Category Archives: Chattanooga

True Colors

Posted by dkrashb on

As Tisen and I stroll along Stringer’s ridge, my feet drag through a thick layer of leaves.  As they crunch and swirl in front of my feet, I remember what fall meant to me as a child.

Halloween was, of course, central to the fall experience.  Dressing up in some costume that never quite looked as glorious as I expected it to (except the year my mother cut and sewed her wedding dress into a Cinderella gown for my costume), parading through the yards of our neighbors to go door-to-door for halloween candy.

Even though it was a special occasion, we were only allowed to walk through the yards where adjacent neighbors had their porch lights on and were giving out candy.  Some yards, we got to crunch our way through un-raked leaves while other yards were sparsely dotted only with leaves that had fallen in the past hour.

Stringer’s ridge has no gardener to obsessively clear the leaves away.  They fall and create a weaving of color over the broken and dilapidated asphalt that marks the ridge’s recent history.  As we leave the nearby urban residential area and enter into the preserve, the leaves become denser and the views become more colorful.

Tisen has taken his time getting here.  Me with my camera stopping to shoot frequently had nothing to do with how long our walk has taken, I’m sure.  Tisen needed to sniff and mark every mailbox on the way through the neighborhood.  I tried to coax him on his way, but he insisted in at least making an attempt to leave his mark, even if it was only a gesture by the time we got to about the 10th mailbox.

As we crunch our way through the leaves now, I don’t hurry him, but I do occasionally try to get him to sniff a yard or two in one direction or another so I can shoot while he sniffs.  I wonder how many photographers struggle to get the angle they want because they are walking a 70 pound dog who doesn’t always cooperate?  Sometimes it makes me wonder if I’m the one on the leash.

Given the slowness of our progress and my need to be somewhere in the near future, we take the shortest route to the overlook.  It’s not an overlook in the sense that anyone built a structure or anything.  But, they did clear a few small trees so the view of downtown was unobstructed.

I love this view.  You can see the best part of the riverfront as you look across a sea of colorful trees.  It’s hard to believe there are so many trees between me and home as I look down the ridge and across the neighborhood Tisen and I have just walked through.

I say a silent thank you to the good people of Chattanooga who had the foresight to make this a preserve and then we turn to walk home.

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Fall Impressions

Posted by dkrashb on

With no yard, no rake, and no worries, I was feeling a little detached from the experience of fall.  But a long walk up to Stringer’s Ridge, currently peaking in color, got me back to a childhood full of crunching through leaves.

As Tisen and I made our way up to the ridge, I looked up and there was an oak tree shaking its top like my grandmother shaking out a rug.  It looked like it was trying to shake its loose leaves free like a dog shaking water out of its fur.

By the time I was ready to shoot, it stopped.  I stood still and waited.  I could hear the wind, I figured it would start again.  I just had to be patient.  Tisen pulled at the lead, catching a new smell just out of reach.  I took a step forward to give him something to do and then stood still again, waiting.

We were still at the edge of urban neighborhood and nature preserve, standing in the middle of a residential street.  I had to step to one side when I realized a car was barreling down the hill.  We walked a little ways further and I stopped again, Tisen stopping and giving me a puzzled look as I once more turned my eyes to the tree top.

Eventually, I turned and shot some brilliant leaves across the street until I realized there was a car stopped, waiting for me to finish so it didn’t drive through my shot.  I smiled and waved and turned back to my tree.  It was starting to wear me out.  I checked my watch and realized I couldn’t afford to stand there waiting much longer; we were going to run out of time for our walk.  I sighed and off we went with no shots of the swirling cloud of leaves.

Somewhere between that uncooperative tree and the start of the Stringer’s Ridge trail, I thought of trying to pan with a falling leaf.  I don’t know exactly what made me think about trying it, but I sure did amuse myself in the process.  It’s not easy to pan in general.  You have to start the motion of the camera so you’re smoothly following the thing in motion, then press the shutter while you continue to smoothly pan.  This is more difficult than it sounds.

A falling leaf is not predictable.  It gets picked up, shot off course, and suddenly picks up speed when the edge starts slicing through the air.

I didn’t think a single one of my panning shots turned out when I was standing there reviewing my shots.  But when I looked at them on the computer, I was actually quite pleased.  These are minimally processed, although in some cases I brushed in adjustments to the single leaf I was panning with to make it more noticeable.

I am beginning to see a wall covered with images of falling objects in my future.

Greasy Spoon Comfort Food

Posted by dkrashb on

The Longhorn is a long-standing tradition.  It’s not the steakhouse chain, although people show up with gift cards and expect to be able to use them there.  I think if they’d ever been to the steakhouse chain, they would realize immediately that this place isn’t part of the same chain.

I’ve never asked why it’s called the Longhorn, but the building seems to have been architected to simulate longhorns with the roof.  Who knows if the building or the name came first?

It’s been around since the 50’s and the minute you look at it, you know it.  This is true both outside and in.  It’s possible the counter and stools have not been replaced since the restaurant was originally opened.

But that’s part of its charm.

Its real charm, though, is the wait staff.  It only took going in there twice in one week before they started looking up, smiling and saying, “Hey, Guys!” when we walked in the door.  By our fourth visit, 2 servers had our “usual” pretty much down.  There’s nothing like having someone remember you, look happy to see you, and manage to remember even part of what you like to eat considering how many people these ladies serve every day.

When you’re in the mood for a down-home, greasy-spoon, fill-you-up kind of breakfast, the Longhorn is top notch.  If you’re trying to lose weight, don’t go there.

But, if you’re in the mood for eggs, they’ll be cooked to order perfectly (assuming you know what you’re ordering–I’ve heard people complain about over-easy eggs being runny, someday they’ll figure it out).  The “scattered tatters” are crispy, traditional hash browns (shredded potatoes, fried) and are always tasty.

The bacon is usually perfect, but can be a little overly crispy if you get there at the wrong time.  But whatever you order, prepare yourself for grease.  There’s a lot of it.

Unless you order pancakes.  The pancakes are awesome and not greasy.  But don’t expect anything fancy like real butter or genuine maple syrup here–this is a place that pays tribute to its 50’s heritage with whipped margarine served in a cup and corn syrup with maple flavoring.

This is the kind of place you go when you feel like being low maintenance.

When you walk in the door and Sandy and Terry pause in the middle of slinging food because they’re genuinely glad to see you, you remember there are more important things in life than having real butter.

I love the food.  For better or worse, it’s comfort food to me.  But what keeps me coming faithfully back is the sense of belonging to a community of regulars.  We update one another on weekend events, discuss what haircuts will look best on me, the server, or someone sitting down the counter.  We trade barbs and tease one another.  When people are waiting, we scoot down to make space.

It’s a nice place to eat.

Foggy Moments

Posted by dkrashb on

The fog comes

on little cat feet.

It sits looking

over harbor and city

on silent haunches

and then moves on.

–Carl Sandberg, 1878

Fog whispers secrets in barely audible hisses

Hinting of terror shrouded in its mist.

I watch as it crawls and creeps

Rises and disappears

Revealing nothing.

I love fog.  Now that the weather has been cool long enough, the water temperature has dropped.  This results in a giant, natural fog machine running through downtown.

At sunrise, if I happen to be down at the river at the right time, I love to watch the tiny wisps of fog swirling off the water’s surface, rising and joining the large cloud of fog above.  It’s so fascinating to watch the formation of a cloud that I may have to figure out how to make a video of it.

Eventually, a large cloud forms over the river, with strands of fog still connecting it to the river like a balloon vendor at a carnival with an endless collection of monochromatic balloons.  From up high, the fog looks so thick you wouldn’t be able to see your own hand in front of your face.  But when you’re actually down on the ground, the fog just looks more like an low-lying cloud.

On this particular morning a day or two ago, I had been meaning to go up on the roof to try to shoot some of the fall colors at sunrise.  When I saw the fog, I figured it would be a good morning to go shoot.  I shot from 3 corners of the roof.

I’m still trying to figure out how to shoot Stringer’s ridge well.  There’s a lot of crap between our building and the ridge that I can’t quite figure out what to do with.  I also seem to end up with more sky than I want in the frame.  I’m talking myself into shooting it with my 70-200mm so I can get in much tighter.  I’ll have to try that before the leaves fall.

I’m amazed how long the leaves are lasting down here.  They just keep getting brighter and brighter in color (still not as bright as midwestern color, but getting pretty close).  I keep thinking one morning I will wake up and all the leaves will be gone.

Of course, I couldn’t stay on the Stringer’s Ridge side of the roof for long.  Switching back to the opposite side of the roof, I tried to get an angle on the smoke monster crawling up the river.  It almost looked like it had a head on the other side of the smoke coming out of the chimney.  Unfortunately, it wasn’t a great angle.

As I watched the fog shift, the BlueCross/BlueShield building peeked through a sudden window that appears in the fog.  It looked like it had been hung in the sky and was floating on a cloud.

It was a lovely morning.

HDR Life Lessons

Posted by dkrashb on

Between “feeling puny” (as a former relative used to say) and being caught off guard by the early sunset (I somehow failed to notice that the sunset an hour earlier yesterday), I didn’t make it out to do a new shoot today.

But, never fear!  I have new photos to share.  I did a series of 5 exposures each of two compositions from the balcony at the same time I shot the images I posted yesterday.  These were just taken later in the shoot.

I included 3 images for comparison for each composition.  The first is exposed based on what the camera thinks is the correct exposure.  The second is under exposed by 1 stop.  I included the second image because I am particularly drawn to the high contrast of post-sunset skies at this exposure level.  To me, it looks the most like reality.  However, the buildings and landscape features get completely clipped at this exposure and I’d like to have a more detail in the landscape below the sky.

Since I shot 5 exposures, I thought I’d give HDR a try.

Even when I was shooting the 5 exposures, I knew HDR was going to be a long shot.  Literally.  By the time I got to the over-exposed images, the exposure times were multiple seconds.  The wind was blowing at about 15 miles per hour on the ground and who knows how fast higher up.  I could stand there and watch the clouds moving faster than a multi-second exposure.  Rapidly-moving clouds blur in long exposures.  Even the under-exposed image shows some blurring; the over-exposed images turn the clouds into undefined wisps.

But, I’m slightly feverish, so I have a good excuse to think it might create something interesting anyway.  I selected the options to remove ghosts and noise and to align the images when I processed the 5 exposures.  The third image is the result.

Photomatix got confused when it tried to align things and remove ghosts because of the differences in the amount of blurring between the multiple exposures.  So, the really dark clouds turned into floating dark blobs.  It actually did a better job than I predicted, so kudos to Photomatix.

The second series of photos is a different composition, but otherwise the same as the first series.  Same results.

I guess today’s life lesson from photography is that even though a camera can capture many moments in a single image and HDR processing can multiply that effect, sometimes we really are better off just enjoying each moment individually.

As a side note, Nurse Tisen seems to be ready for retirement.  Moving from the couch back to my office chair has him convinced I’m no longer in need of special attention. It was all I could do to keep him at a normal walking pace when I took him outside today.  Tomorrow he’s going to doggie daycare so he can run around.

Balcony Shooting

Posted by dkrashb on

On weekends like this one, I’m grateful I have a view from the balcony. Although I’m a bit overloaded on shots like these, having been the sickest I’ve been in a lot of years all weekend, I don’t know what I would have had to post today had it not been for this wonderful view.

Granted, I found myself really wanting to move the building across the street (or at least run up to the roof to shoot over it).  But, since I was barely standing up straight and the sun was setting quickly, it seemed improbable that I would make it up to the roof in time.  And, since I am not embodied with any superpowers that might allow me to move a building even on the best of days, there wasn’t much point in contemplating that possibility.

One effect of shooting from the balcony with the building across the street in the foreground is the extreme distortion that occurs, making the building seem like it’s bending towards the center of the frame.  This is a consequence of using a very wide angle lens and being so close to the building.

I used the-built-in level to make sure I was shooting straight (I do try to be a straight shooter), but the distortion was so great that I ended up changing the angle slightly in post-processing to try to make it look a little straighter.

These are also processed using HDR. Each image is actually a combination of 5 images with 5 slightly different exposures.  This allows me to get some of the detail in the buildings in the foreground at the same time I have the detail in the bright parts of the sky.  I’m starting to like HDR for these kinds of images the more I get used to it.

Tisen, it turns out, is a great companion for someone who is sick.  He was quite content to cuddle on the couch with me for endless hours.  He likes the down comforter and the animal print pillow almost as much as he likes me.  On the rare occasions when I made it off the couch, he would just lie there like he was in heaven.  Unfortunately, I was only able to get a blurry shot of him.  I’d blame it on being sick–couldn’t hold the camera steady–but I think most of my iPhone images of Tisen are blurry, too.

If I were guessing, I would say that Tisen feels needed.  He makes a great heating pad and seems to know just where to cuddle up against me to make me feel better.  I had no idea when I brought him home that he would some day be a nurse.  If he could take himself out for walks and feed himself, too, he would be perfect at it.

When the Moon Runs Late

Posted by dkrashb on

Moon, you travesty.

You promised you’d meet me.

Yet here I stand, blasted by the wind.

The sun has said its farewells.

Perhaps you saw me staring after its orange light.

But I am just waiting for you.

Killing time in the last of today’s beams,

waiting for you to reflect the day back to me.

Can it be helped that you have no light of your own?

That’s no excuse to be so late.

 

The moon rose over 30 minutes later than it was supposed to on the night of the full moon.  This happens because the moonrise time is at sea level and the mountains that surround Chattanooga result in delays.

When at last the moon did arrive, it wasn’t where I expect it to be.  I was in position to shoot about 90 degrees from where the moon actually rose.  This resulted in me being in a bad position with a telephone pole between me and the moon.

Ironically, after waiting 30 minutes for the moon to rise, the time the moon appears to the time it’s above the horizon is only a matter of minutes.  I did manage to calm myself down long enough to carry my tripod further down the roof so I wouldn’t have the telephone pole so prominently in the shot.

Not my best moonrise shoot ever.  Maybe next month.

 

You Get What You Pay For

Posted by dkrashb on

Remember what it was like to be really scared?  Scared when you knew there was nothing to be afraid of, but you were scared anyway?  What is it that’s fun about that?  Yet we seek it out from the time we’re little.

Like hide-and-seek.  We know the people are out there, but when we find them, we’re often startled or even terrified when at last we stumble across those we seek.

Going to a Halloween haunt is a return to our childhood roots.  We know we are safe.  We know no one is going to hurt us.  Yet we go to be scared.  There’s an underlying hysteria to the whole process of gearing up for a haunt.

It starts with the gathering of the group.  And the group psychology is important to the whole experience.  There’s an optimal group size.  If the group is too big, there’s too much safety in numbers.  You can hide in the middle of the bunch.  If the group is too small, the contagious nature of fear is lost.  I think 4-6 people with a couple of total scaredy-cats is perfect.

It’s small enough that the fear of 2 can spread to the rest of the group vs. the swagger of several buoying up the rest of the group’s courage.

And, let’s be honest, as much as I hate to admit it, there’s a gender difference.  We women haven’t spent our live pretending to be brave.  We’ve been taught to be afraid for our safety in so many subtle ways; we’re more likely to be startled, frightened, and even terrified than our male counterparts.

We’re also more likely to fully enjoy the experience of a haunt.  This is also true of children–the younger, the more disbelief is suspended.

I ponder the attraction of being scared.  It’s a reminder of our vulnerability, a feeling of helplessness.  Why do we enjoy this feeling of not knowing what’s going to jump out at us?  Is it the rush of having experienced terror and having survived?  Is it significantly different from the rush of thrill seekers who sky dive, climb Mt. Everest, or go cave diving?

These images were taken on the haunted trail at the Acres of Darkness event.  I was hidden in the shadows, waiting for the moment when the victims were suddenly startled by the various actors on the trail.  While I can’t claim there great images in terms of lighting, framing, or composition, they captured a moment of true fear for at least some of the guests.

I laugh when I look at their faces.  I laugh because of the complete abandon of their expressions.  Is it macabre of me to enjoy having captured fear?  In my own defense, if they would have been in real danger, it wouldn’t be funny to me.  But these are “we got you!” moments.  They came to be scared and they were.

It’s photographic evidence that the haunt achieved what the audience paid for.

Haunted

Posted by dkrashb on

What would a haunt be without some haunting?  This was another idea I had while shooting the Acres of Darkness event.  I know I’m not going to have people begging to buy prints, but the entertainment value of creating “ghosts” in images is priceless.

For the second time in one night, photography served not as an art form but as a game.  I’m beginning to think I’ve found my niche–I may not be an artist, but I’m pretty entertaining.  😀

I managed to recruit the subjects to play “ghost.”  This required no acting.  It simply required standing still and moving on command.  By having the subject pause periodically and then move a few steps slowly and then pause again, we created a see-through ring of a ghost image of the subject.

People are amazed by this effect.  In fact, I am amazed by this effect.  No matter how many times I do this, I am still amused.

I learned a few things from this little experiment (OK, so maybe this should be obvious):

  1. People wearing light colors show up a lot better in a really dark image than people wearing dark colors.
  2. This effect only works well if there is enough ambient light to create a clear outline of the subject.
  3. To create a single image of a ghost-person, have them stand still in the frame for about 1/3 of the total shutter time and then walk out of the frame really fast.
  4. To create a trail of ghost images, they need to take two steps forward slowly, pause for about a 3-count (with a 30-second shutter speed), and repeat until the shutter closes.

The last image was an accident.  But, it seemed fitting with the theme, so I kept it.  It might just be a technique I want to try again someday. 🙂   I took a shot of the 3 kids using my flash, but I’d forgotten to change the settings on my camera from when I was shooting the previous images with a 30 second shutter speed.

So, my flash went off, creating a solid and clear image of the kids, but then my shutter was still open and I was waving my camera all over the place while I was talking to the kids, explaining that I needed to retake the shot but I had to wait for 30 seconds (this seems to be a difficult concept).  While I was waving my camera around, it picked up on the different things I pointed it at just enough to create the “fog” over the image.  I am not sure what the bright light at the top is, quite honestly.  Might not be able to recreate that part.  The next time I want to add fog to a scene, I might just give this a try!

Today’s life lesson from photography:  sometimes doing something just for the fun of doing it is more satisfying than worrying about the end results.

Show Me Terror

Posted by dkrashb on

While shooting the Acres of Darkness haunt, I wanted to get shots of people while they were waiting in line.  This was truly shooting in the dark because I literally could not see them in the view finder at all.  Unfortunately, I had a single flash unit attached to my camera and was trying to light groups of people, so it was a bit tricky.  The lighting is, well, shall we say “not dramatic”?  But, the assignment for this series of shots was fun and the participants nearly made up for the bad lighting.

The assignment I came up with for the attendees was to show me their most scared face.  I asked each group waiting in line to show me absolute terror.  I got some mixed results, but overall, I was impressed with much of the acting!

Some people were immediately into it.  Like the ladies in the 3rd shot.  They really got a kick out of how scared they could look.  We actually did 3 shots because they were having so much fun.

The larger groups were fun because they would have some people who were really into it and others who really just wanted me to go away.  Like the family in the 8th image–the teenage girl in the background looking utterly bored spoke volumes about adolescence.

But even some of the pairs were a 50/50 mix on willingness to act.  One of my personal favorites is the 6th shot where the guy is totally acting scared and the girl is looking like she’s not really sure she wants to be seen in public with this guy.  Made me wonder how long they’d been a couple and how much longer it would last.  🙂

Then, there’s the image immediately after that one with the three guys.  The one on the far left said he imagined he was writing an alimony check to inspire his expression.  I thought he looked more like he’d had an accident in the restroom, but I appreciated his effort.

The two young girls in the 11th image cracked me up.  The one on the left gave a pretty realistic scared look.  The one on the right, who appeared to be the younger of the two when seen in person, seemed to think throwing up her hands was all it took to look scared.  Maybe she has yet to experience real fear?

This assignment, by the way, only worked well because I could show the subjects their picture immediately on the LCD of my camera.  They looked at the result and immediately wanted to try again to make it even better.  They all laughed and made fun of each other’s faces in the shots.  Who knew photography could be so entertaining for the subjects?

Afterwards, I had several people approach me and ask if there was somewhere to view the photos so they could decide if they wanted to buy them.  Maybe next year.