From The Archives

Another week with no new photos.
This is over a year old, from a camera club meeting at Starbucks.
Always liked this picture.

I would like to mention here that I loathe the smell of coffee, and therefore buying books is torture because every bookstore has a Starbucks or in the case of Half-Price brews their own stinky mud.
When we held our meetings in the coffee shops it wasn't pleasant for me and I would edit what I said just to save time and get out of there as soon as I could.

A quick visit to Austin is happening soon, so I should be able to bring home something good for y'all to see.
Maybe I'll get to kick a dirty hippie or two.

Scraping The Bottom Of The Barrel

I really haven't been shooting anything except my three bands since getting the new camera.
An outing was planned for Sunday but the weather didn't cooperate, and it's been raining sporadically all week.

So here's a picture of my new pocketknife.
It's a liner-lock, and the handle's camo pattern is printed on a rubber coating.
Quite small at only 5 3/4" open, I really like it although a clip would have been a nice feature.

Geese Have Blue Eyes?

This was taken on the banks of the Guadalupe River in Kerrville Texas, an hour drive northwest of San Antonio.
The location is behind a nightclub where I have worked at least once a month since March.
Every time we play there I take a few shots of this same goose, but nothing has pleased me until last Saturday evening's attempt.

Context



Composition



Close-Up



I'm glad I bought the 2-lens kit right from the start (saving more than $100).
The 55-200mm is a great asset.
Changing lenses in dark and smokey nightclubs or on the dusty banks of a river fills me with dread because I'm exposing my camera's delicate guts to the elements every single time, but after seeing some results from choosing the right tool for the job I'm always glad I forced myself to just do it.

Kids & Flashlights

These were from our mini-vacation to the Rio Grande Valley:

Izabella is around 18 months old. She's talking a little when people let her, including my name which surprised everyone.

I gave her the backup flashlight from my camera bag as a bribe so I could get our car keys out of her little hands.

She seemed to enjoy playing with it except for the times I stealthily turned it off.


Our thanks to her parents for the wonderful hospitality. We had a great time.

Where Have I Been? In Bliss.

Literally, the band.
Figuratively, my new camera.

The unknown scares me sometimes, and all the research in the world can't replace concrete results under my particular operating conditions. It's a given that my new camera will kick ass when I'm walking around in the sunshine, but in a dark nightclub with variable light sources at variable distances...?

Let's just say that I'm really happy right now.

Under a tiny 12volt lamp that's the same as most older car's interior dome light, 200mm-e and 1/30th of a second handheld, both the image stabilization and iso1600 do a good job here. Noisy, but sharp.

At 27mm-e this is the most blatantly wide-angle shot I have ever taken.

Being forced to stay with 1/30 shutter speed was a bit of a let-down due to my two lenses being on the "slow" side, but it always worked artistically when a blurred drumstick was appropriate and again, having IS means that I get more sharp results to choose from.

There was an added bonus from the club showing a few of my older photos on a TV over the stage all night. Sometimes it helped my new shots, and it made me feel good.

The new camera is a real pleasure to use and I'm enjoying the heck out of trying to push the envelope whenever possible.
But believe it or not, after 10 days I haven't gone much past 300 exposures.
A 3-day trip to the hurricane-damaged Rio Grande Valley only yielded 28 photos, mostly indoor snapshots.
A lot of things are going through my head, but forcing myself to shoot art isn't among them.
I just take it as it comes.
BLISS results were a major concern that I can stop worrying about now, so I'll be moving-on to the next phase of experiments.
If I get even half as many 'keepers' I'll be happy.