Archive for August, 2009

Photo: Fog in the Trees II

Posted on: by Jeremiah Tolbert

It’s very dry in the part of the coun­try, to the point where, at high alti­tudes, you don’t find your­self sweat­ing much because it evap­o­rates too quickly. This means one of my favorite weather phe­nom­ena, fog, rarely comes along. But while up in Rocky Mountain National Park, I found a whole cloud bank set­tled into a val­ley, which gave me a great oppor­tu­nity to prac­tice shoot­ing in fog.

Fog makes for an inter­est­ing pho­to­graph but I found there’s no point in shoot­ing in it unless you’re shoot­ing directly at a light source. Backlit fog just looks blurry. If you can take pic­tures of fog from a dis­tance obscur­ing some­thing like say, the Golden Gate Bridge, that’s pretty cool too, but for this round of exper­i­men­ta­tion, the only good shots I got were of sun­beams com­ing through tree and selec­tively illu­mi­nat­ing the fog, like this one.

A note to other new­bie photographers–I view his­togram clip­ping as the kiss of death for a photo and oftne delete it on site–but you just have to live with it when shoot­ing basi­cally right at the sun in an over­cast situation.

Photo: Fog in the Trees II

10 Ways to Have a More “Interesting” Convention Experience

Posted on: by Jeremiah Tolbert

I am not attend­ing WorldCon (AKA Anticipation)  this year.  Last year was great, and I met a lot of really inter­est­ing new peo­ple, and got to meet some peo­ple in the flesh for the first time like John Joseph Adams (whose col­lec­tion The Living Dead was nom­i­nated for a World Fantasy Award this week!  Congratulations are in order).   Why am I not going?  Well, there’s the finan­cial rea­sons of course, but there’s also a lit­tle dis­pute I had with the Canadian Border Control back in 1986 involv­ing the ille­gal impor­ta­tion of furry porn.  I’m not allowed to talk about it, but suf­fice to say, I can only travel to Canada under pseu­do­nyms such as Harrison T. Merriweather.  And now I can’t use that one.  Canada’s agents are everywhere.

It’s rather  too easy for the sea­soned con vet­eran to end up in a bit of a rut when it comes to cons.  “Find a seat in the bar and leave only for your pan­els” seems to be the writer/editor/publisher’s way.  I think they some­times actu­ally take in food in a solid form over the course of the con­ven­tion, but I have no evi­dence of this.

I’ve decided, as a ser­vice to the con­ven­tion goer, to pro­vide this help­ful list of activ­i­ties you can  par­tic­i­pate in to make your convention-​​going expe­ri­ence that much more interesting.

  1. In a very pub­lic space, ask Gord Sellar to imi­tate his Quebec-​​born mother.  (The result­ing mob will give you all the exer­cise you need for the week).
  2. Dress up as a polyp and jump out at Jay Lake every time you see him, yelling “Boo!”
  3. Squeeze Harlan Ellison’s boob.
  4. Walk up to Tempest, and whis­per, in a ner­vous voice.  “I see black people.”
  5. Go to a Gordon van Gelder panel and stand up to ask a ques­tion.  Congratulate him on finally break­ing down and accept­ing elec­tronic sub­mis­sions and start a stand­ing ova­tion.  Then flee. (Also, scratch F&SF off your sub­mis­sions list)
  6. Treat every­one in cos­play as you would treat their actual char­ac­ter.  Run in ter­ror from stormtroop­ers.  Try to res­cue Slave Girl Leia.  Laugh and point at Klingons.
  7. Ask Ted Chiang to tell you about the cover of his col­lec­tion.  (Only do this if you have 4 hours of time you need to kill).
  8. Find Cory Doctorow.  Secretly replace his iPod with a Zune.
  9. Dress up as the ghost of Robert Heinlein and demand roy­al­ties from John Scalzi all weekend.
  10. When they announce the John W. Campbell Award for best new writer, race to the podium, snatch the award, and smug­gle it home to ME.

Anyone else have any ideas to make those lucky folks attend­ing WorldCon have a more “fun” time?

Photography: Sometimes You Just Get Lucky

Posted on: by Jeremiah Tolbert

It’s hard to over­es­ti­mate the use­ful­ness of luck when it comes to wildlife pho­tog­ra­phy. A lot of my best shots owe their exis­tence to chance. Being in the right place at the right time, that’s luck. So it hap­pened this week­end that I found myself unex­pect­edly tak­ing a photo when I thought I was done.

I’d gone for a walk down a short trail in Rocky Mountain National Park, but the fog was thick enough that I wasn’t see­ing much of any­thing beyond a few deer and some squir­rels. (This is what it looked like) I turned around and headed back to my car. As I sat my cam­era on the roof of the car so that I could get out my bag and put it away, I looked across the car at the tree on the other side and saw this red-​​naped sap­sucker sit­ting there, not even pay­ing atten­tion to me. At a dis­tance of about 4 feet, It’s hard not to get a rea­son­able shot.

I might not have even noticed the bird. It blended in with the bark fairly well except for that red head and throat, and I must have caught that color out of the cor­ner of my eye.

Sometimes, the best shots come not because you’ve pre­pared, or because you wanted it. Sometimes, you just get lucky. The trick is, hav­ing enough skill to make your luck work for you.

Photography: Sometimes You Just Get Lucky