August 19, 2008
Tonight I made some bread from scratch.
When it had barely cooled, I sliced it up, slathered it with butter and topped that off with Bovril.
It took me back more than a decade, when I would run home from the Master Baker Tea Room with a fresh loaf, and top it off with butter and Bovril for an afternoon snack, before a dip in the pool.
Delicious.
(Any anti-Bovril comments risk deletion! Do not besmirch the good name of Bovril!)
Posted in Life 
| 10 Comments » |
August 15, 2008
This is by no means scientific, but it’s something I’ve noticed again and again during these Olympic games, primarily during the swimming events.
Check out this photo from a guy in Beijing.
Now, contrast it to this one from the Athens games four years ago.
It used to be that all you would see at the major sporting events (Olympics, World Cup, Super Bowl, World Series, etc.) were Canon 1D series bodies and those iconic long, white L zooms.
I didn’t actually do a count, but you can tell that Nikon is no longer in the distinct minority as far as pros are concerned. It appears to be almost 50-50, and I’m sure that’s due to the amazing advances Nikon made with its D3 pro body.
All I can say is, a rising ride lifts all boats, so we, the consumers, can only benefit from this lack of hegemony, and reap the rewards of the competition between manufacturers.
Posted in Gear, Photojournalism, Random | 1 Comment » |
August 14, 2008
(This didn’t come out so well in the paper, but his license plate holder reads “I don’t drive fast, I just fly low”)
Last Thursday night I shot a story about the local dragstrip and its street-legal racing series. Those shots ran today, with the story, as well as in an online gallery. Check it out here and here.
(You can’t tell, but the lady in the Escalade at the top was in her 60’s and a grandmother a couple of times over!)
Posted in Assignments, Colors, Life, Links, Photojournalism, Random, Reporter-News, Texas | No Comments » |
August 13, 2008
The title of this is inspired by the cinematic classic, Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure.
Back during the 2008 Football Photo Tour, we stumbled across this run-down old Ford that some students had decorated to support their team. Apparently this had been going on for at least a few generations of students, as there was great variety in the style and quality of the decorations.
Posted in Abilene, Assignments, Colors, Life, Texas | No Comments » |
August 13, 2008
Early this morning I had an assignment for a local business magazine. They are doing a feature on a local locksmith, and I got to poke around the shop looking at all the keys and machines and things that go along with cracking safes and so on.
The owner took me into the “junk room” and showed me some old safes, including this pre-1930’s model which was used by the Elks Lodge here in town. The hand-painted lettering and flourishes were fascinating. You just don’t find workmanship like that in these days of machines and robots.
This shot was unusable for the assignment because it is out of focus, and blurry (I would up shooting it at 1/13th of a second, with only a bare bulb hanging in the bathroom to light up the near-dark junk room, and Image Stabilization is cool, but it can’t work miracles!), so I thought I would play around in Photoshop and see what I could get.
Posted in Abilene, Assignments, Colors, Random | No Comments » |
August 12, 2008
This time last year, I was still recovering from a whirlwind roadtrip to the Grand Canyon with my good friend Pete, and his friend Brett. We left Abilene early on a Monday morning, and were back in Abilene by Thursday. Almost 2,500 miles in 4 days.
We made it all the way to Flagstaff the first day, and set an alarm for 3:00am, so we could be at the South Rim of the Grand Canyon by sunrise. It was cold, and it was early, but it was absolutely worth it. This is one of my favorite shots from all my years of shooting. Very little post-processing done afterwards…just a beautiful dawn at a beautiful vista.
Posted in Colors, Life, Photo Safari, Random, travel | 2 Comments » |
August 11, 2008
A friend passed on this amusing little gallery by world-class photojournalist Vincent Laforet. It highlights what he took to cover the Olympic Games in Beijing, as well as how he packed it.
Just for fun, I looked up the prices for some of this stuff, if you were to buy it new on Amazon.com. I stopped when the grand total for his cameras and lenses came to over $64,000. That’s not counting his lights, his tripods, his cables and Pocket Wizards and the digital film he’s taking. Or the cases. All told, I wouldn’t be surprised if the total value of all that stuff was more in the $90,000 to $100,000 range.
Of course, when you see his work, you know it’s worth every penny.
Posted in Gear, Life, Links, Random | 3 Comments » |
August 9, 2008
The documentary film “WAR DANCE” is being shown at the historic Paramount Theater in downtown Abilene as part of the 2008 Film Series.
At the suggestion of a friend, I sent in a short piece about my trip in January, with a few photos, to the Reporter-News, and they ran it all as a photo column this morning. The hope is that more people will go out and see this beautiful film (both the narrative and the cinematography are pretty incredible). There were only about 20 people in the theater last night when we saw it.
Posted in Colors, Life, Published, Random, travel | No Comments » |
August 8, 2008
Almost three years ago, Canon released the first full-frame digital SLR in a standard-sized body. The EOS 5D took the world by storm and soon became one of, if not the, most popular cameras among professionals and serious amateurs alike.
Last month, Nikon released the new D700, which, on paper, just looks incredible.
From the perspective of some, Canon has been the world leader for many years, and has been guilty of late of sitting on their laurels and waiting for the rest of the world to play catch-up. Nikon, and others, have been working hard, and the gap has been closed.
There is a possibility that I will be involved in a pretty major photo project over the next year, and with the project comes some additional equipment, and I’m torn between upgrading what I currently have. Staying with the Canon system means I can use my current lenses (which are top notch), and using what’s out there.
Or, I could jump ship, switch over to the Dark Side, and try to pick up a couple of these D700 bodies and some new lenses. The low-light capabilities alone make it very tempting.
Canon has been churning out new mid-level stuff all the while. I’m curious if they’re making a financial decision to focus on the consumer market, while letting Nikon eat into their majority share of the Pro market. Are they content to sell 50,000 consumer level DSLRs (the Rebel line), to the neglect of the serious amateur/professional? Would they rather dominate the entry level? That could certainly be argued by the lack of “Wow” factor in their current pro-sumer releases, and the problems they had with the release of their 1D MkIII “flagship.”
Just thinking out loud here…I don’t know which way I’ll end up going, but Nikon has certainly made it interesting!
Posted in Gear, Life, Photojournalism, Random | 10 Comments » |
