Photos and the Reasons Why

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Taken on September 7, 2008
Camera: Nikon D40
Exposure: 0.002 sec (1/640)
Aperture: f/14
Focal Length: 55 mm
ISO Speed: 400

This is a quite old photo which I still think of as one of my favorites. I took it at some random beach on the Oregon Coast one day while driving around. I thought the ball in the basket would look great as super saturated yellow amongst desaturated blues. It rare that a photo looks the same from in my head, to shooting, to post processing. Usually the final product and what I was originally planning on getting are quite different.

Usually you have to approach each stage as “ok, I have these tools, what can I make from this?” Sometimes “what can I make from this” is always the same.

It’s always a nice surprise when you’re able to achieve a close representation of your original goals. Perhaps that’s why I like this photo more than it’s fair share’s worth. I find that the emotion presented by the ball, neglected in the basket, the muted tones, and the two guys sitting on the beach is a nice, flat, attractive melancholy.

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Taken on October 24, 2009
Camera: Nikon D40
Exposure: 0.001 sec (1/1600)
Aperture: f/2.8
Focal Length: 70 mm
ISO Speed: 400

This somewhat dreamlike shot was taken at the Khao Kheow (Green Mountain) Open Zoo. They feed the tigers meet on the inside of the pool you can see here, a pool which has a large glass wall so you can see inside. It’s great to watch, but the glass is always dirty, which usually makes photography difficult. It does, however, make for a nice soft focus effect when the tigers are some distance away and the krud on the glass is out of focus. In that instance, it acts like a soft focus filter and gives a nice dreamy look.

I like how calm and relaxed he looks, especially with the beautiful markings on his face. The damaged ear gives him a slightly war torn look. It’s nothing spectacular, just a good solid photo.

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September 5, 2007
Camera: Nikon D40
Exposure: 0.003 sec (1/400)
Aperture: f/7.1
Focal Length: 18 mm
ISO Speed: 200

Location and musings:
This photo is very representative of the road trip, a least in my mind. This was taken in Illinois on my way to Chicago. I found myself getting drowsy about an hour before sunset, so I pulled over to the side of the road and took a nap while I waited for the sky to begin it’s nightly light show. It was a gorgeous evening and was plenty warm enough to roll down the windows and enjoy the air as I listened to the corn rustling in the breeze.

Every time I think about the time I spent doing that, I feel a great calmness. Of course, then I remember the fears and worries I had back then and I’m glad I’ve got a new set now.

Technical thoughts:
This was definitely early on in my study of photography, I have next to no lighting control. My only flash is the on camera flash, so there ends up being far too much debris being lit to have the photo be particularly interesting. I probably should have taken the photo over closer to the corn stalks to be more midwesty.

Still, that is one gorgeous sunset.

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Taken on December 4, 2009
Camera: Nikon D40
Exposure: 0.001 sec (1/1250)
Aperture: f/5.6
Focal Length: 200 mm
ISO Speed: 400

A few months back I found an obscene amount of traffic between me and the grocery store, the place I had originally set as my pancake material gathering destination. Instead, my destination turned out to be the King’s Cup White Sand Beach Jetski World Cup.

There was quite a bit in the way of grandstands and TV cameras and such built up. This photo was taken during the freestyle competition. I love how the water trail provides excellent evidence of where the jetski came from. His expression and hair are perfect. As I mentioned earlier, in action photography you want to be sure you capture the player, the ball, and the goal. Here the player is the rider, the ball is the jetski, and the goal is the water, which you can see in the background. Having his path be evidence is icing on the cake.

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Taken on August 11, 2009
Camera: Nikon D40
Exposure: 0.02 sec (1/50)
Aperture: f/5.6
Focal Length: 200 mm
ISO Speed: 800
This photo was taken at the Sri Racha Open Zoo. Sri Racha is a city located about 30 minutes north of me and means “Grand King” or “Grand Royalty” in Thai. There is no “Sr” sound in Thai so it is often written as “Si Racha” even though the thai spelling, สรี, has all of the letters s, r, and i. There is a popular condiment in the U.S. called Sri Racha. It is spicy and shares a name with the city, but has no other connection to Thailand.

There is a cage in one of the back corners of the Zoo that had rather lax security. I probably shouldn’t have spent much time there, for my own safety. There was a metal gate, some electric fencing, and the tigers. They were probably two to three feet away from me. One of them roared, a truly intense sound that set me back on my heels.

The location allowed for some great close up shots though. Tigers are such huge, powerful animals that any little section of them ends up being a great photo. This series has a lot of closeup shots, lots of eyes, lots of glares and stares. I love this shot because I think it’s about as powerful as a photograph of a mammal can get without showing eyes.

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Taken on September 3, 2007
Camera: Apple iPhone
Aperture: f/2.8

I took this photo on the very first day of my Road Trip, as I was driving out of Yosemite. It ended up being a perfect iPhone desktop screen, one I kept for quite some time.

I’ve always like the incongruity between the size of the stone in the foreground when compared to one of the world’s most famous domes, in the background. The line which leads directly from the foreground rock to Half Dome is also fun.

Yosemite is one of the most beautiful places in the world and I desperately hope to spend some significant time there in the future, especially now that photography has become a serious hobby of mine. Yosemite is so incredibly beautiful that the pictures that come out of it continue to be mind boggling, even after seeing hundreds or thousands of them. Each crag or nook or cranny or waterfall at sunrise is on it’s own a beautiful place, yet the valley in central California is one of them.

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Photo Taken October 29, 2007
Camera: iPhone

The Grand Hotel in southern Alabama has a mint julep on the menu.
I have a particular way that I like a mint julep to be made. I’m fairly certain that, much like the old fashioned, it must be made at home to have it made right.
That said, atmosphere is important. A nice warm October evening in the south, the back yard of a 200 year old hotel, it seems like some pretty nice atmosphere.
The sunset was remarkable. I had brought my nice camera, but I left it in the car. This was taken with my phone. I do rather like the shot.
I ordered julep, this time with a little more sugar. The bartender was a very upright fellow wearing a tux.
“Yes, sir, right away, sir.” He spoke with a heavy german accent.
This one was better. I continued exploring the grounds, stopping briefly to remark on the wonderful weather and remarkable sunset with a nice old lady.

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Camera: Nikon D40
Exposure: 0.001 sec (1/1000)
Aperture: f/8.0
Focal Length: 200 mm
ISO Speed: 400

This is, by far, my most popular photo, but I don’t like it. It’s blurry, it’s static, it’s not well framed, it’s poor in every technical aspect. As of this writing, it has 1,688 views, has been commented on by 11 people, and has been made a favorite 7 times. It is the first google image search result for “climbing white tiger ” which generates a hit or three a day. It was also used to make an iPhone desktop screen which appears to also be popular because that adds another couple of hits a day.

My next most popular photo has 138 views.

I think it’s so popular because you can see the tiger’s face. The way he is hugging the pole and the look on his face is vulnerable. He is sympathetic. I have a bunch of similar shots of this tiger, none of which have managed to garner more than a couple dozen hits. It’s easy to get so many because he climbs that pole three times a day every day at the Khao Kheow open zoo about an hour north of me. There is always a piece of meat strung up there at the top and I’ve shot pictures of him climbing up the pole, jumping down, grabbing the meat, eating the meat, or just about anything else you could ask for.

But this shot is the one that people like.

In any case, White Tigers themselves are interesting creatures. They are not endangered because they are not a species. They are a simple genetic mutation of Bengal Tigers, and Bengal Tigers are the only creatures which have ever been found to have this mutation. They are not albinos because they have the black stripes, while albinos would have to be entirely white.

The gene is recessive and there aren’t many tigers known to have it, so the only reliable way to get more white tigers is through excessive inbreeding. The situation is even more complicated because the gene that causes whiteness also causes the tigers to be crosseyed and suffer from mental retardation.

Still, they bring in visitors to zoos, so they are valuable and will continue to be bred. I’m still struggling with whether or not I’m ok with the concept that animals can be here for our entertainment. I’m a long shot from having a settled viewpoint on supporting questionable breeding habits.

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Taken on October 29, 2007 at 12.18pm
Camera: Nikon D40
Exposure: 0.001 sec (1/1600)
Aperture: f/5.6
Focal Length: 55 mm
ISO Speed: 200

This remains one of my favorite photos. It is at first difficult to discern what the subject is, which is part of the reason for the explicit title. Mud is drying under the hot texas sun in such a way that it cracks and curls up like tree bark.

I took the photo in the middle of the “Grand Canyon of Texas,” also known as Palo Duro canyon. That trip remains one of my most successful days of photography. The landscape is stark and beautiful with an abundance of interesting rock formations and interestingly shaped woodlands. I’m sure several future Road Trip Friday photos will be from Palo Duro.

I like this photo because it maintains it’s orange-red earthy pallet throughout while still having shadow and definition. The out of focus background, or bokeh, fills the top third of the screen with regular curving lines of similarly colored weeds. The weeds and the mud effectively echo one another, though the weeds are more chaotic.

There is a bit of a circle formed by all of the mud with the four centermost pieces lying inside that circle. The circle is broken enough to not appear unnatural, but is solid enough to keep your eyes in the photo. Finally each of the pieces curves differently and its simply strange to look at all the different pieces and see how something as simple as drying mud can make these shapes.

Every Sunday I go into my archives and choose a photo to represent the end of this week.

Flickr Link
Camera: Nikon D40
Exposure: 0.003 sec (1/400)
Aperture: f/5.6
Focal Length: 55 mm
ISO Speed: 200

The two letters covered by leaves in this photo are “SF” indicating the photo was shot in San Francisco. This sign is posted in a park very near to the northernmost tip on San Francisco. Pretty much the only things north of this sign include the park immediately beyond the sign and the Fort Point area underneath the Golden Gate, you know, where Madeleine attempts to jump to her death in Vertigo?

I chose this photo for today because, until recently, it was one of my most viewed photos. As of this writing, it has 87 views on Flickr, no comments, and no favorites. I never quite figured out why it was getting hits. The photo itself is flat and uninteresting. While the concept of the photo is absurd, it isn’t that humorous. It does represent my continuing frustration in figuring out what makes a good photo and what people are looking for.