Literary Gibberish » Photography

Wordless Wednesday, Januray 20

Conan — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 19:40:04 +0000

Toybox, originally uploaded by rwhitesi37.

Worldess Wednesday

Conan — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 14:50:47 +0000

Photo Karma – Slate’s Photograph the Recession

Conan — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 17:10:20 +0000

The good folks over at Slate are doing an interesting crowdsource photography project:

We want to know what the recession looks like to our readers—and we want to tap into your creativity and resourcefulness to capture this perilous moment.

They’ve created a flick group for folks to post their own shots it seems like an interesting project. I have submitted my favorite below – clicking through will take you to the photo page and you can get to the group from there. You can also jump directly to Slate’s Shoot the Recession on Flickr.

Photo Karma – Great Pictures on the Cheap

Conan — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 17:58:33 +0000

In a work-related ¹ fit of enthusiasm today, I did something I’ve been wanting to do for quite some time. I built a bootleg light-box to take nice pictures of small objects. Turns out this is something easier than I had even thought and the results are better than I expected. It’s always a good day when you can exceed expectations. To wit – this small sculpture given to us upon the pending birth of our first child:

And, on a lighter note, this 3″ Batman figure that came from the bottom of a Cheerios box:

All you need is a camera, a cardboard box, some tissue paper and a bright light source. I actually used the sun coming in through a window this morning. Oh yeah, you need to head on over to the site where I found directions for this nearly free contraption.

So what are you waiting for? Take the plunge and start taking great looking pictures of all your household trinkets! You can also take a look at a few more in my Flickr set from this morning’s photo session.

^{1 Our Children’s Librarian, fresh off a training session at the State Library, came in this morning with the idea to do a photo inventory of all our puppets, stuffed animals, and various story time props so the other libraries in the system can see what’s available for their programs. I jumped at the chance to use work time to jury-rig my apparatus and make sure we got the job done right.}

Photo Karma – Calling all Knitters!

Conan — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 14:32:00 +0000

There’s an entire generation who grew up on videogames who are now translating their formative experiences manipulating pixels on a screen into more time honored hobbies. Generally, while I appreciate a Super Mario quilt as much as the next nerd, I tend not to obsess over such trinkets. I have, however, found one such item that I covet in the fully realized, Biblical sense from which the Hebrews were forbidden by the Almighty hisself.

And so I call all the knitters among you my readers to deliver me this knitted trinket. Your remuneration will be unending gratitude for saving my eternal soul from the sin of covetousness and ample photo documentation of baby Zeke rockin’ the hat in this webspace. I know an offer like that is irresistible, so here’s where you can find out how to make it, here’s everything you need to know about Katamari, and here’s the photo. Now get to work!

Photo Karma – A Father’s Day Tree

Conan — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 17:55:54 +0000

I spent the weeks leading up to father’s day in a combination of denial and oblivion. Not that I don’t like being a father – far from it – but I’ve always been uncomfortable with Hallmark holidays and I feel that dads, by and large, have it easy. So father’s day snuck up on me and it wasn’t until maybe this past Saturday that I even acknowledged to myself that my first was upon me.

Since Rainey works Sundays we actually went out Saturday night to eat sushi and pick out my gift – a new Japanese Maple for the back yard. Rainey is one significant source of my embarrassment at being celebrated. In the midst of everything else she juggles, she had the time and thoughtfulness to think of and research a gift that both caught me by surprise and was one hundred percent perfect for the occasion. She had even picked out the tree and planned to have it sitting in the back yard when I got home from work Saturday except that she had Zeke on her hands and a band of terrible storms blew through town that afternoon. Hell, all I had to do was change him before I left for work and spend the day standing behind a circ. desk in an air-conditioned building.

Ultimately, I decided it was kind of cool being celebrated. After going out to buy the tree we had some good friends over for an impromptu father’s day cookout Sunday afternoon and a relaxing visit. And just so we didn’t forget who was boss, Zeke decided to make bedtime extra difficult that night, refusing to stay down and leaving us exhausted and with a kitchen full of dirty dishes. I will leave you with the far less tiring photographs of the tree, our landscaping before the tree goes in and a proud papa on his first father’s day.

Photo Karma – The Wild Trees

Conan — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 20:43:05 +0000

I’m going to combine three whole categories into this post – photography, books and travels. So – first the photo:

Can you pick out the two people in the bottom left hand corner? Those are some serious trees. A good friend and I met these trees, and many others, on a trip to Berkeley to visit my brother before he graduated with his engineering degree. He was a gracious host and showed us about as much of the Bay area and Northern Califorina as humanly possible in the span of about 48 hours. This is a shot taken in Muir Woods, a side trip on the way to visit one of our favorite breweries. One day I may post pictures of that tour on another blog where I occasionally rant.

The Muir Woods visit was fascinating and I would have loved to spend longer if we had longer to spend. As it turns out, I was able to spend some vicarious time among even larger trees when I got around to reading Richard Preston’s The WIld Trees. What follows is a hearty recommendation to read this whenever you’re looking to learn something, be entertained and be generally amazed by what’s out there beyond the office walls.

I was a tree climber when I was young. I would climb the tall pines in our apartment complex and the neighbors would gasp. My mom, always the pragmatist, would shrug, responding dryly, “he’ll only fall once.” So to my delight, I opened the book and read about a semi-dropout college student (aren’t they all in California) parking his car in the brush, tromping through the woods and scaling a 70′ tree – a good 30 or 40 feet taller than I’d ever climbed. And then he jumps.

The jump was to a branch on a tree that was hundreds of feet tall. A tree that had branches as large as some of the taller trees in our forests on the east coast. This daredevil leap spawned a career, lasting friendships, at least one marriage and a fair bit of nerdery. ¹ Not having the book in front of me, I won’t recount specific names, dates or quotes, but the book is a fascinating look at the characters involved and the science of the trees.

As it turns out, the trees I visited in Muir Woods are small potatoes. The real action is further north. The coast of the pacific northwest is home to the last of the North American rainforest and some truly magnificent trees. The Wild Trees is a story of human love and love of nature. It is even, to some extent, a tale of intrigue. To protect these trees from thrillseekers and well meaning but inept conservationists only a handful know where the tallest trees in the world are actually located. It’s amazing to read that there are still uncharted wonders in the world, and Preston does both his human and natural subjects justice.

^{1 The book’s heroes are unabashedly oddballs and nerds. As first climbers, tradition gave them the right to name each tree and the book is full of obscure names from Tolkien as a result.}

Photo Karma – How Does Your Garden Grow.

Conan — Wed, 21 May 2008 21:01:29 +0000

Haphazardly, and without maintenance. Thanks for asking. I know I promised a literary next post but due to certain disconcerting events at work my brain has been elsewhere all day. Said events almost make me want to start a blog entierly about intellectual freedom and why we insist on treating people like criminals before they give us any reason to. This county is big on original sin I guess.

Anyway, I submit for your perusal the violets that appeared, unbidden, in our garden. The offspring of last season’s hastily-inserted-for-color batch. Life is good.

Photo Karma – Zeke loves a parade

Conan — Wed, 07 May 2008 00:57:02 +0000

Yes, it’s true. My feelings about parades notwithstanding, Baby Zeke, just under five months old, loves parades. We sat on the shaded steps of our church and watched all but about 45 minutes of nearly six hours worth of parades.

Saturday night, he slept seven hours – five more than he usually goes between overnight feedings. Hey, maybe I can get used to this whole parade thing!

Photo Karma – Pier 39

Conan — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 19:38:53 +0000

I got an email a few days ago informing me that the above photo was short listed for inclusion in the Schmap: California Guide, second edition. Well, I was unaware that there was a first edition – but how cool is that!? So I followed the link to approve my photo for inclusion, if selected, and then browsed around a bit.

This is one of those web 2.0/social media/mashup things that genuinely seems useful. Schmap is an interactive travel guide that you can either use online or download to your computer. Instead of checking out (or, heaven forbid buying!) a travel guide, this seems like a great place to start. The site gives at-a-glance descriptions of recommended events, tourist locations, neighborhood information and places to eat/stay/etc. If you’re really the type who gets deep into the planning process, this probably isn’t the site for you. But if you are planning a day trip, or like to wing it, this would be the perfect place to cherrypick some quick recommendations or find just enough information to get yourself lost, in trouble or arrested.

Most of what the Schmap guides use is freely available web and user submitted content. They apparently scour flickr for photos licensed under Creative Commons and use Yahoo!’s maps and API for location-based finding. The write-ups seem to come a service called Wcities and the advertising in unobtrusive.

Did I mention it’s free? Give it a try.