Three men

Wherefore art ye?
sometimes wise
other times a blind eye?

Grazing

Took the blue pill...

...and will wake up and believe whatever I want to believe.

Obesity epidemic

Heavy metal cocktail

Corner office

Waiting 4 the night to fall

A serendipitous shot, one that never occurred to me while standing there. Bike patrol officer happend to stop in that area and immediately the image came to mind. Hazy from the fog, perhaps it also threw off the active/passive auto focus. In any case, tried to get a few variations on the same with pedestrians and moving cyclists, but this was the best. Good Depeche Mode song too, the title.

Disabled parking

Threads of life

Market night, telephoto lens, wide open, minimum focus distance. A whole world of wordplay is possible here revolving around the notions of society (tapestry, fabric) all the way down to the components (twisted double helix base pairs anyone?) it is made of.

Red Tuesday

Another from the session where the moon is seen framed with leaves. Strong backlighting of a very red leaf surrounded by a crown of gold. Wish there wasn't as much blank space betweed the red and gold on the right side. Wide angle lens, minimum focus distance, wide open.

An avenue of palms (set in a symmetrical cross shape), at dusk. Looking west, where all the smog is coming in from. After the shoot, walking back to my car, city police dept. showed up inquiring about my parking--apparently a popular place to abandon cars.


Part of a arts/crafts project (not mine). Spray painted red and left in the sun to achieve a weathered brick look.

...part deux

The journey into past journeys continues. A few "first shots" in this post.

Taken at market night very shortly after receiving my f/1.4 fast low light lens, shot wide open. Warm tone from incandescent lights seemed much nicer than a colour-corrected version.


One of the earliest digital shots, taken with mom's camera. It's a little fuzzy since it was shot at the lowest resolution and highest compression. Across the street from a whole block of automobile dealerships. Sides cropped to square.

So far that's one digital, one analogue on the OM1n.. that leaves the Exa, so let's do two of those :)

Juxtaposition of the elements is very interesting. If a viewer did not know the context in which this was taken, he or she could draw a wide variety of conclusions, not all of which are positive, so: this was taken in a classroom, during a lecture. Sides also cropped close to a square, looked stronger that way.

Last but not least, another from market night, on a different outing, with the Exa this time. It has very limited shutter speeds and the handheld CdS lightmeter would not read that low, so this was a guesstimated bulb exposure, camera held taut against the neckstrap to keep it steady. This stall is making kettle corn (apparently very popular too, haven't tried it myself but hear it is fantastic).

Dipping in...

OK, so haven't been very good on keeping up with the daily shot and have dipped quite far into the red. To address that, time to dip into the past reserves of shots taken in pre-digital times. For one, they are just as interesting and second, give me some time to start up again as this month has been busy.

This was taken one-handed. Saw a bee in a magnolia flower overhead, reached up for the branch with left hand, brought it down, switched on camera meter, set the shutter speed, aperture and focus all with the right hand while holding it, and snapped it. All that done on a manual/mechanical camera! I was proud of this for a long time, still am.

Tunnel under a street linking two sides of the Houston Museum of Fine Arts. First wanted to get just the tunnel without any pedestrians, but there were lots of them and this seemed compositionally the best along with the least blurry: a bit tilted, had to brace camera against the side wall with a wide-angle lens and hand hold a 2 second exposure. Also proud of this one :)


And to cap the post, another one that worked out rather well. Family was going to visit relatives, I was ready early and decided to walk down the street and see what could be done given the very nice light and rich colours. Cropped to square format, that's the waxing quarter moon you see there, hyperfocal method used at f/8 on a wide angle lens.

Unfurling curls of a cycad just starting out, macro lens.


Underside of a back-lit fern leaf inside a geodesic dome, campus botanical garden. Wide-angle lens, wide open, minimum focus distance. Shot kneeling down, looking straight up. Pleased to have gotten it level and square under the circumstances.

Inspiration struck late at night transitting between flight at relative's house. Almost everyone was asleep. Camera on tripod, focussed on vase/flowers, stopped down enough to get rest of room within depth of field, self timer tripped 2 second exposure. After starting the timer, crawed under the table (barely visible here), held the flash-head flush against the bottom of the table's glass, right under the crystal vase and glass flowers. Upon hearing the first shutter curtain open, manually discharged the flash at full power. Spill light through the centre of the vase bounced off the ceiling and lit the room nicely.

Rosencrantz & Guildenstern would be proud

I see this every day on the way out from work, at different times. Today, the light was just right, a low altitude sun, warm, backlighting them. Decided to have a go (after a few attempts at fill-flash, realised why it wasn't working--siblings had set it in a different mode and the sun had dropped down behind trees and buildings by that time). There was enough of a breeze that they just wouldn't stay still, and quick shots in rapid succession during a lull weren't any better. Now I know for certain how slow I can hand-hold, and this wasn't anywhere close to that limit; a faster shutter speed was used to try to freeze the swaying, which as you can see wasn't quite successful. The fine details are lacking, which may partly be due to this being a small image. In the end, despite many attempts, nothing remotely spectacular was captured...one surmises that given enough shots/combinations, at least one would be halfway useable, but no! It's like the opening scene from R&G: flipping a coin and it keeps coming up heads, defying the odds. You win some, you lose some.

Get in, sit down, hang on, shut up

Continuing on from three nights ago: on the highway of life, sometimes you drive, other times you're taken for the ride. Incredibly, managed to get a fairly steady shot under brisk uphill/sideways accelerations (just look at the tachometer! VTEC, yo!)

Waiting

A rainbow of sound

These are a few of my favourite things

My first favourite chocolates, one that many, many trips around the sun ago, would be the only request I had from relatives coming from across the Pond, before they were available State-side.

Life is a highway

"Life is a highway
I want to ride it all night long
If you're going my way
I want to drive it all night long"
--Tom Cochrane

Vertigo

A six-pack of gray-matter

Once read that universities accumulate knowledge as incoming students bring it with them, while outgoing students take nothing with them.

Don't try this at home

Wasn't sure if I'd make it all the way home from visiting family--with about 50 miles to go, the low fuel/reserve light came on. Pictured a minute or two before the exit for home and gasoline station. Thought about just going home and worry about it the next day, but the station is on the way home, and the next morning a cold-start would run rich until engine reached operating temps, so it would be risky: I've only ever ran a car down once; it wasn't a car, it wasn't mine, wasn't my fault, and it sure a heck didn't use gasoline. It also happend to be at an intersection during rush hour, where a lane also merged, in front of a police station, no less!