|
Friday, July 13, 2007
Some Close Ups
 Fate has been playing a lot in my life lately. Sometimes good, sometimes bad. The good part is that I had a creative breakthrough
on a series of macro photographs I've been thinking of doing. This, however, isn't one of them. This is one of those photos
that just kindof happens. I was sitting there looking over the setup and I sat down on the tree trunk, looked over and saw
it.
Despite being a grab shot, I actually worked this a fair amount. I had the camera on a tripod and I shot the thing at
most major apertures. This was my favorite of the series, although I'm not sure I'm satisfied with the look, contrast and
so forth.
Let me tell you this, anyone that thinks that landscape or nature photographers don't get any exercise has not been out
with me. I end up having to scramble all around -- in this case, to catch a dragonfly.
Now let me tell you, taking these picture is really difficult because I have to do everthing at once. It's hard to use
autofocus, I'm hand-holding the camera and so forth. But sure enough, eventually after a bunch of screwing around, this guy
takes a nice little rest in the sun by his pond.
At this point, I've been following the thing for awhile. I actually moved into a position overlooking this branch after
he hovered over it. Anyway, there I am, on my feet but kneeling as far as I can do with both hands busy. I blasted away and
was quite winded when I was done. I think only one of this series came out.
And finally for something a little bit different. There's an old saying in hockey that goes something like, "you can't
get a goal if you don't shoot at the net". Taking pictures can be like that too. In this case, my dragonfly flew off but I
tried to follow his movements. Running around, panting, sweating and generally enjoying myself, I managed to snap this last
shot.
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
Trucks And Trains
I took Alex out for a trip this morning. We were going to go down to the water and throw rocks and stuff, but he's been
under the weather and ended up just wanting to see trains. So off we went to West Medford Square to the commuter rail station
to wait for a train to go by. When we arrived, we were very surprised to see this.
I've seen these things before, especially when I've been riding on the train, but I don't think I've ever actually seen
one running along the tracks like this.
Just a normal old morning in West Medford Square...
Shortly after this moment, a train did go by. It was an Amtrack train headed up north, not a commuter line.
Alex and I sat close enough to feel the wind. I practically had him in a bear hug, but he was oblivious and thrilled. He kept
saying, "bullet train", or whatever passes for that in his tongue. I forget sometimes that you end up somewhat bi-lingual
when kids are at this stage of talking, but that's a topic for another day...
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
I Can't Believe Bush Said That
I'm not sure I've ever posted on George W. Bush, our president, but I saw something today that was so astonishingly
unbelievable I had to write about it. Bush, infamous for his comment about the Google, got on a roll talking about IT at the Cleveland Clinic today. Forget about the political left and right for a moment and just take in this quote from Bush this afternoon.
"I believe in information technology. The first time I came to Cleveland Clinic we were talking about how
to modernize our hospitals systems and our doctors offices into the 21st century. Perhaps the best way
to describe the problem is we got too many doctors still writin' out prescriptions by hand. Most of 'em can't write to
begin with. (laugh) And then they pass the file from one person to the next -- that's inefficient in this new era. I
mean technology is changing the way we live -- it oughta way -- it oughta be changing the way medicine operates
and it is at Cleveland Clinic. I envision the day one day when all of us will have our own medical electronic record that,
a, will be safe from snoopers, inotherwords it will be private but will make health care more efficient."
I nearly fell out of my chair at this point. I can envision that day too and it terrifies me, at least if Mr. Bush is involved.
How is my health care record going to make health care more efficient if it is kept private? Does he think I'm naïve
enough to trust him with my medical records? You know, history tends to repeat itself and with this administration that would
mean there would be plenty of people snooping about in my medical electronic record (shall we call it a MER for short?). Any
they wouldn't probably be looking to make the health care system more efficient, I think.
Monday, July 9, 2007
Breaking The Rules
 I was in Cambridge this evening during some fine weather. We had a proper English day here -- it really struck home when
I realized I was juggling my sunglasses in one hand and an umbrella in the other. Boy, does that bring me back to, well, just
about every day I spent in London, I guess. But I'm really off track now.
It was really gloomy in Boston. We had the kind of fog and haze that just socks you in. Driving into town, it was like
a huge black cloud enveloping the city. No wait, actually, there was a huge black cloud enveloping
the city. It was perfect for taking pictures :^).
But I was actually doing something else and I only had about three minutes, so I walked over to the Charles River, found
the best subject I could, shot it in both portrait and landscape orientation and moved on with my evening.
Tonight, looking at this one, I'm struck by how many rules I broke taking this picture. The most conspicuous one is the
'rule of thirds' which basically states that if you draw a grid over the photo to break it up into thirds both hoizontally
and vertically, the important things should either run along the lines, be placed in the intersection of lines, run out of
the frame intersecting a line and so forth ad nauseum.
The photo also contains some troubling juxtaposition, like the craziness of the boats under the serenity of fog and stuff.
Compositionally, the big boat is balanced by, well, nothing really. Your eye tends to run up and down the image and not
be able to settle on a spot.
Yup, I broke a fair number of rules. I still like it though, even if it'll never hang in a museum.
|
