Bengeance

Next Stop: Fame

2011-05-10T12:29:00.000-07:00

Two of my photos are on display at the San Jose Convention Center for the next few days. If you happen to be at the convention center, and you scan the QR code under the pictures with your handy smart phone, you end up here on my blog, which you probably can't read on that tiny little screen. Welcome!

Each of the photos is a panorama composited from 10 separate pictures. The raw files were first adjusted in Lightroom and then stitched together in Photoshop. Content Aware Fill was handy in assembling both of these compositions.

Panorama 1 was taken at the Brooklyn Roundhouse in Portland, Oregon.

Panorama 3 was taken at the Oakland Athletics ballpark in Oakland, California.

What happened to Panorama 2? I submitted three photos to the show, and only the two above were selected. Interestingly, Panorama 2 is my favorite of the three. If I'd been submitting only one, this is the one I would have chosen to submit. I guess there's no accounting for (my) taste. Panorama 2 was taken at the Hoover Dam, from the Arizona side.

My Perfect Camera

2010-02-27T22:15:00.000-08:00

I've been mulling this post over for a while, but this announcement last week has prompted me to get off my butt and write it. I would like to tell you about my perfect camera. Perhaps I should be more specific. My perfect camera would capture flawless image quality in all lighting situations, shoot 4K video, have a 10,000X zoom range, and be built into my eye. That's not what I'm going to talk about here. What I want to talk about here is a camera that someone could conceivably build, today. I call it the Sigma DP3, and you can see it pictured here, above the Sigma DP1 for comparison.

The Sigma DP3, as compared to the DP1.

The larger size is necessitated by the addition of several features, including a full frame sensor. I don't know if I got the size comparison exactly right, but it wouldn't have to be too big. The Leica M9 has a full frame sensor, and it's only 5.5" x 3.1" x 1.5".

The Sigma DP3 Feature List

A full frame, 24 megapixel Foveon X3 sensor producing a final image size of 8 megapixels.
Interchangeable lenses.
1080p video. (With an appropriate variety of frame rates, including 24 and 29.97, and autofocus, and manual exposure controls. And a microphone input jack.)
Sensor-shift image stabilization.
Weather sealed body and lenses (for shooting in rain/dust storms).
Reasonably fast performance (meaning startup time, focusing time, shutter lag, shot to shot time, etc.).
A built in electronic viewfinder with sufficient resolution to allow it to be used for focusing.
A flip-out, articulated AMOLED screen.
Decent continuous shooting mode with a reasonable buffer size.
Raw+JPEG shooting (yes, it's true, the DP1 actually does not have this).
An autofocus assist lamp. Seriously, we all need one sometimes.
A nice assortment of lenses to go with it, including some fast, sharp primes.
And of course all the niceties already included in the DP1 such as great build quality, full manual control, customizable controls, hot shoe, good high ISO performance, stunning image quality etc., etc.

Did I forget anything? Let me know.

P.S. In case it's not abundantly clear, this is not a real camera. It's an example of what a camera that I would get excited about might look like. The image above is a composite of the Sigma DP1 and the Panasonic GF1 made using images stolen from Digital Photography Review.

FAQ

2010-01-29T22:45:00.000-08:00

Having recently returned from some travel, and having just spent time with some seldom seen friends over the holidays, I am reminded that there are certain travel-related questions that I am asked again and again. It only makes sense, therefore, that I share with all this short list. Presented for your enjoyment, here are the four questions I am, by far, most commonly asked.

1. How do you afford it?

This is a two part answer. First, travel doesn't have to be expensive, it depends on how you do it, and where you go. We think of travel as being a luxury, but traveling almost anywhere in the world is far cheaper than living in San Francisco, my current home. I recently spent three and a half months traveling around the US on a ship, and I was actually paid. Not much, by any means, but enough that I had more money at the end of it than I had at the beginning. Even when you're not being paid to travel, it doesn't cost much if you do it right. I'm speaking very literally when I say that you can buy a train ticket from one side of China to the other for less than it costs to fill the tank of your SUV.

Traveling like a local is cheaper and more fun. (My boat on the left.)

Speaking of SUVs, here's part two of the answer: I've simply made different financial priorities for myself than most of my peers have made for themselves. I've never bought a house or a car or a baby. Don't get me wrong, I love houses and cars and babies, I may well get some for myself some day. But the fact that I haven't yet means that that money is available for other things.

It's important to note that part one of the answer is vastly more important than part two, and that you shouldn't consider a house or a car or least of all a baby to be an impediment to travel. If you are genuinely so inclined, you can rent the house, sell the car, and bring the baby.

2. How do you manage when you can't speak the language?

You mean like in Kentucky? Actually, when I was on the ship, we were in Kentucky at one point (if you're wondering how we managed that, find the Ohio river on a map), and a couple who had come on board to visit the ship asked me where we were headed next. I said "Louisville," except what I actually said was, "Loovuhl." "Aw, look," the woman said to her husband, "he's trying to say it right."

Seriously though, here's the thing: English is (ironically enough) the lingua franca of the world. If you speak English, you're pretty much golden. You know what Esperanto was supposed to be? That's what English is, except it's harder to learn and has no internal consistency.

The sheet iron inside type beef, or the loose fruit corn? So many choices.

The more the economy of a place is dependent on tourism, the more people speak English. This means that in Japan, where everyone is highly educated and a minimum of six years of English are required in school, no one speaks English, because they have computer companies, and car factories, and a stock exchange. But in remote mountain villages in Nepal, illiterate children will come up to you and say, "Hi, what's your name?"

And when no one speaks English, it's just not that hard to learn what you need to know in order to get by. With a very limited number of phrases you can get a bed in a hotel, food in a restaurant, and a ticket on a bus. Granted, that won't make you a scintillating conversationalist, but it'll get ya by.

The fact is, in most places in the world, people are ecstatic if you simply make an effort, and they will bend over backwards to understand you, and be understood. When I was on the trans-siberian railway for seven days, the woman who ran the dining car actually resorted to drawing pictures for me. I think she felt sorry for me, after watching me sit there with my phrasebook for 20 minutes each night at dinner, decoding Cyrillic.

By the way, get a phrasebook. By far my favorite are the Rough Guide phrasebooks, though the reasons why would be a blog post unto themselves.

3. Do you ever get lonely?

Being alone is like playing the piano, or solving mathematical equations, or cooking, or any other skill: there may be some people who are predisposed to be better at it than others, but we can all get better with practice.

I'm pretty good at being by myself, and have gotten less and less prone to loneliness as I've traveled by myself more. This is not to say that I never miss being with someone. I love conversation, and once, in Russia, I went about three weeks without meeting anyone who spoke English. When I finally met another American, in Irkutsk, I did pretty much nothing but talk his ear off for three days. And there's a strange psychological phenomenon whereby it feels less likely that you might die (even if it's not) when you're with someone else. So, when I was occasionally in a frightening situation, I missed the psychological comfort of a compatriot. And of course some things are just better appreciated with another person.

Lonely? Wadda ya mean, lonely?"

But being alone while traveling also has tremendous advantages. The obvious is that you can do what you want, when you want, without worrying about someone else's agenda. But less obvious, and vastly more important, is the fact that when you are by yourself, you're much more approachable. Look, you want to meet people, right? When you're with someone else, there's an insular little bubble around you (the same bubble that protects you from the thought that you might actually die) and other people bounce right off of it. Other travelers can sometimes pierce the bubble, but it is impervious to locals. You can go to Angkor Wat with your honey and you'll have a wonderful time, I promise. It's an incredible sight, and you can explore it for days. But what will not happen is that you will not meet Lai. Lai is a Buddhist monk at the neighboring monastery, where he has lived since he was 10. Lai will not say hello to you and offer to give you a tour of his monastery. He won't lead you around and explain to you the details of the murals depicting scenes from the life of Buddha. I feel fairly confident that none of this will happen, because when I asked Lai if he often spoke with tourists he said, "No, almost never." When I asked why, he shrugged and gave an embarrassed smile, and then said, "I'm too afraid to talk to more than one person." Lai is not alone, so you might want to be.

4. What is the best/worst/weirdest thing you've ever eaten?

Before I started traveling, I'd been quasi-vegetarian for eight years. "Pescetarian," perhaps I should say, since I always ate fish. But when I started traveling I gradually eased back in to eating, well, everything. There were a number of reasons for this (not least, that I wasn't always in a position to be picky), but I think the most important reason is that food is just an incredible part of the culture of a place, and I didn't want to miss out on the myriad manifestations of something so fundamental.

Tiny birds are delicious with Coke.

Happily, I like everything, which makes it a lot easier to order in a restaurant when you can't read the menu. Of course there are some things I like more than others, but I don't think there's anything that people actually eat, that I wouldn't eat. In all of my traveling, I've only ever once refused to eat something. I was in Laos, and was sitting with a group of Laotians who were all spooning up bites of something red and glutinous, and when I was offered a spoon I said, "Is that…?" "Duck blood! Very good!" That may well be, but this was at the peak of the avian flu scare. There were no statistics available for Laos, but in neighboring Vietnam, 98% of ducks tested were infected, and the consumption of raw duck's blood was the number one vector of bird to human transmission. I declined, and not only that, I suggested that they might not want to eat it either, knowing full well that they would laugh at the squeamish foreigner, which they did. But I felt I'd done my moral duty.

But unless I think there's a good chance it might kill me, I'll eat it. I suppose the weirdest thing I ate might have been deep fried scorpions in Vietnam. As I was about to pop the first one into my mouth, my waiter hastily reached out to stop me, and pulled the scorpion's stinger off the tip of its tail. In Australia I ate kangaroo, which apparently gets very tough if you cook it too long, and it was served almost raw. I do like pretty much anything, so I don't really think there's a worst, but airag does stick in my mind (and throat). It's a drink of fermented horse milk, served in Mongolia, and while I'm sure it's a delightful acquired taste, I was having to hold my breath as I drank my second bowlful in one sitting. As for the best, that's a long list, but the very first thing that pops into my head is Peking Duck (or would that be Beijing Duck these days?). It might not be very exotic, but it was absolutely amazing every time I had it in Beijing, and I've not been able to find its equal here in the States. And one of the best things I've ever eaten was green curry chicken, which I made myself at a cooking school in Thailand. It might not be that it was really so exceptionally good, as it was simply that I was flabbergasted to discover that something I'd made myself tasted just like the real thing.

Have any questions you'd like to see added to the list? Leave them in the comments.

They Made Me An Offer I Couldn't Refuse

2009-11-09T20:00:00.000-08:00

It's funny how things go. One minute you're living on board a replica of a 15th century sailing vessel, the next minute you're sitting in an office tower in Silicon Valley. Sometimes these things just happen.

Adobe Systems headquarters, San Jose, CA.

Among the projects which I have worked on professionally, Adobe Lightroom is the one I am most proud of. So, when I got a call saying that they could use a hand for a few months, I jumped at the chance to be a part of the Lightroom team again.

But what about the travel? Well, it's only a six month contract, so I imagine it won't be too long before I'm on the road again. On the other hand, my last six month contract with Adobe lasted 14 months, so you never can tell. As far as the blog goes, it just means another slight shift in the ratio of camera nerdery to travel talk.

And so, nine months later, I find myself back in the Bay area, a place still new enough to me that being here feels almost like travel. Now let's see, where was I?

Five Cool Things I Wouldn't Have Experienced if I Weren't on the Niña

2009-10-07T19:12:00.000-07:00

Going up the masts (not necessary when sailing, but sometimes necessary to fix things).

Going through locks on the rivers. I've lost count of how many I've been through so far, probably about 15. At the lock below Louisville, on the Ohio River, I actually steered us into the lock and up to the lock wall myself. OK, well, the Captain was standing right next to me the whole time, talking me through it. But still, I was pretty pleased with myself.

Seeing the Saint Louis Arch from the river. I had no idea that I'd be seeing the arch again so soon, and in such singular circumstances.

Misty mornings on the rivers.

And, of course, cannons. (I'm sure that nautical enthusiasts in the audience will be happy to inform us that on a ship they're actually called "guns," not "cannons." But seriously... cannons!)

Boom. We're in Huntington, West Virginia at the moment, and will be here through the 13th. After that, we'll be in Marietta, Ohio from the 16th through the 20th.

Obstacles High and Low

2009-09-13T18:30:00.000-07:00

I have no doubt that Columbus faced some obstacles in his time. No map. Inability to calculate longitude. The sinking of the Santa Maria. But we do face our own unique obstacles today.

When you approach a low bridge in a tall ship, this is what you hope happens:

When it doesn't, this is what you have to do:

We left lake Michigan via the Calumet River, and all the low bridges on the river necessitated taking the masts down. Even so, it was tight. With the masts down, the highest point of the boat is the stem, right up in the prow. I was standing in the prow as we approached the lowest bridge, and I was supposed to call out whether or not I thought we'd make it. Of course since it was so close, it was impossible to say until it was too late. Fortunately we cleared it with a good two inches to spare.

But the low bridges were the easy part. Next came the Asian Jumping Carp, an invasive species which escaped into the rivers in the 90's and has been making its way up the Mississippi since then. There's a reason they have that name.

People are trying to keep them out of the Great Lakes, and to that end, have electrified a section of the Calumet River, in an attempt to prevent the fish from getting through. Just before we arrived, the Army Corps of Engineers upped the voltage of the electric barrier, and stopped all river traffic while they evaluated the safety of the increased zapping power. After two days they started letting through ships with metal hulls, but they wouldn't let through wooden-hulled ships like the Niña and Pinta. After a week, they let us through as well, but they wouldn't let us go through under power, and they wouldn't let anyone stay on the boat while it went through. So we tied up to a tow boat and all piled on there while they pulled us along.

Having gotten past the bridges, and the fish, we put our masts back up in Beardstown, IL, and we are now returned to our full picturesque awesomeness.

Right now we're in Owensboro, KY, on the Ohio river. Next stop is Louisville, where we'll be from September 17th through the 22nd, and after that, Covington, KY from September 25th through October 4th.

What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

2009-08-15T19:11:00.000-07:00

Life aboard a replica of a 15th century sailing vessel requires some odd hours. In particular, our departures from port often seem to come very early in the morning. And so it was that I came to be hauling myself blearily out of my bunk at 4:00 AM. I am not generally at my most alert at 4:00 AM, but I'll tell you this: nothing wakes you up faster than stepping out of your below-decks cabin, and into several inches of rushing water.

I ran up on deck and found the captain, who greeted me with, "Ah, hi Ben, good morning," which I thought was a pretty relaxed greeting, given that as it turns out, he already knew the ship was filling with water, and did not yet know why. I suppose it's lucky that we happened to be getting up at 4:00 AM, or we might have sunk before anyone noticed. Later that day the captain installed a bilge alarm, which will now sound a 110 decibel siren if water starts to collect in the bottom of the ship.

People come on board and tour these ships, and they basically all ask the same handful of questions over and over. One of those questions is, "What made you decide to do this?" I was answering that question, "It's an adventure," when captain Morgan walked by. (Yes... Captain Morgan. Please leave all jokes in the comments section below.) Captain Morgan has been doing this for close to 20 years now. I asked him, "Is it still an adventure for you, captain?" And he answered, "I really like boats." There was a pause, and it was clear that an explanatory addendum was forthcoming. You know, maybe something along the lines of, "I love the beauty of the open water," or, "The freedom of sailing enlivens my soul," or who knows, maybe, "The sea is like a woman, and I am forever enfolded within her salty embrace." But no. What did he say? What was it that he offered as an explanation for his love of boats? "I just like to fix stuff."

And there is always, always something breaking. Crossing Lake Michigan under engine power in a dead calm one night, the Niña's single engine died. In the Pinta, we maneuvered alongside so that the Niña crew could throw us a line. This was much, much harder than it sounds, in the dark, with one ship drifting, and the ships' overlapping rigging threatening to tangle as we tried to inch closer together. When we finally got that line, we towed the Niña for five hours while the captain banged on the engine.

And the list goes on. Leaving Kenosha, Wisconsin, the buntlines hooked on an overhanging dock crane, and ripped spectacularly away from the sail after yanking the yard askew. Water leaked through planks and shorted out lights below decks. A halyard jammed, preventing us from lowering our jib in high winds, and the sail was ripped to shreds by the time we docked. A carelessly wielded chainsaw (don't ask) took a little chunk out of the deck. Big and small, enough things have broken or gone wrong in the short time I've been here that I wonder how it is the ships have made it this far, this long. I'd be tempted to say, "Never a dull moment," but I'm pretty sure it won't be more than a couple minutes before someone asks me, "So, what made you decide to do this?"

Towing the Niña. Can you see that line stretched across the water?

Out of sight of land on Lake Michigan.

Oh yeah, that jib is done.

Of course no post about Great Lakes sailing would be complete without a picture of a lighthouse.

But What Have We Done Lately?

2009-07-26T16:00:00.000-07:00

A few days ago was the 40th anniversary of the first moon landing. From the Wright brothers at Kitty Hawk, to Armstrong and Aldrin on the moon, was only 66 years. It seems totally reasonable to expect that by this time we should have orbital space hotels and a Mars colony. But no. The last time humanity set foot on the moon was just about five months after I was born and since then, nothing. I mean, I like the Hubble and the International Space Station and all, but seriously, what have we been doing with our time?

While I can't speak for humanity at large, I personally have been sailing on the Pinta. Well, a replica of the Pinta. The Pinta was one of Columbus' three ships on his first voyage to the New World, along with the Niña and the Santa Maria. A replica of the Niña is with us as well, but we have no replica of the Santa Maria (perhaps because the original sank during Columbus' voyage?). I actually see a lot of parallels between Columbus' voyages and the moon landings.

The Pinta and Niña are essentially a traveling museum. They are historically accurate replicas, built entirely by hand using authentic 15th century tools and methods. We sail from port to port, so that people can come on board and learn about the ships, and Columbus' voyages. The first thing most people say is, "I can't believe they actually crossed the Atlantic in these things. They're so small. People were tougher in those days." I beg to differ. Personally, I think that 500 years from now some guy will build a historically accurate replica of the Saturn V, and that little tinfoil moon lander (using authentic 20th century tools and methods) and fly it to the moon, just to prove that it could have been done. "Wow," people will say, "I can't believe they actually flew to the moon in this thing. It's so small. People were tougher in those days."

The Niña and Pinta at the city marina in Petoskey, MI.

The rudder in the water. The ships are steered via tiller.

The Niña, seen from the Pinta, crossing lake Michigan enroute to Escanaba, MI.

Main yard and furled sail.

The Niña, seen from the Pinta, crossing lake Michigan.

Sailing on the Pinta with our historically inauthentic jib.

Block and tackle in the rising sun.

The Niña, seen from the Pinta, on lake Michigan enroute to Marinette, WI.

P.S. For any of you in the Chicago area, we'll be in Waukegan, IL from July 29th through August 2nd, and in Michigan City, IN from August 12th through August 16th.

How to Find a Cheap Motel

2009-07-09T20:00:00.000-07:00

There's a saying which offers advice on how budget travelers should spend their money: "Eat well, sleep cheap." To be honest, I'm not truly a budget traveler. If I were, I'd be sleeping in my car, or camping all the time. In fact, I camp only to reach areas I couldn't reach otherwise, and I never sleep in my car. I stay in motels because I quite enjoy a bed and a shower. Beyond that, about my only requirement is "clean." Your requirements may be more stringent (or you may be fabulously wealthy, or you may never leave home), in which case you will have no interest in:

Ben's Guide to Finding a Cheap Motel While on the Road in America

1. Motel 6's are great. Not for staying in (though they're fine for that too) but for providing a price baseline. Very often it's hard to know what is or is not a good price. Prices vary dramatically based on area and time of year, and even the day of the week, and very few places post their prices. Motel 6 is the cheapest of the chains, they're ubiquitous, and they usually advertise their price on the sign outside.

2. But don't check in to a Motel 6 just yet. Independent places can almost always be had for less than the price of a room in a chain motel, plus they're more interesting. If there's a Motel 6 in the area, drive by and note the price. Now you know the maximum amount you should have to pay.

3. Look around for an independent place. One good way to do this is to drive off the main highway. Most small towns have a main highway full of fast food chains and gas stations, and a "historic downtown" area that will be much nicer, and may have what you're looking for. If it has "bed and breakfast" in the name, chances are it costs more than you want to spend. What you're going for here is a place that looks scruffy but not scary. This is a subtle spectrum. To be honest, in rural and small town areas, I have never encountered a place that was unacceptable. Things can get dicier in large metro areas. Little known fact one: from the seediest flophouse to the fanciest hotel, no one will be offended or surprised if you ask to look at the room before deciding whether or not to take it.

4. Inquire as to the price of a room. If it's more than the Motel 6, move on. Is it less than the Motel 6, but still more than you'd like to pay? You may be interested in little known fact two: hotel/motel prices are usually negotiable. I myself am a terrible negotiator, but there are things you can do short of saying, "I'll give you $29.95 and not a penny more!" For example, if you simply thank them and start walking towards the door, they may offer a discount. Anecdotally I'd say this works about 25% of the time in independent places. Even chains will sometimes offer unsolicited discounts. Not long ago I got almost 25% knocked off the price of a room in a Comfort Inn simply by asking if the first price she'd quoted me was more or less than the cost of the motel next door.

5. One last discount tip: are you a AAA member? Almost every motel in America offers a discount to AAA members. Are you not a AAA member? You'd be surprised how little that matters. This is roughly how my conversations often go:

"Hi, I'm wondering, how much is a room for one night?"

"$44.95."

"Do you offer any discounts?"

"Are you a triple-A member?"

"No."

"Are you absolutely sure you're not a triple-A member? I don't need to see your card."

"Um... yeeeeah, I'm a triple-A member."

"$39.95."

As I said at the outset, I'm not really a budget traveler. It just happens that many of the ways in which I prefer to travel happen to be cheap. When you stay in some no-name ma and pa place you'll not only save money and support small business, you'll also end up in a more interesting room, I guarantee it. The sole advantage of the chains is predictability, and it is also their greatest drawback.

As proof, I offer the House of Ludington, in Escanaba, Michigan, where I stayed the night before last. My room had a lovely sunflower theme, and a view of Lake Michigan.

Note to Self

2009-07-06T08:49:00.001-07:00

If I ever want to get to Morocco, I need to stop applying for volunteer opportunities. I have often thought that I'd like to do some sort of volunteering while I travel. It might be both useful, and an interesting way to be a part of a place, instead of simply passing through. I'd just never felt like an opportunity really presented itself.

Meanwhile, my friend Josh has volunteered for a number of years at Camp Goodtimes, a summer camp for kids with cancer. Pretty much as long as I've known him, he's been on me to join him there. It was starting to seem unfair to claim that a volunteer opportunity had never really presented itself, while an opportunity was jumping up and down in front of me, waving its arms about. So, I just spent the past week on Vashon Island, off Seattle, volunteering at the camp.

I'm not allowed to publicly post any pictures of the kids, so you get to make do with the sign and a few abstractions. I worked in Arts and Crafts, helping with a wide array of fine arts, from dinosaur stamps to bead necklaces.

Volunteering at the camp was an interesting experience, neither as disastrously, tragically difficult as I was afraid it might be, nor as life-changingly wondrous as I hoped it might be. In fact, it felt sort of... normal. Which is quite something in itself.

But whatever it was, it was only a week. The next endeavor promises to be a bit longer. I'm going to be volunteering as a crew member on board a historically accurate replica of Christopher Columbus' ship the Niña. The ship is sort of a floating museum. It sails from port to port, and people come on board for tours. The boat is already sailing around, having started the year in San Diego, California. I'll be meeting the boat in Petoskey, Michigan on the 8th. To answer what may be the first two questions that come to mind, no, I don't have to wear a costume, and no, I don't have any sailing experience. But I will soon!

Doing a 180

2009-06-19T20:55:00.000-07:00

Over the past four months, as I've travel around the US, I've been making some panoramic photos. These are made by taking anywhere from six to 12 photos across a 180 degree arc, and then stitching them together after the fact to make a single continuous photo which encompasses a 180 degree field of view. They don't look especially good so small, so click any of them for a larger size.

Downtown Portland, viewed from across the Willamette River.

Steam engines in an old roundhouse in Portland.

Along highway 305, near Battle Mountain, Nevada.

The Hoover Dam, viewed from the Arizona side.

Sipapu bridge, at Natural Bridges National Monument in Utah.

The main reading room in the New York Public Library.

Taliesin, Frank Lloyd Wright's home near Spring Green, Wisconsin.

Speaking of 180's, I'm heading back to the west coast this week. I'll be going to Seattle for a week and a half to volunteer at a summer camp for kids with cancer. I expect to travel on again after that.

Things I Didn't Do

2009-05-28T18:27:00.000-07:00

While recently driving around the US for three and a half months I got to see and do a number of really cool things, some of which I've described previously in this blog. There were also a number of things that I wanted or intended to do, and then didn't do for one reason or another. This is a post about the things I didn't do. For obvious reasons, there are no photos, so here's a picture of fireworks from this past Memorial Day.

1. Watts Towers in Los Angeles. I was in LA, I intended to go, and then it was sort of just time to move on, and I hadn't gotten to it yet. No excuse. Next time.

2. The Lightning Field. 200 stainless steel poles, each 20 feet tall, spread in a grid across a square mile of western New Mexico? Sweet. Turns out that it's a big expensive pain in the ass to visit, you can't just drive up and check it out. Pft.

3. Trinity. The site of the world's very first nuclear explosion. Only open to visitors two days a year. I just wasn't there at the right time.

4. Chimp Haven. It's a retirement home for chimpanzees. Really. The entertainment industry only has use for juvenile chimpanzees, once they're adults they're too surly (and strong). So their working life is about three to five years, and then they live another 40 or 50 years before they die. With most animals, we're content to kill them when they're no longer useful, but apparently not with chimpanzees. Thus Chimp Haven, and other similar institutions. Open to the public for visits seven days a year, I missed the March 21st open house by one day.

5. Rocket launch. I've always wanted to see a rocket or shuttle launch. The last time I was driving around the US, in 2003, I watched a rocket sit on the pad and then go nowhere when the launch was canceled nine minutes before liftoff. This time I hoped to see the launch of the GOES-O satellite, scheduled for April 6th. It was postponed, so I ended up skipping Florida entirely this time (despite the fact that Saint Petersburg, Florida has the largest collection of works by Salvador Dali outside of Spain). The GOES-O satellite still hasn't launched, and is currently scheduled for June 26th.

6. The Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death. Murderous little dollhouses, what could be better? Other than a rocket launch or chimpanzees? The Nutshell Studies are currently housed in the Medical Examiner's Office in Baltimore, and are allegedly viewable by appointment. I called, and was told to fax a request to the Chief Medical Examiner, which I did. I never heard back. I certainly wouldn't ever suggest that you should incessantly send crank faxes to anyone. Certainly not. On an unrelated topic, the Chief Medical Examiner's name is Dr. David Fowler and his fax number is 410-333-3063.

Road Trip in Numbers

2009-05-22T14:31:00.000-07:00

Before:

After:

After driving around the US for the past three and a half months I have arrived in Minnesota where I'll be visiting my parents for a few weeks before leaving the country. I thought it would be good to recap with a few numbers.

Length of road trip in days: 106

Miles driven: 11,445

Friends visited: 13 (multiple friends living under the same roof are counted as one)

Highly unlikely coincidental meetings: 2

Run-ins with the law: 1

Museums visited: 15

Dollars spent on gas: 848.15

Hospital visits: 1

Oil changes: 2

Cameras purchased: 2

Cameras built: 1

National parks visited: 10

Photos taken: 5764

Blog posts: 16

Gateway to the West (and All That That Implies)

2009-05-15T13:33:00.000-07:00

There are certain things you've seen pictures of a million times which, when you see them in person, are vaguely disappointing. And then there are things you've seen pictures of a million times which, when you see them in person, are way, way better than you ever thought. The Grand Canyon. The Great Wall of China. The Gateway Arch in Saint Louis.

As a monument it is a bit odd. Memorializing westward expansion strikes me as being in somewhat poor taste, since presumably one is then also memorializing the accompanying displacement of indigenous peoples. But right or wrong, the arch is certainly an unapologetic masterpiece of soaring mid century design.

If you wish to photograph the Arch from across the river, silhouetted by the setting sun, you must trespass on private railway property.

Let me ask you, what do you suppose the Alton and Southern Railway Police have to do with their time other than shoo away photographers? Given that I was surrounded by no fewer than three cop cars, I'd say "not much."

Officer Bradey was very polite. Friendly, even. He asked me what I was doing there, inspected my identification, and asked me a surprising array of personal questions, making a careful note after each answer.

"Any tattoos?"

No.

"Any scars?"

Um... No.

"Are you currently employed?"

No.

"I'm sorry to hear that."

And, as we were finally parting ways:

"OK Ben, sorry to keep you. Did you get some good pictures at least?"

You be the judge.

This is the first time that I've posted a panoramic photo, mostly because they display so poorly at small size. Click the photo to view full screen. When viewing full screen, double-click anywhere on the photo to zoom to that spot, or use the pan/zoom controls that will appear on the left.

New York, New York

2009-05-11T10:30:00.000-07:00

New York City is like that recurring dream you have of discovering an extra room in your house, a room you never knew was there. That expanding sense of space and possibility. You could wander New York for a long time and never run out of rooms.

It's also decrepit. Endless, sprawling decrepitude. I don't say that as a criticism, it may actually be no small part of New York's appeal.

Or maybe it's not decrepitude that I'm noticing, so much as an overwhelming sensation that it's a machine that could never be paused and restarted. Like that proverbial shark, New York must keep swimming, or die. You get a real sense of this when you start thinking about everything that's necessary to keep a city of this magnitude running.

Example: New York has the highest per-ton waste disposal costs of any city in America, mostly due to transportation costs. All five boroughs now ship their household garbage to neighboring states.

Example: There are over 700 pumps, at 280 locations, pumping water out of the subway. If all the pumps were to fail, the tracks would be submerged in less than eight hours, and the entire system flooded in less than a day.

Example: In July of 1977 the power in New York failed for a single day. Looters rioted in the streets. When I was a kid in Saint Paul, Minnesota, we once lost power for three days. Our ice cream melted.

But so what? Whatever it is that forms the "hate" part of New Yorkers' love/hate relationship with their city, it's a small price to pay for a breadth of cultural diversity unrivaled anywhere in the world.

It is, as they say, a hell of a town.

The Best Laid Plans

2009-05-03T09:21:00.000-07:00

This past Sunday was World Pinhole Photography day. Needless to say, Alex and I built pinhole cameras. Alex took the smart approach, and modified an existing camera, removing the lens and replacing it with a pinhole. You can see Alex's very successful results here.

In contrast, I took the "lots of cardboard and silver tape" approach:

This approach proved to be considerably less successful, as can be seen from my finest result of the day:

Wadda ya mean you can't tell what that is? Maybe you should try squinting. And ignore the dark blobs on the right, since that's just stray cardboard fibers or something. No? Still nothing? How about now:

This picture was taken at the Essex Steam Train yard in Connecticut. If the scan looks a little weird, it's because the scanning was almost as improvised as the camera itself. Walgreens was, shockingly, unable to adequately scan my utterly whacked and irregular negatives. The "photo cd" that I got from them contained only this:

Which, now that I'm thinking of it, might be a better picture than the one of the train. In any case, I scanned the negative myself. Lacking a film scanner, I used a flatbed scanner, and backlit the negative using an iPod touch with the Flashlight app:

Necessity is apparently the mother of both crappy cardboard pinhole cameras, and crappy film scans. Next time I'd like to try modifying a digital camera. Maybe I'll use my FX37. Which, incidentally, Panasonic has returned to me, fixed and good as new, at no charge.

I Can Stop Any Time

2009-04-23T10:20:00.000-07:00

I bought another new camera, but please, don't stage an intervention. It's to replace one that met an unfortunate end at the hands of, um... me. This past December I bought a Panasonic FX37, a great little pocket camera with only two main flaws: luminance noise even at low ISO (lame), and no way to turn off the red eye reduction flash when in slow sync mode (lamer).

Or maybe I should say, those are the two flaws I was initially aware of. But after only about two months of carrying it around in my lint-filled pocket, the camera had acquired a collection of dust inside the lens elements. Not on the surface of the lens, where it could be wiped off, but actually in the lens barrel itself, meaning that every picture had specks all over it. As an example, here's a photo of some contrails:

That doesn't look too bad, but here's what it looked like prior to a little "spot removal" in Lightroom:

Clearly that's not acceptable, which is why I took the camera apart. I was hoping to get the dust cleaned out of the lens, and I did. But I also think I damaged a tiny little ribbon cable connector in there, and when I put the camera back together, it would no longer focus. I sent it to the factory service center for warranty repair. Of course if they look at it at all (or read my blog) they'll be able to tell that I took it apart. But who knows, maybe they'll just toss it on a pile and send me a new one. Here's hoping.

In the meantime, I needed a new camera, but how could I know the new one wouldn't develop the same problem? I've never had this problem with any other camera, and I started to wonder if maybe it was due to the telescoping lens barrel. Every other pocket camera I've owned has had an internally telescoping lens, rather than a lens that protrudes from the camera body. The protruding and retracting lens seems like a likely culprit for dust vulnerability, and most point and shoot cameras today have that sort of lens, so what to do? Other than the dust, I was very happy with the Panasonic FX37, but didn't want to just buy another since the whole point of a "pocket camera" is sort of defeated if you can't, you know, put it in your pocket.

Enter the Panasonic TS1 "rugged" camera.

I've long been intrigued by the idea of having a rugged point and shoot, I think that would really come in handy, especially while traveling. But the options are pretty limited and, until recently, they've all had lamentable picture quality. But the TS1, which became available on Amazon a few days ago, looks pretty decent, with picture quality fairly equivalent to the FX37.

Inner Harbor, Baltimore

George Washington Memorial, Baltimore

So I got one. Theoretically it's dust proof, waterproof, and shock-proof, being submersible to 10 feet, and able to survive a five foot drop without damage. I have yet to put any of these theories to the test, but I have been carrying it around in my pocket with wild abandon.

This is the "Dear Panasonic" part of the post. Dear Panasonic, so far I'm quite happy with your TS1, but I do have a few comments. You already know how I feel about the noise issue and the red eye issue, but the TS1 has some additional problems. Despite being fairly heavy for its size (as one would expect), it should be possible to shoot one-handed with the TS1, but it's really not, due to a series of unfortunate design decisions. Let's compare it to the FX37:

- The FX37 has a nice, grippy, rubberized body. The TS1, by contrast, has a slippery, metallic body. You just want us to try out that "shock-proof" claim, don't you?

- The FX37 has a mode dial which is recessed on the top of the camera, leaving room on the back of the camera to place your thumb. The TS1 puts the mode dial flat on the back of the camera which not only eliminates the one spot you could put your thumb, it also makes it susceptible to accidental turning. I'm constantly pulling the camera out of my pocket and turning it on to discover that it's complaining "mode dial is not in the proper position."

- The FX37 has a raised switch which turns the camera on instantly. The TS1 has a recessed switch (which I can understand from a durability standpoint) which must be held down FOR TWO SECONDS before the camera will turn on (which I can understand only if Panasonic actually hates me and wants to make me sad).

- The zoom button and shutter button being right next to each other and exactly the same size and shape isn't great either, but that's the least of the problems.

To be fair, there are some handling improvements. For example, kudos on the dedicated video button, which allows shooting video at any time without switching the camera into a special video mode.

But basically, it's all about the ruggedness, and I can live with the shortcomings if the durability lives up to the hype. They wouldn't let me jump in the aquarium in Baltimore:

But one way or another I should have some underwater photos for you some day, assuming this thing actually works.

I'm Starting to Get Used to This

2009-04-20T10:31:00.000-07:00

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania might not quite be Torrey, Utah, but I still had no reason to expect that anyone I knew would be there. I went to Philadelphia specifically for the Mütter Museum. The Mütter, at the College of Physicians, is a museum of medical curiosities with the tag line, "Disturbingly Informative."

They've got that right. I was already feeling sort of queasy even before I got to the 40 pound colon, and pretty much had to completely bypass the whole section full of wax reproductions of skin diseases. But it was when I was standing in front of the second tallest known human skeleton in the world, seven feet six inches despite the curvature of the spine, that I heard someone say:

"Ben?"

Oh yes, that's right. It was my friend Val, also there with her husband, my good friend and former roommate, Alex. I'm tempted to say "small world," but as Alex pointed out, "I guess it's not that weird to find you here." I could say the same for him, that sicko. Alex and Val live in Connecticut, and as it happens, I was scheduled to show up on their doorstep in a couple days, so when we said goodbye at the museum it was, "See you soon."

Incidentally, what is it with museums not allowing photography? That's another thing that's going to change when I'm king. Out of spite, I snapped this picture in the Mütter. OK, so it's not Ansel Adams, what can I say, I snapped it blind while standing about five feet away from two security guards.

In Baltimore I visited the excellent American Visionary Art Museum, which also doesn't permit photography. But there I didn't feel spiteful because I met the museum's founder and director, Rebecca Hoffberger, and she gave me cake, so that's all good.

On a museum spree, I visited Baltimore's Walters Art Museum, which does allow photography, and is also awesome. Specifically, their recreation of a 17th century "Chamber of Wonders" alone is worth the trip. Collections of oddities like this were the seeds of modern museums as we know them.

That last is an orchid carved out of a single piece of ivory. Damn. They don't make 'em like they used to.

The Dream of a Three Calendar Breakfast

2009-04-08T19:13:00.000-07:00

In his book Blue Highways, William Least Heat-Moon describes his method for finding a place to eat while on the road:

There is one almost infallible way to find honest food at just prices in blue-highway America: count the wall calendars in a cafe.

No calendar: Same as an interstate pit stop.
One calendar: Preprocessed food assembled in New Jersey.
Two calendars: Only if fish trophies present.
Three calendars: Can't miss on the farm-boy breakfasts.
Four calendars: Try the ho-made pie too.
Five calendars: Keep it under your hat, or they'll franchise.

The thing is, these places don't exist any more, at least not in sufficient quantities that one can count on them for breakfast. Mr. Heat-Moon originally published his book in 1983, and even then was complaining about the grinding and unstoppable erasure of all that is quaint and good. I have spent the past two and a half months driving back roads of America, and though I've encountered the occasional little diner, they've been two calendars max (minus fish trophies), and are almost inevitably a disappointment. More often than not, a small town will have no restaurant at all (or the one restaurant will have a "for lease" sign in the window), and my choice is a McDonald's at a highway intersection, or those M&Ms that I forgot were on the floor in the back seat. In fact, and I realize this is grumpy-old-man talk, and I further concede that my observations are purely anecdotal, it seems to me that there are fewer simple, independent restaurants in small town America today than there were even six years ago, the last time I was driving around the country.

When I was in LA I had dinner with John Schulian, creator of Xena Warrior Princess. No, seriously. That's how I roll. He recommended a book called Roadfood, best described by its subtitle, "The Coast-to-Coast Guide to 700 of the Best Barbecue Joints, Lobster Shacks, Ice Cream Parlors, Highway Diners, and Much, Much More." I'd looked in half a dozen independent bookstores between Los Angeles and Louisville, but no luck. I was starting to think maybe I should order it from Amazon (linked at right) and have it shipped to me somewhere along the road.

This morning I was driving along, mentally composing this blog post, and eating M&M's, when I came upon Grandad's Family Diner in Inez, Kentucky.

I sat down at the counter, and Debbie took my order. Here's how our conversation went:

"Hi hon, what would ya like?"

Keep in mind, no one had offered me a menu. I was wondering if I should try saying, "Eggs Florentine, with a side of applewood smoked bacon, and a cup of organic Guatamala Antigua," when she interrupted my train of thought and said, "Special's turkey." I said, "I'll have the turkey."

There was only one calendar behind the counter (with the waitress's weekly schedule written on it - Debbie will be there tomorrow too, if you want to drop by) and to be honest, I don't think I'd have gone out of my way for the meal. I doubt it's in Roadfood. But it did save me from my grumbling, and I was glad that I hadn't stopped at the McDonald's, KFC, or Taco Bell back at the intersection of 40 and 645.

Incidentally, after weeks of almost coast-to-coast failure, I found a copy of Roadfood later this very day, in Charleston, West Virginia. I saw the bookstore from the road and pulled over. I was skeptical about my chances when I saw the four foot high stack of Twilight books by the front door, but a tiny and beautiful bookseller named Kate helped me locate their last copy of Roadfood. Now I have a new tool to use when plotting my route.

That's a Big Bat

2009-04-07T09:16:00.000-07:00

Not feeling too loquacious today, but it's been a while since I've posted, so I thought I'd put up a few pictures.

Near Pecos, Texas.

New Orleans, Louisiana.

Though I had a great time in New Orleans, I didn't get many good pictures, perhaps in part because one of my cameras broke. By which of course I mean that I took it apart and couldn't get it back together correctly.

Trust me, there were perfectly good reasons for taking it apart, it all made sense at the time.

Entering Hot Coffee, Mississippi. There wasn't much to it. In fact, there wasn't even a cafe. Doesn't that just seem wrong?

Near Bardstown, Kentucky.

The Louisville Slugger factory in Louisville, Kentucky.

The factory generates up to 25 tons of sawdust a week, which is trucked into Indiana and used as bedding at a large turkey farm. Really.

Keep Austin Paranoid

2009-03-31T12:45:00.000-07:00

Let's just get this out there: I don't plan. Really much of anything, ever. That means that I have a lot of flexibility both in terms of my actual schedule, and also in a more general, mental sense. It also means that sometimes I end up arriving in Austin, Texas on what is, totally unbeknownst to me, the final day of the renowned South by Southwest (SXSW) festival. Too late, in other words, to catch any of the movies or music, but just in time for it to be very difficult and expensive to find somewhere to stay.

Austin has a reputation for being a great town, and indeed it does seem very nice, especially for someone who enjoys live music. But the citizens appear to be worried that Austin is becoming a victim of its own success, that outsiders are going to hone in and spoil the vibe. Everywhere you turn, there are t-shirts and bumper stickers which say "Keep Austin Weird." Driving my car down South Congress Street one morning I was even shouted at, "Go back to California!"

Granted, that was probably someone who'd had it up to here with the SXSW inundation, but it still seems nicely demonstrative of what struck me as a rather quaint, provincial sort of protectionism. And here's the weird thing: Austin really isn't that weird. Even comparing it only to other cities of similar size, it strikes me as less funky and diverse and interesting than Minneapolis, say, or Portland. I think being an oasis in the middle of Texas has given them a different yardstick.

Some readers may suggest that my 48 hours there do not qualify me to speak to the nuances of Austin culture. In hopes of placating these folks I will concede that the place that sold little heads in bell jars was a bit weird:

A strong sense of pride (narcissism?), however, seems to be common to the whole of Texas, at least if one is to judge by all the flag waving. I've lived most of my life in Minnesota, and I could not possibly tell you what the Minnesota state flag looks like. In fact, I couldn't even say for sure that there is a Minnesota state flag, though I assume there must be. But only a couple hours after crossing the border I could have drawn the Texas state flag from memory if need be.

Climbing as Metaphor

2009-03-25T20:08:00.000-07:00

There's a spot in Zion National Park called "Angel's Landing." It's a tall pinnacle of rock with a fantastic view of the canyon stretching away in each direction. Getting to the top of this pinnacle is probably the most popular day hike in the park, and one reaches it via a scramble along a fairly steep, narrow fin of rock. I was never quite able to capture the vertiginous nature of it, but this might come close:

The chain is there to help keep you from, you know, dying.

At the end of the day I was checking in to a motel in the nearby town of Springdale and was chatting with the woman behind the desk. She asked me what I'd done that day, and I described my hike to Angel's Landing. She said that she had always wanted to go up there, but just didn't think she could face the climb. I told her that when I'd looked at it from a distance it had seemed impossible, but that once I was actually up there, and just concentrating on the bit in front of me, it was totally manageable. "Hmm," she said, "just like life."

And also just like life, totally worth it. Here's a shot I took from about half way up, looking down the valley:

The three little white dots near the lower left are cars, which might help give a sense of scale.

Southern Utah is dense with national parks, national monuments, national recreation areas, state parks, and so on. The greatest thing is that the forces of geology seem to be unaware of these demarcated areas, because the fantastical landscape just goes on and on, paying no mind to the park boundaries.

Bryce Canyon

Canyonlands

Capitol Reef. I could do a whole series of just contrails.

Arches National Park

Strangely, I'm not the only one who finds the area to be photogenic. Depending on how you want to frame your shot it can look like this:

Or like this:

Honestly, what a beautiful place. I really think I could be happy here for a long time with nothing more than a camera. Well, maybe a camera and a Jeep. And a dog. And the love of a good woman.

Big Cliffs, Small World

2009-03-14T20:23:00.000-07:00

You've probably never heard of Torrey, Utah. It's a small town, 171 people according to the 2000 census. It may not be quite the middle of nowhere, but you can see it from here. Torrey consists mainly of a handful of motels, most of them closed for the season. It no doubt owes its continued existence to Capitol Reef National Park, Utah's least-visited national park, eight miles to the east.

The dining options in Torrey are limited. In fact, discounting the "Taco Time" at the Texaco station, the dining options at 7:30 on a Saturday night are precisely two: "Fine Dining Restaurant" at the Best Western, and a pizza place across the street. I idled in the road a moment, trying to decide, then hung a right into the parking lot of the pizza place. I grabbed my book and went inside.

A quick glance around showed me a couple empty tables, but I figured I'd sit at the bar, which is my preference when dining alone. And while scanning the bar for an empty stool I heard:

"Ben Warde?"

That's strange, I thought to myself, I could swear I just heard someone say my name. I sure would feel like a fool, looking around to see who said my name in this pizza place in this tiny little town in southern Utah, because clearly I'm not going to know anyone here. I looked around anyway.

And there were Jesse and Dave, two friends from Minnesota. We used to work together at Adobe. With them were three other Adobe folks, Nick, Mike, and Zack. So, I didn't end up sitting at the bar after all.

This is not the first time this has happened to me. Once at a post office in New Zealand I bumped into Matt, we'd gone to college together, I hadn't seen him since graduation. And on Vancouver Island I met Robert, then bumped into him again eight months later on a train in Australia. Small world. Oh, and the reason we all come to Utah, big cliffs:

Cirque de Porn

2009-03-06T11:42:00.000-08:00

Someone once described to me a trip that she had taken to Las Vegas with a former boyfriend. She had gone reluctantly, and she seemed really emotionally injured as she described to me how appalled she was by the gluttonous excess, the crass, alienating inhumanity, the whole tawdry, tacky, morally bereft mess of it all. And as she talked, all I could think was, "Yeah? That's the point."

Being able to appreciate things on their own terms is a valuable skill, especially for the traveler. It's not something that I always succeed at myself, but I always try, and it was in that spirit that I went to a Cirque de Soleil show called Zumanity. Now, you may think, as I did, that Cirque de Soleil is an actual, unique performance troop with some sort of integrity. Like, I don't know, the Bolshoi Ballet or something, but with trapezes. Well, it ain't. It's a franchise, and every casino on the Las Vegas strip has a show with the Cirque de Soleil label slapped on it. You might think it would be hard to choose, but really it wasn't, I just went to the one that was "created for our guests 18 years of age and older." It was cute. It was sort of like the Bolshoi Ballet, but with trapezes, and breasts.

Honestly, much as I like breasts, and the Bellagio fountains, and the Mirage volcano, and the view from the Stratosphere, and losing money at blackjack, the coolest thing in Vegas (and I realize that this is me utterly failing to appreciate a place on its own terms) is the Hoover dam. Damn. That thing is cool.

The Greatest Museum in the World

2009-03-01T22:37:00.000-08:00

If you find yourself some day walking down Venice Boulevard in Los Angeles, you may walk right past The Museum of Jurassic Technology. It's tucked between a carpet store and a Thai restaurant, but there's a helpful sandwich board out front which says, "MUSEUM," so you can't miss it if you're paying attention. Don't be shy now, go ahead and push the button above the brass plaque which requests, "Ring buzzer once for admittance." The button is right underneath a little diorama featuring an urn and some moths. Like I said, you can't miss it.

On my first visit, almost six years ago, I thought it was a joke. An incredibly elaborate, incredibly deadpan joke. After my second visit a few days ago I'm not so sure. You could say that it's a joke, and that it is also serious. That it's having its cake and eating it too. But really, I don't think there's any cake eating going on here. Rather, I think it has simply transcended all that to become... well, I have no idea. But whatever it is, it's wonderful. Glee-inducing, giddy-making, wondrousness.

The thing is, and maybe you've noticed this already, I'm not going to tell you anything about it. You just have to go. It's not like there's some big surprise which would be spoiled. It's not "The Crying Game." It's just that some things are best appreciated without preconceptions. Maybe all things, now that I'm thinking about it.

Of course I'm sure you could search on the internet and find out all about it. But why would you do that to yourself? If you absolutely must know something about it, and can't get to LA, then I suppose you could always visit the museum's website. Or better yet, read Lawrence Weschler's excellent book, "Mr. Wilson's Cabinet of Wonder."

At one point in his book, Mr. Weschler describes chatting with the museum's proprietor:

As I was opening the door to leave, I once again noticed the diorama of the urn and the moths. What about that?

"Oh, that's a little urn surrounded by French moths - or, no, maybe Flemish, I'm not sure."

And what was the significance of the urn?

"It's just an urn. I don't think it means anything."

The Finest Plastic Russia has to Offer

2009-02-25T10:29:00.000-08:00

In Portland, OR I stayed with my wonderful hosts Malena and Graham and, in a stroke of beautiful symmetry, last night I stayed in Claremont, CA with Malena's parents, John and Jeanyne.

It was two weeks ago now, but while in Portland, in between visits to Powell's Books and Stumptown Coffee, I shot a bunch of pictures with my Holga camera. This camera uses something you may have heard of, called "film." Apparently it's a photo-chemical process of some kind. What will they think of next?

Looking at the pictures below, you may be inclined to think that I traveled back in time, but no. For better or worse, this road trip is confined to the more usual three dimensions. The illusion is due to the vintage magic of the Holga and, in the case of the first picture, the vintage magic of Malena, and her mid-century home.

P.S. Apparently, my post on the Kindle failed to consider one possible benefit to the traveler (at least while in the US).

Can't Sleep, Clown Will Eat Me

2009-02-17T09:19:00.000-08:00

I am not an anxious person. I do not, generally, worry about things. I am seldom afraid. There are, of course, exceptions.

There was the time I was camping by myself in a remote, mountainous area of New Mexico, a place where I would not have expected to encounter any other people at all, and in the middle of the night heard angry, hostile voices arguing not far from my tent.

There was the approach to the Katmandu airport, through the mountains and heavy turbulence, when it seemed like the pilots didn't really know what they were doing, and the Buddhist monk sitting next to me began to finger his prayer beads feverishly, chanting to himself.

There was the time on the Mekong river in Laos, when my boat hit a rock in some rapids and started leaking fast, and I couldn't attend to the hole or steer for the riverbank because it was all I could do to navigate the rapids, and I thought I might sink before I got through.

And then there are the times like tonight. Yes that's right, this very night. When a howling blizzard stranded me in a tiny little town in the middle of nowhere in Nevada, and I checked in to the Clown Motel.

You thought I was joking, didn't you? You want to see what's hanging above my bed?

Wait, didn't I see this in a horror movie once? Stranded by blizzard? Small, isolated town? CLOWN MOTEL??? Oh yeah. What could possibly go wrong.

Is the Kindle a Perfect Traveler's Tool?

2009-02-10T23:24:00.000-08:00

As you probably know, the Kindle is Amazon's ebook reader. As you probably also know, earlier this week they announced version 2 of the Kindle.

If I were just sitting around at home, I'm pretty sure I'd never buy a Kindle. As far as I'm concerned, an ebook reader does not replace actual books, for two main reasons. First, I like books as physical objects. I like holding them and paging through them and seeing them on shelves. I like the way they smell. But second, and more importantly, as long as ebooks are laden with DRM, they have to be treated as if they have an expiration date, which means that I'm never going to build a library of ebooks.

But that doesn't mean that an ebook reader can't still be a valuable tool, perhaps well suited for some particular purpose. The purpose I have in mind is "making my backpack lighter." When I'm traveling long term outside of the US, my pack typically weighs 20-22 pounds, with three to four books making up a significant chunk of that weight. I am usually carrying a phrase book for the country I'm in, a guidebook for the country I'm in, a non-guidebook book about the country I'm in (a history, for example), and some random book unrelated to travel. If the four books weigh only eight ounces each (unlikely), that's still two pounds, or roughly 10 percent of the weight that I'm carrying, which makes the 10.2 ounce Kindle awfully tempting.

From a traveler's perspective, the Kindle certainly does a lot of things right. It's small and light. The battery lasts for weeks. It can be recharged over USB while checking your email in an internet cafe, eliminating the need to carry the additional weight of a power brick. And it would make available a vast selection of English language books in places where it is typically difficult to find such things. (Once in rural Laos I was so desperate for something to read that I started rereading "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" because it was the only thing I could find in English.) Could this little wafer of plastic solve all my problems?

Well... no. First, while Amazon offers 230,000 books available for download to the Kindle, they do not carry my guidebooks or phrase books of choice. Second, when a guidebook is paper, you can wake up in Marrakech in the morning, tear the few Marrakech pages out of your Morocco guidebook, stick them in your pocket, and leave your hotel for the day without carrying any bag at all. And phrase books also typically fit in a pocket quite easily. A Kindle on the other hand would require a bag. And third, fer cryin' out loud, I already stand out enough as it is. I try to keep a low profile and look like I fit in. It's impossible in many places, but whipping out an exotic electronic device when I need to check a map or figure out how to say "How much for the monkey?" certainly wouldn't help. All of which means that, at best, the Kindle could only replace half of the books that I carry.

So, is it worth it? I'm leaning towards no. But if I end up in the Atlas Mountains with nothing to read but "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance," I swear to you I'll recant my sins and promise eternal fealty to Amazon.

But what about the "travel?"

2009-02-05T21:01:00.001-08:00

You've probably noticed that the descriptive subtitle at the top of this page says something about "travel." So far this blog has just been a bunch of whining about various nerdy photography topics. I mean, um, it's been a series of posts providing insightful and constructive analysis on a variety of captivating photography topics. Are you still lurking around here, hoping that it will turn into a travel blog? Today is your lucky day.

On the waterfront in Eureka, California, three days ago.

On February 1st I started traveling. When I say "travel," what I mean is, "quit my job*, put all my stuff in storage, give up my apartment, and head off for an indefinite period of time with no particular itinerary." I intend to spend the next few months driving around the US, visiting friends, and places in between, and then sell my car and leave the country, probably for Morocco. As I go, I will post periodic travel updates here, as well as the occasional travel "how-to." There are a ton of great books out there about how to undertake long term travel yourself (one of my favorites is "Vagabonding" by Rolf Potts, linked on the right). But to one degree or another they all seem to omit some of the nitty gritty, so I'll try to fill some gaps for anyone who's interested. From time to time I may post a little piece about past travels as well. You know, if I'm scraping for material.

To segue nicely from the "camera nerd" posts to the "travel" posts, this post will be about the camera I have with me. I mean, um, cameras. I just counted, and I have five. Oh, six, if you count my video camera. Um... seven, if you count the camera built into the bezel above the screen on my laptop. Which I don't.

Sigma DP1
Panasonic FX-37
Contaxt U4R
Holga 120-SF
Polaroid Captiva

Seriously, I only have all these cameras because I have the luxury of a car trunk. When I leave the country and am carrying everything on my back, I will have one camera, and it will be the Panasonic FX-37, or whatever comes out between now and then that's better. For a travel camera, I have one criterion on which I cannot compromise, and that's size. It must be truly pocket sized. (Which mostly means thin. Few point and shoots these days are too big in the X/Y dimensions, but the Z dimension is the killer. An inch is really thick when it's a camera you're trying to cram unobtrusively into your pocket.) Anyway, the Panasonic is far from perfect, but for my needs it's the best compromise currently available (which I might write about more later if the mood strikes me).

So, stay tuned for actual travel news, undercut with occasional camera nerdery. In the meantime, I'll leave you with this shot, taken at Flint Ridge in Redwoods National Park, California, yesterday morning (you can click the pictures to view them at a larger size):

*OK, well, I would have quit my job if they hadn't fired me first. Whatever.

Someone please make me a good digital photo frame.

2009-01-09T20:04:00.000-08:00

Happy new year! I'm back after a bit of a holiday break. And I've been thinking about digital photo frames. Actually, I've been looking to buy one, as a gift for a friend. And here's what I'm wondering: why aren't there any good ones? I did a careful count - there are 43 million different digital photo frames available. And without exception (so far as I can tell) they all fail spectacularly in one way or another. These design mistakes seem so obvious to me, am I taking crazy pills? Here's what I think a digital photo frame needs:

WiFi
If you have to stick a memory card into a frame, or physically connect it to a computer, then it's an interesting technological novelty. Geek-minded folks who like messing about with gadgets (OK, I'm one of them) will buy your frame. For themselves. And that's it. In order for a digital photo frame to make the leap from technogadget to common household object, it needs to be able to connect to a WiFi network, and subscribe to a Flickr account, an RSS feed, or similar. Once it can do that, I can buy one for my parents, hang it on their wall, and send pictures to it from half a world away. They don't ever have to think about it as being a scary technological object. They can think of it as - get this - a frame. With a photo in it. A photo that changes periodically, all by itself, and keeps them apprised of what their son is pointing his camera at. (And of course, even if I'm using the frame in my own home, it's just so much easier if I can change what's on it from my laptop and not have to worry about futzing around with the thing directly.)

Aspect Ratio
4:3. That's it. I can repeat it, if that would help: 4:3. There is absolutely no reason a digital photo frame should have an aspect ratio of 16:9. With all due respect to Panasonic, most digital cameras do not shoot 16:9. Of course DSLRs shoot 3:2, so one could conceivably make an argument for that aspect ratio. But a digital photo frame is predominantly a consumer device, and the vast majority of consumer point-and-shoots have an aspect ratio of 4:3. Therefore (and I don't think this is a big leap to make), the frames which display those photos should have an aspect ratio of 4:3.

Logos
Keep your logo off of the front of the damn thing. If it's got "Sony" or "Kodak" or "ViewSonic" plastered on the front of the thing, it's out. It's a picture frame, I want it to look like a picture frame. I don't want it to look like my TV. (For that matter, I don't like the logo on my TV either.)

Icing
Of course there are a lot of other things I'd like too, but the above three things are the deal breakers. Everything else is gravy. I mean, icing. It should have good picture quality. It should be attractive (that'll obviously mean different things to different people). And if you want to throw in cleverness like a motion sensor that makes it turn on when I enter the room, and turn off when I leave, I won't say no.

Conclusion?
There are a few out there that are close, but none that I've found that make it all the way. If any of my legions of readers (all six of you) know of a digital photo frame that they think will meet my three criteria, don't hesitate to let me know in the comments below. Thanks!

The case against DNG?

2008-12-18T15:51:00.000-08:00

In a post today on his excellent blog "Serious Compacts," Amin describes how Adobe Camera Raw and Lightroom "bake in" lens corrections for Panasonic LX3 and G1 raw files when converting to DNG: Panasonic and Adobe - The Case Against DNG

Amin suggests that this is an argument against the viability of DNG as an archival format, but there's something sort of baby-and-bath-water about that argument to me. As I understand it, DNG is an attempt to create a standardized raw format. A standardized raw format would obviously be a boon to photographers, both for archival reasons, and because it would avoid the gap between the time when a new camera is released, and the time at which your favorite raw processor supports the camera's files. It would be a benefit to software developers as well, since they would not have to constantly scramble to reverse-engineer an unending tide of proprietary raw formats. It is, frankly, something we need.

No, this is not an argument against doing DNG. It's an argument against doing DNG wrong. Adobe and Panasonic, may I have your attention please: we shoot raw because we want to maintain as much control as possible. We use your software because we want our edits to be non-destructive. I know you know this, but it looks like you need reminding. Don't use vanity (oops, sorry our lens isn't so good after all) as a reason to undermine the very features that attract us to your products.

OK, that was the important part, but let me ramble on for a moment. Let's assume Panasonic went to Adobe and said, "Bake in lens corrections for LX3 raw files, or we won't let you put support for the files into your software." What should Adobe do? I'm not suggesting that Adobe should have said, "OK Panny, screw off then, no LX3 support in ACR." But I am suggesting that Adobe is a big grown up gorilla with plenty of weight to throw around, and I bet if they really tried, they could work something out. I'm unconvinced by Eric Chan's finger-pointing. Adobe has a responsibility to their customers, and if they want their DNG format to succeed it's even more important for them to make it appealing to customers than it is for them to make it appealing to manufactures.

But what if Panasonic didn't come around making demands? What if they came over all nice-like, and said, "Listen, we really paid a price for that tiny little 24mm lens, and we've got barrel distortion like you wouldn't believe. What can you do for us?" Well... what could Adobe do for them? Neither ACR nor Lightroom offer geometric lens corrections. What could Adobe do for you as an LX3 owner? Shrug their shoulders and make you shoot JPEG? Or use SilkyPix? Or live with crappy looking distortion? Or do your corrections in Photoshop (which then bakes in the changes of course)? Or make you wait six to 12 months for a full fledged lens correction feature, complete with all attendant UI changes, user guide changes, etc.?

I would suggest that there's a less sucky option. Adobe could special-case LX3 files and apply a non-user-accessible level of lens correction to the files on the way in (as indeed they have). Then, some time down the road, when they finally get around to actually putting lens correction features into ACR and Lightroom, those changes to your LX3 files would suddenly be accessible. You'd see the "barrel distortion" slider already set to 127 (or whatever) for all your LX3 files, and you could then back it off if you so wished. How about it Adobe? Any chance that these behind-the-scenes adjustments will become user-accessible in a future revision? Is it too late for that?

(P.S. to Panasonic: I like a wide angle lens as much as the next guy, but if you can't make a wide angle lens that's genuinely good, maybe software trickery isn't the answer? What's the problem here? Is physics getting in your way?)

Limits breed creativity...

2008-12-14T13:05:00.000-08:00

...or at least they force you to think. I recently purchased a Sigma DP1 compact digital camera. At last count there were approximately 137,924 reviews of the DP1 online, and I don't intend to write another. But I am going to say a few words about why I wanted this camera: it has lovely, lovely picture quality, and everything else about it sucks.

Granted, "sucking" might not immediately make sense as a reason for purchase. And I am perhaps being somewhat glib. First of all, not everything else about it sucks. It looks great (and I'm not ashamed to admit that's important to me), it's built like a tank, and it allows full manual control. Everything else sucks.

How could sucking possibly be good? Well, it isn't. Frankly, I'd be happier if Sigma addressed the myriad flaws in a future revision. But here's how I was able to turn this into a reason for purchase. The camera I was using prior to the Sigma (and which, frankly, I still use in addition to the Sigma) was the Contax U4R. This was essentially the last version of the Kyocera SL300R (see my previous post). It's really small, it literally fits in my shirt pocket. And it's faaaaaaaast. I pull it out, hit the shutter release, and it fires off pictures at machine gun speed. What's not to like?

What's not to like is that I wasn't thinking about my photography any more. This is the sort of picture I was taking:

It's a picture of a funny sign! Everyone loves funny signs! What's wrong with it? Well, nothing's wrong with it, but it's not the sort of thing I'd be likely to print out and hang on the wall. My photography was becoming almost exclusively an offhanded document of random things throughout my day. That has a certain appeal, but I also found myself wanting to get back into making "fine art photography," for lack of a less pretentious term. I wanted to make pictures that would compel me to spend printer ink.

My friend Eric (an engineer on the Adobe Lightroom team) once said, "Most cameras are better than most photographers." I couldn't agree more, and I would never blame my tools. But I do think that the nature of our tools guides us towards a particular sort of output, and I wanted a camera that would force me to think, because I obviously wasn't going to think on my own if I didn't have to. I saw that McCain sign, pulled out the camera, turned it on, zoomed in, and shot off 14 exposures: elapsed time, literally about six seconds. Just turning on the Sigma takes practically that long.

Slowness is not a virtue in a camera. But for the sort of photography I'm hoping to do more of, thinking is a virtue, and everything about the Simga forces me to think and to make conscious choices. The fixed focal length lens imposes limits on composition which force me to think before I push the button. The fact that once I've taken a picture it's going to be a while before I can take another forces me to think before I push the button. The fact that the camera produces better results on full manual than it does on automatic forces me to think before I push the button. Being forced to think means that now I'm taking pictures like this:

No one's offered me a Pulitzer, but I'll tell ya this: it looks good on my wall.

What have the camera companies been doing with their time?

2008-12-10T22:55:00.000-08:00

I'm going to imagine a camera for a moment, will you picture it with me? I like to be able to carry a nice camera with me wherever I go, so this camera we're picturing has to be small, really truly pocket sized. Just big enough to hold in the hand, and not much more than half an inch thick. The picture quality has to be good, otherwise why bother? I need to be able make decent looking prints at least up to 8x10. I need at least a standard 3x zoom. And of course I want it to be fast, very fast. Startup time of under a second. Shot to shot time of under a second. Shutter lag, including focusing, of under a second. And I want a continuous shooting mode that allows me to shoot at least 3 full res pictures per second until the memory card is full. I like to shoot video occasionally, at least 640x480 at 30 fps, and I want to be able to zoom while shooting. Oh, and even though it's a point and shoot, I like to have some manual control. Manual ISO and white balance are pretty standard of course, but I also want aperture priority mode, and a shutter priority mode that allows long, multi-second exposures for cool night shots. Oh, and manual focusing.

Who am I trying to kid? A half inch thick point and shoot that fast? With decent picture quality? And seriously, manual focus? That's just being unreasonable, right? What am I trying to do, describe a fantasy camera from some magical utopia full of ponies and rainbows? No. I'm describing the Kyocera SL300R, and it was released in September of 2003.

Which I think begs the question: what the heck have the camera companies been doing with their time for the past five years? Digital Photography Review just posted a comparison review of nine current ultra compacts, you should read it. Go on, I'll wait. Guess what? Only one of the nine cameras is as small as that Kyocera. None of them are as fast, not even close. They all allow shooting video at 640x480 (one of them at 720p), but they don't let you zoom. Manual controls? Forget about it. Picture quality? No better, often worse. Oh, sure, most of these cameras have 10 megapixels instead of the Kyocera's 3.3, but to what end? The chips are the same physical size, and the increased pixel density means that noise, and noise reduction artifacts, eliminate any potential resolution benefit. That, combined with generally crappy folded optics prone to smearing and fringing, means that these cameras, just like the five year old Kyocera, can produce decent prints only up to about 8x10. How's the modern crop of cameras doing so far? Size: worse. Speed: worse. Video: worse. Manual controls: worse. Zoom range: no better (in most cases). Battery life: no better. Picture quality: no better.

So again I ask you, what have they all been doing with their time? Sure, they've been pixel-packing, I've no doubt that's a difficult engineering task. But since its detriments outweigh its benefits, it seems like a dubious enterprise at best. They've invented an awful lot of clever stuff like face tracking and smile detection. But why, exactly? Not even my mom wants smile detection, and no one wants to avoid having to think about her camera more than my mom. In a careful reading of that review of nine state-of-the-art ultra compacts, I can find only one single genuine improvement over the Kyocera, and that's optical image stabilization (which only five of the nine cameras have).

Or do they know something I don't? After all, those companies are all still making cameras, and Kyocera isn't. Are people that impressed by a big megapixel number? Are gimmicky features really that much more important than size, speed, and picture quality? Answers on a 3x5 postcard please. Or in the comments.

(P.S. I didn't even mention the coolest feature of that Kyocera: a rotating lens. No one makes rotating lens cameras any more, not even Nikon, and I demand to know why. But that's a subject for another post.)