I am the Burgerfan!

I’m in the process of moving my web hosting. I think I have moved my blog over successfully, but I won’t know until I see what breaks in the coming days. Consider this the ‘hello world’ posting.

I hadn’t realized the effort required in moving a multimedia journal around, complete with postings, photos, videos, and links to other people’s postings. I don’t want any of them to go missing. For that matter, I want things preserved right down to the date and time of each posting. But at some point you have to say ‘good enough’, and it is what it is.

This isn’t the first major move I made. A few years ago I moved my site from the now defunct Microsoft Spaces blogging platform into my own WordPress site on a linux web host. Now, I have moved to a different web host, and to a Microsoft package. Wish some luck to this site…

We just finished a photo shoot for our upcoming Christmas card. Soon we will apply some post processing magic.

If you’re lucky enough to receive one, its going to be legen… (wait for it!)

We were in the Calaway Park campground outside Calgary for a part of the long weekend. After a cloudy/rainy Friday, the skies cleared to expose a sharp new of the mountains on the horizon. I had brought my tripod on the trip “just in case” anything interesting came up, and decided to try making a panoramic image.

I didn’t know how it would turn out, but I figured I’d take some photos along a near 180 degree sweep, and worry about the results when I got home. I tried to level the tripod to a reasonable degree, and took a photo at half increments to the minor tripod markings. I don’t know what degree that is, but it seems an appropriate amount of overlap.

Once home, I pulled down the Microsoft Image Composite Editor, dropped the images in, and let it do its thing. I think the software is pretty slick – in ’97 I had spent a summer working to create QuickTime VR 360 degree panoramas as part of a virtual tour for the University of Alberta. The software at the time would get your images reasonably close together, but you would have to finesse the overlays. In the present future, it just works.

I don’t know how practical panoramic images are for display on monitors, but they are pretty cool. Click on the image to see a bigger copy of the file.

In this exercise, I also learned that my camera or lens has dust in or on it somewhere. Back to the blower. I will have to keep an eye out for more panoramic opportunities – this could make for a cool collection.

Some credit goes to Brad or Matt one of which was talking to me about Microsoft’s Photosynth site, which I had seen a while back, but forgotten about. Also Darren, who was mentioning that a panoramic image could make for a great multi-part canvas print.

At the end of July, Brad was wanting for more ‘enjoyable acts of photography’ in his life. He decided to make the most of his camera during the month, photograph anything, and end up with a satisfying collection of photos representing August 2011. (For the record, this is my favourite).

While I am no match for Brad’s photographic quantity or quality, it did get me thinking – I haven’t been taking advantage of this hobby as a way of breaking routine and letting my mind wander. Nor have I had any drive to work on a side project since about January of this year. So I decided it was time to get back on the ‘side project’ bandwagon.

I’ve seen people successfully complete photo-365 (a photo a day) and photo-52 (a photo a week) projects, and I admire their discipline in following through (as well as the ability to remember to keep taking photos). The reward at the end of these types of projects is a formidable visual time-capsule of the given window in time. As a side project, I went for a lighter approach. I decided that I would try to use my camera every couple of days.

If I saw something of interest, or came up with an interesting concept to try, I’d spend 5-15 minutes taking photos, and another 5-15 minutes in Lightroom, pick two, and post. It can seem a little hasty, but it turns the hobby into a more bite-size execution rather than waiting for larger blocks of free time to intersect with good weather and/or a visually interesting event. Even better, I either learned something or came to remember things I had learned on past photo outings. Most days, my inner critic would not like the end result of the session’s choice photos, but those were the days I usually came out of it with a set of ideas for how I’d come closer to the intended vision. So that counts as time well spent in my books.

The cool thing was that this project got me to take my camera out with me more often. Even to work. And it made me pull over on the side of the road, get out, and take photos, instead of driving past things thinking ‘someday I’ll go back and take a photo of that’. I also learned that ‘someday’ may never happen. At least until the snow flies, I plan to keep my camera in tow more often, and it will enable me to go capture those compositions that strike at random.

I don’t tend to stick with rigid time frames (like year-long resolutions), and did not intend to use August 31 as a distinct end for this project. Something else has caught my interest, and I have already gained momentum on it, so its time to wrap up this project as I know it. I still plan to publish more photos to my site, it just won’t be with the same frequency. Having ‘a’ side project is better than not having any.

More on that next side project later. Maybe.

They’ll be back on the road tomorrow though

Lola got some glowsticks this evening, which she is waving around in bed. She was an airplane controller among other things, and was putting on a good show!

The alligator was Lola’s creation from another time. What will she say when she wakes up and comes downstairs?

What was that thing about moderation?

Alternate photo:

The Outlook Motel has been a fixture on the side of the Yellowhead for 35 years. I don’t know who would have stayed there but its easy to let the imagination loose, concocting stories of a seedier, darker nature. What drew my attention was the vintage style sign. For as long as I can remember, it has always looked like that.

Here is am image from Google Maps Street View of the sign:

For as long as the link works, here is a link to the street view.

For a couple of years I had intended to stop and get a photo capturing the sign’s retro styling, and if I was daring enough, maybe look to see if the rooms were some kind of time capsule containing other vintage elements. To my dismay, the sign was recently displaced and stripped of its markings, and just over a week ago demolition begun on the building. The land has been reclaimed for a widening of the highway, and a revamping of the interchange. As of this upcoming Tuesday, there will be nothing left.

The back half of the motel and an RV park will remain, and the sign will be resurrected as something new, but it won’t be what I planned to capture. The moral of the story is don’t assume things will remain the same. Especially if you plan to photograph them.