Category Archives: Uncategorized

Answer — Friday Foto Quiz #16

Did you rec­og­nize the reflec­tion in this pic­ture? Scroll down for more.

Fort Point is a Nation­al His­toric Site and part of the the Gold­en Gate Nation­al Recre­ation Area. It was built between 1853 and 1861 to pro­tect San Fran­cis­co dur­ing the Civ­il War. It is the brick build­ing in the bot­tom pic­ture in the fore­ground under­neath the Gold­en Gate Bridge.

The fort is open to walk around Fri­day through Sun­day and is free. The entire fort is also a muse­um host­ing a recre­ation of civ­il war era life. Climb the gran­ite cir­cu­lar stair­cas­es to the roof for spec­tac­u­lar views of the bridge, the bay and the city.

The bridge was spe­cial­ly engi­neered to save the fort from demo­li­tion and is a “must see” stop on my tour of the city.

It was rain­ing dur­ing my last vis­it. Thanks to my sis­ter for sug­gest­ing reflec­tion shots in the pud­dles. I received sev­er­al cor­rect answers this week. Thanks for play­ing.

Answer — Friday Foto Quiz # 15

Did you know how this image is gen­er­at­ed? More details fol­low the pic­tures.


Mon­keyLec­tric from Jade Ajani on Vimeo.

I’m all about the light. Mon­keyLec­tric is a com­pa­ny that makes an LED imag­ing prod­uct that you mount on the spokes of your bicy­cle wheels. It takes advan­tage of our brain’s per­sis­tence of vision abil­i­ty and cre­ates whole pic­tures using lin­ear rows of lights.

You can see the cir­cuit­ry, bat­ter­ies and rows of LED lights in the sec­ond pic­ture.

I took these pic­tures (not the video) at the 2009 Mak­er Faire where you where able to draw your own pic­tures which can pro­grammed and appear on this spin­ning wheel.

Check out their web site at:
http://www.monkeylectric.com/index.htm

Thanks for play­ing.

Answer — Friday Foto Quiz # 14

Did you guess what this is a pic­ture of and where it is? Read more details below the pic­tures.

 

 

 

If you guessed Abra­ham Lin­col­n’s eye­ball, you are cor­rect. You can hike up very close under­neath Mount Rush­more and take pic­tures from a dif­fer­ent point of view, one that brings out the detail in this enour­mous sculp­ture.

I find the impor­tance of a “catch light” in the eyes trans­lates to all forms of art. The artist here took great pains to carve out the eyes in a way that left a block of white gran­ite to cre­ate the illu­sion of a reflect­ed light that makes eyes come alive, a very impor­tant fea­ture to con­sid­er in por­trait or ani­mal pho­tog­ra­phy.

It was­n’t quite the right time of day to get that Rem­brandt light­ing por­trait pho­tog­ra­phers strive for. They all have racoon eyes or look like they are wear­ing masks. Next time.

Mount Rush­more is a US Nation­al Memo­r­i­al in South Dako­ta. It is worth a vis­it along with many nat­ur­al and man-made curiosi­ties in that area of the coun­try.

Answer — Friday Foto Quiz # 13

Only a day late with the answer. It was a busy Mon­day. Do you know this water­fall? I received one cor­rect answer via email. For the answer, con­tin­ue read­ing below the pic­ture.

It was very crowd­ed and hot the day we vis­it­ed McArthur Bur­ney Falls Memo­r­i­al State Park and we decid­ed not to hike to the base of the falls. So this is the only view I have. Check out this link for an over­dose of pic­tures from Google Images.
Bur­ney Creek orig­nates not far away due to the porous nature of the vol­canic rocky ground. The falls are fed by snowmelt, numer­ous springs and a large under­ground reser­voir, cre­at­ing a wide and misty basin. Of course it is anoth­er Cal­i­for­nia state park.
More infor­ma­tion here.
Thanks for play­ing

Answer — Friday Foto Quiz # 12

Did you know what’s going in this pic­ture and the event that took place this last week­end? Read on below the pic­tures.

These pic­tures were tak­en at the Great Reno Bal­loon Race in Reno, Neva­da in 2009. It is the largest free hot air bal­loon exhi­bi­tion in the nation and the 2010 race was this past week­end. I did­n’t go this year, but it is a great oppor­tu­ni­ty for pho­tog­ra­phy and the won­der­ment of get­ting close to these hot air bal­loons.
When I say close, I mean that the pilots will actu­al­ly let you inside the bal­loon while it is inflat­ing with the fans only (which they use before the propane fire breath­ing blasters). You can walk through the field of 100 bal­loons ris­ing at once with no restric­tions or cost. I have a stop action ani­ma­tion of the mass ascen­tion at this link.
It is an easy dri­ve to Reno from the San Fran­cis­co bay area and it is pos­si­ble to avoid the down­town casi­nos all togeth­er if you want.
Plan on get­ting up ear­ly if you want the “Glow Show” and “Dawn Patrol” pic­tures. They start at 5am. The entire 3 day event is over by 10am each day.
For more infor­ma­tion, see the Great Reno Bal­loon Race web site.
Anoth­er sim­i­lar but big­ger event takes place in New Mex­i­co, Octo­ber 2–10, the Albu­querque Inter­na­tion­al Bal­loon Fies­ta with more of every­thing. I’ve nev­er been there but this is the mec­ca, accord­ing to the bal­loon­ists I talked to. Good luck get­ting a hotel room at this date.
Well, thanks for play­ing.