Greetings…
The Catawba Valley Camera Club is getting ready to start taking submissions for our first annual Image*ination photo competition. We have been working hard during the last few months to get the details in order for this contest. I’m currently in the process of collecting corporate sponsors and prize donations for the winners. Corporate sponsors are being asked to donate $100 to be used towards prize money for the first place winners in divisions of the contest. We are also soliciting prize donations for second and third place in each of those divisions. If you are interested in being a corporate sponsor or a prize donor for our first annual competition, please let me know.
Thanks :)
I’m out of school for the summer while I wait to find out if I have been accepted into the Radiography program at Catawba Valley Community College. I won’t find out those results until sometime in June. In the mean time, I have a good bit of free time on my hands, and I’m looking for a new photo series project to work on. If you have any suggestions, please pass them my way :)
Originally uploaded by John Setzler.
The Catawba Science Center has opened their butterfly garden for the summer. I decided to pay them a visit today. I sold my 105mm macro lens a couple years ago because I never used it much and I could rarely find instances where I felt the need to shoot at 1:1. After I sold that lens, I bought a set of extension tubes so I could shoot closeup whenever I wanted to, but I had never taken the opportunity to experiment with those. Today, I tried out several combinations of a 12, 20, and 36mm extension tube stack on my 70-200 f/2.8 lens. Shooting with extension tubes changes the game plan to some extent. I found that, in order to get a focus on my subject, I had to run the zoom all they way out to the long end and then adjust my camera distance to the subject to obtain focus. That made it a bit challenging to work with moving subjects such as butterflies.
I’m gonna go back whenever I can get in there without a Saturday afternoon crowd. This exhibit is designed to attract children. When a child enters, the staff will spray their hand with a sugar-water solution so they can pick up butterflies on their fingers throughout the exhibit area.
Madison Bumgarner - South Caldwell High School
Originally uploaded by John Setzler.
It’s fun to wander around the stadium at South Caldwell High School during baseball games these days. Madison Bumgarner has established himself as a candidate for this summer’s Major League Baseball draft. He’s been heavily scouted this season and the likelihood is high that he will be swallowed up quickly in the draft. The question is how quickly?
I have had the opportunity to watch him develop over the last three seasons of local baseball. When I first met him, he was a skinny little guy, and I never had any notion that he would develop into what we see now. As a senior in high school, he’s 6′5″ and weighs in at 220. He’s a left-handed pitcher, and he has a fastball that hits in the mid 90s. This is a commodity in professional baseball. I have been watching news stories via Google Alerts on Madison since the beginning of this baseball season. Through that, I have seen some scouting reports and videos that have him rated in various places on the chart. Everyone seems to be impressed with his fastball, but some of his other pitch inventory may be in question, based on these reports. If he chooses to accept an offer from a professional baseball club this summer, I’m sure whoever takes him will certainly develop his pitch repertoire. All professional baseball players start out in the minors. The minor leagues will develop his skills with the help of coaching staff members who have usually played professional baseball.
The rumor mill on campus at these baseball games is quite entertaining to listen in on. Everyone is rooting for him. I’m rooting for him too. I hope he gets what he is looking for, and I hope he gets drafted by a team who has a minor league presence in the South Atlantic League so I can see him play :)
Originally uploaded by John Setzler.
One of my favorite destinations during my recent trek into the southwestern United States was Canyon de Chelly in northeastern Arizona. Our hike through the canyon was the longest hike of our trip. We hiked about 6 miles or so on this day. The hike wasn’t particularly difficult. It was mostly flat through the canyon basin, but much of the flat hike was through soft sand, and nearly a mile of it was through water. Lucikly, it wasn’t very hot. The skies were dotted with those puffy white cotton ball clouds and we had a slight breeze to cool the environment. The temperature was in the low 80s that afternoon. Most of our group fared very well along this hike. The ascent out of the canyon at the end of our hike got to a few people, but everyone was happy when we got back to our van.
The above photo pictures Eddie Draper. Eddie is a native horseback tour guide in Canyon de Chelly. He had a group of horseback riders with him when he stopped to say hello to us as we trodded through the water portion of our hike. I asked him if I could make his photo, and he gladly allowed me to do so. Normally, I wouldn’t ask permission to take a photo like this, but there are some specific rules for photography in this canyon. Photographers are not allowed to take photos of natives who live in the canyon, their personal housing, property, or livestock without permission. I didn’t know if he was a resident, and it never hurts to ask. I wanted to have his name to go along with my photo anyway, so asking was the only way to get it :)
Hickory Crawdads - Cameron Blair
Originally uploaded by John Setzler.
It feels good to get back to my baseball stuff after a couple weeks off. Tonight was my first game since May 4th, and the Hickory Crawdads lost a heart breaker tonight to the Kannapolis Intimidators. Mike Crotta pitched 7 1/3 innings without giving up a hit, and we managed to lose the game 5-3.
In this photo, Cameron Blair drops the hammer on Archie Gilbert’s attempt to steal second base…
Originally uploaded by John Setzler.
I have returned from my trip to the southwestern United States. I arrived back in Hickory on Tuesday night and have been, to some degree, recovering from a long trip. This trip was a great experience. It was a great adventure. I also made some new friends along the way. I’ll be telling you about some of the experiences in future posts, but the first encounter I will describe was the most difficult of the journey.
On Thursday, May 10, our group visited the Navajo Prep School in Farmington, New Mexico. When we arrived on site, we were greeted and checked in as visitors in the school office. We were then given a brief history of the school. Mr. John Tohtsoni, Dean of Instruction, conducted our history discussion and then he turned us over to senior student, Andrew Sarracino. Mr. Sarracino took us to a classroom where Mr. Tom Chee was teaching Navajo History to a group of students. We sat in on this class and listened as he discussed subjects relating to the Navajo language. Part of his discussion included a brief history of his own education where he was punished for speaking the Navajo language as a child.
This was the moment when I realized that I did not belong in this place. I can’t get my thoughts together completely about this, and maybe I never will understand it fully. The visit to the Navajo Prep School was, by far, the most emotional event I encountered on this trip, and possibly beyond that.
I don’t know how far into early American history my own family tree roots extend, but the crux of the matter is that those who were here before us suffered great losses upon our arrival. Redundant discussions of these events in Richard Eller’s Native American History class didn’t hit home until I arrived in Farmington, New Mexico this day. Native American people and culture were practically wiped out. Europeans practiced their own version of genocide upon arrival on this continent. We made promises that were rarely kept. The native people are lucky to have survived at all, and lots of them didn’t.
During this trip, I worked with Amanda Higgins every night to prepare our daily blog. I spent some time discussing my feelings on this visit with her. I think she understood what I was trying to verbalize, and she summed it up in two simple words: White Guilt. I suppose that works and makes sense.
After our visit to Mr. Chee’s classroom, our group was invited outside to the Hogan, where we were prepared a meal of mutton stew, grilled mutton, blue corn mush, Navajo fry bread, potato salad, and lemonade. Just as I thought my feelings about this visit were about to relax, they got worse. Not only was I feeling guilty about the atrocities my forefathers had committed against these people, I was now feeling guilty because those people had invited me into their personal space and had prepared a meal for me.
For those of you who have followed my photography for any length of time, you know how fascinated I am with people. One of the things I wanted to focus on during this adventure was the Native American face. At this point in time, I could not make myself raise my camera to single out anyone. I just didn’t feel like I was worthy of that privilege, so I didn’t do it.
I did watch the people though. There were distinct difference in the attitudes of people I observed. Some seemed glad that we were there, and others were not. This observation complicated my own problems even more. In thinking about this situation, I’m really surprised about several things. First of all, I am surprised that ANY of them would want to do what they were doing for us. I’m confident that they are fully aware of their own post-Columbian history. What do they have to gain by extending a warm hand to me? I’m not sure. What do I have to gain by extending my hand in reply? I think the content of this post explains that quite well. I have a feeling of guilt and a desire to do something about it. I can thank Amanda for that desire to ‘do something about it.’ I don’t know what I can do about it. I’m one man in a sea of millions who don’t share my feelings on this. It’s an overwhelming thought to try to make a difference, but I will find a way.
It’s 1:12am on Saturday, May 5. I finally have all my packing done and I’m hitting the road for New Mexico and Arizona with the group from school about 5 hours. We’re rolling out of the school parking lot at 6am. I hope I haven’t forgotten anything. Since I’m responsible for photo documentation on this trip, I have a good bit of camera gear packed, as well as my laptop computer. I also have the Nintendo DS, the iPod, my AM/FM Walkman, and a book for the road trip. Two days of driving each way is going to produce some necessity for time occupation. Tomorrow, we travel from Hickory, NC to Clarksville, AR, which is just over 800 miles. Then on Sunday, we do another 800 out to Albuquerque, NM.
I’m officially excited about this trip now that I have my semester exams behind me…
Keep your eyes peeled for my post here when I return home. I should have a link to my photo collection, but it may take me a few days to sort through all those pictures :)
Originally uploaded by John Setzler.
Tonight, I visited Hickory High School for a game against the Bandys Trojans. It was raining about 45 minutes before game time, and it just kept raining. I knew there wasn’t a chance that this game would be postponed, because it’s late in the school season and the opportunities to make them up are not available. I have a similar situation coming up tomorrow night at another local high school. I’ll be covering a soccer game, and the weather forecast is for rain all day tomorrow as well. This game will be played unless there is lightning, so I’ll have to go out again.
I hate shooting in the rain. I can’t hold an umbrella and control the camera at the same time. I think my objectives need to change a little when it’s raining and I’m stuck covering sports. I think I’m going to try to make the rain the story rather than the sports action itself somehow. It’s already difficult to get a sports action shot when the light is poor. In most bad weather cases, I find myself shooting at ISO 1600 with an f/2.8 lens and only being able to get shutter speeds of 1/200″ or so, which just won’t work. I can use my flash, but in the rain, that creates rather ugly photos. Every little raindrop between my camera and my subject lights up like lights on a Christmas tree. The other option is just to terribly underexpose my photos and use Photoshop to salvage them in post processing. I suppose ISO 3200 is a third option. When I underexpose an ISO 1600 photo and bring it back up to snuff in photoshop, the digital noise is pretty bad. So maybe a less underexposed ISO 3200 image would be the way to go.
I think I’ll give that a try tomorrow night.
Anyone wanna come hold an umbrella? ;)
As I take a quick break from studying for tomorrow’s exams, I thought I would post a link to the blog we will be writing as we journey into the Southwestern United States. Amanda Higgins will be writing and posting the content to the blog. I’ll be providing photographs to go along with those posts. The blog is here:
If you would like to travel along with us via the blog, we would love to have you!
This will possibly be my last blog post here until I return on May 15th or 16th. If I’m not completely dead tired at the end of any given day of this trip, I may post a comment or two here.
Until then…