|
Saturday, September 15, 2007
Hair All Weekend
I've been at a bunch of celebrations of all variety over the last few months, and so I've been taking pictures
of people a lot more than usual. There are very few of these that I will post, by the way. If I did, I'd get permission and
all that stuff. I certainly don't believe in hanging out at a party, for example, and then plastering the web site with 40
photos of all the people without telling them. But if I have the chance to take pictures, I usually end up figuring out that
there are a few situations that could produce a really nice shot and concentrate on those. So today was a good example of
that. I went to a birthday party for a friend Katherine's age. Now my kids are super physical at this point and so as soon
as the rain broke, they went outside and started playing like crazy - well the whole party moved outside really.
Anyway, it went from rainy to a sunny cloudless sky and suddenly that backyard (that is quite large, and filled
with cool kids stuff) was speckled with ultra-bright highlights from the sun shining through the trees. Well, that's not a
great situation for a digital camera in my opinion. This is where film really work better.
This is where, if you hate or maybe ignore my periodic technical deep dives, you should skip the next section.
You get an extra stop of exposure latitude right off the bat with film, but you also get the chemical
process of development to use to your advantage in many ways. Print film is built to take at least an extra stop
of overexposure on top of the larger range. Now you're two stops wider in range. On top of that, you can pull/push the film.
That essentially means you can take the range you've established above and move the entire range one stop up or
down, giving you potentially another stop. In fact, I've taken lately just to putting the big flash on top for sunlight situations
like this. That's kind of a commerical trick, I suppose, although most people should probably do it, particularly
with digital, IMHO. And I had the big flash, but I just didn't feel like it. I generally hate it for that sort of thing. One
of the main things I like about it is that it will, reliably, create a catch-light in the eyes of the subject, and as long
as I compensate it way down so that it's basically at background level or maybe a bit above. But if a person has a Zorro like
slash of sunlight on their face, it's pretty much over unless you flash it. By the way, I apologize that this paragraph is
so long, but I did promise that people should just skip one section, so I can't really break it up now, can I? Anyway, there
were places in the yard where things got really good. There was a large patch of grass in the back of the yard primarily in
shade but very close to sun. And there was the patio where the presents were, which brings me, finally to a point that can
start the next paragraph. But first, a picture.
 Hair on Saturday
The commercial beast in me knows I must get a stellar photo of the person of interest. I know, I know, it's
a birthday party, but look. It's very satisfying taking photos of people you are connected to and it's also great to use different
techniques that you might not otherwise use. If you were being paid, you'd have to get the shot, and you might choose
to shoot it differently to maximize your chances of getting the shot that you know the client will like. When you experiment
a little, the photo should be even better better, but you have a higher risk of blowing it because you're now off your
locked get the shot parameters.
The photo above, Hair on Saturday is not, in case you were wondering, the steller or better shot of the birthday
girl. Even if you did think that, well, I can tell you that nice or not, it's not the birthday girl. And the point of the
photo wasn't to take some iconic image of summer playing or however you might interpret it. It was actually to show the girl
in this picture what she looked like as a ghost. And I really blew it, too. I mean, she got a kick out of it, but it was one
of those things where I was driving home and had the *doh* moment about how I had been totally doing the wrong thing
during the shot.
Huh? How did I get to ghosts? I was telling this girl and her friends about what happens when people move
around during the photo. So they started running around so they could see their ghost pictures. But I kept panning out of
instinct, so they all ended up much sharper than I had intended them to. But back in the lightroom, I 'found' a photo in a
reject. That is, in a completely different context that the shot was envisioned, there was another picture. She was supposed
to be semi-transparent, you see, but the backdrop would have been similarly abstract. In panning, I ended up getting a really
nice texture in her hair and ponytail on top of an astract motion background. I like that.
And then, driving home, I saw this.
If this is some kind of Sweeney Todd-esque symbiosis, I don't think I'll be walking in tomorrow.
Friday, September 14, 2007
The Arlington School Run Might Get Unpleasant
Not for me, mind you, but for those that drop-off and pick-up their kids in the school across from my house.
My driveway, you see, is directly across from the entrance to a large school in Arlington. I won't name it out of privacy
concerns. The number of cars coming down my street is considerable. They get all stacked up waiting to release their kids
and cause a bit of a jam. I actually don't mind that - it comes with the territory. But what really offends me is when a parent
has to park the car for some reason and walk over to the school and they decide to park it in front of either my driveway
or that of my neighbors.
In this, the first week of school, I have noticed this happen three times. Two occasions were like this, someone
parked partially blocking the driveway. The third was when a person completely blocked the driveway, but stood around the
car, presumably worried about what would happen if someone needed to leave. In the former cases, I was able to talk to both
people involved. The first of them (Monday morning, first thing) apologized and said they wouldn't do it again. The second
(this morning) also apologized, but was a bit more prickly.
I should tell you that by this morning, I had decided that I would photograph the offenders to have proof
of my side of the issue. As I was taking pictures of this gentleman's car, he came back from the school and (I think) tried
to ignore me, not making eye contact and such. I thought that was pretty silly, because I was standing on my front lawn with
an enormous professional camera taking pictures of his car. I kept taking pictures, now with him in them, as he unlocked his
car door and tried to get in. (The door wouldn't clear the roots in the grass strip over the curb, so it took him a moment.)
Realizing that he wasn't going to pay any attention to me, I wandered halfway over and asked him to please not park blocking
the driveway anymore. He apologized, but then asked if I needed to go somewhere. I told him it was irrelevant, he shouldn't
block a driveway. And so on. In this case, he was blocking my neighbors, not my driveway (the other two were in front of mine).
My neighbors are a group of absolutely great elderly Irish folk - in fact I went to high school with a great-nephew of theirs.
And it is not uncommon to see them leaving or returning about this time.
For my part, my daughter goes to a public school in Arlington about a quarter mile away and my wife and I
have to do the same routine. But I could never bring my self to block someone's driveway and walk away. I'm just lucky that
Katherine's school starts a quarter hour later than this other school, or I'll probably end up late a few times because of
this.
But these people probably also don't realize that I have considerable capabilities to make my point. I could
have published a photo with the license plate number or even the gentleman himself in it. I haven't gotten to that level yet,
but if this continues, I'll be showing those photos to the school and talking to the police about what can be done.
By now, you may be convinced that I'm over-reacting to this, and I probably am. But the school drop off
is an interesting window into American culture. It is quite common to see a person drive up in a GMC Suburban with two kids
in it and then idle by the curb for 10 minutes until it's close enough to let the kids out. I also get the occasional piece
of trash thrown out the window. I guess I wonder why when parents are doing the school run they are so oblivious to what they
are teaching their own kids through their behavior.
New England Baptist Church Sign: September 14, 2007
I found today's installment of the New England Baptist Church sign quite amusing because it seems somewhat
defensive, or pre-emptive, depending on your point of view, I guess.
One wonders just what they will be showing the next time they flip this sign around and run a 'family film
nite'. The Passion of the Christ, perhaps?
Thursday, September 13, 2007
Waltham is for the Birds
Well, raptors, to be specific. I believe this is a Red-tailed Hawk. I was just driving to work minding my own business. I was on Route 60 on the Belmont/Waltham line when I saw this bird swooping
low in the sky. Really low, like maybe 30 feet off the ground. It was really impressive, but best of all, it was right near
Beaver Brook Reservation. I was able to pull into the parking lot, jump out of the car with my camera and take a bunch of pictures. By then it had
gained some altitude. That was too bad, but I still managed to get a few shots like this.
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
General Petraeus Surge Charts Versus The Associated Press
The testimony by General Petreaus yesterday included 14 slides that were show to support his points. One of the main
points was that the troop surge has helped bring down the level of violent civilian deaths. But is that true? The chart he
displayed was impressive but problematic. As you may know, I was concerned enough about this issue that I created my own chart of civilian deaths using numbers published by the Associated Press. When I saw Petreaus' chart, I immediately sought to correlate
his numbers with the AP. Herein, we find some problems.
Numbers don't lie, but charts can be misleading. I took my chart, changed the scale to the same scale as the one showed
to Congress and superimposed them. The result is below. The grayed box on the right represents the AP numbers with a jagged
blue line with circles for the data points.
The first and most significant problem is that General Petreaus' chart has a timeline running back 19 months. But the
surge was announced by President Bush in January and it took over six months to get those troops in place. Your eye can't
avoid looking at the whole chart and there is a full year of data that is unrelated to the surge. So if you really want to
compare the numbers, you have to look only at January 2007 and on. If you do that, here's what the chart looks like.
Now that we've corrected the timeline, the reductions don't look that impressive in either data set. So what are we to
believe? The overall trends are fairly similar if you look at total deaths rather than those in Baghdad. Let me
make some points here.
- General Petreaus' chart shows a huge drop in civilian deaths coincident with the first month of the surge - January. Although
we don't have the exact data points, we can estimate them from the graph. In January, the number in the Petreaus chart is
approximately 2,800 but falls to approximately 1,800 in February. That's a 36% drop. The AP numbers show January at 1,604
and February at 1,552. That's a 3% drop.
- According to the Brooking's Institute, the troop increase from January to February was almost negligible. In January,
they report (from government sources), 132,000 troops in the field. In February, they report 135,000 troops. That's just over
a 2% increase in troops. It's very hard to conclude that a 2% increase in troops yields a 35% decrease in civilian deaths.
- From February to August, the troop levels increased by 27,000 on a gradual basis, from 135,000 to 162,000. That's a 20%
increase.
- During that same time period, General Petreaus reports an 11% drop in the level of civilian death - from approximately
1,800 in February to 1,600 in August.
- During the same time period, the AP reports a 16% increase in the level of civilian death - from 1,552 in February
to 1,809 in August.
- The Associated Press numbers use a consistent methodology of looking for verifiable reported deaths.
- We don't know what the methodology used by General Petreaus' analysts is, or it if was changed at any point during this
measurement period.
Given all of the above, it's hard for me to conclude that the surge is helping quell civilian death in a broad sense. It
certainly does make sense that in specific geographies (Baghdad and Anbar, for example) the surge does help bring the numbers
down. If that's the case, then one cannot help but be disappointed that there has not been more progress in the Iraqi National
Congress towards the political reforms key to stabilizing the country.
It's also worth remembering that every data point on this chart represents human life lost to violent death and that US
troops are being killed and injured to bring these changes about.
Monday, September 10, 2007
Arlington's Weekly Peace Vigil: America Divided
As I was driving home from work today, I passed through Arlington Center and was surprised to see this demonstration.
I shouldn't be. I've noticed this group before, I just haven't encountered them for some time. These folks are members of
Arlington United for Justice with Peace (AUJP) and they hold this vigil every Monday from 5:30PM to 6:30PM. They are a grassroots organization affiliated with regional and national organizations.
I was already thinking about the war, having watched part of the hearings today from General David Petreaus and Ambassador
Ryan Crocker, so I had to stop and take some pictures. No birds or dragonflies today, folks. While I was there, I picked up
some literature so I could get a feel for what these folks do. From the literature:
Arlington UJP is made up of ordinary Arlington residents: workers, professionals,
and students. We reach out to our community to alert them to the dangers we face and to involve people in constructive, non-violent
action in order to make a difference.
I'm not going to dig deeply into their mission because you can read the web
sites for that and it's pretty obvious from the pictures. The folks I talked to were all articulate, concerned and seemed
very open to discourse even whilst having strong opinions about the war and the Patriot Act. I didn't seek to engage the group,
but when you are carrying a camera like mine in the middle of a vigil, it's hard not to get attention because people
naturally think you are the press. But this is where the story gets pretty interesting too. I was asked by one man about my
affiliation, and I explained that I was a local blogger and that I'd be blogging the vigil this evening. He, I and another
person were standing in a group when another man approached us and berated us all very forcefully. I can only paraphrase his
words because I didn't have a tape recorder or anything, but it went something like this.
I don't know why you hate America so much. I'm a marine -- I served in Iraq and what you are doing is
hurting our troops and this country.
He pulled out his wallet while saying this to show us his military ID card and then walked away in
a huff to talk to the next group of demonstrators. I was absolutely shocked. I wasn't shocked by what he said. I understand
that viewpoint even if I can't appreciate the depth of his emotion. After all, this is a guy who fought for this country and
in all likelihood saw his fellow soldiers killed. I don't have that experience and can't possibly understand how this marine
would feel now that he's back in civilian society.
No, the reason I was shocked was because for part of the time he was talking, he was looking at me.
Let me be clear, I was not a member of this vigil, I was there to document it for this blog. But because I was standing on
a corner talking to these two demonstrators, he jumped to the conclusion that I was anti-war and grouped me together with
the vigil. I could have been telling them exactly the same thing, but he wouldn't have known either way because he was too
busy accosting us verbally. There is a silver lining to the story, but it gets a bit worse before we get there. While you
read on, perhaps you can get a sense for his passion and animation from this photo taken a few minutes later (he's
on the left).
Almost as soon as he moved away, an older woman approached us as said much the same thing. She spoke forcefully and haltingly
in a strong accent. She was convinced we hated America. (I didn't get a photo of her.) She said, 'would you rather the bombs
drop here?' So I tried to engage her and I said that I suspected they would tell her they loved America and were concerned
enough to be out demonstrating to the public. She scoffed and told me that she was from Russia and we took for granted all
the good and wonderful things America had. She told us we couldn't possibly understand the consequences of pulling out
of Iraq, but that since she had lived in Russia for most of her life, she did.
So I asked her if she thought they had a right to free speech to express their opinion, just as she was expressing hers.
She scoffed again and told me that what they were doing was indefensibly wrong (I'm paraphrasing heavily here, but I think
the sense is pretty accurate) and that they shouldn't be doing it.
To lighten the mood a little bit, I'll just note that she didn't actually use the word 'indefensible'.
So I asked her if she thought that kind of attitude would lead us to become just like the cold war Soviet Union. At this
point she had pretty much had it with me. Clearly I didn't understand, and she told me so as she left in a huff.
At this point, I was feeling pretty sad inside. How did American become so polarized? Why were these people so angry? When
did we lose our capability to have a free exchange of ideas? What happened to:
I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it. --Evelyn Beatrice Hall
(commonly misquoted as Voltaire)
At last, now, we get to the silver lining. We'll come back to our angry marine. About seven minutes had elapsed at this
point and he was still around talking to some of the demonstrators. At one point, I was asked to be close to him with a camera
because he had first approached the woman in the photo below so aggresively that some other AUJP members felt they had to
cross over to protect her (note: this is second-hand, I did not witness it).
I do not know what they talked about, but the point is that they talked. He didn't storm off. The tension came down quite
a bit. The body language got calmer. And I hope, man I hope, they agreed to disagree. I mean, this is one of the men that
we need to protect our right to free speech. A right they certainly didn't have in Iraq under Saddam Hussein.
I would love to tell you the conclusion of this conversation, but alas I only had ten minutes to shoot this story
and couldn't see it through. As an American, I'm proud of the AUJP for not rising to the initial intensity of both the
marine and the Russian woman. I'm also proud of the marine for engaging this deeply. It would be easy for him to have yelled
and walked away - he's clearly braver than that.
The moral of the story to me is the damage that occurs in the fabric of our society from the messages we hear from our
government. In the current climate, the executive branch is the bigger offender, in my opinion, but the issue itself is non-partisan.
It doesn't matter if you are a democrat, republican, independent or martian. If you are an elected official and have power
and a platform to speak, you have an obligation to protect the Constitution's First Ammendment. And I believe you have a moral
obligation to protect our culture from intolerance of the diversity of opinion. Devisive messages hurt we the people
very badly. You may not see that from up on the podium, but we see it here on the street. Got it?
My definition of a free society is a society where it is safe to be unpopular --Adlai Stevenson
[Update 9-13-2007] After this story, I went looking at the Arlington Advocate's web site to see what coverage they had done on the AUJP Vigil. I didn't find anything after a couple of searches, so I fired
off an e-mail to the paper asking them if they had done any stories. They haven't. That surprised me since this vigil has
been going on for so long. But I suspect they might now...
Sunday, September 9, 2007
Is The Surge Working?
I was reading Talking Points Memo last night and I was surprised to see a call for help. They are trying to get to the bottom of any valid data that can be used to assess the effectiveness of the surge. It turns
out that the Associated Press has been keeping counts of the number of civilian casualties in Iraq independently. However,
they don't offer up a simple table of what the monthly numbers are. The numbers are frequently reporting in the press, though,
and so can be found on the Internet. But that's just the problem. They are hard to find, hard to search for, etc. So Josh
put out a call asking if people could help fill in this data by searching the web and finding solid, referenceable instances
of the publication of these numbers.
I've been wondering a lot about the surge myself and this seemed like a good thing to look into. Boy he is right, it
is a needle in a haystack. I managed to fill in a lot of the monthly totals, but there are still holes in my data. However,
I managed to assemble almost a year's worth of numbers and realized that I had enough to actually graph the number of civilian
deaths versus the US troop strength. So here it is.
The reason I've been thinking about this is that I've been against the war from the start. Really. I can still remember
the night I heard President Bush first link Iraq with Al-Qaeda and 9/11. I turned to my wife with my jaw on the floor and
found her staring back at me looking the same way. I even remember what I said. "What's he talking about, Iraq had nothing
to do with it." But the point of this chart is to show the actual data so you can come to your own conclusion.
There is some context that is highly relevant, though. General Petreaus is going to testify with Ambassador Crocker in
front of Congress next week on the performance of the surge. Remember that the surge was put in place to quell civilian violence
so that the Iraqi government would have space to make progress on very serious policy issues crucial to the future of Iraq.
It's already been leaked that General Petraeus will talk about how sectarian violence is down 75% in Baghdad. That may be
so, but combined with at least two independent reports (including the GAO report from last week) that conclude that there
has not been enough political progress, the trend in the chart is disturbing. A very small decline at the start of the surge
(February, 2007) is quickly erased by a generally increasing trend.
I couldn't find the September 2006 number, but the August 2006 number is 966 versus 1,809 for August 2007. That's almost
a 90% increase, year over year, despite the surge, despite the progress in Anbar province. To paraphrase an old saying, if
you find yourself deep in a hole, stop digging.
|
