Update 1

Well, in ten hours I managed to install and test Microsoft Office, Lotus Organizer, and Power DVD, Picture Publisher, Calendar Creator, and Dragon Naturally Speaking failed - but Dragon has an update that I'll get to eventually. Surprisingly enough, Office and Organizer both installed with no problem.

Most of the image files I tried to transfer came over with no problem, but a few folders are giving me problems and, within those folders, the images aren't being recognized as jpg's. In any case, I'm going to watch the end of Georgia / Georgia Tech and go to bed. I think this business is going to take awhile. . .

Good News and Bad News

This will be a necessarily spare post, for reasons which will become clear shortly. The Good News is that Thanksgiving at Angela's and Danny's was typically wonderful and that my return to Austin on Friday was pleasant, as I departed early enough that holiday traffic was "not a factor". I arrived home soon enough that I didn't miss any football. The Bad News is that at halftime of the Alabama / Auburn game, my eight year old computer crashed - evaluation of the meltdown damage is TBD and will probably trickle in over the next few weeks.

The Good news is that my New Computer - which I obtained this morning as soon as BestBuy opened - is up and running. The Bad News is I'll be very busy and have to be very lucky to recover all my data. Even the pictures I took Thursday in Arlington had already been dumped to the computer. I've got a recovery plan - it just remains to be seen whether it's any good or not.

The Good News is that the Old Machine lasted through the Windows Vista Era. The Bad News is I don't have a clue whether my favorite image processing software will run on Windows 7 - I've been using that software, Micrografx Picture Publisher, since Version 2 and had been using the final Version 10 (there will be no updates) and I absolutely hate Photoshop.

I was going to continue with the Good News, Bad News theme but I think I'd better get busy implementing my recovery plan. I already found out last night that I don't enjoy the football as much when I can't access the Internet during the games. I'm sure glad I got my new TV a couple of months ago to help me through this. . .

Lake Powell Sunset --- Again

Well, I went back to the original picture files and, sure enough, my forgetting the tripod left a slice missing in the middle of the composite below. I did find a third picture I could use to fill the gap after adjusting the zoom, exposure, and fixing the boat's wake. All in all, I'm satisfied with it. But it would have been simple with a tripod.

Don't forget - you can click on the picture to see a larger version.

Lake Powell Sunset

Returning to Page, AZ after a day of taking pictures at Bryce Canyon National Park in April 2008 I was lucky enough to find the turnoff to the Lake Powell overlook that Kathie had pointed out to me a couple of days before. I'm used to overlooks that are fifty feet or so off the road, like in the Smokies; this one was about a mile from the highway down a gravel road, but Kathie had told me it was a great view and she wasn't wrong.

The first shot is looking NNE over the Wahweap Marina towards Castle Rock. When the lake level is up, there's a channel across that penninsula from Wahweap Bay to Warm Creek Bay in the distance. Since my visit they've deepened the channel - Castle Rock Cut - by eight feet. When the lake level is high enough that the route's open, it cuts about 12 miles off the voyage upstream.

 

The second view is slightly right of the first - the marina is at the edge of the picture. I took this whole series of shots from the overlook sitting on the tailgate of my pick-'em-up truck. And, of course, the whole series reminds me how annoyed I was with myself for not bringing my tripod along. So many of these vistas cry out for a good panorama and I forgot the tripod! I may go back through my shots and see if I can create one after the fact - I'll let you know.

This last shot was shot slightly to the right of the second, looking east with Navajo Mountain on the horizon in the center - maybe I can align these three. At any rate, what I like best about these, I think, is the dark foreground with warmly lit scrub brush, gravel, etc. It was interesting to sit there for 45 min watching the light change and shooting while the sun sank behind me.

Illusion

I was looking for something else, but came across these pictures which I've always liked. One Saturday afternoon in the summer of 2002, Gillian and I grabbed our cameras and took the Suburban up to the Smoky Mountains to see what we could see. As usual, we headed north through Ellijay and Blue Mound, Murphy and Andrews then, just before entering the Nantahala Gorge, we turned north and headed up through Robbinsville towards Fontana Lake, and back east towards Bryson city. I think these pictures are of the Little Tennessee River, though I wouldn't bet my camera on it.

The thing that intrigued me about our roadside view of the river, and what these shots attempt to show, is the initial confusion and possibly even a little vertigo induced by looking down through the leaves from the riverbank and seeing clouds in the Carolina blue instead of the fast-moving, rocky stream you typically find in the Smokies.

 

Of course, the sky and clouds are simply reflections in an unusually wide section of the Little Tennessee on a bright day devoid of even the slightest hint of a breeze. It's interesting to me that, looking at the pictures, you can concentrate on the leaves and determine that you're looking down through the branches - then allow yourself to notice the sky in the background and experience that confusion again.

 

The Quality of Light

Stephen and I were discussing shadows and changing light in relation to his paintings and my photography. On my drive through the Southwest in the spring of 2008, I didn't have the luxury of arranging my shooting schedule to the changing light - I pretty much had to shoot what I saw when I saw it and move along. Generally, the lighting at midday is much less dramatic than at sunrise or sunset but, if you look for it, you can usually find something to snag your interest.

When we got deeper into our discussion of reflected light, the picture above came to mind. I took it in Antelope Canyon from a cruise boat on Lake Powell. The rim of the Canyon was over 100 feet above the lake level. In this instance, the rock face shone reflected the clear blue sky for the most part and appears cool to the touch. But to the right, where the underside of the rock reflects light from the red sandstone, the edge of the Canyon almost seems to be catching fire.

On a somewhat grander scale, the canyon wall - even when in the shadow of the sun - is comparatively well lit by reflected light from the opposite face of the canyon. In contrast with the sky, the red sandstone is clearly warm. I find it especially interesting that in this picture, the sandstone seems even warmer than the glow of the sun itself, barely masked by the rim of the canyon.

Another variable affecting the quality of light is the angle of incidence. This study of the texture of the canyon wall was shot almost perpendicular to the wall - well below the canyon rim - completely in shadow, and lit primarily by reflected light from the opposite wall. Indeed, without knowing exactly where I was when I took the picture, I wouldn't be able to tell that this picture wasn't in direct sunlight.

NAS Kingsville, TX

Can you say South Texas? Rattlesnakes, Prickly Pear, and Santa Gertrudis cattle. The King Ranch and Padre Island. Tony Joe White* and "Polk Salad Annie".

On November 5, 1967 - 42 years ago today - I reported for duty at the Naval Auxiliary Air Station Kingsville, TX. I was an Air Controlman Airman (ACAN) fresh out of Air Traffic Control "A" School at NAS Glynco, GA. I'd been in the Navy since the previous March, finished boot camp in June, and been mugged on Jacksonville Beach, FL in July. I had an early pick among classmates from available duty stations - but none of the "Prime" duty stations was available (Barbers Point, HI, North Island, CA, or Pensacola FL). I followed the conventional wisdom and passed up sea duty on a carrier, briefly considered Argentia, Newfoundland, and Keflavik, Iceland (also considered sea duty - there must be a reason for that) and settled on Kingsville because it was only 200 miles from home (there was nothing available near Asheville, NC).

 

Kingsville was a good place to start out, with plenty of local traffic - three oversized training squadrons (VT-21, VT-22, and VT-23 flying Grumman TF-9J Cougars), and regular visits from wandering Air Force birds to keep things interesting. It was here, on one of my first trips to the control tower, that I saw a flight of two T-38's from San Antonio (Kelly or Randolf AFB) in a surprise break at midfield for runway 35 between numbers three and four of a flight of four Cougars in the break for runway 13 (the duty runway). Apparently, none of the pilots even saw their opponents in the traffic pattern, and everyone in the tower was struck dumb. For my part, I was so traumatized by the event I fairly jumped at the offer to attend GCA school and spent the next seven years in Radar, where you didn't have to watch actual airplanes.

*In 1964, Tony Joe White's band played an uninterrupted engagement of eight months, six nights a week, in a Kingsville club. I have to assume the club was The Inferno. He was still coming back regularly when I left Kingsville in November 1969, and always packed the house.