On the mend

My laptop computer is on the way to Houston to be fixed. It hasn't been difficult to adjust to life without a laptop since we have another working computer in the house. I didn't get out to take any pictures this weekend because I've had a horrible head cold which seems to be getting better. In the meantime, there probably won't be any picture updates for a few days. Next Saturday I have a paying photoshoot schedule and that will take all day. I had hoped to get down to the farm to tap maple trees this weekend and now it looks like that won't happen until next Sunday at the earliest.

A cover shot

Affton Lawn Care 012, originally uploaded by edrahe.

One of the (many) things I enjoy about working where I do is that my skills as a photographer are appreciated. Though this shot did not make the cut for the front cover of our February issue, another similar one did.

I spent a fun hour or so last week with the repair technicians at Affton Lawn Equipment Inc. getting lawn mower repair "action shots." Rob Rich and Steve were great and they genuinely enjoyed having their pictures taken.

Computer "disaster" update

After spending almost an hour on the phone with HP techinical support I was able to verify that indeed my computer warrantly probably covers whatever ailes my laptop. I will be sent a box so I can send my laptop off to Singapore, or wherever they repair them these days. In the meantime I have to improvise with a spare computer, so updates probably won't be that regular until I get my laptop back.

Computer Disaster

I bought a HP Laptop in February of 2007, not even a year ago. Two days ago it started locking up and then this evening it wouldn't boot up. I took it back to Worst Buy and the Geek Squad lady was anything but helpful. From the way I described the problem, she said, the computer must have been dropped, or it got too hot. Either way the manufacturers warranty does not cover it.

We'll see about that. I'm taking it to a different Geek Squad tomorrow and see what they say. First off, the computer hasn't been dropped, and I don't know how you can tell that it has just because there's a blank screen when you turn it on. Luckily I have almost all my stuff backed up, and what I did lose isn't a great loss. So if the computer can't be fixed I'm just out several hundred bucks for a junky HP laptop that didn't even last a year. If it needs to be replaced I will not buy another HP product and I won't buy it from Worst Buy. And the next one will run Windows XP.

Actually, it was a piece of junk from the day I got it so I'm kind of hoping it can't be fixed. Still, that's a lot of money to pay for a computer that doesn't last a year and has a crappy warranty.

The lesson here is to read the fine print and backup EVERYTHING

Motley Crue..

Motley Crue.., originally uploaded by jeffies1.

The fist St. Louis Strobist Flickr group working get-together on Jan. 19 was a huge success. A fine looking group if I must say so. Click on the photo to get to the St. Louis Strobist group to see some of the results of the shoot.

One from today's shoot

050, originally uploaded by edrahe.

The St. Louis Strobist group, a branch of the larger flickr group, met IRL (In real life) today to share our enthusiasm for shooting with strobes. It was too cold to shoot outisde but we had a great place to shoot indoors with plenty of room. I was the host/organizer of the meeting and didn't shoot all that much. Nonethless, I had a great time shooting with the 20 or so other photographers in attendance.

Pictured here is one member of the group, Johnny. Everyone had a great time.

Library of Congress Flickr Pilot Project

Electric phosphate smelting furnace used to make elemental phosphorus in a TVA chemical plant in the vicinity of Muscle Shoals, Alabama (LOC), originally uploaded by The Library of Congress.

On Wednesday the Library of Congress started a pilot project with the photo sharing site flickr to upload more than 3,000 photographs from the library's collection. Today's photo is part of that collection and was taken in about 1940.

Furthermore, these historic photos from the early 20th century have no known copyright restrictions. That means I can blog photos from the collection like the one above. And even further furthermore, the collection includes many scanned from color transparancies and slides taken by government photographers in the 1930s and 40s.

I think its interesting to see such old and historic photographs in full color.

You can read more about the project here.

homestead

homestead, originally uploaded by edrahe.

In order to get the full wide angle aspect of this photo please click on it to see the full version. This is where I grew up. The house burned almost two years ago and the shell still stands on the old homestead.

A cool picture

040905 002, originally uploaded by edrahe.

Cat under wraps

L1000160, originally uploaded by edrahe.

There are far too many cat pictures and snapshots on the Internet. Here's one more of my cat, because she's so darned cute.

View from above

041505 005, originally uploaded by edrahe.

This is another of my favorte stadium construction shots. I've so far uploaded about 300 of my 788 shots and I think that's going to be it for a while.

Public restrooms

I avoid using public resrooms for the Big Event. But today, well, maybe you've had one of those days where you just cannot avoid having to use a public restroom for the sit-down job. Today was one of those days and in addition to absoutely having to use the public restroom I didn't have much in the way of choices considering where I was.

So, as U.S. citizens we're subject to all kinds of health codes: Restaurant workers are required to wash their hands before returning to work; restaurants have to pass health department inspections; in Missouri at least you're required to pick up a clean plate each time you head to the buffet. The DCFS can come in and take away your children if your house isn't clean. You can't give home made canned products to to the poor because some buerocrat says you might kill a poor homeless person from botulism. I've even heard that some health departments are going after church potluck dinners because all that food brought from home spreads death and destruction.

But if you have a public restroom, as is required by most business establishments serving customers, you can have people shit and piss in and all over it and don't really have to worry much about cleaning it up. As far as I know there are no state or federal regulations setting minimum standards for public restroom cleanliness. There ought to be.

When you enter a restaurant there's a health department sticker plastered on the front door and its almost always an A rating. I think there should be a second sticker on the front door with the establishment's bathroom rating.

A shed full of junk

024, originally uploaded by edrahe.

It looks to me I could do something more with this shot. I'll be at the farm over the weekend to see how I can jazz it up.

More on the stadium construction collection

120904 030, originally uploaded by edrahe.

Yesterday I posted a link to my 788 digital Busch Stadium construction pictures. I realize that few, if any, visitors will take time to wade through all of those pictures. I posted it more for the record. In the coming days I will post here some of what I think are the more interesting shot.

Todays' selection was taken December 9, 2004. It is a section of the upper deck on the Broadway side of the facility. I had a 16x20 print made and it looks really cool.

Cutting Hay

2007 07 31 002, originally uploaded by edrahe.

I like looking at pictures like these on cold winter nights. I took this one on July 31. It was almost dusk and the air was hot and humid carrying the sweet aroma of fresh cut hay. Its funny though, I don't recall any mosquitoes.

I ran across some interesting blog posts today. This one outlines photographer's rights when shooting photos in public places. I recommend downloading the PDF pamphlet and keeping a copy in your camera bag.

I also got into an exchange with the self proclaimed guru of business to business publishing Paul Conley. In the comments section of his blog I passionately disagreed with his notion that outsourcing production work to Asia is a sound business practice for B2B publishers. He responded that I must be a jingoist or racist for thinking the way I do. How very Democrat of him.

*UPDATE* Now according to Mr Con-ley, in addition to being a racist, I asked him absurd questions that demonstrate a lack of understanding of the rules of economics, spelling and grammar. I think I touched a nerve.

The Busch Stadium Construction Collection

buschstadium, originally uploaded by edrahe.

My first lame attempt at blogging occurred sometime in 2005. That was when I was working in downtown St. Louis while Busch Stadium was being built for the St. Louis Cardinals. My personal photo project started quite innocently. One day, three or four months after the construction began I went down to the site on my lunch hour and took a few pictures. This was before I bought a digital camera and those first few shots were on my old Canon film camera. I went back a few days later and took more pictures.

In October of 2004 I bought my first Digital Rebel and by then I was going to the construction site every few days to take pictures. By opening day in April of 2006 I had nearly 788 shots of the construction process. I printed most of these photos in 4x6 format and have three huge three-ring binders of photos in chronological order. I uploaded each batch to my dotphoto account as well as saved the high rez files onto disc.

As I was shooting, printing and uploading pictures every few days or weeks I would share them with friends and family. Many people told me I should try to "sell" them. Well, to whom? In fact I found the email address of someone at HOK Architects and emailed that person a link to the pictures. I got a nice reply that said basically: "Nice pictures. Thanks for sharing."

The problem with "selling" -- and the correct term is "licensing"-- these pictures is that I know the Cardinals, their architects and construction companies hired professional photographers to document the construction. Added to that, I wasn't the only civilian documenting this project with pictures. I saw a lot of people with point and shoot digicams on the site and I'm sure these pictures are unfortunately floating around in countless computer hard drives and cyberspace.

So, if you're interested here's the link to my collection.

Pigs in a poke

Jun 16 2007 008, originally uploaded by edrahe.

Make up your own caption.

Chicken Butt

027, originally uploaded by edrahe.

This is the best I could muster today.

Another Towbat

speedway2, originally uploaded by edrahe.

I was organizing my towboat files this evening and thought I'd share one of my favorite shots from the Eads Bridge

The essentials

The essentials, originally uploaded by edrahe.

Experimenting with still life subjects this evening.

A watchful eye

A watchful eye, originally uploaded by edrahe.

This picture is worth 1000 words

About being a cat

catcropped, originally uploaded by edrahe.

I'm in a black and white phase this week with the new camera. I've seen a lot of cat pictures online, but I think this one conveys what being a cat is all about -- soaking up the winter sun while taking a nap.

And the winner is....

045, originally uploaded by edrahe.

One of my "file photos" of Barack Obama. I thought it would be appropriate to post this evening. He's a nice enough guy but I'm still not going to vote for him.

I'm connected. Now what?

Another blogger recently brought to my attention this piece by Howard Owens, whoever that is, about the essential tools a journalist must have in the digital age. I'm not a working journalist, per se. About 10 years ago I moved from the newsroom into advertising sales for two main reasons. I was burnt out writing already and the money is in advertising. Nonetheless, I maintain an interest these days in the news industry and how news is made, processed and presented.
Looking at Owens' piece I have implemented almost all of his suggestions except for a few: I still haven't set up a social bookmark, and I'm not exactly sure what that is and I don't have an RSS feed for this blog, and again, I'm not exactly sure what that is. I have a Facebook account and just today I set up my Twitter account.
So now what?

More experimentation: Traffic Doomsday, Day II

In case you haven't heard, Highway 64/40 through western St. Louis has been shut down for a year. My commute to work takes me nowhere near highway 40 but the local news media warned for months that everyone, no matter what route one takes to work, would be screwed because all that traffic on highway 40 would have to be rerouted thus causing traffic jams of epic proportions on every traffic artery in the St. Louis metrapolitan area.
The first day of the major shutdown went, much to the dissapointment of many local reporters, smoothly. They explained that traffic was light on Jan. 2 because people were still on vacation and school hadn't resumed.
One January 3 I was forced to take an alternate route, not because my regular route was affected by the shutdown, but because someone got into yet another accident at Gravois and 270 backing up traffic to Tesson Ferry. That's almost a weekly occurance and luckly I heard about it before I entered 270.
As for the picture, it was shot at the interestion of 141 and I don't remember where.

30 seconds of a cat doing nothing

I am officially a multi-mediaer. Sorry for the exceptionally boring movie of a cat doing nothing. Nonetheless, this is a big step for me. I recently bought a Leica D-Lux 3 point and shoot digital camera for a number of reasons. The first being that I think I have a mild obsessive/compulsive disorder about having a camera with me at all times. My digital SLR is a bit bulky to take on those short trips to the grocery store. Secondly, I was able to trash two relatively inexpensive Fuji digi p&s'ers last summer and obviously need something a little more substantial. Since Leica is the standard by which all cameras are compared (okay, at least rangefinders), and since I cannot yet afford a Leica M8, the D-Lux 3 will have to do.

I wasn't to concerned about the movie feature of this little camera. In fact, it doesn't take good quality movies. But quality enough to publish in my blog. This is just a test. Hopefully future videos will be much more interesting.

Happy New Year

dogski, originally uploaded by edrahe.

Best wishes to everyone for a happy and prosperous New Year. A St. Louis tradition has been for a group of water skiers to take to the Mississippi River at the downtown riverfront on New Year's Day. With temperatures hovering in the teens a hearty group turned out for this afternoon's festivities. I only stayed long enough for four or five skiiers to take their turns because it was just too darned cold. A working reporter would've taken names for this picture but since I wasn't a working reporter I don't know the name of the dog or its human. Surprisingly the dog came out of the water and shook itself off and seemed no worse for the wear.