It’s a wrap!

Well, this is the last post of 2008. I have no resolutions nor promises for the new year. I’ll just see where the road takes me. I’ve enjoyed your company throughout the year and hopefully I can meet some of you in 2009, if the road leads me to your door, or you to mine. All are welcome!

This is a travel day for me. I’ll work part of the day, then head back to Charlotte. The evening will be the usual, quiet, stay at home evening. We will probably stay up until midnight, drink some sparkling cider, then it’s off to slumber land. Sounds exciting, no?

Paul

Places that I’ve been. Places that I’d like to go.

According to Lightroom, I’ve taken 11,470 pictures this year, but the year ain’t over yet. My count just rolled over to 10,250 images on my D300.

In cruising through the photos, I see that I’ve been a number of places this year! Some near. Some far. Some really far. In order: I’ve been to:

• Greenville, SC – January – My first time.
• Alamagordo, NM – February – My second trip to White Sands … first with the cameras.
• Utah/Arizona/Grand Canyon – May – 3rd trip to Utah, 1st to AZ and Grand Canyon
• Orlando, FL – June
• West Virgina – July
• Savannah, GA – October
• Charleston, SC – August -> present – By far, my most extended trip!
• Coolomee, NC – December – Thanks, Earl!
• Seattle, WA – December – My first time.

The nearest being Coolomee, NC, some 40 miles, the most distant, by far, Seattle, WA a whopping 2,825 miles! I suppose that I could see a good deal of the country that I have missed by driving to Oregon … but that ain’t happenin’!!! Anything over about 6 hours is ‘flight time’, baby!

It’s been a busy year. Tallying all of the states that I’ve visited in the contiguous US (excluding Alaska and Hawaii, neither of which I’ve ever visited either), I have only the following states remaining and they are all clustered in the northwest portion of the U.S., for the most part:

• Oregon – Hi Amy!
• Idaho
• Montana
• Wyoming
• North Dakota
• South Dakota
• Nebraska
• Kansas
• Iowa
• Minnesota
• Alaska
• Hawaii

OK. So that’s 38/50 or 19/25, for you math guys that have to have reduced fractions, or 76% of the states visited! Next year, budget allowing, I think that I’d like to take in a couple more, but I’m not sure which ones; however, I must be honest, I want to go back again to Arizona and Utah. Those places are fascinating!

Outside of the U.S. I have open invitations with a couple of guys that I worked with. One has returned to India and one still lives here. Both said that I can come to India and hang out for a while. I think that I’d love to do that! It would make the experience that much greater hanging out with a native!

Also, as I’ve never been to Europe, I’d certainly like to go and meet and hangout with my European friends! So many places. Only such much $$$ and time!

Certainly, one can spend their whole life shooting in their neighborhood and find interesting things, but there are lots of interesting people and places out there.

Looking back, I’m very thankful that I got to do so many things. This coming year, even if I only get to explore my own backyard, that will certainly be something to be thankful for!

Blah, blah, blah

From top down: Moon, Jupiter, Mercury, lighthouse
By the time that I left work today, about 5:15, or so, the sun was nearly at the horizon. Sunset was 5:21 PM. I figured that I could at least make it to the beach and catch a bit of twilight. So, I made a beeline for the beach. I arrived there about 5:45, just at the end of twilight, but the light was still pretty sweet. I really like this time of day.

I grab my camera and tripod and setup for the first picture of the night in front of Seaside Inn. There is a gentleman standing to the left, so I move over a bit so as not to get him into the frame. He takes it upon himself to walk over to me and start a conversation.

“That’s a really nice camera you got there. Have you seen when they turn on the lights on the palm trees? That camera and lens must have cost you a grand ($1,000 US) easily, blah, blah, blah”.

Meanwhile, the light is fading, fading, fading. I take a few snaps and then his ride arrives and he leaves. I head towards the beach. Usually when I go to the beach at this time of night, I’m the only one there, or close to it. Today as about 70 degrees, so a lot of people were at the beach. As I went to set up my tripod on the walk-over, a group of about 20 people come tromping by, a few wanting to talk about what type of camera I have, etc. Sigh …

I take a couple of pictures there and move on to the beach thinking that I’ll get some piece and quiet. Twilight is over and it’s getting pretty dark. I had on a black jacket, thinking that I could move stealthily now. No dice. This lady had great night vision. I framed up my shot, meaning to capture Venus, the moon, Mercury, and Jupiter in my frame. After she heard the shutter click, she decided to come over and explain to me what her group was doing and asked if I’d like to join. They were doing some meditation on the beach. I politely refused, she tried a couple of times and told me that it would really help me to relax. I told that was what I was trying to do with my camera. She finally went back to her group.

OK, I’ll just move down the beach a bit, away from the crowd. That’ll do it! So, I move about 100 feet away from the mediation group and a couple makes a move towards me to ask me if I knew which planets those were in the sky. I told them. They said thanks and moved on. As soon as I put my eye to the viewfinder, another guy comes up to me and says: That sure is a nice view, isn’t it? Are you taking pictures of that? You should? LOL!

Oh well, I did manage to take 20 pictures, but it was not very relaxing. I guess that sometimes when the planets align, they align for you, sometimes against you. Looks like they were aligned for conversation this evening, not photography!

20 pictures, 5 interruptions, and 23 minutes later, I headed home.

Spin doctors

Click for more photos
Yesterday, I went back to a place that my friend Earl took me too: The Bullhole. The Bullhole is small dam that provides a minimal amount of electricity for something, but provides and infinite variety of pictures for me.

Because there are a number of well-worn river rocks, one must be careful to walk cautiously across them. Also, as the water flow is low in some areas, which seems to encourage the growth of some very slippery algae. Earl warned me of this, but I still slipped a couple of times yesterday.

As I was photographing the water, I was enjoying myself quite a bit. During those times when I was moving around, from place to place, my head was down, looking at where my next step would take me, concerned about those slipper rocks.

Although they were quite obvious, I had chosen to ignore all of the graffiti present around the area. It’s not so prevalent that one cannot photograph around it. Actually, it’s quite easy to get shots that don’t include it.

My thoughts instantly turned to the graffiti. I thought, why not make that the subject of today’s shoot? Many times when I go out shooting, I see lots of beauty and spend some time working around the downside of ‘our’ presence, such as trash and graffiti. But not today. I wondered how I could work it into the landscape.

Although I’ve never seen one in person, I thought of ancient pictographs, though I’m sure that earlier man had more important things to say than: Bud Light Lime. At least I hope so! Thankfully, these will have a much shorter life duration than pictographs thanks to them being exposed to the elements, in particular, running water. I’d hate to think that future civilizations might find this, study it, and think that our deepest thoughts were about beer with lime!

Anyway, it was an interesting exercise in that it reinforced what I already knew. We can be spin-doctors and show things the way we perceive them by or how we want them to be perceived by photographically carving out our perceptions.

Another interesting day with the camera.

Tradition

Christmas is a time for, it seems, lots of traditions. Our family has its own little traditions. Every major holiday, I cook. This afternoon as I was washing a batch of collard greens, I took a short trip down memory lane. I remember, as a little boy, helping my mother, and sometimes, my neighbor, by going to the neighborhood store. It was a small store that specialized in seasonal vegetables. We called it the ‘greens’ store. I don’t think that it had an official name. Anyway, I remember going there, purchasing several large paper bags full of greens, returning home, and helping my mother to prepare them.

She would prepare a sink full of cold, salty water. The salt, she said, was to dissolve any worms that might yet be hanging around. After all, the greens came from a nearby farm or garden and, at that time, they didn’t use many pesticides, so worms were not uncommon. I remember picking them away and tossing them outside, but there was an outside chance that you’d miss one. Better to have the salt dissolve them.

Anyway, even though I purchase store-bought greens, which I’m sure have been subjected to sprays, I still use salt water. It’s kind of hard to break with tradition. This memory took me further down the line in thinking about our around-the-corner neighbors, the Youngs. Mr. & Mrs. Young never cooked on holidays, that we knew of. They’d always visit. LOL! We had a nickname for them: The hungry Youngs. They only visited on the holidays and when they showed up, they were always hungry!

The rest of Christmas day held similar such visits. There always seemed to be someone stopping by. You didn’t know how much to cook because you’d have no idea who would stop by. Of course, there were the regulars: Brothers, sisters, friends, my barber, etc, but then you’d have those unexpected guests and it was a tradition to have an open pot basically all day. You fed everyone who stopped by. We even fed ‘Mike’, our long time mailman. He was like part of the family. We always left him a little something in the mailbox, too. A Christmas present.

This year was a very quiet Christmas. There was only the 4 of us. The guys felt alright with it, but I know that my wife would have much preferred to have a busy Christmas, like we did last year when we stayed with her best friend, Tamami, in Dallas. We’ll probably end up doing it every year. It’s so important for her. It reminds her of her times in Brazil, which were pretty similar to my times as a child.

So, what traditions do you continue if you care to share?

Managing expectations

End of season
Unlike most of you, I have a finite photography budget! So, when I buy a new piece of equipment, I have to balance my desire, the functionality, and quality of the item. If I want a higher quality item, then I may have to wait a while. If I want an item that is good enough to get the job done, well I might be able to get it a bit sooner. The main thing here is in managing my own expectations.

Eventually, probably after Christmas, I will get a GPS for my camera. I just like the utility of recording locations directly to the image’s EXIF data. I was reading some comments about a particular GPS and had to laugh when someone asked:

Well, how accurate is it? I mean, if it’s not very accurate, then I can see little use for it as a photographic tool!

Dang! There are pixel peepers everywhere! How accurate does it have to be? Most are accurate to within 25 feet or so. For photography, that’s pretty darn close. 100 feet would be close enough for me. I just need to get into the area! Also, for a $149 unit, I don’t expect it to be military grade and accurate to within 5 feet, calculate for ionospheric delay, etc. “It ain’t that kinda party!”.

And so it is with lenses
As I’ve mentioned before, I’m not going to get my equipment lust get the better of me. I’m sticking with the DX format for a while, even though I think that we’ve seen the last of that format in the pro-sumer Nikon line. It wouldn’t make sense, I don’t think to bring out a D400, for example. Now that Nikon has 3 FX sensor cameras, but who knows. I have been wrong before. Eventually, as things get better and better, I’ll probably move to the FX line, but what I have right now is more than adequate. Also, I like the extended reach, the 1.5 magnification, of the DX.

Another DX lens
I just purchased a Tamron 18-270mm lens. It’s not exactly a walk-around lens, but could be used as such. For one thing, let us say that when extended to 270mm, it’s not inconspicuous! This lens replaced 2 lens, and 18-70 and a 55-200. I found that I frequently wanted to change between these two lens when I was out shooting, but sometimes became lazy and didn’t do it. So, why not have the best of both worlds?

My own expectations
I like Tamron lenses. They seem to have a quality build and, what I like most, Tamron is very sure of their products, offering a 6 year warranty on their lenses! No one in the industry comes close. This is my 4th Tamron. I also have a 200-500mm, 90mm macro and a 11-18mm. All perform well. I simply could not afford the equivalent Nikon glass. So, I’m covered from 11mm – 500mm.

When I purchased this latest lens, I expected that it would not be as good as my Nikon 80-200mm f/2.8, and I’m correct. It’s not. One, the Tamron, is a 15x zoom, the other is a 2.6x. Lower range zooms are generally better performers, especially on the outskirts of the zoom range. Usually, you’ll get some serious barrel distortion at the very low end and some pincushion distortion at the upper end. The Tamron 16-270mm certainly has these at the 18mm mark, but I expected that going in. Had it not been there, I would have been very surprised. Vertical straight lines are no longer straight near the edge of the frame and tend to bow. If you are seeing pincushion distortion, it’s usually seen on shots of the horizon, giving the horizon a slightly bowed look. It’s expected.

I don’t shoot architectural photos for a living, so this type of distortion is not bothersome. I don’t need absolute straight lines. A lot of it can be fixed in Photoshop, (Filter->Distort->Lens Correction) so it is not a point of contention.

I’ve only spent a couple of hours shooting with this lens and like it already. It has some small issues, but they won’t get in the way of the way that I shoot:

Issues noted so far:

• Lens creep. If you are anywhere above the 18mm mark and put the camera in a downward facing position, the lens will rack out to somewhere near 100mm. Not really a problem for me as I generally shoot straight on. This happens pointing upwards, too. So, it is necessary to hold the zoom ring when shooting in an upwards direction. Again, not a problem. This makes up a very small percentage of my shots.
• Stiffness: I’ve noticed a very stiff point at about the 100mm zoom mark. This makes zooming not so fluid in that area. Not really a problem unless I were following some action that required me to zoom past that point to get the shoot. Then, this might be a problem, but, for my style and what I intend to use the lens for, not a problem.

That’s all that I can think of and neither of these are issues for me. So, I’m happy with the lens. Others might take issue with these points, but it may affect their style, and so would become true issues, but for me … my expectations are managed and I’m very happy with the lens.

Note: All three images taken last night with the 18-270.