In winding down this evening (well, yesterday evening now,) I noticed that a lot of my favorite bloggers have nothing new to post, with good reason. They’re all at the Reason Rally in DC, most of them probably starting to get a bit bleary and [...]]]>
Probably not. I really shouldn’t ask questions like that.

In winding down this evening (well, yesterday evening now,) I noticed that a lot of my favorite bloggers have nothing new to post, with good reason. They’re all at the Reason Rally in DC, most of them probably starting to get a bit bleary and manic from the long day and the after-rally get-togethers as I type this (it’s 1:00 am Sunday morning.) I would have liked to have been there, but I had already committed to teaching a seminar on Spring Garden Photography for the local botanical garden by the time I realized how cool the Reason Rally was going to be. I guiltily admit that a small part of me was hoping for something to happen and reschedule the seminar, so I could do both, but I honestly can’t complain. It looked like DC got some pretty heavy rain storms today, and while we did too, we got a fortuitous break in the weather at the time that we all left the education center to go chase pics in the garden. The clouds were widely variable, so we actually got bright sunlight and blue skies, partial clouds, and full overcast all in the space of 90 minutes, but no rain. There was a pretty good turnout, and everyone seemed pleased with the seminar – one attendee was kind enough to tell me I was a natural teacher, which was great to hear (and repeat.) I also want to take this opportunity to thank Nik for his assistance with pointers in the garden session, and of course, I owe a lot to the North Carolina Botanical Garden. While details are not firmed up yet, it appears I will be doing a children’s photography workshop in the summer there, too.

The nasty throat infection that I got early in the week had mostly cleared by this afternoon, so I was able to speak, but that had remained iffy for several days, and it definitely slowed down my writing activity. I’ve learned that if I’m not in a decent mood for writing, pushing it doesn’t accomplish anything, and I should just scribble down some basic thoughts and come back to it when the words are flowing better. That’s part of the reason why a new topic this week hasn’t been tackled until now.


You will (of course!) remember about this time last year when I watched the red-shouldered hawks (Buteo lineatus) cavorting (or canoodling) nearby and hoped to find the nest; this did not come to pass. To make up for this, because they obviously saw how disappointed I was, the local pair this year took up residence in the neighbor’s tree, within easy sight from our back yard, front yard, and even the road, and it appears that I’ll still have a nice break in the foliage once the trees are fully leafed out, so I won’t lose sight of them. The female is currently spending a lot of time in the nest and may soon deposit the eggs – I don’t think they’ve been laid yet since they pair were doing the old flap-and-squawk a few days ago, several times. Newlyweds.

This is possibly even more fortuitous than it could have been, since the house next door that sits right under their nest (the same one that hosted our new editions to the household) has now been put up for sale, and so will likely remain unoccupied and quiet throughout the hatching and fledging period. There is even a chance that a nearby tree will be sufficient to provide a higher vantage point for photographing the nest, since it sports numerous branches at decent spacing.

I have been paying attention to the reactions of the pair to my presence, since they can see me far more easily than I can see them, and I’m concerned about them getting too spooked by humans nearby and abandoning the nest. Apparently, just to show that I’m being irrationally condescending about their timidity, the other day the male alighted in a tree in our backyard during his daily territorial patrols, and gave voice to some wonderfully piercing calls. My actions of slipping out the back door and firing off several frames with the 170-500mm lens disturbed him not a bit, despite the fact that I was roughly 15 meters away – he’s seen me too many times before, I guess. Red-shouldered hawks are among the noisiest of raptors, at least around here, because they soar about the perimeter of their territory a few times a day and issue a series of cries that are very distinct and carry no small distance. I’ve been in phone conversations and had people on the other end remark about the noise – it would probably help if I didn’t wander outside so often when I’m on the phone. If I manage to record these at some point (the hawk calls, not my phone conversations,) I’ll upload them to the site.

Nest weekend brings us the Rock Beyond Belief event at Ft Bragg, which should also be well worth attending. I had planned to be there, but I don’t think I’m going to have available transportation that day, so right now this is up in the air. I am more than happy to carpool and split costs with anyone who’s leaving from the Chapel Hill/Durham/Raleigh area, so get in touch! I promise to keep the critter stories to a minimum, unless you like them.

oiuc3uvcdugfybel,,l

Done? Good. That was a great example of how too many school systems within the US have completely lost sight of [...]]]> First off, your assignment for today: read the post found at The Diamond In The Window – it shouldn’t take five minutes. I’ll wait here and chase the cat off the keyboard.

oiuc3uvcdugfybel,,l

Done? Good. That was a great example of how too many school systems within the US have completely lost sight of their goals, and most especially, a demonstration of the issues with “teaching to the test.” I have no problems with saying that what I learned in English classes in school has virtually nothing to do with how I write, nor what I present here. I always did well in English class, and have been an avid reader since before I started school. But in my years of school, there was one book, just one, assigned in class that I actually enjoyed: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. On the flip side, I am completely lost as to why anyone would bother with F. Scott Fitzgerald or John Knowles, not terribly impressed with William Shakespeare or Ernest Hemingway, and think John Steinbeck was a ham-fisted amateur at tragedy.

At this point, English majors and those who think the word “literature” is a mark of esteem would all be preparing to rip my writing apart in retaliation (presuming they had not already fled in horror long ago,) or at the very least assuring themselves that I’m certainly not sophisticated enough to understand such magnificent works. Never realizing, perhaps, that there is nothing that will be considered good by everyone, and such labels are merely expressions of opinion. The Appreciation of Literature is not something that we should aspire to, anymore than we should all have the same opinions of politicians, food, or hobbies; writing is about communication. If I’m completely put off by unrealistic depictions of human interactions, or obvious attempts to instill certain emotional responses, then that author is not communicating effectively to me. This is no more a fault of mine than it is of theirs.

I cannot, in the slightest, diagram a sentence anymore, and I haven’t ever regretted this in my life. I occasionally misuse words (perhaps even words like “occasionally,”) and could certainly write a bit clearer at times. But if anyone gets the gist of what I’m saying, and can read through without wincing in pain or getting confused, then I’ve done everything that writing is intended to do. If, by some infinitesimal chance, I manage to produce something that someone enjoys reading, that strikes their fancy or resonates or illustrates or enlightens, then I’ve gone beyond communication. That would be great, because that’s what makes people want to keep reading.

The authors that I like – Terry Pratchett and Brian Daley, Isaac Asimov and Douglas Adams and Gerald Durrell – are nearly all dead the ones responsible for how I write… because what they wrote is interesting, compelling, and entertaining. Sentence structure and the flow of prose do not come from classes, workshops, diagrams, and anal retentiveness, but from frequent exposure. None of the writers above will be considered within the realms of high literature, but if their writing keeps the reader involved, what more should anyone demand? Most importantly, why should anyone try to develop a ‘taste’ for writing based on what someone else deems worthy? Isn’t that simply sucking up to a perceived superiority?

‘Teaching’ and ‘learning’ are two concepts that are, far too often, poorly understood. Learning isn’t a special activity, nor does it take concerted effort. Humans learn as a matter of course, and we’re eager for new, interesting experiences. What we perceive through our senses is automatically stored in our brains – if we have reason to attach significance to it. Teaching is presenting information in a way that helps instill the significance, yet even saying that gives the wrong impression, I suspect. Significance isn’t fostered by putting more emphasis on certain words, or repeating things, but by tying the information into something that stirs an emotional response from the student, whether it be the sudden realization of how this applies to some aspect of their lives, or the discovery that a writer was sneaking in a hint of things to come, or simply that it came through a humorous method. You can’t diagram or structure a good teacher – nor can you judge a teacher by any particular student. Someone that reaches one student extraordinarily well may not reach another, because students are not blank slates cut from the same mold, but individuals with their own personalities.

In this way, I’m not going to agree with some of the comments on that linked post, the ones in essence saying, “Let the teachers teach.” Some teachers simply aren’t very good, and there really does need to be a way of determining such. But we’ve gotten immersed in a pile of standards within this country that now have little relation to anything useful for students. ‘Proper English’ is a completely misleading phrase, because there is no such thing. Language is simply effective communication, and it changes constantly. Nor is there any reason to maintain strict rules about it. The main reason I dislike Shakespeare is that the language has changed so much that his carefully-crafted passages, relying on the structure of the times, needs translation into current terms, changing the activity from following a storyline into building an edifice of context. An offhand double-entendre requires five minutes of explanation; everyone knows that explaining a joke takes every last vestige of humor from it.

Never, ever make reading (or any aspect of learning) a chore – that’s what we call a negative influence. Don’t over-analyze books or language. The term “prepositional phrase” is a sign of having too much time on your hands. Let the kids find the emotional response, the identification, the surprise of lost time because the book is too damn interesting to put down. And this will be different for every kid, and should be. When the student, on their own, starts on the next book from the same author, that’s your criteria of success.

And a hint to anyone who is called upon to administer testing and school curricula: teaching, good teaching, is not just technical, but emotional as well. Not everyone who can do a particular task can supervise others for the same task, and not everyone who knows the material can teach. What’s needed is someone who can produce the enthusiasm and spark the interest in their students, and a lot of that comes from possessing the same traits themselves. Crush that by trying to quantify it in some statistical manner, and you effectively stop someone from actually being a teacher. Or simply think back on the teachers that you preferred, and what classes you remember most. You might also think back on the jobs you yourself have held where the pay was inadequate; were you a good performer then? Did the employers who were micro-managers and clock-watchers produce a better workforce? Were you enthusiastic about going to work each day? Because, for someone to spark the enthusiasm in a student, they need to be enthusiastic themselves. Shit pay and the Sword of Damocles overhead is exactly the opposite of what’s needed.

Granted, most of our political parties benefit from a populace dumber than a bag of lint, which might explain many current trends in our overall educational system, but that’s another post…

Two of the aforementioned kittens ended up staying with us, despite intentions to find them [...]]]>
Whatever holiday you celebrate in defiance of self-important nitwits, there is always one thing to remember: make the cats happy. However, I’m not going to participate in the whole “Caturday” or phonetic spelling nonsense, as my gift to you.

Two of the aforementioned kittens ended up staying with us, despite intentions to find them all homes, and while this still may not be a permanent situation, that didn’t mean we could neglect them come christmastime. One of them is named “Kaylee,” for a couple of reasons. She is a calitabby-point Siamese (or Snowshoe) mix, and in the beginning we simply referred to her as “Cali” to differentiate her from the others. Later on as her adult coat came in, she developed numerous random blotches of pale brown in her coat, making her look as if she’d been wrestling in the garage, so the name morphed to “Kaylee” since we’re Firefly fans here. If you don’t get it, just begone with you.

Anyway, a few days back at a thrift store we spied the pile of stuffed animals and wondered if the girls would like something like that for christmas, and since 69 cents wasn’t a serious risk, we went ahead and got a choice one for them and presented it this morning. After some curious hesitation, Kaylee realized what such things are best used for. No, that’s not an adorable hug at top; she’s kicking the ever-loving shit out of the toy, which was just what we intended. Kaylee does kind of lose her mind when the playful mood kicks in…

What we didn’t foresee was her turning jaguar and carrying the toy around the house like it was fresh kill, at times running selfishly down the hall with it to protect her food from opportunistic scavengers. Because of the size of it, this usually required straddling, lending her gait a hilarious waddle. The other kitten, unoriginally named “Little Girl” until we find something better, showed distinct interest in the toy too, but soon got outclassed by Kaylee’s vicious enthusiasm. They still have plenty of other things to share, as well as treating one another as stuffed animals most evenings. And whenever that fails, the tables (that they seem to keep forgetting they’re not allowed upon) serve as handy sources of pens and fiddly bits.

One of my presents to The Girlfriend was a (personally) hand-carved manatee with calf, which I wanted some pics of. While I was setting the lighting levels to get the best detail, Little Girl decided it was time for attention, and when I wouldn’t pet her she hopped onto the table to see just what was demanding all of my attention. She thus provides a little scale to the piece.

By the way, this (and another figure) were my first attempts at working with soapstone, and my third at carving anything. I’m kind of a stickler for accuracy, so the end results aren’t exactly to my liking since the proportions are a bit off, making the figures a bit… ‘stylized,’ I guess you could say. The Girlfriend’s happy with them, so I’m cool with it, but like just about any project I tackle (or any image I’ve shot,) I can find ways to improve them, and will be aiming for that in subsequent pieces. The positive side of being critical of your own work is that you’re always seeking to improve, which can never hurt, but the negative side is that you can be pretty hard on yourself too. Though it’s still not art.

Anyway, here’s to hoping your own celebrations are entertaining, and that you’re remembering that “mellow” is a pretty good thing to aim for too. Cheers!

Now, I clarify things a little. Despite the strong sentiments expressed in his book God Is Not [...]]]> As I was writing another post and remaining, surprisingly to some I think, unconnected from the world at large, I was notified that Christopher Hitchens died last night of his esophageal cancer, at the age of 62.

Now, I clarify things a little. Despite the strong sentiments expressed in his book God Is Not Great, Hitchens was not a high priest of atheism, even when ignoring the fact that we simply don’t have those. I personally identified with less than half of what he said at any given time, and was polarly opposed to his feelings on the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan, and George W. Bush – not to mention alcohol.

And that is, in part, what makes his death regrettable, to me and others. One of his defining traits was in speaking his mind, in open disregard for how this might be perceived. In this way, he trashed the sneaky tactics of political correctness and the Overton Window, blasting through a veneer of ‘proper’ discourse to state what was really on his mind. Another, perhaps his most defining, trait was his remarkable ability with words, an old-school British skill that allowed him to combine a classical education and manner with a gangsta’s attitude, demonstrating that speech can serve as a better weapon than most allow themselves to recognize. No one could match this ability, and being cut down by Hitchens still commanded the respect that he did it so gracefully and precisely, a gifted surgeon of conviction.

I also have to appreciate his approach to impending death, where he foiled the hopes of the pious that he would waver in his atheism while still being remarkably genial in his responses to them. Death was only a deadline, and he kept on with his pursuits as long as his physical ability allowed, at times appearing to actually defy such.

He wasn’t an idol, in some cases he was a twit, but he had some appreciable traits too, many more so than Steve Jobs. If there’s a legacy left at all, I hope that it’s the knowledge that being forthright and outspoken has much more merit than being agreeable, but maybe we can foster a little more ability to eloquently lambaste something, too.

I mentioned earlier that I would include a tutorial on removing noise, and so I have: it can [...]]]> There have been a couple of things I’ve been working on and trying to update, and I finally have them available, so this post is simply a short list of new things available on the site.

I mentioned earlier that I would include a tutorial on removing noise, and so I have: it can be found here. Bear in mind that this is limited to noise from bad sensor pixels, the kind that shows up in many images, especially low-light or long exposure shots. The other kind of noise, usually multi-colored speckling from low light or high ISO, is a very involved thing to remove, and the tutorial would be much longer, but I still may get to that someday.

I might have to start teaching my students directly about the next one, which is how to effectively resize an image. I’m still amazed at how few people understand this, and how many websites I see where the images load slowly because no one knows how to make their images web-sized. You can save a lot of download time and server load by making web and e-mail photos the right size, and get better results from your prints too.

Last year I provided instructions on making a year-long guide to rise and set times for the sun and moon, and I have updated it for 2012 (formatting and leap year stuff.) Call me optimistic, but I didn’t cut it off after December 21st, either. It’s admittedly a bit fussy, but you only have to do it once and then have a quick reference for the sun and moon for the year, which you’re going to use frequently to get those great landscapes and ‘golden hour‘ shots, right?

And I figure I’ll just mention this here, rather than make another post about it. You may recall my taking Cecil Adams of “The Straight Dope” to task on his wishy-washy answer to the question, “Does god Exist?“, and apparently I wasn’t the only one. Yesterday, he responded to one of his detractors in a disparaging way, claiming that he really was making the point of how weak the Cosmological Argument is. I’ll be blunt: bullshit. If you’ve ever read the details of some of his answers, you’ll know that he’s more than capable of getting past the appearance of importance to deal with the crucial details, and if anything, his advisory staff is even better. Even the Straight Dope Message Board handed him his ass over the reply, which is no doubt what prompted the revisit. That he couldn’t do so without both shameless backpedaling and several petty digs is just a lack of character.