Devauld.ca

I'm afraid I have a bit of a vice: I quite enjoy electronic gaming.  I put it on my list of vices right after pistachios and bacon.  The difference between this third place vice and the two of higher rankings is that I don't try to curb my intake of video games.

I have always preferred interactive entertainment to the passive kind.  I do not believe I'm alone in this, since some video games have generated more revenues than a lot of movies.  The challenge of these games continue to entrance me.  Sometimes a piece of software woven by a dedicated producer will keep me entranced day after day.  If you do not believe me, you can always ask my Xbox.

Today, that all changed.  My Xbox has been on the edge lately; during a recent game, it decided to give me a bit of attitude and locked up.  A few power cycles and it appeared to be good to continue fulfilling its purpose.  I even spent some time testing it the next day, thinking I was ensuring the continuation of my video entertainment experience.  After work today I thought I would spend some time wacking people with a lightsaber when the console decided to stop processing instructions.

At first I thought I was only a power cycle away from getting back into the action, although when I fulfilled my part of the bargin, the xbox decided to kick it up a notch and show me the dreaded RROD.  This is not unfamiliar territory for me, as I've already burned out my first console.

I readied myself for Microsoft Support, and sent myself into their portal.   After some time dealing with the Terminator of support websites, I managed to get to a point where I could troubleshoot my console.  The instructions were easy to follow, and led to absolutely nowhere.  The end of my online experience was a page that told me that my warranty was expired; a simple form into which I could place my credit card was displayed to me.

Phone Wes transcended the cage into which I put him and dialed customer support.  The poor indian call center employee did not know what hit him.  The other end of the phone seemed to be equipped with every answer and a plethora of questions.  Phone Wes was curious how a console manufactured less than two years ago could already be outside the 3 year manufacturer's warranty.  The unfortunate part is that Phone Wes is a bit of a prick, and can be rather aggressive towards the wrong target.

About half way through the conversation, I started to feel bad for 'Neil' as he didn't seem to have any of the answers, although he was more than willing to help.  After a severe beating, it was agreed that the big corporation would pay for the repairs.  A tentative peace was formed, and relavent details exchanged.  Very soon, I can get back to my electronic distraction from Pistachios and Bacon

Photo Friday threw up the challenge of 'Distant' and I figured I'd use one of my more recent photos from Dorothy Alberta.  The photo is taken using an infrared converted D70s.  I found the highway intriguing as it was straight for what seemed like forever, before taking a sharp turn out of the valley.

The only post processing done was to convert the RAW into a Monochrome.

Photo Friday threw out the challenge of Damaged this week.  The first ideas that came to mind were some photos I had of broken down farm equipment, and some old vehicles.  Once I was in my photo library, however, I remembered that I have photography that involves high speed captures of things getting destroyed.  This photograph was taken around the time we started moving past the technical hurdles of high speed capture into the more artistic considerations of background, lighting and composition.

The idea for this shot was to hit the top of the glass, which was filled with water.  We were successful in finding our target with the other shots of the night, but this show we fired a bit low.  If memory serves, we were launching spent batteries as they were the perfect diameter and weight to fire out of the pneumatic cannon.  The projectile was edited out of the final shot, giving an impression that the glass just descided to break.

Some friends with more photographic interests recently banded together for a road trip to Dorothy Alberta.  The internet claims that Dorothy is a ghost town, but rest assured, there is still some stranglers still living in the coulée.  Still, the knit of photographers drove the two hours out of Calgary, timing their arrival to the sunset.

The town itself barely stretches a kilometer, and wraps the highway leading to Drumheller.  A bridge older than most of the photographers stood watch over the alternate entrance, and provided an interesting subject to warm up the cameras.  The carfuls of shutterbugs moved past the bridge towards the church as the sun was setting.

Reflections and sweeping sunsets filled the lenses of all cameras in attendance.  The photographers moving between the two buildings on the church site, looking for unique angles and interesting shadows to capture.  As the sky continued to darken, and warmth of the day slipped away, the group moved towards an old abandoned elevator on the edge of the highway.

Worries of crazy farmers and shotguns kept the clique from wandering over the barbed wire fence.  Still, many images were captured all around the structure.  The cold kept creeping in, and the light continued to fall to where the photographers crossed over the edge of interested hobbyists, into the realm of batty nerds.

From the back of one of the vehicles, a generator was produced.  Set up on the side of the highway, drowning out quite conversation, the electric workhorse powered two large 1600Ws strobes.  Traffic was not impeded, although not a vehicle passed that did not slow to a crawl to see what in the world the group of 5 was doing on the side of the road.

They were taking pictures of the grain elevator at dusk of course!  Many blinding flashes ripped up the night sky to illuminate the structure.  Happiness overwhelmed some of the participants; the power they controlled was simply too much to believe.  It is too bad it took them until this point to realize that they wanted to take their best lighting assets outdoors.  After exhausting the elevator's modelling abilities, just under half of the group succumbed to the cold, while the remainder stayed steadfast to continuing with the light-the-darkness experiment.

Shivering from the cold, those that were determined to endure through the cold moved back to the bridge, and once again established a studio in the open air.  This time, however, they were not happy enough to be on the side of the road; they established their nomadic lights up on the highway itself.  At this point not only the cold was their enemy, but lack of light as well.  The darkness consumed the group; which in their haste had forgotten to pack a single flashlight or headlamp.

Under an amazingly starry night, the three photographers managed to capture some interesting photos.  The cold pushing then to haste; it didn't take long for the ideal shot to land on the sensor.  Jubilant, they vowed to 'do it more often', and 'again real soon' before they started their voyage back to home.

Today Photo Friday tossed an interesting challenge out to the public.  If you examine back over the archive, you can see that most often they push out Adjectives or Nouns.  This week they gave us 'Slowly' which is one of the first adverbs I've seen them use as a competition theme.

The difficulty with such a topic, is that you need to show something about an action, in a still photograph.  This topic is even more challenging, in that not only do you need to capture a description of motion, as well as opposed to 'quickly' or 'hastily' blur can't be used to emphasize the action.  Differentiating slowly from 'still life' is the challenge.  You need to show off movement of something that is moving very slowly.

I had also considered a sheep herder in Peru, as well as a lackadaisical stroll along the beach.  Both of which didn't quite have the same adherence to the theme as the picture above.  Somehow the foggy water shows off that it is moving, and the penetration of the rocks, particularly in the front of the frame, show that this is not some raging river with roaring rapids.

If you are interested, I have a slightly larger version I'm willing to share on the internet.