Photos and the Reasons Why

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Taken on April 16, 2010
Camera: Nikon D300S
Exposure: 0.033 sec (1/30)
Aperture: f/3.5
Focal Length: 18 mm
ISO Speed: 800

Musings
Well, after a week of downtime, I’ve got a lot of pictures. I’m sure I’ll be able to make it to the next vacation without having to drop into the archives at non-prescribed points. Since I missed a week and am no longer properly participating in a 365 project, I will no longer be putting the 45/365: prefix on posts. I will still be posting a new picture every day.

This photo is a pretty good representation of my past week. I booked my flights to Chiang Mai hoping that I’d have the opportunity to see something new and not be too entirely bored. I figured I’d have a lot of time to sit around and relax, post here about what was going on, and maybe even do some non-internet writing in my free time.

I was totally wrong. Turns out Christie was also going to Chiang Mai. I had some scheduling issues with my airline, so we ended up flying together. This involved a wonderful night at the top of a skyscraper in Bangkok. A few days later, I rearranged my flights again and it turned out we were flying to Koh Phi Phi, also together. Though this time we were not just together, but “together.”

This shot is representative of one of the most thrilling weeks of my life.

Technical Thoughts.
It’s very difficult to take one-hand-extended self portraits with a big DSLR. The camera just isn’t made to be held that way. It didn’t help that I was holding a couple grand worth of equipment with one hand at arms length over 8 inches of ocean water. A drop would have been a fatal mistake.

I looped the strap around my hand and held on tight. The sunrise was just to perfect to go without the classic sunrise kiss shot.

It still came out a little blurry, both from camera wobble and poor autofocus. The style of the shot means I can totally get away with it. I’m super happy about the lighting and I like the near-silhouette. There is nothing in any of that which needs razor sharp lines and crisp clean focus.

I knew I was going to make this shot into my Facebook profile while I was editing it, so I blew the colors way out to make a catchy thumbnail. As a result, the sunrise looks a bit ridiculous.

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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 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 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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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 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 February 26, 2010
Camera: Nikon D300S
Exposure: 1/5000 sec
Aperture: f/4.8
Focal Length: 60 mm
ISO Speed: 500

It’s tough to make a bird look majestic when it has clipped wings. It can’t be proud and powerful when it’s so obviously missing something, and in such an unnatural fashion. Indeed, a photo of a kite that had lost some feathers in a fight would be quite interesting.

I’m just happy that it’s a sharp, well exposed photo. The framing isn’t too terrible either. That pre-sunset sky is pretty great with just the slightest hint of pink in the sky. Alas, there isn’t much detail in the kite, and the clipped wings scream “this is unnatural and wrong.”

It was taken while some employees were firing bits of meat into the air with a slingshot which the kits swooped after. It was tough to catch them with a background other than the trees, and when they were showing a nice profile. This is probably about as difficult as a shot can get while at the zoo, so having the basics right makes me happy.

With this, I am pretty close to running out of all interesting Singapore photos. I have taken my camera on a couple of experimental photo-trips, but I’ve yet to achieve anything I really liked. I’ll get something new, eventually. At the worst, I’ll be traveling for a whole week in mid-april, where I’m certain to get better photos. I may end up diving more into my archive until then.

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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.