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IU / photo / television / Thursday / video — Comments Off
5
Sep 19

Show – show – show, here we go!

Back to it tonight. The gang at IUSTV kicked off their 2019-2020 production schedule today, and up first was the award-winning IUSTV sports crew. Here’s the control room view:

Last year one of their on-air folks won a statewide anchor of the year honor. A different statewide contest saw the sports gang sweep a particular sports reporting category. And now they are back to improve on where they left off last spring.

The opportunities here are big ones, and they take advantage of them with great effect. Staying at work late is only fun because they get so much out of it.

Here’s one of the shows they produced tonight:

Looks like the other will be uploaded tomorrow.

cycling / photo / Wednesday — Comments Off
4
Sep 19

The gain-bi is mightier than the jian

There is this little multipurpose path joining two parks, bridging a creek and generally being one of the nicer treats in the area. Today I went down it slowly on my bike, because being responsible is more important than gaining segment points, Strava. There might be people. They may have dogs! And you just can’t see around every fun little corner on this path:

I usually try to come up it quickly, because that is the time to try to improve your segment times, but today was not one of those days. Good thing, too. I got about halfway up the thing and I noticed the light was perfect.

That’s the thing about having a camera on you at all times. There’s always the temptation to stop, backtrack and get that shot. Avail yourself of that opportunity as much as possible; there may be dogs!

But that’s a different challenge when you’re on a bike ride. You have to make the value judgment, and quickly too: Do I stop, turn my rig around and go back for that shot? Am I working on a schedule? For speed? To set a personal best? Is keeping my heart rate elevated important today? Will this photograph take a long time? Will my legs still work when I get started once again? What’s the terrain we’re talking about? Do I want to go up that hill again?

All of that has to be fast, because if you wait too long the decision will be made for you. And of course, there’s the issue of the sun during those golden hours. Will the light hold, or did you see the last, fleeting, moment of the day’s brilliance?

So it worked out for me, above. I went back. It was the right choice. Avail yourself.

I mentioned yesterday how to make sure you you must never let your shadow win a bike ride:

Do you know how you never let the shadow win? Always pedal home from the east. The evening sun will be in front of you and your shadow behind.

Today, I rode back to the house from the west. The sun behind me, the shadow wins:

We had Chinese tonight. I wandered from my usual, because some other random thing on the menu sounded good, and the description I found online seemed one worth trying. We might not have Chinese again for a while. Not because the meal was bad. No. It was fine. It could have been better, but it both served its purpose and didn’t send you spiraling into a dinner of regret. No, that was not why I might be off Chinese for a while.

This fortune cookie, however:

I sound like I’m a knight on a great quest, according to that bit of script. That’s an awful lot to put into a fortune-less fortune cookie. You don’t even know me, cookie. And non one else knew you. Admittedly, that’s an error on my part. If I hadn’t eaten the thing I could have carried both the fortune, and the cookie around — surely the one gives the other some credibility — and people, having heard the good word of the fortune-less fortune, would treat you accordingly.

You hope the fortune cookie process, somewhere in a factory in Michigan, I’m sure, is automated. But what if there is a personal touch? What if there are two or three disenchanted people working second shift reading the little slips of paper.

Yeah, this one will show ’em. Some guy will carry this thing to work tomorrow and try to parlay this into a raise.

Not me, mind you. Like I’m the only person that got the heart/mind/soul cookie special this week.

cycling / Instagram / IU / photo / Tuesday — Comments Off
3
Sep 19

Bring me …

Water, thirsty photographers long ago noted, can make many compositions just a smidge better. It was true on the shrubs in the front 40:

View this post on Instagram

Morning dew on shrubbery.

A post shared by Kenny Smith (@kennydsmith) on Sep 2, 2019 at 8:27am PDT

We do not have 40 acres on the front of the property. That would require more driveway maintenance than anyone wants to maintain. But we do have shrubs and they have exhibited, of late, days of morning dew.

You could put water on more still life subjects for more compelling photographs, but you don’t always have water. You could carry a water bottle, but that sends mixed signals to the dihydrogen monoxide continued therein. Am I but a drop to be drank? Or am I but a drop to be sprayed on a rose?

Water thinks like this, pretty much immediately, when you try to get it some degree of sentience. And then it’s terrifying. What about the water you put into the pet’s bowl? What of the water you put in that pot to boil? You would never make corn or pasta again, if you began to think water had thoughts and feelings. And dreams! Oh the dreams of water! Only some drops get to fulfill those ocean dreams. Some are adventurers, sure, filling up raging white-capped rivers and eager to plunge down a dramatic waterfall. While some are more tranquil drops indeed — ponds for me, thanks — others are just diligently working their way through several cycles of dew and humidity. But even those drops have plans.

Anyway, since a water bottle is the wrong choice, there’s always a spray bottle. But then you’d have to stuff that in your bag, next to your camera and your other expensive and accumulated electronic things. And you’re not carrying a spray bottle that way. What if you got some of those anarchistic drops of water?

We went for a bike ride and I started out strong and was trying to outrace The Yankee back home. Mostly I’m trying to give her something to pace off of, but she’s very strong and fast and this is not my best year. So the best laid plans and all of that.

Well, she caught and dropped me far too early today. Best laid plans and all of that.

It was one of our most basic routes, designed for decent mileage in a timely fashion. We ride it a lot, which means there’s a place where I figured I might be able to make some progress and cut into her advantage. But she also knows the route, of course, and she never let up in the spot I expected. Before long I couldn’t even see her anymore. She’s very strong and fast.

So I just raced my shadow home:

Never let the shadow win.

Do you know how you never let the shadow win? Always pedal home from the east. The evening sun will be in front of you and your shadow behind.

We ran into the local sports beat reporter at the grocery store. We were shopping for a thing the giant megastore didn’t have, and he strolled by, basket in hand. We discussed and worked our way through most of the college and some of the professional sports in the span of about four minutes, before he had to dash off to the next big event. Beat life never stops, after all.

We could have taken a photo — because secondary sports celebrity! — but he’s our friend. Besides, you don’t take photos in the produce section. You forget you’ve even got your phone there. Probably you left it with the water bottle. Or maybe in the shrubbery.

friends / Monday / photo — Comments Off
2
Sep 19

Three-day cheers

Company this weekend. Friends arrived late Friday night. We watched football on Saturday and we visited a local fruit operation. After we’d enjoyed the public-facing part of the facilities we enjoyed a two-room tour of some of their production operation. You see signs like this:

It is a grape growing concern, founded by a former professor who wanted to share his beverages with friends. And now, thanks to tanks and tubs like this, it is one of the largest such concerns in the country.

OK, top 50. Still, that’s impressive for the middle of somewhere. No one could tell me if that was in terms of acreage, volume, sales, widgets or what.

But who cares? There’s grapes! Also, it is peak summer in almost every way:

Long may she reign:

Company, sadly, left this morning. But it is day three of a weekend, happily. The second-best part of that is that you must only face a four-day work week. But it must still be faced.

Friday / photo — Comments Off
30
Aug 19

Phewwwww

During Ralph Parker’s cubist phase, he drew a lot of inspiration from his brother, Tommy Parker’s work in parking deck stairwells:

Ralph Parker is a misunderstood genius, sure, but everyone around the Parker family knew that Tommy was where it should have started. And probably it was Tommy where it should have stopped, as well. But only after he finished the job.

I understand paint swatches, but this is a public building, which means the personal investment of pretty much everyone is reduced. So this isn’t about determining the proper shade of gunmetal to use when considering the morning sun comes in from yonder window.

Sometimes just enough might not be enough, though. I bet they didn’t even take a carpenter’s square to the corners to make sure they hit this at 90 degrees.

The square in a rectangle is an evocative look, I must say.

Eventually some white hat vandal — Those are still a thing, right? They’re still around? — will figure out if they scrawl nonsense on the whole wall then, some 18 months later, everything will get painted.

And that’s really all I have to say about today, which is mercifully behind us. We have some company coming in later tonight to spend the weekend, which will be lovely. So bring on the three-day.

I hope yours is lovely.