Flaggler College

D200

Flaggler College was built around the end of the 1800's and only for women. Mr. Flaggler was interested in art and the buildings he constructed were very unique. These towers are at one end of the women's dorms, and one floor is closed. It is said that it is haunted with the spirit of his second wife that went crazy. He did not let her leave the building because she was so beautiful. She went crazy and her spirit is still alive in the building. Most of the windows in the building are different. It is said a spirit can only go in and out of a window of the same shape and size.

1900's Steam Batch

D200 24mm

This is a steam bath, now in museum, which use to be a turn of the century upscale hotel in St. Augustine. The lines and the contrasting colors were interesting.

Oat Rentals

The thing that first attracted me to this scene was the neon sign, slightly crooked, within the black and white frame of the window. But then the attendent, who had been out of my view on the other end of the dock, walked into my viewfinder, his shift almost over, and made a phone call. I thought his dark skin and white clothing complemented the non-color scheme of the rental shed in the background.

I held down the shutter button to shoot a lot of pictures with him sitting right there, but in this one, his body English and facial expression was the best of the lot.

Back at home on the computer, I noticed that the red life vests could make a nice design element, a triangle right into the left lower edge of the frame.

But only if I cropped the image to "OAT RENTALS."

The Power Of Critique

Warren made a suggestion to crop out the "OAT RENTALS" at the top of the photo. I was just a bit skeptical - I had rather liked the bold, white-on-black lettering, but tried it.

Well, now I'm with Warren - the composition looks cleaner and more balanced to me now.

What do you think?

Thanks, Warren!

By the way, Dolph's comment about this having an "islands" flavor made sense - but in fact, this place is right on the waterfront of Baltimore's Inner Harbor. I'm gonna make a nice print and leave it for "Island Man," or hopefully, give it directly to him. Hope he likes it.

Bromo Tower and ... Beatles

On one overseas business trip in 1978, I got to spend a weekend in Florence, Italy. At one point during a stroll around that beautiful city, I looked up and suddenly saw a familiar sight - the Bromo Tower of Baltimore!

Actually, it was the Palazzo Vecchio, but architect Joseph Evans Sperry used the tower of this 14th-century structure as inspiration for the 1911 Emerson Bromo-Seltzer Tower. Sperry's client was Captain Isaac Emerson, a sea captain and inventor of Bromo Seltzer.

The 15-story tower was originally topped by a 51-foot revolving replica of the deep-blue Bromo Seltzer bottle. Brightly illuminated at night, ships sailing up the Chesapeake to Baltimore would navigate by it. Until the Baltimore Trust Company Building claimed the title in 1924, the Bromo Tower was the tallest structure in Baltimore.

Since 1936, the Bromo Tower has been bottle-less, and by the sixties, the building itself had deteriorated.

The Baltimore Office of Promotion and Arts did a great job renovating the Bromo Tower just a few years ago. The former office building is now leased out as studios for artists.

In the photo above, the curved shape is the revolving rooftop restaurant of the Holiday Inn. Well, it doesn't revolve anymore, and the restaurant, Circle One closed in 1974, but there it is. It's only claim to fame is that the Beatles, on September 13, 1964, played a concert at Baltimore's Civic Center, just across the street, and then stayed overnight in the then-brand-new hotel. By the way, they did get to dine in the revolving rooftoop restaurant, and back then, it did revolve.

One West Pratt

Here's a closeup view the newer, western section of the Baltimore Convention Center. The repeated triangular truss design elements make it a very strong-looking building. Another exception to Baltimore's unfortunate dearth of fine examples of modern and post-modern architecture.

Taken with Ben's Canon A630 digicam. This is from this morning's walk to work from the Light Rail. My stop is right across the street from this part of the Convention Center. It was a dull morning, so I bumped up the saturation, which also bumped up the noise in the sky. So even though this is an 8MP sensor and the exposure used ISO 80, noise can still be a problem in these little cameras.

I pretty much cropped in-camera for this one, but then I cropped just a little more to get the little blue (sky) triangle as negative space at upper left. See all the positive and negative space triangles in this image? Do you think it worked here?

Lighthouse

D200 24mm

On my back shooting up the inside of the St. Augustine Lighthouse. No need for an L.A. Fitness in this town.

St Augustine Old Town

D200 24mm

Sorry for not being around but we had lighting hit just outside the house and we lost our computer and connection to the internet.

Took a road trip to the oldest city in the U.S. I was up early and saw this man standing in the middle of the street looking a little lost.

SF Downtown Skyline, March 2008

Nikon D100, Tamron 24-135mm

Here's a seldom seen angle of SF's Downtown skyline as viewed from the west looking east.

People familiar with SF should recognize many of the tall buildings in the distance.

I often read the equipment-centric photo forums where someone would wax poetic about the "feel" of a particular camera body or the "signature" of a particular lens. While appreciating great gear is a perfectly good and worthy aspect of the hobby of photography, wouldn't all that equipment greatness be rendered irrelevant if the other factors were not up that standard? You know, factors such as light, composition, and subject, to name a few.

If the picture has an impact, if a picture makes you feel an emotion, if a picture has relevance to you, or if a picture brings visual and aesthetic pleasure, does it matter what camera and lens was used to create it?

--Warren

Alien Onions

Nikon D100, Tamron 24-135mm

Not really, just some interesting reflections on a UCSF Medical Center building.

--Warren

Trio

Nikon D100, Tamron 24-135mm

A trio of ladies heading up to see the sunset at Larsen's Peak in San Francisco.

--Warren

Red truck on a dark night

Taken with a Fuji F30 handheld at 1/4 sec., f3.4, ISO 400, 56mm 35 equivalent.

Playing with Shadows in SF

I was cruising around downtown San Francisco one afternoon on a day off and took this. I took it in color and the building was reddish brown, however, I was playing with it and it looked like an old photo of an old building when I converted it to black and white. I liked the way the shadows looked in b&w also.

I took the photo on the right on the way to work on Friday. I liked the way the shadows hit the wall. It was around 700 a.m.

--Eric

Hang Ah Alley

Nikon FM, Nikkor 35mm f2.8, Ilford XP2 Super

This was late in the day, and it seemed a bit desolate and with the requisite inner city grime and garbage strewn about.

This SF Chinatown alley should be very familiar to anyone who grew up in the area like I did.

It's quite a contrast to Steve R.'s recent photos from Baltimore's waterfront which always seems so bright and clean (probably Steve's choice of subject matter, right Steve?).

I debated about posting this because there doesn't seem to be a real point to the image other than to document an empty alley in Chinatown. Maybe the point is the emptiness? What do you think? Is it just another one of those countless images that you would see, check it our for about 10 seconds, and move on, or is there something in it that does something for you?

--Warren

More Canon XSi (450D) Photos

Yes, nothing like a New Toy to get the Old Boy out of a photo-slump. Pretty soon you'll be tired of seing these.

The rainbow picture was just a grab shot through my windshield on the way home Wednesday. The rest are from my walk from the Light Rail to work via Baltimore's Inner Harbor.

Row of Palms

Nikon FM, Nikkor 85mm f1.8D, Ilford XP2 Super

Trying to make the most of a mundane subject... just a row of large palm trees on Treasure Island.

--Warren

Who's Waiting?...

Nikon D100, Sigma 15-30mm @ 17mm

...That was my question when I saw this oddly placed message.

Seen on Treasure Island.

--Warren

Out Biking

Hey, everyone! I have been rather absent from here recently... Been training for a marathon and a couple bike trips that are coming up. Nothing too serious... just fun fitness!

Last Saturday there was a biking event called Flying Wheels here in Redmond, WA. There was about 3000 riders in distances ranging from 25 - 100 miles. Tyler and I decided to do the 50 miles. There were quite a few hills and some beautiful scenery!

I, of course, had my trusty little Canon PowerShot SD750 with me in a little pouch for easy shooting access! lol... Had a couple funny comments on the camera while we were out, as many riders were a bit more serious about the whole event, working their butts off to make good time.

However, with those climbs, you couldn't NOT work your butt off... I just... did it a lot slower than most other people! Either or, it was a lot of fun and I'd surely do again the same.

Canon XSi (450D) Photos

I got up an hour earlier today so that I could slowly wander the 3/4 mile from my Light Rail stop to work and take photos along the way with my brand-new Canon XSi.

Although I had my other two lenses with me, I stuck with the new kit lens, an 18-55mm EF-S IS (image-stablized) lens, in order to see how it performs.

I was very pleased with both the camera and lens; no doubt, some of this was due to the New Toy Effect. But several things jumped out at me:

First and foremost, compared to my old "original" 2003 Digital Rebel (D300), the camera comes to life instantly. The D300 took 2-1/2 seconds to "wake up." That is, when you first turned it on, it would take that long to be ready to shoot. Also, whenever it went to sleep to save power, usually after a minute or two of inactivity, it would again take 2-1/2 seconds to wake up. The XSi, on the other hand, comes alive instantly, both from a cold start and after a period of inactivity. All it takes is a half-press of the shutter button.

I've missed quite a few good shots, especially doing event photography, with the D300 because of the wake-up time. Now, it turns out this isn't something you need to buy the XSi for - each model subsequent to the D300 has had this: the XT, XTi, and now the XSi. It's a function of the improved image processing electronics since the D300.

On the other hand, one thing that is new to the XSi is Auto ISO. This means that I can walk around and the camera figures out, from the lighting conditions, shooting mode, and other factors, where to set the ISO "film speed." Before, I would usually set it at 400 and leave it there; for the sunny morning today, the XSi set it for me at 200. If I had continued taking photos indoors, it would probably have bumped it up for me as necessary. Very cool! This feature is something Nikon has had for a while, and it's about time Canon adopted it (I believed it first showed up in Canon's 40D.)

End of the Road

Nikon D100, Tamron 24-135mm

A lone cyclist looks out through the Golden Gate toward the ocean from Fort Point at the base of the Golden Gate Bridge. This shot was taken from the bridge looking down.

Interestingly, I was thinking "black & white" when I saw this composition in my mind.

--Warren

Photo of the Yashica GSN

Note the broken glass over the light gathering window. However, it doesn't seem to affect anything. I also use a generic black rubber collapsible 55mm hood, which was taken off for this photo. Kitty says this camera smells much better than those evil digital ones :D

Film photo from a Yashica GSN

This was taken with an old '70s or so rangefinder, the Yashica GSN. I used Fuji 400 color negative film. No photoshop, or cropping. Processing and scanning by Costco. I don't recall the aperture, and knowing what shutter speed used with the GSN is tricky. I do recall trying to narrow the DOF but I could not get to f1.7 as the film was too fast, and the light too bright, so probably f2 or f2.8, and likely close to 1/500.

Canon Digital Rebel XSi

After almost five years of using my Canon Digital Rebel (the original model,) I just replaced it with a new Digital Rebel XSi (also called 450D.) Ben now has my hand-me-down Rebel, which still works fine.

I didn't get my hands on my new camera until arriving home from work today, so I charged the battery while I mowed the lawn, had dinner, and then took a few test shots.

Here's one of my first test shots. I wanted to see how well the Image Stabilization (IS) works - and it seems to work fine. This is the whole .jpg, untouched, shot at 1/20 sec and f/7.1 zoomed out to 55mm. This is equivalent to 90mm on 35mm, so normally, you'd want to hand-hold at 1/90 sec or higher, so shooting at 1/20 sec represents about two f-stops. The Auto-ISO function picked ISO 800 for this one.

Here's a 100% crop centered on the point of focus. Bear in mind that this looks much larger than the writing is in real life. Note that you can see the half-tone pattern in the background. I'd say the IS eliminated shake completely.

Here's the classic self-portrait-in-mirror that every photographer, from rank novice to professional, seems compelled to take.

I set the camera for ISO 1600, the camera's highest setting, to see if the images would be usable at this level of sensitivity. In this case, I adjusted levels in Photoshop to improve the color, but I did no sharpening. In general, I'd say this image is very usable. Exposure was 1/40 sec at f/5.7, with the lens at 36mm.


Here's a 100% crop of a portion of the ISO 1600 photo. Notice that even with the levels adjustment, the noise isn't all that bad. Don't forget, if this were an 8x10 print, you'd have to look with a very strong magnifier to see this level of detail.


For comparison, here is a 100% crop where Auto ISO set the ISO at 800. Exposure was 1/16 sec at f/5.7, also at 36mm. Here, I adjusted levels and used unsharp mask to first do contrast sharpening and then general sharpening.

So far, so good! I'll take some real photos over the next few days and report back.

Quackers - Riding the DUKW in Philly

Sandy, Mom and I headed up to Philly yesterday to visit our babies, Leah and Ben (now 26 and 22.) The kids wanted to go on a "Ride the Ducks" tour of Philadelphia for their recent birthdays, so that's what we did.

The "Ducks" are really WWII DUKW amphibious trucks - you can read all about them here. Several cities, including Philadelphia, Baltimore, Boston, and Bramson have commerical operations that take people on street-and-water tours. The Philly tour is excellent at 70 minutes long, with 20 minutes in the Delaware river.


Here, another DUKW off our starboard bow passes under the Ben Franklin Bridge as we head back to shore. Now, if you imagine the bridge not being there, the DUKW painted in olive drab, the sunshade gone, the DUKW being full of troops instead of tourists, hundreds more DUKWs instead of just the one, the weather being much, much worse, the water much choppier, shells exploding all around, and machine gun fire raking the water, why it would be just like D-Day.

As a child of the late '50s and '60s, I'm a big Three Stooges fan. So you can bet I was impressed when our DUKW tour guide pointed out the birthplace of Louis Feinberg, aka Larry Fine.

Being, to borrow a phrase from John McCain, "old as dirt," I actually saw the stooges, including Larry, live in 1962 at Gwynn Oak Amusement Park in Baltimore. The Stooges by then were already in their 60's but put on a fully animated show for us kids that, to our delight, showed no respect for their age.

Nyuk-nyuk-nyuk-nyuk-nyuk!

Union Square Wedding Party

Nikon FM, Nikkor 35mm f2.8, Ilford XP2 Super

How about a street shot for a change?

One of our city walks led us to have coffee at Union Square and I saw this wedding party walk up for some pictures.

--Warren

Eric Shooting on Treasure Island

Nikon FM, Nikkor 85mm f1.8D, Ilford XP2 Super

It was a cold, hazy, and windy day on Treasure Island, but I don't think Eric was feeling it because of his excitement over using his new D40 :).

I brought my FM along with my D100 so that I cold finish the roll of XP2 in the FM.

--Warren

View of Yosemite Falls from a Meadow

Nikon D100, Sigma 15-30mm

Here's another one for all you fans of my Yosemite pictures.

We've been to Yosemite so many times that it is a challenge to make a picture that is "different". To get warmed up and into the photography "groove", we go to the usual view points and we take the standard shots. This is true of any place with spectacular scenery, you feel compelled to take pictures of it even though you and everyone else have taken hundreds of pictures from the exact same spot before. Take Yosemite Falls, for example, it's true that each time, the scene is just little bit different, the weather, the fullness of the falls, the shadows on the granite, the color of the trees, etc. I'm sure that showing one of those "standard" shots would still impress by virtue of the subject matter. However, I believe that it is even more satisfying to see and create a new view of a particular subject. It takes time, willingness, patience, and a "practiced eye", to really observe the scenery around you.

This picture was taken in the meadow between Sentinel Bridge and Yosemite Falls. On this trip, we decided to stay and hike primarily in the valley. We hiked in the valley from one end to the other. After breakfast, we took took a shuttle to the Sentinel Bridge stop to see if the clouds have lifted from Half Dome. Half Dome was still covered in clouds so we decided to begin our walk by going through the meadow. The park service built wooden paths across the meadows in the valley in order to save the meadows from being trampled by park visitors (see my previous shot in a different meadow: "Meadow People"). As Gail walked ahead, I took my time on the path, snapping various shots along the way. As I walked along, I noticed that because it was still early summer, the falls were full and the rivers were high, and there was a lot water in this meadow. Then I came upon this particular swatch of water that was rather dramatically curved and I saw the reflection of Upper Yosemite Falls in the water. I immediately thought to myself, "Now here's a scene that you don't usually see!". I had to capture that scene as I saw it that morning. During any other time of the year, the meadow would be dry.

I decided to travel light on this trip, but most fortunately, I decided to include my Sigma 15-30mm in my kit (as my only other lens). My Tamron 24-135mm was on the camera at the time, and the 24mm was not wide enough to show what the image that I had already framed in my mind. The path was narrow, so there was no space for the "sneaker zoom technique"(walking back and forth). So I quickly put down my backpack and swapped lenses before anything changed. The winds were calm at that moment which made the reflection more pristine. I took 3 shots in total, the first two were overexposed, so I switched to manual exposure to compensate and got the shot that you see here.

I hope you enjoyed this story.


--Warren

Looking for some grub, or a hand.

D200 / 70mm

We had stopped at a rest area between Naples and Fort Lauderdale, swamp area. I walked over to an open area of water and found this little guy looking for grub....or your hand.

The colors in the water from all the natural chemicals in the water off set his, or her, body.

That's Southern for "Seder"...

Yes, this post is almost two months late - this seder was on the first night of Passover, April 19th. But I wanted to show off Aunt Andi's seder table - definitely the nicest one I've ever seen.

The exquisite job of napkin-folding was courtesy of my wife, Sandy, who flew down to Birmingham, AL, a day early to help Andi with preparations. The rest of us (Mom, Leah, Ben and I) came down Friday afternoon.

It was a short trip, but worth every second, since we got to see Andi and my Cyber-Uncle Joe, first cousin Brian and his lovely wife Lisa.


To mark this as an official seder, Mom supervised the baking of one of her famous mandeltorten; you can see Leah and Ben here as Ben takes a bite. It's amazing - covered with a thick layer of chocolate and raspberry jam between the two layers. The cake itself is made from almond meal, and therefore strictly Kosher for Passover.

By the way, I keep on lobbying for Chinese Food at our next seder, but I can't seem to get the rest of the gang to take me seriously!