Night Time Renaissance

Posted by dkrashb on March 31, 2013

Bright moon, pink clouds, twilight sky–but too much wind

Sometimes at night the clouds lay low over the city and reflect back the light from the street lights below, luminous against the twilight blue sky. Usually, the phenomena of having low-lying clouds with a clear sky above is accompanied by wind.

If there is no wind, the clouds don’t break up. They lie like a blanket, impenetrable, creating only a haze of light that just isn’t as interesting as on windy nights. On this particular night, not only was the wind blowing hard with the clouds breaking up nicely, but the moon was bobbing and weaving amongst the blowing clouds.

For this special effect, the assistance of Tisen was required–a surprise pull on the leash captured Tisen’s own form of art

Who could resist trying to get a photo of that? Of course, Tisen also needed to go out, so being the multi-tasker that I am, I hung my DSLR around my neck and put Tisen’s collar around his.

While I always take my iPhone with me when I wander around Renaissance park, I had no intention of using it tonight. The iPhone is a light hog, like all digital cameras with tiny sensors. Getting a night time image with an iPhone isn’t something I’ve figured out how to do and this wasn’t going to be the night I tried again.

Shot while swaying with a post I was trying to lean on for stability

I’m glad I didn’t bother trying with the iPhone. With my DSLR set on ISO 10,000, I was still shooting at shutter speeds over 3 seconds long. This is because I was being greedy. I wanted lots of depth of field, which meant sacrificing light to get it.

This may not have been the best decision. Armed with my camera and with my tripod tucked neatly in the closet back at home, I was buffeted about in the wind like a human sail. I tried leaning against a light pole and discovered the light pole was also blowing in the wind. We swayed together as I contemplated the hopelessness of getting a good shot in these conditions.

Closer to still, if only the clouds would have paused

I remembered some of the lessons I learned about wind from hang gliding. First and foremost, it cycles. If you stand still and pay attention, you’ll feel it start to ease up until it will suddenly drop and be still. Sometimes this lasts only a split second. Sometimes it lasts several seconds. I needed 3 second windows of calm to get any sharp photos.

To make matters more difficult, the wind tossing the clouds was blowing at a much steadier pace, keeping the clouds blowing across my frame during the exposure. Even the plants in the foreground weren’t settling down when the breeze would briefly die. Everything was in motion. There were to be no sharp shots that night.

This is my favorite–the effect of the wind blowing everything in the long exposure reminds me of an impressionist painting

Tisen was happy to return to the indoors–the wind was cold and Tisen’s leg is sore. He has created yet another hot spot because of his allergies. We are treating it topically for the time being in the hope of avoiding more steroids. The pink self-sticking tape was hard to resist–he looks so cute in pink.

Tisen spent most of the day napping–he managed to wake up long enough to yawn mid-day

I got one pose out of him before he went back to sleep

The Easy Way to Point Park

Posted by dkrashb on March 30, 2013

View from canon in Point Park

My plan was to walk from Cravens House to Sunset Rock to Point Park and then back to Craven’s house. This would be more like a loop vs just an out and back. Since both Sunset Rock and Point Park are 1 1/2 miles from Cravens House, the math in my head indicated we’d be walking 3 miles regardless of whether we did the loop or the out and back.

I forgot about the part between Sunset Rock and Point Park. Turns out that’s something like an extra mile. While I wouldn’t have minded the extra mile, the rest of the crowd turned against me. Pat completely over-ruled any consideration of walking to Point Park.

Making our way back down the trail

When we got to the point in the trail where we had to pick between walking back towards Cravens House or up to Point Park, Pat asked if we were going to Point Park. We were all surprised. Then, he clarified that he was asking if we wanted to drive up to Point Park after we got back to Craven’s House, not if we wanted to walk to Point Park.

Oh well.

On the way back to Craven’s House, the trail did a switch-back near the top of the cliff and then passed below Sunset Rock. When we were at the top, we passed a group of young adults who had hung camping hammocks between some trees that hung over the edge of the cliff.

Two hammocks visible from the trail below the cliff

We took some photos for them with their iPhones as we went by. I attempted to get a shot for me as well, but I had one of my typical moments where I believed I had my camera set on aperture priority and didn’t worry about checking the exposure. Several minutes later, when we were well down the trail, I took a peak and discovered my shot was a giant black rectangle.

When we passed underneath, I managed to get a shot of the two visible hammocks from below. It looked a lot scarier when we were looking down from the top. All I could think to myself was, “I don’t care how strong those hammocks are, how can they know the trees will hold?” After all, the trees were right on the side of the cliff with very little place to grip with their roots. I had visions of them toppling over and dragging the hammocks with the young campers with them.

Tisen making sure I’m coming along

For the record, we have seen nothing on the news about any hikers who fell from Sunset Rock, so I think they were OK.

We made it back down the trail, past the square tree branch, off the cliff, and back to Cravens House.

While we did make it up to Point Park (via automobile), we made only a quick jaunt around the asphalt path and skipped the off-road trail out to the point. I felt like we short-changed my brother and sister-in-law, but they plan to come back.

My brother and sister-in-law posing being the wheel of a canon at Point Park

Walk to Sunset

Posted by dkrashb on March 29, 2013

Sunset Rock Hipstamatic Style

In the effort to entertain my brother and sister-in-law, I came up with the following itinerary:

Have them assist in a birds of prey program at a local festival.
Take them to lunch at a famous barbecue on a hill with goats.
Haul them up to Lookout mountain and take them hiking for a couple of hours.
Drag them out for Mexican-fusion at favorite taco spot.
Give them a tour of husband’s workshop.

We are now on #3. Hauling said brother and sister-in-law up to Lookout Mountain for a relatively short, easy hike.

Sunset Rock via DSLR

One of my favorite short, easy hikes on Lookout is the hike from Craven’s House to Sunset Rock. There are many routes to choose from so it’s easy to make the hike as short as 3 miles or as long as 10, depending on how long you want to be out. Regardless of which route you choose, the scenery on Lookout and the views from the overlooks are always fantastic.

Our fearless hiking crew

The rock formations on Lookout are amazing in and of themselves. The sandstone (or maybe limestone?) splits, drops, careens, and leans in ways that make you feel like you’re doing something really dangerous by walking on stone that might fall off the side of the mountain at any moment. If the trail were along the creek with the same rock formations, it wouldn’t be quite as adventurous, but it would still be beautiful.

Chunks of ice remind us it’s only spring on the calendar

Water runs between the rocks from time to time. We were surprised on this early spring day to discover chunks of ice lingering in one microscopic waterfall. Just another reminder that only the humans around here are convinced it’s supposed to be spring.

Even the mushrooms look like they are winterized

Tisen enjoys this hike, too. He likes to linger behind, sniffing, and then dart back in front. Sometimes, he stops to check on me if I’m hanging back. I’m not sure if he’s worried I’m going to fall off a cliff (a reasonably probable occurrence) or if he thinks I might sneak off and disappear to some new life that doesn’t include him. He really doesn’t have to worry about the latter–I’m not anxious to find out what life will feel like without him.

Tisen checking on Mommy

We made it to Sunset Rock in tact, although Tisen scared me to the point that I yelled at him when he got so close to the edge that I really thought he was going to lift his leg and immediately topple down the cliff. I called him three times and when he ignored me, I panicked and yelled his name at the kind of volume that echoed off the surrounding cliff sides. He looked up at me, surprised and sheepish. I couldn’t remember having ever raised my voice at him before; I felt a little foolish.

View of the valley from Sunset Rock

The view from Sunset Rock is not actually better than the view from Point Park, but making the hike through the woods and up the mountain makes it feel so much better.

Asking Why

Posted by dkrashb on March 21, 2013

Sometimes all that’s required for adventure is to look up

Tonight, I sit at the computer feeling a bit lost for a topic. It’s 9:37PM. The clock is counting down to bedtime while I flounder. I have no new photos to share. I find myself wondering what compels me to write 500 words every night and take and process enough photos each week to accompany those words.

My topic tonight has revealed itself to me: why do I blog?

Creating adventure out of cardboard and gravity

This is a question I have been asked by more than one person. Some of my closest relatives have wondered what the appeal is. It’s a question I ask myself from time to time. The original intent was to use the blog as a way to keep family and friends up-to-date on our new adventures as we moved away from the place I’d spent the vast majority of my life and into parts unknown.

But then, several things happened. First, I made the decision to post every day. My main goal was to develop a habit of writing. After all, to be a writer, there’s only one thing you have to do: write.

Hiking where there are great views is always a satisfying adventure

But, let’s face it, not too many of us have exciting things to write about every day. For the first six months we were in Chattanooga, we were treating our stay here like we were on a vacation every weekend–seeing and doing whatever there was to see and do within a couple hours drive. That gave me material to string out throughout the week.

Next, my husband started a business in Chattanooga. Not just a business, but a business requiring lots of heavy equipment that occupies a good-sized workshop. Not exactly mobile.

This guy is always on an adventure–but it’s always the same one

It’s funny how the knowledge that we had years to get to see the area vs months changed the weekend vacation attitude to one of “we’re at home.” Suddenly, it’s not the top priority to go hike a new trail every weekend or hang glide off a mountain or learn to kayak in white water. Now, we are accumulating the “some day” list of things we want to see and do similar to what we had before we moved here.

The idea of having an adventure to write about every day has gone out the window, yet the habit of writing seems to have stuck.

Taken a year ago, I realize how even spring is an adventure–no blooms on this hillside yet this year

In parallel to these changes to our life plan, I got more and more excited about practicing photography. I spent increasingly more time learning about the technical aspects of photography and more and more time shooting. Having a “deadline” and a place to publish those photos helps me prioritize my time so that I make time to practice.

I feel more accountable somehow because I have a small, much appreciated, group of followers who click the “like” button. This accountability helps me make time to do something I enjoy. It seems counter-intuitive, but it works for me.

Maybe the answer is as simple as I like it.

The moon always makes me feel adventurous

Hipstamatic Hype

Posted by dkrashb on March 5, 2013

Hipstamatic stores the settings used with each image! Tinto 1884 Lens and Ina’s 1982 Film. Interesting blur effect.

Here’s a statistic for you: in 30 minutes, I took 36 shots with my Hipstamatic app on my iPhone. That’s while walking around a park with a dog (who was not exactly helpful when it came to setting up shots) by myself.

After shooting, I spent about 5 minutes on post-processing the photos making only a few slight adjustments to a few of the images. I ended up with 15 images I liked well enough to share on my blog and 4 I’m seriously considering hanging on my wall (we’ll see how they look in print).

So, in 35 minutes, I netted 15 shareable images. Comparatively, on our Christmas hike, hand-holding my DSLR and using only 1 lens, I took 165 shots in about 5 hours, spent at least another hour on post-processing, and netted 35 shareable images and none I would consider hanging on my wall. That’s nearly 2 minutes per shot.

In total, I invested over 10 minutes per shareable image with my DSLR compared to over 3 minutes per shareable image with Hipstamatic. Hmm . . .

Of course, I’m not ready to stop using my DSLR–the images I got with my DSLR are higher quality and better technically. I just don’t decide what to hang on my wall based on those criteria.

Sunbeams suddenly make their way through the clouds

One of the big challenges I discovered on my meander through the park is the bright sunlight problem. This is a universal problem for LCD display screens–you can’t see them in bright light. I literally held the phone up completely blind and tried to guess if I was pointing at the bridges at a good angle. While I might have framed the sun beams differently had I been able to see them, I was pretty impressed with the images.

Maybe not quite the framing I would have chosen, but not bad for shooting blind

That is one of the huge advantages of a camera with a view finder: you can see what’s in the frame no matter how much sunlight there is. Although, supposedly pointing the lens directly at the sun puts you in danger of damaging your eyes. That might explain why my vision seems to be failing.

Trail of Tears sculpture shot from observation pier

I love the trail of tears sculpture in the tintype settings in Hipstamatic. I also like it shot from this position–I’ve shot it from the other side many times, but this is the first time I incorporated the observation pier in front of it. The pole for the security cameras in the background doesn’t really work for me, but maybe I’ll see if it’s possible to remove that from the image without messing up the look.

Tisen ready to go sniff elsewhere

Tisen quickly lost patience while I was shooting at the end of the observation pier overlooking the river. I guess there weren’t any interesting scents on the pier to keep him entertained. He kept picking up on scents he needed to run to check out each time I was pushing the shutter button. I really need to provide better on-the-job training if he’s going to be my assistant.

Blowing Smoke

Posted by dkrashb on February 22, 2013

The Market Street draw bridge remained down even though the Delta Queen implied she might want to pass

This morning, the sun was shining and it was a beautiful, if cold, day. (“Cold,” of course, is relative. The low was 42 F today. That’s not really cold, is it?) However, the sunny day turned into a gray and then rainy afternoon.

When Tisen and I took our evening walk, it was barely “spitting” (as my relatives used to call it) as we started down our usual route. By the time we made it to the river, it was spitting pretty darn hard. This caused me to rush Tisen through our walk. It didn’t take a lot of coaxing–Tisen is not fond of walking in the rain.

As we double-timed through the park, Tisen suddenly did a reverse maneuver, probably having caught the scent of another dog that he felt compelled to try to out-mark. In the process, he spun me around, causing me to look up in the increasing rain. I saw a surprising site. I saw a huge plume of dark smoke rising over the Market St bridge. My first thought was that a car on the bridge had exploded.

Smoke billows in the wind over the bridge

Perhaps it seems extreme to assume a car had exploded. However, having had the experience of being awakened in the middle of the night by the percussion of an exploding car a few years ago, exploding cars seem more probable to me than they once did.

That was quite a night. I ran outside in my pajamas and tried to get close enough to the burning car to see if anyone was inside who needed to be pulled out. But the fire was burning so hot, I had to step back while I was still many yards away. This turned out to be a good thing because the car kept having more (smaller) explosions as various tanks and tubes reached combustion temperatures.

The big boom was apparently the gas tank exploding. Fortunately, there wasn’t anyone inside. It was a car that someone had reported stolen that had been dumped and burned in front of our property (fortunately a wooded side lot and not in front of our house) back in Columbus. We always suspected some kind of insurance fraud, but I have no idea how it turned out.

View through Renaissance Park to the Market St Bridge

In any case, it wasn’t an exploding car today. Rather, it was a rare sight. It was smoke pouring out of the Delta Queen smoke stack from just behind the bridge. While it doesn’t make such a dramatic image against the gray sky, I had to run upstairs and get a shot for posterity’s sake. The Delta Queen was once a glorious river boat, but it’s been a stationary floating hotel for a lot of years now. I’m at a loss to explain why it would have stoked its fires when it never goes anywhere.

Whatever the reason they decided to light the fire in the Delta Queen, I’m glad no cars exploded. That would have been awfully messy up on the bridge.

Tisen attempts to smile for the camera

Blind Star

Posted by dkrashb on February 18, 2013

Adjusted with brighter whites

Getting new blinds had an unintended consequence. I walked into the living room and discovered a new star in view. A giant street light across the way suddenly got a new look. Through the sheer fabric of the blind, the light burst into a star pattern.

It’s actually quite dramatic looking in person. However, it presented more of a photographic challenge than I expected. Through the lens, the beams of light spreading from the center light were more muted than with the naked eye. I tried shooting with the inside lights on to see if it helped. It just made the blind more apparent. I tried shooting with longer and shorter exposure times. Nothing seemed to make the light beams stand out the way they do in real life.

I tried many adjustments. Making the light brighter made the blind in the foreground brighter as well. If I were really industrious, I would try using Photoshop Elements to select only the light beams and lighten them individually, but I suspect I would end up with bright spots in the blinds since they stand in front of the beams.

Adjusted slightly darker

It’s somewhat ironic that the object that creates the effect I want to capture is also the object that stands in the way of capturing it.

This is much like life. Take having a job. Having an income is what allows us to do all the things we want to do in life since, let’s face it, it all costs money. But having a job also takes the vast majority of our time, leaving us with portions of weekends and a few weeks vacation in which to jam all of those things we enjoy doing.

Or look at having a home. We want a nice place to live where things are comfortable and maybe even aesthetically pleasing. Yet, having a home takes work that takes time away from enjoying the home as well as more time away from doing things away from home.

There are not too many things in life that aren’t a trade-off. I suppose it’s a reality that you can’t have your cake and eat it too. When we embarked on our little adventure over a year and a half ago, we envisioned having very little in the way of worldly goods. Just enough clothes for me to have something to wear to work events besides a few days worth of casual wear. A handful of dishes–just enough for one meal at a time. Our bikes. Our camping gear. The computer gear I need to work. My camera gear. And the open road.

We thought we were ready to give up on having a home at all. But, here we are, with new blinds, accumulating the trappings that not so long ago we were getting rid of. The truth is, I like the blinds. But, I find myself with mixed feelings. Are they a nice decorative touch or the final sign that we are not going anywhere?

Something Old, Something New

Posted by dkrashb on February 9, 2013

Sunrise behind the Tennessee Aquarium

I decided to try shooting sunrise over the riverfront with a longer lens. I was originally thinking the 100-400mm lens to really zoom in tight and pick up details that I normally don’t get shooting landscape. But, as I selected the lens to put on my camera, I backed off on focal length, afraid I wouldn’t be able to get any of the sky in the frame.

The sky is among my favorite subjects and the thought of not being able to capture it if it did something really cool was unfathomable.

Had I been more awake, I might have put my long lens on my old 40D or on my husband’s Rebel–then I could have had both wide and tight views to choose from. But, I was not that awake and not that ambitious. Plus, sometimes I feel like it’s just a good exercise to see what you can get with what you’ve got instead of trying to have the perfect equipment on hand for every possible scenario. Every once in a while, I get inspired and do something really creative.

However, instead of sticking with my original plan, I hedged my bet and put my 70-200mm lens on my camera instead. I figured this would give me enough range to get some sky and still get details. And, it is a better lens than the 100-400mm.

This was probably not wise. I ended up shooting around 85mm and getting shots that look remarkably like the shots I get from the riverfront walkway in the park below with a wider lens. Except these look flatter.

If you’re not into photography, perhaps I should explain that wide angle lenses distort a scene in such a way that it make things look further apart. Conversely, long lenses make things look closer together. So, the buildings, for example, look like they’re all on the same street even though I only shot at 85mm. Had I been shooting at 16mm, the buildings would look further apart (and they would curve upwards at the outside of the frame due to the distortion created by shooting that wide).

In any case, my lens choice didn’t force me to do anything really interesting or creative. I just ended up with less than exciting landscape shots.

Of course, there is a lesson in this. I think it goes something like this: when you want to try something new, sometimes you have to leave yourself no option but to do something new. Otherwise, you might find that while you told yourself you were doing something new, you really just did the same thing you always do.

When I saw the clouds blowing over the 27 bridge, I immediately went into landscape mode. I zoomed out to 70mm and tried to capture as much of the sky as I could. Next time, I’m taking the 100-400mm. I’m going to try to shoot at 300mm or higher and see what I get.

Clouds over the 27 bridge

Cherokee Removal

Posted by dkrashb on January 27, 2013

Wide view of map of the removal routes of the Cherokee

The Hiwassee Refuge, like many natural areas in the vicinity of Chattanooga, was once part of the Trail of Tears. As such, it includes the Cherokee Removal Memorial Park. This park honor the Cherokee and memorializes those who died during their passage from Blythe’s Ferry or the after-math of living in a much harsher climate.

Looking at the routes from Chattanooga

The memorial includes a map of the routes the Cherokee took to get to Oklahoma where they were given land in the form of a reservation. It’s hard to imagine making one’s way from this part of Tennessee all the way to Oklahoma by foot–especially when there were no direct routes.

The road from the Memorial to the Overlook

I try to imagine what it would be like to have someone tell me that I was no longer to live in my home and if I didn’t relocate to some reservation some 800 miles away (by highway today), I would be removed forcibly by the military. It’s not the kind of thing one associates with being an American.

We like to think we are the land of the free. As a culture, we believe we have the right to the pursuit of happiness. It’s hard to understand that the Cherokee were seen as hostile non-American inhabitants who were preventing progress. Those were different times.

View from the Overlook at Cherokee Removal Memorial Park

In the US today, we allow people to establish their own religions, create their own communities, and even exempt them from US laws that apply to other US citizens (for example, the Amish are exempt from registering for being drafted into the military; many groups are exempt from federal taxation). I guess our willingness to allow these divergent views is based largely on whether these groups are perceived as a threat.

TOS volunteer with a scope on a Bald Eagle Nest

The Cherokee, who supported the British during the American revolution and periodically raided settlers’ establishments after, were perceived as a threat. Yet, we were the foreigners at that time and we wanted what they had. It didn’t really occur to people that perhaps it wasn’t right to take over land and displace the people who were living there.

I guess we came by our desire to conquer new lands honestly. After all, our ancestors were Europeans who had a long history of seeking new land and taking over wherever they went. If I recall my Western Civilizations history correctly, there were centuries of people committing genocide to claim new territories.

Another view from the overlook

Unfortunately, it took a couple of world wars to figure out that when we try to destroy other cultures, it only leads to more pain.

The accessible walkway up to the overlook

Yet, maybe this lesson isn’t over. I think of the contentious issue of illegal immigrants and the challenges people who wish to move to the US now face. It’s as if we have become the Cherokee–we have a lifestyle and we want to maintain it. We perceive newcomers to our land as a potential threat to that lifestyle. I suppose the Cherokee were not the first to claim the land–and we probably won’t be the last.

How to tell when your sensor is covered in dust (taken with Pat’s camera)

Home Again

Posted by dkrashb on January 26, 2013

There’s a Golden Eagle perched in the Sycamore, but it was only visible through a scope

Perhaps you didn’t notice, but I was out of town for the past 3 days. It was a work thing. So, yes, another post with photos from the Sandhill Crane Festival. While I would like to have lots of cool pictures from the Atlanta Marquis Hotel (where I did not get to stay because it was full by the time travel approval came through, but I did spend at least 12 hours a day there), it just wasn’t a good time to be lugging around my giant camera and tripod.

Adult Bald Eagle

In fact, it wasn’t a good time to do anything. Had I not been staying 2 blocks away, I might not have seen daylight for 3 days. Several of us commented that we felt like we were in Vegas–no sense of time, confined to a conference center all day, moving from room to room, meeting to meeting, session to session, the only things missing were gambling and booze.

I did get to go out to dinner with some of the folks I work with whom I rarely get to see in person, which was great fun. But, of course, it was well after dark (and even after bedtime the second night) by the time we went to dinner.

Adult Bald Eagle a little closer

If you have never been to the Atlanta Marriott Marquis, it’s worth seeing. In fact, I need to plan a weekend in Atlanta that includes shooting the lobby. I shot the Marquis lobby many years ago with my old PowerShot G3 and no tripod. I would love to see what I could get with my current camera on a tripod. If you want to see what it looks like, here’s the post with the old photos.

The thing about going to work events is that it sounds like fun, and some of it is fun, but it’s really tiring. Pat and Tisen delivered me to Atlanta on Monday night. We stayed in a La Quinta hotel a few miles North of the Marquis. This is because La Quinta allows dogs. They don’t even charge extra.

Three cranes circling the refuge

However, La Quinta is not in the best of locations and they don’t have the most comfortable of beds. So, I started my 3 days already tired and slept less and worse the next two nights alone in a hotel around the corner from the Marquis. Between limited sleep, walking around all day, eating crap, and being on my best behavior from 7AM to 11PM for 3 days, I’m pretty darn beat.

I think it’s probably the being on my best behavior part that’s so darn tiring–it’s be so much easier to just be myself.

Clearing the tree

The saving grace was that I was only a 2-hour drive away and in the same time zone. Given that many of my colleagues were there from Europe and a few from Asia, I didn’t really feel like I could complain. I’m feeling ready to go to bed (and to perhaps stay there through the weekend) none-the-less.

Looking across the lake

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Combining living on the road with a mainstream lifestyle

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