Wisconsin Getaway
As 
helloheather recently pointed out, we made our way into Wisconsin for a relaxing weekend. We stayed at a B&B in Port Washington, WI only a few blocks from Lake Michigan. On Sunday we visited the Milwaukee Art Museum
Overall it was a fun weekend. Port Washington is a nice little town along the lake. Thanks to a recommendation from emilissima we had a great dinner at The Pasta Shoppe. Unfortunately we didn't get to the coffee shop she also recommended, but that leaves something for our next visit.
We also spent time on Saturday in Cedarburg, WI (just south of Port Washington) which reminded both of us of Galena, IL. They were having some big festival on Sunday which we avoided because of the expected crowds and very hot and humid temps.
Monday found us in Elgin at my parents for a Memorial Day/Baby Shower. And speaking of showers, there were some pretty intense ones in the afternoon thanks to all that unstable air.
I'm starting to upload photos to our Gallery from this weekend. Aside from the museum, we also spent time walking out to the end of the breakwall to see the Port Washington lighthouse and I did some longer exposure evening/dusk photography along the lakefront on Sunday evening.
wbez dot org photo selection (Chicago Public Radio)
A screen shot of today's wbez.org (Chicago Public Radio)homepage.
glutton for punishment
Apparently WBEZ.org (Chicago Public Radio) didn't learn anything the first time. They've gone ahead and selected another one of my photos for their homepage. 
So, this Friday, May 27th, be sure to stop by wbez.org (Chicago Public Radio) to see their selection.
mental obstructions
Between the weather and the madness that has become work, I've have only one lunch-hour walk in two weeks. This week, in fact, I didn't even bring in walking shoes.
And lack of walks means lack of photography. As our evenings have been booked pretty solid, I've had no chances to see if the foxes are still using their den. Last night I cleaned the back gutters on the house, and I realized later that I might have had some interesting macro photographs while up there. Maybe tonight I'll try for the front gutters...
When I don't get to use a camera often, I feel like something is amiss. I feel "off" or like I'm forgetting something. But the problem is that when I start up again, very often my mind goes completely blank and I struggle and struggle to find subjects. Sometimes I can force my way through the "fog" by just snapping pictures at random - ignoring subject matter completely and just framing shots to get a rhythm going again.
The lack of walks has also left me feeling sluggish and tired. My bad food habits catch up too quickly when I'm not exercising.
As helloheather has pointed out, we've both been stressing about baby-stuff. But we've made a decision on a stroller and baby carrier for the car, now it's just a matter of buying it. We've also decided to forgo the changing table in favor of an existing dresser and one of those curved changing pads. I think it'll be a fine solution.
Baby classes have been a little fast-paced. A lot of information is being covered in only four classes. I learn far better by repetition: reading or doing. In general, if I'm nervous or fearing the unknown (something I've experienced a lot during this pregnancy) I'm even less effective in learning new things. Combined with the rapid pace of the class, I feel like important information is simply slipping between my fingers. It's frustrating and, of course, making me feel more anxious which in turn impedes even more information retention.
Bah, what a mashed up entry.
the circle of life
My drive to the train station takes me through a hawks' territory. I see him (or her) sitting atop a large utility pole along the same stretch of road nearly every morning. This morning was no exception (one of these days I will bring a camera along and try and grab a few shots; it's a magnificent creature.)
This morning, however, I noticed that two utility poles down, there was another shape on top. As I passed by I was able to see what it was: a rabbit. The hawk had caught a rabbit (and a good sized one at that) and had left it on top of the utility pole for later consumption (perhaps to take bits back to its young?) It was a bizarre sight, to say the least, seeing a rabbit up a 50 foot utility pole
new guests
A mother fox and her three young have taken up residence under the shed in our neighbors back yard. helloheather spotted them for the first time yesterday. I was able to get a few shots of them this evening after getting home. They're very skittish and were very much aware of my camera's shutter sound.
In a digital world, there’s little room for the toy camera
Since first learning about the Holga I knew I wanted one. A sub-$20 camera that took 120 roll film was too good to pass up. David Burnett, noted freelance photojournalist won an award for an image of Al Gore on the campaign trail made with a Holga.
It's a camera with a cult-like following. Some hate it, others love it. I fall more into the later category, but I don't obsess over it. It's a fun toy and if I break it, I'm not out a whole heck of a lot.
When I discovered that Polaroid made a instant-film (peel-apart) back for the Holga, I knew I had died and gone to Holga-heaven. 120 film is increasingly difficult to get processed and scanning can only be done at either great expense or here at work. Instant access to images (as the shift to digital photography has shown) is a powerful draw.
And so for a little more than a year I've been using my Holga + Polaroid back (dubbed a "Holgaroid"). It's a great little camera, weighing very little, and producing images that are sometimes odd, sometimes interesting, and sometimes fascinating.
I found out today that, sadly, Polaroid is no longer producing the back for the Holga and, in fact, almost every online retailer I know of has stopped selling them. This puts the future of Type-80 peel-apart film into question as well. On the plus-side, ending bid values for the backs on ebay have shot up 200%. On the down-side, of course, the Holgaroid will begin to fade away into oblivion. When Polaroid stops selling Type-80 films (and they will eventually, of course), there will be no more film for these cameras. They'll become an odd footnote in the history of photography, like so many cameras before them.
This isn't an anti-digital rant, this is more a "difficult to accept change" lament. In the world of the film camera, the market had been saturated with choices for many years. Hundreds of point and shoot and SLR models to choose from with dozens of film types and styles. When the digital revolution began, it was clear that film would remain but as more and more a niche market. Fewer cameras, fewer films, but available. The Holgaroid, on the other hand, was completely unique in its style and (especially) price. Cameras using peel-apart films have generally been very expensive medium format and large format systems, requiring many thousands of dollars to buy into. The Holgaroid was an inexpensive way to indulge in instant film photography.
So, I must face the fact that the lifespan of my Holgaroid is far shorter than I had hoped. When I run out of my current supply of Type-80 film I doubt I'll order any more.
Anyway, for anyone interested in the types of images the Holga can produce, I have some Holgaroid photos online at flickr:
learning to see, all over again
Two years ago, it was difficult to find a point and shoot digital camera that had an equivalent focal length wider than 35mm. Most were between 35 and 40mm at the wide end. This is not very wide, especially for things like landscapes. But it was (and still is, to some extent) difficult to make wide-angle lenses for these cameras due to the extreme focal lengths already needed for the very small sensors inside. A few manufactures offered 28mm wide (equivalent) options, but the cameras were expensive and the image-edge results were of questionable quality.
Today, there are a number of digital point and shoot cameras that offer 24-28mm equivalent focal lengths at lower prices with better edge performance. But still, the majority of the cameras being released are within that 35-40mm range.
When I first started using our Canon A80, I was annoyed by its 38mm limit. I had been working on using my 24mm and 28mm wide lenses effectively and felt like I was making progress. The 38mm limit on the digital point and shoot felt like I was constantly bumping up against a wall. However, over time, I became more proficient at using the A80, and subsequently, began to use this camera effectively. I can, in a way, pre-visualize what in the scene the camera will capture at 38mm and move to that position. It's not exact, of course, but it gets me into the ballpark.
With over 20,000 exposures on the A80, my brain has been re-wired. I now find it very difficult to compose photos wider than what I normally "see" at 38mm. Any time I use a camera with a wide-angle field of view (like what is visible at 28mm or 24mm) I feel lost, or out of my element. To me, the world is defined, photographically, by the A80.
And so, I need to retrain my brain to see a scene with a wider field of view, and to effectively use lenses that provide that field of view. It's the second part that's the most difficult.
the vastness of what we don’t see
helloheather and I caught something on Animal Planet on Sunday that has had my brain twisted up in knots.
In Europe (and Asia), there is a genus of blue butterfly that has a symbiotic relationship with the local species of red ant. Here's how it works:
- Blue butterflies mate.
- Female lays eggs on the stems and leaves of wildflowers
- Eggs hatch and the larvae hang out on the leaves for around three weeks
- larvae fall to the ground and, if found by a red ant, are picked up and brought to the colony.
- Butterfly larvae are kept with the ant larvae and are fed, cleaned, and raised as if it were an ant larvae.
- chrysalis forms, larvae pupate, and emerge as new blue butterflies, quickly leaving the colony.
How does this happen? Why do the ants not turn the fallen larvae into ant food? Near as anyone can tell, the larvae produce the exact same pheromones as ant larvae. To an ant, if it smells like an ant larva, it must be an ant larva. (Though, it must wonder how it got so far out of the colony...). In addition, the butterfly larvae also mimic the sounds ant larvae make. It completely fools the ants.
Symbiotic relationships are not uncommon in nature, but here's where this one takes a twist.
The entire colony of ants treat these butterfly larvae as one of their own because it smells and sounds exactly like one of their own. But someone else, without even looking, can spot the fakery: a wasp. And it uses this information to climb into a colony and inject its own larva inside the larva of the blue butterfly, where it feeds once the chrysalis is formed.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4460030.stm
Rather than re-type pretty much what the BBC article states, I'll just link to it. But what should be noted here is that this species of wasp (Ichneumon eumerus) can find, in a field of hundreds of ant colonies, the ONE colony that contains butterfly larva. Simply amazing.
This is just one story from a show called "Life in the Undergrowth" narrated by David Attenborough.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000EBD9W6.
We watched a couple others and were equally fascinated.
slowly struggling back up the curve
My main computer at home has fallen far, far behind the curve: A P-III 700MHz box with a ATA-66 card that's not actually supported by Windows , a sound card that stopped being supported before Windows 2000 was released (hurray for fans slamming together some drivers from old code), and a collection of bits and pieces of everything else.
So, some months ago, I received two DOA machines from my mother-in-law's office to do with as I please. Both are P-4 1.6GHz machines. The first one I looked at only had a dead 80GB WD drive (past warrenty) and so I set about making it my new computer. I figured I could use it, re-build the other one for a family member, and keep the 700MHz box as backup storage (it's already loaded with HD's so, why not?).
Well, as I'm a slacker in continual training, it's taken me a while to get all the software and hardware installed on this new box. I did end up settling on new HD's and will probably get a new video card at some point (the Nvidia TN2 that came with it is a bit weak, even for my non-gaming needs) but I should be set for a while. Photoshop runs faster, OpenOffice runs a lot better, and the machine doesn't bog down (as much) when I have ten Firefox tabs open.
But one thing I did notice was how slow the machine has become as more and more software has been installed, especially after Norton AntiVirus was transfered over. Frustrating, but inevitable I guess.
Happy Bambino
helloheather and I have to keep reminding ourselves that, come the end of June, our baby will not be like this. Our baby will be much smaller and much less interactive. I'm always amazed at the difference a few weeks, let alone 6 months makes in development.
The above photo was taken at the Happy Bambino.