Category Archives: Chattanooga

Fresh Eyes

Posted by dkrashb on

One of the things that my husband and I usually miss out on is experiencing life through a child’s eyes.  This is the consequence of not having children and not usually being around children.  While there are many great reasons not to have children and we have no regrets about that decision, there are times when it’s nice to borrow the perspective of someone else’s child.

Having been to Rock City only for the birds of prey show (which is FABULOUS), it was cool that a visit from some friends who have a 4 year old gave us the opportunity to revisit the place.

We discovered a lot of things we’d missed the first time.  Because that little guy had more energy than I’ve had in a long, long time, making sure we pointed out every possible source of amusement became our passion.  This forced us to notice everything.

For one thing, there is a “Fat Man’s Squeeze.”  Granted, there are many places in the world with a “Fat Man’s Squeeze,”  but watching a four year old creep his way through the tight quarters made this one extra special.

We also noticed the waterfall in a whole new way.  We’d never noticed you could see it from the road.  With a four year old in the back seat, we quickly discovered a whole new view.  He was so excited that we were going that waterfall!  I had to pause and take a new look at how spectacular it really is.

Then there was the rock climbing wall.  Our four year old friend wasn’t big enough to climb, but he sure was excited by his mom’s decision to climb!  We hung around cheering for the other climbers while we waited for his mom’s turn.  I like wall climbing, but I was feeling too hot and sticky to want to attempt it myself.  As a spectator,  I found myself watching novice wall climbers and not just clapping politely for them but really feeling the need for them to make it to the top.  It was pretty inspiring to watch.  Albeit, our four year old friend lost interest about the time his mom made it to the top, but we were fascinated to stay and watch a young girl climb.

Finally, of course, we went to the birds of prey show.  I shot with a wide angle lens trying to include the audience because I wanted to capture the four year old’s reactions.  I admit I was a little disappointed that he often seemed more interested in the gravel under his feet than the birds, but every once in a while he’d look up with curiosity and even a hint of amazement.  But maybe you have to be an adult to realize how special it is to be that close to a bird of prey?

All in all, going to Rock City with a kid made the place feel like a brand new adventure.  Now I can’t wait to go again!

 

Blues on the River

Posted by dkrashb on

I have a confession to make.  In spite of the fact that I’m married to a guitar player and song writer who has been dealing in vintage guitars for about 20 years, I’m not that much into music.

In some ways, I suppose this works.  I enjoy music.  I love listening to music.  I just don’t really spend a lot of time seeking out music and I was never one to go out of my way to find a concert.  That’s not to say I don’t enjoy concerts.  I just never kept track of who I listened to enough to find out when and where they were playing.

We periodically venture out to hear a band.  In Columbus, when we were still energetic enough to stay up later than 11PM, we would go see friends’ bands every once in a while.  But, I have to admit those nights out have gotten fewer and further between over the years.

In a sudden surge of protest (of the possibility that we’re getting old), when a friend from Columbus gave us a heads up that a Columbus band was going to be playing at Riverbend, we rallied and made our way across the river.  It wasn’t much of a rally since the set was scheduled from 5-6:30PM.

We’d already bought “pins” for access to all 9 days of Riverfest.  We’d gone to see Foreigner, but we took Tisen with us and he wasn’t allowed in.  So, other than me running in to buy a funnel cake (who can resist a funnel cake?), the pins hadn’t been used.

Hadden Sayers, as it turned out, is a guy with a band (I thought it was the band name).  He’s originally from Houston.  He told the story of moving to Columbus on a day when it was 7 degrees and how that led to his song titled “Take Me Back to Texas.”

This is almost the opposite of our experience of moving to Chattanooga on a day when it was 110.  Neither my husband nor I wrote a song about it, however.  I guess we didn’t want to go back to Ohio that much.

Hadden and the band are awesome musicians, every one of them (verified by my husband since I’m impressed by anyone who can play anything).  But, when we arrived, there were only about 20 people standing around in front of the stage.  As they progressed through the set, more and more people arrived.  As it turned out, the next band was Government Mule.  I’ve never heard of Government Mule, but I guess they’re popular in this part of the country.

Hadden told the crowd that the Mules were in the house and, if it was OK with the audience, he was going to play a few more songs (his set wasn’t over).  The audience cheered–I wasn’t the only one impressed.  I don’t know how many people in that audience had heard of Hadden Sayers before, but I think we all went home glad that we had now.

Riverbending

Posted by dkrashb on

When we made the decision to move to Chattanooga, we knew about Head of the Hootch (a huge rowing event here in the fall) and we thought that was THE big event in Chattanooga.  However, it turns out Riverbend is THE big event here.

Just by chance, we completely missed Riverbend last year.  Our visit to pick a place to live was in March.  Our visit to make it official was in July.  Riverbend happens in June.

Riverbend, is a 9-day music festival that, this year, features 6 stages and something around 100 bands.  Supposedly, 600,000 people will descend upon Chattanooga (population 300,000) for this event.

The first sign that Riverbend was coming was the arrival of a stage via barge.  It was floated up the Tennessee River and parked for a couple of weeks in front of the Aquarium.  Eventually it was raised onto a huge dock (we always wondered why that dock was so big) where it had quietly remained for at least a week before the opening of the festival.

During that final week, tents started appearing followed by rides.  Soon, the riverfront looked like an abandoned carnival.  Billboards all over town advertised “get your pin at such and such place.”  Pins were $32 for entry all 9 days.  Of course, “entry” doesn’t include the lawn in front of the main stage (another $10), a program (yet $35 more), or seats anywhere.

Had we know pins at the gate would be $45, we would have bought our pins early.  We, of course, didn’t discover this until after the discounted pins were no longer available.

Finally, opening night came.  It was Friday night, June 8th.  We expected to hear the bands playing from our place, but they were drowned out by traffic noise on this side of the river.

Instead, the start of the festival was announced to us by a ridiculous amount of noise on the roof over our heads.  Some of our neighbors had apparently invited a large group of friends over to hang out on the roof deck; we’re pretty sure they spent the night.

I went up to the roof top to check out who was up there and to see what kind of shots I could get from the roof.  I left my 100-400mm lens at home since I figured I was going to need my faster 70-200mm lens in the twilight over the extra length.

Alas, the scene was far enough away that I couldn’t get very interesting shots of any details.  Plus, I couldn’t see the river from our roof, which was full of boats listening to the music.

I turned to the sunset briefly (reminding myself that I have too many shots of the sunset and it wasn’t that interesting) and then returned to shoot the skyline wide.  Sine the sky was completely uninteresting that direction, I cropped those shots to panoramic proportions.  I probably should have just put my camera away instead.

Valley View and Difficult Decisions

Posted by dkrashb on

Decision making is something I do all day.  In fact, I get paid for it.  I’m not claiming the decisions I make are important or life changing or even interesting.  I’m only claiming that I make decisions.  And I do it all day long.

The thing is, I’m pretty quick at deciding.  In fact, I’ve spent a couple of decades learning how to slow down and not jump to conclusions.  I don’t need to know every possible piece of information; only a reasonable amount to feel confident that I can make a choice between options.

So, I ask, why is it that once I put my work away, I can’t seem to make even the simplest decision?

Is decision making a non-renewable resource?  Do you only have so many decisions you’re allowed to make during the day and then all decision-making brain cells are drained until they are recharged over night?

I don’t know why, but deciding things like “what do I feel like eating?” often feels like I’m trying to decide whether to wage war on a neighboring country.

Similarly, tonight as I looked through the remaining shots from Signal Point trying to decide which ones to include in today’s post, I look at the first shot and think it’s not bad.  Buth then I look at the second shot and prefer the framing.  In the first example, the bank of clouds is entirely visible.  There is no view of Venus in either shot, but the temptation to keep both images overwhelms.  Instead of choosing the one I like the best, I now have doubled the storage required.

Oh, and wait, what about the vertical version?  Or the wider angle view of the valley at 18mm?  Or what about the slightly less wide angle view at 28mm?

I know that there should ultimately be only one best image but whose best am I shooting for?

Then, there’s the HDR processed images.  After all, given that i went through near heart failure to get multiple exposures of several images, shouldn’t I keep the processed versions of these negatives, combining the many exposures and trying to output a combined photo that exposes all parts at the same time.  I’m pretty sure the entire collection of exposures should be kept just in case I want to recombine them all differently in the future.

I would also share the in-camera HDR settings, but I haven’t actually figured out how to do that yet.  Figuring out how to do brackets of 7 exposures was challenging enough and then that failed.  It makes it a little difficult to get motivated to figure out how to use the more advanced features like in-camera multi-exposure processing.

Maybe next post . . .

Venus Spotting

Posted by dkrashb on

The Transit of Venus is one of those phenomena you have to get excited about, even though there’s a little voice that says, “it’s a black dot on the sun.”  You must ignore that little voice and get caught in the frenzy surrounding an astronomical event that won’t happen again for 105 years.

For me, the frenzy began when I read an article about it this morning, thanks to a post from a friend who is far better informed than I am.  I thought about trying to find a station on TV that was showing it instead of trying to see it.

Then, the frenzy ended about 10 minutes later when I promptly forgot all about.

After a long day of work, I decided to share Signal Point with my husband as a nice way to relax.  I promised him we wouldn’t hike any further than the 100 yards to the overlook from the parking lot.

I, of course, then packed up my camera, a couple of lenses, and my tripod.  Tisen packed as well.  As soon as he heard the first zipper, he started jamming toys into his mouth.  He managed to get both Tiger and Baby Beaver into his mouth at the same time.

When we arrived at the overlook, a man was already there with a pair of binoculars on a tripod and a camera sitting on the wall.  I was puzzled by his binocular setup–they were positioned about 3 feet above the ground and I couldn’t imagine how he could look through them at that height.  I asked him if he was seeing anything good, assuming he was looking for birds (what else are binoculars for?).

This is when I was reminded of the once-in-a-lifetime (well, twice) event I’d read about only a few hours before.  He used the binoculars to project an image of the sun onto a white card.  That way, we could safely view Venus passing in front of the sun.  Honestly, I was more excited to learn you could view the sun that way than by the black dot in front of the sun.  But it was pretty cool to be able to say we saw it.

I put a neutral density filter that blocks 10 stops of light (that’s a lot of light) and tried to shoot the sun.  However, I was worried about pointing my camera at the sun and, for whatever illogical reason, didn’t want to do so with my 70-200mm lens on it.  I’ve never heard of pointing the sun doing damage to a lens, just the sensor (and the photographer’s eyes), so I don’t know why I was worried about the lens, but shooting with a wide angle zoom only got me to 35mm–not exactly the best focal length for capturing  black dot on the sun.

I did get some interesting sunset shots and, even if we can’t see it, we know Venus is in there somewhere.

Signalled

Posted by dkrashb on

Late Sunday afternoon, I got the urge to hike.  Pat, however, did not.  He was in the middle of a project.  I started to settle back into the couch, but then thought, “I didn’t move to Chattanooga so I could sit on the couch.”

With a little surfing, I discovered there was a section of the Cumberland Trail on Signal mountain and it sounded awesome.

Based on the map scale and the “pinky measurement” technique I’ve developed (patent pending), I guestimated it was between 2 and 2.5 miles one way.

As we started down the trail, we passed a sign that said Edward’s Point Overlook was 2.9 miles away (there goes my patent!).  I resigned myself to the reality that we were not going to make it to Edward’s Point today.

We made our way down some treacherous steps and then some even more treacherous steps.  After about 20 minutes of walking, we made it to another overlook.  Black Vultures soared on a thermal, rising up over the mountain and disappearing on the other side.  I tried to get a shot, but they disappeared before I could even get my lens cap off.  I shot a boat down on the river below instead.

We kept on going, which might have been a mistake.  I had trouble getting Tisen to drink water.  He wouldn’t drink out of my hand and he shied away from a water stream.  I paused to find a depression in a rock he could drink from.

As we continued, we heard a waterfall.  I thought maybe water would be nearby, but each stream was just a damp mark on the side of the mountain.

I watched Tisen plow through poison ivy.  As much as I knew I should avoid touching him, I couldn’t help myself.  I suspect even my camera is now covered in poison ivy oil.

We’d made it about 200 yards past a frightening bridge when our time ran out.  With no photo ops since noticing a cluster of mushrooms high above us,  I was cursing every ounce I was carrying.

When we stopped again at the rock with the depression for more water, Tisen laid flat out on his side, head down, sides heaving.  I wasn’t sure he was going to get up again.  But, when I stood up, he popped up like he’d just been teasing me and even led the way up the steepest parts of the trail.  I was really impressed when he hopped up those scary steps full of energy.

We stopped at the overlook in the park one last time to shoot the Eastern sky.  The light was better, although the sun was still too high for shooting towards the West.

Hot, tired, and hungry, we headed back down the mountain to return home.  Unfortunately, we couldn’t relax right away–both Tisen and I required poison ivy detoxification.  Tisen does not much like baths, but he seemed to feel pretty good afterwards.  Or maybe it was after dinner?

The Last Mimosa

Posted by dkrashb on

I’m saddened to learn that the Mimosa tree is an invasive tree from Asia that doesn’t belong here.  In fact, the Tennessee Exotic Pest Council ranks it as a severe threat.  This makes me sad because I was really enjoying the blossoms, but I feel strongly that invasive plant species need to be removed from non-native habitats.  Now I feel like a traitor–aggrandizing the enemy.

But, I can’t help but indulge my irresponsible self one last time before I turn my back on the Mimosa tree (don’t worry, I’m sure I’ll continue to indulge in the beverage on the rare occasions the opportunity presents itself–too bad it’s not the drink that’s invasive instead of the tree).

In case you are unfamiliar with the problem of invasive species, I confess it’s a bit of a sore spot with me.  Having spent many weekends trying to remove plants that were taking over my own yard as well as the neighborhood, I know how difficult these plants are to control first hand.

In the US, we tend to plant what we think is pretty and/or is easy to grow. We fiercely defend our property rights and believe what we plant in our yard is our own business.  Unfortunately, invasive plants don’t stay on our property.  They spread through an amazing variety of means and grow quickly out of control since whatever keeps them in check in their native habitat doesn’t exist in the ecosystem they have been introduced to.

While we sometimes call native plants “weeds” because we don’t like the way they look and they grow in places we don’t want them to, these aren’t the same as invasives.  Invasive species do outright harm to an ecosystem.

As we all know (I hope), every living thing has interdependencies with other living things.  Whether it’s for shelter, food, temperature control–all of the above, no creature can exist without other creatures to support it (depending on what you call a “creature,” I guess).  Plants are a critical component of this web.

Invasive trees like the Mimosa reek havoc upon the availability of necessities by crowding out the native trees and plants that would provide them.  Because invasives didn’t evolve with the rest of the ecosystem, they fail to provide the critical (and often subtle) requirements that the native plants would provide.

This is my plea:  the next time you plant something, remember that what you plant will spread far and wide whether you know it or not.  Make a choice that everyone can live with (including wildlife) instead of just what looks good.

A chunk of our tax dollars is spent trying to control these invasive species–even if you care nothing about your ecosystem, why would you want to make a choice that will be an ongoing cost to you and the rest of the tax-paying population for generations to come?

All right, I’m off my soapbox now.  Back to taking pictures.  🙂

Related articles

Cloud 9

Posted by dkrashb on

Every once in a while, things come together unexpectedly in small ways.  I say in small ways because, after all, creating an image that I like is not like curing cancer.  But, sometimes, just every once in a while, something happens that gives me hope.

I don’t know what for, exactly.  There’s the hope that maybe I can capture images that matter to me.  There’s the hope that life will have more moments of stunning beauty and the joy of witnessing them.  And then there’s the hope that life is really about these moments and none of the other crap really matters.

On this particular day, the three of us were loaded in our mini van.  Me in the front passenger seat, Pat driving, and Tisen riding in the back with Lion (or maybe it was ‘Possum?).  As we made our way to the Rice Boxx to pick up dinner (side note:  the food is decent, but if you judge chinese food by the quality of the fortunes in their fortune cookies, steer clear), I looked up and saw the most amazing clouds in the sky.  They were the fluffiest, most interestingly lit clouds I can remember.  Of course, the time to see the most interesting clouds is not when you’re in a car on your way to pick up dinner and camera-less.

This is the part where things just came together.  We got dinner and went home and when I looked out the window, I saw an enormous ray popping through the clouds going straight up.  I had to choose between trying to capture an image that might last the rest of my life and eating a hot dinner that would last about 10 minutes.  It was an easy decision.

I grabbed my camera, tripod, an extra lens, and headed up to the roof.  I found a neighbor up there, already enjoying the sky.  She had her back to the sun rays coming through the clouds, enjoying the puffy clouds–although they were somewhat less puffy now.  Like me, she really enjoys unwinding on the roof.  Unlike me, she didn’t bring a camera.

While I set up and started shooting, she and I talked.  I managed to set up and get at least one image I’m happy with (well, at least on my monitor) and get to know a little about my neighbor at the same time.  This might be a new milestone for me.

One of the things I’ve discovered about my 5D Mark III that was a nice surprise is its built-in level.  I can push a button and it displays a level on the LCD.  Having discovered that I view the world at a tilt, this is an awesome feature for me.  Especially when shooting in Chattanooga–there are no straight lines on the horizon to line up with.

Returning to finish my dinner, I discovered Tisen was not at all interested in the clouds–only in getting comfortable on the couch.

Related articles

Mimosa Anyone?

Posted by dkrashb on

For those of us who appreciate an excuse to drink champagne for breakfast, a mimosa is a tasty beverage that someone invented most likely because they spent too much money on a bad bottle of champagne (my apologies to any French readers, I really mean sparkling white wine that may or may not be from the Champagne region of France) and didn’t want to waste it.  Sweetening up sparkling wine with orange juice was a stroke of genius in my opinion.

But it does not explain how it got its name.  For that, I am forced to google.  Apparently, I have never had a mimosa that was made correctly–they are supposed to have a foamy head that resembles the flower on the mimosa tree.

In Ohio, the crabapple trees bloom fantastically in the early spring.  But I can’t remember ever being over powered by their smell.  And they burst into blossoms that seem to disappear within a week.

This is my first spring where mimosa’s are common.  In Ohio, you might discover this strange tree tucked into a protected corner of someone’s garden, but I can’t recall ever seeing one in the wild.  Here in Tennessee, they start a sneak attack with their sweet scent.  I walked through the park smelling the perfume in the air for days before I finally figured out what it was.  That was at least 2 weeks ago–they are still blooming like mad.

Unlike the crabapples, the mimosa trees tend to be tall, keeping their blooms out of reach.  This makes them a bit of a photographic challenge.  And, as you may know by now, I seem to gravitate towards challenges.  But it’s not the challenge of capturing them from a distance that attracts me, it’s the way the light hits them in the evening, suddenly spotlighting their pink foam flowers in golden light.

I may have to get a ladder and go back for some close-ups.  I wonder what the maintenance crew would do if they saw me carrying a step ladder?

I spotted a small mimosa tree down by the river.  The best time to shoot it would be around 8AM when the sun is still low but high enough above the Eastern horizon to send a few rays over the steep bank above the tree.  But, I decided evening would be a good time to experiment with my flash outdoors.

I set up my flash on a stand so I could put it as close to the tree as possible while I shot further back and to the side enough to keep the flash out of my frame.  However, if there is any light on the mimosa, it’s because I lightened it in post-processing, not because the flash threw so much as a single random shiny spot on it.  A disappointing experiment.

The good news is that the mimosas seem to just keep on blooming.  Maybe I’ll get a chance for that close up over the weekend.

Related articles

Relapse with a Bounce

Posted by dkrashb on

I had to quit cold turkey.  It was tough, but after I got through the initial withdrawal, I discovered there were endless subjects to shoot besides the Chattanooga riverfront as seen from the North Shore.

The toughest step of my recovery was having to go through my photos and delete about 7000 images to free up drive space.  I think 5000 of those images were of the Chattanooga riverfront.

But then yesterday, I was walking in the park with Tisen.  I was going to go for a bike ride afterwards, but the clouds started rolling in and, well, I skipped my ride in order to shoot.  I guess we could call it a relapse.

When I started gathering up my gear, I peeked out the windows to discover a double rainbow forming in the East as the sun cruised toward the Western horizon.  I rushed to find a good view and get setup, worrying that I would miss the rainbow.

As it turned out, the brightest rainbow remained visible for the entire 45 minutes I was shooting.

The second rainbow never did get very bright–it just sort of hovered on the edge of visible.  It’s visible in the second image if you look closely.  As much as I love seeing rainbows, I find I enjoy shooting clouds more.  Perhaps because it’s difficult to get more than one perspective on a rainbow, but the clouds continually shift and create new images for you.

I’m not sure where my fascination with clouds started.  When I was a child and my family went on long road trips, if there were clouds, we would amuse ourselves by finding complex and, often, outrageous shapes in them and trying to get everyone else to see what we saw.

Every time I fly, I hope for cloud cover.  I love looking down on clouds–especially when there are thunderheads or other masses of clouds that look like some sort of special effect created by hollywood.  Of course, when I’m in a plane, I wish they were just a special effect!

As part of studying for our hang gliding rating, we learned a little bit about clouds and how they can help predict the weather–a life and death issue if you’re a good enough hang glider pilot to stay aloft for hours (my longest flight so far was about 4 minutes–makes weather changes sort of a non-issue).  We learned hang glider pilots look for big puffy cumulous clouds as a sign of thermals. From the look of things, the thermals were in full force.

I vaguely remember a dream I once had of falling through a cloud.  In my dream, the cloud was soft and warm–as if it were somehow slowing my fall.  It wasn’t the kind of fall that makes you wake up before you land; it was the kind of fall where you know you will bounce.  Perhaps I already knew that thermals were pushing back underneath?