Tag Archives: Tisen

What the . . .???

Posted by dkrashb on

Today, Tisen and I are on a mission.  I’ve often said I wanted to go to the training hills some morning when I wasn’t flying in order to shoot.  Today seems like the perfect day for that.

My plan is to arrive at the entrance to the training hills no later than 7:00AM so I have time to hike down the gravel road and get set up before sunrise.

As Tisen and I get on the highway, I have a clear view of the full moon.  It’s still too high to make an interesting shot, but I want to shoot it before it sets completely.

Now I’m racing the moon.  Each time we go up a hill, the moon disappears behind the mountains.  I watch it set over a ridge on 4 separate occasions during our drive, only to reappear moments later.

As we enter Trenton, the moon is close to the ridge and I’m sure I’m out of time.  But as I drive on down into the valley towards our destination, the moon rises up above the ridge, giving me more time.

Unfortunately, I pull over where there’s a bad angle.  I hop out of the van, grab the tripod from the back and run up the road about 100 feet or so where the angle is better.  I set up the tripod and run back to the van.  Fortunately, my 100-400mm lens with the 1.4x teleconverter is already on my camera because that’s the only way it fits in my backpack.  I run back to the tripod.  The moon is getting closer to the ridge line; it’s already sunk behind some of the topmost trees.

As I get into position, I realize I didn’t grab my glasses or loupe and I don’t have time to get them.  I turn on live view, enlarge the image, and stand back as far as my arms will let me to try to focus.

The moon keeps sinking rapidly.  I fire off as many shots as I can before it disappears.  When I play them back in my viewfinder, I think they look OK.

Much later, when I view my moonset shots on the big screen of my computer with my glasses on, I almost spit a mouthful of beer on my screen.  I didn’t realize my vision was quite that bad!

Besides not having focused properly, I also had too slow a shutter speed so I’m getting movement blur in the moon.  I also have had some movement in the lens.  I don’t recall it being that windy, but that’s a possibility.

This leads to the age old question:  you’ve blown the shot, now what do you do with it?  I probably should just delete these images, but I decide to see how far photo editing can go.  I used Aperture, Photomatix, Lightroom, and Photoshop Elements (the majority are from the latter) to see just what can be done with a completely blown shot of the setting moon.

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Reflection

Posted by dkrashb on

It’s been a long week.  I’m tired and feeling uninspired.  On days like this, I really want to do something quick and easy by crossing the street to the park, but how many times can a person shoot in the same park?  I’m not in the mood to go macro.  It’s late enough that the light is getting really nice and I hate to not shoot landscape.

As I’m deciding what to do, an email with a blog post that’s a collection of images of reflections.  I immediately think of the wetland in the park and feel suddenly inspired.

I put my 16-35mm lens on my camera and take nothing else except my tripod and my loupe.  Tisen looks at me hopefully and I realize I won’t be going alone.

I sling my tripod bag over my shoulder, hold my camera up off my neck along with my loupe and then pick up Tisen’s leash in my free hand.  Tisen grabs Puppy Love and we head out.

We walk down the street, making many motorists smile (I assume this is because Tisen has a purple stuffed heart in his mouth that says “Puppy Luv” and not because I am wearing five finger shoes, my hair is sticking up weird because it dried while I had my glasses on my head, or because I’m carrying an oddly shaped bag over my shoulder.

We make it across the street and down to the wetland where I set up my tripod very low to the ground.

People are standing on the end of the viewing deck above the wetland and I can hear them talking about me.  They are wondering what I’m doing.  I do not hear any words like “insane” or “dangerous” and no cops come running up, so I assume they at least realize I’m unarmed (I’ve heard stories about people calling the cops because of a photographer’s tripod making people think they were a crazed gunman).

Tisen is not being the most cooperative photographer’s dog today.  He winds himself around the legs of my tripod and lays down right in the middle.  I have to untangle the leash and adjust the legs so they’re not in contact with Tisen to avoid him introducing vibration and blur into my photos.  I hear the people overhead chuckling.

We have a lovely time working our way around the wetland looking for interesting shots–and trying to keep Tisen out of them.  I only got a few of reflections, but at least I found something to capture my interest.

We pass a mourning dove whose been nesting on an abandoned nest from last year.  I try to get a shot, but, of course, one of the hazards of leaving the house only with a 16-35mm lens is that when these opportunities present themselves, it’s tough to get a shot worth looking at.

Tisen is worn out from our adventure and quickly makes himself comfortable on the couch when we return home.

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This is the Point

Posted by dkrashb on

. . . Continued from “What’s the Point?”

High on top of Lookout Mountain’s Northern point, we make our way around the paved path that leads to the museum.  The museum itself is perched on the edge of the mountain, built of stone and probably a civil war relic, but we didn’t go check it out thinking I wanted to get set up on the West side of the point in time for sunset, which was fast approaching.

However, when I got set up on the West facing overlook, the light was just right for shooting back towards the museum–golden and dappled through the leaves that have appeared from no where in the past week.

The cliff face below the museum makes me think that whoever fell of the earlier rock formation was lucky it wasn’t here that they lost their balance.

We consider briefly taking the metal stairs down to the trail below, but the thought passes quickly as I stare down the stairs and imagine my knees after going down them.  I content myself with shooting Pat and Tisen seated amongst rock outcroppings while we wait for the sunset.

As I watch the light hitting different parts of the clouds, I contemplate why I still shoot sunsets.  When I’m looking through hundreds of sunsets images, I get bored almost immediately.  Yet, I can’t look out the windows and see interesting clouds at sunset without rushing up to the roof with my camera.  For some reason, I never grow tired of watching sunsets (or shooting them), but I quickly tire seeing pictures of them.

As the light fades, a line of cumulus clouds becomes more interesting.  As I line up a shot, a park ranger approaches and tells us the park is closed and we have to leave.  The park sign says they close at sunset (which officially isn’t for 4 more minutes), but he seems tired and I don’t really need the additional images to bore myself with later, so I don’t argue.

We walk out of the park with him and a group from Seattle.  We learn that a man did, indeed, fall and that he broke some ribs.  We also learn that the park ranger is from East Liverpool, Ohio originally–near the town Pat grew up in.

The group from Seattle is amazed by the weather.  They ask us if it’s like this all the time.  I laugh and tell them we moved down last August on a day when it was 110 degrees and that we had to use our AC in March.  They seem to think that sounds nice.

As a side note, I added a photo of Tisen from my iPhone.  I had my camera all set up for the sunset and didn’t want to swing it around to capture Tisen perched on a rock like a lion (although his Holstein fur doesn’t really conjure images of lions), so I pulled out the iPhone instead.  Another reason I need to get that second camera body!  🙂

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What’s the Point?

Posted by dkrashb on

This evening, I realized I didn’t do anything “bloggable” on Sunday, so I was out of topics to write about.  I pondered writing about my work laptop crashing and having to get a replacement sent to my home office, but that’s pretty much the whole story in one sentence.  I could have writen about having maintenance people in the apartment installing an air duct while trying to work, or Tisen’s return to day care, or perhaps even my workout this morning.  But, let’s face it, I’m obsessed with photography and no other subject will do.

Therefore, the only solution was to go out and shoot.  However, I’m tired of going across the street to the riverfront and taking pictures of the Market Street Bridge and the Tennessee Aquarium.

One of the places near Chattanooga Pat and I have wanted to explore is Point Park.  Point Park is one of the battlefield monuments to the Civil War in the area.  It’s also known for spectacular views.

It’s located on Lookout Mountain, which would be better described as a ridge.  The point is literally just that–it’s the end of the ridge, affording views in three directions.  This was the destination I picked for tonight.  We loaded up my gear, Tisen, water, and rain gear and headed out.

When we arrived at the park entrance, a police officer pulled up in front of the gate and was pulled out a backpack.  We wondered if he was there to check to make sure that everyone in the park had purchased a pass and made sure we stopped to get ours before going in.

We wandered along the paved trail around the landscaped park area enjoying the views.  I set up my tripod and took some shots towards downtown Chattanooga, finding our building off in the distance.  The meander in the river that goes through the downtown area was fascinating.  I always knew the river bent back upon itself, but I never realized just how narrow the land in the middle gets just West of us.  Looking at it from up on the point made me realize why it’s called moccasin bend–the land mass resembles a snake’s head.

As we worked our way along slowly, several police cars squeezed by on the paved trail.  Then, an ambulance went by.  We watched them setting up a gurney and wondered if someone was injured.

As we headed down the path towards the museum on the point, we passed a large rock formation that seemed to be begging people to climb it to see the view.  I might even have been tempted myself except that the base of the rock was surrounded by a variety of medical equipment that the paramedics hadn’t yet returned to pick up.  It was fairly obvious why the ambulance was there.  We stuck to the path.

Even Tisen only went off trail once when he accidentally ducked under the rail without realizing it.

To be continued . . .

Models and Dogs

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My trainer from the gym was kind enough to sit for me for portrait practice with a more cooperative model than Tisen or Pat.  We did simple head shots with the same lighting (well, continually adjusted as I tried to figure out what I was doing) throughout.

There were two major challenges to this session.  First, I had a hard time not over exposing my model.  In particular, his skin kept washing out and I found his teeth were blowing out.  I had my lights turned down as low as they would go and I kept stopping down, but I was still struggling.  I tried changing the shutter speed to reduce the ambient light.  It did not help.  I finally moved the lights back to reduce the intensity, but I was still blowing out his teeth.

Here’s the thing, I know very well how to control exposure.  If there is one thing I know extremely well, it’s how to get the exposure I want in ambient light. But for some reason, when I feel pressure of any kind, I forget something critical.  On St. Patrick’s Day, it was sync speed and then my lens hood.  This time, it was something as basic as my ISO setting.  It never occurred to me to look at what I had the ISO set on.  It wasn’t until reviewing photos that I discovered I was on ISO 400!  How on earth can I forget something so ingrained and basic?

I remind myself even if I never get the photo I want, at least I’m exercising my brain.  It would be nice if exercising my brain were as effective as lifting weights in the gym–I’d love to see some evidence of muscle development.

Thanks to post processing, I was able to recover most of the data in the blown out teeth and salvage the photos.  Several are usable for things like a LinkedIn profile or maybe a business card, but they’re awfully boring.

The second challenge (in case you thought I forgot) was Tisen.  He practically attached himself to Kory while he was in the apartment.  At one point, Kory was poised to sit down and Tisen was standing in front of him with his gaze fixated on a part of Kory it’s not polite to look at.  Kory froze and was afraid to move.

When I called Tisen to me, he tucked his tail and sulked off to hide under the desk.  As soon as I stopped calling him, he was right back to facing off with Kory.  At one point, he put his front legs in Kory’s lap like he wanted to be petted but kept growling.  I’m not really sure what he means by this, but my best guess is something like, “I’m willing to be friendly to you, but I’ve got my eye on you.”  I guess if I am going to have any more models coming in, I’m going to have to teach Tisen better manners.

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Tisen’s Night Out

Posted by dkrashb on

Tisen had a hard day on Thursday.  Normally, Tisen’s day is filled with the following duties:

  1. Guarding Mommy from displays of affection from Daddy
  2. Cleaning his food bowl with his tongue
  3. Taking Duck, Mr. Beaver, Lamb, ‘Possum, Eddie, or Minnie for a walk around the park 3 times a day
  4. Taking Daddy for a walk around the neighborhood to make sure all is secure before bed
  5. Rolling the lawn at the park to make sure it’s bump free by using his own body weight
  6. Looking adorable
  7. And, most importantly, napping.

Since we had a date night Thursday night, Tisen had to spend the night with some friends.  The pooch party started late in the afternoon–he went to the tail end (hee hee!) of day care so he could have play time with his new friends before bedding down for the night.

I had a very hard time with this.  I’ve never sent a dog on a sleep over before.  We always had dog sitters who could come to our house.  Now, we were leaving Tisen in the care of relative strangers overnight.  And we didn’t even know the other kids invited to the party!

I thought since he’s been going there to play, it wouldn’t be so hard on him or me.  But, he didn’t want to go in with the other dogs when we got there.  Even though I’ve watched him on the webcam and know once he gets inside, he has a good time, it broke my heart to have to walk back with him to get him to go in.  I left quickly and tried not to cry on the way home.

He was absolutely livid with me when I went to pick him up in the morning.  I gave him Duck to hold in his mouth so he wouldn’t try to grab my hands with his teeth.  I had trouble paying because he was trying to drag me out the door.  I guess he thought he was going back to a dog kennel for good.

Today, he seems to be back in his normal routine.  Napping every thirty minutes (assuming he bothered to wake up between naps), taking a walk every 4 hours, and being generally cute.

But, yesterday, I thought he might have permanent psychological damage.  He followed me around like he was afraid I’d disappear.  When he napped, he napped at my feet with some part of him in physical contact.

Is sleeping in a kennel in his own bed really so different from sleeping at the foot of our bed?

As for the pictures, having gotten advice from a friend to work with one light until I can predict what it will do, I’m happy to catch Tisen napping on the couch.  By keeping the light far away, he only opens his eyes into tiny slits every once in a while.  The other two pictures used available (if bad) light.  Tisen’s a good model when he’s trying to catch up on sleep.

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Cleanliness and Dogliness

Posted by dkrashb on

Today, I practiced the art of washing a dog.

Tisen has not had a bath in a while.  It’s one of those things that seems relatively pointless to me.  You wash a dog and within a few hours, he’s dirty again.  However, with the onset of pollen alerts (in March already!), Tisen has started to itch.

I figure it’s about time to give Tisen a spa experience. With an 8 ft. sprayer that attaches to the shower head, his bath has become an aqua massage experience.  Plus, the oatmeal shampoo and medicated conditioner are supposed to stop the itching.

The first, and most challenging step, is called “how to get the dog into the bath tub.”  For the beginner, I suggest starting with a very small dog.  For those of us who like to take on large challenges, a dog that last weighed 60 pounds is a good start.

Having raised 2 Mastiffs and managed to coax them into a shower stall even though they had to bend into a C-shape to fit, I figured getting one 60ish pound terrier into a tub couldn’t be that challenging.

The magic button for Tisen is a squeaky toy.  So, I start by playing with him.  But he’s on to me.  As I get closer and closer to the bathroom door, he gets less and less enthusiastic about our game until he finally picks up ‘Possum, darts around me, and hides in a corner behind the couch.

Next, I try throwing the squeaky ball.  But he will not chase the ball towards the bathroom.  I finally manage to get him so engaged in the game, he forgets and gets close to the bathroom door.  Then, I make the ultimate error in judgment and try throwing the ball into the bathroom.  Tisen turns around and runs straight back to the corner behind the couch.

I decide the only course of action is to carry him. I can certainly lift 60 pounds.  I gather him up into my arms and try to lift with my legs.  A dog is not inherently ergonomic when it comes to lifting.  If you’re looking for a cheap way to introduce strength training into your routine, I do not recommend dog lifting.

I manage to make it to the bathroom without dropping him, although I’m certain he weighs at least 90 pounds by the time we get there.  I plop him into the tub and, thankfully, he stands still.  As long as I keep rubbing all his favorite spots while I shampoo, rinse, condition, and rinse again, he’s as happy as a clam.

In fact, I can’t figure out why he doesn’t run into the bathroom and hop into the tub every time I open the door–he seems to love every bit of it.  He especially likes to be dried.  I rub, rub, rub with a nice towel and he squirms with enthusiasm through the whole thing.

What exactly is it about the tub that makes him run away?

Break Time

Posted by dkrashb on

Taking a break from my first attempt at a self portrait, I pack up my gear and head to the park across the street.  My collection of gear seems to be growing.  I have to leave a lens behind to make space for my loupe with a 3x magnifying viewer (which, by the way, kicks the but of any pair of reading glasses–not only can I actually tell if I’m in focus or not, but I can even use it to read the impossibly small icons on the control panel on the top of the camera).  I tuck in a garbage bag in case I want to lay in any mud (you never know when the urge will strike), and I stuff in my new 5-in-one 22” reflector in the event I decide to do some macro photography while I’m over there.

I go to the park prepared  to shoot macro, wildlife, and/or landscape.  I’m nothing if not flexible.  I am also prepared for rain.  Besides my trash bag, I carry my rain jacket just in case.

I swing my camera bag and my tripod bag over my shoulder with my camera hanging around my neck.  As I pass the gym across the street, I see my reflection in the windows.  I look down at my feet, clad in five finger shoes.  I find myself thinking it’s a good thing I don’t have children–they would never go anywhere with me in public.

As I enter the park, I see an eastern blue bird.  It looks like it may have a nest on the light–it’s carrying a bug and acting like it’s feeding something.  I cannot see any baby beaks from where I’m standing, however.

Next, a great blue heron lands in the wetland.  I creep behind the cattails, hoping to get a shot.  As I get close, I see him standing with a frog hanging out of his beak.  But he flies off and I am left wondering why I didn’t change to my longest lens before sneaking up on him.

I head back towards the paved path, looking for a spot to shoot clouds, and then blooming trees.  I switch back and forth between shooting macro and landscape, wishing I had that second camera.

I make good use of the trash bag getting a new angle on blooming trees.  My reflector comes in handy when I need some shade on the red bud blooms.  However, the wind is picking up and macro shooting at 3 feet above the ground does not go well.

I shift back to shooting landscape.  As I stand overlooking the Tennessee River, it starts to rain.  My garbage bag transforms into a rain cover for my camera.  My rain jacket goes on, the hood goes up, and I head back home.

Tisen is frantic when I return home.  He jumps at my legs as if demanding an apology for being gone for so long.  Maybe someday he’ll be OK.

The Other Side of the Lens

Posted by dkrashb on

Today, I planned to spend some time shooting portraits with off-camera lighting.  However, I have the challenge of needing a model.  My trainer at the gym agreed to model for me next week, but I’d like to have some trial runs before then.  Since Pat and Tisen are strobe intolerant (I think it’s linked to the lactose intolerance gene), I decide I should try doing a self-portrait instead.

I get as far as installing the live-view software on the big computer so I will be able to see myself, but once I get the camera tethered to the computer and start remembering how to use the software (it’s been years since I tried this), I get distracted.

Tisen has hopped up on the sofa with Pat and, as usual, I cannot resist him as a model.  I take a few shots of Tisen laying next to Pat’s legs, then I decide to try to put myself in the frame.

Since I’m shooting with my 100mm lens in our living room, I manage to get my throat in the frame by sitting on the floor in front of the sofa.  Tisen appreciates having my shoulder to rest his head on–he was starting to slide of the edge of the couch.

While there are a lot of shadows, I like the natural light and the way it seems to highlight Tisen’s face.  I also like that Tisen doesn’t run away when I shoot in natural light.

I discover it’s very difficult to come up with a pose that captures both my face and Tisen’s in the same frame without causing some rather frightening looking twists in my neck.  (I won’t mention how quickly I delete most of the photos when I see the folds in my skin!)

It’s a bit awkward to readjust a camera when you’re the model, especially when you’re counting on a dog to lie still so he’s still in the frame while you get up, go over to the tripod, adjust, sit back down, try to get back into position, and then, finally, shoot some more.  Tisen is amazingly complacent.  He looks somewhat miffed when his head rest gets up and walks away, but as soon as I sit back down, he snuggles his head in deeper against my neck.  How could anyone not love this dog?

I realize that if I’m going to do a self-portrait with the studio lights (which will be tomorrow’s exercise since we’re not hang gliding), I’m going to need something to focus on.  If only Tisen were 5’ 10”.  Well, maybe not.  Pat is working tomorrow, which is why we’re not going hang gliding, so he’s out.  Perhaps I can figure out how to attach Mr. Beaver to a broom handle and prop him up where my eyes should be?  That should be interesting!

The other thing I realize is that I need a white background.  Looks like I’d better go figure out how to hang a sheet.

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Sunrise, Day Care, and Separation Anxiety

Posted by dkrashb on

Tisen has become highly attuned to my whereabouts.  For example, the other day he was lying on the couch next and I was sitting at the computer.  His head was at an angle where it seemed impossible for him to see me and he appeared to be asleep.  If I turned my head towards him, an immediate “thump, thump” of his tail followed.  When I looked away, silence.  I got up and started walking towards him, thump thump.  When I backed up, silence.  When I walked all the way up to him, THUMP THUMP THUMP.

He’s equally good at telling when I’m near the door.  No matter how quietly I slip away or what he is in the middle of, he always appears in the entrance hall before I can make it all the way to the door.

When we started putting him in his crate at night, he stopped coming into the bedroom at all.  Not just at night, but at any time of day.  We stopped trying to put him in the crate and started leaving the bedroom door open.  His desire to be near me apparently overcame his fear of the bedroom because he started sneaking in at night and where do you think he started sleeping?  In his crate.  As long as the door is open, it’s his preferred place to sleep.

Today, I took him to dog daycare.  I was nervous about whether he would be OK with the other dogs.  I had the video cam web page up on my personal computer and periodically checked in on him to see how he was doing.  He spent the vast majority of the time in a kennel.  The door was open, but he wouldn’t go out.

A couple of dogs came in and hung out with him from time to time.  The staff told me a greyhound was cuddled next to him taking a nap at one point.  This makes me feel a little better.

But when I pick Tisen up, he wants to go home.  He’s thirsty and distressed.  I suspect he didn’t drink any water the whole time he was there.  I thought it would be good for both of us to have some time apart, but I’m not sure I can handle the stress of being separated.  I’m encouraged that he made a couple friends, though.

You can just barely make out Tisen in the open kennel in the upper left:

This morning, I managed to get in about 10 minutes of shooting time at sunrise.  I wish I would have been in less of a hurry–I might have noticed I has the ISO set on 1000 and turned it down sooner.  The moon looked so cool with the clouds around it.  One of these days I’m going to figure out how to expose the moon and the clouds in the same shot.  Or maybe my future camera will.  The one I want will process two exposures into one picture.  Can’t wait!