Seeing Stars… aka Star Trails

While in Colorado earlier this month, I tried to capture a few star trail photos.  I understand the concept pretty well; basically long exposure shots of the night sky, but without having done them before, they aren’t as easy as they look.  The key to getting some interesting shots is to have a good foreground to anchor it.  Otherwise, it’s just some arcs of light.  I think even a silhouette of something would work.  Here’s a few from a campsite just outside of Fruita, CO.  These trees were illuminated by a nearby tungsten light from the campgrounds.   Luckily, it was a relatively windless night, keeping the leaves still enough to get some detail.  Anyway, I’m pleased with the results.  I’ll be trying it again sometime soon, but now that I’m back in Michigan, the mosquitoes are not really convincing me that I want to spend time outside at night… But perhaps, when it gets a little colder, I might try to make it out for some photos.

This last one is actually from later in the week, in Estes Park, of what I believe is Long’s Peak.

A Few from the South East Side…

I returned from Vietnam a few weeks back, and although I’ve been slow in working on these photos, I have to admit, I’ve got a good excuse. Although, maybe that’s a story for another time. I just thought I’d share a few photos from Vietnam. I haven’t made my way through all of them, but when I do, I’m sure I’ll let you know.

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What I’ve Been Up To Since My Last Post…

Sup, blog!  It’s been a while.  I’ve been lacking inspiration lately.  It’s probably the weather.  I’ve done some photos since the last photo post, but not enough.  Here’s what I’ve done…

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I’ll be doing some more in the next few months as I go on a few different journeys.  Went to The Flash Bus tour and found a lot of inspiration, especially for lighting and portraits.  It was led by Joe McNally (one of my photog heroes) and David Hobby (one of the innovators in the strobist world), and I definitely learned a lot, and look forward to putting that to good use in the near future.  I’ll be heading for Vietnam, and then hopefully, travelling and photographing for the summer, so hope to get some better posts up in the next few months!  Until then…

South Africa Trip: Day Six – The Way to Kalk Bay

Saturday June 19
Jenny rented a car and we (Rob, Jenny, Jenny’s friend-Danielle, and I) drove down to Kalk Bay.  The drive offered some really beautiful vistas (aka, some nice views, but said in a very hoity-toity way).  It took about 45 minutes or so to get to kalk bay.  It was nice to leave cape town for a bit and see a bit of what the country looked like outside of the city.
Kalk Bay is a nice seaside town; small and quaint, but even out here, world cup fever was abundant.  Bafana Bafana jerseys, south Africa flags displayed in windows, on store fronts, and around town.  We wandered a bit; Jenny bought a Obama Action Figure for Enoch, and I bought a couple of drawings from a nice little store…
And wandered into the Kalk Bay Railway House, which looked like it was converted into an estate auction of an elderly couple that passed away.
We ate at Cape to Cuba.  I was not impressed.
We also saw some seals.
And we saw other things.
Later on that night, we made pizzas for dinner.  I had banana on my pizza for the first time.  It definitely won’t be the last.
The end.

South Africa: Day Five – Royale with Cheese

Friday, June 18, 2010
Berto and Amanda left for their Commitmentmoon in Addo Elephant Park, so Rob and I struck out on our own to explore the other offerings of Cape Town.  We peeked into some stores so I could get a good idea of what some nice gifts would be to return to the states with for the fam.
They worried about my well-being over here (they told me not to get eaten by lions, but truth be told, the lions are the ones who should be worried about me eating them!).  We ended going to Royale for lunch.  The Brits that were in my hostel at the Aloha lodge told me about this place, so I thought we’d try it, and I was not disappointed.  The burgers were awesomely juicy, and savory, and I don’t know how else to describe food, but probably one of the best burgers I’ve ever had.  I had a burger with chopped bacon and peppadews (sweet, tangy, peppers with a slight hint of heat) mixed into the beef patty, with some sweet potato fries.  Awesome.  (although, this was basically day 5 of me having barely any veggies… don’t tell my parents though, they’d be pissed, and won’t let me go outside to play until I had some veggies.  They would always say that veggies would help keep you cool.  I still don’t believe that.)
We walked around for a bit longer (and saw the sign below… hover over it for the caption) and ended up back at Jenny’s place to watch the Slovania vs USA game.

The US team came back from a 0-2 deficit to tie up the game, but they were robbed of the win by the ref calling an unknown foul after a free kick (which went in).  It was a sad way to end the game, considering the USA would have lead  the group after that win, but with the England game on later that night, we’d see how the rest of the group stood.  Rob, Jenny and I had trouble deciding on what to eat, but I picked the Thai place across the street from the Viet restaurant (which also, strangely, serves sushi).
After dinner, we made it down to the Long Street Cafe to watch the England vs. Algeria game, which ended up being quite boring, due to the resulting 0-0 draw.  With smoke drying out my eyes (you forget what it’s like, but banning smoking in bars was the best idea ever), we called it a night…