jumpmaster

August 20, 2001

::My apologies for mistaking skydiving (something

you are obviously very passionate about) with

parasailing (something you seem to disdain).::

Skydiving isn't for everyone...apparently, parasailing is for the masses. :-)

::Still, in my opinion, the testerone factor has little to do with the asthetics of the photo.::

I want to see you hand-carry a Canon A-1 with 300mm f/4 into freefall and hang onto it through opening shock. Make sure your health and life insurance is paid up first though.

::Being the curious sort I took a look through a stock photo site at their collection of skydiving images. Some were *rather* impressive, exciting and not taken from the ground. Would these be from a helmet cam and/or telephoto shots from the plane?::

Those were probably done by professional freefall photographers with very expensive helmet mounts and LOTS of experience...i.e. several thousand jumps. Yes, *thousands* of jumps.

::Just curious in case I ever decide to try a few jumps and want to record the event :) ::

Yeah. I want to see the drop zone that's going to let you make novice jumps with a camera. Like I said, make sure your life insurance is paid up. It's no small task taking pictures in freefall. If you attempt this without having adequate experience, you will probably end up a lawn dart. Then again, it's a free country...go try it! :-) (I mean, there isn't quite enough stuff for you to be distracted by in skydiving -- like keeping track of the altitude, for instance...let's add a camera so we can make sure you're good and distracted so you'll forget about your silly altitude. :-) )

TMB

p.s. I seriously hope you were joking about wanting to "record the event" when you want to "try a few jumps". If you were serious about that, you really do need to make sure and have your premiums paid up, have a will made out, and make sure your dependents will be cared for.

August 20, 2001

the boneheads at photo.net deleted it. Here is the more terse, more rude version.

THIS IS SKYDIVING! NOT PARAGLIDING! IT WOULD BE DIFFICULT TO DISTRACT YOURSELF ENOUGH TO KILL YOURSELF WHILE PARAGLIDING. No sane person would hand-carry a Canon A-1 with 300mm f/4 lens with them into freefall from 14,000 above the ground. If my photographs don't "move" you, go get yourself a few hundred skydives FIRST and THEN tell me the best way to hold onto a Canon A-1 w/300mm f/4 through opening-shock (canopy deployment) and freefall. Then, I'll listen to your insightful comments. :-)

To photo.net, take a chill pill. He's commenting on MY photo (not yours) and I have a right to describe the difference between skydiving and the wimpy "paragliding" so he'll understand why I took the pictures from the ground. Geez...you people need some prozac or something.

T. Bloxom

June 15, 2001

Neutral density filter would allow a longer exposure, thus getting those distracting people out of the image...:-)

Otherwise nice...obviously, you couldn't shoot it vertical if you set the camera on the floor for long exposure...considering this, it's good!

June 12, 2001

That looks a lot more like a paraglider than a kite...(i.e. I wouldn't try to fly any sort of kite that I'd have to sit in a harness to fly!)

Good color saturation!

TMB

June 11, 2001

Hi there...thank you for the nice comments on my photo. I truly appreciate that...

I can understand why you *think* it might look better with the edges parallel to the sides of the picture, but that was not the effect I was trying to achieve. The reason I composed it this way was to give an exagerated sense of height and to accentuate the massiveness of the structure. This was accomplished through the distortion provided by the extreme perspective (I was standing about 40 feet away from the building shooting up at the corner.)

If you notice, I did make the corner (where the eye is drawn...the most dominant part of the picture) parallel to the sides. Something had to be parallel or it would have looked silly so I chose the most obvious part -- the corner.

Thanks again for the comments...I hope my explanation makes a little sense about why I shot it this way.

T. Bloxom

June 6, 2001

I like B&W a low...I think there are a couple of things that may help out this pic...First, try to be careful about image alignment in the darkroom. If you want to have a black border, be careful with its width all around. Second, this pic might be able to use a little more contrast. You may try printing it with one of the more pink-colored Kodak darkroom filters. Or you may want to experiment with burning in different areas -- it just looks a little washed out. Also, it doesn't look very sharp, but that just may have been an artifact of scanning in the pic...you'd have to check the negative with a good loupe to know for sure. Good luck!

T. Bloxom

One of my favorite pics...

June 5, 2001

Thank you! This is one of my favorite ones...:-)

May 24, 2001

Photoshop...joy...

May 23, 2001

Did you use a filter or did you just expose it for a really long time and get funky colors (reciprocity failure)? Looks pretty nice, but a little unnatural (too much green...)...