Big Canoe...

I have been working here in San Francisco for almost seven months. This is one of the largest ships I have seen go past our window. I have a great view of the bay from our office and I can see the entire western span of the Oakland Bay Bridge.

This is an image I just took not more than five minutes ago. The vessel is the Alaskan Explorer. She is 941 feet long, or longer than three football fields. She has a 164 foot beam. Features a double hull to prevent the 1.3 million barrels of crude oil from leaking from her bowels.

Photo by: Kirk Howard Copyright© 2007

She was built in San Diego, California for the the BP Oil Shipping Company, USA. The Alaskan Explorer was delivered in 2005, and is the sister ship to the Alaskan Frontier. Both will be operated by SIU-contracted Alaska Tanker Co.

Dumpr What...!

A few weeks ago I told you about a cool new website slide.com. I showed you an example of it with some images I took while in Half Moon Bay.

Today I have another great website Dumpr.net. I have been playing around with the musuem page, and came up with some really great ideas and images. I created this museum looking image within seconds. It is easy to use and you will be very entertained by the results.

I shot this image of a Mayan woman and her child in Antigua, Guatemala. I could see this image up in an Art Gallery. Personally it looked better then some of the photographs I viewed a few weeks ago at the S.F.M.O.M.A.

Surf City…

Photo by: Kirk Howard Copyright© 2007

Surf City here I come… Jan and Dean immortalized Surf City, written by Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys. I imaging they are talking about Huntington Beach and not Santa Cruz.

There is a hot debate going on between the two cities, about which city is to be claimed as Surf City. The debate started in 2005 when Huntington Beach decided they wanted to patient the Surf City U.S.A. for themselves. Christina Glynn says "Wherever the waves are good and you're feeling in the mood to enjoy the surroundings, that's where Surf City is." I think Christina may have something there.

If you would like to read the article and decide for yourselves here it is. Settling the Surf City debate through 80-year-old news article.
"Surf City" article - found reference as early as 1904

Monarch…

Photo by: Kirk Howard Copyright© 2007
The butterfly species Danaus plexippus is commonly known as the Monarch butterfly. The western population of the Monarch butterfly overwinters in various sites in central coastal California, United States, notably in Pacific Grove and Santa Cruz. In San Leandro they have set up tours to view the Monarch butterfly.

In San Simeon I took a few images of the Monarch butterfly while I was waiting at the entrance of the Hearst Castle visitors’ center. The butterflies really like this yellow daisy looking flower.

The images I took were not the greatest. I was hurried and didn’t have the proper equipment. Typically I would have a tripod, cable release and my macro lens to capture the best “Tack Sharp” images I could. However, I had to work with the tools I had at hand. I had my 80~200 mm f2.8 Zoom attached. I had the ISO set to 400 with a circular polarizer attached to the lens.

The zoom lens was perfect for this type of image. It allowed me to shoot closer to the subject without physically being close to the subject and disturbing the butterfly. The focal length and the large aperture allowed me to create a very shallow (DOF) depth of field. This allows the subject to stay in focus and the distracting background to be slightly out of focus.

A macro zoom lens would bring out more detail.

Tripod…

Copyright© 2007 Kirk Howard

Tripod, monopods choose your weapon…

One of the most important items in the arsenal of a photographer is a tripod. In photography, a tripod is a three-legged stand for a camera, used to stabilize and elevate the camera. The word stabilize rings loud in my mind. Unfortunately I didn’t have a tripod with me on our tour of William Randolph Hearst’s San Simeon home.

I spent the last weekend in Cambria and San Simeon, with my sister, her son and my wife. We all went for a tour of Hearst Castle. We decided to embark on the Tour number two. All of us had already been on tour number one. Tour two is 95% and inside tour of Casa Grande, and mostly on the second and third floors. The California State Parks Service will not allow the use of camera flash inside any of the buildings. You are forced into using available light only.

Copyright© 2007 Kirk Howard

My sister and I had an opportunity to go back and do the night tour. If you ever get the chance I recommend the night tour. It is a longer tour and the interior of the rooms are better lit then during the day. The art work and tapestries’ are more vibrant and colorful. I didn’t have my tripod on this tour either.

Copyright© 2007 Kirk Howard

I order to allow enough light in to expose the image properly; the shutter has to be left open longer. Unfortunately without the use of a tripod it is most likely you will have a picture that is not “Tack Sharp”.

Copyright© 2007 Kirk Howard

I was forced to hand hold my camera and hold my breath as I tried to capture a properly exposed image… You win some, you lose some…

Copyright© 2007 Kirk Howard

Paradox…

Last night my wife and I had the opportunity to view the Olafur Eliasson, Take your time: exhibit at the SFMOMA San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. It had many interactive and visual illusions.

Two exhibits that stood out were the 360º room of Color. The other was the BMW 2HR Art car. The car is a Hydrogen powered race car that has been wrapped with a wire grid and entombed in Ice. The BMW 2HR display was exhibited in a 3º F giant freezer.

As I returned to work and starting reading about the artist and the BMW 2HR I found myself immersed in the technology of hydrogen fuel and how it works. In an article I read it stated and very interesting “Environmental Paradox” that it takes “Dirty Energy” to make “Clean Energy”.

Technology… What a Concept!

In another blog that I read it had a new slide show feature that I really liked. I liked it so much I had to have it and use it. It comes from a Web 2.0 application at slide.com. It is very easy to use and best of all it will automatically give you the proper html code to add to almost any website. I used the Blogger feature to automatically add this slide show to my blog. Man… I love technology!

The Characters and events depicted in this photoplay are fictitious. Any similarity to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Photos by: Kirk Howard Copyright© 2007

Dia De Los Muertos…

November 1st… the Europeans call it “All Saints Day” the Mexican and Latin Americans call it “Day of the Dead” or “Dia De Los Muertos”.