A few days at Diamond Lake

I just got back from a few days of camping at Diamond Lake. I'm actually surprised with myself that it is two hours since I have been home and I have already formatted a few of the pictures that I thought were presentable and now I'm just finishing up the first sentence of this entry. Considering all of the productive or unproductive things I could be doing right now, this is one of them.


The trip was fun. We (my dad, brother, and I) stayed at a campground about a 1/4 mile south of the resort near the lake shore. Two other friends were also there and the grand sum of salient items was 4 campers, 2 RVs, 2 boats, 2 dogs, and loads of hot air. Basically, camping the way it was intended.

The fishing report is as follows... Ocassionally we caught some. Sometimes we didn't. I didn't take any pictures of the fish. I can never think of a good way to get pictures of the catch without making it look dead. On second though, some picutes of the landing of the fish might be entertaining, but I'm generally too entertained by the process to think about photographing it. I won't even get started with the whole wide angle lens requirements. A good photographer could get a fine picture of a fish's last moments on a 16' boat with a 200mm lens. I'll have to work on it.

There you have it. Look at this space later in June for the report on a sheduled trip to Klamath Lake. The calculus will be different then, with the inclusion of 5 kids and 1 cabin.

Proof of tadpoles

Something was eating at me earlier today. It occurred to me that Andrea and I are the only people I know of that aware of this blog, but there just might be some other people somewhere in the world who stumble across this page and might not believe the story of the tadpoles. You never know, a deranged person might, perhaps out of a longing for entertainment or some other personal reason, fabricate a story like that. I mean, you never know. In an effort to dispel this possibility, I decided to photograph one of Jolie's charges. I know this picture could have been taken anywhere, or of any tadpole, but what can I say-- suspend your skepticism.

Hey! Speaking of pictures, I was playing with the flash tonight and did some fun things with hand-held lighting. The ghost picture is a 30 second exposure that I was only in for about the first 5-10 seconds. The flash fired on the first curtain, I hung out for a few moments and then left the frame. I am really fascinated by the possibilities with long exposures. Smart people, I'm sure, have pretty accurate ideas of what the results will be when they take these, but for me, it's like opening a present each time I chimp the screen. Granted, sometimes the present is a steaming pile of poo-- that only means it's just like life. So much for the dime store psychology of photography....

I've really got nothing to say about the bee picture. I was just excited that is was my first bug picture with the macro lens that I got for my birthday last month-- 100mm f2.8. I was also a little excited that it only took me 70 frames to get it. A minuscule depth of field = much trial and even more error...

In the beginning...

A few days ago Jolie convinced us that it would be a good idea to collect a few tadpoles from a puddle in an empty lot down the street from our house. Because I secretly had been hoping for one of the kids to ask the age-old question, "Can we catch some tadpoles?" I was an easy sell. In two trips to the puddle, we ended up with six new charges, certainly dazed and confused about their new surroundings. It must be a unique adventure in the life of a tadpole to go from a lovely puddle hidden in the tall grass of an empty lot to our kitchen counter in a recently re-tasked plastic peanut butter jar.


My pity aroused for their plight, the next day I rounded up the three nearest kids and relieved our local Petco of a 10 gallon aquarium and the sundry essentials of a respectable terrarium. It was the most sympathetic $68 I had spent in days. Reflecting on the move earlier today, it really would have been much more dramatic if we had played "Movin' on up," The Jefferson's theme during the netting and dumping. I guess we'll have a more refined plan should we have to replace any goners.

Random use of pictures, huh? That's the way I roll! Actually, my father-inlaw asked me to email him these pictures. I took them the other night at their house where I was excited to try out some great tips I picked up from the strobist website. I'm working my way through some terrific tutorials from the site and I will post decent examples here or perhaps on flickr as they present themselves.

Here's something else random... the picture below was taken with an off-camera flash mounted camera right at about 90 degrees to Audrey and about 2' above her head. The flash was snooted to restrict the light but was not diffused. Hence the hard, narrow light. Just imagine what you can do with two or more additional flashes! Don't tell Andrea I said that...

Well, how how this been for random? I've got one more thing for you. On the sidebar is a list of random things about me. I got this idea from the Glenn family newsletter. Several people have shared their lists in this letter, so I figured I would start one here-- I know that is a borderline non sequitur, but it matches this post. Although it isn't near 25 yet, I am working on it. Producing a list like this is actually an interesting thought exercise. Because my things tend to be a bit ephemeral, I will try to update past entries from time to time. Who knows, perhaps it will someday distill into a list of 25 things that I didn't think of the moment before they were written. Then again, this may be the first and last entry in this blog. Who knows...