Things you can do to save the environment (or at least minimize your own damage)

I'm really sick of these "10 easy things you can do to save the environment" lists. First of all, anyone with half a brain is already doing these things. Anyone that gives a damn about the environment and the world their kids will inherit is doing MORE. For us to make any kind of positive impact and start to reverse the damage we've done (yes, collectively. And I really do mean "we". No sense pointing fingers at the guys on the other side of the border), we have to move beyond doing what is "easy". So here is my list of not-so-easy-but-not-incredibly-difficult things you can do to reduce your impact.

1. Eat less. This seems pretty simple. We should only eat what we need to maintain a healthy living. Unfortunately getting to that point of "optimum" food intake (that is to say were we are eating enough without eating more than we need) takes a bit of experimenting. One strategy I've used is to use a smaller eating instrument, a smaller plate and to slow way down. If we learn to make eating special, maybe happier with less. We are supposed to accustom ourselves to hardship. Why not do it now on our own terms?

2. Utilize or eliminate waste streams. Draw a diagram of all the materials and energy that come into your dwelling. Then turn around and account for how they leave your dwelling. Be sure to account for how heat is lost, waste products and so forth.

Food on it's way out can be utilized in a number of ways. Fats and oils can be transesterfied to make biodiesel or saponified to make soap. Waste fruits can be fermented to make ethanol. Waste water (gray water) can be used for watering your outdoor plants. Containers can be recycled and reused. Other waste food items can be composted (although meats are a bit trickier). Heat: use less and insulate. Electricity: cut the juice if it's not in use.

3. Nature's refrigerator. During the winter we heat our homes only to waste energy to keep a small box attached to a heat pump cold. Seems a bit counter-intuitive. Why not make accommodations to keep some of our less sensitive foodstuffs outside?

4. Pick seeds. Don't have time to plant trees? Why not take the time to gather a few seeds and pop them in some soil? (that is unless they require more attention than that). Once they've germinated, you could always pass them along to someone that will plant them. Of course, you could always just plant them yourself. Stewarding the whole process can be quite rewarding and sure beats paying for silly carbon offsets. Take responsibility! Don't pay someone else to do it for you!

5. Find heat exchangers and clean them! Have a computer? Have a refrigerator? A car? Great. Find their heat exchangers (heat sinks, radiators, etc) and give them a good dusting off. Dust is a wonderful insulator and thus makes it hard to get rid of waste heat. Also, your stuff will last longer if it is being cooled proper. I've seen far too many computers get tossed aside simply because of preventable heat issues.

6. Look for the virtues. Sounds silly. But when you can actually tie behaviors to specific virtues, those behaviors are easier to correct. Correlate your wasteful habits to thriftiness, moderation, responsibility, and so forth. Easier said than done. There is nothing easy about calling yourself to account each day for the energy you consume or the waste you produce.

7. Delete your old e-mail! It's easy to horde old e-mail when you get something on the order of magnitude of 8 gigabytes for free. However, someone is paying for it (if that 7-8 Gb applies to you, it's probably Google). If you don't need to save it: don't. Having your email sitting on a server somewhere takes up space; hard disks require time, energy and money (so money^3) to maintain. If you get a lot of spam, do what you can to unsubscribe to it and head off the problem to begin with!

8. Salvage it. Instead of thoughtlessly tossing your old computer or filing cabinet to the wind, you can give it to the Salvation Army -or- someone that is good at making things. Even old computers are a TREASURE TROVE of useful components (screws, heat sinks, useful metals, and so on) that some nerd out there would absolutely love to get his hands on before disposing of properly.

9. Get rid of stuff. This probably seems pretty straight forward. But keeping crap you don't need yields a higher energy bill. How? Most stuff is pretty dense. And if it's in your house you are paying to heat it whether it's in the attic or not. The denser something is, the more energy it takes to raise that something's temperature.

10. Fragrances. These things are evil. Many of the fragrances used in fabric softeners, dryer sheets and so forth are suspected carcinogens at the worst and could upset someone's allergies at the very least. Why pay more so it smells like "wild orchid" or "spring" when those smells are usually nothing like the real thing.

11. The Navy Shower. If we all pretended that we lived on a submarine, most of our pesky environmental problems would go away. Living in "World War III in a Can" must certainly be a life altering experience. Consider the tactics used when it comes to bathing. You remove your clothing. Blast yourself with water. Turn off the water. Lather up, wash and clean yourself. Then you give yourself another blast of water. This might be less than desirable on a cold December morning but hey! Just think of all the water you aren't using.

12. Become the "Can Man". On my way to work every morning, I pick up cans, bottles and glass that I see off the road. I seem to average about 3 items per day. In the warmer months it's much higher than this. In the colder months I tend to find less per day but end up with "recovery" days where I find a metric crap load of recyclables. I get about 10 ISK (~$0.10 USD) per item of which I funnel directly into my high interest savings account (12.5% interest!) or my eTrader account. This year I've raked in almost 20,000 ISK (~$200 USD) and that's only since July. There is free money out there! Also, you are helping reuse vital materials. It's win-win. Really.


I hope that the 2.5 people that actually read this found something useful. I'm sure I'll add more as I think of them. Bon appetite!

How to Photograph the Northern Lights - Part 1

Introduction

It's early autumn. I'm permanently parked at 65.5 degrees north so the northern lights are exceptionally visible most clear evenings through the fall, winter and early spring. The two previous winters I had pretty good luck catching the auroral arcs but I was not well enough acquainted with the area to compose GOOD shots. To help myself and others, I've put together this short guide outlining a number of topics that should be of use to those whom are setting out for their maiden attempts at capturing the phenomenon. Below is an overview of what I will be covering in this three pat post:

Overview

Section 1 - Educating yourself about the Aurora borealis (Part 1)
Section 2 - Gear (Part 1)
Section 3 - Location Preparation (Part 2)
Section 4 - Some Notes about Composition and Technical Details (Part 2)
Section 5 - Notes and Tips for Post Processing (Part 2)
Section 6 - Special Considerations for Condensation Prevention (Part 3)
Section 7 - Words of Wisdom for Winter Wear (Part 3)
Conclusions (Part 3)


Figure 1 - The Northern Lights

Step 1: Educate yourself

Knowing a little bit about the northern lights is very helpful in capturing the phenomenon on film/sensor. In a nutshell, the aurora Borealis is the result of solar wind (protons and elections ejected by the Sun) striking the Earth's atmosphere and exciting molecules of nitrogen, oxygen and so forth. The green auroras are the result of light thrown off by excited nitrogen molecules returning to their ground state. Nitrogen happens to be the abundant component in our atmosphere so green is the most common color we see. Occasionally, other colors such as blues, reds, and violets can be observed. Below are a few links the contain additional background information.

It's also useful to know the latitude at which you live and how the Kp index affects the probability that the northern lights will be visible or not. Spaceweather is probably one of the most useful tools I've discovered when it comes to monitoring the current Kp index as well as short term forecasts for the days ahead. The Geophysical Institute has a site that is very useful as well; it illustrates at where the auroral arcs should be directly overhead at a given latitude and Kp. Being aware of the following will help you with locations scouting (Section 3 will be dedicated to this in a forthcoming part).

Useful Web Resources
Wikipedia Article on the aurora Borealis
Spaceweather
Geophysical Institute

Step 2: Gear Preparation

I'm assuming that just about everyone reading this owns a camera and hopefully a few wide and fast lenses. A digital camera camera is a nice tool to have although Point-and-Shoot cameras can also be used... sometimes. I've been very disappointed with P&S digital cameras the few times I've tried to use a them to capture a star field. I can't imagine trying to use them to capture the northern lights unless the auroral arcs were VERY bright.

I've found it best to travel light when trying to photograph the northern lights in the freezing-ass-cold of winter in the far north. I take 2 or 3 lenses with me at most (my 17-40 f/4, 24 f/1.4 and sometimes a fisheye lens or 50 f/1.4). Thus: there is little point in dragging the kitchen sink with you unless you have some new-fangled ideas to try with your 300 mm f/4 lens but I would strongly suggest leaving your telephoto lenses at home unless you have star tracking mechanisms to prevent star trailing in long exposures (unless you are looking for that kind of effect). Auroral arcs tend to move quickly and somewhat randomly so by the time you compose a shot with your long lens, you've probably missed the action unless it's really freaking fast. And if you have that kind of glass/money, good luck hauling it around in the dark.

Tripods are essential for the long exposures (typically from 1 to 30 seconds and sometimes beyond) needed to capture aurorae. As with other kinds of photography, buy the largest, heavist, sturdiest tripod you can stand to carry or at least be prepared to field modify it to hold up to whatever nature might throw at you. Some of these modifications are listed below.

Venturing out in the colder months can be very detrimental to your gear because of the risk of condensation. I've outlined preparing for condensation in a section of it's very own in a later part.

Gear Checklist

The following gear is essential:

• Camera(s)
• Wide lenses (and fast!)
  
• Cable release
  
• Tripod and appropriate head (ball heads recommended)
• Spare batteries and media cards (be sure you have spare batteries for you flashlights and GPS units as well!)
  
• Camera Bag (large enough but not too big)
  
• Flashlight
• Flashlight with a red filter
• Appropriate clothing
  

The following gear should be strongly considered:

• GPS (it's easy to get lost)
• Compass
  
• Crampons (to help with rocky/icy terrain; falling on your ass can seriously damage your camera gear... and your ass!)
  
• Heavy bag (for rocks, heavy object) with straps
• Carbiners
• Focusing Aids (Hartman Masks/Scheiner disks or a good right angle finder)

Figure 2 - Detachable Camera Strap

One thing you might want to consider is getting a detachable camera strap for your SLR. Here in Iceland, it's not uncommon for it to be windy and a camera strap flapping around in the wind during a long exposure isn't of much help. Tamrac and Lowepro both make very nice straps that fit this description that should not set you back much more than $20. If you are feeling thrifty and/or bold, you could probably cobble one together yourself for MUCH cheaper.

Figures 3 & 4 - The Velcro Strips

I've also found it very useful to put Velcro strips on the legs of your tripod and the "opposite" strip on the back of your cable release. When you are walking around with your tripod/camera assembly, you don't have to worry about your cable release draging on the ground.

Figure 5 - Carbiner

To add a bit of "beef" to your tripod, I've found it useful to carry around a sack I can load with sand, rocks, or whatever might be laying around my location. This will help your tripod from swaying in the wind causing blur in your final image. You can do this by attaching a carbiner or clip to the bottom of the center support of you tripod. In a pinch, you could probably right a loop you could use to apply downward pressure with your foot.

To be continued in Parts 2 and 3!

The Joy of Macro

There is something about taking pictures of things very close up that is very satisfying for me; it might have to do with discovering all manner of detail that is sometimes lost to eyes that see too much information. This flower was given to my wife and I by several Baha'i friends the day after our marriage ceremony. I saw it sitting in the window and felt compelled to find the hidden close up detail. I did not expect these results:

Technical Details: Canon 5D with a Canon EF 100 f/2.8 Macro lens at f/8 for 1/3s x at ISO 800. Taken using a cable release, tripod and mirror lockup mode under natural light.

The Coming of Winter

The days here draw shorter and the midnight sun is more elusive, now hiding itself beyond the northern horizon. The people around me tell me not to talk about autumn, or the lengthening of the days, or the sky soon to be filled with beautiful green auroras. For the native Icelander, winter is a depressing season: one of 20 hours of darkness and strong seasonal depression.

For the past few evenings, it's been quite warm (15+ C) and I've been scouting around at the marsh for locations to photograph the northern lights. Of course, it has still been far to bright at night too see any whispy, green and election powered displays, but that shouldnt stop one from looking.

This shot (above) is stitched together from 11 separate images taken with my Canon 5D.

Wheels that Spin

Not that long ago when I lived in northwest Ohio I of course had a car. It was a fairly beat up '93 or '94 Toyota Corolla that did very well on gas (~30 mpg because it was a manual transmission vehicle and the fact that I loved to coast whenever possible). When I worked at Perstorp I'd usually drive about 32 miles round trip (ouch). I remember when gas went over $2 a gallon and I stopped ALL unnecessary driving (even occasionally skipping classes because to the University and back was 14-16 miles round trip). Anyway, I swore that I would one day find a more cost effective option and environmentally friendly option. Well moving to Iceland pretty much solved that problem.

So when it finally came time to jump across the Atlantic Ocean (or midway across the Atlantic Ocean as is more accurate) I gave my car to an NPO and used my good old feet. This option sucks. Let there be no doubt about it. Blisters, aches, pains and pissing and moaning. Not the best of options BUT it was extremely liberating to be able to walk everywhere.

Of cousre, Akureyri has free public bus transportation that is pretty good in the scheme of public transportation. The satisfaction of walking around with your own two feet and lugging your groceries around is great.

All of this changed recently. My very-soon-to-be father inlaw was at a recycle depot and saw someone tossing a bicycle in the dumpster. Not some piece of crap bike, a Schwinn not more than a year or two old; the handle bars were bent but being the thrifty man he is (and knowing of my need for some sort of transportation), he asked the guy if he could have it. He took it to a bike shop and had it fixed up for about 4000 ISK (~50 USD) and gave it to me.

Now who the hell throws away an otherwise good bike? I'd have to go out on a proverbial limb and say that it's a bit wasteful. Iceland is an interesting place from the perspective of waste; it's a weathy nation largely thought of abroad as being a "green" country. They have geothermal power and water right? Well, being a weathy nation they just throw crap away when they are done with it. Kind of reminds me of somewhere... oh yeah! The United States!

Iceland: clean and unspoiled.

Or so the travel propaganda goes. Greenwashing I say! So the wheels that spin here are those of consumerism. Product gets made, purchased, used, abused, thrown out and 'round and 'round we go. Of course, my wheels are spinning. I must admit, I am throughly enjoying my nearly-free transportation. I guess wastefulness isn't that bad for the thrifty!

The Lady Bug Incident

When I was between the ages of 3 and 5, I encountered a very large lady bug; this one was MUCH larger than others I had seen. It must have been two or maybe three times the size of your average lady bug. It was a marvel unto itself. I indiscriminately smashed it with the bottom of my shoe.

A few minutes later I went and told my mother that I had just killed a HUGE lady bug. I think I expected her to be proud of me (after all, bugs are bad right?). However, I received something I did not expect: a short lecture. She told me that I had probably just killed a "mommy" lady bug and that her offspring would now be sad or some such. She asked me how I would have felt if someone would have walked up to me and smashed me. I think I started crying immediately. The gravity of what I had done set it very quickly: I had taken a life. Over the years to come, my mom passed along all kinds of wonderful information including the fact that lady bugs, which I now know to be a type of beetle, are a wonderful part of the ecosystem: they eat all kinds of parasites that destroy native plants.

Regardless, this lesson about the nature of life had a truly profound impact on how I lived my life; I stopped swatting at mosquitoes (instead opting to blow them off gently); I moved earthworms if they were in my way; and I generally kept a lookout for stray creatures, regardless of their classification or perceptions of their intelligence and sentience, in my path.

A number of years later I was driving home after photographing a sunset out on the prairie. I rabbit hopped directly in front of my vehicle; it lined up nearly perfectly with my forward left tire. Since I was going about 55 mph (which is the speed limit on country roads in the state of Ohio and most other places) I didn't have enough time to react. I felt it pass underneath the tire; I heard the crack of its bones under the weight and pressure of my vehicle. I felt terrible yet I knew that there was little I could have done. These things do happen. But now the photographs I had taken, intent on sharing the beauty of the landscape with others, now had a very real price attached to them. I felt sick as I was reviewing the photos I had taken later that evening.

I remember the lady bug incident. It did not help much; I had still taken a life, albeit unintentionally. I've strive very hard over the years to protect life. It's been ingrained in my since childhood; the information I've gleaned from being involved in Scouting has reinforced my beliefs regarding life as has my education in the sciences and in the Baha'i Faith.

I truly believe that one should leave no trace; that is to take nothing but pictures and leave nothing but footprints.

Making Biodiesel: Part One

Friday evening (while I was at work) I got a phone call from a friend of mine; he hit the 'jackpot' so to speak. An organization was getting rid of approximately 30 gallons of used (only once) peanut oil that they were looking to dispose of and he happened to know of my interesting in chemistry/biodiesel and was rather intent on taking me up on an offer to teach him the basics of making biodiesel. What a golden opportunity. So after picking up the 30-some gallons of still hot oil (which was not small chore) I've started the quest to purify and process this viscous waste into a usable fuel.

To be honest, this is the first time I've made biodiesel although I've done transesterfications before (all those years of taking chemistry, especially organic chemistry, certainly pays off) and I'm not stranger to working a laboratory so I'm relatively confident that I can pull this off successfully. The techniques involved are not particularly sophisticated and can be done with easily obtainable chemicals and equipment. Unfortunately, I no longer have access to a gas chromatograph that I could use to determine the MAG, DAG, and TAG contents of the finished product to see if I'm within the ASTM specifications but a few cleverly devised tests should give me a ballpark idea in terms of contaminants. With any luck, I'll be able to determine the water content of the starting material and the finished product with a Karl Fisher water titrator but I'm not making any promises.

It is usually recommended that beginners start off by making a test batch using fresh and unsullied vegetable oil. Rather than do this, I'm simply going to do a test batch in microscale (~500 mL starting volume of waste peanut oil).


I would like to note that after hauling my fresh and hot load of waste peanut oil, I stored it in a plastic (I suspect it's made from the relatively inert plastic known as HDPE) drum in my backyard at or below zero degrees centigrade. To prevent the infiltration of water, I screwed the cap on as tightly as possible and covered it with a plastic back to prevent any snow from getting in. Water interferes with the reaction that converts triglycerides (fats) into usable alkyl esters. In later installments, I'll talk more about water and it's negative role in the process.

Crude Waste Vegetable Oil ("Pixels of Green"? I think my blog is misnamed, more like yellowish brown)

The first step in the process is filtration. It is essential to remove any particulate matter from the starting material (waste vegetable oil also known as WVO). To do this, I've decided the cheapest approach is to use a technique called gravimetric filtration using a flask I bought at an antique store and a few coffee filters. To get the coffee filter into the mouth of the flask (a jar would have worked) I unfolded the stack of filters and folded them in half twice and opened the assembly before placing it in the flask; once inserted, I secured it with a rubber band.

The Filtration Setup - not pretty but functional

The still not-quite-room-temperature oil (and floating chunks of brown) was loaded onto the filter and left to drip into the flask. Unfortunately, this process is slow.

Separation - The filter doing it's job... slowly

After several slow hours of filtering the first liter, my work was done. The now-room temperature and filtered starting material is clear and light-ish yellow. A second round of filtration might be advisable, but we'll see.

Crude but Filtered Starting Material - The first few mL of raw material

Vacuum filtration through a filter would be a much faster way of removing the particulate matter. Eventually, I'd like to build and aspirator so that vacuum filtration would be possible.

More to come in part 2...

Why We Plant

Introduction

While I was waiting for my flight back to the United States, I started to think about the environmental issues that we face today. Of course, the "largest" and arguably the most daunting problem we face is global warming but intermixed with this challenge are other related problems. Almost all of them come back to the same fundamental flaws in our way of thinking and the diffusion of responsibility. So I grabbed my pencil and starting writing a few essays as I sat there in Keflavik International Airport.

Why We Plant

I've had a lot of negativity toned conversations with people about planting trees. One person went as far as to say that it was an ultimately futile act! Being a slightly stubborn person, I cling to my belief that planting trees is an important act and in more ways than one. At the very least, trees are symbols of the natural world and the act of planting them in the eyes of many could be equated to worship in a sense. It is also well known that trees are carbon dioxide sponges and even though they might only be temporary stores of carbon dioxide, they are a vital part of the equilibrium that helps maintain our living spaces. The root systems of trees are also exceptionally important in maintaining soil quality and preventing erosion. And most importantly, to plant them is to take part in the process of life.

It is the life process itself that we must all bring ourselves to understand. The synergistic aspects of our ecosystem that help maintain our ability to function in the environment are often the ones we carelessly overlook. Perhaps this is because from a historical standpoint, the natural world has always been a resource that has been there and thus will continue to exist for our convenience; that is to say the world was seen a thing there for the taking. While this has been the historic attitude in the "western" world, the philosophies of the Far East and those of the native tribes on the North and South American continents have always taken a more synergistic viewpoint on one's interactions with the natural world. To neglect the importance of that synergy is to fail to understand our continued existence. Examples of this are prevalent in our world; just look outside and think about how often we are willing to sacrifice a stretch of land for a new shopping mall. We comfort ourselves by thinking about how much wilderness there is (or more realistically isn't) out there.

Planting trees (or other plants for that matter) gives us a little window into that deeper understanding if we allow it to be an uplifting and meaningful experience. Consider the experience of planting a tree; from holding the soil in your hand and feel the dirt between your fingers; to place a seed or sampling into the Earth; to watch it grow and blossom with time; to understand the exchange of gases, water and nutrients across the cellular membranes; to watch the sun move across the sky and know that its photons are providing energy of a sapling's metabolic processes; to see the interaction of the tree with the broader macroscape and its dependence upon other parts of the system; and finally to know that you put that tree there. Perhaps this is to know something of God and His Universe.

Thoughts of Light

I've recently returned from Iceland where I spent a month job hunting and walking around my favorite fjord. While I was there, the weather was less than hospitable; it rained or snowed about 85% of the time with the occasional spell of high velocity winds. Defiantly not ideal weather for taking photographs. Nonetheless, I did manage to catch a few spectacular glimpses of the Northern Lights on a few clear evenings.

In the few months I spent away from Iceland I really missed the bright green auroras I had seen during my last stay. I frequently caught myself looking up into the light polluted skies over Sylvania hoping to catch a glimmer of green to the north only to see a few of the brighter stars and the very bright glow of sodium halide bulbs transmitting their orange-ish glow. When I left Iceland I knew I would miss the densely packed sky (although I must admit stars are getting harder to see because of my worsening eye sight). Most fortunately, however, Iceland did not disappoint as I was able to observe the Northern Lights on 3 or so occasions.

The first occasion was October 25th and quite luckily a stream of solar wind sparked a mild geomagnetic storm producing beautiful auroral arcs in the southern sky. The Kp index was around 5 at the time the image below was captured. Unfortunately because of very strong winds, I had to keep the tripod pressed against the ground with the weight of my body. To try to keep the exposure times as brief as possible, I set the camera to aperture priority (f/4) and set the ISO all the way to 1600. Fortunately, I had a cable release with me and my camera is blessed with mirror lockup capability. The star field is not as sharp as I would have liked and I'm looking into ways to improve my focusing when it comes to distant objects that are less bright than the moon.
The second time I observed, on th evening of the 14th of November, the display of the northern lights was nothing spectacular. Active auroral displays were visible to the northwest and I did not stay to observe for long because a system of clouds was quickly moving in.



The next image I took on November 16th while looking for Comet 17P in the northern sky. Again, the star field could be sharper.




I've really come to appreciate these glimpses of the Northern Lights during the solar minimum. Being out in the darkness of night with these brilliant displays of green over head can be quite spectacular; just standing there watching quiet arcs or more vibrant curtains unfold from the heavens and realizing that the source of all this a stream of particles from the sun interacting with the Earth's magnetic field is just amazing. How much energy is literally over head? If this is the solar minimum, I can't wait to see what the solar maximum has in store.

In the RAW

For a long while, I feared using RAW. RAW is an image format that captures data from your camera and drops it like a rock; it's just the raw data; no post processing. The processing of the image is left soley in the hands of the user which can be a bit frightening.

The Pro's and Con's of RAW are straight foward: you maximize control and preserve what your camera saw granting you maximum (or nearly maximum) flexibiltiy. One of the few cons are that fact that the files are huge (my 10.1 mp camera's RAW files are usually on an order of magnitude of 10-15 megabytes per image).

Here is an image I capture using both RAW and jpeg. Below is the Sean-processed RAW file (maybe I'll get around to processing that jpeg eventually to see if I can match the level of depth and sharpness as the RAW file). Surprisingly, by the time I tweeked the RAW data, I needed VERY FEW adjustments in Photoshop CS2. What a time saver!

Reflections on Macro Photography

Macro photography has become one of my best beloved niches within the field. I was exceptionally excited after purchasing my first macro diopter (which is useable with any 58 mm lens) due to the flexibility it gave me to capture large pictures of small things. For the longest time I had it coupled to my Canon 28-105 USM lens and I subsequently learned to enjoy exploring the world of the small by crawling around in stream beds, fields, and wherever else I could not-so-easily access. Mosses have always been of particular interest to me; each species is uniquely colored and shaped.

Caption: Entangled Hearts

I have since passed this macro attachment on to a loved on and I now used a true macro lens (a Canon 100 mm f/2.8 macro lens) that I purchased used. This lens allows me to achieve a 1x magnification which means that things are captured “at life size”.

Technical notations aside, appreciating the parts of the world that are frequently to “insignificant” for us to notice exposes our great over sight as a society. We overlook the organic nature of system in which we live; a collection of very small organisms can have a tremendous influence on the air we breathe and the water we drink! Yet, the significance of such things escapes us. I am reminded of a quotation of Bahá'u'llah:

So perfect and comprehensive is His creation that no mind nor heart however keen or pure, can ever grasp the nature of the most insignificant of His creatures; much less fathom the mystery of Him Who is the Day Star of Truth, Who is the invisible and unknowable Essence.

(from Gleanings from the Writings of Baha'u'llah, p. 61)

As a species, we must take to heart what we have learned about man’s relative insignificance and the significance of the seemingly insignificant.

Caption: Hard at work

Caption: Butterfly

Caption:Blades of grass

Caption:Red Trillium

Pixels of Green

I have not updated for a while mostly becuase the image hosting service (the awesomeness that is Zoto) was in the process of moving between servers. I will be replacing the photographs in old blogs with updated link.

I have also chosen "Pixels of Green" as a title because I feel that it represents the scope of both my professional work and my related photography.

Enjoy!

Links for the Photographic Arts

General:

Photo.net

BluePixel

Morgue File

Planet Neil - a good resource

DP Challenge - a good place for challenging competitions

File Hosting

Pbase

Zoto

Equipment reviews

Bob Atkins - Frequent reviews and helpful information

DP Review - Camera reviews (now owned by Amazon.com)

Fred Miranda

Landscape:

Luminous Landscape

Other Photographers

Photo Box

Flash and Strobes

Strobist - a good flash and strobe blog

Happy Birthday Camera! Photos from 2006

A Year of Steady Growth and Learning

(if you are here for just the pictures, scroll down)

Today is January 7th, 2007. One year ago today, I purchased my Rebel XT. In that one year, the camera body has seen over 25,000 shutter cycles (translation: I've taken 2.5x10^4 photos) and traveled thousands of kilometers. 9 months into its life it started having problems (over exposing by 2 stops in all modes) so I sent it back to Canon for calibration. During that time, I moved on to a newer camera to ensure I could take care of paying (!) customers during the gap. Once the camera came back, I put my trusty Rebel XT back into service. Within the next week or so, it will change hands and find itself in the loving embrace of my Icelandic girlfriend Hugrún (I just hope she doesnt drop it in Denmark like she did with my Fuji Finepix E550 :P).

My initial experiences with photography were odd. I started playing with cameras 3 years ago. Trying to capture beauty with a 2.1 megapixel digital camera from 2000 is not easy. No manual controls, limited resolution and odd looks from people higher up on the totem pole. Learning how to see can be difficult and not having the right tools only makes it more frustration. It was around this time that I heard the famous mantra, "you don't need a good camera to take good pictures!" While certainly true, taking hip shots with a disposable 35mm camera from a scrapbook is one thing. I had something else in mind. I didn't want to take "good pictures", I wanted to produce "good art".

A few months passed and I met my then-girlfriend's father who happened to be a camera fiend (as I would soon become). He showed me his Nikon system. Although I wasn't crazy about how the Nikon body felt in my hand, holding a 600 mm lens with a 2x teleconverter is an interesting experience. I didn't understand the terms he used at the time, but from that moment on I set out to learn everything I could.

After that experience, I starting thinking more about composition and simplicity. Looking towards an SLR system, I longed for what my wallet could not pay for. My lack of money did not stop me from picking up a lens or two along the way and the sturdiest tripod I could find. I happened upon a Canon EF 28-105 USM lens for about $100 USD used. After a whole year of saving and some frustration with Amazon.com's payment system, I went to a local retailer and purchased my Rebel XT.

Photos from 2006 with my Rebel XT

Iceland: Revisited (Part 2)

Just last evening, I reserved a flight to Iceland in mid January. Although taking photographs is not the primary reason for my visit, it will without a doubt consume at least as much time as it did during my last trip. This time, however, I'm staying for two months (as opposed to three weeks) and the temperatures will more than likely be significantly colder and darker. Needless to say, I'm looking forward to both the moderate-cold temperatures and the long nights (makes for good snow and ice landscape work AND should make capturing the depth of space and northern lights easy).

In preparation for my trip, I've been re-editing the photographs from this summer. This group of photographs are from two areas: the first is Godafoss (literal translation: God's waterfall) and the second is the area around a Lake Myvatn.

Godafoss

Over the Falls

Myvatn

Blue Water

Swans in Tepid Water

Geothermal

Red rocks

Rockscape

On the Road to Myvatn

Farm

Marsh Flowers

Boiling Mud

Iceland: Revisited (Part 1)

While doing a truly massive backup of this year's photographic work, I stumbled upon some of the photos I took while in Iceland in May and June. When I take the picture I see something worth capturing. However, what the camera sees and what I see are not always in unity. With time and practice I've learned how to head off the problem while taking the picture but I've also gotten a lot better at getting what I want out of the picture with the help of Photoshop CS2 and a few other freeware programs.

One of the biggest problems I encounter is images that are highly dynamic; that is: images that have a large contrast range between light and dark areas. I, of course, want to capture the detail in both the dark areas and the bright areas. Unfortunately, cameras don't work that way. You either end up overexposing or underexposing your image. I tend to underexpose so I can find a middle ground although this has an unfortunate side effect: noise. Noise is bad. There are ways of dealing with noise. Photoshop offers some so-so noise reduction filters. By "so-so" I mean they suck. Sorry Adobe, you could do better. NeatImage is a small but expensive piece of software that does MUCH better. Take an image you took at ISO 800 plop it in NeatImage and it looks like something taken on ISO 400 or slower film! Observe:

BEFORE (as my Canon 350D saw things)

AFTER (post Level adjustment, shadow and highlight adjustment, a slight kick to the saturation and noise reduction using NeatImage)

This isn't exactly a fair comparison since I also made adjustments but you get the point. Okay. Enough soap box.