermission in the daily inactivity that is this blog.

It's been an unbelievably busy time. Basically pedal to the metal ever since I got back from Colorado. I've spent every waking hour either at the office - where I'm working on a number of important projects. Or at the theatre where the set is... well, it still looks like a bunch of scaffolds and a wooden donut (which admittedly isn't that far off from a junk-heap). Just to make everything more manageable and pleasant I'm also, personally, going through a life-adjusting rough patch.

Long story short: When I'm not writing software or building a set I'm sleeping. As you can probably tell this leaves precious little time for photography of a blog-worthy nature. Which leaves me (and my blog) in a delicate position. I can either post nothing and risk loosing what few readers I have. Or post crap and risk alienating the same few readers.

Actually, now that I think about it there's a third option. I could annoy my readers by writing long, rambly posts about nothing interesting and then follow it up with a pointless video.

For want of a smile

[not my photo]

New Shoes + Boredom at LGA = ?

I suppose this is what happens when my Carry-on bag is my camera and my flight is running late. Last week I bought a pair of new shoes to replace my talking/floppy shoes for the Colorado trip - well, they haven't faired so well, but here is a nice macro-shot of them in all of their glorious freshness.


I shot this using two filters. One of them was a +1 magnification filter - I haven't quite mastered these poor-man's-macro-lens filters yet. The one thing I have noticed is that the filter leaves a very small sweet-spot in the center of the lens that can be in focus. Everything else, regardless of what plane its on, will be in varying levels of focus. I love this effect.
The other filter I used didn't really make much sense to use since its really meant for black and white film photography. I used a high-contrast orange filter. Why? I don't know. Oh well - it just meant that I had to do a little bit less post-production. It also meant I was completely unable to use the color information in the photo. Overall - not really worth it.

Kindling

Yep, its time to post another shot from my recent trip out west (not all the way out west - just most of the way). Here's a tree I shot at Boulder Park looks pretty scorched either from the ridiculous current heat-wave or some past fire. In fact the whole area was ridiculously dry. Signs everywhere indicated that the Fire-Hazard level was high and that there was an open-flame ban in effect


Well, I guess its too late for this one, oh well. Photographers looking at this will recognize the richness in the sky as being the result of a polarizer. Yup.

I had a lot of fun shooting in CO, and one of the major reasons is that the light is very-direct. The altitude gets you 1 mile farther up into the atmosphere - and I'm sure there's some sort of inverse-square proportion governing the amount of haze (read: U/V protection) that I have to deal with when taking photos in broad daylight.

I'm Back

I'm don't normally start a post with the photo, and this may be the first time I post a picture exclusively of myself. Sweet. Firsts!

I'm now back from my trip to go visit Sam in Colorado. Long weekend trips sometimes leave me feeling completely overwhelmed by the number of photos that I have to pour through and do the post-processing on. I think I've whittled down the 300+ shots that I kept to about 60. ish. You can expect to see some more of them making there way onto this blog. In the meantime, check out the rest of the trip!

A video clip [NAP]

Yes, that's right its another Not-A-Photo entry.



Whaaaa??? Why is he posting a horribly compressed video clip?

I don't know. YouTube butchered the video I shot on my Sony DSC-T3 in super-high-res-ultra mode. Alas. Not sure if I'm ever going to do this again - this may be a one-off.

This video, I shot on my recent Seattle trip, features a friendly fish-chucker throwing a fish to a child actor in some sort of video production. The child entirely fails to catch the heavy fish.

How to annoy your friends

In three easy steps

Step 1: Find a friend making an undignified face.
Step 2: Take a picture of said face.
Step 3: Post picture on your "blog" for the entire "Internet" to see.


Well, there's no doubt about what's going on in this shot. Max is eating fiberglass insulation on a dare.

Joking and funny faces aside; I really am quite happy with this shot. The ambient lighting and the high ISO value combined to add a really interesting grain to the left (camera-left) side of Max's face. Bonus points are always awarded for crazy ripple-y forehead action.

A Prolific Day

I walked down the street this afternoon to take some pictures at the beach. I've been so ridiculously busy with the move that this was my first afternoon off in what seems like a month.


I'm very happy with this shot! The biggest reason is that the only thing I did to it in post was to change the color temperature and vignette the scene a little. You have to love it when a shot comes out well in camera. On the other hand, I had a feeling this was going to be a good shot - so I took about 12 exposures. Yay for digital!

So what makes this day prolific? Well, take a look at some of the other shots I took today. I like these two:

For want of a little traveling music

Today I ventured, by train, down to Jersey to help Pang drive up his father's station wagon. We decided it will probably prove to be invaluable during our upcoming move. I arrived at the Westport train station only to discover that I'd forgotten to bring the headphones for my Zen Micro.

With nothing to read, I found myself sitting in the doorway of the train taking pictures of nothing to pass the time. Between the photography and the compulsive email-checking I must have looked pretty bored.


For a while during the trip I slapped on my magnifying filter and started shooting some macro shots. The thing about this filter that I love isn't its ability to move the camera closer to the subject - frankly, when it comes to this there really is no substitute for a macro lens. Rather, what I really like about shooting with the magnifying filter is the way it softly blurs anything that isn't dead-center in the frame.


This shot is of the writing etched into windows panels of the train's sliding doors. I took quite a few shots pointing at this text from odd angles - trying to meter the shot turned out to be tricky because the backdrop kept changing. In this particular moment you can see a smoke stack in the center of the image, however it is so blurred it might has well be a matchstick pressed against the other side of the glass.

As for the text itself, I've decided I don't really care about it at all.

Another one bites the dust

Last night marked the close of the Downtown Cabaret's production of Sweet Charity. Followers of this blog (which apparently now include some members of the production staff) will recall that I've been acting LBO for this show for the past month or so.

It's always sad to see a show close - at least for me. Even the shows that I despise - the shows that go out of their way to screw with me - I can't help but feel a twinge of sadness. Despite some of the rig's more annoying features, this show has been a pleasure to run.


The photos I took last night were more along the line of "vacation photos" than anything else. None of them really good enough to highlite here. I spent a little bit of time last night cropping photos and presenting them like a pile of polaroids.

I'm not really sure what I think about this. For starters, I don't think I used nearly enough source imagery. Oh well, garbage in - garbage out. Additionally, the flickr resize algorithm beat the hell out of my hard lines. This pile really looks sharp when it's viewed up close. Lastly, doing this proved to be fairly time-consuming. We shall see whether or not I ever do one of these again.

Forgotten Shot

In the few hours I had to walk around Seattle during my recent trip I took quite a few pictures. Today I rediscovered this one.


I love the way the polarizer turns the glare into a sheen on the side of this building. I think the colors make this shot really special; the subtle shades of brown, gold and blue play very gently on hard stone.

I do enjoy rediscovering a photo that I took.

Update: I'm looking at this picture again... Please view it large. Flickr's image resize really beat the hell out of my straight lines

A slow rising moon

My parents, with Pang's help, finished painting the house while I was in a show. I stopped by to check it out - then went for a drive to unwind. I didn't realize how stressed out I was until I got moving with the windows down and the music going. Driving back-roads in CT is pretty relaxing, especially under a full moon - but when I turned the corner, crossing the bridge over the resevoir, and saw this - I simply could not believe what I was seeing.


What I have to say about this picture is this: I regard this photo as a complete failure. This picture fails, in all respects, to capture the most ridiculous moon-rise I have ever seen. Part of this I can blame on the medium - I don't think that there is any format capable of doing justice to this scene. In this photo the moon seems smaller and more distant. It also seems cooler and brighter.

Which brings us to the other issue which detracts from this photo: I messed it up quite badly. When I got to the site I was still wearing my blacks. It would have been absolutely insane to spend too much time standing in the road wearing black clothing in the middle of the night. Especially a road as well-traveled as this one. So I rushed. Big mistake. All my shots were over-exposed, and many of them were either out of focus or poorly composed. And they all had lens flares. Beebo convinced me to mark-up this image and reposting it. And I am thankful he did.

I think that as time goes on I will like this picture more and more as my recollection of the discrepancy fades. Well, that's something I suppose.

Flickr 1000

The photo says it all. My 1000th post on flicrk!


The photo is of the new color of the walls in my kitchen. I'm really happy with it. It'll look even better once I've sanded and painted the existing cabinetry. Also - new hardware.

Hard and Soft

My Saturday schedule leaves me with an hour of down-time between shows at the Downtown Cabaret Theatre. Today, after refocusing a newly-swapped-in Intellibeam, I had a bit of time to walk around on stage and take some pictures. Of course, the house was open so I had to stay upstage of the main, but I had some fun.


In this photo, the softness of the main puts it in stark contrast to the hardness of the masonite. The hardness of my shadow, cast by the movers, also adds an interesting element to this shot. You can see that the stage is somewhat in need of a paint-job. Oh well. Only 3 shows left.

A surprisingly decent picture of me

Appearantly, but not surprisingly, the very first stages of home-ownership seems to be all-consuming. I've been burning the candle at both ends for about a week now. My weekday schedule has been: Work till five, then at the house till midnight. My weekends are no better performances at the Downtown Cabaret have take all the time that working on the house doesn't get. Oh well.


Here you can see the handywork of my dad and I. We opened up this door-way to make the space flow a little better. Check out my shiny new 2x6 header! My dad took this altogether acceptable picture of me - sure the lighting is a bit wonky. Whatever. Traitor.

Homeowner [NAP]

It's official. I am a homeowner. Closed on the deal yesterday. Word.

I don't really have any good pictures yet, but as soon as I do I'll post them. In the meantime, here are some not-so-good pictures.

Sweeet.

Camera Shy

On random drive through, among other places, Weston, I passed a town fair and decided to stop. It's definitely the right season for these things and I can look forward to a whole summer of them. There is really no end to the number of good shots that are there to be found. And they range the gamut from wholesome to tawdry and from shiny to dingy.


The two girls - yes two - in this shot proved to be something less than camera-shy. It's a bit awkward taking pictures at this sort of event because you have to do it in such a way that doesn't make you suspect. I try to make it obvious that I'm taking pictures of the event and not individuals. Obviously the truth lies somewhere in the middle - without the individual the shot has no emotion, and without the context the individual is lost.

I took quite a few shots at this particular event. Expect me to post more of them.

Spring's last stand

With my rent's in Sturbridge for the day I was tasked with a dog-maintenance duty. Fortunately I arrived, for the walking of the dogs, during a break in the day's rains. I walked the dogs and then gave them some time to eat while I wandered the yard with my camera.


I studied my parent's clothes-drying-thingamajig for a while. It was really a fun subject. The rain-drops clung to it. Lots of parallel and intersecting lines. Metallic bits and brightly-colored plastic bits.

In short: I should have taken more pictures.