So, with about half of North America, I plan on driving to the path of totality for the upcoming Total Solar Eclipse on August 21. I was originally going to write up some tutorial information on this, but since so much of it is already available, I thought it best to primarily link to the sites I think are most helpful. Continue reading
Category Archives: Events
Sugar Skull
A while back, I bought a used Olympus E-PM2 off eBay and had it converted to full-spectrum usage (i.e., I had the anti-IR filter removed from its sensor). Add an IR filter to its lens, and you can get some interesting effects with the setup — so I took it up to the mountains to the Breckenridge International Snow Sculpture Championships:
After split-toned processing, this is an infrared image of the “Dia de Muertos” snow sculpture, created by a team from Wisconsin. This sculpture won the “Artists’ Choice” award this year, well-deserved if you ask me. The level of detail that the sculptors could achieve with packed snow is impressive.
‘Vette
A vintage Corvette, seen at the Great American Car Show in Westfield Center, Ohio:
This particular shot was post-processed with Topaz Impression software (to give an oil painting effect).
Unsung incidents of the French & Indian War
…or of the Seven Years’ War, if you’re outside the U.S.
A few months back, we took a trip out to Ohio to visit some of my wife’s relatives. Near their corner of rural eastern Ohio, there’s a “Great Trail Festival” each autumn — with folks dressing up and (to some degree cooking) like frontier folk from centuries back. Part of the experience is a group of semi-local re-enactors portraying a skirmish from the French & Indian War.
Here, you see a French soldier on the left (who’s been “shot”) about to spring a surprise on a local colonist. Have to love the “French” gent’s expression…
The three principals
On our recent trip to the Balkans, by far one of our favorite stops was the little walled town of Korčula in Croatia. Good food, friendly people, and some wonderful cultural sights — for instance, the ancient sword dance known as the Moreška.
The story behind the dance is timeless — there are good guys, and bad guys, and a young maiden caught in the middle. In this case, the good guys are the White King and his troops (once symbolic of Christians, later representing the Turks), and the bad guys are the Black King and his supporters (who have always represented the Moors).
In this scene, you see the White King (Osman, dressed in red) and the Black King (Moro) facing off — with the maiden Bula trying to stop the fighting. Bula is the white king’s fiancee, and the black king has kidnapped her, leading to a series of battles finally culminating in the white king’s victory and Bula’s happy return to her love.
The dance has roots dating back to conflict between Christians and Muslims in medieval Spain, and quickly spread throughout the Mediterranean. For centuries, many towns staged their own version of the Moreška — but usually just once every few years, and then on the given town’s patronal feast day. Over the years, the tradition disappeared from town after town until now, only Korčula stages it with any regularity. But the good news for visitors is that the town stages the dance every week, year ’round (and twice a week during the summer). The performers are all natives of Korčula, some with long and proud family histories of participation.
Should you ever get a chance to watch the show in person, I’ve got some tips for you:
- Don’t use a flash
- Sit in the seats opposite to the musicians, preferably on the center aisle, definitely near the front
- Be prepared for low-light photography — I took this shot at 1/80 sec. to freeze any motion, which meant ISO 4000 and f/2.8
A different sort of last supper
The Denver Chalk Art Festival is always a colorful (if crowded) experience for photographers.  This year, it happened to coincide with the Denver Comic Con — so it was fitting that the Rocky Mountain College of Art & Design (RMCAD) contributed this work based on cartoon / sci-fi characters:
One of the hallmarks of RMCAD art works is their use of reflectors to turn a curved artwork into something that is visually straight when seen from just the right angle. Â If you look carefully, you can see the bottom edge of their reflector in the top third of the above image.
Red Stars descending
Members of the RedStar Pilots Association help put on a show at the 2011 Rocky Mountain Airshow in Broomfield, Colorado:
These fine folks make a hobby of flying aircraft from countries in the former Soviet bloc. I think my favorite part of this shot is the shadows cast by the planes’ smoke plumes on the haze to the lower right…
Make a lovely face, Roxanne
In spite of fitful weather, we headed downtown yesterday for the 2012 Denver Chalk Art Festival. This was one of our favorites (reminds me of our kiddo’s response to a camera):
Normally the weather’s pretty cooperative by this time of year — it’s generally hot, but dry. This year, for some reason, we’ve had alternating hot & dry / cool & wet weather for the past few weeks. Saturday night, we got nailed by some fast-moving thunderstorms.
So most of the chalk artists lost Saturday’s work (in full or in part), and had to do major repairs on Sunday. Pretty impressive for a day’s work, I’d say…
Great Expectations
One of the best parts of living in Colorado is that we can get up to some… interesting… mountain events over the course of the year. This was a Canadian entry at the 2012 Breckenridge snow sculpture contest:
I’m always amazed at just how much detail the sculptors can coax out of packed snow (OK, in this case with a bit of help from some icicles).
And of course, you have to look carefully to spot all the goodies they’ve packed into their work.
Ridin’ and shootin’
Another fun shot from the 2012 National Western Stock Show — this one from the Cowboy Mounted Shooting event:
Honestly, I’d never even *heard* of Cowboy Mounted Shooting as a competitive event before. But when we showed up at the stock show ticket desk, we could definitely hear it! We wandered into the arena to see what all the noise was from — and found this fun little event going on.
Getting this shot was a bit tricky, though. The arena lights are relatively dim, and the horses move pretty quickly — so I had to let the ISO get up to 2500 in order to get a reasonably fast shutter speed. At times like this, it helps to catch the action when the horse and rider are rounding a corner — so they’re moving as slowly as they’ll ever be. Oh, and put your camera on “continuous” shooting — catching sparks in mid-air is a game of chance…