I guess you could say I’ve started a beer theme, and I think I’m going to run with it. Today’s beer is another porter, and has, amazingly enough, a not so subtle coffee flavor to it: Fuller’s London Porter. I tried a lot of color filters for the flash on this one. The final result was with a yellow filter, flash behind the bottle again. I’m not really loving these shots, but I ended up going with this one:
And the runner up:
On the one hand, beer bottles are a somewhat boring subject. On the other, it’s a great excuse to buy good beers, and it’s a chance to try and make a bottle look interesting. It is clearly possible: This guy has done an awesome job with a heineken bottle.
Most of the time, on a bright sunny day, the world looks a lot better when you remove the polarized light glaring from reflective surfaces and the atmosphere. If you’ve ever worn polarized sunglasses, you probably know what I mean. A few months ago, I spent the $100 or so and bought a Hoya HMC PL-CIR filter for my most oft-used lens, and it pretty much does for the camera everything the polarized glasses do for your eyes. It does wonders for mid-day, bright sunlight photos, or shooting through glass or other reflective surfaces like water. Choosing between dark foreground and blown-out, highlighted sky is also a lot less of a problem. I figured I’d share some example shots showing what a polarizer can do:
I should disclose the details of the experimental setup here: I did not actually remove the filter in any of these shots. In the “polarized” shots, it is simply rotated to block the polarization of the sun glare, and in the other rotated away so that it does not (in which case, it should behave like an ND filter, just making the whole image darker). The camera is in Aperture Priority mode, so the exposure varied between the shots according to the incoming light. It is important to rotate the filter to the right place before each shot, as the required angle depends on the angle of the camera as well as the location of the sun.
Mary and I took the 3-day memorial weekend and drove up to Sequoia and Kings Canyon (SEKI) National Park for the first time. Most of the trails are at fairly high elevation, and snow coverage is still high. We arrived thinking we would hike to Bearpaw Meadow, but by the time we got to the ranger station, it was already getting late, they said it was a pretty treacherous stream crossing to get there, and it is a pretty long way to camp. Only one person had gotten a permit that day to do it. So we decided to change plans and instead head for Twin Lakes, stopping at Cahoon Meadow which was only ~3 miles in, and continuing on to spend Sunday night at Twin Lakes.
After the first mile or so, we hit the snow. It was a surprisingly sudden switch. The bottom of the trail is 95% clear, just the occasional patch of snow under a tree or something. Then all of a sudden, there is a line of snow, and from then on 95% of the ground is covered. Sometimes DEEP. I was very glad to have a GPS with a map of the trail, because following the trail was nearly impossible without it. Sometimes there were foot steps to follow, but they often split apart and disappeared, and I think most of them had about as good an idea of where they were going as we did. For every mile of trail we covered, I think we must have walked at least 1.5 miles hunting around for the right direction. Several times we found ourselves climbing up steep hills covered in snow drifts, when I’m fairly sure the trail would have taken a less difficult route.
We made it to camp well before sunset, and even found a dry spot to set up our tent. The “meadow” had not quite become a meadow yet. Large parts of it were still snow covered, and the parts that weren’t were flooded with water. There were new grass shoots beginning to pop up out of the water though, so it will no doubt be a meadow again before long.
The next day we set off for Twin Lake. Three hours later, we made it to Cahoon Gap, barely over a mile a way. We still had over two miles and another big climb to get up to the lakes. I’m pretty sure we would have made it by dark; but just barely, and we would have had a long day back out on Monday, hopefully in time to return the bear canister we rented from the ranger station. Plus, We still wanted to see some of the main parts of the park as well. There are some big trees around there! So, it wasn’t all that difficult of a decision to turn around when we reached the gap and spend another night at the meadow. We were content to just wander around a snowy forest which we had almost entirely to ourselves. There was one other couple from LA at Cahoon Meadow the first night, and the second night a solo hiker who we never made contact with setup camp across the way.
On Monday we got out around noon, grabbed some lunch at Lodgepole, and then headed over to see General Sherman, the biggest tree in the world. However, the trail to general sherman was closed due to ice (though we had already spent the last two days slip’n and sliding around the mountains, I think we could have survived), and there were about 3 million people waiting to get onto shuttles to take you from the parking lot to the closer trailhead. So we bailed on that, and instead went to the giant forest area and went for a stroll, which turned out to be an amazingly fortunate decision.
We had actually stopped, were sitting on a bench eating a summer sausage and enjoying the sights, when a little boy walking by with his family came up to us very shyly and said, “Excuse me…there’s a black bear.” pointing off across the meadow. Sure enough, there was a bear! We took off down the trail to go to the other side of the meadow to watch and photograph! While we were watching the bear forage around, Mary says she “thinks there’s something big in the tree”. Amazingly, I look up, and sure enough, there are not one, but TWO bear cubs peering down at us from the tree right above us! It was pretty sweet! We finished off the day by heading out of the park to the north, stopping off at Grant Grove to walk through a whole new set of giant trees. They are pretty incredible.
In January, I went to India for two weeks with a couple of friends. Vivek is from Lucknow, and was visiting his family; Htay and I came along. The first place we went when we arrived in India was to Bangalore where we met Vivek’s girlfriend, Pallavi (who, incidentally, became Vivek’s fiance shortly after we got there). We had a few fun days in Bangalore, hanging out with Pallavi and some of her friends, and then we had to leave to Lucknow. This gallery is dedicated to Vivek, Pallavi, and Pallavi’s electronic incarnation which traveled with us everywhere, always attached to Vivek’s ear.
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One of every 300 shuttle missions to the space station could expect to be destroyed by space debris, Shannon said. By contrast, Atlantis faces a 1-in-185 risk of fatal damage, he said.
Good names? Experts weigh in on Brangelina’s picks for twins.
This was one of today’s “Top Picks” news items. It went along with “Michigan city investigates manhole cover caper”, and “Family sitcoms in sad state”. Woohoo!
See, Asian casino’s are trying to lure gamblers away from the table games to more profitable slots (physorg.com)! They may be simple to play and flashy, but they are not as fun and have a smaller payback (a payback, which by they way, you can’t even know because it is programmed rather than following from the rules of the game!).
