Photowalk #31 October 31st, 2009
Oh look: Photowalk #31 on October 31. Strange things do happen this time of year. Given that it is the spooky season, my plan today was to shoot pictures of Halloween decorations. However a blustery day of a rain/snow mix here in Northern Michigan forced me to consider an alternative plan. As I drove through the town center of Gaylord, Michigan, I spotted a handmade sign for a farm market.
The Move to Ubuntu October 30th, 2009
I recently celebrated the release of Windows 7 by upgrading the Windows Vista operating system (OS) running on my HP Pavilion dv9000 to 64-bit Ubuntu 9.04. I was never happy with Vista, despite spending hours running Windows Update. I knew better then to try to upgrade a Windows Xp installation to Vista. However, the HP Pavilion came installed with Vista, so you’d expect things to work for the most part. And the reality is most things did work right. It was the little annoying gotchas that drove me nuts. For example, every time I tried to extract from a zip file, the Windows Desktop would crash. I spent hours scouring forums for a solution, which I never did find. Read the rest of this entry »
Photowalk #30 October 28th, 2009
In my travels through Indiana, I recently passed by an interesting cemetery located one mile west of North Manchester, Indiana. This spooky location, called Cripe Cemetery, caught my attention because it’s perched on a small hill just north of state road 114. If you’ve ever spent any time in northern Indiana, you’ll understand that even small hills tend to stand out. Given that the Halloween season is here, and with the gloomy, overcast morning, I thought this would be an interesting location for a photowalk.
Leaf Colors October 27th, 2009
In the spirit of ‘get out there and shoot something’, I went out and shot something yesterday. I was inspired by Philip Bloom’s blog post where he made a short film out of stills. Using my Canon 5D Mark II, with the camera set to manual, I turned on LiveView so that the mirror is in up position. I then selected various fall color subjects and held down the shutter button for 30-40 pictures. I had set the image size to 2784×1856. At this low quality setting, the camera was able to keep up and store the images, at least for the durations I attempted. Even though the quality setting is low, it’s still larger then HD resolution. In the end one ends up with a short burst of stop motion images that can scaled to create a 1920×1080 HD video. Read the rest of this entry »
Photowalk #29 October 25th, 2009
Last month I spent some time at Whitefish Point in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. As we drove the road that leads to the Whitefish Point lighthouse, I noted a sign pointing to a cemetery. When we returned from the lighthouse, I decided to explore the Whitefish Point Cemetery. I didn’t know what to expect, but what we found caught me by surprise.
Photowalk #28 October 24th, 2009
Photowalk #27 October 21st, 2009
Fall colors are now in peak season here in the Midwest. When the sun shines, it’s a great time to get out and enjoy nature. Last weekend I drove up to Northern Michigan to take pictures of the fall color. My two main photo shooting destinations were the Treetops ski resort in Gaylord, and Higgins Lake. The weather forecast called for mostly sunny skies. However I was treated to mostly cloudy skies. Fortunately the skies cleared enough to get some nice photos and video of the fall colors. Read the rest of this entry »
Photowalk #26 October 4th, 2009
I spent my weekend at Cinema Wasteland in Strongsville, Ohio. Twice a year this movie and memorabilia expo caters to horror film enthusiasts. In addition to sporting must-have collectibles for horror fans, the show arranges for special guests from classic horror movies to make an appearance. For example, I had the pleasure of meeting George Kosana and Russell Streiner from the Night of the Living Dead and Cerina Vincent from Return to House on Haunted Hill. The show also screens a number of classic drive-in thrillers, along with select new movies being promoted by vendors. Saturday night I was entertained by unforgettable film titles such as Gorgo and Bigfoot. After all, how can you go wrong with a plot that includes elements such as Bigfoot, bikers, and John Carradine! Read the rest of this entry »
The Trouble Without Tribbles October 2nd, 2009
Star Trek fans of my generation will instantly recognize this image from the classic episode The Trouble With Tribbles. In this episode, Kirk and crew battle small furry creatures with only two purposes in life: to eat and breed. However it turns out Tribbles have another purpose in life. They make great microphone windscreens. Of course, you’ll have to hollow out and discard the innards since we are only interested in the furry exterior.