Abandoned Churches – Opacity

I love abandoned places photography. I think it’s really interesting to come across a building that has been deserted for a long period of time, and see the random objects strewn about here and there that give you clues as to what type of place it was and what sort of things happened there. The Honolulu photographers would be able to capture such places beautifully and intriguingly. It’s interesting as well to imagine what might have happened in the last hours, right up to the final minute, of the buildings usefulness – what went on in the half hour before the door was locked for the final time?

Tom Kirsch is, among other things, a photographer with a knack for discovering desolation. The galleries he offers on his website far surpass my meager attempts. He has photographed the inside of forgotten churches, empty hospitals, vacant schools, and forsaken mental facilities. His tolerance for creepiness must be sky high; most of the locations he’s shot I wouldn’t dare to tread alone. But thankfully he’s been there with his camera, allowing us to see safely from our computer chairs the wonderful dilapidation of so many architectural cast-aways.

Abandoned Churches – Opacity

 

Total Solar Eclipse 2009, Enewetak

Total Solar Eclipse 2009, Enewetak

Miroslav Druckmüller and his companions acheive some fantastic photographic results when it comes to photographing the suns corona during a solar eclipse. Using a technique called photo stacking, a series of images in which you would not see many details can be compiled into one image, bringing out the very faint objects that you wouldn’t normally see. Check out the rest of his site as well, there are many outstanding astronomy photos and tidbits of information to be found there.

Total Solar Eclipse 2009, Enewetak.

Aviary, an online image editor

I found a great image editor / paint program. It features some really cool effects and a way of creating art that I’ve never seen before – in a visual art package anyway. It uses generators and effects that can be chained together like audio components use cables to route signals. It’s free, but it will stick a watermark on your images unless you upgrade to the 24.99 / year Pro account.

Aviary

bahgheera – Black Outside, Black Inside (Incident On Rama 3)

I’ve been all alone here on Rama 3 now for about four weeks.

I don’t know where everyone went, how they left, or why. Just gone, leaving me here – alone? Only minimal life support systems are up, nothing else. Lighting, above all else, is the one system that I have begun to crave. The only light I have left is my flashlight, and batteries are running low. I haven’t explored my crewmates cabins yet, seems wrong to open the door to someone elses quarters. Especially not knowing what I’ll find on the other side. But maybe there are batteries there. Or clues to what happened. Maybe thats what I’m avoiding.

Aside from that, all the logs are updated and nothing is out of place, yet here I am, isolated, hundreds of thousands of miles from anything.

No communications are working – I can’t raise any other outpost, ship, or Earth. I have no way of sending word, no way of receiving information about what may be happening outside…

Oh yes, outside. The noises started six days ago. First, banging. Knocking and banging all over the outside hull, especially near the airlocks. Who – or what – is it? Then came other noises – possibly powered craft of some type, but who is controlling it? Today the banging is so hard that I can actually feel the floor give just a little bit. If it gets any harder, the station will leave orbit… I don’t want to think about that.

I’m waiting for someone to come back, someone to explain to me just what is going on. Because I didn’t sign up for this. I didn’t sign up to live the last few days of my life in sheer terror. Terrified of simply not knowing what is out there – what is possibly trying to get in here. I have enough supplies and oxygen to make it another few weeks, after that I don’t know what I’ll do. Although I have a pretty good idea… I promised myself I wouldn’t think of that until I absolutely have to, though.

Stream // Download


_start(FALSE, ‘order=10’)

Me and my new favorite band – Decyfer Down

Today I went to Shoutfest, a Christian music festival featuring artists such as Air Five, StorySide:B, and Matt Blair. The music was all pretty awesome for the most part, but Decyfer Down stole the show for me. Ever since learning of them about two months ago on 88.5 The Edge I’ve been listening to their cd End Of Grey almost nonstop. It’s been quite a while since I’ve listened to Christian music, or anything popular on the radio for that matter as you faithful few should know by now. Decyfer Down is a hard rock band, along the lines of Chevelle. It seems I’m coming back around in my musical taste to radio style rock, and this is a good place to start.
I was lucky enough to get to talk to a couple of the band members, who seemed pretty cool guys. I always try to avoid to much contact, cause I don’t want people to think I’m a crazed stalker fan, heh heh. I got some pretty decent pictures of the handful of songs they played and one awesome shot of me with them. Pretty stoked about meeting my latest rock heros. So here’s some shots below and check out Decyfer Down’s music at their myspace page. Yeah yeah I know… myspace! I’m going to break my own rule for once, just go there and listen to ‘Burn Back The Sun’ – thats the song that got me hooked.

Easter pics of the kids

Sisters 004I took Cara and Amelia to Greenfield park the week before easter for photos. I think they turned out ok, Sisters 003considering the low light and the fact that I had to scan the photos in. I played around with different effects in photshop also; I’m not too sure about how that worked but I’ll let the public decide. It was difficult managing a four year old and a one year old into position for a portrait style shot, I don’t know how the professional photographers do it – I was certainly Sisters 001about to lose my mind after five minutes. I finally just let the little Sisters 002one do what she wanted while I waited for her to accidentally be in the right position. This technique does not work. Trust me. After about an hour (twenty minutes of which I spent shooting with no film in the camera – aargh!) I finally felt like I had some decent enough shots and twice as many bug bites, so we got on out of there until next year. Stay tuned, more to come as I get them scanned in, cropped and adjusted.

UPDATE: New Easter Pics in the gallery. Much better ones this time.

Photos of WWII

Look at these photos of the second infantry division of the U.S. Army during World War II. Very interesting. I assume most of us have never taken the time to examine and contemplate images of this nature. Hopefully it will make you think. At any rate, if you spend five minutes looking at pictures of the heroes of our nation instead of watching television, well then that’s an accomplishment.