14,016,000 Hours

Posted by dkrashb on December 16, 2012

I completely missed the news on Friday. By Saturday morning, posts on FaceBook were furiously popping to the top of my newsfeed about the shooting. Several were a photo of a beautiful young woman who, at 27, is believed to have died huddled over her first grade class.

I made the mistake of going to the WSJ page that profiles the victims. Every loss I’ve ever felt seemed to rise up from some place outside my consciousness and stick in my throat. These tiny children. These innocent, unsuspecting children with an entire lifetime ahead of them. All gone. In minutes.

Another post appeared on FB. It was a line from comedian Andy Bororwitz. It’s too true to be funny: “Maybe I’m a dreamer, but I wish mental health care were as easy to get as, say, a gun.”

I find myself imagining Daniel Barden going to swim practice today. Olivia Engel twirling around in a tutu. Catherine Hubbard swinging on a playground swing, snug in a warm winter coat. Chase Kowalski grinning ear-to-ear while tossing a baseball. Jesse Lewis drinking hot chocolate with bright pink cheeks, having just come in from the cold. Emilie Parker making homemade christmas ornaments for her teacher. Noah Pozner growing up and going to his bar mitzvah.

I read through the list of names that seems to go on forever. I have to stop imagining the futures that will never come.

A friend posts a quote from Mr. Rogers on FB: “When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.’ To this day, especially in times of ‘disaster,’ I remember my mother’s words and I am always comforted by realizing that there are still so many helpers — so many caring people in this world.”

I adore Mr. Rogers. There is no one more comforting. But I remain troubled that all the helpers in the Sandy Hook Elementary tragedy–and there were many–couldn’t stop one man with 3 guns from killing 26 people in minutes. Not just 26 people; 26 futures. About 1600 years of future were lost amongst just the children killed on Friday. 1600 years, 584,000 days, 14,016,000 hours of future. How many hours does it take to cure cancer, end hunger, solve health care, find a way for us to peacefully co-exist? What did all of us lose because we collectively haven’t found a way to prevent these tragedies?

Another friend shares a post from Maya Angelou, one of my personal heroes:

“Our country is grieving. Each child who has been slaughtered belongs to each of us and each slain adult is a member of our family. It is impossible to explain the horror to ourselves and to our survivors. We need to hold each other’s hands and look into each other’s eyes and say, ‘I am sorry.’”

I am deeply, deeply sorry.

Electric Eclectic

Posted by dkrashb on December 15, 2012

Carefully arranged dancers make an artistic float.

Let’s talk about the word “eclectic.” According to dictionary.com, it means “deriving ideas, style, or taste from a broad and divers range of sources.”

I think the Starlight Parade qualified as eclectic.

Is this a giant Elmo or am I just out of date on kids characters?

Let’s see:

Semi Trucks
Santas on Harleys
Vintage VWs
Marching Band
Cheerleaders
Lawnmower racing team
Ballerinas
Flame twirlers
Lighted twirlers
Roller derby-ers
Military Color Guard
Antique Fire Engine
Rescued Dogs
WWII Duck
Gymnasts
Corvette collection
Bread mascot
Double-decker London tour bus
Soccer players
Chinese dragon
Baseball mascots
Soccer mascots
Girl scouts
Hula hoopers

This little ballerina reminded me of an impressionist painting I have a vague memory of.

Oh, and, how could I forget:

The cast of all 6 Star Wars episodes.

If rebels and empire-ists can ride together peacefully, can’t we all get along?

Now that I think about it, just the Star Wars characters decked out in Christmas decorations alone was probably enough to qualify for “eclectic” status.

Of course the best shot of a storm trooper I got was of the only one with no Christmas lights.

“Eclectic” has sometimes been used as a polite way of saying “messy,” “cluttered,” or even, “no taste.” But sometimes being eclectic works quite well.

In the case of the Starlight Parade, all divergent themes were tied together by the overarching theme of Christmas. As such, it kept the interest going for the full hour the parade lasted. You just never knew what was coming next.

This mascot stopped long enough for a family to get a picture.

And, yes, we saw the lawnmowers and VWs and cheerleaders in the Mainx24 parade, but that was during the day. See the difference? This time it was dark. And they were wearing lights. Completely different effect.

I was slightly disappointed with the Star Wars group, I must admit. I kept waiting for Yoda to pop up with a lightsaber and start flipping around while fighting Count Dooku. If Yoda was there, he was quietly meditating behind so many Christmas decorations I couldn’t see him.

No acrobatic lightsaber fights erupted during the parade.

The Star Wars characters were courtesy of two local chapters of a national organization of Star Wars costumers. One is called Rebel Legion. These folks are serious about dressing like the heroes of the Star Wars episodes. If you want to dress like a villain, however, you have to join the Fighting 501st Legion instead.

This is a hobby I’ve never considered. Tutorials on their website teach how to create authentic costumes. They include advise on Wookiee hair punching (which confused me until I saw a photo of a mask with hair being punched through it to create a hairy face), making your own blood stripes (which turn out to be red bars sewn on a sleeve), and creating a realistic lip curl (a mechanism to get a Wookie mask to snarl when roaring).

I don’t see myself turning into a costumer in the near (or distant) future, but the diversity of interests in this world is pretty amazing. What really amazes me is these folks spend a lot of time and money creating these costumes all for the purpose of appearing at charitable and community events in exchange for smiles.

Much like the car decorating hobby, I don’t quite get it, but I appreciate the effort at creating joy.

The lighted sign appeared like a thought bubble above this curious baby’s head.

Rebel without a Cause

Posted by dkrashb on December 14, 2012

This little guy led the high school band like he was ready to graduate.

Since the Starlight parade was held after dark, I was hesitant to take my old 40D as my second camera. The 40D doesn’t do well at higher ISO settings. Fortunately, my husband was willing to share his new Rebel T4i, which has better ISO performance and higher resolution than my out-dated 40D.

I don’t think anything could distract this cheerleader.

I had to think long and hard as to whether I wanted to put my wide angle lens on my 5D Mark III or on the Rebel. The last parade I shot, I put my wide angle on my 5D and my telephoto on my 40D. This seemed logical since the 5D is full frame and the 40D is a cropped sensor. If you want to go wide, go wide. If you want to go tight, go tight, right?

This little girl watched intently throughout the parade.

But, when I was shooting the parade, I found my 24-70mm lens on my 5D was often too wide and my 70-200mm lens on my 40D was too tight. Plus, when I shot the subject loosely so I could crop to the framing I wanted, I was cropping a lower-resolution image from the 40D. As a result, I concluded I should have reversed the use of the cameras so that I would have had the higher resolution for the photos I was doing the most cropping on and a wider field of view on both.

This young woman gave quite a show twirling her baton and tossing it well into the dark.

But introducing the Rebel T4i into the mix was a new problem. It’s lighter to hand hold than the 5D, but not well balanced with the 70-200mm lens, which out-weighs the Rebel by 2 pounds. This makes holding it somewhat precarious. However, by holding it by the foot on the lens, I felt a little more confident I wasn’t going to drop it.

This was the youngest twirler performing big tricks–I guess that’s how she got the sash.

In the end, I decided to go with the same plan as for the previous parade: cropped sensor with telephoto and full frame with the wide angle. The decision was made easier when I realized I didn’t have a bracket for the T4i to attach it to my tripod.

It does look really stupid to walk around with a T4i with a 70-200mm lens on it. I instinctively held my hand over the T4i when I spotted another photography coming my direction.

Grainy close up of some of the girls on the tiny tots twirlers float I mentioned yesterday.

That said, other than the flip out touch screen on the T4i, which I found annoying, and the imbalance with the lens, I really liked the tiny Rebel. The shutter was quiet and handled rapid fire shots faster than the 5D (probably because of the slightly lower resolution).

The flip out touchscreen will be handy for shooting video and does make viewing images in bright light easier. I just don’t like to put the camera up to my face with the flip screen open and then get annoyed when I have to open it again immediately following a shot to check an image. In the end, I was pleased with the images, although they were a bit noisier than I was expecting.

This little guy was very energetic throughout the parade.

The Next Parade

Posted by dkrashb on December 13, 2012

Well, it’s that time again: the next Christmas parade. If the Mainx24 parade was challenging with it’s bright daylight, the Starlight (aka Street light) Parade was even more with its very dark setting.

With my 5D Mark III on a tripod with a ball head attachment that also allows for panning, I was able to pan with the parade. This is the only way I was able to get anything in focus.

I started out with a non-panning shot of the crowd in front of the Tennessee Aquarium.

In honor the celebration, the Aquarium displayed candy-cane-stripped lights

The Tennessee Aquarium has glass pyramids on its 3 separate buildings. The two buildings in the image each have two lighted edges. From some angles, you can see all four lighted edges. From other angles (like the view from our balcony), one of the lighted edges disappears behind the front glass surface.

This is a fun phenomena when walking along the riverfront. If you start at the West end of Renaissance park, all four edges are visible. As you walk East, the one edge gradually disappears from view. I have thought about putting a mark on the sidewalk at the point where the one edge disappears completely. I might be the only one who notices.

The crowd was getting pretty excited by the time the parade started. People kept surging into the street to see what was coming.

What was coming was a fire engine, fortunately with its sirens silenced.

The Howard High School marching band soon followed. They had also marched in the Mainx24 parade. I found myself wondering if they have a shortage of funding for band uniforms–their drum corps was wearing matching sweatshirts and beanie caps.

They stood in front of us for a long time, waiting for the traffic in front of them to make the turn ahead at slow speed. The drum corps continued to drum a beat and the rest of the band swayed in time. The young man to the left seemed to be grooving. It was fun to watch.

While the band waited to move on, the horn section swayed to the beat of the drum corps

The same dog shelters that were at the Mainx24 parade were also at the Starlight Parade. However, they opted for more vehicles and fewer dogs. What they lacked in numbers, they made up for in size.

A giant inflatable dog made up for the lack of live dogs–hopefully they all got adopted

Instead of mini-cheerleaders, this parade had twirlers. I’ll share some photos of individual twirlers later, but this was their float with the tiny-tot-twirlers riding and waving instead of twirling. I imagine this was a wise decision.

To avoid chaos, the tiniest of the twirlers traveled on a trailer

A group of girl scouts walked by next. they all wore red pajamas and santa hats. Most of them seemed to be busy talking amongst themselves, but one girl scout gave me a long smile while I panned with her.

While the rest of the girls scouts chatted, one girl scout smiles for the camera

Through all of this, Tisen clung to Pat’s side at the curb while I kneeled in the street shooting. Doesn’t seem like he likes parades much.

Tisen kept giving me “when are we leaving” look

Lighted Boat Parade

Posted by dkrashb on December 12, 2012

A long exposure of the lighted boats circling in front of Ross’s Landing

The Lighted Boat Parade is a Chattanooga tradition, if a relatively new one. Boaters decorate their boats with thousands of Christmas lights and then parade down the Tennessee River to Ross’s Landing where thousands of spectators watch. Here, they are joined by the Southern Bell–a longer-lived Chattanooga tradition that offers boat cruises to tourists. Then, they form a giant circle.

The Southern Belle provides the center of the boat parade circle.

Since the boat parade immediately follows the Starlight Christmas Parade, we had to high-tail it back across the bridge to find a spot I could shoot from in Renaissance Park. Having walked Renaissance Park 3x a day for nearly a year now, I feel like it’s really my yard. And what a lovely yard it is. While I’m not into yard work (making a park the perfect yard), I do pick up litter. Part of me thinks this small contribution to keeping the park clean should entitle me to first choice of places to shoot from.

I love this look–who can resist Santa on a Harley?

Plus, I really thought I had the insider’s track on a good spot to shoot from–the launch ramp under the Market St bridge. After all, how many people even know the launch ramp is there? The kayakers, a few fishermen, maybe a stray cat or two.

This boat was tough to keep up with while panning with a telephoto lens

No. As it turns out, about 5000 people know about the launch ramp and they all showed up there to watch the Lighted Boat Parade.

There probably would have been fewer people on the boat ramp if the park itself hadn’t been closed off along the riverfront. The fireworks were fired from there, so this forced the crowd off to the edges of the park.

I set up my tripod somewhat precariously on a rock retaining wall held together by chicken wire. This allowed me to get the long exposure shots I so love.

The lead boat caught me off guard, but I got this light trail from my camera on the tripod

I also borrowed my husband’s new Rebel, unashamedly put my 70-200mm lens on it (I really should post a picture of what that looks like–it’s pretty humorous to see this big, heavy, amazing lens stuck on the tiny body of the Rebel). I used that for panning with the boats.

This clean-lined boat slightly resembled a shoe

I am getting better at panning. Considering how dark it was and how slow a shutter speed I was shooting at, I was pretty proud that I got any closeups of the boats at all. You can tell which ones were shot while panning because the background lights have a bit of a trail. I especially like this effect on the candy-cane lighting the Tennessee Aquarium opted for in honor of the celebration.

Panning with the boat caused the candy cane lights on the aquarium to gain a trail

The best boat in terms of entertainment value was one that had spot lights that would turn on, revealing a group of women in santa’s helpers costumes doing a dance to very loud music. It was great. I think they may have set a new bar for the other boats for next year’s parade.

This boat really went all out on entertainment value

It’s not entirely clear what the dancers are doing, but it’s funny

As for great decorations, I think this boat takes the prize:

I think this boat’s decor was a really crowd pleaser for anyone looking for tradition

Still Fireworks

Posted by dkrashb on December 11, 2012

I am 6.5 in dog years. Is that old enough to use “old dog, new tricks” as an excuse for how long it’s taken me to experiment with some of the features of Aperture?

I still resist learning Photoshop beyond the occasional attempt to use layers in Photoshop Elements. I think there is some sort of message about life in this avoidance of adopting a technology that would give me more control over my photos and allow me to do things like put multiple fireworks bursts into a single image. (My photos of multiple bursts are because there really were multiple bursts.)

I think I’ve come up with the main reasons I resist this next step:

I’m at the point of “good enough” on how much time I want to spend on post-processing. The more I can adjust, the more lost I get in trying to decide which way it looks better. This is much like a story some of you may recall about taking my aunt (who had dementia) bra shopping. She would try one on, then the next, and I’d ask, “Does this one feel better than that one?” and she would look at me, puzzled, and reply, “Did I try that one on?” I finally bought her some sports bras figuring they would be “good enough” and get us out of an endless loop in the dressing room. Similarly, without seeing two different adjustments side-by-side, I have a hard time deciding.

I spend way too much time with devices already. I’m beginning to think of my computers as people. I caught myself talking to my work laptop the other day. It’s a Windows machine, so I wasn’t saying very nice things. I accidentally left my iPhone in the car last night when I ran into a restaurant to place a take out order. I had to wait 10 minutes for the food. It felt impossible to sit for 10 minutes with no friend in my pocket. I felt exposed and lonely. I decided against running out to get my iPhone, though. I thought it might be good for me to wait without the distraction for once. I was soon hypnotized watching muted sports castors talk about football. I have no idea what they were saying since there were no captions, but it gave a surrogate for my iPhone. See what I’m saying?

I’m not confident Photoshop would make a significant difference in how much better my photos look for the price. It’s expensive software both in dollars and time to learn. Would I really be able to do so much more with my photos and would I have time to actually do those things that I would think, “Wow! I’m so glad I spent that $700!”

I suspect Photoshop is really a black hole. Once you’re in, you can never get out. The truth of the world is altered and you can never get back to your original reality.

Let Your Colors Burst

Posted by dkrashb on December 10, 2012

As it turns out, the next shoot I did after the Mainx24 Parade was yet another parade. Since I’m not ready to blog about another parade yet, I thought I would jump to the end of the evening and go with the fireworks display that closed the holiday celebration.

I always see these fantastic fireworks shots that have zero smoke in them and just streaks of color shooting across the sky. I don’t know how they get those shots. I’ve spent a little time searching for tips on how to prevent smoke, but none of them seem to help much other than the possibility of doing something in post processing to darken the smoke so it blends in better. I guess I will have to experiment.

As it is, the video was made from the 550+ shots with no post-processing. I will pick a few for post-processing later. Today, I was only up for making a movie.

The irony of me making a movie out of my stills is that my camera will shoot video. I have used it to shoot a video once so far. I didn’t think I could see well enough to focus manually and I found the autofocus function quite disruptive. I also discovered iMovie, the only video editing software I have, removed the feature to easily capture stills from video, so you have to go through a couple extra hoops and use another application to get a still from video. I find this annoying. Since I generally want stills, it seems easier to shoot stills and make a movie later if I want a video.

I didn’t plan to shoot the fireworks. I just happen to have a great view of them from my balcony and it seemed a waste not to shoot them. I did several things wrong during the shoot.

First, forgive me for repeating myself, I didn’t plan to shoot the fireworks. As a last minute decision, I was rushing to get setup on the balcony and failed to notice in the dark that I had part of the top of the balcony in the frame. This is going to result in more cropping than I planned for.

Second, about half way through the show, I couldn’t remember if I had focused at any point or not. This is not the time to have memory failure. Although, I suppose it is better than at the end of the show. I couldn’t really notice when the focus changed in the video, but the background buildings look blurry.

Third, I forgot to change the ISO setting from shooting very dark scenes and trying to get a faster shutter speed. This led to much shorter shutter speeds than I would have liked.

Finally, I also forgot to set it on aperture priority and I was shooting so fast, I didn’t check the images. Alas, I blew out the images with really bright bursts.

Other than that, my shots are great. 🙂

Parade Shooting (nomadicmainstream.com)
Balcony Shooting (nomadicmainstream.com)
shooting fireworks (cyrographics.wordpress.com)

The End of the Parade

Posted by dkrashb on December 9, 2012

Note: To see larger images, click on a photo and a gallery will pop-up.

Well dear readers, you will undoubtedly be happy to hear that I have, at last, reached the end of the Mainx24 Parade!

The end of the parade included car art. This is something I saw a lot of back home over the past few years. People adhere a wide variety of three dimensional things to their car. Usually, they do this to older, not very expensive cars and the first trends I saw involved adhering things like troll dolls.

An example of the more three dimensional variety of car art

I admit I felt some judgment when I saw these cars. I couldn’t quite understand why someone would do that to their car or what value they got out of it. Then, one of my friends told me she’d met a guy who drove one of these cars down our street on a regular basis. She asked him why he decorated his car. He said, “I just love making people smile.”

This driver definitely looks like she’s all about making people smile

I still have a hard time appreciating car art, but I now smile when I see one of these cars none-the-less. It’s not the car that makes me smile. It’s the thought that maybe the person driving it went to a lot of effort to bring a little joy into the world. That’s definitely smile-worthy.

One of the art cars definitely created a lot of smiles–they had a supply of candy that caused children to line up outside the windows to receive a handful. This car seems less three dimensional in style and more about happy thoughts in general. I like happy thoughts.

Whether the kids appreciated the happy-thoughts car or not, they certainly enjoyed the candy

If an artistic car doesn’t conjure happy thoughts, perhaps a horse-drawn carriage will?

Look closely for the Dalmatian on the driver’s seat

This is one of at least two carriages that are available for a spin around downtown on weekends year-round and all week during the summer. Notice the Dalmatian riding along on the driver’s seat. Both carriages always have a Dalmatian who accompanies the driver. One of these days, I’m going to ask how that tradition got started.

With the end of the parade came the big man himself (or his quintuplet, given that we saw him many times before)–Santa Claus.

A more practical santa uses sled dogs instead of reindeer

Instead of driving a sleigh with reindeer, he used sled dogs. That seems more practical to me–reindeer have all those horns and hoofs to worry about. Plus, what do they eat? According to wiki answers, in the winter they eat lichens. I haven’t seen any bags of lichens even at the most premium of pet stores.

As I walked back to my car, I stopped to shoot two more images. First, a man playing the piano out on the street. Perhaps the fact that it was December was what made this remarkable to me.

I’m guessing this guy doesn’t go busking around town

The second was a tree who had bonded with a building in a way that probably isn’t healthy for either. Not sure which will win the battle for space in the end–right now, it looks like the tree is winning. I silently cheered it on.

This tree and building have become so intertwined, it’s not clear they can be separated

VWs and Bicycle Art

Posted by dkrashb on December 8, 2012

One of the fun things about Chattanooga is that it happens to be home to the only US-based Volkswagen manufacturing facility. This is a pretty big coup for Chattanooga. It’s interesting how much a single event like attracting a company to open a new manufacturing plant in a town impacts that town.

While there were probably other things that contributed, there was quite a growth spurt in housing development concurrent with the kickoff of building the plant. That peak in activity precedes when I arrived in Chattanooga, and the housing market crash. Development kind of stopped for a while of the various condominiums and housing developments around town, but things seem to be starting to pick up again. Although, I think more multi-tenant rental units are being built than condos or single-family homes. But, I’m just guessing.

In any case, the presence of Volkswagen doesn’t just provide several hundred jobs at their facility and construction jobs for people in housing and infrastructure, it also brings funding into the area for community projects and education. VW happens to be pretty environmentally conscious as well, preserving a wetland on their property and occasionally allowing the Chattanooga Audubon Society to host bird walks there.

Most importantly, the presence of VW has created huge demand for the local VW club (unrelated to the company) for events around town. And, of course, the Mainx24 parade included a long line of vintage VWs. The VW bus with the pop-up top is my favorite, but the “Thing” is a close second. For many years of my childhood, I had it confused with a comic book superhero–they look pretty similar.

The Mainx24 parade once again demonstrated the breadth of character of Chattanooga when the VWs were followed by bicycle art.

I am a cyclist. Maybe not a Lance Armstrong kind of cyclist, but I like to ride and I do it as often as possible. I have seen downhill mountain bikes that look like off-road motorcycles without the motor, tandems, unicycles, electric bikes, bikes pulling dogs in carriers, you name it. I really thought I had seen every possible type of bike there was to see.

But, the clever artists of Chattanooga managed to surprise me (and the rest of the crowd) with amazing sculptures on wheels they rode in the parade. I particularly like the swing on the bike. I imagine it had to be pretty terrifying the swing above the pavement on a bike as it moved forward.

I can’t say I saw a model I wanted to trade my bike in for, but if I did, there would certainly be plenty of places to hang shopping bags when I ride to the market. I’m thinking maybe I should see if I can commission them to come up with a photographer’s bike, incorporating portable lighting solutions, lens storage, and a tripod holder into the design. Then form and function would really come together.

Not Just Any Parade

Posted by dkrashb on December 7, 2012

Perhaps it is indicative of a slightly twisted sense of humor, but I really love this photo of a small boy staring at a classic truck loaded with whiskey barrels.

When I first started shooting the truck, I tried to frame the scene so the boy wasn’t in it. As I shifted around trying to find an angle, I suddenly saw this shot and smiled. I’m not even sure why I think it’s funny.

If a small boy staring at a truck amuses me, the next shot should be adorable enough to make anyone giggle:

Yet, the expression on the woman’s face makes me a little sad. She just doesn’t look at all happy to be playing Mrs. Claus. It’s hard to laugh when someone looks miserable. I like to think that I just missed a big grin and caught her in a pause between smiles. After all, who could be anything but happy riding behind two such adorable miniature horses?

If there is anything amusing about the image, it’s possibly the ingenious construction of the wheels under the sled that make it possible for a sled to travel down Main St on a 70+ degree day in Chattanooga. I predict a new style of sleds appearing on the sledding hill in the park this winter.

The next shot is of a middle school band. They didn’t actually play while they were in earshot, but I loved the fact that they managed to make themselves look like a unit with simple black pants, white shirts, white gloves, and bright blue caps.

I particularly like the blue caps. After all, a marching band is supposed to have some kind of hat, right? While I imagine they were pretty hot by the end of the parade, they sure looked cool.

I cannot explain the next image. I’m guessing I could have asked any of the dozens of people near me what it was all about, but I was too busy shooting.

After all, I didn’t want to miss the next part of the parade: the lawn mower racing team.

I can honestly say I have never seen a lawn mower racing team before. While my twisted sense of humor is tempted to make fun, I think they have a great sense of humor to get out there and with their fully decked-out, decorated lawn mowers. Before you judge the implications of a town having a lawn mower racing team, just know that there is apparently only one lawn mower race a year here and it’s to raise money for the local Autism Center.

It was about the point in the parade where the SpiderMan themed lawn mower rolled into view that I decided this was the best parade ever. I hear it’s been growing every year. I can’t wait to see it next year!

nomadicmainstream

Combining living on the road with a mainstream lifestyle

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