Mall Shots

I was at North Star Mall with some time to kill.  I had always wanted to try to get photographs of people coming up the escalator so that it showed only their head at floor level.  Here was a chance to try that.  I scouted out a spot in the food court where I would have a clear view of the escalator coming up from the first level.   I sat at a table and put my camera on the chair next to me with the lens (200 mm) aimed toward the escalator.   I turned the articulated LCD up so I could see it,  Since I could not count on autofocus to pick up the person's head, I used manual focus.   I have a wired remote switch that I plugged in and held in my hand.   Regrettably I did not think to use burst mode on the shutter.  I could have gotten a lot better positioning of the person in the shot.  Here is one of the results.

One problem I did not anticipate was the traffic in the area.  Since I was about 30 feet from the target, there was a lot of foot traffic coming off the escalator or going to the down side.  So I had to wait for them to clear before I could take a shot.  Someday I may try again.  And I'll use the burst mode for sure.

Dragan II

Here is another iteration of my attempts to do a Dragan process.  Compare this one to the earlier attempt.

Dream Time

I had heard many times that dreams do not happen in "real time", but when you experience an activity in a dream and that activity seems to play out for an hour, for example, the real dreaming time may only be a few seconds.  I have anecdotal evidence that disputes that.  I had a dream once in which I was with several people on the parking lot at a place where I used to work.  I had in my hand a small electronic device, probably a radio.  Suddenly there was a loud beeping sound and everyone  looked at my radio.  I told them it was turned off, but they still thought I was the source of the noise.  I opened the back and removed the batteries.  The beeping continued and people across the parking lot were looking at me.  Then I noticed two telephone repairmen on a pole above us.  They had some kind of instrument that was causing the noise.  This whole episode consumed about five minutes.  Then I woke up and shut off the alarm clock which was making that exact sound.  The clock showed it had been alarming for five minutes.   To me that says  the five minutes of clock time exactly corresponded to the five minutes of dream time.   QED!

Andrzej Dragan

I was given a link http://andrzejdragan.com/ to the web site of a photographer I had not known about.  He deals primarily in portraits, but not your normal sweet shot of a person.  I really liked the look of his work which involves a good bit of post processing.   I decided to try to get a similar effect.  I didn't succeed, but here is as close as I have gotten so far.  It is a self portrait with some processing steps that make my 75-yr old skin look even worse than it does.  

Please realize that I am making a face here.  I'm not always that wide awake.  I don't have Dragan's lighting down yet, nor his HDR effects.   I'll keep trying.   Comments welcome.  

Tina in Concert

My friend, Albert, posted on his blog a cool image he took at the recent Red Hot Chili Peppers concert.  That got me thinking about taking photos at concerts where cameras are usually prohibited.  About 10 - 15 years ago, Tina Turner had a concert at the Alamodome.  I wanted to try to take some photos even though we would be sitting pretty far from the stage.  At the time I used a Canon F1 and had a 600mm Sigma mirror lens that was very short for that focal length so I put it on my shoulder under my jacket, hoping I would not be stopped.  I loaded the camera  with Kodacolor 1600 ASA film and hoped for the best.   Here is one shot that came out pretty good considering the conditions.  

Now with digital cameras that can use enormous ISO settings, it might be easier to get a good shot.  Maybe I'll try again some day.

Self Portraits on Maserati Wheel Lugs

At a parking lot auto show on Sept. 9, there were some pretty spiffy Ferrari's and Maserati's.  I took some pictures of some of the car parts, including a Maserati wheel that caught my attention because the chrome lugs reflected my image taking the shot.  Unfortunately, I could not find one that had the trident vertical, so I had to rotate the image in post processing to get it vertical.  That made my portrait off at an angle and it didn't look very good.   Last Tuesday I found myself at the Maserati dealership and asked a salesman for permission to take some photographs.  He not only didn't object, but he was aware of the reflection properties of the wheel lugs.   So I found a wheel that was oriented with the trident vertical and took this shot.

I like the strong graphical image of the wheel and the reflected images of yours truly are a bonus.
Comments welcome.

Brown's Book Store

A chill October wind rustled outside the small book store.  Inside, Mr. Brown was dozing in a corner, tired of browsing through his collection of volumes.  And an interesting collection of volumes it was.   Some nearly-full shelves of science, engineering and math books.   A large collection of reports of engineering projects long-ago completed and filed away.   Together with the reports were personal notes detailing relationships between the team members of those projects.  An extensive travelogue section held shelves of materials describing locations around the world with pictures, some vivid, some faded, of those locales.   One whole section of the store was home to photo albums of various family activities. 

There had been a time, some years ago, when the shop was busy.   Friends, family and total strangers would come, looking for information and the shopkeeper was happy to oblige.  But now, there was hardly ever a customer.  It wasn’t as if he needed a customer base to get by, but the sad part was, all those resources were going to waste.  He would gladly give away a volume to anyone who could appreciate its value.  He had gone so far as to stand on the sidewalk and volunteer to provide free material to passing strangers, to very little interest.  Granted, his stock was somewhat dated.   No MP3 tunes, no Kindle books.   But still, his offerings had value.  They were good solid information, and in some cases they came at a significant cost at their time of acquisition.   

Lately he had been concerned that maybe his housekeeping had been lagging and as a result, some of the books were deteriorating.   Pages were missing or had faded due to humidity or whatever, to the point it was difficult to locate just the section that he sought.  He would search for a particular document and more often than not, abandon the search before locating it.  And he always seemed to feel a lot more tired than he ought to be.  Maybe a short nap right now would be refreshing.   Just catch a few winks. 

            *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *

At the other end of town, at SunnyVale Rest Home, an attendant pulled the sheet up over the old man’s head.  “Well, Mr. Brown went peacefully.   Just passed in his sleep.”   

“I hear he was quite a man in his day: Successful engineer; traveled all over.  Since he came here a few years ago - that is, until lately, he really liked to talk about his work and his travels.  Would give you more facts than you could handle.”   “Just think of all the information in that brain of his.   More than in a whole book store.  But it’s all gone now.”