A little bit of autumn color to brighten up a wintery day:
This was on opportunistic shot I took on a lunchtime photowalk some months back.
Bloomin’
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Category Archives: Blog
Ridin’ and shootin’
Another fun shot from the 2012 National Western Stock Show — this one from the Cowboy Mounted Shooting event:
Honestly, I’d never even *heard* of Cowboy Mounted Shooting as a competitive event before. But when we showed up at the stock show ticket desk, we could definitely hear it! We wandered into the arena to see what all the noise was from — and found this fun little event going on.
Getting this shot was a bit tricky, though. The arena lights are relatively dim, and the horses move pretty quickly — so I had to let the ISO get up to 2500 in order to get a reasonably fast shutter speed. At times like this, it helps to catch the action when the horse and rider are rounding a corner — so they’re moving as slowly as they’ll ever be. Oh, and put your camera on “continuous” shooting — catching sparks in mid-air is a game of chance…
New (free!) eBook from Craft and Vision — a review
Craft and Vision just came out with a new eBook — 11 Ways You Can Improve your Photography. It’s a pretty impressive little eBook — and best of all, it’s free!
But before I send you on over to the Craft and Vision website, let me give you a quick rundown of what you’ll get in this thing. Nine of Craft and Vision’s writers contribute eleven tips on how you can improve your photographic skills, and none of it requires buying gear. 69 pages of useful and thought-provoking material, and it won’t cost you a cent to read or put into practice.
Definitely a good thing in the middle of the obligatory holiday shopping binge!
I won’t spell out what the 11 tips are, that’d completely spoil the surprise for you. But I can summarize. A few tips are pretty basic — so, particularly good for beginners. Others are much more profound, and delve into the reasons and rationale behind our photography, and the use of photographic composition as a storytelling device. Good for everyone, but particularly useful for those who have mastered the technology of their cameras and have moved to a more contemplative place with their photography.
So all-in-all, I think this is a wonderful eBook — particularly when you consider the price! So go and get it!
Seed head
A spur-of-the-moment shot from a solo photowalk a few weeks back:
I have no idea what kind of plant grew these seeds, but I liked how the swirl of the seed head mirrored the feel of the bokeh background. It’s just one of those things I don’t really have words for, you know?
Looking back at Autumn…
…from the start of Winter:
A shot from a lunchtime walk about a month back, before the season’s first big snowfall wiped out the colors.
Coming soon…
…to an eBook reader near you. 12 Photographer’s Guides to Maya ruins:
So far, the eBooks for Becán, Chicanná, Chichén Itzá, Cobá, Dzibanché / Lamay / Kinichná, Ek’ Balam, and Tulúm are available; the rest will be out by the end of January. Head on over to the series’ page for more information.
Majestic
Building 6 at the Maya ruins of Dzibanché, near Chetumal in Quintana Roo, México:
Dzibanché is a bit of an odd duck — great things to see, but it’s sufficiently off the “usual” track for tourists that it doesn’t get many visitors. It doesn’t help, either, that basically all the tour guide books describe the road to the site as being a rutted dirt track (it’s narrow and crooked, but has been paved for at least 10 years).
Of course, the good news for those that *do* drive out to Dzibanché is that you’ll most likely have the place to yourself. Oh, and you can climb most of the pyramids here (unlike many of the more-visited ruins).
Building 6, by the way, is the first pyramid you see on your walk into the site. It’s also known as the “Palace of the Lintels” after some carved wood beams that were discovered here (sadly, they’ve been removed and replaced by more modern wood).
12 November update — by the way, if you happen to be planning a trip to the Yucatan, I’m in the process of releasing a set of 12 guides to Maya ruins. Oriented toward photography in the ruins, they only cost a couple of dollars each via Amazon’s Kindle store — the one for Dzibanché and its neighbors is described here. I’ve released two guides so far, the rest of the dozen should be out before the end of the year — so stay tuned!
QEC
A Quick Engine Change (QEC) unit for a historic P-38 fighter undergoes a rebuild at WestPac Restorations — on the campus of the (not quite open to the public yet) National Museum of WWII Aviation in Colorado Springs, Colorado:
QECs were developed to speed aircraft maintenance — containing an engine and all its support equipment, a QEC allowed an engine swap to be performed with a relatively short grounding of an aircraft.
I made this image on a recent tour of WestPac Restorations and the National Museum of WWII Aviation. The Museum has been designed and is in the process of collecting funding to start construction (anybody have $12M they can spare?). Meanwhile, they have monthly tours during summer months — my daughter and I went on a special tour this past weekend as part of an AIAA-sponsored group.
Cool stuff!
Xaibe
You may not realize it, but this is a particularly odd structure in the Maya world:
It’s a pyramid called Xaibe at the ruins of Cobá in Mexico’s Yucatán peninsula. The name comes from a Maya term for a crossroads, since it’s at the junction of four Maya roads — and it’s nearly unique in being a Maya pyramid with an elliptical (vs. rectangular) footprint. It *may* have been used as a lookout tower, but I’ve never seen anything resembling an authoritative statement on that.
Structure IV — Becán, México
As seen from neighboring structure II:
The ruins on the top of the pyramid were once an elite residential area, BTW — sort of the ultimate gated community.