Happy Valley Fiddlers’ Convention
I spent the afternoon today at the Happy Valley Old-Time Fiddler's Convetion shooting some photos for the newspaper. I had never been to this event, so I didn't really know what to expect. The most entertaining part of the event for me was obviously the people. Even though this was called the "Old-Time" fiddler's convention, I found quite a few young folks, including the one in the above photo, enjoying themselves with various musical instruments.
SETI
I attended a lecture at the Catawba Science Center on Saturday evening given by Dr. Seth Shostak, the Senior Astronomer of the SETI (search for extraterrestrial intelligence) Institute. I didn't really know what to expect from this lecture, but Dr. Shostak was quite entertaining and informative during the entire lecture.
Dr. Shostak discussed a lot of different topics, but there was one that probably intrigued me more than anything else. When we picture an extraterrestrial in our mind's eye, what we see is what Hollywood has trained us to see. The likelihood of any of that being accurate is insanely small. Life here on Earth has developed into what it is purely by chance. One of the points that Dr. Shostak made is that the human race as we know it may not have come into existance had it not been for the catastrophic event that pushed the dinosaurs into extinction. Life on this planet took a new course after that event. The chance of life on another planet developing into something that even resembles the human race slim to none... Just some food for thought...
Lenoir-Rhyne University
Lenoir-Rhyne College held a celebration today to commemorate their upgrade to university status. I was wandering around looking for interesting photo ops when I ran across this student wearing one of the new T-shirts. I normally have a hard time finding interest in photographing people from the back side, but this one combining the dog and the new T-shirt logo seemed good enough.
I always enjoy attending events at Lenoir-Rhyne, even though most of them are sports. My grandfather was a dean and professor at the college for 47 years, so my family has strong ties to the school. I spent two years of my college career at Lenoir-Rhyne as well.
Go Bears!
Grid Iron Slave
Today marks the first official day of football season in the area. All of my friday nights are booked between now and approximately Thanksgiving with high school football. Unfortunately, it doesn't really end at Thanksgiving because basketball season will be underway by this time as well. Friday nights during the school year are filled with local sports action, and I will only see an occasional Friday off during holiday periods.
I do enjoy the sports action in the local high school arenas. There are about 12 high schools in the area that I'll be visiting on a weekly basis for football, basketball, tennis, soccer, softball, track, and wrestling between now and the end of May. Just as it starts to get cold outside at night on the football field, it will be over and I'll be parking my butt on the baseline of the basketball courts. I'll get to stay inside until the end of February when baseball and women's soccer crank back up...
Hopefully the 2008-09 school year will be productive for me :)
Uh-Huh
Hickory, North Carolina is not a large town by most standards. The population is about 40,000 people. We're not large enough to have the NFL, NBA, or MLB sports. We do have our share of high school and small college sports, but we are also fortunate enough to have a minor league baseball team. Attendance at the minor league baseball games isn't that great, but dollar beer and fireworks nights tend to draw 2000 or more fans into the park. On other nights, attendance is usually in the 800-1200 range, if even that much. The fans in attendance aren't usually into the game very much, especially when the home team is having a dismal season, which is the case in 2008.
One of the highlights I find in attending professional sporting events such as Carolina Panthers football in Charlotte is the presence of the superfans who dress in crazy costumes and carry on with crazy antics in the stadium. You have to be sitting close to them to really get the feel for what they are doing in an arena packed with 50,000 fans, but there are enough of them dispersed throughout the crowd that everyone can get some interaction with them during a game. Fans like this, however, don't really exist at any sporting events in my home town.
Enter Paul Buchanan...
Paul got his start as a superfan at Fieldcrest Cannon Stadium in Kannapolis, North Carolina, as a supporter of their local minor league baseball team, the Kannapolis Intimidators. Paul would shout in support of the Intimidators and shout jeers at the visiting team players during the course of the games. Over time, he developed his signature UH-HUH exclamation to end each shout of support or ridicule. Fans soon started shouting the trademark UH-HUH along with him. The UH-HUH exclamation ultimately found its way onto his ball cap, t-shirt, and a variety of home-made signs that he displays during his in-game antics. Paul also chases foul balls with great determination. He keeps some of the foul balls for himself and shares other with kids in the park. In reality, Paul is a big kid at heart.
During the 2007 baseball season, Paul was given season passes to attend baseball games in Hickory whenever he was able to come up, and we saw a lot of him. The 2008 season hasn't been so great though. I was actually worried about him, because up until last night, I hadn't seen Paul in our park. The Kannapolis Intimidators have been playing a four-game series in Hickory this weekend, and Paul has been present at the last two games. I asked him on Sunday why we hadn't seen much of him this summer. He told me he was working a part time job that was eating up a lot of his free time, so he hasn't been able to put as much effort into his baseball passion.
When I first met Paul during the 2006 baseball season, I was surprised to find out a few interesting facts about him. Paul's primary career is that of an assistant pricinpal in a pre-K school in the Charlotte area. After learning that, it's easy to see why Paul is able to keep his inner-child alive and well through the love of America's pasttime...
Gordon Beckham
One of my favorite parts of being associated with Minor League Baseball is the opportunity to meet the new guys each year. On rare occasions like yesterday, I get to be the first photographer to catch a new guy in action. Yesterday was Gordon Beckham's debut professional baseball game. Gordon was the 2008 first round draft pick (8th overall) of the Chicago White Sox. He inked the deal on Thursday and started playing with the Class-A affiliate (Kannapolis Intimidators) on Friday. The Intimidators intimidated the Hickory Crawdads nicely in Beckham's debut game. Kannapolis won by a score of 11-3 and Beckham had an excellent offensive show for his debut game. Gordon went 3 for 4 at the plate, with a double, a walk, and two runs scored.
The Intimidators have three games left in this four-game series with the Hickory Crawdads...
Catawba Valley Photo Walks
My local camera club has field trips, but most of them are either too expensive for me or held at times that I can't go. I do enjoy shooting with other photographers occasionally, so I decided to form a group of local people who want to get together on a monthly basis to shoot together. The objective of the group is to get together once per month and visit a local site or attraction and spend a few hours making photos. I have created a Flickr group for this project where discussions and photos may be shared. The link to the group is here:
If you are interested in participating, please join that group. Flickr is free, so there is no cost involved unless you want to upgrade to their professional level account. This group is open to anyone who wants to participate.
The first Photo Walk will be on Saturday, September 27, 2008 and the site will be the Murray's Mill Harvest Folk Festival. I usually attend this event for at least one of the two days every year, and the photo opportunities are excellent. I hope you can join us!
Big League In Town
I got an email press release this morning from the Hickory Crawdads indicating that Pittsburgh Pirates first baseman, Adam LaRoche, would be playing in Hickory with the Crawdads tonight. I sorta found that to be just a little odd. I checked my calender, and it's not April 1st, so I figured it must be true. My next question was why? I showed up at the park about 90 minutes before game time, because I knew I was going to need a couple photos off Mr. LaRoche for the team. I went straight to Mike Janela's desk to find out why Adam was in Hickory instead of Indy, Altoona, or Lynchburg. It just doesn't seem right to rehab a major league player in low-A ball. It turns out that Indianapolis is on a road series, Altoona has the night off, and Lynchburg is on the road as well. The Pirates wanted Adam to play some rehab baseball in a home-field environment, and the Hickory Crawdads were the only option.
Adam had a decent showing at the plate tonight. He played seven innings and went two for three at the plate plus a walk. His second trip to the plate produced a monster home run over the high right field wall that would have been an upper deck homer in a major league park with no trouble at all. Adam will be playing in Hickory again on Tuesday night, but beyond that, I don't know.
Hopefully he'll be a nice influence on our current team :)
Image Composition
As a photographer, I realize that the learning never ends. Once you think you know a lot, you realize how much you don't know. I tend to read a good bit on the subject of photography, and I read regularly. I spend practically no time reading about equipment. Reading about hardware, for the most part, bores me unless I'm shopping for something specific, which isn't often these days. Reading about hardware does not advance my skills as a photographer or an artist.
Most of the reading I do is on the subject of photographs themselves rather than the equipment used to make them. When I first gained an interest in photography, it took me a while to really figure out what I really needed to study in order to improve my photography. I looked at thousands upon thousands of photographs before I realized what I needed to study. The two most difficult concepts of learning to make great photos are ironically simple. In fact, they are such simple concepts that they are incredibly difficult for a lot of photographers to grasp. Every great photograph begins with two fundamental concepts. The first concept is WHAT the photographer chose as the subject. The second concept is HOW the photographer chose to compose it in the viewfinder. The how part tends to be the key for me. When I see a photograph that consumes me, it's obvious that my approval of the subject is in place. The part that comes next is understanding why, beyond the subject choice, the photograph appeals to me so strongly. This understanding is the most difficult part of photography for me. Being able to verbalize why a photographic composition is exceptional is a weak point for myself and most photographers I know. Even though it's difficult, having a clear understanding of these concepts will make you a better photographer. Analyzing composition on a regular basis keeps the concepts fresh in your mind and also makes you consider them more regularly when composing your own photos.
Unfortunately, no one can teach you what to photograph. That's something you have to learn on your own. However, once you decide what your subject will be, you can learn a lot about how to photograph it. The subject of composition can be quite difficult, but studying all of its theories in depth and learning to apply them to your subjects will help you turn a great subject into an extraordinary photograph.
In all of the books I have read on photography, I have two that stand out in the subject of image design and composition. The first one, "Photography and the Art of Seeing" by Freeman Patterson had been my favorite up until recently. Patterson's book is exceptional in many ways, but I think it is probably a little too complicated for the novice photographer. In fact, most materials on composition are probably too complex for most beginners. More recently, I purchased Michael Freeman's "The Photographer's Eye" at my local bookstore. This book is geared more towards a clear and concise understanding of most of the fundamental concepts of good image design. It makes use of image overlays and diagrams to show the concepts being discussed in the text. Reading through the ideas, I often find myself thinking.... "yea... that's what I was thinking...." without being able to verbalize it on my own.
Silent Images
Our guest speaker was David Johnson, who is the founder of Silent Images. Silent Images is a non-profit organization that travels to regions of the world where persecution and oppression is rampant for the purpose of providing photographic images to raise money for the indigenous people of the areas.
David's photography, however, is not what I expected to see. I'm used to seeing images of death and chaos that surrounds the concept of genocide. We have all seen these images. The sensationalism... the shock factor... the normal stuff tossed before us by the drive-by media on a daily basis. David's photography takes a very different approach, while telling the same story. Most of the images I saw tonight were more upbeat and positive for the purpose of showing hope, promise, and the possibilities of correcting the situation at hand rather than showing death and destruction, which tend to represent the too late scenario.
After attending this lecture and browsing this book, I think I, as a photographer, have found an organization that I can proudly contribute to in the future.