This isn’t my shoe.  It was just sitting there.  Honest.

Tuesday morning — sitting on one of those granite Metro benches as I changed trains at Crystal City.

So I grabbed a shot with my phone in the two minutes before my train came.

I had to rest the camera on the bench because it is dark in there and flash would have been totally inappropriate.  The picture is still pretty cruddy.  So as much as I dislike doing it, I “rescued” the shot with PhotoShop’s Dry Brush — and the result probably says as much as an image more precisely captured and rendered.

I’m sure there is a story behind the shoe, but I don’t know if it would be at all interesting.

Speakers’ Corner, London

A man trying to make a point, and a cyclist flashing by.  A bit metaphoric perhaps?

Speakers’ Corner is a London institution.  Every Sunday, in the north-east corner of Hyde Park near the Marble Arch, folks (guys mostly) attempt to persuade both the passersby and the intentional “attendees”.  As an institution, Speakers’ Corner is protected by a series of codes and case law.  It is virtually woven into the fabric of British political ethos.

Over the years from the mid-nineteenth century through the early twentieth, the topics of discussion were often political.  Intense debate from the likes of Lenin, Marx, and George Orwell.  And from time-to-time political or social topics do still manage to surface on a Sunday afternoon.

But today, most of the speakers are religious.  Religious discussion is fine, but when you get someone who is prepared to spend a couple of hours on a footstool or stepladder, dialogue is not their intent.  Most religious speakers are not looking for consensus or compromise.  They are looking for people who are in total – or near total – agreement.  And they are boring.  And that’s a shame.

Looking at Speakers’ Corner in the context of this century, it would be easy to believe that it has lost some of its “magic” — a bit past its prime.  But from another point of view, Speakers’ Corner is an institution where perhaps the greatest value lies in its potential.  Suffering countless boring religious zealots year in and year out, Speakers’ Corner is prepared to flower at a moment’s notice – a social and political safety valve.

I guess I can suffer the zealots.  They’re keeping the lights on.

When Equipment Drives the Results

Sports photography is one of those areas of the craft where the equipment really does make a difference.  (If you think you’ll get results from the kids’ soccer match like those shown in the Canon TV commercials without spending from $1,800 to $6,000 for each lens — you’re living in Fantasyland.)

I typically shoot soccer sitting on a folding stool.  One Nikon D300 on a monopod has a 300mm f/2.8 lens (often with 1.4x converter).  A second D300 mounts a 70-200 f/2.8 lens which, with a converter, weighs just under 7 pounds.  I shoot long shots with the 300, and when the action gets closer, I lean the monopod against my left leg, and reach down to my right and swing up the camera with the zoom (the 6 1/2 pound curl).

The problem with the original Nikon 70-200 is that the contacts (for camera-lens communication) tend to oxidize.  When this happens, the lens won’t auto-focus.  Some at Nikon, even after eight years, don’t readily acknowledge the problem, though it has been widely discussed online — especially among sports photographers.  The consensus solution is to use Caig DeoxIT to clean and protect the contacts on the lens and the internal connections.  Despite Nikon’s reluctance to accept the problem, the proof to many is that the DeoxIT works.  But you do need to clean the lens contacts regularly.  And I didn’t.

So for Saturday’s Majestics match the 70-200 fired about six shots — and stopped focusing.  Nothing I could do in the field helped.  So I was down to just the 300mm lens.

The team's first goal of the season.

The question is my mind is whether or not I would have made these shots if I had been switching back and forth between the two cameras.  The advantage is that with only one camera and lens, you just track the action all the time.  However, sitting just behind the goal line and near the corner, a lot of action is just too close, and the framing is difficult — and too tight.  On the other hand, there is no time lost switching between cameras.

The aesthetic and creative contradiction:  Shooting with just one lens simultaneously restricts and releases you.

Women’s Soccer…

Today I shoot the home opener for the Northern Virginia Majestics.  They are an amateur team which is primarily made up of collegiate players — though occasionally foreign players are on the roster.

This shot is from last year (Majestics in blue)…

You can learn more about the Majestics through their web site.  All the game shots on their site are mine — I’ve been shooting the team since 2003.

Technical:  The photo was taken with a Nikon D300 camera and Nikkor 300mm f/2.8 lens with 1.4x converter, using a monopod.  1/4000 | f/4.5 | ISO 800 | Aperture Priority with Matrix Metering | Auto White Balance.

(Actually, about eight pictures.)

Here is a little background on the photos in my slideshow “Dawn” which ran on World Hum…

Capturing dawn presents some technical problems – photographic and geographic.  A “dawn” picture may be taken before the sun comes up, or after.  But somehow it has to meet our expectations of what dawn looks like.

One of the difficulties is figuring out where the sun will be coming up.  NOAA has a great web site that lets you calculate matters solar.  One thing you can do is calculate the azimuth of the sun (the point at or above the horizon, expressed as an angle, measured clockwise from north) observed from any particular point (e.g. If I’m standing at the corner of the Metro parking garage at sunrise, which direction will I face to see the sun as it rises, or an hour later, etc.).  Operationalize this information a couple of different ways:  (1) With a decent handheld compass, you can line up your camera in advance to capture the rising sun; or (2) by using Google maps, you can identity landmarks that can be used to align the shot.

Here is info on the pictures.  You can copy and paste the latitude and longitude into Google Maps to see some of my shooting positions:

Opening picture: I was looking for a general shot and figured that shooting across the water would be good.  I went to Google Maps and looked for a location down the Potomac from Washington, DC that would give me clear shot.  I picked the Virginia shore looking towards Fort Washington, MD.  The very faint light-colored vertical object near the water under the sun is the Fort Washington Light.  I selected a shooting position just off the bike path to Mt. Vernon using the NOAA site.  (38.711318, -77.051588) (Nikon D300 on tripod with Nikon 17-55mm f/2.8 lens; 1/250 @ f/8, ISO 800, 19mm.)

Philadelphia: This is one of those shots that makes you glad you remembered to take your camera along.  I was on a business trip and looked out the window early in the morning.  (Voigtlander Bessa rangefinder film camera, handheld with Voigtlander 35mm f/2.5 lens.)

Commute: I tried this shot the week before from the top deck of the Metro parking garage in Vienna — but the sun was a little too far to the right (over that clump of trees).  I went to the NOAA site and found out that the following weekend was probably my only chance from that location until autumn.  On shooting morning I set up the tripod and made shots over a period of time.  I collapsed the tripod and had put it in the car when I looked back, and saw this.  No time for a tripod, but I used a stabilized lens.  (38.878309, -77.272347 ) (Nikon D300 handheld with Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8 lens – stabilization on; 1/125 @ f/4, ISO 400, 102mm.)

Dulles: This shot happened in the opposite way from the commuting picture.  The selected frame is one of a few shots I made checking the camera setup — before the sun actually came up.  Shooting as the sun rose, the terminal “paled” out and lost that glow.  (BTW:  I emailed the airport authority media relations office ahead of time to advise them what I would be shooting.  They only asked that I call police operations when I showed up.  The police were very pleasant when I called them.)  (38.953767, -77.451961) (Nikon D300 on tripod with Nikon 17-55mm f/2.8 lens; 1/10 @ f/4, ISO 200, 32mm)

Car: I knew that I should have a road shot, so I rigged the Benbo tripod in the car.  I checked the map and saw some straight east-west stretches of Highway 7 west of Leesburg, VA.  As I drove west, I was checking my mirrors and saw that the time was right.  I made four laps back and forth between two overpasses.  A shot from earlier that morning is also posted on this blog.  (39.144473, -77.68791 to 39.143808, -77.655573) (Nikon D300 on Benbo tripod with Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8 lens; 1/320 sec @ f/5.6, ISO 800, 11mm.)

Krakow:  I discovered how nice it is to walk around Krakow early in the morning on the last day of my first trip there.  For these pictures I had another project in mind that didn’t really pan out, but the sequence of four worked out fine for this slideshow.  The first three frames show for a little less than one second each in the slideshow.  (50.062472, 19.936835) (Olympus E-1 on tripod with Zuiko 11-22mm f/3.5 lens; 1 sec @ f/8, ISO 100, 11mm.)

Zoo:  The National Zoo in Washington DC is open around the clock.  In the summer you can beat the crowds and beat the heat by showing up really early – and also find parking in their lots.  This shot just happened.  (Nikon F100, film, on monopod with Tokina 300mm f/2.8 lens

Airplane: This is the source photo for my blog banner and is discussed in an earlier blog entry.  From a technical perspective, this is an almost hopeless picture.  The one I used in the slideshow hasn’t been fixed up in PhotoShop like the blog banner version.  (Minox EC camera, film, handheld.)

Normally the content of this blog is not political.  But in this situation…

(This is a letter I sent to Senator Lieberman’s office.  You kinda have to read the whole thing to get the point.)

Dear Senator Lieberman,

I’d like to commend you on your vision and dedication as you move forward with workable legislative solutions to keep the Homeland more secure from terrorist threats – especially “homegrown” and “adopted” terrorists.

I’ve been working full time in Homeland Security since 1998 – before there was even anything actually called “Homeland Security”.  I’ve worked with police, fire, EMS, and emergency management agencies at all levels – local to federal – as well as with the military.  One thing that has always impressed me is the degree to which those professionals dedicate themselves to our safety and security in these increasingly complex times.  The threats of terrorism are constantly evolving and, at times, confounding us.  The rules have changed.  And although it is a technically accurate term, “asymmetrical” seriously understates the threats we are facing as we move ahead through this new century.  To our emergency response and management men and women, working in the “trenches” every day, it doesn’t always seem that legislators have those most basic community interests and concerns at heart.

Your proposal to move terrorists out from under the protection of the Constitution is a rational step forward…Especially when you consider that it is exactly these same terrorists who wish to destroy the very thing – our Constitution – that protects them.  Amazing!  And since this is likely to be an administrative process, more reasonable Rules of Evidence could be used, making this a simpler and speedier process.

There are some daunting challenges ahead, but I think that there are also some workable solutions which will also help you in your work for a safer, more secure America.

– Even when stripped of citizenship, for one reason or another, these people (and their families) may still continue to exist in our communities.  In some cases, the expatriated and their families may need short term or long term refuge.  For their safety, the government should consider a program that will undertake to relocate the expatriated, or those who are appealing the decision to revoke citizenship, to their own secure communities.  This would separate the terrorists from the community at large, while also offering additional protections for those associated with the expatriated, but who may not be there wholly of their own free will (spouses and children).  The Federal government has access to hundreds of suitable housing units at military bases that are undergoing BRAC, or have been taken off “active duty” but are pending final disposition.  Naturally, this would not be welfare, and those expatriated and their families would be expected to pay fairly for their housing.  Similar to a court-appointed administrator, a federal official could be appointed to help the expatriated dispose of excess property and facilitate their move to these secure communities – and eventually from the country.  Given a little time, the Federal Government could enter into public-private partnerships with industry.  A ready source of labor, conveniently located in those secure communities, could work out quite favorably for all concerned.

– An associated issue is that because many of these expatriated terrorists and their families are practicing Muslims, some of the less enlightened among us would attempt to tar all Muslims with the same brush.  This would be unfortunate, since we know that the vast majority of American Muslims are hardworking citizens, doing the best they can for their families and communities.  It would help if there was some voluntary way that Muslims could declare their commitment to their communities and to the Nation.  I believe that a voluntary vetting process, operated through local law enforcement (police departments and sheriff’s offices – who, after all, know these people best) could easily corroborate their status.  Some kind of standard, recognized symbol could be displayed that would erase all doubt as to the patriotism of the wearer – a special pin, discrete embroidered badge, or an armband, for instance.  Once the first few Muslims began wearing these badges of honor, I suspect that almost all Muslims would be eager follow their lead.

History provides many precedents for measures and processes which increase the security of the Nation, while still protecting and offering opportunities for citizens of diverse origins.  It may not be the final solution, but it is a great step forward.

Keep up the good work.

Respectfully,
Larry Clark

We’ve all been there.

Somehow, what we shot isn’t what we saw.  This especially seems to be the case with pictures from the cameras in cellular phones.

But with a little work using some inexpensive (or even free) software, you can bring those photos a little more in line with your memories.

Take a look here to see what I did to put a little more life into this picture.

(…And maybe this will lead to a little more in-depth work…)

Lunch — Marble Arch

Lunch at the Pret A Manger, Marble Arch, London

Hmmm.  Another food shot.

This is from the Fall of 2002.   Shot with a Cosina/Voigtlander Bessa rangefinder camera using chromogenic black and white film.  I forget which lens I was using — likely a 15mm.

Sitting there, munching my lunch, and watching the world pass by…

Dusk in Krakow

The Vistula (Wisła) seen from Krakow's Wawel at Dusk

On a day where our thoughts may be turned to Poland’s tragedy, I wanted to offer up a image that expresses some sense of the nation’s endurance.

The Vistula runs from the Carpathian Mountains in the south of Poland, past Krakow, over the plains, through Warsaw, and eventually into the Baltic near Gdansk.  That watershed covers a great deal of Polish history and culture.

Something Related to a Project…

Pre-Dawn on Route 7

Not that this has to do with much of anything, but I happened to shoot this on Sunday morning on the way to shoot some other pictures for a project.

I’m not going to use this one in the project, because I already have my quota (one) of motion-blurred pictures — but this is still a fun image.

For the technically minded, here is the photo-geeky stuff:

• The Nikon D300 camera was set up on a Benbo Trecker tripod — the middle leg was set into the Outback’s forward cupholder.  The other two legs rested on the rear floor, one on either side of the hump.  Lateral movement was controlled by a couple of bungee cords to the front seat head restraint rods.  If you know anything about Benbo tripods, you’ll understand why this works.
• I used a Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8 lens.  The focal length was 11mm and the aperture was f/5.6.  Focus was preset at manual.
• The camera’s ISO was set to 800.  The aperture priority mode was used, with 5-shot auto-bracketing.  The brackets were 1 f/stop apart.  The exposure for this shot was 1 second controlled by a Nikon electronic shutter release (squeeze and hold until all 5 shots were taken.
• The image was recorded in RAW (NEF) so that I would have access to all the image data recorded.  Post processing was done in Adobe PhotoShop CS4.  Color temperature as adjusted to 6550K.  The white line on the right was used to set the white value in Curves.  Noise reduction was with Noise Ninja.  I Smart Sharpened it a little.

My biggest surprise was that even with the slow 1 second shutter speed and the pretty dodgy camera installation, the image is sharp enough to use — at least for the web.  Certainly not razor sharp, but sharp enough.

Good Morning!

Sea Lion and Keeper - National Zoo

A picture from August, 2002, at the National Zoo.

This was shot early in the morning, when the zoo was just waking up.  It’s the kind of shot you don’t get during the “regular” hours — one of the nice things about the National Zoo is that it’s open 24/7.  In the summer it is particularly nice to visit the zoo at the crack of dawn — and you can even find a close-in parking place.

This was originally shot on film using a Nikon F100 and a Tokina 300mm f/2.8 lens.

It’s nice to be published…

(That’s not me)

This audio slideshow was published on March 11.  It started out as a class project for a Travel Writing clinic.

This is one of those projects that starts out as a pile of pictures (actually, a bunch pictures I picked from around inside my files).  You look at them for awhile and then kinda let them speak for themselves.

My title is “Ghosts” but the World Hum editors thought that “Travel Ghosts” was better for their site — and I agree.

One that almost slipped past me…

Samson GoMic

I’d been asked to come up with some recommendations for microphones and recorders suitable for travel writing and field recording.  One of the challenges has been to find a compact microphone that can plug directly into a computer’s USB port and which allows live monitoring.  Many (most?) USB mics require that you monitor through the computer, which causes a noticeable time lag (latency).  That makes it very difficult to record.

In my first searches for mics I somehow managed to miss the Samson GoMic.  However it turns out to be a pretty neat little package.  It has a cardioid pattern, so ambient noise is minimized.  The base is clever and works quite well.  And it comes in a nice zippered case.  The main shortcoming is that it does pick up speech “pops”.  In use, you might need to set the mic off axis from your mouth if you don’t use some kind of pop filter.  (I’m going to see if I can make a little foam wind screen for mine.)

What Got Me Started On…

Well, maybe “started” is too strong a word.

Stepney Green Tube Station

But over the past decade or so, one the things I’ve been trying to balance is the inherent accuracy offered through photography against a desire mute a viewer’s natural inclination to spend time searching for details…Details that satisfy curiosity, but which don’t really inform.

I was on some kind of quest in London during a visit in 2001 and ended up at Stepney Green.  It was the middle of the day and the station was much quieter than those closer to the city center.  The station was fairly dim, and I ended making the shot at 1/5th of a second, using a 15mm lens on a Voightlander Bessa rangefinder body.

The station environment is rendered with a fair amount of detail, though the lighting forces some shadows.  You see all you need to see of the departing train.  And people are in various states of blur.  Between distance, blur, and lighting, you’re not going to be able to tell what brand of shoes they are wearing — but that’s just fine.

This is another of those shots that I wasn’t sure was going to work out.  But it helped point my thinking towards different ways of representing people pictorially.

Ricoh GXR vs. GX100 Comparison

BLUF (Bottom Line Up Front):  Ricoh has made some noise reduction progress from the GX100 to the new GXR (with S10 lens/sensor module).  But it’s still a tiny sensor.

This helicopter was the subject for a number of detailed comparison images.  The full information is at this web page.

Looking Down, London Eye

The pods on the London Eye give you the opportunity to look in all directions.

On this chilly, drizzly early December day in 2008 I decided to look down as well as around.  Some of the people there on the South Bank seem to be clustered for a reason, but if I knew once, it escapes me now.

Shooting inside one of those pods does present challenges.  The polished windows make reflections stand out unless you back away (in which case you get a lot of the pod’s interior in your shot), or get the lens right up to the glass.

A lower cost stereo microphone alternative

I ran a quick test of this mic in a voice-over situation.

Tascam TM-ST1 Stereo Microphone

It’s not a world beater, but for someone starting out in recording, and especially those who travel and find space for goodies is at a premium, this might do the job.

Although this photo from Tascam has the mic in a pretty vertical orientation, you can see the small diameter weighted base.  It actually works pretty well.  You can adjust the stereo pickup of the mic between 90 and 120 degrees and teamed with a good digital recorder you could cover a fair amount of recording.  Circuit noise is noticeable in quiet situations, so this isn’t the mic you’d want for environmental recordings.

And a New Microphone.

(This guy looks more than a little like R2D2.)

Blue Yeti USB Microphone

Blue microphones has started shipping their Yeti USB microphone.  The biggest operational advantage over most other USB microphones is that you can monitor your recording session without a time lag (latency).  This mic also offers four patterns:  Stereo, omnidirectional, cardioid, and bi-directional.  A brief description and audio samples are on my website.

The next microphone I’ll be looking at is the Tascam TM-ST1 stereo condenser mic.  I’m looking for an alternative to stereo mics in the $300+ range for those who are just starting out in field recording.

A quick test run with Ricoh’s very interesting GXR.

I like to test new cameras at the National Air and Space Museum’s Udvar-Hazy Center near Dulles International Airport.

The museum is a very difficult place to shoot since it is generally dim, has several different light sources (it is not unusual to have four light sources in a single picture) and the curved ceilings and all those airplanes make for some compositional challenges.  With shooting conditions right on the edge, the bad habits of a camera or lens (or photographer, for that matter) don’t stay hidden.

This WWII vintage Vought F4U-1D Corsair is one of the first planes you see as you approach the first overlook (on the right in this photo), and is one my regular test subjects from that vantage point.  But I also like this view from below since you can get visitors in the picture.  (As a side note, this is one of the few situations where you can somehow manage to get only one airplane in the frame.)

Most of my serious travel photography is done with a Leica M8, but it’s good to have a point-and-shoot camera available too.  The Ricoh GXR features different lens/sensor modules that slide into the camera body.  The module I have on my GXR is a 5.1-15.3mm zoom — which is equivalent to a 24-72mm lens in 35mm film cameras.  The GXR will replace my current GX100.  Ricoh cameras are a bit of a niche item in the U.S., with very few dealers.  However, Ricoh seems intent on designing cameras for more experienced photographers and their functions and control layouts are, in my opinion, the best of any compact cameras made.  The small sensor models suffer a little more from noise than other brands, but the GXR is quite improved over the GX100.  (I need to build some Noise Ninja profiles for making larger images, but you can’t really see any noise issues at this size.)

Approaching SFO

Usually I don’t like applying PhotoShop’s filters and effects.  This picture is one of the rare exceptions.

I shot this photo using a Minox EC Subminiature camera around the 1999/2000 holidays.  I was flying into San Francisco on the first-of-the-day United Express flight out of Arcata-Eureka Airport (ACV) in an Embraer EMB 120 turboprop.  From up in the air, we could just see the rising sun in the east, while the Bay was still shrouded in darkness and clouds — just a few clear spots here and there.  The situation was photographically “hopeless” but I shot with the Minox anyway.  With ISO 100 film and a fixed aperture of f/5.6 camera shake was a certainty.  But the lights of San Francisco were reflecting on the engine nacelle, and there is a little streak of light on the lower right corner…Angel Island or Tiburon?

I scanned the print and then “PhotoShopped” the image.  I mounted a print and hung it by my desk at work.  After a couple of job changes the print is gone, and I lost track of the final image file.

Flying into San Francisco from Medford, Oregon (MFR) early on January 4th, I again had that dawn view of San Francisco Bay.  I was reminded of that photo from a decade ago and decided to rescan the print and resurrect the final image.  ( The filter is PhotoShop’s Dry Brush.)