The Deep South - Pt. 1

Carolyn and I have been back from our road trip to Florida for 1.5 weeks now, so I'm overdue to post something.

We managed to leave on Wednesday night and made it all the way to the disappointingly ordinary city of Erie, Pennsylvania. The following day we stopped in the Steel City - Pittsburgh.


A view of one of the rivers in Pittsburgh (not sure if it's the Allegheny or the Monongahela).


Statues of what I am calling engineers. They look busy.

The destination for Day 2 was New River Gorge, in West Virginia. Carolyn had found out that we could camp there for free. As seems to happen on camping nights, we got there fairly late and had difficulty finding a campsite. We drove through the first of several shanty towns we would encounter on the trip; I would consider them Class D ghost towns, but sorry, we didn't stop to take pictures. I'm sure I could hear a banjo playing in the distance. After driving for hours around unmarked, dirt roads in the middle of seemingly-nowhere, we finally found a spot by the river that had a picnic table and a grill, so we set up for the night. I took some night shots but they were pretty crappy. Here is a sample (not flickr-worthy) that shows we were in a valley.



The next morning, we figured out where we had been camping. Did I mention that we had some wine with dinner the previous night? From cartons!



Anyway, we got up early (around 6ish) to see the bridge in some good morning light. I'm not terribly pleased with my digital photos, but I am hopeful about my film ones that I have yet to process.



Supposedly you can stack two Statues of Liberty plus one Washington Monument beneath that bridge... or perhaps it is one of the former and two of the latter? Try it and let me know!

Flashback: Washington DC

Lest you think I have neglected my promise to organize and upload my photos, I present to you my first update:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/georgevnoucek/sets/72157612914551057/

Waaaay back in 2005, Carolyn and I were stationed in Richmond, VA. In preparation for our first road trip, I had bought my precious Nikon D70. My first subject was the United States capital: Washington, DC. Click here to view my original blog posts about the trip, including original versions of the photos I've touched-up.

I suppose the timing is fitting, considering Obama-rama.

They can't sell beer on Sundays????

It's a good thing for Utah that they have some awesome national parks.




The first time I've ever seen Krušovice available in North America, and I can't even buy it!!! Arg.

Lost in the Wilderness

Another lonely day in California, but the weather was magnificent and my camera batteries were charged, so there was nothing standing between me and adventure. I had received some advice about what I should do today, but after doing some research this morning, and with some prompting from Richard, I decided to go see some big trees. If there's one thing they know how to do out here, it's big trees.


Some of the smaller big trees I saw. This photo was HDR-modified for your enjoyment. Do not adjust your monitor.

I speculated that Big Basin Redwoods State Park would provide a high-probability of seeing big trees, so at 10am I headed west, through the Santa Cruz mountains, towards my destiny. The twists and turns through the dense forest of the Santa Cruz mountains were most enjoyable, although I think 45mph is a bit fast for some of those turns.


Here is my car in Big Basin Redwoods State Park. The car itself leaves much to be desired, but I'm starting to like the colour.


I headed out on the Sequoia trail towards Sempervirens Falls. "Sempervirens" means always green.


I learned that this was the first state park in California, formally created in 1902.


Here is a long-ish exposure of the falls. I actually had to brighten it a bit in post-processing. At the falls lookout, I only had to take pictures for two groups. I hate P&S cameras... they feel so clumsy.


After the falls I headed back towards the park headquarters via another trail. I came across this little guy (and many of his skittish friends) on a rocky clearing.


I simply loved the texture on the trees; I made this photo black & white to emphasize this quality.


In case you didn't believe me, here is a gang of redwoods. (HDR)


This was a funny tree that I've seen before but I don't know the name of. The bark appears to just peel off, leaving behind this smooth, flesh-coloured trunk.


And of course, the flower shot.

I'm an idiot, but that's okay

I went to San Francisco today. I packed up my awesome Slingshot camera bag (thanks Carolyn!) with all my gear: D70, 18-200 lens, macro lens, 50mm lens, tripod, circular polarizer, ND-grad filter, extra memory card, micro-fibre cloth, GPS, card reader, battery charger, water bottle, apple, granola bars. It was heavy, but I was all set for a day of shooting.

I got to San Fransisco around 11:30, and I parked at the de Young museum in Golden Gate Park. I was planning on spending much of the day there, and I was happy to finally get out of the car (see this post).

After about 15 minutes of walking about, taking pictures of random statues of Beethoven and Verdi, I found myself at the Japanese Tea Garden. I paid my $4 to enter and proceeded to photograph the serene surrounds when I noticed the battery symbol flashing on my camera. Uh oh. Well, it's a good thing I learned my lesson long ago and bought a spare battery, right?

Right.

Wrong. Thanks to new US Department of Transportation regulations, I couldn't pack my spare battery in my carry-on luggage. Of course I had forgotten this fact, so my battery remained safely packed away in my suitcase back in the hotel. Great.

I still had my battery charger in the car, but of course the other thing I forgot to pack was the car adapter. Even still, I had just paid $4 so I didn't want to leave. I had no choice but to grin and bear it.

As it happens, batteries have a remarkable ability to retain some residual charge - enough charge to focus and flip the shutter. I couldn't actually see the photos I was taken, so for the next 1.5 hours I was doing it "old school". And I really mean old school, because as in the days when they had to replace the photographic plates after each shot, I had to wait about a minute or so for the battery to recharge. In the digital age, this is very frustrating!

But, remarkably, I did manage to get some good shots. In fact, many turned out much sharper than they usually do, so perhaps I haven't been taking enough setup time for my shots. I've posted a few shots below; all but one are unprocessed because I don't have my image processing softare on this laptop. I will post final versions on flickr when I come home.


A Blue Jay that happened to hop up very close to me. If my battery had been charged I would have snapped 20-30 shots of this guy, but I only managed five in the few moments he was around. I'm really happy with how sharp this image came out. I also performed some HDR (or DRI) on this photo to lighten some of the shadows without blowing out the background.


I'm not sure what this is, but I liked the white against the red.


A shot of a tree with pagoda in the background.


A gorgeous Japanese maple, shot from below.


An iris.

I'm glad that a bunch of photos came out nicely, because the rest of the day was a bust. The battery totally gave out by the end of my stay in the garden, so no more pictures were going to happen until I got another battery. I walked around the park some more, and up Haight St. (supposedly quite famous? I saw lots of tattoo parlours and hippie shops... no camera stores though). I then went back to the car, hoping that my trust GPS would take me to a camera store. What luck, there were several camera stores to try! However, I forgot that the GPS takes pleasure in my failures. For the first camera store the GPS led me directly to a residential area where there was no sign of even a convenience store. The second location was much more promising but alas GPS tricked me again. Fool me once, shame on you, but fool me twice, shame on me. I wasn't about to be fooled a third time, so I decided I should just go back to the hotel.

Ok, so I was fooled a third time too. I thought I'd try another store supposedly in Palo Alto on University Ave. University Ave sounded promising. Not surprisingly, the Ritz Camera store was not there (I'm beginning to suspect that it's not a real camera chain at all); however, I did find a Wolf Camera store that the GPS didn't know about. Take that little machine! But, it turns out that Wolf Camera sucks. They didn't have my battery. They didn't have the lens I was interested in either (but he could order it... well, so can anyone with an internet connection). Every time I visit the US I gain appreciation for Henry's back home.

Enough complaining. My time in Golden Gate Park was refreshing and memorable. I'm glad I went. I wish I had been able to take some photographs of the Golden Gate Bridge, particularly at sunset, but I suspect I will return one day. Not tomorrow though, as I am through with big cities. Tomorrow is a hiking and relaxation day. And my battery is charging as we speak.

A week in the village of Saint Joseph

In case you didn't know it, I'm not at home (but Carolyn is, so don't steal my stuff!). I'm in the land of freedom and firearms for two weeks (although I'm hoping it'll just be one). Specifically, I'm in a place they call San Jose. I can't say I've seen much of it, but it looks like most other American cities I've visited. I am enjoying the warmish weather though (about 15-20 degrees centigrade - yay metric system!); I'm wearing a jacket, but I could take it off, if I wanted to.

I won't bore you with all the details.







But I will bore you with some.

I flew out on Sunday at 10am to Vancouver. The Rocky Mountains are awesome. Beautiful. I saw them only from the airport, but they are truly awe-inspiring. My layover was less than two hours, of which an hour was spent sitting in US Customs awaiting my fate. While my experience wasn't nearly as bad as it's been in the past, but every time I talk to a US Customs official I ask myself why did I agree to go on a business trip to the US.

"What is the purpose of your trip?"
"I'm doing software integration. I'll be installing our software and testing it to make sure it works".
"So... you'll be... testing this... software?"
"Uhm, yeah"
"Oh"

He obviously didn't get straight-A's at jack-ass boot camp, but I'll give him a B for effort. The woman who escorted me to the "nervous room" was, dare I say, almost amicable. The third guy let me through after "checking something out" in the back room (i.e. pee break) and giving me the ol' "you're lucky we let you through this time" spiel. Anyway, I didn't cry, so I think it went well.

The flights were both uneventful. I was bothered that they didn't serve food on the flight to Vancouver. That's five hours! Those jerks. When I fly to Germany it's only slightly longer and I get free wine!

My car, alas, is no Musty, but it did come with GPS which I've mentioned before is a gift and a curse. I've only had to loop around a couple of times.

So here I am in San Jose. I haven't taken a single photo yet. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe not. Really, it doesn't matter because I forgot to pack my card reader. Although that does give me an excuse to go to Fry's...

2+2=5

So essentially, this is what happened to me on my trip to Arizona on Monday. Click on the picture to be able to read the text.

I made it!

I wanted to let everyone know that I survived the journey to Arizona, with only a few bumps and bruises. The weather here is amazing... just the right temperature... about 25 degrees celsius, but it's dry. I haven't been able to figure out this calling card thingy, so if anyone was expecting to get a call... well, I guess you'll have to wait. I'll post more details later tonight, but I need to get groceries now.

But I should mention that Customs & Immigration people are meanies.