The Last Mile

The last mile term can be applied to cable companies and telecoms. That’s not what I’m talking about here. We are talking about the mining industry and the cars that the miners ride down to the working level.

One of the most dangerous jobs is a mine worker. I imagine that when they assigned that evaluation to a miner, they meant those folks who work in the mines that are below the earth.

Picture it - After you put on your safety equipment, you go down in the car above to start your daily shift. Some of these cars go down thousands of feet.

Mining is not a job for folks who have a fear for enclosed spaces. Just this car alone was enough to make me feel the bravery of the folks who did their last mile in this car. And they did it every day.

The good news is that they usually would be coming back up in it at the end of the day.

Ring of Fire eclipse

I went down to Santa Fe to see if I could see anything interesting in the solar eclipse in October. The weather folks were telling us that the morning would start out with high clouds, and perhaps clear up around peak. But when I got out of my hotel room I saw only a few wisps of high clouds. So I knew that I could see the eclipse.

This was an annular eclipse where the moon didn’t quite mask out the sun. So the solar filter stayed on the lens, so I wouldn’t destroy the camera. And I kept my solar glasses on, so I wouldn’t blind myself either.

For those folks who were only looking through the solar glasses, I would guess that this looked a little underwhelming. But if you had a solar telescope, or a good telephoto lens with a solar filter it was interesting.

It was no where near as impressive as the total eclipse in 2017 at totality. And because the solar filter was on the telephoto lens, I couldn't see any plasma.

Spirits in the Night

Last month, I found myself on the little island in NYC. It was quite vibrant there, with lots of people going in all directions. I thought I would channel some of spirits of the people.

We were out there with the folks from NPAN and encouraged to explore. With the hustle and bustle of NYC, even on a Thursday evening, I felt this captured what I was feeling.

Actually I was just using some long exposures techniques to show enough of the folks to be interesting.

Mushroom Rocks

About 6 years ago, I was out in RMNP, and was interested in one of Mushroom Rocks.

Getting there was interesting, being higher than 10 K feet. It made you consider carefully how much gear you were willing to carry.

The mushroom rocks are surrounded by tundra. So you need to stick to the path to avoid doing damage to lichen. A misplaced step could result in damage that might take decades to heal.

I was out that night with Chris and Tim from NPAN. They had loaned me the Iris 11 mm lens. So I didn’t need to do any fancy panorama tricks.

Night photography can lead you to contemplation of your subject. In this case I wandered around the circle of rocks for a few minutes, and my overall exposure was about 2 minutes. It’s long enough that I did a little time bending here, you can see some star trails.

Playing around with natural light

I went up on Sunday to Granby to play around with photographing models with Tony Clapp. He suggested that we might want to try natural light.

As you can tell this lady knew what to do in front of the camera. This was our interpretation of a more fashion/lifestyle work.

As Tony points out, you have to put yourself out to get better.

The underpinnings of an exhibition

Last month I went to Hudson Gardens to see what the weather had done. Thankfully the day I went the cold had relented and there was no trouble moving around. But most of this pond was iced over.

I was a bit bemused by the netting over the concrete blocks. When I was last there I think those were where the plants were.

Spending time in Riverside Cemetery

A few years ago, I spent some time in Riverside Cemetery taking photos after dark. This was just before halloween, and I appreciated the candles that someone carefully placed there. Especially since Riverside cemetery is very dry and I would hate to be there if it caught fire.

While I enjoyed being there before dark, the thing that made my heart sing, was taking photos after dark. Thankfully it was still light enough to get focus and to be able to find what interested me without tripping over various monuments and tombstones.

Lately I’ve taken a night photography course from Jason Langer and Lynn Saville and one of the things they were trying to teach us was doing some exposure blending so the shadows wouldn’t be completely black. As a counterpoint, Joe McNally said, if you want to add mystery to a photo, don’t light all of it. I think you can tell what I felt was the interesting part of this photo.

That same evening I decided to do a bit of light painting on a tombstone. I do have to admit, I don’t know the historical significance of this fellow.

Maroon Bells part 2

Sometimes taking a workshop about processing let’s you see things in a new way. Or gives you a chance to see what was originally in your mind’s eye

This was 10 years after I first been to the site. And while the equipment was better, it also shows that the weather is a crucial part of landscape photography. In my original shot, it had snowed the day before so there was a bit more frosting on the shot. But this shot will stand being printed a little better.