Melephant's Eye

Beach Kiting

Tue, 15 Sep 2009 06:26 +0000

I used to fly my kites at a large park in Berkeley. Despite its size, it could get crowded and people would do stupid things like let there dogs off the leash and then ignore them when they started trouble. For reasons such as these my wife did not like hanging out at the park while I flew. Now I fly on the Oregon and Washington coast, and suddenly I have company. Especially at Long Beach WA, where we can drive onto the beach and be as far from the crowds as we want. As you can tell from this photo, there appears to be some unspoken rule about inter-car distance. It's one of the things I enjoy in this shot. I also like the look of the wind shelter we were using this day, it looks somehow tropical on the beach. Which is the only good thing I have to say for it, as it was wholly ineffectual and went back the next day.

On the Docks

Thu, 03 Sep 2009 20:45 +0000

This shot was taking at the port of Ilwaco, WA. This town is just down Hwy 101 from my current favorite kiting location, Long Beach, WA, and just across the Columbia from Astoria, OR. It's a neat little port, with lots of boats, fishing operations, restaurants, and shops. Fun to walk around, and there's even a farmers' market on Sundays during the summer. This boat was obviously docked when we were there, and I liked the way the wide angle lens helped fill the frame of the photo. To me it really conveyed the scale and grandeur of the vessel. It's no small task heading out into the open ocean, so you need a sturdy boat to bring you home. Mind you, many of the boats here looked far from seaworthy, but that's one of the reasons I liked the Nova, she looked like she'd seen a lot of time out on the high seas, but was still up to the task.

Encased in Ice

Sun, 01 Mar 2009 03:17 +0000

And just like that I'm back!It's been quite a while since my last post, and in that time I've bought a house, moved to a new state, and started my new job there. So please excuse me for my absence, I've been busy. We're now in Hillsboro Oregon, and are enjoying ourselves. Of course we weren't as pleased when we first showed up in December. That's because we moved in the day before their worst snow storm in 40 years. And we didn't even have our bed, blankets, or heavy coats! Those were slowly on their way in a United truck, which didn't show up for about a week. The transition to the office was nice and slow though, it was closed for a while since the roads were so awful. With none of our stuff around other than what we packed in the car, I had a bit of time to take in our new surroundings with the camera in hand. This photo was taken after a day of freezing rain. The roads may have been hellish, but that layer of ice provided for some great shooting around the house. Having never seen this rose bush in bloom, I can only imagine what it looks like normally, but it had a certain beauty here as well. Coated in a thick shell of ice, this wilting flower was preserved for just a little while longer. Now here's hoping it comes back to life soon so I can see it in the summer.

Dragons in the Sky

Sun, 07 Dec 2008 05:39 +0000

I haven't posted a kite photo in a while, so I figured it was about time. This dragon is a design by George Peters and now being produced by Into the Wind Kites, quite faithfully to the original kite. This one does not actually belong to me, but I certainly wouldn't mind picking one up. I especially enjoy the twin tails that give it a little something extra in the sky, and help it stand apart. George Peters is quite a well known American kite designer and artist, though besides his recent licensing I'm not sure he's been doing much with them recently. Here are George's own thoughts on kites taken from his bio on the Drachen Foundations website: “I like the combination of making something fine and then throwing it to the winds. I like the impermanence of kites, their essential fragility, their lightness. Kite flying is using nature, using the wind. The wind becomes part of the work.” I must say I agree.

Angry Little Bird

Fri, 14 Nov 2008 07:15 +0000

I was looking to post something a little different, and happened across this little guy in my files. I took his photo one day while out flying kites at the marina, amused at how he'd rather feel like a big bird perched on a tiny twig, than be dwarfed in a regular tree. Or so that was my take on his position. I'm not quite sure what it is about birds, but they always look pissed off to me...especially the little ones. In fact, the angriest bird I ever met was a hummingbird up in Mendocino, we called him Sparky. I also thought it fitting to post this photo today since I'm wearing my Viking Bird shirt by Threadless (if you've never seen it, google it, it amuses me).

Willamette Valley

Mon, 27 Oct 2008 05:52 +0000

I'm moving to Oregon in the near future for a job, so you'll have to bear with me as this photo-blog transitions from being Berkeley centric to having a more Portland area feel to it. To be more precise, my wife and I are moving to Hillsboro, and last week we were up there house hunting (yes, in Oregon people can still afford to buy homes). An obvious result of this transition is that the wine country photos will now have a much higher probability of being Pinot Noir instead of Zinfandel or Cabernet Sauvignon. At first we were afraid that this move north would take us away from wine country, but it has in fact brought us closer. This photo was taken at Elk Cove winery about 30 minutes from Hillsboro. We're just beginning to get to know the area, and adjust our palettes to Pinot, but it looks like a wonderful region we're looking forward to getting to know. Have any personal recommendations for the area? I'd be happy to hear them :)

Harvest

Thu, 16 Oct 2008 00:53 +0000

Last week my wife and I celebrated our third anniversary by returning to the scene of the crime, which is nice when that happens to be wine country. We actually only visited a single winery, but drove around a lot and generally enjoyed seeing the colors of fall, which we don't get as much down in Berkeley. This photo was actually taken at a pumpkin patch, where we picked out the raw materials for our Halloween Jack-O-Lanterns. Stanley Lane (at the corner of Hwy's 12 and 29) is our favorite pumpkin patch in the area; they lay out the pumpkins, some still on the vine, amongst tall stalks of corn, mostly now beginning to dry up and go to seed, they have a large hay pyramid you can climb, and cows and pigs to pet. Lots of fun, especially for kids or adults who never grew up (myself included). And while this doesn't quite count, I had lots of fun with my macro amongst the pumpkins and corn. Plus, having been married to me for three years now, my lovely wife knew to bring a book :)

Anchor Brewing

Tue, 30 Sep 2008 00:00 +0000

Anchor Brewing has been hand crafting their Anchor Steam Beer in San Francisco since 1896, and it's possibly my favorite beer on the market today. Given that, it's a bit astounding that I had not been on their brewery tour until last week. The real issue, is that Anchor only gives two tours a day and you have to schedule at least a month in advance...I'm normally just not that organized. But knowing that I'd be leaving the area in the near future, I got a bunch of friends together and signed up about a month and a half in advance...the earliest opening. Turns out that was one of the best decisions I ever made. The tour was fantastic, walking through the whole process from the mash to bottling, including the hops room in the photo above (whole flower hops you might notice, and measured with a shovel). Afterward, we got to do a tasting of the six beers they had on tap: Anchor Steam, Liberty Ale, Summer Beer, Anchor Porter, Old Foghorn (barley wine), and Anchor Bock. And these were no small tastings, we were poured a full half pint of each...and this was all free! All said and done, the tour and tasting lasted a little over 3 hours, and it was time well spent. If you're like me, live in the bay area and enjoy beer, don't make my mistake and keep putting this tour off, go sign up for it now, you won't regret it.

Red, White, and Blue...and black...with yellow horns...

Mon, 22 Sep 2008 07:25 +0000

This past weekend was the Family Day Kite Festival in San Francisco. Interestingly it actually goes for two days. I had never been, so a few of us went over to see what it was all about. Coming from Berkeley and the famous Berkeley Kite Festival, this one was rather small...okay, it was small by most standards. Of course one of the main limitations is that it takes place at the Marina Green in San Fran. It's a small park, but it has a fantastic view of the Golden Gate. I think this is only its third year, so hopefully the festival will continue to grow, and attract more attention. After all, who doesn't want to see more giant kites like these guys flying over the Golden Gate.On a side note, having taken hundreds of photos of kites in California, I'm always excited when there are clouds like these in the background. Here in the Bay Area, it seems we usually have only two types of skies: perfectly blue with not a cloud in sight, or gray. Thus, I love it when I see attractive clouds like the ones above that can add a bit of texture and variance to my backgrounds.

Industrial Delight

Tue, 09 Sep 2008 06:46 +0000

I like this photo for a number of reasons. It was taken in Minnesota when I was visiting a friend at work in an industrial park (recognize it Jordan?). It's the classic case of two dissonant images, a beautiful pond surrounded by trees, but with an off kilter drainage pipe innocuously sticking out. What largely draws my eye to this image is the black and white processing. I've used a blue filter to make the blue and green areas really pop brightly, while diminishing the reds and yellows. This gives this image an artificial infrared appearance, which I happen to like. You can always tell on images like this when they are done by this means versus real infrared photography, because the sky is white. If this were an infrared image the sky would be black because the infrared wavelength is not scattered in the sky. On a scientific aside, the sky is blue due to Rayleigh Scattering. What this means is that the higher wavelengths, i.e. the ultraviolet down into blue in the visible range, are the first energies to be scattered in the sky. Because our eye (and a camera) see light that has been scattered, the sky appears blue. At sunrise and sunset, the sky appears orange and red because the light is traveling a greater distance through the atmosphere to reach our eye, and therefore begins to scatter longer wavelength light. So because the sky does not scatter the infrared rays that pass through it, it would appear black to an infrared camera. What does scatter it though, is chlorophyll, the chemical in plants that helps change light into energy. Because of this property, trees, grass, flowers, and other such things appear bright in infrared images.
Sorry if that all sounded like incoherent gibberish.