Dobson Central Photography

For those that are interested in Canons latest 1Ds Mark III camera, this is worth watching, even with the cheesy porno music.  I’m still drooling over the excellent features. 

Last Friday I went out to my sons tae kwon do dojang to take some night photography of them doing their nunchuck training camp. Every so often, they hold different camps and whenever they’ve done the nunchucks at night, I’ve wanted to get in there and take some photos. It wasn’t until this past Friday that I was able to schedule some time to go down there and do just that.

The first 10 minutes of shooting, I was getting what I had envisioned, yet the results weren’t satisfying to me. I had envisioned lots of different colored streaks throughout the photo, which was simple enough to do. It just wasn’t enough. So, I ended up using a strobe light to capture the students just prior to them starting their forms. The flash enabled me to freeze the students at the time I started the elapsed photo and then continue capturing the streaks for the remainder of the exposure. The end result is what is posted above (click on photos to see a larger version).

The setup:

1. Exposure: 30 seconds
2. Aperture: f/5.6
3. ISO: 100
4. Mirror Lockup on
5. Noise reduction on
6. Cable release
7. Tripod
8. Strobe: 580EX II at +0 with diffuser, bounced off of ceiling

I came across an interesting blog post today about where a photographer was harassed by a security officer for taking pictures of a building.  A few weeks ago I stumbled across another posting where a photographer was being harassed at a local soccer event for kids by some parents.  In both cases, the police can’t do anything about this, as long as they were not on private property or there was no reason or expectation of privacy (aka public place).

While I personally have never been harassed in a public place (in a government facility is another story), I have found some of these stories intriguing at what could happen.  In any case, while reading todays story, I came across a few interesting sites that had documentation from their research and state laws.  I thought a reprint of these here might benefit those that might be interested.   It might just come in handy to keep a copy of these with your gear, just in case you encounter some of these ignorant people saying it’s “illegal to photograph” (insert location here).

 Legal Rights of Photographers  The Photographers Right

The Legal Rights of Photographers was published by Andrew Kantor on his web site.  His posting on this, along with a LOT of interested comments, can be found at Andrew Kantor’s Place. The Photographers Rights was posted by Bert P. Krages. He has also written a couple of books pertaining to this subject.  You can find more info on Mr. Krages’ site.

You have to admire the dedication and talent of this artist, who uses a typewriter to create some amazing artwork.

Last week, I happened to be looking at some of the older entries in the news on this site, when I realized that I had never processed my Out of Africa Wildlife park photos. So, I went through them this past weekend and found a couple that were worth processing and posting in the gallery.

Because the links of the photos change in the gallery, with each photo that I add to it, I will just give you the links below to view them directly.

About an hour after arriving at Sweetwater this past weekend, we packed it up and went over to Christopher Columbus park, where we spotted this duck that was having a really bad hair day. Soon after seeing this duck, one of the regular visitors approached me and told me they had named the duck “Donna“, after another visitor who often frequented the park. About 5 years ago, a beautician by the name of Donna had left Tucson and moved to Florida. This beautician, apparently had some kind of wild and wicked looking hairdo that stood up all crazy-like. Only a few short weeks after Donna had left for Florida, this duck with the crazy looking head of hair came to stay at the park and the locals promptly named her after the beautician. So, if you ever find yourself over at Silverbell lake at Christopher Columbus park, be sure to check out Donna the duck.

I made a trip over to Sweetwater Wetlands/Refuge to get some bird photography in this past weekend. There wasn’t much happening over there. I saw a few ducks and a couple of cranes, but other than that, there weren’t a lot of birds.

On my way out, I saw this sign and thought to myself why would anyone want to drink from waste water?? I guess a better question would be, did somebody already drink from the water and now they have to post signs?

Click the photo above to see a larger version.

While reading up on our recent visitor, I happened upon this video. Stomach your way past the annoying opening song to see some interesting tidbits about the tailless whipscorpion.

My wife and I have encountered three of these in our house in as many years. At a quick glance, it sort of resembles a scorpion of some sort. After further study though, I started thinking they were some type of spider. It wasn’t until this past weekend, that I took the time to get out my macro lens and spend some time taking some photos of it. There looks to be eight legs, however the longer legs look like they are being used as antennae.

Up until today, I still did not know what this creature was. I contacted someone at the Nogales port of entry who works for APHIS today. He was quick to identify this animal as a tailless whipscorpion. While I was taking photos of this, I swore that it looked just like that spidery creature in the 2nd or 3rd Harry Potter movie. Guess what? It is the same creature!!

Click the thumbnails below to see larger versions.

I mentioned the colorless sunrise that happened after the meteor shower. Well here it is. Nothing worth writing home to mom about, but in case you were wondering what it looked like. There appeared to be more color in the original, than the resized version below.

Click the thumbnail to see a somewhat larger version (not the original version).