The Golden Party

So as of late I've been pretty stoked on this whole strobist style movement of photography propelled by the great David Hobby. I've gotten myself a couple flashes, had some nice photo shoots, and had enough time in between to really contemplate light. As the great photographer Joe Mcnally says, "Light is the language of photography." I couldn't agree more. And when in the situation of mixing flash and ambient light, one must really understand light.

So on another note, I've been having fun shooting 'events' for friends. My friend Natalie asked me to photograph her golden birthday party last weekend. I set up a couple flashes on stands in a extra side room and let folks get as crazy as they wanted. It was nothing special as far as setups and results go, but provided decent lighting for dynamic situation. Natalie supplied a box of props in case people were feeling the urge.

I had a rather basice setup (which I should have photographed) of one sb-600 on a flash stand, with a 30" shoot through umbrella. The other flash was on the other side and bounced off the ceiling. Above is the birthday woman Natalie and some friends she "hooked up" at a previous party.

The lighting setup worked rather well for a couple people or small groups but because the room was pretty tight it didn't work well for larger groups - where the edges would be blown out and the folks in the middle were under exposed. Here was a fun shot of Kevin and Joel.

While the dance party was going on and folks weren't coming into the "photo room," I would head out and snap some shots on the dance floor. Although not truly 'stobist' style, I was playing with mixing my sb-28 with some fun ambient light in the room. In this case there was a disco ball over in the corner.

Some of the most fun shots were taken with the golden lights hanging in the other room. Since it was the "Golden Party" (Au Yeah) I thought what better than to mix a bunch of long exposed golden light trails with some dance moves. The full gallery can be viewed here.

The Suitcase Junket at Redwood Curtain and more...

Welcome back to the blogosphere, well thanks. Been away for awhile. Today I attended a very inspirational talk by Andrew Davis of tippingpoint labs where he shared ideas of how Humboldt County is failing in terms of promoting ourselves (yes I'm included in that), what the 'outside world' knows of us, and a little insight on what we need to do as a community whole to promote ourselves better.

Being a new business owner with very little business savvy, it was interesting to hear a perspective other than trying to get page hits and unique viewers to our websites. Really, isn't that how we win? I've dabbled quite a bit on this world wide internet and have come across so much information of people toting their page hit medals, but lack a real strategy. Wow, I'm probably boring the heck out of you right now. Really it's all interesting stuff that goes beyond your web presence but in your content. And for that, I've been a bit inspired to share a little about what happens around here behind the Redwood Curtain (a term in which I got to share with Andrew personally).

Andrew is from Boston on the east coast, and it turns out the next fella is also from 'round them parts. This all happened by accident really, as a friend an myself were headed down to Redwood Curtain Brewing for a nice refreshing IPA on happy day Tuesday. It turned out that a one man band by the name of The Suitcase Junket was in town and performing shortly after we arrived. Somehow I must've known that my camera would be needed and just happened to be slung around my shoulder along with my trust sb-600 flash and a little flash stand. I love when I'm prepared.


The Suitcase Junket has a rather interesting style that I really dug. Using three foot pedals, of which one slapped a traditional style bass hammer on a non-traditional style suitcase that he was sitting on, one for a top-hat symbol, and the other for a baby shoe against a metal gas can.



Unfortunately I didn't get any up close shots of his instrumentation, mostly because I was generally into just watching and listening (and enjoying the best IPA in Humboldt County of course). His songs were original and mixed with a sort of "flailing" guitar, that he often would turn into a more bluesy sound with the help of a glass slide.


Probably the most interesting for me was the Tuvan like throat singing that he busted out. I've always been a fan of Tuvan throat singing but never heard anything quite like his. The Junket had a much more high pitched beautiful whistle sound that I felt worked very well with his Tom Waits covers and his original folky jams.


If you want to learn more about The Suitcase Junket visit his website. Thanks to Redwood Curtain Brewing Company for bringing in a great, and surprising show. Hopefully more music like this will appear in the future.

Stomach Churn 2010

The annual Stomach Churn cross/mtb race has came upon and left us. There was a great turn out again this year with over 20 riders in each race. Since I've been chained to the computer trying to get something accomplished on my thesis and absolutely no time on my bike I opted to just go shoot some photographs and watch everyone else suffer. I know, lame excuse, but I'm really much better at taking photos than bike racing anyway.

The 30 minute race started around 11am. It was good to see woman in the field as well.

The traditional Stomach Churn puke bucket made it's appearance on top of Cardiac Arrest hill as usual.

Dan from Adventure's Edge made a quick jump on the lead right off the bat, and despite burping his tubeless tire manged to keep his lead with a pretty nice gap at the finish. Don't let those downhillers trick you - they've apparently got some skillz on the cross country terrain as well.

The 60 minute race takes off. Chris Johnson pulled away for for a quick lead...

Until Graves turned on the burners and practically lapped everyone on the field by the time 60 minutes was done with.

Some brave souls actually did ride cross bikes including Jennifer. (Although Jennifer was screaming the whole time wishing she had her mtb.)

Evan took the cross dress competition home with his sexy Daphne ensemble.

While others wanted to take a little something home of their own. The gallery can be seen here (for now). I'd like to personally give a shout out to Vic for his continuous hard work putting this race together, Adventures Edge for their continuous support, and Revolution Bicycles.

Bogstomp 2010

Well it's been awhile since I've transcribed any thoughts into digital format, well at least here. Damn facebook has probably taken over. So much has happened since we last talked. I'll cut to the chase.

Last weekend was the annual Bogstomp, BogStomp, Bog Stomp (however it's spelled) mountain bike/cyclocross race held out near headwaters. Revolution Cycles puts on the race and they sure do a great job of it. For some reason I couldn't pull it together to get much riding in so I went out to shoot a few photos and just generally have a good time with some friends.

This was only my 2nd year as an attendee, so I don't really have much to compare. There were a few more racers on the field suffering this year which was great to see. Last year I raced the 30 minute sufferfest and actually did better than I would have guessed going into it. It was actually nice getting to shoot some photos of the guys I usually race with and sort of felt guilty taking the easy way out. Well I didn't hear anyone complaining, at least not to my face.

The track was a bit muddier than last year and I think it had something to do with Sean tearing things up with his moto - race organizers always like the racers to suffer as much as possible. There was even a "pit' that everyone kept talking about, but in my oblivion didn't discover it until the 3pm kids race. That would have made for some nice sloppy shots.

I did get a chance to try out my new flash unit. I managed somehow to scrape up a little cash and get the nikon sb-600 strobe. This thing has the ability to run as a slave from my SLR body so I can mount it on my tripod and run around snapping shots while it distracts and scares the hell out of the riders. I've got some learning ahead of me, but overall I was pleased with the results - much better than not having i-TTL with the Sunpak powerzoom I've been using.

Congrats to Andrew "Potter" McAfee for taking the 50 minute race and Justin Brown with the 30 minute race win. Looks like it was a setup from the revo guys. Race results will be posted here.

I'd like to close it with this photo and remind everyone that sometimes it's not ok to be childish, but never get so old to lose your childlike qualities. Have fun out there.

Google Bike Routes

Well it's been a long time coming but Google is finally adding bike routes to their mapping. Here is an article from Wired that talks a bit more about it.

Although this is a very good improvement from their auto-centric mapping system, I personally think it will be slow going at first. This type of routing is dependent on quality GIS files integrated with good planning and existing bike routes/lanes. Large cities such as Portland or Seattle, that have well established bike lanes or avenues, tend to have the resources that Google needs. Smaller towns that may or may not have bike lanes, but are without quality GIS capabilities will not be implemented for some time. This will take major effects on the local communities to get trails/lanes established and into a GIS.

This is exciting news regardless, but for now I'd keep that internal route map handy.

And a little something to motivate you...