Monthly Archives: January 2012

Catch the Moon

Posted by dkrashb on

I have been using the moon as a model a lot, but I find it is not as cooperative as I expected.  While, like a model, it’s a heavenly body, unlike a model, it presents itself on a predictable schedule.  As such, you would think it would be easy to schedule a shoot.  However, I have learned that a) there is such a thing as cloud cover, b) the moon doesn’t always rise before I go to bed, c) the moon often rises out of sight from where I am looking.

As a result, I have started to worry more about missing the shots of the moon rising behind the Walnut Street bridge in August.  I now wonder if perhaps that was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that I missed.

Now that I have a lunar calendar that tells me what time the moon rises, a good tripod, and the ideal composition in mind, I just need the moon to return to it’s former position in the sky.  In doing a little research, I found www.photoephemeris.com for planning outdoor shoots in advance and even tools to figure out where the moon will rise and the path it will travel.  (Maybe we can all be Ansel Adams after all?)

However, this doesn’t answer my question as to how long it will be before the moon rises in the same location.  I am having some troubles finding an answer to this.  I have found articles on the difference in appearance of the moon at apogee vs perigee, the repeating cycle of maxima and minima delineation that takes 18 1/2 years, and calculating the differences in brightness, but I still can’t find how long it takes for the moon to rise in the same location.  I’m guessing that it will repeat within my lifetime, but probably not soon.  In the meantime, I keep watching the moon when it chooses to show itself and looking for opportunities to shoot it rising.

The shot here is a full moon rising through clouds, shot with my iPhone (which was convinced it needed to flash) from a rest area while driving back to Chattanooga from Columbus.  While this looks more like something I might, say, paint during a continuing education class on impressionist painting, I am still impressed by the improvements in the iPhone camera from the 3GS to the 4S–just don’t expect to get good landscape photos at night.

I am particularly impressed with the LCD flash on the iPhone 4S.  I was a little surprised by how brightly it flashed when I took a picture, but when I discovered the flashlight app now has a setting that lets you turn on the LCD light continuously to use it as a flashlight, I was amazed.  I was able to find my workout clothes in the dark this morning and successfully determined the difference between black and dark purple.  If you haven’t upgraded, it’s time.

Wind and Snow

Posted by dkrashb on

On January first, we turned on the heat.  It doesn’t actually kick on until today, the 2nd, since it was so warm yesterday our apartment was 72 degrees and the thermostat was set on 68.  However, the temperature starts to drop into the range of temperature even us Ohioans call “bitterly cold” by this morning.  In fact, when I check the weather in Columbus, it’s the same temperature there as it is in Chattanooga–a whooping 21 degrees.

We drive out to Lookout Mountain hoping I will have my first flight off the big hill.  We aren’t optimistic when we check the weather and see 15 mph winds predicted.  When we step outside, I figure our only hope is that the valley where the training hills are located is somehow sheltered from this wind.

But, it is not to be.  We set up my glider as the instructors watch the wind socks.  An instructor takes a test flight off the big hill and does so many dips and dives as the wind tosses him around that we all know I won’t be flying today.  Instead, I get a thorough lesson in glider preflight checks, so I at least it’s not a waste of time.

Pat helps me disassemble the glider and then we head up to the office to work on our written tests.

After spending the day working on our tests, I watch the sunset through the back door of the hang gliding office.  The door opens onto a deck that hangs over the valley.  The wind is blowing so hard the air coming through the crack around the door blows the hair back off my face.  I think about opening the door to take a picture of the sunset, but it is so cold in the office already, I can’t bring myself to open the door.  I shoot through the door with my iPhone.

When at last we leave for the day, snow is blowing through the beams of the headlights.  After a half mile or so, the snow disappears as we move into lower elevations.  We are relieved, having been forewarned that everything shuts down if there is snow on the ground–the area doesn’t have equipment to clear the roads.

We make our way home and are grateful we’ve turned the heat on already.  As we settle in for the evening, Pat looks out the window and says, “Look, honey, it’s raining sideways!”  When I look out the window, there is snow blowing so fast through the light from a street light that it really does look like sideways rain.  But, it’s snow.  Because it is only visible in the light from the streetlight, it looks like the street light is some kind of snow machine blowing snow onto the street.  It stops as suddenly as it started.  There is no snow on the ground.  Not even the grass shows a dusting of white.  So much for our first snow.

You Are What You Eat

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One of my new year’s resolutions was to eat 3 fruits or vegetables a day on average. It’s not a very ambitious goal, but I find I am an over achiever and there are certain goals where it is quite painful to overachieve. Going from eating an occasional fruit or vegetable to eating, say, 10 a day happens to be one of those cases where more is not better. Since my real goal is to find a sustainable balance, I figure there’s nothing to gain by making myself miserable.

It’s January 3rd today and I’ve managed to eat 5 fruits or vegetables for two days straight. Now, we are headed out for breakfast and it feels like the last meal of a vacation, which I guess technically, it is. I am hard pressed to muster the strength to order oatmeal and eat a banana. Instead, I order “scattered ‘taters” with cheese, bacon, and an egg over medium.

When it comes, I slide the egg off its plate and make a stack. The puddle of grease the egg leaves behind is only slightly less disconcerting than the pool of grease under the hash browns. I try sliding the whole stack uphill while tilting the plate, allowing the grease to run to the far side of the plate in the hope of minimizing the damage to my arteries. After eating every last bite, we head out the door stuffed and decide we have enough time to run over to the grocery store.

We are unprepared with no bags or a list. We go inside and start grabbing the supplies we need, trying not to overfill the cart as we load up, cognizant that we’re going to be carrying our groceries home in paper bags. As we work our way around the store, a steady rumbling starts, building to the unmistakeable sound of pouring rain on a metal roof. We decide Pat will run home and get both reusable grocery bags and a car. While Pat returns to get the car, I start piling on the groceries.

I pick up watercress, celery, radishes, pears, and pine nuts for my favorite salad. I throw in a nice loaf of bread, creamy tomato soup, soy milk, and avocados. The cart is overflowing at this point. Fortunately, Pat returns before I add more. Of course, by the time we leave the store, the rain has stopped and the sun is shining. We laugh when we walk outside.

My watercress salad doesn’t fully make up for my grease-pool breakfast, but the flavor combined with the feeling of eating health makes me think I could eat healthy all the time. As I scoop up the last bite of salad and the sweetness of the pear mixes perfectly with the spice of the watercress, I remember the quote from Meryl Streep above the produce section, “It is strange that the produce manager has more to do with my children’s health than their pediatrician” and smile.

Book Smarts

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There’s an expression about being book smart vs street smart.  The idea suggests people are either smart in theory or smart in practice.  In reality, of course, no one is really all one or the other.

For example, I can study how people move their bodies up stairs, determine an appropriate exercise regimen, and create a plan that will make me better at climbing stairs using book smarts.  But I can’t actually get better at climbing stairs except by, well, climbing stairs.

Since there is no room for trial and error when hang gliding, knowing what we’re doing and why helps.  And, since hang gliding truly is the application of physics, it makes sense that getting rated as a pilot would require some book smarts.

Here is where I run into a line that divides book smarts from street smarts.  I am able to read the material through once, review it quickly, and then score what would be an “A.”  However, when I return to the training hills, I am unable to translate what the material said into what my body does.  This disparity between concepts in a book and physical application frustrates me.

But today, we are in my element.  We are taking our final two tests.  I read through the materials and took notes the day before.  I think we will be done around noon given that it’s only 10AM.

As it turns out, I finish up my second test shortly after noon.  Pat, on the other hand, has not finished the reading material for the first test yet.  Mind you that Pat is someone who fully understand mechanics and physics in a way I never will.  However, his in depth understanding of how things work doesn’t seem to help him speed through test taking.

At 2PM we run out and grab a bite to eat at the closest place around. It’s a combination gas station, convenience store, hamburger joint–an honest to goodness family owned place.  After filling our stomachs, we return to the office and Pat takes his first test.  I, thankfully, have my iPad for amusement.

I’ve gotten through an episode and a half of Glee by the time Pat takes his completed test up to the desk.  After a while, I hear him talking.  He has met Matt Tabor, the owner of Lookout Mountain, and they are gabbing.  I finish the second half of the episode I’m watching and decide I need to intervene.

It’s an interesting conversation and I get sucked in.  I eventually remember that my goal was to get Pat on task and I remind him I am waiting on him to finish his second test.

At 6PM, we have to leave because they are closing for the night.  Pat has 15 questions to go on the test, but he calls it a night and we head on home.  Since completing the test now requires backtracking, I am more irritated than he is.  I remind myself that this is fun.

What About Paris?

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Good news!  I heard from the shelter and I get to pick up our foster dogs on Tuesday.  I have become obsessed with dog preparations.  It started with a stop at the local dog supply store, Bone Appetit.

I was only looking.  I just wanted to know what kinds of toys and tools were available for dogs these days since it’s been a few years since we lost our last dog to cancer.  We met an owner and she explained a new type of leash to us that is a thick, rubber leash that prevents jerking either the dog or the owner.

This reminds me that our foster dogs don’t know how to walk on a leash. I’m not sure if a gentle leader or something like this semi-stretchy leash is a better idea to start with.  I’m pretty sure that whichever route I go, we’re going to go through a lot of bacon in the process.  🙂

I look at the display of stuffed toys on the wall and remember my own childhood when I used to save up my earnings from mowing lawns to buy myself stuffed animals.  When we discover animals that look like pelts, I realize these are not for human children.

I can’t make fun of anyone for spoiling their dogs.  Besides working on not being judgmental, I was guilty of spoiling our dogs rotten.  We used to feed them a raw diet that involved stocking a huge freezer with whole chickens, grass-fed cow bones and stomachs, livers, and a variety of other “goodies” that we would never eat ourselves.

I check out the brands of dog foods offered by this store and am happy to see that several I’m familiar with are available.  I don’t plan to go the raw food route, but I would like to use a high quality food that will help with the house breaking.

The owner tells us that the store works with the same shelter.  I’m excited to meet people who love dogs and work with the shelter–it gives me confidence that the foster dogs are being treated well and will be OK.

I return home and dig out some photos of my best friend’s dogs.  One of her dogs, Bonnie, hates the camera.  I crawled under a table to try to get a shot of her and only got the back of her black head in an even blacker shadow.  I tried sneaking a shot from my iPhone and she was even savvy to that.  No pictures of Bonnie.

The other dog, Paris, just laid there and let me shoot her for as long as I wanted.  The lighting wasn’t great, but I managed to have fun talking to her like a fashion model while I shot.  “Paris, look this way.  Oh, that’s it.  Now tilt your head.  Now raise your eyebrows.  Perfect.  Play dead.  Perfect!”

I am sure I will be posting plenty of foster dog pictures in the near future–I hope Paris isn’t jealous.

Faster than a Foster Cat

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My sister-in-law likes cats.  However, she and my brother, like us, are at a place in their lives where they don’t want to tie themselves to an animal for the next 15-20 years.  My brother often jokes about looking for animals with a short life expectancy for this reason.

My sister-in-law, Megan, being more practical, has come up with an ingenious solution to the problem of how to have pets without having a long term commitment.  She provides foster care for a local cat shelter.

Megan has fostered numerous pregnant cats who gave birth under her watchful eye as well as taken in young litters with no mother.  Keeping kittens with no mom fed, emptied, and cleaned up is a big chore that has to be performed diligently and regularly.  It’s not for the faint of heart.

Megan nurtures these kitties through the tough part of their early lives or supports their mom in doing so.  When they are weaned, healthy, and confident, they are returned to the shelter until they find permanent homes.  Megan takes a break from fostering if she has a heavy travel schedule or needs a break and then takes on another set when she can.

Other than the heartache of getting emotionally attached to animals that you will eventually hand off to someone else, it’s the perfect way to have pets without taking on permanent ownership.

Chibs and Clay, named by the shelter (perhaps by a fan of Sons of Anarchy?), are the current kittens staying with my sister-in-law (see photos).  Chibs needs to see Clay do something before he is willing to give it a try.  Even when he finally joined Clay in my lap and laid there purring, when something moved, he would dart off again to hide.

Getting even these few pictures was quite a chore.  First of all, they were doing something cute and my 100mm prime lens was on my camera.  While I really like this lens, I could have used the 400mm of my telephoto zoom given Chibs’s skittishness.  But, I started shooting and gradually crept forward, crawling across the floor slowly and shooting every few seconds so I didn’t lose out on a decent shot because I was holding out for a better one.

Here’s what I learned:

  1. Rapid fire shooting mode is a must.  The faster the better.
  2. Focus, focus, focus.  Rapidly moving critters in low light make this difficult.  I often end up with out of focus faces and sharply focused feet or rear ends or backgrounds.
  3. A little more depth of field is better–otherwise, I end up with just the eyes in focus and then the surrounding face is too soft (see the second photo).
  4. When flash is not an option, the animal is fearful of cameras, and the light is low, I just have to live with a shallow depth of field.
  5. Most animals will not pose.  Bribing domestic animals with treats and toys can be helpful, but requires an assistant.

One Man’s Trash

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We are up before the crack of dawn, on our way to the hang gliding training hills.  We arrive early–the gates are still locked.  As soon as we settle in to wait, two dogs come running down to greet us.  They are collarless, thin, very young, and very adorable.  There aren’t any homes near enough to explain why these dogs would be hanging out here before dawn.

When the instructor arrives, we drive on, deciding to worry about the dogs on the way home, but the dogs chase us down the dirt road for as long as they can keep up.  We lose them when they tire, but they arrive at the parking lot about the time we get out my glider.  They jump all over me, wanting to be petted some more.  I turn my back on them when they jump and pet them when they have all four paws on the ground.  It takes three times and they figure out they can get what they want by standing still.  They are smart dogs.

As I go through my flying lessons, the dogs chase me when I fly off the hill and run up and start licking my face if I land on my belly.  I’m not sure if they’re worried about me or just having fun, but it’s cute.

After a few flights, they run off to explore something else.  I am relieved–these dogs are breaking my heart.  But, I don’t want to jump into a 12-14 year commitment because they’re cute and hungry.

When we call it quits for the day, the dogs reappear to “help” disassemble my glider.  They remember not to jump on me and I am impressed with how quickly they have learned that lesson.  When I am done, I sit on the ground and let them share my lap.  They are so sweet.  I remind myself they’ve been running around and are exhausted.  Tired dogs usually are sweet.

But my husband looks at me sitting on the ground with these hungry, adorable dogs and says, “All right, get them in the van.”  They ride comfortably with us to Wendy’s where they wolf down burgers.

We discuss the choices we’ve made since the death of our sweet Mastiffs to make it easy for us to travel.  We decide to take the dogs to a shelter and volunteer to foster them.

The shelter is large and clean and the man at the desk is reassuring.  I meet the volunteer coordinator and she is equally friendly.  I fill out paperwork and we bring in the dogs.  It will take 5-7 days for the dogs to get vet care (including spaying and neutering), have their behavior assessed, and be ready for foster care. I am sad as we walk out.  I cannot shake a feeling of unease, like I have shirked a responsibility.  I imagine their disappointment at being left behind.  I feel my own disappointment.  I resist the urge to run back inside and ask for them back.

Don’t Want to Miss This Syndrome

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Once again, I find myself shooting the sunset.  Every time I sit down to process photos of the sunset taken from our building, I promise myself I will find a new perspective and not create yet another 100 shots that look like the thousands I’ve taken before.  But then, I look out the window, see amazing things, and grab my camera.

There are several problems with this.  For one thing, I tend to get a very busy foreground with a lot of crap in it I’d really like to get out of my pictures.  I can’t crop the crap out because I would lose much of the sky, which is the whole reason I wanted to shoot in the first place.

The choices that must be made when shooting!  Wouldn’t it be nice if I could just arrange the buildings and landscape with a remote control to best fit my vision?  More realistically, I keep thinking I will run across the street and up the mound so I can shoot over the trees.  But do I ever do that?  No.  I panic when I see the sky and don’t want to miss the perfect color even though I almost always end up deleting the first 10 minutes worth of shots because the color gets better as the sun disappears.

I believe I suffer from “Don’t Want to Miss This” syndrome.  Besides shooting sunsets from bad view points, I also find myself eating foods that no human should ever touch, attending events that are of no interest to me, and taking unreasonable risks (ask me how I once ended up in an ultralight crash).  I wonder if I were in a flock of sheep I would follow them over a cliff just to find out what that was like?

Restraining myself to the subject of photography for the purposes of this post, I find the “Don’t Want to Miss This” syndrome causes an all or nothing kind of pursuit of photos.  It just depends on whether my phobia of missing a shot is outweighing my phobia of missing an experience because I’m too wrapped up in camera gear to participate.  What I need is balance.

The thing about sunsets is that it’s easy enough to find out what time the sun will set.  And, I’m getting pretty good at predicting when we’ll have a great one (which is pretty much about 75% of the time), so seems like I should be able to just plan to go across the street at the right time and shoot.  Perhaps scheduling shoots a few times a week would help balance out the equation?  While I might still grab shots when I notice a sunset, at least I wouldn’t always be shooting from the same place.

Is it too late to change my New Year’s resolutions?

Ghosts Among Us and Family Fun

Posted by dkrashb on

Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house, a few creatures were stirring, using a mouse.

The stockings were hung by the chimney with care, stuffed to the brim ‘cuz Mom and Dad were already there.

The children were texting all over the house, while clicking on iPhones in browsers with a mouse.

And I with my camera, perched on a tripod, stealing photos, but leaving the iPods.

When off of the couch my nephew did rise, creating a blur right before my eyes,

I sprang from my seat to see what was the matter, adjusting the camera before my nephews could dash, I opened the shutter and turned off the flash.

The movement of people and an open shutter created enough ghosts to make me shudder.

When what to my jaded self did appear, but silliness, laughter, and even a happy tear.

While photography is a solitary past time for most photography addicts, there are certain effects that are just good family fun.  This Christmas, I set up my camera on my tripod (since I finally bought a good one, I thought I should get some use out of it) and used my remote to occasionally snap photos.  However, because I wanted to be stealthy about my shooting, I didn’t use the flash.  As a result, I had to use a slow shutter speed in the low light around the tree.  While I’m not sure my family has enough photo-tolerance to hold still for pictures anyway, the fact that they often didn’t know when the camera was shooting prevented them from trying.

As a result, I got a bunch of blurred shots that lead us to downright silliness in trying to create ghost images in the shots.

This turned into a game of trying to create the best ghost effect in the shot, at least for everyone except my oldest nephew, who was too busy texting to be silly.  The two photos included here were the best of the lot.  Both pictures have 7 people in them.  I like the first one because the “ghost” images on the left look like they’re dancing (or perhaps trying to dance but not exactly succeeding).  I like the second one because my youngest nephew successfully created a ghost boy looking over the shoulder of my older nephew.

Who knew photography could replace charades for family games?

Ringing in the New Year

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For 41 years, I lived in one place.  Even when I went other places for weeks or months at a time, it was always temporary and I knew I would be returning home to Columbus.  There are certain things that happen when you always return to the same place for 41 years.

First, you make friends.  This happens through the natural course of life, although most of my current friends are people I met through work or a networking effect of those I met through work.  Over 41 years, I ended up with an eclectic group of friends who honor me by at least acting like they enjoy our company.

A second thing that happens is a place becomes familiar.  You hear about an event one year and think “Oh, we should try that next year.”

Between learning about the annual events and having friends who invite us to do things and/or have parties, we never really had to put much thought into New Year’s Eve.  We stumbled across something we wanted to do as a couple, were invited to do something with other couples, or were invited to someone’s party.

Now, as a couple with no dogs, no children, activities that mainly take us out of town, and home offices, it’s suddenly very difficult to meet friends.

The strangeness of being without geographically close friends stuck home when we found ourselves with no plans for New Year’s Eve.  I realize in retrospect that I have simply gotten lazy when it comes to planning New Year’s Eve.  I have taken it for granted that something will fall into our laps without considering how that could possibly happen in a new place.

Figuring that New Year’s would take care of itself, I didn’t bother to make any definitive plans.  Then, New Year’s was upon us.  Interestingly, it did take care of itself.  We decided to walk across the bridge to downtown and return to a restaurant we hadn’t been to since a visit to Chattanooga before we moved here, back in March.  I was skeptical that they would have any tables open, but it turns out that they had several tables for two available.  Apparently going out as a twosome is not that popular on New Year’s Eve.

We had an amazing dinner and shared a great bottle of wine.  After talking and laughing our way through four courses, we walked out feeling reconnected and ready to face a new year together.  However, it was only 9:00PM.

So, we went to the new Sherlock Holmes movie to keep us up until midnight.  It turns out I’m much older than I thought–I was nodding off in the first 10 minutes.

After the movie, we walked to the center of the Market St bridge by midnight.  We stood on the bridge and kissed at midnight and watched fireworks in at least 5 different directions as we made our way home.  So what if we were home by 12:15AM?