Devauld.ca

Yesterday marked the kickoff of the 2010 Olympic Winter Games in Vancouver.  I would imagine that our countrymen will be able to shake off the snow problems, and be amazing hosts to the world's best amateur athletes.

Other obligations meant that I could watch the opening cerimonies live, although the magic of a personal video recorder meant I could take it in this morning.  The scale of the opening show was not even close to the scale the Chinese pulled out two years ago for their opening.  Nevertheless, the show had a lot of class and imaginative components, and I can not deny that the pride for my country overwhelmed me while watching the taped event.

No Canadian has won an Olympic Gold medal on Canadian soil, despite hosting two other games.  I would imagine there is a lot of excitement amongst the Canadian athletes over who is going to be first.  Furthermore, Vancouver isn't the tamest of cities; I'm sure the place is turning itself inside-out with the influx of like minded competitors and fun seeking visitors.

Go Canada! Go!

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.

My brother produced this pair of Pioneer headphones, while he was looking for a soldering iron.  Our current 'get the GPS working again' state of mind was not congruent with my desire to photograph the set, so I asked if I could borrow them for a couple of days.  After we finished getting the GPS running, Christmas happened, and the SE-L 40's sat atop the refrigerator, thankful to be out of the shop.

On the last day of 2009, I managed to return to the headphones.  Using black fabric as a backdrop, I maneuvered my tripod and camera to a composition that I was happy with.  I put an extension ring between my camera and the telephoto lens, ensuring that I would be able to focus on something that close to the camera.  Then came the boring part.

On manual exposure and white balance, I painstakingly moved the focus ring through ten different positions, sat and waited until the camera wasn't shaking and then triggered the camera using my cable release.  Wash, rinse, repeat.

Patience is only needed when trying to steady the camera.  A lens that long will magnify any shake in the camera.  Furthermore having an abusively large camera on the end of a stick doesn't help all that much either.

The reasoning for my madness is to defeat depth of field and produce the image I wanted.  At 200mm focusing 30-40cm in front of the camera means that your focal plane is thin.  In practice, when I was focusing on the tip of the plug, where it morphs into fabric wrapped wire started to show some comfortable bokeh.  Sharpness at the front of the image resulted in a unrecognizable, out of focus, blob at the back.

With my sequence of focus planes, I used a focus stacking software to sandwich all the images into a final image.  Focus stacking software detects the sharp portions of each image to use in the final output.  I used a program called Helicon, although if you are looking for some other Focus Stacking software there are more to choose from.  Technically the image is 'rendered', and not really a 'photograph'.  Although I don't see much difference between using one algorithm to sandwich focal planes together versus using another to sharpen all the edges within a photograph.  Is one photography while the other isn't?

2009 is dead, long live 2010!

As always some reflection happens at this time of year, and I took a look under the hood of this website.  Since the first post in 2006, I've sporadically found time to put up random happenings and thoughts.  2009 was no different, although the content is not uniformly distributed:

It would appear that half of the content for the year came in the first month.  Furthermore, most of the summer filler content was PhotoFriday postings.  I'm going to put my best foot forward try to be a bit more regular on this website.  Towards that end, I've signed up for Project 52.

The goal is simple: New content every week of the year, or you face public shame.  The self imposed accountability should be the stimulus I need to keep things regular.  I'm slotted in at # 506 and already I am formulating plans to ensure that I do not fail.  I'm sure things are going to happen this year that will derail this endeavour, and I need to have some machinations in place to keep moving forward.

Photography stands in centre stage of current topic ideas.  I'm pretty sure I can form an opinion or two about software development as well.  After those topics, I'll pull out journaling of my life; when I can't seem to generate content anymore I can result to link whoring and empty Photo Friday posts.

Recently, a great deal of thoughts regarding happiness have been crossing my mind. They were just little ripples on a pond, until one Saturday, then they took on a whole new life of their own.

The day started out as usual, with a jaunt down Deerfoot, collecting my thoughts before going to work. The traffic was light, being a weekend, and very few cars impeded my way as I sped down south. Only a quarter of the way through my voyage, I pulled up behind a Lincon Navigator with a very distinct personalized license plate:

MRHAPPY

The seven letters grabbed me and pretty much dominated my conscious for the entire day.  While I paid my dues at the office, I wondered about how this environment impacted my happiness.  My discoveries did not play out as I expected.  The fact of the matter is that I enjoy being engaged, and subconsciously my mind weaves magic to keep me busy.

Anyone that has met my family already knew this.  Mr. Antonik, in fact, referred to my mother as: The Human To-Do List.  My aunts and uncles are templates for hard working Canadians.  This little nut, did not fall to far from that tree.  Despite the fact that my basement still isn't finished, I haven't been sitting idle.  In fact, the majority of my time is spent completing some sort of project.  Simply put: I am happy when I am busy.  There is a limit, however.

Lunch brought about a wad of dough, cheese and tomato paste, and shortly after my list was sorted, my mind wandered back to the thoughts of happiness.  By this point, I had realized that I was never going to be one to sit for leisure.  My reasoning scurried towards what I was doing at the moment.   I do enjoy working with wood, and I love photographic pursuits.  Although, I'm also certain that the frequency of these endeavors is what keeps them on my list of desires.  I have proof in fact; when I first got my lathe, I worked myself to near insanity creating gifts for Christmas.  I worry that if made to rely upon either of my labours of love for a living, that each would soon fall to a much less desirable level.

After fulfilling my duties The Man®, Sonja and I went to Heather and Calvin's to catch up after their visit to South East Asia.  Excellent food and polite conversation led us to the slideshow showcasing their viewings in Asia.  We saw photos of people living in the jungle, shopping in floating villages, selling drinks to tourists and dancing in clothes of the opposite gender.  One theme prevailed, all the people were happy.

People always smile for photos, although these photos carried a bit more.  Everyone can tell a fake smile from one that comes from the soul.  Why is it that people that don't reside in North America always appear to have genuine smiles, whereas those of us who live with such excess always appear to wear a superficial face?

Heading home for the evening, I still carried all the thoughts that were pulled out by that license plate.  My conscious ping ponged between thoughts of my own happiness and the happiness of everyone else on the planet.  Winding through Calgary's streets I came to the same point that Sheryl sang about in ought two.  Happiness is not having what you want, it's wanting what you have.