Photos and the Reasons Why

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Taken on April 12, 2010
Camera: Nikon D300S
Exposure: 0.001 sec (1/800)
Aperture: f/5.6
Focal Length: 105 mm
ISO Speed: 800

Location and Musings
Like Yesterday’s post, this one features an elephant getting washed in the river. It was taken within a few seconds of the previous photo. The elephants in question had finished their washing and were entertaining themselves by getting their mahout’s wet.

I was sitting on a bench a fair distance away taking this photo, rapidly switching from subject to subject. I was desperately trying to capture each of several different elephants and mahouts as they splashed water on one another.

Technical Thoughts.
This is a fairly poor photo. I chose it to contrast with yesterday’s. The dark skin of the elephant provides little contrast. She stands out from the river, but the spray from the water is very distracting. It doesn’t for a clean arc, but scatters all over the place and looks a lot like a really dusty scan of an old photo. This feeling is slightly enhanced by the washed out colors in the background. I suppose I could have edited it a bit to look more like an old fashioned photo.

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Taken on April 12, 2010
Camera: Nikon D300S
Exposure: 0.003 sec (1/400)
Aperture: f/5.6
Focal Length: 200 mm
ISO Speed: 200

Musings and thoughts:
Mahout is a hindi word for elephant rider/trainer. The thai is ดวาญชาง or kwan chang. In doing research to write this blurb, I learned about the depressing processed used to break elephants to their lives as tourist attractions. It involves small cages, starvation, chains, nail-boards, and all sorts of other unsavory things. The process sounds rather miserable, but I suppose the elephants lead somewhatgood lives once they are done being broken. I’m not sure, I’m probably just trying to justify something terrible and my complicit guilt in the matter here.

Still, this is probably my favorite elephant shot. The mahout and the elephant appear to be sharing a rather touching moment as the mahout gives the elephant his bath. I like the way the elephant’s trunk rests mostly in the water, but just peaks above the surface so he can breathe. She looks pretty relaxed, sitting in the river with the mahout’s hand on his head.

Technical thoughts:
It is very difficult to take pictures of wet elephants in a river. Their skin turns from light grey to dark grey. The river, already dark green, provides no contrast. If I had lighting options other than the sun, I might be able to do something about this. As it is, I just have to hope the elephants are standing in a sunny patch or, as in this case, there is a nice lightly colored reflection.

Really, I couldn’t ask for a better position for the elephant. Her light colored trunk is nicely echoed with the lightly colored background above her back. The light-yellow reflection nicely transitions to dark green as it moves towards her head. The mahout’s light blue shirt is a nice contrasting color from the elephants yellow-orange trunk yet complementary color to the green water. The mahout’s legs echo the trunk color and contrast with the shirt color. The only thing I don’t like is the shadow on his legs from the hook strapped to his back. That’s distracting and undesirable.

There are also some very nice vectors here. The line from the elephant’s back runs straight up to the brim of the mahout’s hat, which then runs nicely over his head and down his other shoulder. Clean and uninterrupted. I could do without the little bit of water dripping from the basket. That is kind of confusing as it’s not quite clear what it is. It’s also a vector that runs down and away from the subject, down and away from the photo.

The vector running along the bottom of the elephant is also nice, with the mahout’s legs entering the river at about the same point as the elephant, the little bit of height difference is echoed by the curve in the trunk, so it’s forgivable.

I’m also a little concerned about where I cropped it on the left. There was a very undesirable log in the river in the upper left that I cropped out, so I could not have gone any further to the left. You can get away with cutting off an obvious edge like the hind side of an elephant, but you have to be very careful not to give people an uncanny valley “I should be seeing something I’m not” experience. I may be too close here.

All in all, a photo that I’m very happy with. I’ll put this one up there with Superb Starling Startlingly Stares at Me as “photos I particularly enjoy.”

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Taken on April 12, 2010
Camera: Nikon D300S
Exposure: 0.002 sec (1/640)
Aperture: f/5.6
Focal Length: 135 mm
ISO Speed: 400

Musings and thoughts:
The painting on the left was created by the elephant on the right. The gentleman in the center handed paintbrushes of various colors to the elephants who then applied the paint as they saw fit. It’s pretty clear that the whole exercise represents learned behavior, but it’s still fun to see the elephants create works of “art.” The colors of the branches were created by dabbing repeatedly semi-randomly at the board, an act that the elephant appeared to particularly enjoy. Perhaps that is because the trunk is not a particularly accurate tool to be using for painting and the elephant didn’t have to be very accurate when dabbing semi-randomly.

Technical thoughts:
The photo is not quite sharp, and I’m not sure why. Perhaps there was some dust on the lens or in the air that gives a slightly blurred effect. At 1/640 of a second and with plenty of light and time for focusing, there is no technical reason why the shot should be anything other than perfectly sharp.

I could do without the elephant legs in the background, though I think they’re sufficiently abstract to provide a pleasing thematic pattern. If they were any stronger they’d be way too distracting. The person behind the elephant is far worse in terms of how distracting he is for the photo.

I like the color palette of reds and browns with a few greens in the painting. The elephant taking a bow tells the story immediately and the trainer looking at him provides as nice a vector as I could ask for. Naturally if I could have controlled the situation I would have set things up differently. As it is, it turns out to be a quite passable shot.

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Taken on November 29, 2009
Camera: Nikon D40
Exposure: 0.002 sec (1/500)
Aperture: f/11.0
Focal Length: 18 mm
ISO Speed: 800

I’ve been thinking that this is probably the nicest view I will ever have from my home. It’s pretty intensely beautiful on a regular basis.

I left work late last night and was driving home just as the sun was setting on the horizon. I watched some kids play in the beach while the restaurants set up their beach front tables. A group of Thais on vacation were lounging about sipping beers on the sidewalk as I turned off the beach road into my driveway.

Sure the road is broken and loaded with potholes and uneven speed bumps. Sure it’s too narrow to handle two directions of traffic along with the tour busses and other parked cars. Sure elephants occasionally make it difficult to drive faster than, well, an elephant walks. It is still a hell of a way to finish a long commute.

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Taken on April 3, 2010
Camera: Nikon D300S
Exposure: 0.001 sec (1/1000)
Aperture: f/10.0
Focal Length: 35 mm
ISO Speed: 200

Location and Musings:
It’s now moving into the hot season and it sure is hot. I had planned to spend all Saturday traipsing about the Pluakdaeng region, taking landscape photos and enjoying a peaceful day. I had an invitation to go out drinking on Friday night, which was an amazing time, but it left me a little hung over on Saturday morning.

It was just a little headache, so I drank some water and figured I’d be fine. Turns out that you can’t sweat off a hangover. Almost immediately after I parked my truck and started walking around, looking for a shot, my headache got worse. I was sweating out the fluids I had managed to put back into my body. I quickly finished off the remaining water then drove to a 7-11 and got some aspirin and gator-drink. I had only managed to shoot a couple of pictures, but I was starting to feel ill, and I just wanted to go back to sleep. So I jumped back in the truck and headed back home. This was the only shot I was happy with.

Oh well, maybe next time.

Technical Thoughts:
I wish I had framed it a little more towards the right. When I took the picture, I thought it would be nice to get a bit more of the road to have a nice “path” element for the eye to follow. It wasn’t a very good plan as the path was ugly and didn’t lead anywhere except for outside the frame.

Perhaps I should have been a few steps back towards the middle of the road, as well. That way the temple would have been more apparent up on the hill. Another possibility would have been using a longer zoom lens and standing way back from the pineapple. With the right framing, the temple would have been much larger in the frame with the pineapple still in focus.

I’m also a little worried about the clouds. I think my post processing, where I pumped the blues in the sky, make them come out a little too blue, a little too cotton-candy.

I do, however, like the far away mountain cradled in the distance. There is some nice depth there.

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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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Taken on March 31, 2010
Camera: Nikon D300S
Exposure: 0.8
Aperture: f/4.2
Focal Length: 35 mm
ISO Speed: 200

Location and Musings:
One of the disadvantages of living on the far side of the world is the difficulty of setting up a conference call. I needed to chat with a team in Oregon at 4pm their time, just before closing. That’s 6 am my time.

Since the Internet at my condo has become increasingly spotty and, well, worthless, I had to go into the office to take the phone call. A 45 minute commute, some time to take a shower and have breakfast, and I’m suddenly waking up very early in the morning.

The plus side of this arrangement was that I had an opportunity to catch the full moon before it set. It was a clear night and sunrise was maybe 20 minutes away. The light from said sunrise had just begun to make the sky a little more blue, so I grabbed my camera and set it up on a tripod.

I took this shot, then set the camera to take new shots every 3 minutes for the rest of the morning. Unfortunately, with the sunrise came fog. Before the moon even had an opportunity to fully set, all my camera was able to capture was a white mist.

Technical Thoughts:
I need a better tripod. My tripod is only large enough to reach over the railing of my balcony when the center post is cranked up. When it’s in the position, it’s quite unstable. Just the mirror actuating starts the thing vibrating, which makes for a less sharp photo. I don’t have a cable release, so I have to put my hand on the camera, which leads to more vibration. I think the photo came out passably sharp, with some extra post processing blurring on the moon to even it up a bit.

Otherwise I’m happy with the photo. I like the blues and the yellow of the reflection on the water. Some nice contrasting colors there. If you look closely, you can see some fairly significant currents in the water, which is always fun.

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Taken on January 16, 2010
Camera: Nikon D300S
Exposure: 0.002 sec (1/500)
Aperture: f/10.0
Focal Length: 35 mm
ISO Speed: 200

Location and Musings:
This was one of the many symbols and statues that surround the big buddha on the hill in Pattaya. It is representative of the mixed bag of religion that appears here, as this is not a buddhist statue. I think it might be a hindu statue that has been absorbed into the new buddhist religion much in the way that judaism was absorbed into Christianity.

The markings on the hands are probably in some way related to the chi. Chi is a Chinese concept, so perhaps this statue is of Chinese origin and a much more modern addition to the thai belief structure. There wasn’t anything next to the statue to explain what it was, but I’m posting this image as brief explanation of what sorts of non-Buddhist imagery you can find in Thailand.

Technical Thoughts:
I’m happy with the soft shadows, despite the harsh midday light. I like the imposing size of the statue, but I’m not such a fan of the nasal upshot or the weird branch in the top left.

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Taken on November 21, 2009
Camera: Nikon D40
Exposure: 0.008 sec (1/125)
Aperture: f/5.6
Focal Length: 200 mm
ISO Speed: 800

Location and musings:
This shot was taken at the Tiger Zoo in Sri Racha, the same place I took the tiger-through-the-hoop shot from last weekend. People putting their head in the crocodile mouth is a pretty famous circus trick, and suppose I’m not surprised they do it here. Before she puts her head in there, she spends a while banging a stick around inside the animal’s mouth. One theory is that she does that to remind the animal of the beating it will get if it closes it’s mouth. My theory is that it provides some sort of instinctual incentive to keep it’s mouth open. I’m unsure of how well a crocodile can be trained.

Also, she puts her head right up in the corner of the croc’s mouth, I’m sure part of the reason there is to keep the animal from getting much in the way of acceleration on the mouth.

Technical thoughts:
This photo was taken at the extreme limits of my old D40. At 200 mm, I was at the longest end of my longest lens. The photo has been further cropped, so that, with the additional APS-C crop factor, means this was probably effective 4-500 mm. I fired the flash, and it did have an effect, although not enough for the camera to register a return. The aperture is wide open. 1/125th of a second is the absolute minimum speed I could possibly imagine holding this shot steady. 800 ISO isn’t the highest setting the D40 has, but with the amount of noise that registers in the shot, I don’t think I could have feasibly bumped it up any more.

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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.