• Category Archives Photography

  • 365 posts.

    Posted on by beno Comment

    Sorry for breaking the Facebook link. It should be back working now.
    (It used to try and open Facebook ‘inside’ my site, they dont like that, so it broke. I now open a new tab or window on your computer when you click on the link and thus open it on its own. Seems to work fine here).

    I am not entirely happy with Facebook as the host for my 365 Project, but I have a lot of people asking to put the photos on there as they are on there…… Far more than those that know about my site…. I am also not sure about trying to drive a lot of traffic to my site… I kind of like that its a small and personal website… If people want to know more about who I am, they can Google me and take the effort to find this site and go from there… But a lot just want to look at photo a day and not care about who I am. Facebook is perfect for this.
    I really dont want to post to two sites, Facebook and my photo album here….. Im already unhappy that it takes so long to load either of those two pages for my Dad. Im trying to think of a way to have a really cut down super fast site for the project, but am coming up blank at the moment.

    Anyway, really long winded way of saying its day 12, I am working on some other personal project at the moment that I am really excited about… It ‘launches’ in about a week and three quarters, so after that I will turn my attention to the photo posting question.
    Till then, suffer the drunk frat boys crummy coding of a hopeless website that is Facebook and let me know if you have any thoughts on the matter!

    Bens 365 Project.


    Photography

  • Dual 365.

    Posted on by beno 3 Comments

    So, we are at it again.
    2 days ago I started my second 365 Project of taking one photo a day for a year.
    As you read a few days ago, I was thinking about what I could do as a 365 after finishing up my last one.
    2 nights after posting that, Zim showed up to hang out, of course we got talking about photography. A month a go, Zim started his third (or forth) attempt at doing a 365, he openly admitted that after some 26 odd days he was struggling a bit. That got us talking about what it would take to keep him (us) motivated.
    I flat out admitted that I would struggle with a stock standard 365. Having been there done that last year I did not really want to just do the same thing again. I said that I was more interested in learning how to see light and objects than taking the actual photo. This led us to talk about different ways to do that….. an hour latter we decided that a ‘themed’ 365 would keep us both interested.
    2 hours after that, we both decided that a dual, themed 365 Project would be the best way to advance our respective photography goals.
    For Zim, completing a 365. For me, taking 7 photos of the ‘one thing’ times 52 would help me think about what I am photographing.
    Last year, I would be really disappointed if I used my phone camera, this year, it matters not. Its more about seeing the theme, trying to get my head around what I am trying to photograph, more so than the actual photograph. Of course I am going to pick up some new skills, refine some that are a just developing, and hopefully round me out a little more.
    Bottom line, its not a competition, we are not competing for anything, or against each other in any way. You are the lucky ones that get to see two takes on 52 themes in a year. Simple as that.

    So, the only thing left after that, was where to post the photos.
    Dad, Gary and Dan, make sure you are sitting down…….
    We needed a site that could handle a bit of traffic (Zim has a pretty solid social media presence), is easy to post to from our mobile phones and is easy for people to view the photos. (2 a day, every day for a year.. thats a few photos!)……
    Yeah, so after about 4 hours talking it over, we settled on facebook….
    Ok, ok. just calm down…. let me make this c-r-y-s-t-a-l clear… you DO NOT HAVE TO BE ON Facebook to the see the photos!!!!!!!
    That was one thing I was really clear about. It had to be a public ‘like’ page. And so it its.
    xviistudios
    Just take a deep breath, click on the link and bookmark it… it will be ok. (I hope).
    Anyway, thats the only place I will be posting my photos, knowing Zim he will be posting his photo other places…. thats up to him.

    Right. Well. Hope you can bring yourself to follow along. Email me your comments to the photos if you have any.
    Enjoy.


    Photography

  • Vandenberg Air Force Base Launch.

    Posted on by beno 1 Comment

    I dont know why I keep defending my position on this… I think by now, every one knows and agrees that I am not a nerd… In fact, just a hint of geek goes my way now and then.
    So, that said, Im sure it will come as a bit of a surprise to some of you that I admit to getting up when my alarm went off at 2:30am this morning.
    The sad thing is that I had only gone to bed about 3 hours before that. Zim was over. Why so late will be revealed in another post soon (hopefully), lets just say I think you all enjoy the reason for our lack of sleep.
    Anyway, 2:30 came a little too soon, but I had set that alarm on Monday, so in a way I had been looking forward to getting up at the wee hours of Friday for a while.
    Let the record show that I even polled each family member if they wanted to join me in waking. But sadly, the geek only runs so deep in the rest of them.

    As you can guess from the blog title, I was up to watch a launch from Vanderberg Air Force base.
    They were launching a Delta II rocket that was taking NASA’s National Polar-Orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS) Preparatory Project (NPP) mission. The translation of which is that they have a whole bunch of instruments to monitor the planets atmospheric parameters.
    In an even smaller nut shell, it will enable the current 3- to 5-day short-term weather forecasts to be improved from 70 to 80 percent to better than 90 percent and to be extended to 5 to 7 days with 80-percent accuracy.
    In other words, its a pretty big deal for those people lucky enough to live where they actually have weather.
    The bottom line for me at 2:48 this morning was that the sucker weighs in at about 4,500 pounds (2,041 kilograms)!!! This guy needed 6 solid rocket boosters strapped to the side to get off the pad!
    So what did I see?
    Well, of course I just had to take my camera….
    Sadly it was really really low to the horizon and so well and truly into the light pollution envelope of Temecula, so the results are not all that ‘flash’, but here they are…..

    First sighting it looked a lot like the ISS going over, a little more orange and a little quicker, but if you have seen that, you know what first contact looked like.
    It brightened up a little and then got really cool.

    What the photo totally fails to capture because it was ‘live’ and very faint was that toword what was to become the end of the first stage burn was a very very clear shock wave or bow wave flaring out from the point of light. It looked a lot like a comet, only by this stage it was really moving.
    The last exciting bit came then as the first stage finished and dropped off and then the second stage lit up.

    You may have to do the whole click on the photo, when it loads, click again thing so you can see it full size.

    Here you can see the ‘smoke’ that was left from the finish and start of the next stage. (Just ignore the plane light trail below it, it had nothing to do with the launch).
    After this, it got really low to the horizon and really faint, so no photos, but I followed it by eye until it was gone.

    If you have a solid net connection and 3min 48 seconds, you might enjoy this official video of the launch.

    All in all, a pretty nice show and I am really glad that I caught it….. did not get a lot of sleep after the event, so I am really looking forward to catching a few zzz in the Rangie at lunch time.

    Once again, just to be clear. I am not a nerd! Im sure that lots of people would have been out to see this if they had been aware of it!


    Astronomy Life in the USA Photography

  • 365 days of thanks.

    Posted on by beno Comment

    A few days before we took time off for our week long church gig, I finished up my latest 365 project.
    Writing down one thing that I was/am thankful for each day for a year.

    Its a bit hard for you to see, but I wanted to put it up for proof.
    I have deliberately made it impossible to read. I have always said that you should be accountable to someone when you do a 365 project, in this case, I broke my own ‘rule’. I did not share it with anyone, but the doc and the edit log will show that every day I wrote something in there.
    Why did I not share it? Very soon after starting it (like within a few days), it became very apparent that it would very quickly become very personal. (That’s a lot of ‘verys’ in that sentence!!)
    I did not expect this, I mean its just one thing from each day that I was thankful for, how personal can that be??
    The reason I started the project was two fold. First up, someone I greatly respect suggested that I do the project as a way of trying to cope with some of the pressures I was under since moving here. Secondly, just as the reasons we had for moving here did not turn out like we expected, I found the things I was truly (daily) thankful for to be unexpected. I’m still trying to understand exactly whats going on in my life to cause such a result, and its just all a little too personal to be airing about the place.

    Anyway, I guess I just wanted to share that its done.
    I really want to do another project next year, but am unsure what. Freddy said I should give it a break, I see her point, but I am so impressed and pleased with my personal growth each time I do one that I feel there is some real value.
    (That said, I am still stinging from the person that said I wasted a year doing the photo a day thing as it was done only for selfish reasons. I was so shocked at the time that I did not think to suggest they look at the photos I have taken for the church and how the quality of them has improved due to my ‘selfish’ project. So many church people have commented how pleased they are to have those photos…. I wonder what they would say about my latest, one thing a day that I am thankful for…. sounds a lot more selfish than taking photos?)

    Anyway, all pettiness aside, its about 2 months till Jan 1st, if you have been thinking about a 365 project, get serious and start working out what exactly you want to do. You don’t have to start on Jan 1st, but it makes it nice and neat if you do.
    No matter what you pick, try and be accountable to someone, make it something YOU want to do. Get the support of your family and go for it. It will change your life.

    I’m thankful for both of my projects.


    Life in the USA Other Photography

  • Back after a week.

    Posted on by beno Comment

    Took my usual week off for the church thing we do at this time each year.
    It went pretty well. Took around 1500 photos. Less than I thought I would (We had about 150 more people this year over last).
    You can check them out here; http://picasaweb.google.com/bmorchard
    So now its just a matter of getting through a weeks worth of emails and once that’s done, it will be back to ‘normal’.

    In regards to the rest of life, not much going on, the house is pretty settled, so there is only a few little projects to finish (like move the BBQ and figure out how to cover the little patch of dirt where it is currently sitting, which I would like to do before winter).
    I want to get our sprinklers on Opto so I can control them a bit easier, so that would make a nice rainy day project.
    There are a few movies coming out we want to see, more on that once we get to them…..
    So yeah, not much happening. It will be nice to be pottering around rather than going hard like we have been.


    Life in the USA Photography