18-200mm

Fork in the Path

Fork
Nikon D300, AF-S Nikkor 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6

One of my 2012 resolutions is to share my photos more, and one of the old fashioned ways to do this is via prints.  Putting photos up on the wall is an easy way to start conversations with visiting friends and family.

I took this photo while on a business trip to Oslo, Norway in October 2010.  We were walking through the Royal Palace park on the way to dinner when I snapped this shot of my co-workers proceeding down the path.

I had it printed by Mpix shortly thereafter and swapped it into a frame we already had.  However, the previous picture was a vertical shot and the wire mounting was not setup for hanging horizontal.  As I sometimes do (ahem…) I put is aside and forget about it.

My wife discovered it hiding (in plain site…) on top of a cabinet the other day, so I finally got off my behind, re-attached the wire for horizontal placement and hung it on a wall in our house.

Maybe I can rotate a few other new prints through the house soon, this time taking less than a year to hang them up!

View From The Window

View
Nikon D300, AF-S Nikkor 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6

On August 19, 1839, the French government announced the invention of photography as a gift “Free to the World”.  That was the year that Louis Daguerre created the Daguerreotype process and competitor William Fox Talbot created the Calotype process.

It seems there is some debate who deserves recognition for creating the first practical photographic process.  But I am personally fascinated more by the first successful permanent photograph View from the Window at Le Gras by Nicéphore Niépce taken 13 years earlier in 1826.

Inspired by the newly-invented art of lithography, Niépce created a light-sensitive varnish made of a petroleum derivative.  He applied it to a polished pewter plate, placed it behind his camera obscura, and pointed it all out the window of his country house.

Eight hours later his exposure was finished, and after washing the plate in order to remove the exposed varnish (and reveal the shiny pewter behind) the photograph was complete.  A fascinating side effect was that opposing buildings are evenly lit due to the sun traveling across the sky during the lengthy exposure.

So happy World Photography Day to you all!  And bonus brownie points for the commenter that can identify the location of the window I captured in the image above.

Spinning Light

SpinningLight
Nikon D300, AF-S Nikkor 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6, @ f/4.5 and 2.4 second exposure

The lovely model in the above shot is my Dear Sweet Wife who is known to be an avid spinner of a different kind.  Our almost-three-year-old son is pretending to be Darth Vader in the background, waving his glow stick around (amazing entertainment value with young kids) saying things like “I am your father!” while making wheezing noises.

We spent a long weekend in Cayucos, CA as our end-of-summer beach vacation.  You may think that summer is just getting started, but according to our local school district it is almost over seeing as the school year starts next Monday.

The weather was a bit cold and the water even colder, but good time was had by all (us, kids, Grandparents, Aunt & Uncle, and cousins).  We got our kite flying, sand castling, boogie boarding, and seafood eating in spades.

Our culinary discovery of the trip was Taco Temple in nearby Morro Bay.  The home-made chips and salsa almost filled us up before the meal even came, my wife’s single “taco” dish of halibut was enormous as was my chicken-bacon chimichanga, and the chocolate-covered bread pudding was to die for.  (Burp!)

I had my big camera bag and tripod with me with serious intent to do some landscape photography for the first time in a long time.  It felt great just having it all in the trunk, although the weather barely accommodated one sunset outing in which I shot 24 exposures of Velvia 100 with my Nikon FA.

The sun was almost a no-show due to fog, but I managed to get some shots of the distant Morrow Rock as well as the local pier using wake-boarders, birds, or joggers to add some foreground interest.  Now I just need to come up with something creative to finish off the roll…