POTW 02/10/2013

<p>I didn't get out much in the past week. The one thing I did get together was B&W conversions on 3 photographs taken in 2007 just outside Hentiesbaai in Namibia. All with a K100D the first 2 with an 18-55, the 3rd with a Tamron 70-300. I remember getting up very early that morning to try and be out between the mist and the heat haze. <br>

<img src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-28yYvQNe3Gs/URdbjIZW_ZI/AAAAAAAADPw/L0xxpCE-7Qc/s800/20070814-IMGP3602.jpg" alt="" width="800" height="468" /></p>

<p><img src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-fPSczjoM70w/URdbjBQzhMI/AAAAAAAADPs/QR9453Xz5GM/s800/20070814-IMGP3620.jpg" alt="" width="800" height="483" /></p>

<p><img src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-rNRokAqOqPc/URdbjIvjjHI/AAAAAAAADP0/wbKO55CpJag/s800/20070814-IMGP3615.jpg" alt="" width="800" height="467" /></p>

<p>After such a nice b/w start I can post some colorful vegan food shots :-)<br>

Apple-Banana smoothie with dates, wheat germ and vanilla</p><div></div>

<p>fried zucchini flowers, baked paprika filled with hummus and rice with lattuce and apricots</p><div></div>

<p>one from my smallest street setup - flea market in Zurich</p><div></div>

<p>From candy store </p><div></div>

<p>aftermath ,sessons over #1 </p><div></div>

<p>#2</p><div></div>

<p>From last week's trip to Varanasi/Benares, India.<br>

<a title="Mr. India by A n i r b a n, on Flickr" href=" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8108/8460381391_fec85c7fd6_b.jpg" alt="Mr. India" width="683" height="1024" /></a></p>

<p>The Apostle Island Sled Dog Race was February 2 and 3 near Bayfield, WI. Temperatures were zero to 10 degrees Fahrenheit. We were outside about five hours each day, and my K-20D, batteries, and 60-250 DA* worked without any problems. I have the battery grip, and I’m sure that had a lot to do with the batteries not fading all weekend. This was good thing because Mr. Photographer forgot to pack the battery charger.<br>

The dogs are incredibly excited before the race, barking and howling. I’m certain one dog was saying “Run… Run… Run….!” Teams are lead to the starting chute by volunteers. One volunteer catches a snow hook on a cable across the starting line. When they take off, the volunteer hands it to the musher </p><div></div>

<p>There were six and eight dog teams, sportsmen (run what you bring I think) and juniors. The longest event was something under 40 miles distance completed in two days. I took hundreds of photos. This one had a certain calendar photo quality to it. There are many mixed breed teams. One was made up of rescue dogs. </p><div></div>

<p>This event is a real family affair. Everyone we talked to was very happy to answer questions. There were kids as young as 10 or 11 racing. I overheard a conversation from a volunteer spotter who was saying that one of the kids had tipped over, and he was about to go help, when the little girl got everything upright by herself and was back in the race. He said, “Her mom should be proud of her… I was proud of her.” </p><div></div>

<p>Well, I haven't submitted a POW in quite some time due to my fractured ankle and as of late have been pretty tied up trying to recover from additional complications from the fracture. Occassionally as you may know someone who takes a long plane flight develops a clot in their leg called a DVT a very life threatening situation. Well, only about 1% of people confined to a leg cast develop a DVT. Lucky me, I'm in the 1%, and not the lucrative, wealthy 1% we all heard about in the U.S. elections this past year, but the unlucky 1% who get a DVT. DVT thrombi can break off and go to the lungs blocking blood flow and eventually death. My DVT did breakoff into multiple, extensive, bilateral lung pulmonary emboli. Lucky for me they were ALL very small because apparently an emboli larger than 7.5mm can be deadly.<br /> So I am very fortunate and lucky to be alive. I had a short hospital stay and then one emboli developed what is called a pulmonary infarction requiring another short hospital stay. I am at home recovering getting stronger everyday and should make a pretty much full recovery thanks to a venous throbectomy procedure performed by a cardiologist that removed a huge clot from my knee to my groin.<br /> So we gpt some fresh snow the other day and although this is not my best work, it is a fitting view of my fortunate circumstances.<br /> <em><strong>The View Out My BackDoor OR Glad to Be Alive!</strong></em></p>

<p>View out the Door</p><div></div>

<p>The birds have been visiting me during my recuperation. The bright sunlight reflects beautiful feather coloration not normally noticeable.</p><div></div>

<p>Bob,<br>

Congratulations on making it through the scare of DVT. My wife has suffered from them, but they did not move up past the umbilicus.<br>

I took these photos during our trip to South America in December and January. These are of the three types of Cormorants I encountered and was lucky enough to get photo of them. They were all taken out of boats, with only the first on calm water. Camera was the K20D on all of them.</p><div></div>

<p>The next is from further south, in the Beagle Channel, where we moored at Ushuaia, Argentina. Argentina is on the north side of the channel, Chile on the south.</p><div></div>

<p>Last is also from the Beagle Channel (named after Darwin's ship, the "Beagle". This channel is just off the straits of Magellan, bypassing the usually rough waters of Cape Horn. There are many small islands in the channel, many crowded with birds.</p><div></div>

<p>Markus - those fried zucchini flowers look really tasty. That shot brought back some memories for me, as we used to eat those often when I was growing up. My grandfather grew the zucchini in the back yard.</p>

<p>I've not posted in here in a while, as I've mostly been using the Nikon at the Zoo, and more recently, playing with my new Fuji X-series cameras. Still prefer the Pentax for certain things though. Our local photo club is doing a Picture A Day Challenge for February, and I decided to stick to a theme this year - Things That Live On The Bookshelf. In addition to way too many books, we have all sorts of little things we picked up along the way sitting our our bookshelves. I'm using the K-5 and DA-35 Macro for all of the shots, not cropping, and trying to shoot everything from the same spot. After 10 days in my wife has come to accept that the tripod is going to be sitting there until the end of the month. It's dark in our front room, and I'm often taking the day's shot at night after work, so I've had to improvise the lighting, including hand-holding flashlights, sometimes with a Kleenex diffuser.</p>

<p>Since today is the first day of the Year of the Snake, I'll start off with today's shot.<br>

<img src="http://frankbaiamonte.smugmug.com/San-Diego-DSLR/PAD-Feb-2013/i-p2rzN6f/0/L/52FB1329-L.jpg" alt="" width="398" height="600" /></p>

<p>Here's a Leaning Tower of Pisa that I picked up back in 1979. Side-lighting from a high-powered halogen flashlight.<br>

<img src="http://frankbaiamonte.smugmug.com/San-Diego-DSLR/PAD-Feb-2013/i-Qjr6LPF/0/L/52FB1291-L.jpg" alt="" width="800" height="530" /></p>

<p>A troll, from the Nordic Heritage Museum in Ballard (Seattle), Washington. Supplemental lighting from a small LED flashlight.<br>

<img src="http://frankbaiamonte.smugmug.com/San-Diego-DSLR/PAD-Feb-2013/i-gMzdr2k/0/L/52FB1273-L.jpg" alt="" width="800" height="530" /></p>

<p>I'm putting the shots into a SmugMug <a href="http://frankbaiamonte.smugmug.com/San-Diego-DSLR/PAD-Feb-2013/">gallery here</a> for anyone who wants to follow along.</p>

<p>You can see the rest of the club's work in a series of forum threads (one for each day) <a href="http://www.sandiegodslr.org/dotnetnuke/Forums/tabid/62/forumid/28/scope/threads/Default.aspx">located here</a>. There are some very creative themes going on there this year.</p>

 

<p>Yikes, Bob. Glad you're still with us. I had a boss with the same thing when I was a grad student in Baton Rouge. A drive from BR to Austin with me almost did him in; I recall it was pretty painful too.<br>

Sorry that I'm not out right now. We are getting some rain and being when it is it likely means the Spotted Salamanders are out in the southern half of the state. EVERY YEAR I MISS THEM! Looks like this year is no exception, I'm too busy to to spend 1/125th of a second on anything let alone going out in the middle of the night chasing amphibians and having locals with shotguns chasing me .<br>

Nice images to all.</p>

<p>Glad you're ok Bob!<br>

I left work a few minutes early one day last week because there was a hot air balloon over our valley with the sun hitting it and shade behind it. I didn't have a good clear shot so I headed out to this hill next to town to line it up how I had envisioned. But by the time I got there the balloon was out of the sun and the photo was pretty flat and not worth keeping. <br>

Then I looked over my shoulder to see how the sunset was shaping up and saw these guys. I had the A* 300mm all mounted up and ready to go.<br>

K-5 & A* 300mm f/4<br>

<a title="IMGP9486 by MattB.net, on Flickr" href=" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8507/8449715182_7eb420a1cb_z.jpg" alt="IMGP9486" width="640" height="424" /></a><br>

.<br>

Here's a run down old shed in my town. The sky was nice and this is the first thing I passed that I thought might look nice with that sky. I'd call it a handyman special. <br>

K-5 & da15<br>

<a title="IMGP9534 by MattB.net, on Flickr" href=" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8526/8451686021_853f3912b9_z.jpg" alt="IMGP9534" width="424" height="640" /></a><br>

.<br>

Lastly we got some nice snow this weekend. I went skiing solo today and ended up skiing with three different groups of friends at different times. Great skiing today!<br>

K-5 & da 18-135<br>

<a title="IMGP9694 by MattB.net, on Flickr" href=" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8247/8462304053_fdfa14b45f_z.jpg" alt="IMGP9694" width="424" height="640" /></a></p>

<p>@Bob, thank you for sharing your journey with us. Bad things happen and we are grateful that you have a strong will and cheerful spirit to go through the pains and misery in your recovery. Somehow our mis-steps in health bring us closer to nature and love of humanity with humility and gratitude that we can count on as blessings to be shared with loved ones and friends. We hope you get speedy recovery.</p>

<p>I am on the road visiting family in Macau and Hong Kong. I can only take on my lighter traveling camera with Sony NEX. I miss my Pentax gear on the road but I like the light traveling joy that my Sony has offered. Please excuse the postings of my snapshots on the road with non-pentax gear</p>

<p><strong>#1 Street Tunnel In Macau</strong><br /> <strong><img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8392/8464043810_5c87d1be79_c.jpg" alt="" width="800" height="532" /></strong><br /> with Sony 5N, E 16mm f/2.8 + UWA 0.75x converter</p>

<p>Nice work everyone!</p>

<p>I got an S-type screen for my *ist DS, and have been playing with lenses fast and not too see how it works. One thing I can say - don't get too close to the business end of a cat!</p><div></div>

<p>A Tokina 500mm f/8 mirror lens is a mixed bag with this screen - very, very dark, but you can see what is in focus. In this case I went OOF, trying to make a druggy sort of picture with the odd bokeh. I can't call it a good picture, but i like it.</p><div></div>

<p><strong>#2 Umbrella in Taipei International Airport</strong><br>

<img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8250/8464061544_e6373bc6f7_c.jpg" alt="" /><br>

Sony 5N, E 50mm f/1.8, @ f/1.8</p>