Passage to Oz

Posted by Paul on May 9, 2011
Posted in: Personal. Tagged: .

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Lord willing and the creek don’t rise …

I’ll be in Sydney, Australia on July 15th. My flight leaves on Wednesday evening, going to San Francisco. I leave there Wednesday evening, have a 14 hour flight, and arrive in Sydney on Friday morning at 6:00 AM thanks to a 14 hour time difference between there and Charlotte, 17 hours difference between Sydney and San Francisco. On the way back, I leave on Saturday and arrive here on Saturday, quite jet lagged, I’m sure. LOL.

I’m quite excited about it. This is way out of my comfort zone traveling such a long way alone and not knowing anyone, but at the same time, it’s quite exciting! Perhaps I’ll get a sighting of the mysterious Cedric. Let’s hope so!

I have decided to take the laptop, so I should be able to blog daily and share my adventures in Oz with you.

Loving the fog

Posted by Paul on May 7, 2011
Posted in: Photography. Tagged: .

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It was foggy this morning and, like most foggy mornings, I was like a kid on Christmas morning waiting to open my present. When I looked out the bedroom window to the assess the morning’s weather, a smile crept across my face as I realized that we were under some heavy fog.

I grabbed Hobbs and the M9 and set about for our morning walk. During parts of the walk, I would close my eyes and let Hobbs guide me. During that time, I would take time to feel the mist on my face, the tiniest of droplets against my skin. At one point I noticed a stray eyebrow hair that had water droplets condensed upon it.

As with yesterday, the air was still punctuated with the smell of honeysuckle, though this morning the smell was somewhat muted due to the mist. It was almost like going from a vibrant color to a pastel. It was nice.

Everything seems quieter, more peaceful when fog is in the area. I always enjoy it.
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Understanding Hobbs a little better

Posted by Paul on May 6, 2011
Posted in: Personal. Tagged: .

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I say that if I let Hobbs stop and smell everything that he wanted to smell, we’d never complete our 90 minute walk in less than, say 600 minutes! Today, there was just something about the light that was very appealing. So, our normal 90 minute walk took about 2 hours almost … and it wasn’t Hobbs’ fault. The blame rests squarely with me.
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I was doing lots of stopping and picture taking. I decided to take the M9 with me, slung over my shoulder, this morning and snap a few a long the way. Though my nose was not nearly as involved as his, I did take pleasure in smelling the honeysuckle that is in bloom nearly everywhere, also of the various types of roses and flowers busily blooming.

It was a great morning, for sure. Now, off to work I go.

Trolling for speeders

Posted by Paul on May 5, 2011
Posted in: Humor. Tagged: .

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On the way to the meet up, Tim and I were talking and having a good time, as usual. We were almost there, about 10 minutes away, perhaps less. I was driving in the left lane and came upon a car that that was going at what seemed like less than the speed limit. Emblazoned on the back of the car: State Trooper. Hmmmm. I thought, why is he going so slowly? Oh well, I’ll just hang back here for a bit and wait until he turns and be on my merry way.

Tim and I were joking and I said to Tim: Haha. Maybe I should just go around him and blow his doors off. :) Well, you can’t exactly do that in a 4-cylinder Toyota Camry, but it was a nice visual. LOL Zooooooom.

I decided to get into the right lane and set my speed at 65 MPH, which is what I thought was the speed limit. Eventually, I eased past him. It was then that he switched lanes, got behind me, and showed me his beautiful blue lights. Damn!

I sat in the car, hands on steering wheel, waiting for his approach:

Trooper: (Smiling) Good afternoon, sir. You know you were speeding?
Paul: I thought that the speed limit was 65 and I was going 63.
Trooper: Just for your knowledge, sir. When you are on a highway in North Carolina that has streets entering it, the speed limit is always 55 MPH.
Paul: Well, then, I was speeding.
Trooper: (Still smiling) Yes, sir, you were. driver’s license, please.

I gave him my license; he went back to his car and did whatever it is that troopers do back there. More than likely, he was checking my car to see if it was stolen, seeing if I had any warrants, and how many previous tickets that I’ve had in the last few years. All would come back zero. He returned to the car.

Trooper: (Still smiling) Too beautiful of a day to get a ticket isn’t sir?
Paul: It most certainly is, but getting the ticket won’t make it any less beautiful, but sure would make it more enjoyable! (Laughing)
Trooper: (Laughs) Well, how about a warning?
Paul: (Smiles) That will work!
Trooper: You know, we catch lots of people like that. We go about 3 or 4 miles per hour over the speed limit. People figure that we must be going under, so they pass us, then we get them. It works all the time!
Paul: (Laughs) Well, it sure worked on me! That was a good one. So you troll for speeders!
Trooper: Yes, sir. We do. Your buddy over there is laughing at you isn’t he?
Paul: Yep. He sure is. I’ll deal with him later! (Smiles)
Trooper: You fellas have a good day.
Paul: Thank you.

Even though it was a traffic stop, the guy had a great sense of humor and it was quite funny. It would have still been funny had I gotten the ticket, but it is better that I didn’t. :)

We drove off and continued on to the meet up. I was quite aware of the speed limit and stuck to it religiously for the rest of our journey and on the return.

I considered making Tim walk home for laughing at me, but I gave him a ride anyway. LOL

Rescuing a flubbed shot … I think

Posted by Paul on May 3, 2011
Posted in: Photography, Techy Stuff. Tagged: .

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At The Peaceful Dragon, in preparation for tournaments, we are taught not to worry about our form. Just practice and practice. On the day of the tournament, if you miss a move, who will know? Most of the judges don’t know our form, so if you make something up, are smooth, and look like you meant to do something, it will go unnoticed.
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Sometimes, in photography, I have to do that. Let’s look at these two photos. The one at the top, a high-key portrait, is a ‘rescue’, because, quite frankly I botched the first attempt. You can see the extreme dynamic range. Her face is underexposed and the dress is blown out!

While doing this dance,
you might hurt your back.
Just look at the crowd and say:
I meant to do that!
~Joeski Love – Pee Wee Herman Dance

So, what did I do to rescue this? First, I converted it to B&W, cropped it into a square, as you can see. Nest, I actually INCREASED the exposure by 3 stops. This, of course, totally obliterated any detail in the dress, but it brought out her face and hair wonderfully. Then, I went in and darkened selective portions of the shot like her hair, shoulder, arm, and flowers to make them stand out even more. Lastly, I added a bit of grain and a simple black border around the edge. I think that, effectively, this saved the shot.

Of course, I wouldn’t want to ‘make a living’ doing this shoot and hope, I would use flashes, but the point here was to see how well I could do with available lighting.

I think that I saved the shot. What do you think?

Like Pee Wee Herman says: I meant to do that!!!

How to break a spirit

Posted by Paul on May 2, 2011
Posted in: Photography. Tagged: .

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Look at these two. They were the perfect models. Unassuming. Unafraid. Unconcerned with all of the photographers snapping hundreds of frames of them. They were just having a great time wallowing in the tail of this bride’s dress.
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Enter the mother. Stop that! Sit up! Look at the cameras! Don’t do that! Act right! The result? Please see the next photo. Which do you like better? I think that they were ‘acting’ right in the first place.

It was an amazing scene. When the kids started playing, the photographers gathered around and all you could here was the click of shutters. Click! Click! click..click…click. We were really enjoying. When the mother ‘fixed’ everything, we all went away. The spontaneity, joy, and play had gone away. *poof*, just like that.

Wedding Photography Meetup

Posted by Paul on May 1, 2011
Posted in: Photography. Tagged: .

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I went to a photography meet-up today. The theme was wedding photography. We met at The Loft at Union Square in High Point, NC. Tim and I arrived at around 3:45 PM on Sunday. After taking a bit of time to figure out how to get into the place, we walked into the well lit loft area that was formerly a furniture making factory. Both High Point and Thomasville, NC were, at one time, the furniture capitals of the U.S., if not the world.

When we entered the loft, we say lots of windows on either side, brilliant lighting, lots of girls in white dresses, many more photographers. Canons, Nikons, and one lonely Leica M9. :) I saw dozens of Radio Poppers and lighting stands galore, umbrellas, and various reflectors and diffusers.
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My intention on going was to give the M9 a test run for Pedro’s wedding. This was rather an acid test, of sorts. As the light was pretty bright and the dresses were white. Lots of opportunity to blow out the highlights. Lots! There were even a couple of darker skinned models, which increased the challenge to get detail in the dress and be able to see the model’s face. I blew it a couple of times, but finally got it right, as shown above. Basically, I had to meter for the dress, open up a stop or two, and take the shot. After the fact, I had to add a bit of fill with Lightroom to allow her face to be seen. Of course, others were doing similar, but using fill flash and reflectors. i wanted to see if I could pull it off without those and, for the most part, I was able to by selecting different angles.

Models everywhere. Some shy. Some exciting. Some outgoing. Some reserved. Some that looked happy to be there, others not so much. I tried to look for those unguarded moments, of which there were quite a few to capture, save for with the most popular models, those that were the most engaging.
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It was a great meet up and I learned quite a bit roaming around with the M9 in hand. No one noticed it, except for one guy. He asked what it was. When I told him, he seemed not to recognize it and went on. :)

Additional photos here