One of my photos of Point Pinos Lighthouse was used in the Schmap Guide to Monterey & Carmel. It looks like this in their iPhone app. I think it's pretty cool that it was chosen. I was also impressed that they contacted me to get my permission to use it. I licensed it with a Creative Commons license, so they're free to use it in this way provided they give me credit. Maybe this isn't a big deal to anyone else, but I'm jazzed.
Posted by Kurt Wall at 22:55 2009-11-15 | Trackbacks (0) | Comments (0)
Winner! (Photography)
I hang out on a great photography website, Digital Photography School. They always have a running "assignment" or contest. I entered this architectural detail of a support beam I saw at Picchetti Winery in the weekly assignment and won! I'm proud and excited and flattered.
Posted by Kurt Wall at 22:15 2009-11-09 | Trackbacks (0) | Comments (0)
Photographic Goals (Photography)
I read a thought-provoking essay by Thom Hogan, a mostly Nikon-oriented photographer and writer. The gist of it was that if I want to get better as a photographer, if I wish to continue my progress from snapshot shooter to something-better-than-snap-shooter, I need to set some fairly explicit goals about how I intend to get there. Moreover, I need to define what constitutes “there”. That is, what does “become a better photographer” mean? At the moment, it means, “fewer over- or under-exposed, out-of-focus shots,” but longer term (say, the next year), the meaning is unclear. I don't have an answer now. I'll be giving it some thought and bore you all with my interior monologue later.
Posted by Kurt Wall at 21:55 2009-09-25 | Trackbacks (0) | Comments (0)
SLIK Monopod Engrish (Photography)
I bought a SLIK Pro Pod 381 (Manfrotto head sold separately) a while back because I wanted something light (14 ounces) and sturdy (carbon fiber) on which to mount my camera. It's worked out very well and I'm glad to recommend it to anyone looking for a lightweight monopod to schlep around. There are still situations, such as shooting in low light or with long exposures, in which only a tripod will do, of course.
The point of this post is to make good fun of the Engrish in the one-page, two-sided “instruction manual.” Here's the most egregious example:
When the shock has been given to the monopod &/or leg such as falling down please check well whether there are cracks, flaws, etc. on the pipes, or not.
When you find any cracks, flaws, etc. on the pipes, please stop to use it and ask to repair. It may be wounded when some of fibers come out from the pipes. [emphasis added]
In that case, lease do not touch it.
Awesome.
Posted by Kurt Wall at 22:07 2009-09-08 | Trackbacks (0) | Comments (0)
Point Pinos and 17 Mile Drive (Photography)
Saturday last (August 28), Kelly and I drove down to see the 
Point Piños Lighthouse in Pacific Grove. It's not a classic tower like Pigeon Point, but it's still a lighthouse and has the great virtue of being open to the public. IMHO, none of my pictures were worth posting, but I put a couple up anyway on my Flickr pages.
After we were done at the Lighthouse, we drove south along the beach down 17 Mile Drive. Evidently, this part of the California coastline is the private fiefdom of Pebble Beach Resorts, so we had to pay $9.25 for the privilege of driving the road and visiting the beaches and other points of interest along the way. There were lots of points of interest, and even some drama.
All in all, we enjoyed a terrific day. We had a great time, finished the day with an awesome seafood dinner at a little café on Lighthouse Avenue in Pacific Grove, and then went back to the beach below the lighthouse to see the sunset. We arrived just in time and it was glorious. I was surprised to see how many people were there strictly to see the sunset and amused at how quickly they left when the show ended.
Posted by Kurt Wall at 12:08 2009-09-04 | Trackbacks (0) | Comments (0)
Mancation (Photography)
Not “vacation,” which is what you do when the economy doesn't suck. Not “staycation,” which is what you do when the economy does suck. No, it's “mancation,” which is what the menfolk do when the womenfolk aren't around.
While checking in at The Strobist, I noticed the host and his son were on a mancation. The highlights of a mancation are, of course:
- IN: Go karts, laser tag, pizza, movies and the increased likelihood of a farting contest.
- OUT: Bed making, writing posts, answering emails and putting the seat down.
Posted by Kurt Wall at 21:06 2009-08-27 | Trackbacks (0) | Comments (0)
Photo School (Photography)
Kelly and I went to Golden Gate Park in the city today. At 1000 acres, we only managed to see one small corner of the place. I also learned three useful lessons:
- Use the image preview feature
- Check the white balance
- A shutter speed of 1/30 is way too slow for full daylight
Mistake number one: Thinking I would be frugal with my battery, even though I had fully charged spare, I turned off the image preview feature. An unfortunate choice, that, because by not reviewing my shots I didn't notice most were overexposed. I would have noticed that they sucked and done something to resolve at least the technical problems.
Mistake number two: It was overcast when we left home and when we got there, so I set the white balance on my camera for a cloudy day. It remained on that setting the rest of the day, notably after the cloud cover and fog burnt off and the sun came out. As a result, most of my shots were overexposed. If I'd been reviewing the images, I might have noticed sooner than when we got home. The white balance can be corrected because I shoot in RAW, but there was a third problem.
Mistake number three: A shutter speed of 1/30 is much too slow, especially in full sun. Insert curse-laden temper tantrum here. To make matters worse, a large percentage of my shots were taken with an aperture at or less than f/16, which further contributed to badly blown out shots.
The result of these three photographic blunders is approximately 300 photos will simply be deleted. The visit to the park was not a waste because, well, we saw lots of flora and fauna and in general enjoyed the visit. Moreover, I learned the hard way that image preview is my friend, that lighting conditions change, and that I have much more to learn about shutter speed, aperture, and ISO before I go to full manual mode on my camera.
Posted by Kurt Wall at 21:38 2009-06-13 | Trackbacks (0) | Comments (0)