Darryl Wattenberg's PhotoBlog

Monday, July 31, 2006

Heat Advisory

Flame
With heat advisories everywhere you look, I thought this photo of a flame burning off the gases from an oil well in Birch Run, Michigan might be appropriate.

Tuesday, July 25, 2006

A Happy Find

King of the Log
Yet another reason I like geocaching was the find of this park. We visited the "Robert H. Long Nature Park" in West Bloomfield/Walled Lake while hunting for the M-5 Marshview (GCMRBT) cache. We didn't find the cache, but this park was a great find. Fortunately I had left the D200 in the car (though only with the 24-85mm) and managed to fill the 4GB card. A pair of Blue Herons seem to have gotten themselves into a little bit of a territorial dispute. They put on a great show. I was so happy to have a camera with me though.

Sunday, July 23, 2006

Hunting in Bay City

Colorful Planetarium
We headed out to Bay City today for the Tall Ship Celebration. The Tall Ships Celebration was a flop, but the Saginaw River Rear Range Lighthouse and wandering through old town were more than worth the trip.
We also stopped by the Planetarium because how can you not photograph a building like this?

Saturday, July 22, 2006

Its the Weekend!

Waiting for Dinner
Its the weekend again, time for some photography action! I'm not sure what I'll come back with from today's adventure, but with any luck I'll have a good image to post tomorrow.

Friday, July 21, 2006

Flickr Contest

Outage
Flickr was down about 24 hours ago from a storage issue. To sort of make up for the outage they are running an informal contest for a free Pro account. Al you needed to do was color in the circles, take a photo, then tag it with flickrcolourcontest. The image wasn't readily apparent, but I eventually it came to me. The first step was to generate the contest sheet using a couple images from my Flickr account. Then I printed the contest sheet on letter paper from the Epson 2200. Adalay helped by grabbing the candles and holding the paper. I setup the three strobes with gels and popped the shot. Unfortunately it took a little longer to get the shot, but its not bad.

Thursday, July 20, 2006

Flickr Down

"NO PARKING"

Last night Flickr had gone down for a few hours due to a storage failure. Fortunately the problem didn't result in the loss of any of the millions of images stored on the service and the all is well this morning.

This does bring up an important subject for all digital photographers -- how to store and back-up your images. For my part I keep my archives (all the way back to the late 1990s) online through a RAID5 subsystem on a server at home. Then I keep a pair of DVD-R archives -- one onsite, one offsite. Its a classic back-up strategy for data (though you would typically want at least one more off-site back-up), but not fool-proof. There has been a ton of discussion as of late on this subject through many of the podcasts and other media. If you want to share your method or insights, add a comment to this posting.

Wednesday, July 19, 2006

Many Signs

Many Signs
This is the reason I got the D200. We were out and the lighting was amazing on this sign.

Tuesday, July 18, 2006

Saint Clair River

John D. Leitch and the Escape Eze
Its been a couple of weeks since we went to Port Huron shooting the river traffic and Desmond Landing area. This is one of the shots from that trip with a very unusual Great Lakes Freighter going by the name "John D. Leitch." For more images from that excursion visit my Flickr Photostream for July 8th.

Monday, July 17, 2006

New Second Body

Poor Cheddar
I was messing around with the new D200 body Thursday night. This will be my back-up body and lighter rig (I hope to still get the 18-200VR as the all-in-one "vacation" lens). I feel sorry for Cheddar though because anytime I get a new body, strobe, or wide- to normal- lens I end up torturing him with a bunch of photos.

Sunday, July 16, 2006

At the Saint Clair River

DNO_Dennis at the Saint Clair River
Last weekend we went out for a few photos. My buddy Dennis was looking for a specific shot that another buddy of ours got with a laker heading north into the river. I finally got through this batch from the day's photos. I posted twelve of these to my Flickr Photostream.

Saturday, July 15, 2006

Hanging Out & Photographing Things

Standing Around the Former Pere Marquette Station
I enjoy heading out with some of my friends to shoot photos of various subjects. In most cases we're out to have fun and not much else. Occasionally that means getting a little silly, and there's no better lens for silliness than the fisheye.

Friday, July 14, 2006

Uncovered Art

Uncovered Art
There were a series of older buildings along Woodward Avenue in Ferndale housing the Jim Ashmore rental business. A few months ago they moved out to make room for the "Woodward Ave Lofts" -- over priced condos. As they raised the buildings, they left one (I assume waiting for the contract on the billboard over the building to run out). I loved seeing the old sign painted on the side of the building revealed as the other buildings were removed. I recognize this logo but can't place it.

Wednesday, July 12, 2006

Almost 1 Year Ago

Vantage Point Panorama July 2006
Last August, I posted a first attempt at creating a panorama with the D2X and my current tripod. Last weekend I attempted to get another panorama in a location near that original for comparison following some of the work that has been done at the site. With any luck I'll be grabbing many more panoramas from this exact location in the future to create a timeline of the progress.

Tuesday, July 11, 2006

Continuing Change

Former Pere Marquette Train Station
The folks at Achenson Ventures have dumped a bunch of cash into the renovation of the old Pere Marquette station at Vantage Point in Port Huron. The building looks amazing! I can't wait to see the finished product.

Monday, July 10, 2006

Black River Canvas Building

Black River Canvas Building
Word is that this building in Port Huron's Desmond Landing district will be raised before long. I'll need to head out some morning to get some good shots of the building before that happens. In the meantime I did get a few shots of the building in the afternoon light.

Saturday, July 08, 2006

Fort Gratiot Light House

Fort Gratiot Light House
We were in Port Huron Saturday for another photo expedition and decided to shoot the Fort Gratiot Light House. With any luck it will soon be transferred to the Port Huron Museum.

Tuesday, July 04, 2006

Poor Pepper

Playful Pepper
We had to take our 12-13 year old cat Pepper to the Emergency Room last night. The poor guy is going through another bout of liver troubles only about a month-and-a-half since his last one. They have him on fluids and medications and hopefully he'll respond well to that. Regardless of what happens, he's going to need to spend some time over at the hospital undergoing tests once he's well again. In the meantime he's home this morning, feeling much better than he did last night, but he has a couple of really tired parents.
In the meantime, this is a snapshot from November last year when he was in a playful mood. He's not one to show it too often, but when he get playful he can be very funny.

Sunday, July 02, 2006

Amtrak 352 at Birmingham

Amtrak 352 Desaturated
I wanted to shoot something this weekend, but it just didn't seem to be in the cards. So I decided to head out to the Amtrak station in Birmingham, Michigan to catch the arrival of Amtrak's train 352. This is one of the two images that I liked from the evening, and this one just screamed for some selective desaturation.

Saturday, July 01, 2006

Stop; Derail

Stop; Derail
Also from last Saturday, these flags at the Pontiac Transportation Center caught my eye.