High dynamic airstreams

After a week long traveling hiatus, we are back in business! I spent the weekend in Marble Falls, Texas for Kate and Brian's, now the Bedford's, wedding. It was beautiful. All of the wedding festivities took place on a ranch in nearby Round Mountain. Probably the coolest part of the ranch wedding setup was the herd of airstream trailors that were the various wedding parties quarters.

As the sun was going down I decided to try a new technique. It's called high dynamic range or HDR photography. Back in the day with film this was a very complicated and complex technique, but these days with photoshop automation it is not. I took three photos of this airstream at three different exposure values; under exposed, properly exposed, and over exposed. Photoshop can then merge these three photos to get a high dynamic range of colors and detail in the light and dark parts of the scene.

How appropriate to try high dynamic range on an old aerodynamic airstream trailor.

In true form

Every now and then I snap a photo of someone in a moment that really captures their personality. In this case I caught Lorri, being truly herself. Unfortunately the exposure was way too low, but with a little bit of photoshop manipulation I turned it into a decent and kind of cool photograph. Lorri, I like your style.

Tripp "Ronny" the roadrunner

Hello roadrunner! This is Tripp "Ronny" the Roadrunner. He was one of the nature-pals we met at Big Bend. On our way back to the campsite Tripp appeared on the trail and more or less put on a show for us. He pranced and strutted his roadrunner self to us. It was as if he wanted his picture taken, because he was quite the model. He would hop up the trail then look back us like, "more?" and of course we would take more photos. We named him Tripp and Ronny because we felt both were fitting, don't ask why, we probably couldn't tell you.

Dead end door

This door (or wall, depending on how you look at it) is located inside the Southside on Lamar event center. As we were leaving the benefit Saturday I snapped this. I really enjoy this photo despite it being of a fairly eery dead-end corridor. I guess it's not really a dead-end since it has a door. But, honestly, would you go through that door? Not exactly inticing if you ask me, especially with that pipe shadow being cast down.

In some ways this photo reminds me of playing James Bond 007 on Nintendo 64 way back in the day, at least I think it was Nintendo 64. Nonetheless, I would play that game for hours in my brother's room, much to his chagrin of course. The game was always set in some dark Russian bunker or something to that eery effect. From the looks of this photo, I'd say the video game maker visited Southside on Lamar, or atleast this dead-end corridor of it.

Meet Augie N'Kele

This is Augie N'kele. He was was one of the artist at the Falling Whistles benefit on Saturday night. Augie was one of the few if not the only artist from the Democratic Republic of Congo at the event. While I was looking at his sculptures we got to talking about what they meant to him. I won't do his work justice by trying to explain it, but I'll try anyway. Augie uses metal wire and other small metal objects such as mesh to create small human sculptures. They are really intricate and enjoyable. Some of them are fun and some are emotional, but they are all great to look at and explore.

Augie told me he moved from Congo in 1980 and has not returned since. Though he misses his homeland, he said he loves Dallas/Fort Worth and became a United States citizen in the mid 90's. Augie's Congo story is much more uplifting than that of the falling whistles. He attended art school and university in Congo during the 70's, then studied interior design in Brussels during the early 80's. Though Augie has moved on from DR Congo, he tells stories of it and Africa through his art. And, he's a very pleasant person to chat with.

Falling whistles

Saturday night I went to a benefit for the Democratic Republic of Congo. Sounds kind of out there, right? Well, it turned out to be really awesome and was at a very cool venue, Southside on Lamar. Southside on Lamar, for lack of a better description, is a warehouse event hall. The organization hosting the event, Falling Whistles, had invited artists of all types to the event; photographers, sculptures, painters, and muscians were everywhere as were the "wish-we-were-in-Austinites." So needless to say, there was plenty of art to see, hear and make, and of course lots of wine to be had. Honestly I didn't know much of what the event was about, but the facebook invite from Leslie sure seemed like it would make for a different kind of Saturday night experience. It was, without a dbout, a very hippy evening, but a little bit of hippy is good for the soul.

Towards the end of the evening the man behind it all, Sean Carasso, spoke. Sean, who has visted Congo, told the story of the "falling whistles," which up until this point in the evening I had no clue what the whole "falling whistles" bit was about. He said that in the war that is currently being waged in Congo, child soldiers who are too young to handle weapons are given whistles and sent to the front lines. They blow their whistles in warning to the enemy and take the first of the flying bullets, hence "falling whistles." A very sad story indeed. But, Sean followed this story with other stories of hopeful Congonese citizens he'd met during his trip keeping the hopeful evening just that. Then he repeated the famous words, "if you have come here to help me you are wasting your time. But, if you believe your liberation bound to mine then come and we can walk together."

I think what Sean is doing through Falling Whistles is incredible and commendable. I also think awareness of these type of stories is important. But, it will be the Congonese themselves, who walking together, will change their world. I pray they and their children find their liberation.

A Friday photo

For whatever reason, this photo feels very "Friday" to me. Maybe because it reminds me of the weekend, or maybe because its color is nice and the sun is shining. I'm fairly positive it has nothing to do with the thorns though. Cheers to a good day, and a great weekend!

Where the rocks melt

These rocks are beautiful. They tooks years, I'm sure, coming to be. When I saw this on the trail I stopped in my tracks. Back in the 1930's the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) worked diligently to make Big Bend and its trails what they are today. If it weren't for their work we would have never seen what we saw in Big Bend, including these melting rocks, or some might say, one of God's art projects.

Fifteen minutes

What if everyday, at your most stressful moment, you could go anywhere, absolutely anywhere, for just fifteen minutes. You could blink and then you'd be there for a quick breather and bit of relief. This is an important decision because fifteen minutes isn't terribly long. So chose wisely. I would chose to sail the Sound (the Puget Sound that is) for fifteen minutes on a humble sailboat. The boat would already be floating way off the shore when I arrived. And really there would be no sailing. Only anchored wine drinking, sun bathing and camradering with my fellow sailmates and friends (let's just assume who you'd want to be there, would actually be there.) The views would be stunning and the company worth keeping. Fifteen minutes would be just long enough to get lost in the moment. Then when the moment was up you'd return to where you were and things wouldn't seem as chaotic as they did before you left. Wouldn't it be nice?

Find your fifteen minutes, because at the very least, you can dream about it.

Pompatus of love

They don't call it Guitar Hero for nothing. Turns out I'm a champion guitar player after all, and this is my champion axe (not bad for plastic, eh?). I rose to the top last night when I played Steve Miller Band's "The Joker". Steve would have been proud. The blue fret button thought it would beat me, but my little pinkie took us home as I picked my way to rock star status. And you see that metal bar at the top of the photo, that's the whammy bar; I let that puppy wail on the long notes. I recommend Guitar Hero to everyone, it does wonders for your self esteem. Now, if I can just acquire some groupies.

p.s. pompatus is a made up word, maybe Steve Miller really is the joker [lyrics go: ...some people call me Maurice, 'cause I speak of the pompatus of love...]

p.s.s. midday correction, apparently pompatus is in the Oxford English Dictionary and means to act with pomp and splendor, whether that came before or after Stever Miller I do not know. And, I guess all words are made up at some point. Touche.

Photography retreats

Chad and I used to go on photography retreats in College Station. We would pick a place then drive there and shoot for about 30 minutes or so. He would go explore one way and so would I. When one of us found something particularly interesting we would come find the other. Finding something photo worthy in Bryan and College Station was usually a piece of cake, something I took for granted.

This photo comes from our excursion out to the agricultural research fields way out on West Campus, the site for our studio project that semester. I snapped this one of Chad as he snapped one of the cotton field.