Thursday, September 27, 2007

The other day, I drove out to the Snoqualmie Valley. I’ve had my eye on this place to photograph when the colors start to change. It’s still late summer and they haven’t yet, but it’s such a pretty place I thought I’d share. Stay tuned for Fall colors.

Posted by Digital Quixote in • Out and About
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Sunday, September 23, 2007

Today was the 27th annual Oyster Run in Anacortes Washington. On the 4th Sunday in September about 15,000 motorcyclists converge on this town of around 12,000 good folks. Pretty much everyone’s polite and well behaved. Everybody gets along. And local businesses make a bunch of money. Here are some pictures of Bikes, Bikers, Biker Babes, Bike Art and Helmet Art.

4 out of 5 riders at the event are men and all the riders constitute an eclectic crowd. Image is important to them and most try for a specific typecast image: Old Rogue; Bad Boy; Rocket Jockey; Hooter Hottie; and so on. Many of the bikes are custom, or highly customized. Many of the bikes and helmets are custom painted. There is a lot of facial hair and tattoos. And of course there are exceptions.

While I was wandering around, I noticed a model and a photographer doing a professional photo shoot. The model attracted a lot of attention and pretty soon there was a gallery of around 50 guys with cameras all shooting pictures as fast as they could. What a hoot.

Click here for the rest of the story ...

Posted by Digital Quixote in • Motorcycles
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Saturday, September 22, 2007

When I was in my first decade on the planet, one of my favorite movies was the Disney classic, Swiss Family Robinson. In the worst way, I wanted to live in a tree house on a remote and deserted island.
Fast-forward; Nancy and I spent much of the week on Orcas Island, she in a water color class and me bombing around the Islands on my Ducati. One of our favorite places here is a 60 year old pottery place called Orcas Island Pottery. Since the last time we were here, they’ve added this neat tree house.  I am now in my sixth decade and climbing around in a tree house. Doesn’t just seeing it make you want to be a kid again?!

Several thousand people live on Orcas Island, so it isn’t really deserted. And you can go there via a 1-hour ferry ride from Anacortes Washington, so it’s not very remote.
I became familiar with it when my kids were small. We’d come up here for Father-Daughter / Father-Son campouts with the YMCA Indian Princess / Indian Guide programs. Years later we built a summer house here. It’s a really pretty place, especially on a bright, crisp, fall day in September.

Last night, I met my daughter and son-in-law at the ferry landing (they are bombing around the Island on a Co-Motion Tandem this weekend). In the car, riding back to the place we’re staying my daughter says, “I used to love coming here for Indian Princess Campouts with you. It’s one of my best memories!”

Posted by Digital Quixote in • Out and About
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Tuesday, September 18, 2007

These are the game faces of track racing at the velodrome in Redmond, Washington. Each Friday night during the summer there are bicycle races here, on a 400 meter oval sponsored by Group Health. Redmond is the “bicycle capital of America” according to the sign and it is fitting that some of the best track racers in America hail from here. These are seriously unbalanced individuals who train to win. We are here tonight because son-in-law Nick is racing.

I didn’t know that track bikes have only one gear: fast. I also didn’t know that the racers clip in to the pedals with special shoes. Once clipped-in, riders either go or they fall over. At the start, above, each rider is clipped-in and holding the rail for support as the starter gets ready to launch the race.

And the race is on, above. Sometimes the race is for a given number of laps. Sometimes, the last rider is eliminated each lap, until a winner emerges. There are sprints. Points races. The mind boggles at the variations ... but one thing remains constant ... the expenditure of calories mediated by training, in pursuit of victory!

And there is always a victory!

Posted by Digital Quixote in • Out and About
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Friday, September 14, 2007

I spend about 20 hours a week in front of Photoshop. Really! I take 15,000 to 20,000 photos a year and I use it to “develop” them. I have a PC powerful enough to meet the needs of a small country and it puts out enough heat to heat the house in winter. 1,000 watts = about 1 1/3 horsepower … a one and a third horsepower PC? The mind boggles! But it makes Photoshop ... well, zippy ... especially when editing photos of horses!

Sorry for the digression. Anyway, I want them to look like what I “saw” when I tripped the shutter and I want to present them in their best light, to make the world beautiful, if I can.  Here’s an example using one of my own photos:

I remember very well taking this photo. I was in Italy. Nancy had returned home and I was alone and in a dark mood. But this sight made me feel better. I “saw” the second image because my eye is better than the sensor in my camera, and because my camera’s sensor has no emotion chip. I can make this similar to what I saw and felt!

I added nothing … but I did manipulate the image data captured by the camera. I think the original is “okay” but the edit is much much better.
So okay, if I use Photoshop to make a picture look like reality, I feel okay about that. How do you feel if an editor uses Photoshop to present an image that diverges from “reality?”

What is “reality” after all? Plato anyone?

This happens all-the-time. If you view a photo in a magazine, it’s been Photoshopped. Here are a few links showing before and after (Photoshop) images. This is fascinating to me. I think you will find it interesting. Click below:

And finally, another one of my photos. The original is of my son-in-law’s bike at Mt. St. Helens. In the edit I put it in a fictional Ducati Showroom.

Posted by Digital Quixote in • Technology
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