I don’t work in B&W much, but it really worked here. Construction sites are rarely a great place for beautiful images, but I’ve found that keeping my eyes and mind open I can find them.
Category: Creative Work
My Right Brain at Work
Life Update
I’ve been too busy at work and home to post here of late. I’ve been trying to settle into a routine here in Central Oregon, but still haven’t really got the house sorted out. Nick & Sue have had over a month to unpack their things, but I’ve been on the road for Facebook, learning how they do things in their existing datacenters for most of the past three months (when I wasn’t moving from Washington to Oregon.)
I spent yesterday unpacking the workshop. It sort of became the “catch-all” spot to throw stuff while we unloaded the moving truck. The shocking realization that this workshop is probably one-sixth the size of our former barn sort of hit me as I was unpacking. I always had plenty of open space in the barn. Not so here.
I barely made room for one car. It is going to be a while before I genuinely have the place set up for car maintenance and repair. I’m going to have to build an addition on to it first to set up the home-brewery. Stay tuned for that.
Work is great. It is wonderful to be on-site in Prineville. There is so much to do, and be a part of! I can’t wait for the whole crew to be here at once, and the real datacenter work to begin. Meanwhile it is all about completion of the first phases of construction and commissioning. I’m doing my best to document it all with my camera. I share daily snapshots with the rest of Facebook on our internal websites. You can keep tabs on what we’re doing by photos posted on the official site, some of which are off my G1. See if you can spot them.
My commute is a refreshing change from the Seattle freeways I’ve been battling for most of my life. It is all two lane roads through the Central Oregon High Desert – sage and juniper, mixed with cattle grazing land. If I keep my eyes open I get to see things like this:
A nice Saturday drive.
As I stated in the previous post, yesterday I joined my friend Mark Collien in his 1973 Triumph TR-6 for a drive around middle Maryland with some other Triumph cars (and one other vintage British machine built somewhere other than Coventry.) I brought along my camera gear and snapped some photos for you…
I drove the TR-6 for a while. What a fun car! Suffered from quite a bit of scuttle-shake, and lacked the throttle response of the E-type – but it pulled quite well, and made wonderful noises. Had all the charm and attraction of classic British sports car.
Shooting the Moon
I lugged my whole time-lapse rig out to Virginia from Oregon, but I have a cable or camera problem. It doesn’t work. I had hoped to get some good sunset and aircraft footage, as my hotel is just off a runway at Dulles. Oh well.
Tonight however I was treated to a gorgeous crescent moon, so I snapped the telephoto on the G1, got out my free-standing monopod (neat trick eh!?) and shot the moon.
The results are sort of … meh… but there were a few sketchy keepers in there. Here you go:
More Flights of Fancy, and some difficult news.
Last weekend I was in Northern Virginia and on my way back from the Bull Run battlefield I noted an exit for the Udvar-Hazy Center which was very close to my hotel. I popped in with camera to check it out. It was 90 minutes from closing, so I was unable to see the entire museum. I did capture some highlights however:
It was really a dash, with inadequate equipment (I really should have had my monopod for better shooting in the low light) but it was an interesting place that I’ll have to return to some time. You can see the rest of my shots here.
My life all went awry later when I received a call from home with Sue informing me that her mother had passed away. This news was both shocking and upsetting. Sue’s mom just spent several weeks at our home, on her usual summer trip to visit family, and she looked better than I’d seen in years. In fact she had accompanied Chris & I to the airport when I left for the east coast, as Chris was dropping her off at King Street station to ride the Cascades down to Portland to visit her brother next on her trip. Sue was beside herself, as you would expect.
It always seems that things like this happen when I’m away on business trips. 🙁
Thankfully my new employer is understanding and compassionate, and in short order I was able to change my travel plans, cutting short my stay in northern Virginia. I’ll return again sometime soon however.
A day off in Northern Virginia
I’m on the east coast this week, in Northern Virginia to be specific, visiting my new employer‘s facilities. As I have some downtime over the weekend, I figured I’d hit some sights that I’ve never seen. When I was a child I had relatives in Maryland and visited all the major sights of the Capitol: the Lincoln and Washington Memorials, the Capitol, and of course the Smithsonian museums. This time I decided to drive down to Manassas, the site of the first major battle of the US Civil War. I brought my camera along so I could share.
I stopped at a few sites of minor skirmishes, but the main battlefield at Henry Hill provided the best photographic opportunities…
After Manassas I drove to the Capitol and stopped along the river to shoot low-flying aircraft (seen above) and then over to the Jefferson Memorial. I’ll post those images soon.
Vote for your favorite E-type Image for the 2011 JCNA Calendar
2011 is the 50th Anniversary of the E-type Jaguar, and the Jaguar Clubs of North America are publishing a commemorative E-type Calendar. I’d like to submit a photo or two for inclusion. One of my car, and one of another car. Here are a bunch of good E-type Photos for you to pick the “best of.” Make your vote in the comments section and tell us why you like it best.
(sorry for the big red copyright notices… just trying to protect my images a bit)
Edit: I’ve been asked what camera gear was used to shoot these, so I’m adding that to the post…
Other Cars:
Shot with Olympus C-5050Z
Shot with Olympus C-5050Z
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