Not ‘arf Wednesday

Al Denelsbeck

I was out on the road a little too far from home (where my camera, long lens, and tripod sat) when I spotted the moon rising above the trees – blood red, dim, and of course looking huge. First off, if you know what time the moon rose this morning you may be wondering why I was on the road at that time, but bug off. Anyway, I liked the color but knew it would be unlikely to still be that color by the time I got back, which would only be about twenty minutes, but that’s how it goes. I still figured I’d make the attempt anyway.

The real trouble was, there are a few too many trees around Walkabout Estates, so the effective horizon is higher than it was while seeing the moon out on the road, and I still had to wait another ten minutes before it became fully visible. I did a quick check, and Stellarium plots it at about 7°, though I suspect it’s a little higher than that, but I have no accurate way of determining this yet. One day. Anyway, it was certainly brighter orange by this time, though my exposure makes it seem a little darker than it appeared in person.

orange waning moon just slightly under half
Focus could have been a wee bit better, but I wasn’t aiming for fine detail as much this time, especially when the shutter speed was 0.4 seconds, so tripod shake, atmospheric ripple, and even rotation might fudge it a little. The big crater on the terminator, almost dropping into shadow over there to the right, is Clavius, by the way, and we’re 23 years late for having a base there…

Is it my imagination, or does the moon look slightly distorted here, squashed a little? I would have thought it was high enough to overcome the atmospheric distortion that can occur on the horizon.

[Actually, it is my imagination – I just went into GIMP with the circle tool and it matches perfectly. It may only be a factor of both the less-than-half terminator line and my particular crop, slightly favoring the unlit portion that I know is there. Or the brighter lunar highlands at the bottom disguise the curve. Or my glasses might need work. Or I’m old. But while I’m on the subject, the idea of the moon looking huge on the horizon has been kicked around countless times, with multiple potential explanations, but to clarify, it’s just an illusion – the moon is the same size at rise or set than it is overhead, and my various photos at the same magnification maintain this. Partially, it’s thought to be that, in relation to the other things we see near it as it rises, it seems to overwhelm them, especially when we can see things getting smaller with distance – it’s kinda psychological. There’s also the concept that we envision the sky not as a sphere, much less an empty space, but as a flattened bowl, much closer to us overhead than it is out at the edges where the horizon is, so we perceive that the moon is much farther away when low and should be even smaller. We’re weird.]

moon starting to get obscured by cloudsThe session wasn’t slated to last long, however – I could see the cloud cover moving in and it soon started overtaking the moon. When I’d first gone out once I got home and started looking, I thought the clouds might already be obscuring it, but then it appeared over the trees. It remained that way for only fifteen minutes or so before vanishing, which wrapped my session, but hey, a little winter content, and it wasn’t all that cold out there anyway. I really should be over chasing the beavers*, but I’m not psyched for a multi-hour session at the pond, so it’ll wait until later. I know, I know, “Big fat professional nature photographer,” yeah yeah, but if I was getting paid for the pursuit it might be a different matter. Everything has a price – we can deal.

* hur hur hur… oh shut up

Visibly different, part 4

Al Denelsbeck

long-jawed orb weaver Tetragnatha portrait
The date of the above shot is unknown; it’s a slide, and I know where it was shot but not when. For some reason this slide has no date stamp, though others, from what I believe was the same trip, do, so I’m going with that: August 2006. Down by a boathouse on Hyco Lake in northern NC, these guys were everywhere, and I took the opportunity to lean in and do a portrait with the Sigma 105mm macro lens, and I’m fairly certain at that time that I had a custom-made macro reflector for the Canon 380EX flash unit, which would normally be pointing over top of such a close subject. This is a long-jawed orb weaver (genus Tetragnatha,) by the way, and I was pleased at the spider facial detail that I captured.

Now we jump forward seven years (or thereabouts) to 2013, seeing the same genus on a trip to Georgia.

long-jawed orb weaver Tetragnatha in closeup profile
This time, instead of slide film in the EOS 3, it was the original Digital Rebel. The Sigma macro had gone wonky and so this was either the Mamiya 80mm macro with extension, or the reversed Sigma 28-105 – I can’t remember which, and obviously neither one was leaving their spoor in the EXIF file. The image up top is full frame, the entire slide, while this is is cropped slightly – call it at least 85% of the full frame, enough that you’d have to look closely to be sure of the change (or at least I did – this image was uploaded back then and I’m just recycling it, but I did compare it to the original file.) The lighting is courtesy of my first decent macro softbox, the Sunpak FP38 with a custom diffuser seen here, which worked great until I inadvertently fried it a couple years later by hooking up an AC adapter set with the wrong voltage (stupid.)

You can see the difference in magnification of course (and the more I look at the latter, the more I’m convinced I’d used the reversed Sigma,) but the lighting deserves a lot of attention too, because it’s responsible for showing so much of the detail, and giving that nice sheen to the chitin without harsh spotlighting. The entire frame may span roughly 12mm or so, and the body width of the spider (not counting legs of course) might top 4mm, likely less. Notably, both were shot ‘in the wild,’ no attempt to restrain the subjects at all, and I was exceptionally lucky with the latter image because spiders tend to be a little shy and go for cover if someone leans in close, but in this case she (yes it’s a female) simply tucked into a line on a trunk and counted on her camouflage, and I managed not to spook her out of sight.

But most of the credit, at least for the advances between the two images, goes to the equipment. To some extent, I knew what I needed but hadn’t dropped the significant money on it, because macro work usually requires lights pointing in very specific locations down directly in front of the lens. To a greater extent, however, I ended up making or modifying what I needed because such things simply don’t exist (yet,) such as the softbox aiming downward at an angle, broad enough to ‘cover’ an entire macro subject so the light doesn’t look directional, but portable enough to carry mounted on the camera. Over the past ten years or so, lots more little fiddly bits like articulated arms became available on the webbertubes, and I could also find obscure variable-output strobes that weren’t ridiculously cumbersome.

And the amazing performance of a defunct mediocre lens, when used backwards, was just an extreme bit of luck that I’m exploiting shamelessly.

Monday color 64,328

Al Denelsbeck

Actually, I’ve lost track of how many Monday Colors there have actually been, but I think this number isn’t underselling it. In the past, I’ve posted colors in the winter to counteract the lack thereof outside as we wait for spring to arrive, but this time, they’re actually current, having been taken today.

flowers on Japanese maple tree in greenhouse
I posted a variation of this a couple days back, but I retackled the subject with a more appropriate lens (which is of course the Mamiya 80mm macro.) This is one of the Japanese maples overwintering in the greenhouse, which is keeping things toasty enough that the tree is leafing out and flowering. It’s one of four (I think) Japanese maples in there, and if any of the others had started blooming too I’d be cross-pollinating them just to see what happens. It’s that kind of toying with nature that causes comic books and cheesy 50s horror movies to happen, but that’s what people expect from atheists anyway, so why fight it?

Granted, showing off stuff from the greenhouse is cheating, if we’re highlighting winter activity, so the next one isn’t. This is right out in the open, and I’d missed my opportunity to snag this with snow on top.

blossom of paperbush Edgeworthia chrysantha
A few years ago The Girlfriend had seen a paperbush (Edgeworthia chrysantha) in bloom in late winter/early spring, and we finally got a pair last year. One of them seemed to have died in the pot, but this one was doing great and got transplanted in the fall, already bearing flower buds then. It’s blooming nicely now, even though it’s still quite small, and each branch has new leaf buds at the ends, but it was a bit challenging to photograph since the blossoms face downwards and the highest isn’t half-a-meter off the ground. Counting the length of the camera/lens combo, and my fat head, there was a very narrow margin to even obtain focus and still get the entire blossom in the frame. Paperbushes can get very big and thick, so we’ll see how this progresses over the next few years.

Anyway, a little shot of color for Monday while I still look for photo projects to tackle. I’m working on it…

Asking the right questions

Al Denelsbeck

Believe me, I’m well aware that I’m not posting much and then I come in with something like this. You’re right to feel offended. Not that I care at all, but I won’t deny you your affrontage.

So I was thinking earlier of the varying attitudes held when the subject of UFOs (or UAPs if you prefer, for Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon) and extra-terrestrials and so on comes up. Unlike many subjects, there is very often a clean divide in the stances taken, which I’ll crassly categorize as ‘believer’ and ‘skeptic.’ There may, in fact, be a lot of people falling into the large grey area between those two, and only the extremes tend to get into discussions, but for now we’ll stick with the most visible stances.

Very often, such discussions may boil down to the believer saying of/to the skeptic, “So you just don’t believe in extra-terrestrial life, then.” I personally can’t count the number of times I’ve seen this or some minor variation of it, even though I have yet to find anyone who’s actually expressed such disbelief – in other words, it’s countering a comment that no one’s made. But this says a little about assumptions, and filling in the blanks rather than addressing what really has been said, and so I’m going to list out a string of much more specific questions, not to answer them, but to illustrate what is usually being skipped. This bears more than a passing resemblance to Drake’s Equation, at least initially, but goes a little further.

So we’ll start with:

  • Do you think life can develop on other planets?

  • Do you think life has developed on other planets?

  • Do you think intelligent (i.e. spacefaring) life has developed on other planets?

  • Do you think intelligent life presently exists on other planets?

  • Do you think intelligent life exists on other planets within a reasonable contact distance from Earth (say, within 20 light years)?

  • Do you think intelligent life is interested in contact/observation? [This is one that is assumed by the majority of people on either side, but it’s rather a distinct factor.]

  • Do you think intelligent life is able/willing to expend vast amounts of energy on this contact?

  • Do you think intelligent life would initiate contact/observation in person (i.e. within our own solar system) rather than through distant communication?

  • Do you think intelligent life would initiate contact/observation within easily detectable ranges (i.e. within range of radar or astronomical observation)?

  • Do you think intelligent life would initiate contact/observation within lower atmosphere (less than 20,000 feet)?

  • Do you think intelligent life would initiate contact/observation in random areas with highly visible craft?

  • Do you think intelligent life would initiate contact/observation within craft that carried or emitted bright lights to completely eradicate the value of dark skies?

    • Each one of these, of course, is less likely than the previous, perhaps by a minor amount, perhaps exponentially or better. Some of them simply beg the question of why such advanced intelligence would do something so hazardous and/or pointless. I mean, we know the value of shutting off the running lights when we don’t want to be seen, and we can’t even take a jaunt out to Mars and back.

    Most believers operate on the stance that all of these have actually happened, or are at least fairly likely. Most skeptics consider the numbers falling so abysmally low that what is currently considered ‘evidence’ to the believer is most likely misinterpretations, and the active skeptics are often capable of showing how and where. Personally, I find the last five questions to fall below a 1% chance each of happening, and to prove otherwise, someone would need a hell of a lot more than shitty photographs and random eyewitness accounts without a shred of corroboration. Naturally, it would help if a) the field didn’t have a horrendous history of failure, b) the believers showed more than a trace of investigative ability, and c) the ‘evidence’ actually led someplace.

    But I suspect that this divide is mostly due to the difference in emotional attachment to the idea: those that want to believe in extra-terrestrial visitation concentrate on the factors that support the idea and ignore those that counter it, or handwave them away with phrases like, “A sufficiently advanced technology would overcome these restraints,” (as if the mere existence within a useful distance is something that an alien race could develop.) Meanwhile, the extremely minimal information provided by an odd shape on film, or the incredible ease in which someone could be mistaken (much less simply make a story up for giggles,) never even enters into consideration. I’ve made the comparison before to religion – the belief systems really are remarkably similar, but at least the visitation believers have photos…

    I used to be a believer myself, in my youth, and I wish I could point you to the factor that caused me to completely reverse my stance, but I honestly don’t know what (if anything) was key, or when this occurred. I cannot credit it, to my memory, to any particular person or article or anything, and what I recall most is the gradual realization that a) so many of the accounts were overblown and badly misrepresented by sensational media, and b) so many of the believers couldn’t see any flaws, and in fact actively fought against them when confronted with them. I knew, at least, that I did not want to be that blind.

    [I can at least credit some of it to an article in a long-defunct magazine, based on research done on perception and suggestibility – most likely done or influenced by the work of Dr Elizabeth Loftus, who’s a leading figure in the field. I highly recommend looking into this; knowing how easily we can be influenced towards something that we never saw, or never experienced, is eye-opening, and crucial to understanding ‘eyewitness’ testimony at least.]

    Anyway, that’s my introspective, semi-philosophical sidetrack for the season, or the week or whatever. It’s still winter – you can expect more.

    That’s my cue

    Al Denelsbeck

    The sleet a few days back was unimpressive, the snow flurries before that almost embarrassing to speak of, but last night we actually got something that looked nice, and so I got out today to fire off a few frames and finally get a little more content here.

    unidentified red berries under snow cap
    It helped that, like usual, we had sunny and clear skies following the storm (which wasn’t really a storm – more like dust settling,) so I had a little more motivation to get outside, though it wasn’t terribly warm. It was a cold, dry snow in fact, the kind that squelches and is impossible to make snowballs from, so The Girlfriend avoided getting pelted. But it made for a few fartsy shots anyway. And no, I still don’t know what those berries are.

    cedar branches with snow load
    The broader vistas weren’t really coming together, partially because I got out there too late and the dog-walkers and kids excitedly trying out their sleds had already marked up the smooth blankets, so I did my usual thing and stayed in close for most of the shots.

    closeup of cedar branch against snow
    Though I’d dialed in some exposure compensation because of the brightness of the snow and sky, I wasn’t bracketing like I should have been, so some of the shots are a little peaked in exposure, but I’m not gonna fret about it. Much.

    A surprising number of plants looked like they were getting a head start on the spring, before this, so there are buds and even flowers to be seen peeking out through the snow, while the daffodils remained on schedule and have not yet appeared here.

    grape holly Mahonia flower spray bursting out from snow cover
    I thought, in passing these grape holly (Mahonia) bushes in the dark the other night, that they appeared to be starting to bloom, and I wasn’t mistaken. Best of luck finding some pollinators right now, but I imagine they’ll bloom again later on. It may look like we got a decent amount of snow from these pics, because it stacked well, but it really wasn’t much – 5 cm or so would be my guess, barely enough to count in New York.

    I hadn’t been around the nearby pond in ages, but had been alerted by a friend the other day that there was a lot of beaver activity going on, so I went out that evening (because beavers are nocturnal) to take a peek, and did indeed spot two, at least, plus plenty of foraging evidence. I have plans to stake them out some night and try for decent photos with the Vivitar 285HV, the highest power flash that I have, but it will still be tricky. For now, however, we have some evidence.

    beaver evidence on trees alongside pond
    Some of the trees being taken down are pretty sizable, so this isn’t casual activity, but it’s also breeding time for the North American beaver (Castor canadensis) and there may be a den someplace. While everyone knows of the lodges in the center of ponds, I’ve never seen one in NC – the beavers have always made bank dens, typically among the roots of a tree right on the water’s edge. My initial observations did not reveal these either, though I have some suspicions. The snow had frozen into a slush/ice sheet on the pond surface, but a couple of narrow broken channels within hinted that the beavers had been active last night, at least a little. And I loved this particular scene.

    beaver tree that never fell
    Yes, that’s floating in midair. Being relatively small and tangled in the branches of the neighboring pine, this one simply shifted sideways a little but remained in place; I would have loved observing the beavers as they broke through and virtually nothing happened. Will I be able to get any shots of such activity? I’m not holding my breath, especially since it’s been too cold overnight for me to stake anything out for very long, and it seems likely that if they show any activity at all, it probably won’t be within range of the lens and flash. But we’ll see, I guess.

    There was a limited amount of bird activity as well.

    buff-colored female mallard Anas platyrhynchos cruising in open water section
    The slush/ice cover wasn’t complete across the pond, and in one corner with overhanging trees, the buff-colored female mallard (Anas platyrhynchos) showed that she and her mate were still hanging around.

    And another avian, who didn’t have a grasp on subtlety despite its feeding habits.

    sharp-shinned hawk Accipiter striatus perched in bare, snowy tree
    I knew, solely from the length of the tail, that this was either a sharp-shinned or a Cooper’s hawk, but they’re almost identical. However, as this one flew off, I got one frame of the spread tail that tells me it was a sharp-shinned hawk (Accipiter striatus.) Before that occurred, however, I crept in a bit closer.

    sharp-shinned hawk Accipiter striatus looking over shoulder
    Even though a couple of people with their dog had just passed underneath not two minutes from our approach, I was being creepy by, well, creeping up on it. None of this cartoon tiptoe or carry a small bush for cover stuff, but I was definitely pausing close by and my attention was clearly on the hawk, so it soon vacated, but not before I got some adequate frames.

    Back home, I tried for a couple of shots that didn’t come out well because I’d only taken the 18-135 with me and not the macro, but I can always return to those. I did, however, peek into the greenhouse to note the progress therein.

    potted Japanese maple leafing out in greenhouse in January
    We have a small heater in there to ensure that it doesn’t drop below 10°c, and the trumpet flowers and one of the Japanese maples find this perfectly adequate – the maple, seen here, is absolutely going to town even when it hasn’t shed its brown leaves from last year.

    We’ll close with one of the azaleas out back, where most of the branches sported a small cap of snow on the ends, supported by the cluster of leaves that is the trait of the bush. The sun’s still low so backlighting was easy, in fact difficult to avoid, and I kinda liked the lens flare effects so I went with this frame. Not trying really hard, but good to be shooting a little at least.

    tiny backlit snow cap atop end of azalea branch

    Visibly different, part 3

    Al Denelsbeck

    osprey Pandion haliaetus lifting off from bridge
    For years, the image above was the best photo that I’d gotten of an osprey (Pandion haliaetus,) and one of the best bird portraits in my stock. It was largely luck, catching a perched bird on a bridge railing early in the morning and shooting from the car window. It was also the closest I’d gotten to a wild, unrestrained osprey, though I’d handled two in my rehab days (and somewhere I have a couple of photos of one, on negative film.) This one came from the late nineties I believe, shortly after switching to slide film.

    Now we jump forward a couple of decades.

    osprey Pandion haliaetus looking down on photographer with disdain

    mother and nestling osprey Pandion haliaetus on nest
    Both of these were from last year, and the number of osprey images in my stock has grown radically. What’s the significant difference between the first image and these? Mostly, better equipment in the form of a decent lens with twice the focal length, but also just spending the time in areas that osprey frequent. While not every outing will be productive, there’s no denying that you have to spend time around the subjects to receive the best opportunities – and this is far more important than the equipment, not to mention easier (or at least cheaper) to achieve.

    A sharp eye helps a lot too. I spotted the osprey nest from a car in passing, and resolved to return to check it out, then made several return trips to monitor progress. The solitary bird was noticed in a tree in central NY as I was about to drive under it, and I was able to stop almost directly below (I was shooting through an open sunroof, to be honest.)

    Add to that, some of that same blind luck that allowed the first image. All you can do about that is be ready to exploit it. But I must note that, in all those years, I’ve never been closer than in that first photo…

    Oop, so much for that

    Al Denelsbeck

    I noticed, in checking over Stellarium late this afternoon, that not only was the ISS going to make a highly-visible pass a couple hours hence, it would be closely tailed by the Dragon Crew Capsule, I believe having recently separated from the station. I figured this was worth a shot in capturing both at once, even if it was going to be difficult to snag. The issue is, the ISS is small (from our vantage, anyway,) the Crew Capsule more so, requiring very high magnification, typically with the 2X teleconverter. But they’re also moving across the sky at a good clip, so a short shutter speed is in order. Those two don’t go together well, because the teleconverter reduces light by two stops, slowing the shutter speed. And the Crew Capsule isn’t very bright, so even boosting the ISO to maximum might not necessarily get the shutter speed low enough to reduce motion blur adequately and still get a decent exposure on the ships. Then there’s the whole path deal, being locked in tight with the tripod where the two craft would cross the frame, quite challenging at that high a magnification because it means a very narrow corridor, and finding and following the craft with the long lens was out of the question: by the time I locked the rig down for stability, the ships would pass from the frame, and doing it without locking the tripod would only induce motion blur. But I’d plotted the position in regards to two prominent stars, so I was game.

    The sky wasn’t, though. Less than an hour before, while still in sunset twilight, there were some thin scattered clouds, little more than stains, which would only limit things if they were right where I was aiming. But as I stepped out the door about ten minutes before the two spacecraft would pass, the sky was almost completely overcast, the full moon only throwing a dull glow through the cover. Not a chance in hell, in other words.

    So we have a color example from the earlier sky, because. Maybe next time.

    twilight pastels around bare branches

    I am not an American

    Al Denelsbeck

    And I feel it needs to be said.

    It might seem strange, especially when you know that I was born in New Jersey, grew up in New York, presently reside in North Carolina, and a few hours spent in Canada is my life total of time in other countries. What else could I be?

    But it must be something else, because I can easily tell you what I’m not.

    I’m not someone who needs to tell everyone who I am or where I’m from, or that I’m proud to be this. I’m not proud, actually; the US does some incredibly stupid things, and its foreign policy falls everywhere in the spectrum between ‘opportunistic’ and ‘reprehensible,’ and has been that way for the past century. We can do better.

    I’ve never thought, “My country, right or wrong,” was a meaningful ideology to hold. Shouldn’t one have some goals, some ideas for improvement, rather than declaring complacency?

    I’m not someone who tries to deny this by waving a flag or chanting jingoistic slogans; we do not create our status through declarations, and to be honest, most of the people who have to tell you how great they are, aren’t – they’re trying to disguise how shitty they are in reality.

    I have never believed that the flag, any flag, had any meaning whatsoever, much less felt the need to wave one or wear it or paint it on anything. It’s an archaic symbol intended to differentiate in times of war. That’s all. While residents of any country might believe their flag represents something virtuous, residents of other countries may believe it represents far less reputable ideals. If it can be interpreted at will, what’s the point?

    I have never believed that patriotism, or any kind of crass tribalism, was a worthwhile pursuit. I would prefer to stand behind values and actions rather than some ill-defined concept of a ‘country.’

    I have never believed that arbitrary, invisible, indistinguishable border lines made a difference between those on either side. Want to cross? Fine, have at it, and if you can find a job someplace, fantastic! That’s how free enterprise works. The US economy isn’t in the shape it’s in because of immigrants, but because of the self-absorbed greedy douchecanoes who believe they should be amassing vast amounts of wealth to win some fucking game, who knows what. I’m not proud of that either, or that much of US culture glorifies this for some reason.

    I’ve never felt that calling this a “free country” was an excuse to engage in whatever self-important idiocy happens to come to mind. The concept of a ‘country’ is a culture of cooperative, mutually-supportive people aligned to common goals, not a subset of nitwits that want to play with guns or feel that bigotry makes them special somehow.

    I haven’t forgotten what is, and isn’t, in the Bill of Rights, or that it does not exist solely to support my indulgences. Or that, if any portion turns out to be more harmful than beneficial to the populace, it can and should be changed.

    I have never failed to understand that personal freedom stops when it comes to harming anyone else, even potentially. Actual harm, by the way, not just offense – I have no patience for those who try to trash free speech over butthurt.

    I do not own a gun, and have no desire to. I know what the Second Amendment to the US Constitution says, and it has no application to me (I also know that it can be further amended as needed.) I see no purpose in individuals owning guns at all. I do not consider firing a gun a ‘sport.’ I do not imagine myself an impending hero. I am well aware of the overwhelming statistics that show guns are openly harmful to the populace, and I place the people higher than I place my own petty indulgences.

    I haven’t forgotten learning about the founding of the US and that it is not, in any way, shape, or form, a ‘christian nation.’ There are countless aspects that confirm just the opposite, in fact.

    I am not political, and openly despise the idea of partisanship, regardless of where it manifests. ‘Sides’ are for people that cannot count above 2, and labels for those who have to be told what to think. I can judge individuals without the assistance – and far more accurately, it appears.

    While I consider a military force a necessity for defense, the US hasn’t engaged in defense since 1945. Most of the conflicts America has been involved in for the past 75 years have been its own doing, often to manipulate world markets and power structures, and I certainly cannot glorify or support that. Death should always be considered a last resort, not a means of leverage.

    I haven’t fallen for the blatant demonizing tactics that are used constantly, so I don’t consider communism or socialism or any particular ideology as inherently evil or good, or that any ideological goals are maintained in actual practice. Again, we’re talking labels here, which hinders actual understanding.

    I also don’t mistake ‘socialism’ and ‘socialized medicine,’ knowing they’re two entirely unrelated things, because I made it through the fourth grade without issues.

    Most especially, I’ve seen that the vast majority of those that proudly and defiantly claim to be American have no reasoned arguments to offer nor any desire for accountability, and in many cases remain willfully ignorant of the world around them, often outright insular and xenophobic. This is despite the bare fact (known for a few generations now) that we’re all one race.

    So with all that said, I can definitively state that I am not an American. What that does make me, I can’t say, except that it would be another label and who needs that? But kindly, do not lump me in with any of those ‘Americans’ above. It’s offensive.

    It’s something

    Al Denelsbeck

    Courtesy of Old Man Weather, I had something to shoot today. Not that I should have bothered, but…

    blob of sleet
    This misshapen blob (that puts me in mind of a tardigrade) is just sleet, the ‘winter storm’ that we’re having right now in central NC – it’s been coming down steadily since 8 AM, according to The Girlfriend (I went to bed at 5 AM and it hadn’t started then – no, don’t ask.) It’s considerably better than a lot of the country right now, so no complaints, but it doesn’t provide much in the way of things to photograph. Not to mention that it’s presently warm enough that it might as well be rain, for all the moisture that gets on the camera equipment, so this is all that I’m going to do about it. As the temperatures drop tonight, things might get really ugly out on the roads at least, and there have been countless warnings about power outages because – and it still irritates me to say this – we still haven’t progressed enough as a species not to hang necessary utilities through the middle of the air, through trees, and so on. We apparently can remember slightly better than a goldfish to know when ice might drop powerlines and trees and so on, but not enough to do something about preventing it.

    Anyway, I played for a few minutes, and I’ll take a moment here to address something incidental. I mentioned earlier that I keep roughly half of what I shoot, which might seem haphazard, or even a bit inept. But this is partial illustration of why.

    sleet with red and blue highlights
    I already knew, from past experience, that ice and snow are difficult to photograph, especially en masse as it were, because of how they scatter light. So I spent some time playing around with getting a viable image, which included pushing up the accumulated sleet into a peak to get a dark background, and in this case, flanking that little peak with red and blue paint bottles for reflected color. It’s a little harsh, and may have benefited from different colors, but I didn’t have a lot at my disposal and wasn’t going to go nuts over it either. There were also adjustments to light angle and intensity from the macro softbox rig. Which means that out of the 30 frames I just shot, I might keep three or four, but I also have a little more experience in tackling such a subject in future. And someone may ask, “So how often do you expect to photograph sleet?” but the same traits apply to raindrops and glass objects and so on. Just small additions to the mental catalog.

    Visibly different, part 2

    Al Denelsbeck2 Comments

    early morning on Outer Banks, North Carolina
    For our next entry in this topic, we have an image shot on negative film at an unknown date and location, that can at least be narrowed down to the Outer Banks of North Carolina, somewhere between 1994 and 1997, which would also make it shot most likely on an Olympus OM-10 – beyond that, I have no recollection nor notes. Obviously, I’d selected an abandoned stretch of beach, which is a lot easier at the Outer Banks than you might imagine, not long after sunrise. Noticeable in the image is a diffraction effect off of the sun, which was actually accomplished with a small filter that I had; not a proper one designed for photography, but a kid’s toy that I’d had for ages, As such, it was made from durable vinyl (or some analog thereof – I think I still have it someplace,) which meant that it acted like a soft-focus diffuser as well, so to get the rest of the beach sharp, it’s only peeking in at the edge, which is why there are only two rainbow arms and not more surrounding the sun – if you look very close, you can see the curved edge of a faint discoloration in the corner.

    But even with that, the image lacks a point of focus, decent colors, and even any interest from the breakers. It barely serves as promoting a mood, and for the most part, it’s only a reminder of one of the trips that I made. There’s no indication of season at all. We can see a spot on the ocean at the horizon that might be a boat, but it’s too small to discern while still being obvious enough to attract attention momentarily.

    We contrast that now with an image from 2018, twenty-some years later on.

    sun-hiding clouds behind fishing trawler and driftwood on North Beach, Jekyll Island, Georgia
    The difference is drastic, but let’s break it down. I was not only out before sunrise, I was at a very scenic location, North Beach on Jekyll Island, Georgia. There’s now foreground and background interest as well as a strong focal point, the fishing trawler, and the digital settings were enough to enhance the colors and contrast better than negative film ever could (though this is routine for digital images.) No filters – I now consider them mostly gimmicky and not worth carrying, though on occasion I’ll use a polarizer or neutral-density filter. While some of the appeal of the image can be credited to conditions that I had no control over, I’d made the effort to be in place to take advantage of them, and even when the sun never showed itself until well after sunrise, I’d found a way to make it work anyway.

    But perhaps it should have been a little wider, getting more of the foreground driftwood in the frame instead of the little ‘hints’ from down below. Or I could have eschewed the driftwood and been right down at the water, perhaps shooting vertically, to make the ocean more dominant; it would have been easy to eliminate the beach entirely and then the idea is simply “out at sea” rather than from the beach, so we get more of an impression of being with the trawler instead of observing it. While this is allowing the exposure meter to define the settings, it would be get it a little brighter, lowering the contrast of the sky but bringing out the details of the boat better. And of course, with a little luck some coastal birds might get into the frame.

    While I would probably not even attempt to shoot something like the first image again, given the same conditions and what I know now (which partially came from seeing that very image,) I’d certainly be making the effort to find something more compelling on the beach – and may have anyway. There’s a decent chance this shot was taken the same morning; I’ll have to go back through the negative binders and see if they’re from the same roll (both scans were done long ago, so I have no recent reference.) At the very least, they’re not more than a couple of years apart, so I wasn’t a total noob back then.

    UPDATE: They were from the same roll, only a few frames apart, and judging from the position within the binder (which is not perfectly accurate because the negatives were not added in exact chronological order,) not long before I switched to Canon equipment, so probably 1997. Only took about ten minutes to determine that.

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