Trying To Find The Road Not Taken

A small audience at the Lincoln Memorial: “

When it looked as though Obama was going to win the election, former photojournalist Matt Mendelsohn went to the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC expecting to find a huge crowd of celebrants.

I’d spent most of election night in front of the TV in Arlington, Va. But around 11 p.m. I couldn’t sit idle any longer, which is why I sped to the memorial. When I arrived, I found a TV crew sitting on the plaza above the Reflecting Pool, waiting, I assumed, for a mob to arrive. I approached with cameras in hand. One of them looked up and said with a slight roll of his eyes, ‘Nothing to see here.’

Instead he found a small group of people listening to Obama’s acceptance speech on a transistor radio and shot this wonderful picture of the scene. I can’t think of an image that better characterizes the grass-roots, get-out-the-vote, small-donations-by-millions-of-people aspect of Obama’s campaign. (via 3qd)

Update: Here’s another view of the same scene. (thx, andy)

(link)”

(Via kottke.org.)

I was going through my photos trying to find one for Flashback Tuesday on Flickr. I don’t think I had shared this one before. I was 14 here and eaten alive by mosquitos, this was the end of 2 weeks on Outward Bound via their Hurricane Island School in Maine.

My middle school years were not the best, and my parents at the recommendation of a counselor they had sent me to see, signed me up and sent me off that summer to Outward Bound. I figured I could hack it. I’d be stuck in a co-ed group of 10 other teenagers, all the same age. We were from all over the country and had never met before.

Reflecting now on the experience, it changed my life, how I saw myself, respected myself and what was really important in life. Through the experience I met one of my best friends, Debbie. She was from Massachusetts and after the trip, we’d call, our parents would meet up mid-state and she’d get to come hang out with me. She even came to school with me for 2 days.

We’ve kept in close touch making sure to get together a few times a year and as luck may have it her and her husband moved to Connecticut. When we all get together it makes for good stories sharing our memories of those unforgettable two weeks in the woods of Maine.

Found this via MostlyLisa’s site.

I’ve been toying with the idea of buying a strobe and umbrella, along with a diffuser. Last weekend I saw a photographer and assistant up at Topsmead using I think a reflector working with kids.

I found this video to be really helpful in explaining how to use a diffuser and reflector to get the best results.

Tim Gasperak’s Mystery of Iceland photo collection.

Iceland is on my wishlist of places to visit. The waters and landscapes look amazing, along with their long history of keeping the Icelandic horse breed pure.

[via Richard's Notes]

Incredible animation.

A few months ago, I took advantage of the local yarn store’s closing sale. When I got home with my bounty of yarn, I stuffed a few of balls of yarn into a plastic storage bin in my office. Problem was, the bin wasn’t big enough for all of it.

This weekend we did a major cleaning and overhaul of my office. I finally made it through several boxes that had been stalking me for years. When we were done, I turned around to see the coffee table empty inside and the lightbulb went off to put the yarn in there. It all fit, looks wonderful and when I want some, all I have to do is grab a suction cup, pull up the glass and take out the one piece.

In Photoshop CS3 there is a new feature, Image > Adjustments > Black and White. In the dialog there are several presets you can choose from, one is Infrared. I’ve always admired, Dave’s infrared photography, which he does with an attachment for his camera. I haven’t broken down yet and gotten an attachment.

This experiment though has made me really want to get one though. I did a little tweaking of this photo after the basic infrared was applied. I created a slight vignetting, along with some edge blur. I’m happy with the final product.

Here is the original image.

This is so incredibly true!

Over the summer, we embarked on transferring a bunch of old VHS tapes to DVD. Talk about a trip down memory lane. This shot is from me driving around during the summer of 1994, learning to drive in Craig’s parent’s 1986 Mercedes 190D. We had so much fun, but as I watched an hour of so of driving around town I was like, ok what the heck was I was thinking, that anyone would want to watch this.

I still need to go through and pair down the footage. Recently my hometown has expanded the main road to 4 lanes, and there is more shopping malls than ever before. Now this footage we took is pretty unique.

Another project…