Category Archives: Chattanooga

Staying Grounded

Posted by dkrashb on

Normally, I would be writing about our day on the hang gliding training hills on a Saturday.  However, it wasn’t worth getting up early only to find out we couldn’t fly given the wind predictions.  Tomorrow doesn’t look any more promising.  I think I hear my knees sighing with relief.

Instead, we are doing exciting things like pulling together our tax documents.  Sometimes being an adult is unavoidable.

I wish I could have enjoyed the laid back morning, but we were out of coffee.  When we’re out of coffee, I feel like I’m in a race–can I find a source of caffeine before I get a withdrawal headache?

Eventually, I gather up some bags and head towards the grocery store.  But I make a pitstop first.  It’s time for a new pair of fivefinger shoes.  I opt for a running style with a nice squishy sole that feels luxurious.  I decide I like them so well, I will wear them home and put the trekking pair I was wearing into the box.

I head on into Greenlife and pick up groceries.  Every time I go there, I think of our empty refrigerator back home and am reminded of my sister-in-law’s visit.  I pointed her to the fridge for filtered water and when she opened the door, she found a pitcher of filtered water and a 12-pack of beer.  That was it.  She laughed out loud.  I suppose it’s one of the ways we avoid adulthood.

Returning home, I am loaded with a bag on each shoulder and the bag with my old shoes in one hand.  I’m glad I only have to walk a block.  I return home to an excited dog that doesn’t know what to do with himself now that I’m home.  It’s as if he wants to punish me for going somewhere without him.  I help him find Lamb so he can have something in his mouth other than my hands.  Then, I pretend to play keep away by periodically acting like I’m going to chase him and saying all the right things.  In reality, I am putting away the groceries.

I think back to my intention of eating right all the time when we moved to Chattanooga.  Is it human nature to think that making one major change in your life will change all of it?  I must have forgotten the crux of the issue–I brought myself with me when we moved.

For today’s photography lesson, I decided to go outdoors.  I have a request for shots of our balcony, so I carry my tripod and camera across the street and start shooting.  I’m not sure what is so remarkable about a person with a tripod and camera, but I certainly attract a lot of stares.  Or maybe it’s my fivefingers shoes they’re staring at?

I am still torn on whether I like the HDR processed images as well as “traditional” processing.  It’s a lot of fun to play with, though.

Riding the Storm Out

Posted by dkrashb on

Today was crazy busy.  I got out of bed, started working immediately following Tisen’s walk, and didn’t get a chance to shower, eat or even take a break until well after 5.  When I did take a break, it was largely because my father had been trying to reach me to make sure I was still alive.  Apparently, I was just missed by a tornado and I failed to notice.

I vaguely recall realizing it was raining hard.  I remember Pat coming back from his noon walk with Tisen soaking wet.  And I remember the smell of wet dog wafting up, alerting me when Tisen was at my feet.  I also remember commenting on the ridiculous number of sirens today.  But I was clueless as to why.

As it turns out, the worst is yet to come.  I decide to take Tisen out for his evening walk, figuring I’d better get him out before the next storm comes through.

As we finish our lap around the park, lightening charges across the sky in a display that makes me wish first that I had my camera set up and then that I wasn’t standing in an open field.  I’ve never seen so much lightening all at once before.  It was like a giant spider web illuminated in the clouds.  Thankfully, none of it headed for the ground.

As large drops start to fall from the sky, I start running.  Tisen is not initially sold on the idea we had to hurry, but after a few more drops, he starts to move faster.

From our balcony, I watch the storm come in, camera in hand.  As much as I probably needed a tripod, I was feeling rushed, like we might have to run for safety at any moment.

This, of course, doesn’t stop me from firing off shots for as long as I can stand on the balcony.  It starts hailing like mad.  It’s the biggest hail I’ve ever seen in person, although I did have a car pummeled by grapefruit sized hail in Dallas once (fortunately, I was in Columbus at the time; unfortunately I flew and left my car at the Dallas airport).

After the storm dies down, the aftermath starts.  We watch the weather on TV and listen to sirens.  A bigger storm front is approaching.  Tisen will not settle down.  It’s a little nerve wracking to be in a top floor apartment even if it is only the 4th floor.  We plan to head for the first floor and hang out in the stairwell if things get really bad.

I decide I’d better shower and clean up in case we end up in a crowd  That done, I wrap up some unfinished work and then start shutting down computers and unplugging them.

Tisen walks around with his lamb in his mouth.  Pat thinks he is preparing for an emergency, taking his most valuable thing.  Pat asks me what I will take.  My first answer is my camera.

Apple Blossoms

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A bag of trash sits tied and waiting to be carried out to the dumpster.  I grab it and Tisen and we head out, back towards the dumpster.

This takes me into view of the street behind our parking lot lined by trees.  The trees look odd.  For a moment, I can’t process what’s so wrong about them.  Then, I realize they are covered in frost.  But that doesn’t seem right.  I look again.  It’s not frost, it’s blossoms.  I look away and look back again to make sure I didn’t imagine it.  No, they really are in full bloom.

I’m pretty sure they didn’t look like that yesterday.

We head towards to the park and I realize the trees that line our lot are not far behind, partially blooming as well.  I notice the shapes of dozens of mourning doves roosting as I look.  The birds are unperturbed by our presence, but then it takes a lot to roust a roosting mourning dove.

As we make our way through the park, I hear the brown thrasher I’ve been seeing lately.  A small group of yellow-rumped warblers flit by, landing on the ground in front of us before scattering into shrubs.  As I look for the warblers, a large flicker flashes his big white rump as he crosses the path.  Colorful rumps is the bird theme this morning.

Tisen does not appreciate the birds.  Although he is occasionally entertained when they land close, tantalizing enough for him to take a run at them.  I keep telling him he doesn’t chase birds; he keeps assuring me he does.

I notice the fruit trees in the park are also blooming.  It seems a month early to me, but who knows when the trees normally bloom down here.  I hope they aren’t too far off from their normal timing.

It’s a long work day, but since the sun is setting later, I manage to carry my tripod and camera down to the intersection near the blooming apple trees before the last light disappears.  I set up and shoot across Market St.  This makes for some interesting photos as traffic whizzes through my frame during long exposures.

I decide to get a shot of the hill beside the trees.  Getting a decent angle requires setting up in the middle of the crossroad.  Since there isn’t a lot of traffic on this road, I go for it.  I set up and, of course, several cars come my way almost immediately.  One lady stops to ask if I’m shooting the apple trees and remarks on how pretty they are.  A man glares at me, clearly thinking I’m crazy.

I suppose it’s a little crazy to set up expensive gear in the middle of a road when it’s getting dark and I don’t have so much as a reflective jacket.  I shoot quickly and get out of the road.  I carry my tripod home feeling like I’ve just completed some rite of passage for a photographer.

Not 25

Posted by dkrashb on

Today was a hang gliding day. I didn’t take the helmet cam this week. This is mainly because I got to the car without it and going back up 4 floors to get it when we were already running late was just too much for my “don’t go backwards” approach to life.

I hand my iPhone to Pat when we arrive in the hope that he might take a useful video from the Kubota, but he was too busy driving to do any filming. I did take one still shot from the hill of the gliders lined up on the small hill in the distance.

I have a really good day flying. My first flight is just plain fun. Even though I flared too late and didn’t land on my feet, it felt good to be in the air. It’s flights like these that make me think maybe I really do want to fly off the mountain–after all, wouldn’t it be nice to have 8 minutes in the air instead of 8-12 seconds?

All the landings on the training hills–all 150+ of them–have taken their toll. My knees and hips feel like they’ve aged 20 years. While I joke about getting old, I’ve usually had a hard time remembering I’m not 25 anymore. My knees and hips scream “YOU’RE NOT 25!” at me every time I stand now. I’m sure walking dogs in heels all winter hasn’t helped. I’ve started wearing my fivefingers shoes again now that it’s warming up. It’s helping, but it does look pretty silly.

I wish it was warm enough to wear them on the training hills today, but it was only in the 20’s when we first arrived. Fortunately, it warmed up quickly. After getting in about about 10 fantastic flights, 8 of which I totally stick the landing, it’s time to head up top.

The wind isn’t acceptable for a novice rated pilot, so I am relieved I don’t have to decide if I’m really ready to launch from the mountain. Instead, we do some paper work–I am now an officially rated pilot with a membership in the USHPA and Pat and I are official members of the Lookout Mountain Flight Park. Since it doesn’t look like the weather is going to be good enough for a tandem training flight either, I cancel my tandem flight and we head to the Longhorn (not to be confused with the chain steakhouse) to gorge on eggs and bacon.

Apparently Tisen is not the dog-years equivalent of 25 anymore either–his walk mimics mine after running free all morning.

At sunset, I continue my HDR experiments with some high-contrast photos. This time, I find the info button so I can make sure I get the exposures I need to maximize the effectiveness of this technique. I figure this will be a better test.

In the end, I still like the lighting effects achieved this way in the black and white shot, but generally prefer the manually adjusted photos over the multi-exposure combined images. Which do you like?

Focus, Focus . . . Oh, Crap

Posted by dkrashb on

There is one tool essential to the budding photographer, uh . . . shall we say “of a certain age”?  It’s a tool that has yet to appear on a single list of equipment that I’ve found.  It’s not been mentioned in any of the photography classes or workshops I’ve attended or discussed in the online class I’m currently taking.

Yet, when manual focus is required, the best way to achieve sharp focus on my camera is to use the LCD with live view and magnify the image 10x to see how sharp the focus is.  This, however, cannot be achieved without the quintessential piece of equipment everyone leaves off their list–reading glasses!

Venus, Jupiter, and the moon have been teasing me the last few nights, promising some really great night shots.  But, wind and preoccupation have prevented me from capitalizing on their convergence.

Tonight, Tisen reminds me it’s time to take our evening walk about the time the sun has disappeared behind the mountains.  A few wisps of orange clouds leave the only trace of what might have been a dramatic sunset.  Above the clouds hang the moon, Jupiter, and Venus, looking like they might be posing just for me.

I start grabbing equipment, hoping I might catch some of the last rays of sunset.  I pause to change to a wide-angle zoom lens since I want to get some shots of all three heavenly bodies.

With my tripod bag over my shoulder, my camera around my neck, and Tisen on a leash, we head down to the riverfront.  Tisen is more intent on going potty than on helping me get to a good shooting position before the last light fades.  He doesn’t really have to go after the first three or four times, but not having been neutered until he was 8 means he will spend the rest of his life compelled to mark every vertical object that will stand still.

At last, I get to a good spot.  I set up my tripod, position my camera, and start shooting.  This is when I discover I’ve left my reading glasses at home.  Not only does this eliminate manual focus as an option, but it also means I can’t tell if I’ve badly over exposed the moon and I can’t see which button turns on the histogram.  I try moving further away to get to an achievable focal range for my eyes, but this requires kneeling on the sidewalk below the camera angled at the sky and craning my neck backwards, which makes me dizzy.  I give up and shoot with multiple exposures in the blind hope that one of them is right.

I pack up and rush Tisen home, anxious to review my photos on the big screen.

Pat is using the big computer when I get back so I decide to switch lenses again and grab a few close-ups of the moon from our balcony.  This time, I have my reading glasses, but I discover I may need a stronger pair!

It’s All About Tone

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What exactly is “tone” anyway?  I look it up on dictionary.com.  There are 15 definitions.  The first 9 have to do with sound.  None of them include ring tones, in case you were wondering.

When I hear the word “tone,” I think first of “tone of voice.”  Like when Tisen ignores me and I say, “Neh, eh, eh” in a tone of voice that let’s him know he needs to pay attention now.  I’m convinced it’s the tone and not the “words” that makes him actually listen.

The second thing that comes up  (or, really, down) for me is “skin tone.”  To me, skin tone refers to a state of tautness, firmness, lack of sag.  Gravity and skin tone are waging a constant battle.  I hope this doesn’t ruin the ending for you, but gravity wins eventually.

Then there is muscle tone.  This is probably more closely related to skin tone than I would like to admit.  People often say things like “lift less weight and more reps to tone.”  I don’t really know what that means, but I guess they think they can build sleek but firm muscles instead of bulky ones.  Bigger muscles probably help more with skin tone than small, skinny muscles.  I don’t really know–I prefer to try to tone skin by keeping a nice layer of fat.

But what on earth is tone when it comes to color?

Apparently “tone” refers to how much gray you add to a pure “hue.”  Hue seems to boil down to the colors of the rainbow.  So, if you take blue and add white, you get a tint of blue.  If you take blue and add black, you get a shade of blue.  And, if you take blue and add gray, you get a tone of blue.  So, a tone visually refers to how much gray is mixed with a given hue.

<sigh>

So, sadly, when I am performing tone mapping, I am not working any muscles or tightening any skin.  I think what I’m doing is telling my computer to re-render an image with a whole bunch of tones mapped to a single tone of that color because not all tones can be displayed.

What I don’t get (besides why I can’t tone map my aging skin), is why taking many tones and mapping them to a single tone results in the images I get when I perform this function.  I also don’t get the relationship between tone mapping and the effects that are possible when performing this function.

I’ve selected several tone mapped images to share.  All have appeared in non-tone mapped form on my blog before, but I’ve re-processed them as an experiment as I continue to try to understand High Dynamic Range photography.  I’m starting to like the black and white renderings.  Can you have a tone of black and white?

As a side note, an unintended consequence of tone mapping is that I’m spending more time sitting at the big computer and less time on the couch, which does not make Tisen a happy dog.

Foot Loose

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If yesterday felt like spring, today felt like summer.  I start off the morning taking Tisen for a long walk.  Tisen and I have been walking a mile less daily than I thought we were.  Since we are both getting thick through the middle, I up our mileage to avoid cutting back on food.

I start off in a T-shirt, light-weight fleece, and rain jacket.  By the time we make it to Walnut St, I tie the jacket around my waist.  As we work our way across the river and back to Market St, I tie the fleece and jacket together.

When I get home, I lure Tisen into the bedroom with my sleeping husband and rush off to the gym.  When I get back, my husband tells me Tisen laid on the floor by the door whining the entire time I was gone.  He apparently never realized my husband was in the room.

Tisen has been getting more and more aggressive with strangers.  When we walk at noon, I practice having him sit when another dog approaches or when people are going by.  I am trying to assert myself gently, but when I correct him with the ever-so-effective “neh-eh-eh” noise, he cowers enough to make me feel bad.  Surely he knows by now I will never, ever hit him?

In the evening, the three of us walk to the grocery store and my husband stands outside with Tisen while I run in.  Tisen stands on the sidewalk so intently watching the door that he doesn’t notice when another dog passes him within a couple of feet.

As we walk home from the grocery store, we notice the moon.  A tiny sliver of a new moon, just a narrow slice of light.  It’s setting already.

I rush up to the roof to see if I can get a decent shot before it sets.  The last thing I see as I rush out the door is Tisen running after me with his Puppy Love heart in his mouth.

It’s so windy that the lens (at 400mm plus a 1.4x extender) bounces around making it hard to focus.  I tighten everything that turns.  The lens still bounces.  I set up for a shot and then step over the tripod to block the wind.  Except, instead of stepping over, I trip over it.  I start over setting up the shot.  Things get only worse.

I do what any woman whose husband is cooking a quick dinner downstairs would do, I pack it in for the night.

When I pick up my tripod, the camera swings around and smacks me in the head.  It should not do that.  Inside, after being attacked by a frantic Tisen, I discover the foot plate on my lens foot has come completely loose.  No wonder my lens wouldn’t settle!

In the meantime, after a happy dance, Tisen settles down and is so darn cute, I stop worrying about his anxiety issues.

Springing

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The weather is playing tricks again.  Apparently, the ground hog did not see a shadow.  For President’s Day, it was as warm as a day in May with lots of sun.  Every child in the area congregated on top of the mound across the street for some good old fashioned grass sledding.

Chalk that up as one of the things I love about Chattanooga–instead of clinging to the hope that they might get to sled 1x a decade when it snows, they slide down grass covered slopes on pieces of cardboard.

The warm weather got the birds all riled up again.  I’m surprised they haven’t given up after having been teased so many times by warm weather.  But they are singing with vigor, seemingly sure that this time, it really is spring.

The robins, towhees, cardinals, wrens, and song sparrows seem to be having a sing off of some kind when Tisen and I take our morning walk.  As I try to spot a particularly loud wren, the large white rump of a flicker flashes by as one flies up into the trees.  I watch mourning doves zoom by–I am always surprised by the speed and agility they exhibit once they are in flight compared to the awkward slowness of them near the ground.

Perhaps it’s the addition of the song of the blue birds that make me think it’s really spring.  While the blue birds have been around all winter, they’ve been lurking silently waiting for the right moment to burst into song.  It seems today was the day.

Whether Tisen notices the bird songs or not is hard to say.  But he definitely has the same spring fever.  By the end of the day, when we take our last walk before the sun sets, as we walk by a long grassy slope down to the wetland, his legs bend and he plops down in the grass much like a horse.  Then he flips onto his back and kick his legs for all he’s worth.  He scootches around on his back, scratching what itches and sliding his way part way down the hill.  I start to think he’s spent too much time watching the kids sledding.

Each time I think he’s done when we get to another grassy area, he flops down again, repeating the process.  His black/brindle spots are looking more green/brindle with the grass clinging to him.  I do my best to capture him on my iPhone, but I need a longer leash to get a good angle.

After finally convincing him to leave the park, Tisen bounces along with a new spring in his step.  It’s like all he needed to know it was spring was a good roll in grass still holding the heat from a warm day of sunshine.  His antics have put a new spring in my step as well.  On the way home, I contemplate how I can take Tisen sledding on our next sunny day.

The Green-Eyed Cyclops

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I find myself obsessed with a single green light.  It’s not a traffic light, a light on a boat, or a light on a dashboard.  No, this is a light on a smoke detector.  As some of you may recall, this is not the first time I’ve had a gripe with a smoke detector.  However, this time, it’s personal.

We live on a busy street near downtown Chattanooga.  The noise and the light at night are the only things I don’t like about where we live.

To combat this (short of moving), I’ve taken to sleeping with ear plugs.  I also recently found inexpensive curtains that block light, dampen noise, and provide insulation all in one.

I was so excited to hang those curtains.  When the curtain rod arrived chipped on both finials, I was too impatient to send it back.  We colored the chips in with a sharpie and hung the rod with the chips facing the wall.  No one will ever know (well, except you).

The curtains did a beautiful job blocking the light.  The room went from dusk to could-be-in-a-cave in moments.

But then, as my eyes adjusted when I laid down the first night, there, staring down at me was the green-eyed monster.  What was just another part of the ambient light in the room before the curtains is now a giant, glaring green sun beaming straight into my eyes.  I try covering my head with a pillow.  This works until I run out of oxygen.  I try sleeping on one side.  When I roll to my back in my sleep, I am rudely awakened by the green spotlight in my eyes.

Pat, apparently suffering from more eye damage than I, barely notices.  In this case, however, I can’t get angry at him for not doing anything about it because we can’t reach the thing.  I would call maintenance, but I’m sure they will tell me they have some legal obligation to keep me awake all night.

I suggest we buy one of those suction dart guns and shoot at the light until we get one to stick, covering it up.  Pat, being more practical, suggests we use a pole to stick some opaque double-sided tape over the light.  We realize we don’t have a pole.  I wonder if we could get an opaque balloon and get it to float up to the smoke detector.  Or perhaps throw a rope over the truss and pull up an open umbrella to cast a shadow over the bed.  Maybe we should get a bed with a canopy?

At this point, I don’t care if we shoot the smoke detector with a real gun–I want that green light out!  This time, I am not alone.  Tisen, too, fears the green-eyed monster.  He can’t settle down until he finds a place to hide his head.

Tonight may be the night we figure out how to put out the eye of the cyclops!

Blurring Lines

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Tisen cuddles on the couch with Mr. Beaver while I’m on a conference call.  I’ve downloaded a new app on my iPhone and this is the perfect opportunity to give it a try.  It’s an HDR photo app.  HDR stands for High Dynamic Range and refers to a process where you take multiple photos and combine them into one.  That’s about all I know about it so far.

The iPhone app takes two photos, the first exposed for the darkest part of the picture and the second exposed for the lightest part of the photo.  Then, it magically combines them into one photo that is exposed properly for both extremes.  Getting Tisen exposed properly is difficult to do with a single shot.

The iPhoto app has some disadvantages.  First, it only uses two photos.  More sophisticated software allows you to use many images, getting the optimal exposure for many different levels of light.  Second, it’s very difficult to hold the iPhone still enough to not cause fuzz because you can’t move between the two shots for them to combine properly.  Finally, the app takes a long time, so if you have a subject that doesn’t hold perfectly still (like Tisen), more fuzz will be introduced.  In the photo gallery, the first image is underexposed, the second is overexposed, and the third is the fuzzy combination of the two.  It’s fun.

This little experiment motivated me to take my camera and tripod on my evening walk with Tisen, finally getting down to the river to shoot the sunset.  Tisen is amazingly patient while I take groups of 3 photos, using the bracketing feature on my camera so there is 4x more light in each successive shot.  We hang out on a pier over the river for 45 minutes watching the light fade, Tisen occasionally barking at other dogs, but mostly just hanging out.

I try a software program called Photomatix to create the HDR photos.  Some people say that HDR photos look more like what we see with our eyes.  While I like a lot of HDR photos, I don’t agree they look like what we see with our eyes.  It’s more like what you see when you look through your sunglasses at the sky and then take them off to look at the ground, but all in the same view.

As I look at the images, I can’t help but pick the darkest ones.  The ones that leave the black clipped and the land in silhouette–I’m pretty sure I’m missing the point of HDR.

Except for one.  The final photo I like in black and white.  But it’s right on the verge of “fake.”  I don’t know what that means, really.  But where is the line between being a photographer and being someone who knows how to use a software program?    And is one better than the other?  For me, it’s not just the combined photo that gets a little blurry.  Perhaps I am just getting old and clinging to out-dated thinking.