Race Reflection

Race Reflection

One of my nieces has taken up competitive swimming. Last weekend was the state meet for her YMCA swim league. She did remarkably well placing first in a couple of her heats, finishing third in two of her matches and sixth in the other two, both of her relay teams placed first, and the girls of her team placed fourth in overall points. She also qualified for regional in two of her events. Her team was one of the smallest at the meet with around a dozen total swimmers compared to 20+ for the top placing teams. There were only three boys and they placed ninth out of 13 teams of boys. Plus, my niece has only been race swimming for just over one year. As I said it was a remarkable weekend and we are all quite proud of her and her team. She really enjoys it and seems to have found something that she will stick with for quite a while. Oh, and her team's home pool is not an an Olympic sized competition pool. It is shorter, doesn't have the elevated starting blocks, and they don't have the automated timing boards. Yet, they still did so well. Remarkably well.

This was the first of her meets that I was able to attend. So, I wasn't quite certain what to expect. The venue where the meet was held is different from all of the others, I've been told, in that this venue is outdoors while all of the other meets are held in indoor pools. While that meant that it was hot and humid outside, the lighting was better than it would have been in an indoor pool. Sunlight is better for freezing action shots than indoor fluorescent or sodium vapor lighting.

This shot is my favorite of my niece. I liked the reflection and how she seems to be looking down into it as she does the breaststroke. It didn't require very much post-processing. A little added contrast via the tone curve, white-balance, clarity, vibrance, fill light, and sharpening in Lightroom 3's Develop module was all it took.


Read more!

Gatlinburg, Tennessee and Life

Pigeon River and Rocky Waters Inn

It has been an eventful few weeks. We spent a few days in the Gatlinburg, Tennessee
area. It rained for most of the time we where there, so I wasn't able to get out with the camera as much as I would have liked. Hopefully, our next trip will be a full week.

The photograph above is taken from a bridge over the Pigeon River looking toward our hotel. The rooms all have a balcony over the water which was nice to sit out on during the evening. Our son had fun one evening feeding the fish the bread we had brought for sandwiches. The manager said he has seen otters in the river but none of the little critters visited while we were out on the balcony.

After we got back, my new eyeglasses had come in. I have never worn glasses before, but my eyes are starting to turn the corner on the age freeway. I have been having to hold stuff further away to read things and my distance vision had started not to be as crisp as it used to be. Technically I am still 20/20 in one eye and 20/25 in the other which makes it odd to be wearing glasses. However, the glasses are Progressive Bi-focals which are correcting some slight astigmatism which was affecting my distance vision, and correcting the problems I was having reading. I had tried to find reading glasses, but couldn't find any that were weak enough for me. All of the readers were much to strong. These glasses I have seem to be just right ... more expensive of course, but just right. It took me a while to get used to the glasses and since I got them right after the Gatlinburg trip, I waited to work on the photographs until I was comfortable with the glasses.

Finally, during that same time my Hotmail email account had gotten hacked or something. Spam was somehow being sent via my Hotmail Contacts list. If you got any of that spam then I do apologize. I have since managed to change the password on the account and the spam seems to have stopped. I used a couple of anti-virius and anti-malware applications to scan my computer and it seems to be free of junk now. However, I used the opportunity to set-up a new G-Mail account which you can find in the sidebar. To prevent automated spambots from picking up and using the new address, I replaced the @ symbol with "(at)". Make the appropriate substitution if you want to contact me.

Oh, I got an iPad 2 for Father's Day. It has become my main internet surfing and reading device. I have my photographs on it an they look great! I just wish I could organize them better. The new operating system for it that is coming out in September sounds like it might help with that.

Keep shooting.


Read more!

Moody View

Reflections and Ruins

This is another photograph of Lawson's Fork Creek in the Glendale Shoals Preserve in Spartanburg County. It is taken very close to the same place as yesterday's photograph if not the exact same location. I was trying out different compositions with the reflections and the trees. As I was developing the image I started to feel that it needed a more moody treatment and converted it to black and white. I think that it works for it. If you look carefully, you will see a couple of the old mill's chimneys through the trees and their reflections in the water. That is were the "Ruins" in the title came from in my mind.

In order to further accentuate the "moodiness" I made a few other tweaks to the image in development. First, I selectively darkened and brightened areas to try to lead the eye down the rapids. Next I reversed the expected sharpening of the image's elements. By this I mean that I reduced the sharpness of every thing except the water, and then I sharpened the reflections. To me this gives a sense that the reflections might be more "real" than the actual trees and ruins. It does at least seem to help convey the moodiness that I was feeling with the image. Finally, I added a slight vignette along the edges to bring the eye into the image.

Well, that is what I did and why I did them anyway. I hope it worked the way I intended them to.

Keep shooting.


Read more!

Rising Water

Isolation

The area of North Dakota where my mother grew up used to be fields as far as you could see. However, that has been changing the past several years. Water has been rising throughout the region. Roads have been cut off. Farms flooded out. Devil's Lake, Stump Lake, and Lake Lorretta have all overflowed their banks and inundated hundreds of thousands of acres of farmland. In many places instead of wheat fields, there are now plains of cattails stretching as far as the eye can see.

We saw this old, abandoned farm house on a small hill. It's fields taken over by Lake Lorretta. The county road we were on had obviously been elevated to stay above the lake water. Even then, it was only a couple of feet above the water.

Keep shooting.

Read more!

Niagara White Water Walk

Class 6 Rapids

After we had finished the Maid of the Mist ride and eaten lunch, we took the People Mover bus to the Niagara White Water Walk. The White Water Walk is a set of boardwalks and observation decks that allow you to view and get close to the Class 6 Rapids that are downstream from the Maid of the Mist pool and the Falls proper. Class 6 Rapids are the the highest classification of rapids and is generally considered unnavigable. Below these rapids you would encounter the Niagara Whirlpool which makes any attempt to travel down this portion of the river even more dangerous.

More after the jump.

To get down to the boardwalk, you will ride in a small elevator that was built into the cliff in the 1930s. Then you walk through a small tunnel through the cliff and exit onto an observation deck. A boardwalk from this deck follows the river for a comfortable walking distance. There are a couple more observation decks along the boardwalk that get you very close to the river itself.

The power of the rapids is quite evident as you watch it rush past you. The constantly undulating surface seems vicious if one was to fall in to it. Rocks and boulders can be seen fighting for their position against the relentless surge of water. The faces of the gorge that that tower over you serve as stark reminders that even the very stone can not resist the water's constant scouring. However, along the shorelines are small flowers and a lush forest that proclaim that live goes on even in the face of such violent turbulence.

It is a place of beautiful extremes. Nature's fury and it's nurturing in such close proximity. We enjoyed our time here. Plus, the light was nice for once as well.

Keep shooting.
Read more!

Canadian Horseshoe Falls

The Horseshoe Falls

Here is a view of the Canadian Horseshoe Falls. The photograph was taken from the top of the observation deck at the Maid of the Mist pavilion. You can see a couple of the Maid of the Mist boats below. From this observation deck you get a great view of both sets of falls.

Stay tuned for another photograph tomorrow.

Keep shooting.


Read more!

Niagara Gorge

Niagara Gorge

We hiked down into the Niagara River Gorge one day. It is a few miles downstream from the falls, but the water is still quite rough. Not too far from this location is the Niagara River Whirlpool. It is just upstream and out of the frame near the upper right corner of the picture.

More after the jump.

This was one of the days that we had nice weather while out and about. The hike down into the Gorge was not that bad. We made sure to take the less steep and less slippery trails. We made it all of the way down to a lagoon on the river's edge. That lagoon must be a popular place as there were a couple of other families down there when we arrived.

The hike back up the Gorge's wall was more strenuous though. Going up is always harder than going down. For some reason our hikes usually end with the going-up part for the end after we have already spent so much energy. On the way up we took a few more breaks than on the way down. Plus, we each had water bottles to keep ourselves hydrated. Luckily, most of the climb was shaded by the forest on the Gorge's walls. Only the very last part was in the direct sun. Still, we all had a fun time and saw a part of the Niagara River a lot of tourists don't get to experience. That is a big plus when you have a local to guide your around.

Keep shooting.
Read more!