International Space Station tonight over Asheville

Get a good look at the International Space Station passing over Asheville tonight starting at 10:49 in the WSW and visible for over 6 mins. fading to the NE.

To take a photo like this, get a tripod and make sure it is stable, open the shutter just as the ISS appears, and leave it open as long as you can see it. If you have some kind of building below it, it looks better. Or a tree. Or something. The darker the area, the better. I used ISO 200 f11 and a 30sec exposure for this one. That is why it ends, I mis-judged the transit time. Tonight I will try to get more of the trail.

If you try, good luck. Let me see what you get.

I will post what I get. I am always trying to do better.

TONIGHT 5/30/2014

They were working in the church, the lights were all ablaze, that would have been a disaster. So I had to wing it with some trees. The result? Will try again soon.

Colorless Winter ... Frozen Images

Few things are really fun to do in the truly freezing cold like we have had the last couple of days. Simple things are made difficult by layers, and photography is no exception. Still it must be done, yes?

Interesting pattern of ice formation here showing pancake ice, the big scaly bits, meeting frozen waves of the open lake. Pancake ice forms on flowing water and jams up against each other like tectonic plates do. This makes ripples in the ice.

This kind of cool too. The wind whips the grass around and prevents the ice from forming,

When wind blows over the warmer water, like when the temperature is in single digits, you get sublimation, as ice forms rapidly.

And then you have the classic frozen waterfall look when you go up high and the temperatures plummet even more.

So, get out there and take some pictures!

Colorless Winter ... Canton

Canton, home of the last papermill in the area, is well-known for, well, its smell. And the fog. Locals shrug off the smell, saying "smells like money to me." And indeed it is for many who work there.

The fog, a by-product of the plant, the cooling water they use, and the warm water discharged into the colder Pigeon River makes money on the highway for tow trucks.
Although not as bad as it once was, (I-40 retains the 1/100 mile markers for distance warning through the valley) the fog was thick and frozen this January morning.

Canton, a town made for black and white. I will be back soon.

Colorless (for the most part) Winter.... Cades Cove

For those of you who don't know, Cades Cove is a very popular area of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. It is basically an 11-mile loop road with 2 cross roads and a number of other places to pull off. Traffic moves (when it does) in an anti-clockwise fashion. I have seen some rather flagrant disregard for vehicle and traffic laws there, as well as some outright lack of common sense when it comes to wild animals.

But, enough of that. When you can get away from people there are some incredible wildlife to be seen in the area. Bear (lots of them), Wild Boar, Coyote, Fox, Bobcat, Cougar (some say), Deer. There is no cell service. It is peaceful.

Especially in the morning. What? I hear ya. That's in color!

Yes. This is one of those photos that did not work in black and white, it was all greys. The frost did not last long, the sun came up over the ridge and the traffic started.

What? Another one in color? Yep, the deer was too similar to the background to stand out without it.

Ah, back to monochrome. First light on one of the historical buildings in the area. One of the attractions is seeing how the people before the park lived and worked. This is the Presbyterian Church on the Loop Road.

Some wildlife pictures work in black and white, this guy was peacefully grazing along the road, oblivious to the dozens of people taking his photo.

And I managed to get a shot of him with my snazzy new West Asheville magnet from zen!

Colorless Winter ... Wandering Lake Lure

I missed the Polar Plunge this year. Can't even imagine where they did it, the water is the lowest I have ever seen. The lake is hardly a lake at all, but a collection of flooded tributaries.

So much for my plans to look at bird migrants there.

The old bridge, which the town begged the state not to raize when the new one was built is in full glory. The whole length is filled with raised-bed gardens with different themes, lots of the them wintery. I suppose they change them for the seasons. It is quite a nice walk, and the bridge is surprisingly narrow, considering we were all crossing it just a few years ago.

This short little walk gave me lots of pleasure and hopes for the future in Asheville if (IF) they ever replace the Jeff Bowen Bridge. Imagine the fun this would be on a bridge that size? Of course, that would be years after all the wrangling and arguing ended about what to do with it. Sometimes our circular firing squad style of public debate in this town can get messy.

Colorless December...now Colorless Winter

I was going to end up this month of black and white and lots of camera phone shots mixed with old newspaper work with a grand, eloquent post about the feel and the why of photography, but I soaked my brain in a hot-tub and took a trip to Cades Cove in the Great Smokies National Park today instead.

Oh well. As Kurt Vonnegut said, "Hi ho."

This is one of several old churches in the Cove, just as the sun peaked up over the NC mountains through the frosty trees. 

Oh, so, yeah, I have been having so much fun doing this, I decided not to quit right yet, so if you like this, you are most likely a masochist and very fortunate. If you hate the whole series, well Jonas Gerard in the River Arts District hates black and white, go chat with him.

 This little guy with the big rack was completely oblivious of the dozens of people taking photos of him, just kept munching on acorns and grass.

One of my favorite things to do with little waterfalls is make them look big by removing any reference to size. Or color. 

Coloress December ... Light Variety

One thing this monotone month has reminded me is the importance of light to photography. Losing the crutch of color and tones, one is left to be free to return to the root of photography (light writing) and push ahead with shapes and such.

This Christmas Day gathering of friends to burn spare greenery would have been fine in color, but the mood is far different in black and white, the fire is not nearly as bright as the yellows and reds would have shown, the light from the fire, falling off to nothing on the edges without the red.

This branch down in Beaver Lake would be boring. The sky was grey, the water was grey and the reflection was well, grey. Might as well lose the color and keep the details.

The greens and browns would be overwhelming the bright, white light hitting the heads of the grass in this. You do lose the golden glow of the sun in this, but you have to imagine it. Can you?

I am almost hesitant to stop my exploration of black and white. What do you think?

Colorless December ... Perspective

Sometimes when you look at a scene, like the one below, it is hard to know what it is that you like when you see it. Why did I stop to look at this?

It is a view that I have photographed a lot in the last couple of years, a tomato field down the valley from our house on Fork Mountain. I don't think it was particularly special of a view, or different, but something caught my eye.

But what?

This? I don't know, but I like it. It is simple and pleasing to me. A longer lens makes it stand out.

Don't forget to think wide and narrow when you look at something.

Colorless December ... Angel flying in for the holiday

Sometimes you take a photo and see more than what was there when you framed it. This is one of those, and black and white definately looks better than color. By losing the color, the illusion of motion in the backlit wings pops, and there is no distraction from the red bows and green branches

Moral of this story... take all the happy accidents, keep 'em coming. And be happy when angels land in your tree.

Colorless December ... The Dogs Like It

Since embarking on colorless December, I have had 30% less depression, 60% less anger issues, I have lost 35lbs and the dogs love to have their photos taken. Oh and it is a coincidence that North Korea has lost their internet too.

Some of those facts I just made up, I will let you be the judge.

The dogs don't seem to mind having their photos taken, though. Maybe they heard about North Korea?

Colorless December ... Around Hot Springs

Not a lot to do or see in Hot Springs on Sunday in December, especially on the shortest day of the year. Still, there is always something to take photos of if one is determined.

As your time for your hot tub mineral spring soak arrives, you can forget this phone number, seen at the bridge. 

After you get out, you can go home and face the holiday pet shoot. No problem, mon!

Colorless December ... Holiday windows around town

Colors for this season? Bah. Humbug. My holidays are monochrome.

Colorless December ... A grumpy harrumph

Up to this point, I have shared black and white photos which were from my newspaper days, in Topeka and New York. This was based on finding some old prints and negatives which I thought were long gone in a box. If this has bored you, I have some good news, I am done (barring finding more) with anything that interests me enough now.

So, what now? I hear you. He is giving up, halfway through, right?

You should be so lucky.

No, I embarking on a new angle on this topic today. As I approach (or pass) the tipping point into old age, I understand the curmudgeons of my past more and more. There were guys at the paper who never seemed to do anything but bitch about us "young idiots with fancy cameras" and without much prodding would always pull out Speed Graphics if we wanted to learn "how real news photographers worked."

I never understood the attachment to gear. Still don't. Things change. The fancy new cameras of my youth are old and tucked away in closets, attics or worse. The old press photographers are all dead, and there are good news photographers whose parents were not yet born when I started working.

This is the way of the world.

So, I dedicate the rest of the month to using, as much as I can, the camera I have with me all the time, my Samsung S3 Note.

All three of the photos on this page were taken with it. With a little thought to light and it's limitations, and using the right software (I really like Black Cam Pro), you can take photos of acceptable quality of most anything.

I really like Black Cam Pro, it allows you to use the colored filters, like on lenses. Yes, filter is not a new term for the digital age, kids. You can also alter exposure times manually and lots of other things I have not yet toyed with.

So, that is my harrumph moment. I hope you will forgive and forget. Since I am getting older, I am sure I will forget.

Colorless December ... Humpback Whales, Cape May, 1983

Along with some Storm Petrels looking for scraps. One of the things I wish the most that I had paid more attention to things when I was younger. All the birds and ocean wildlife I saw in my time in the military...oh well.

Compare what I did every day with the cost of paying a tour boat to go out and do these things. Today's lesson. 

Enjoy everything you can, as if it is the last time you ever get to see it.

Now, if I could just remember that more often.

Colorless December ... Exit Only 1974

Recently sold to a private buyer for $11.5m. There. Now I have the record reported sale of a photograph. Does this make me famous? Where will this end?

I believe every photographer in America, no, the world, should report insane sales to "private buyers" over the next two weeks. I mean, come on, I have as much proof as Peter Lik this happened.
So now that I am famous, I guess I will get back to taking photos.

Colorless December ... Midnight Madison Square Garden 1987

Run DMC was inside, NYPD left their motorcycles outside.

The horses were around the corner but it was too dark to shoot.
1987 was a tough year in NYC. Race relations were poor, the 911 system was stretched to the maximum (computers were being installed) it was an insanely hot summer. The year was so bad NYC EMS issued a medal for just working that year.

This was not the first major rap/hip-hop concert at Madison Square Garden, but it was the first high profile one. White America was just beginning to hear the voice of Black America in their own voice, without interpreters.

Colorless December ... Topeka 1981

Or, as I like to call it, "the 3-armed policeman"

After an armed robbery and a short chase these three were trapped in the alley by a motorcycle officer, a detective and a a K9.

Other than the 3-armed officer, I like the way the Sgt. looks on and the clean background of this house a block from the State Capitol building.

Colorless December ... Faces of hate, Brooklyn 1989

I really hope that the rest of the negatives from this day turn up as I go through the pile. There were pics of the ReverandAl Sharpton in his running suit next to Herbert Daughtry in his immaculate suit and some Nation of Islam guys. But, alas, this is the one I have, and only as a print.

The background. In August, 1989 a young man named Yusef Hawkins was killed by a white man in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn. This was from the first march, and was the first time "No Justice, No Peace" was chanted by a crowd. 

The residents of Bensonhurst were not amused by this invasion of thousands of black folk in their streets, and there was heavy police protection along the whole route. When I took this, I was about 3 feet from Reverend Sharpton, near the front of the march. 

The police protection that day worked. A year later, Rev. Sharpton was stabbed at a similar march in the same neighborhood. 

Peter Lik breaks his own 'record sale' price 6.5mil for a photo?

This guy is absolutely incredible, as in NOT credible, to me. 4 years ago he announced he had sold a photo called One for 1million dollars, which I mentioned here, now he claims to have sold this photo,

for 6.5million dollars, and some other assorted photos for 3.5mil more for a total of 10 Million Dollars.

Uh, huh. A photo blog called Phoblographer has the story. It sounds like the same scam, errr, scheme he pulled last time, but on a larger scale.

Congratulations Peter, now do the right thing and retire.