Intense

You know what's intense? Camping.


I'll let you sit for a while until you get that one.


My school is awesome. The first two weeks of school this year were only three days each. The first one was for no particular reason - something about a required number of days. The second week was relieved of its Thursday and Friday for what we here call Wing Treks. Wing Treks are forays into the world outside of Conserve that take place... three times a year? Anyways, my wing (ten people) went camping and minigolfing.

Oh, but before that! There was a dance to celebrate us coming back to school. Coincidentally enough, it was called the "back to school dance." Shocking, eh? Pics.




You may recognize this as Dick Fickling. I don't know what the light is, or how I got it there, but I'm not complaining, because it's a good picture. Not much else to say about this one.




Hooray for ten-second exposures. Besides the ghostly appearance of the dancers, there isn't much here that is eye-catching. I was really just having fun taking long-exposure pictures, which the dark dance room allowed for excellently. You'll notice a shadow cast by my lens on the floor. The a200 has a low flash height, which means that if I'm zoomed all the way out to my maximum focal length, I can see that shadow. This was the only complaint people up on the blogosphere had about this camera when I was researching it.


And now, Camping.



This is my friend Chad. Chad is awesome. However, I must pull your attention away from him because the coolest thing about this picture is definitely the texture of the shadows on the bus. I love playing with light and shadows. Perhaps that will be my next project?




That night we had a fire, (and about a pound and a half of steak each. We cooked over an open flame on rocks like real men.) Later, after most of the people had wandered sleepily off to their polyester sleeping bags and there were just a select few of us sitting around a slowly dying fire, I experimented with long-exposure pictures of the fire. A few of them came out really well, like this next one.




Spooooooky. This is a 30-second picture of a campfire at f/14 aperture. I like the glow of this image, a bright white of the burning logs that seems so dim to the human eye, and so bright to the ccd when exposed for so long. As I was looking at this picture, I saw a shape that made this picture stand out particularly for me - I've zoomed it below.




I call him the horseman of the apocalypse. My friend calls it a rabbit that fell on it's face. Maybe it's the glow and the color, but I prefer my description. See the horse's skeletal form and the horseman leaning back? No? Okay, maybe it's just me.


Two more from the next day...




One of that ever-growing club of favorites, this picture combines a lot that I like about photography into one image. First of all, this image has to be in black and white to have the impact that it does; where else can you find something where a loss of data is a good thing? Second, it takes something ordinary and turns it into something extraordinary. As if I haven't posted enough about him, this is Dick again. Also, it shows how easy the few rules of photography are. The rule of thirds is followed by the hand in the upper-right hand corner (or at least closely enough), and the edge of the minigolf green makes for a nice strong horizontal line to ground the image.




This is my ex-roomie Eliot, whom I've mentioned before. Although it's just a snapshot, I like this image because he just looks so happy.

More pics after I take them!

--Erty