On the Pebbled Shore of a Beautiful River

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Location Taken: Banff, Alberta, Canada
Time Taken: June 2010

There’s a river on the edge of the town of Banff. It’s got a beautiful waterfall, magnificent tall stone cliffs around it, and even more spectacular background mountains.

It’s no wonder that they build a resort town here, and even less of a wonder that there’s a national park here too, named after the town. And that’s even before you factor in the hot springs that speckle the area, a few of which are right near the town.

It’s a touristy area, but of a high quality. It’s one of those resort towns you wouldn’t mind living in at all, which is not always the case. It’s certainly worth a visit.

And if you do visit, spend a spare half-hour to wander over to the river and the waterfall. It’s quite worth it.

  

Storms and Sea Girt

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Location Taken: Sea Girt, New Jersey
Time Taken: February 2011

It’s a fairly simple photo today, of the beach in the little town of Sea Girt in the central part of New Jersey’s shore line.

It’s a lovely beach, quite pleasant to walk around. It’s long and flat, with the buildings almost right up to the small dunes lining the beach. I found lots of little sea shells there, and even though it was winter and far too cold for swimming, there were still a few people walking along it, enjoying the ocean.

I wouldn’t recommend visiting it today, though. There’s a bit of a wind and a rain and a hurricane coming in and all that. The eye of Sandy is coming in only about 50 miles or so south of the town. And given the storm surge, all this lovely beach (and probably some of the lovely town) is going to get a little flooded. Or a lot flooded.

They’ve evacuated the town already, and denied access for the area near the beach, so at least the authorities are preparing as best they can.

Anyone in the path of this storm, please pay attention to any and all warnings and orders sent your way. The best way to deal with hurricanes is to prep your house to handle the winds and rain and get out of their way.

I can’t currently prep my place, but I am solidly out of the way, being in the Seattle area for my sister’s graduation. We’ll see what’s happening when I get back to Maryland. Dad’s flying back, though he can’t get in until late tomorrow, and Mom and I are driving back cross-country. At least I’ll get a lot of excellent photos, even if I’m missing a terrrific storm out east.

  

A Girl in the Shadows

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Time Painted: April 2007

Here’s the finished version of the underpainting I posted last Sunday. The photo was taken right after it was all finished, but before I took it down from the easel.

That’s another classmate’s version of the painting in the background. Same subject, same lighting, different product. She used a red-brown underpainting instead of the blues I chose, and if you look closely, you can see the difference. Her painting looks like sunlight is shining on it while mine is in the shadows. And it will always do so, no matter the lighting, because it’s painted in.

I’m fairly happy with how the piece turned out. The face I never quite got right (it doesn’t look like the model), but it’s at an acceptable level. And the pants are a bit rough because I was running pressed for time at the end. It reminds me of some of the Mexican art I’ve seen (like you find here). The girl I painted certainly looks more Mexican than any other ethnicity.

Currently the piece is hanging out in one of our bathrooms. The walls are painted a rich orange-brown color, and the muted blue-tones of the painting make the piece pop more than if I’d painted it in the warm red-brown tones. It’s almost as if I painted the piece deliberately for the space it now resides, but well, that bathroom was a green color when I made the painting, and only switched to orange a year or two later…

  

On the Illusion of Depth

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Location Taken: Garfield Park Conservatory, Chicago, Illinois
Time Taken: April 2008

I’ve mentioned Garfield Park Conservatory before, and even shown a different picture from the succulents room, so I don’t have too much else I can say about this one on those subjects.

I do enjoy how these cactus spikes lack any surrounding context and thus aren’t as fixed in scale as most pictures. These could be ten feet tall for all you know!

Ok, more like ten centimeters, and the focal lengths involved do give it away a bit.

When you’re dealing with distant subjects (like these would have to be to have that many in one photo AND be ten feet tall), everything ends up in the same focal range. Close-up, and only a few do. It’s an exponential thing, with the furthest focal lengths covering billions of light-years (looked up at the night sky lately?), with the closest dividing down into the millimeter range. And, if our eyes could physically manage it, there’s no limit to how narrow it can get. It’d be a bit odd to be able to focus down onto a single atom, though, and would require some truly impressive blinkers in your head. And really, it’s not worth it for general life.

Still, the focal range does give you clues to the depth of a picture, despite it being a two-dimensional image. It’s also why it’s possible to walk around fairly easily with only one eye, though driving’s not too recommended just because judging distance with focal length takes a bit more time. Our human bodies have a lot of back-ups and redundancies for critical features, which is why we manage just fine in a dangerous world.

  

Remnants of a Rainy Night

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Location Taken: Skihist Provincial Park, British Columbia
Time Taken: June 2010

Rain’s a constant hazard when doing tent camping. And not just because it means you’ll have odd patterns of dry and wet ground when you pack up in the morning.

(This particular odd-shaped patch is the combination of a hexagonal tent and a square tarp in front, if you’re wondering.)

It helps to keep an eye on the weather, and perhaps choose not to camp that night at all. We’ve done that a lot when it’s already raining heavily by the time we’ve reached the area, and chosen to go to a hotel instead. But a lot of times, the rain comes during the night. And it’s tough to keep track of the weather when you’re traveling. Well, if we had smartphones, we might be able to, but that’s more modern technology than I’m using.

And it certainly wasn’t an option during my camping trips in the past. Not to mention that if you’re on day 3 of a week-long camping trip, you’re not too likely to pick up the tent for the night. Especially if you got a good spot at the campsite that would likely be gone when you came back.

So it’s handy to know how to handle weather when all that’s between you and it is a thin layer of fabric.

Water-resistant fabric, yes, but fabric. And tents do come with rain-flaps to put on top of them, to help keep the water off the main body of the tent. You can also suspend tarps above that, though you do have to be careful. The water-resistance of the tent fabric doesn’t work if the water gets trapped in one spot. It WILL soak through. And any place where there’s something pressed against the fabric, whether tarp outside or bedding inside, is a place water can gather. And then it leaks through and forms a growing puddle getting your sleeping bag wet.

So on rainy nights, it helps to pull your stuff back from the edge of the tent. And, of course, put the things that would be permanently damaged by water in your car. Or some sort of water-proof place anyway.

And if all else fails, and the tent starts flooding, you can always move yourself into your car. I’ve done that some nights. Took a long time to dry out the bedding after that…