A friend of mine entered a contest from the weather channel. The picture she entered was SPECTACULAR - a magnificent picture of a monsoon, the setting colors of the sun behind it, the rain so thick it was dark purple, and a lightening bolt through the middle of it. The bolt lit up the cloud. It's one of those pictures where you were lucky, but she was in the right spot where luck would happen. And she caught it.
It was tweeted all over, picked up by GMA and other areas. The Weather Channel put on a contest and she entered it. There were a number of images that were obviously composited (against the rules), and the 'like' inputs were obviously hacked. In the end, she made the finals. 25 images for weather, along with two other subjects. It was then handed to the judges for final ruling.
Have you entered a contest and poured your heart and soul into it? Your life, love and passion are poured into one thing - in this case an image. Your friends say you can't miss. Critics have a hard time pinning down things without making personal attacks (a sure sign you're winning). And you watch, waiting, for the results.
And when the results come in, you're name isn't on it. Squat. And the world starts to implode. Why would these other images win, when this one single pictures was just so spectacular? And look how much heart was put into it!!!!
My advise: 1) Don't enter contests. 2) The results are not rated on how much heart was put into it. 3) Don't let this contest determine the worth of your picture or your total worth, period. 4) (and most important) It's all SUBJECTIVE. Maybe one of the judges doesn't like the color purple! It really can be as simple as that!
It takes a while to recover from what you perceive as failure. But it was far from it. She didn't win the contest, but her twitter follower count went WAY up, including producers from some big network TV and weather stations. She's on the radar. Her work made it into the finals - and she shot an image that I would have LOVED to have shot. Her many friends rallied around when they recognized she was depressed and brought her around. She won. Maybe not this one contest, but in life and with photography in general, she won.
Don't let the bastar..... us, stoopid people get you down.
Sunday, August 10, 2014
Monday, January 13, 2014
Oh, eye see!
It's been a while. Again. And what is my stupid flimsy excuse this time? Howzabout a cataract. Yup - the lens in my one good seeing eye got all cloudy and stuff. It didn't happen suddenly, but the fix sure was.
You go into a hospital room, they numb and dilate your eye, clamp the eye lids open (they do keep the eye nice and hydrated), then put in two small holes on the outside part of the iris. One to remove the old lens, the other to put in the new one. It was hard to see a difference right away because of the dilation - but the next day was amazing. Contrast was back, and colors were vibrant again. Especially blue! The sky! A cataract will cause a yellowish cloudy haze in the lens. Yellow is the antithesis of blue so blue is gradually absorbed. When a clear lens was put in, blue POPPED! Even white cars were light blue (to me)!
So what does this have to do with my blog? I've gradually been going out less and less taking pictures of stuff. I still attended Reno for the Air Races and tryouts, I still went to Photoshop World, I still did a lot of the big stuff, but the small stuff simply stopped. I didn't really have an interest. Trying to see airplanes travelling at 500mph low to the ground so I can grab a picture of them, all the time not being able to make them out due to contrast and focus issues, was very frustrating. I've come to realize that it's the small stuff that makes this business/hobby such a blast.
The only problem I have now is that the eye has a pretty good sized astigmatism so I still wear my glasses from before the surgery, if anything so that I can read close up. I get a new prescription in a few days so we'll see how focus will be refined. Looking forward to it...
You go into a hospital room, they numb and dilate your eye, clamp the eye lids open (they do keep the eye nice and hydrated), then put in two small holes on the outside part of the iris. One to remove the old lens, the other to put in the new one. It was hard to see a difference right away because of the dilation - but the next day was amazing. Contrast was back, and colors were vibrant again. Especially blue! The sky! A cataract will cause a yellowish cloudy haze in the lens. Yellow is the antithesis of blue so blue is gradually absorbed. When a clear lens was put in, blue POPPED! Even white cars were light blue (to me)!
So what does this have to do with my blog? I've gradually been going out less and less taking pictures of stuff. I still attended Reno for the Air Races and tryouts, I still went to Photoshop World, I still did a lot of the big stuff, but the small stuff simply stopped. I didn't really have an interest. Trying to see airplanes travelling at 500mph low to the ground so I can grab a picture of them, all the time not being able to make them out due to contrast and focus issues, was very frustrating. I've come to realize that it's the small stuff that makes this business/hobby such a blast.
The only problem I have now is that the eye has a pretty good sized astigmatism so I still wear my glasses from before the surgery, if anything so that I can read close up. I get a new prescription in a few days so we'll see how focus will be refined. Looking forward to it...
Tuesday, November 20, 2012
Oh, my God. What did I do?
When I realized that I had lost 5 months of pictures (August thru December, 2011), that's what I said. "Oh, my God. What did I do?" I preach backups. I preach making sure you are sure that your data is reasonably safe. Backup to two externals, keep one safe at home (in a safe if you have one), and the other off-site (like at work). And here I loose 5 months of pictures. How? Thinking I had done a proper backup but without verifying it. Had to format a hard drive, so I had both backups at home, formatted the drive, then restored it - without verifying that the last 5 months of 2011 had NOT been backed up.
Ugh. It took me into a 100% depression. Gone. Disappeared. Memories - they're still in tact. But the pictures? MIA. And it was All. My. Fault. Stick a gun to my temple and pull the trigger.
So now I have at least one proper backup, and am making another. Am I so dumb and stupid to not doing this again? Dunno. I've already formatted memory cards without verifying I had already copied them to the computer. (Just did that last week at work.) Really? Am I getting that senile? Ugh.
So - why two copies? One is to protect against accidental deletion and/or hard drive failure. This one is the "parent". The version I reference on the primary hard drive is the "child". But what happens in the case of a catastrophic failure? Fire? Theft? Take an older copy - the 'grandparent' - off site to work or to a relative. To be completely covered, send it out of state. You could make a copy to put in a data-mine, but that's *really* expensive.
What to back up? I don't back up my system or applications. I can always restore those. The data is the part that once gone is gone. Back up the data. Pictures, taxes, Word/Excel documents - that stuff. And back it up twice.
Enough. I was able to use a utility and at least get some of the previews out of Lightroom into JPEGs, so all is not lost. But it hurts that they're reduced/downsized images rather than the full and final product. And I also was able to download the images I uploaded to Zenfolio, so I have full-sized versions of the final product. But I'm the kind of guy who always finds something else to fiddle with, and it's always a good practice not to change a picture that has been changed.
Time to get back to freezing time. 1/250th of a second at a time.
Ugh. It took me into a 100% depression. Gone. Disappeared. Memories - they're still in tact. But the pictures? MIA. And it was All. My. Fault. Stick a gun to my temple and pull the trigger.
So now I have at least one proper backup, and am making another. Am I so dumb and stupid to not doing this again? Dunno. I've already formatted memory cards without verifying I had already copied them to the computer. (Just did that last week at work.) Really? Am I getting that senile? Ugh.
So - why two copies? One is to protect against accidental deletion and/or hard drive failure. This one is the "parent". The version I reference on the primary hard drive is the "child". But what happens in the case of a catastrophic failure? Fire? Theft? Take an older copy - the 'grandparent' - off site to work or to a relative. To be completely covered, send it out of state. You could make a copy to put in a data-mine, but that's *really* expensive.
What to back up? I don't back up my system or applications. I can always restore those. The data is the part that once gone is gone. Back up the data. Pictures, taxes, Word/Excel documents - that stuff. And back it up twice.
Enough. I was able to use a utility and at least get some of the previews out of Lightroom into JPEGs, so all is not lost. But it hurts that they're reduced/downsized images rather than the full and final product. And I also was able to download the images I uploaded to Zenfolio, so I have full-sized versions of the final product. But I'm the kind of guy who always finds something else to fiddle with, and it's always a good practice not to change a picture that has been changed.
Time to get back to freezing time. 1/250th of a second at a time.
Saturday, September 8, 2012
*sigh*
It's been over a year, (two years?) since an update was made to this blog. Why?
1) Lots of effort for very little payout.
2) I don't read blogs, so why am I writting one?
3) Depression.
And #3 is the primary reason. Depression about what? Photography? Yeah. Exactly that. Don't get me wrong, I love taking pictures. But I'm taking less and less of what I love and want to shoot, and more and more time is given to stuff.
Time management? HA! HAHAHA! In fact, HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! In this day and age of setting up meetings via Microsoft Outlook, where someone schedules a meeting on my calendar without my prior knowledge, my ability to control my own time is given to someone else. And this results in more time spent at work, working less and less on what I do - what I love. And as more requests come in, and more meetings are pointlessly spent in trying to figure out how to spend our time, I find myself more and more at work doing less and less. I try to get in around 5:45 a.m., which means I'm out of the house around 4:10. My day ends around 3:30-3:45. But for some, I get meetings scheduled at 3:00, and they run late because "Nobody has another meeting to run off to, right?" (Me) "Well, yeah. I do. I need to get on the road to miss traffic." (Them) "But this is important. Right?" (My alter-ego) "Are you saying YOU are more important than my FAMILY?" (Me - in reality) "Right. *sigh* Fine." On the road around 4:30 or 5:00. 12 hour day. And if I do get out at 3:30, my trip home is around 50 minutes. If I get out around 4:30 or 5:00, the trip home can be an hour and a half. By the time I do get home, I'm whupped.
Just go to bed early? HA! I double-dog dare you to try and fall asleep before 11 in this neighborhood/household. By the time Friday roles around, I'm a walking zombie. So instead of doing what I love to do, or even what I need to do (around the house), I'm in a recovering vegetative state waiting to do it all over again.
Recently, I went to Photoshop World. I needed a major realignment in my views of photography, and this event usually does the trick. But this year, I went home in tears. Completely depressed. Completely feeling like an utter failure. Why? Because I love photography, and I can't do it. One thing was pounded in loud and clear: Practice, and practice often. Jay Maisel (google him) takes some of the most incredible New York people/place pictures I've seen. He's 81, and heads out each day to snap pictures. Me? I'm stuck in traffic. Stuck in meetings. Stuck in hell.
So yeah, it's been a while since I've updated this thing. Sorry to drag you down, but it took Photoshop World to help me see what's wrong.
So what can I do about it? My time is still not my time. That's a part of the new order of things. I can't block out time on the calendar, because even if they call first, the meetings will still happen on THEIR time. Retire? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! In this day and age? With the politicians plucking everything they can from every friggin pocket at every turn? Promising wealth and good fortune for all while we continue the fall from the cliff we jumped over years ago - and not pulling the parachute cord? Give me a break. I'm still too young. (55) I'd owe too much taxes and would still have to work.
So what can I do about it? Two things.
1) Accept it for what it is. It sucks, but I know it. Not too much I can do about it. Why fight it? That's what's leading to this depression in the first place.
2) Do something that matters, that gets peoples attention, that makes it ALL WORTH IT!!! And do it with the vehicle I love using.
Not sure where this will take me, but for the first time in a very long time, I'm excited to do SOMETHING!
1) Lots of effort for very little payout.
2) I don't read blogs, so why am I writting one?
3) Depression.
And #3 is the primary reason. Depression about what? Photography? Yeah. Exactly that. Don't get me wrong, I love taking pictures. But I'm taking less and less of what I love and want to shoot, and more and more time is given to stuff.
Time management? HA! HAHAHA! In fact, HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! In this day and age of setting up meetings via Microsoft Outlook, where someone schedules a meeting on my calendar without my prior knowledge, my ability to control my own time is given to someone else. And this results in more time spent at work, working less and less on what I do - what I love. And as more requests come in, and more meetings are pointlessly spent in trying to figure out how to spend our time, I find myself more and more at work doing less and less. I try to get in around 5:45 a.m., which means I'm out of the house around 4:10. My day ends around 3:30-3:45. But for some, I get meetings scheduled at 3:00, and they run late because "Nobody has another meeting to run off to, right?" (Me) "Well, yeah. I do. I need to get on the road to miss traffic." (Them) "But this is important. Right?" (My alter-ego) "Are you saying YOU are more important than my FAMILY?" (Me - in reality) "Right. *sigh* Fine." On the road around 4:30 or 5:00. 12 hour day. And if I do get out at 3:30, my trip home is around 50 minutes. If I get out around 4:30 or 5:00, the trip home can be an hour and a half. By the time I do get home, I'm whupped.
Just go to bed early? HA! I double-dog dare you to try and fall asleep before 11 in this neighborhood/household. By the time Friday roles around, I'm a walking zombie. So instead of doing what I love to do, or even what I need to do (around the house), I'm in a recovering vegetative state waiting to do it all over again.
Recently, I went to Photoshop World. I needed a major realignment in my views of photography, and this event usually does the trick. But this year, I went home in tears. Completely depressed. Completely feeling like an utter failure. Why? Because I love photography, and I can't do it. One thing was pounded in loud and clear: Practice, and practice often. Jay Maisel (google him) takes some of the most incredible New York people/place pictures I've seen. He's 81, and heads out each day to snap pictures. Me? I'm stuck in traffic. Stuck in meetings. Stuck in hell.
So yeah, it's been a while since I've updated this thing. Sorry to drag you down, but it took Photoshop World to help me see what's wrong.
So what can I do about it? My time is still not my time. That's a part of the new order of things. I can't block out time on the calendar, because even if they call first, the meetings will still happen on THEIR time. Retire? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! In this day and age? With the politicians plucking everything they can from every friggin pocket at every turn? Promising wealth and good fortune for all while we continue the fall from the cliff we jumped over years ago - and not pulling the parachute cord? Give me a break. I'm still too young. (55) I'd owe too much taxes and would still have to work.
So what can I do about it? Two things.
1) Accept it for what it is. It sucks, but I know it. Not too much I can do about it. Why fight it? That's what's leading to this depression in the first place.
2) Do something that matters, that gets peoples attention, that makes it ALL WORTH IT!!! And do it with the vehicle I love using.
Not sure where this will take me, but for the first time in a very long time, I'm excited to do SOMETHING!
Sunday, September 19, 2010
To trap old things in time - a very, long time
Some things change, some things don't. We don't accept change very well, so we document what things were like *before* change. Some of you know I like to head over to Disneyland every now and then (we're passholders) and just shoot around. I give myself projects and it helps train my photographic eye since it is a target-rich environment. But this last time was different.
They're changing California Adventure - and for the better. The whole park is getting a make over. New rides, old ones taken out, and a general re-theme/re-design/re-thought of the genre. They're going to make it like the Hollywood when Walt showed his first animated movie: Snow White. The whole entrance will go art-deco and be like the Hollywood of '29, complete with a Red Car Trolley. But that means the San Fransisco Bridge is now out of place. So are the murals. And the entrance CALIFORNIA is no longer going to fit. The sun in the middle of the square will be the new location for the Carthay Theater, so it's going as well.
I heard they were going to put up some walls and start demolition shortly after Labor Day, and I *really* wanted to get a good evening shot of the CALIFORNIA letter. You know the kind - drop dead gorgeous indigo blue skies. But that time of day is a very busy time and there's no way I could ever get the shot I wanted. No people, just the murals, the CALIFORNIA, the Golden Gate and the Sun. So I did the next best thing: I headed over to the parks at 5 a.m. in the morning. On Labor Day (so there would be no traffic worries). And with my luck, it was overcast. Well, the blue skies will still be there, they just won't last very long. I got there just before they were coming out of black and shot around. I then set up the tripod, and with only having to wait for a service truck to move out of the way, I shot the letters with the compass in the Esplinade. You'll see how the skies go from blue to grey - in about 10 minutes. But my taks was done.
THEN I head the walls were going to go up around the Sun the following Thursday, so my wife and I headed over on Wednesday. Yup, overcast. Oh well - same thing, but this time, the blue comes right before the black and I had to be quick. I set up and did some test snaps, then started to shoot as light faded. At last the magical indigo appeared and I shot like crazy. I also caught the murals in the day time and night, just in case.
So yeah, I'm excited to see the changes. I'm sad to see the mural go away, but it leaves not because of the craftsmanship but because of very poor planning in the first place. We'll see how it turns out. In the mean time, here's the pictures of stuff that is (as I write this) being torn down:
Esplinade and the CALIFORNIA letters:
http://www.thecalderwoods.org/tom/DCA-100906/
The Sunshine Plaza:
http://www.thecalderwoods.org/tom/DCA-100908/
Enjoy! Comments and criticism always welcome.
They're changing California Adventure - and for the better. The whole park is getting a make over. New rides, old ones taken out, and a general re-theme/re-design/re-thought of the genre. They're going to make it like the Hollywood when Walt showed his first animated movie: Snow White. The whole entrance will go art-deco and be like the Hollywood of '29, complete with a Red Car Trolley. But that means the San Fransisco Bridge is now out of place. So are the murals. And the entrance CALIFORNIA is no longer going to fit. The sun in the middle of the square will be the new location for the Carthay Theater, so it's going as well.
I heard they were going to put up some walls and start demolition shortly after Labor Day, and I *really* wanted to get a good evening shot of the CALIFORNIA letter. You know the kind - drop dead gorgeous indigo blue skies. But that time of day is a very busy time and there's no way I could ever get the shot I wanted. No people, just the murals, the CALIFORNIA, the Golden Gate and the Sun. So I did the next best thing: I headed over to the parks at 5 a.m. in the morning. On Labor Day (so there would be no traffic worries). And with my luck, it was overcast. Well, the blue skies will still be there, they just won't last very long. I got there just before they were coming out of black and shot around. I then set up the tripod, and with only having to wait for a service truck to move out of the way, I shot the letters with the compass in the Esplinade. You'll see how the skies go from blue to grey - in about 10 minutes. But my taks was done.
THEN I head the walls were going to go up around the Sun the following Thursday, so my wife and I headed over on Wednesday. Yup, overcast. Oh well - same thing, but this time, the blue comes right before the black and I had to be quick. I set up and did some test snaps, then started to shoot as light faded. At last the magical indigo appeared and I shot like crazy. I also caught the murals in the day time and night, just in case.
So yeah, I'm excited to see the changes. I'm sad to see the mural go away, but it leaves not because of the craftsmanship but because of very poor planning in the first place. We'll see how it turns out. In the mean time, here's the pictures of stuff that is (as I write this) being torn down:
Esplinade and the CALIFORNIA letters:
http://www.thecalderwoods.org/tom/DCA-100906/
The Sunshine Plaza:
http://www.thecalderwoods.org/tom/DCA-100908/
Enjoy! Comments and criticism always welcome.
Sunday, August 22, 2010
Point Mugu Air Show - 2010
I really like to shoot air shows. One of the fvorites is at Point Mugu Navel Air Station in Ventura County, California. Why? They're right on the coast line which usually means you get some great vapor off of the tops of the wings. The main headliner is also the Air Force Thunderbirds - which is a twist to have an Air Force team at a Navel Air station, huh?
The day before was very overcast but I had a fireworks show to help out at in Irvine (for the Pacific Symphony). We went on a Sunday. Although the day started overcast, the fog soon burned off and we had bright, blue skies. There were some vapor trails, to be sure, just not as much as they had the day before.
As the day went on, there was a patch of sky that if a plane flew through it, there were trails so I tried to catch them at the exact right time. You'll see some of these with the Thunderbirds.
It was a great time to spend with my son, and the drive home was actually not nearly as bad as I was expecting - which was a bonus since I was *exhausted*.
Pictures are here:
http://tccphotography.zenfolio.com/p161650680
The day before was very overcast but I had a fireworks show to help out at in Irvine (for the Pacific Symphony). We went on a Sunday. Although the day started overcast, the fog soon burned off and we had bright, blue skies. There were some vapor trails, to be sure, just not as much as they had the day before.
As the day went on, there was a patch of sky that if a plane flew through it, there were trails so I tried to catch them at the exact right time. You'll see some of these with the Thunderbirds.
It was a great time to spend with my son, and the drive home was actually not nearly as bad as I was expecting - which was a bonus since I was *exhausted*.
Pictures are here:
http://tccphotography.zenfolio.com/p161650680
Sunday, July 25, 2010
American Heroes Air Show
So, many of you know that I like to shoot fireworks. And to shoot fireworks. (http://www.pyrotography.com/) A fellow pyro discovered that I also like to shoot air shows and asked if I would like to be one of the staff photographers for the American Heroes Air Show at Hansen Dam in northern L.A. county. And I jumped at the chance. There are two staff photogs and the other spot was from a fellow who had been shooting there already. Being a staff photog meant that I got to get a whole lot closer to the helos, although when they were in flight, I could not be under them or any closer than one parking spot from them. For non-staff folks, you had to be a minimum of 200' from the tip of either rotor blade.
So they also set up a photographer's pen. It didn't cost anything, but you did have to sign a waiver and permission form. My son was available that day to go to the show so I took him along. Graciously, they let him shoot with the photographer's in the pen.
My morning shots were pointed towards the sun - the pen had the sun over their shoulder. Oh well - it made for some dramatic shots from me.
It was a long, hot, tiring, sunburnt day - and I loved it. I also found out that whenever a helo is in the area, you also got stuff stirred up. Like dust, things in the dust, cut grass, pollen, trash - the works. Next time, I wear a dust respirator.
Kyle's shots are here:
http://tccphotography.zenfolio.com/p835965155
My shots are here:
http://tccphotography.zenfolio.com/p969671697
Fun stuff!
So they also set up a photographer's pen. It didn't cost anything, but you did have to sign a waiver and permission form. My son was available that day to go to the show so I took him along. Graciously, they let him shoot with the photographer's in the pen.
My morning shots were pointed towards the sun - the pen had the sun over their shoulder. Oh well - it made for some dramatic shots from me.
It was a long, hot, tiring, sunburnt day - and I loved it. I also found out that whenever a helo is in the area, you also got stuff stirred up. Like dust, things in the dust, cut grass, pollen, trash - the works. Next time, I wear a dust respirator.
Kyle's shots are here:
http://tccphotography.zenfolio.com/p835965155
My shots are here:
http://tccphotography.zenfolio.com/p969671697
Fun stuff!
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