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A long time ago I took photos of my Spinal Tap Action Figures. I feel no explanation is needed as to why I would take photos of my Spinal Tap Action Figures… they are Spinal Tap Action Figures. Nonetheless, I uploaded a triptych of the “portraits” and so far two people have posted their favorite Spinal Tap lyrics as comments to the photos.

This has spawned a new dream for me in which many people post their favorite Spinal Tap lyrics to that particular Flickr page.

My friend Brad has collected his favorite photos of the year (see mine here). I am duly impressed – some great shots in there.

Hey Brad, my favs are the first and last shots – nothing like a good personal close-up.

Taking a cue from my friend Malcolm, I’ve decided to pick out my favorite photos taken this year (plus I don’t spell “favorite” all funny like Malcolm does). This is never an easy task and its made harder by the fact that I didn’t take as many this year as I have in recent years. I have no idea why I was less productive with the camera this year (especially with some good trave) but I may have to work on a remedy.

OK so here we go, my favs this year in no particular order:

1. This shot came from the Atlanta Aquarium and I love it because of the expression on the girl’s face. She is truly in wonder looking at the jellyfish. Of course, the color version of this is amazingly blue but it lost contrast in her face – when I made it black and white her face popped out and fast became a fav:

2. OK sure, this is actually a triptych and thus three photos… but its one file so its legal. This came from doing a small photoshoot with a friend’s band. The singer has a very animated face when singing and I wanted to capture it… perhaps its a theme with me. I left the shutter slow on a few shots of him (I must have 50 shots of him while trying to do this) because he had a lot of movement that night (I’ve seen him very still some nights):

3. This was taken in San Francisco at the Coit Tower (I always like to swing by there and take in the view of the city). I was walking around the base and saw the coin-operated binoculars staring down. Those things are almost human in their face (theme!). When I got home I made it black and white but it still wasn’t capturing the way I had experienced it. Remembering an old trick for faking an IR look I tried it out and this was the result. I think the IR makes it a little dream-like, adding to the “face”:

4. I was a bit disappointed with myself in my lack of photos in Rwanda. Mostly that was due to being very busy, but still I should have done better. Nonetheless, on a weekend trip to the volcanoes region I did do better than I had in Kigali. Our experience with some kids who climbed up a ridge to visit was one of the most memorable moments. This shot was taken while they were doing a traditional dance and song for us (they just broke out in song – how cool). The main subject in this shot was really into the dance and I was immediately drawn to him:

5. This shot of one of the Ocracoke ferries at sunset is a fav, but further, it was one of my most popular shots on Flickr. I was kinda surprised by that because although I liked it, I thought it too crooked. After its popularity I started to realize that it was really the colors that everyone was responding to – I get that:

6. However, my most favorite shot from that Ocracoke trip was of a jar. Yes, a photo of a jar. I like it so much I printed it on a big canvas, and it looks great that way. Maybe I like it because when viewed large it shows off how sharp this lens is (I am a lens nerd) – or maybe I like the “vintage-ness” I gave it when processing. Mostly, I just love the light. Subtle in places, brilliant in others. I don’t really know – its just a jar:

7. Perhaps the star for me though is my hummingbird shot. Its a star because I don’t consider myself a great nature photographer. That’s OK, I don’t need to be – but it makes my good nature shots more exciting. I stalked this hummingbird from the comfort of my couch – through the window which makes it even more exciting:

There you go – my favs. Thanks for looking.

The other night while heading on I-40 to a friend’s house we saw this – had to get this grainy shot with the cell phone ’cause how often will I see a hot-rod shopping cart? Take note that the driver actually sits up where a kid would on the little shelf.

I’m pretty much done getting all my photos from Rwanda together. Honestly, I am not 100% happy with them. I didn’t really capture enough of the place to get it across. To some degree that’s always true, but I didn’t feel like I was up to my usual abilities to capture it this time. I’ve no idea why. Still, there are some keepers in there and that’s always good.

Please peruse and comment on them!

Man, I hope MS doesn’t buy flickr – I’ll have to move *all* my photos – a guy’s gotta have standards.

Had a decent connection this evening so I’ve uploaded a few photos from the afternoon. mah has a great update on his day and on musings of open source that he’s been thinking about while here. Meanwhile we went to a very large market today mostly to look around but we also picked up some craftworks and hot sauce (wheee!)

The folks are very friendly and all point to their wares and try to describe them. Its great but does get a bit tiring after a while – as everyone is trying to get your attention… and this is a very big market.

This particular market is not a tourist destination though there were those few tables with crafts. Its mostly for the people of Kigali to get just about anything. Including food. When I whipped out the camera at these tables the people working them would dive behind them laughing.

Upon arrival our car was mobbed with young boys trying to be our guides and to carry anything we might buy. The best thing to do in this situation is to strongly pick one person and let everyone know that you have chosen. We didn’t really do that and had a good entourage following us for quite a while. We did settle on our friend Peter who asked us to remember his name. He was good – knew just where everything was (and even told me which dealers he liked and which he didn’t). Of course, he was looking for a tip and I obliged – I enjoyed his company.

Tomorrow we are still planning to go somewhere out of Kigali and right now we are really just considering hiring a driver to simply “take us” – which sounds pretty great to me. We might end up at the golden monkeys or we might just end up in a town. Either way is cool. Will be nice to see more of the countryside. What I’ve seen of it so far is steeped in banana farms, tea plantations, and lush green hills. I could really stand to see more of that.

I took some photos the other night of a friend’s band – for them to use if they like. I think some of them came out quite well. It was a difficult place to shoot but I think I’ve coaxed out some atmosphere.

Enjoy them.

Speaking of Moon photos – right now Mars is just about at its closest point to the Earth and is also only hours away from being at total opposition to the sun (from our perspective). That means that Mars is hovering right around the now full moon. Full moons are too bright to do much else astronomically speaking – but this rare opportunity gave me the chance for this Moon & Mars shot.

Click through for larger versions where Mars jumps out very red. Groovy.

Friend and raconteur, Malcolm, sent me an email asking about some recent photos on my Flickr stream of the Moon. The how, the why, etc. So sure – here goes. Last year for my birthday, my lovely wife bought me a very decent telescope. Its one-a-them fancy ones that is easily aligned and from then on will find objects in the sky for you. Very slick. Its just big enough to see deep-space objects too – nebulae, galaxies, and clusters. Planets are the real show though as it is not the biggest or most expensive… and the Moon? forget about it – brilliant.

So I would have to say that my main interest is really just looking at stuff in the night-sky, but I do love photography too. Taking photos with a telescope is a whole new world – so many things to get just right. It tends to work better with dedicated CCDs instead of regular shuttered cameras – still, I went ahead and bought a cheap adapter for my Nikon D200. Just after I bought that adapter though, the motorized mount for my telescope broke – d’oh! No worries, I also have a small and cheap (though good quality) telescope that can mount to my photo tripod so I started taking shots of the moon with it. The other day, (after a few weeks of free repairs by Celestron) my mount came back in and I took some shots of the moon again last night but haven’t had time to do a *real* shot – that being, timed exposure while tracking the object as our own planet spins. That’s where the real work will come in.

Luckily for me, I have my old friend Dr. Mike to give me some tips. As of yet, we haven’t gone out and done any imaging, but he’s told me a lot already just in email. If you wanna see some good images, just head over to his site. I’m not sure I will ever get to his level, but I figure there is a lot of fun in trying.

For what its worth, so far my moon photos are a little soft on focus (though they look pretty good as small images). Dr. Mike pointed me to this howto on making a “Hartmann Mask” which would allow me to focus the telescope as if it were a rangefinder. Very cool.

I’m a bit of an amateur astronomer. Let me emphasize amateur. I love looking at celestial objects, but I can tell you little about them and little about the best ways to look at them. Nonetheless, I try and then I just stop and look at Dr. Mike’s photos.

Tonight though, I noticed the 2/3 moon on the way home so I pulled out my small telescope and gandered at it for a while. Then clouds moved in – fast. Fast moving clouds that is. It was really cool to just watch the clouds move past changing the brightness. I tried to capture it with my camera and telephoto lens and did a better job than I really thought I’d do. So, I’m sharing it.