Not Google Chrome, Ford Chrome

haywood road chrome BR1_1367, originally uploaded by BillRhodesPhoto.

Wow. Been the better part of a year since I did anything? Hmmm. Okay, anyway, seems like a good place to explain the ghetto filter I used to take this shot.

What's that you ask? That is the sun. The small black dot at around 1 o'clock is Venus making it's last transit across the suns face for 105 years. Other dots on the sun are sunspots, and the cloud-like things at the bottom, are, well, clouds.

Now, I practiced this yesterday with some heavy ND filters. 2 stacked 8ND and a circular polarizer, for you photo geeks. And it worked, but on my 200mm lens. I wanted to use the 300, but the front element is huge.

Duh.

I forgot the drop-in filter thing at the back, so

with some gaffer's tape and one eyepiece of the cardboard glasses people were using, Max Cooper and I made the filter which worked for the photo above.

With a little trimming of excess tape, it slipped right down in snugly. After chimping, I came up with ISO 400, f4 at 250th. With DX turned on, this gave me an effective focal length of 450mm, and acceptable (to me) resolution.

You can see more pictures of the Asheville event here. 

resting my eyes

resting my eyes, originally uploaded by BillRhodesPhoto.

cheers asheville drink up

cheers asheville drink up, originally uploaded by BillRhodesPhoto.

day 4 of water that looks like this

utterly ironic

utterly ironic, originally uploaded by BillRhodesPhoto.

now what do I do with this little gem?

One Million Dollars

According to a post on his blog and website, Peter Lik claims this photograph, entitled "One," sold to an anonymous buyer for One Million Dollars.

US? Or Zimbabwe?

Does not say. Could be any number of currencies which use the term dollar.

Maybe he paid himself that much to give the photo to his mom?

I don't know. I think it is a fine photo of implied fall colors and white birch trees.

But, $1,000,000? Does the buyer think it will appreciate in value?

And the whole story is kind of strange. This is the "only" print. Did he destroy the negative? Is it film? Digital? Obviously he scanned it.

Hey, if I paid 1mil for this, I would want to know there were not a million idiots blogging my picture all over the place.

Sour grapes, you say? Nah. I wish him all the best. Just more proof that photography is all a mind game, like selling air, or internet service.

Just find the right buyer... and Bob's yer uncle.

asheville 20110106

asheville 20110106, originally uploaded by BillRhodesPhoto.

just another icy morning in the mountains