ISO 400, f/2, 1/125

The best part about this game was the comeuppance three of the members of the other team received. These guys are brothers that had played on my kids’ teams in the past, but this year they’ve decided to participate at a different YMCA. When we entered the gym 20 minutes prior to the game, they started talking smack non-stop about a) how our team was going down, b) how they made the team last year when they were on it, and c) how we were just going to be crushed.

I love the celebration in the background of the second shot

At the end of the first period, they were losing 4-0. Mid-way through the second period (6-0), I walked by one of them who was still keeping up the bravado claiming that we were “going down” just as soon as he could get back on the court. To which I added “and scoring 7 goals.” The final, by my tally, (the Y doesn’t officially keep score, but all the parents and players try to) was 8-1. Boy was their celebration long and boisterous when they scored that one point. For the rest of their team, I was happy for them. For the sake of the three brothers, I really hoped for a shutout. No, not terribly sportsman like of me, but I think their egos needed a bit of a smack-down. That smack-down came when the final point of the game was scored by our team directly from the face off at center court–the oldest of the brothers was the goalie and had no idea it had gone through. I was too busy talking with the other spectator-parents to notice the mood of the three brothers at the end of the game.

Photographically, the biggest challenge is that with the open aperture, the depth of field is so narrow that it looks like most of the pictures are blurry. They aren’t–its just that the net (or the glove, or the spot on the floor 3 feet to the left of the player) are sharp, but the DOF is so narrow that everything else goes bokeh.

So, maybe next game I’ll try to compromise and shoot at ISO 800 and f/4. That’s still better than I could have gotten with my kit lens at 35mm (f/5.3) but it should render more of the photo in focus. And of course shooting kids moving at broken-neck speed makes keeping the focus point on a face challenging. Fortunately we’ve entered the digital “spray and pray” era, and I can shoot 100+ shots only to post nine.

Wait a second! The “Copyright” property has the value “Copyright.LG Electronics Inc.” Seriously?

Are they trying to imply that they have Copyrights to any picture taken with their phone? That is completely asinine.

Of the other cameras we own, Canon Powershot A40, Canon Powershot A95, Fuji Finepix S5200 and Nikon D60, exactly zero put anything in the Copyright property, if they have it at all.

So, although I like the phone a lot, this little detail is just crazy. Copyright law is gray enough with all kinds of horrible pitfalls. Now the company that made the camera is attempting to assert copyright over the images I took with it? Uh, no way in hell. Not that my work is all that valuable, but it is my work.  Not LGs.

My next project will be to find a way to script the removal of that property from the files.

Around 12:30AM, I loaded the camera gear into the car and headed out to see what I could find. My first stop was a near by train track, hoping to find some signal lights. No such luck–no lights in the area, and fog too thick to be safe wandering up and down the tracks. As I was driving away from the tracks, I noticed that stop lights where casting a nice tunnel of light, so I went to a nearby intersection that I imagined would be picturesque. Only there wasn’t any fog in that neighborhood.

At that point I was on High street, so I figured there would be lots of interesting lights and signs as I drove down through campus and Short North. The fog continued to be patchy, such that areas with interesting lights didn’t have fog, and foggy areas didn’t have interesting lights.

Finally I made it to the south end of  Short North where there was just enough fog that I figured I could make a few shots. I found a parking spot and went to pull out my camera and tripod. Except that the tripod wasn’t there. I had grabbed my “light bag” which normally has two light stands, two umbrellas, and the tripod. For whatever reason the tripod wasn’t in there, and I hadn’t double checked before I left.

I was so frustrated at myself that I compounded the first mistake with another–I didn’t even try to make a shot without the tripod. This, to me, is the bigger mistake. I know how to hold a camera in a steady stance up to 1/10 second. I know how to brace a camera against a light pole that probably could have gotten me 1/4 second. And we’re talking foggy, so the grain of ISO 1600 wouldn’t have been a problem. Would 1600 + 1/4 been enough to capture a dark, moody, atmospheric shot in an urban bar district? Almost certainly.

So I returned home after an hour of driving in the fog with nothing to show for my efforts.

I did not make this shot. But I should have.

The caption is my lesson for last night:

Forgot to take my tripod and had to use our car for support.

I thought about that for a moment. I tried to ignore the voice in my head saying “something just ain’t right”. I showed the shirt to Anne and exclaimed “How cool is this!” But then I just couldn’t ignore it any longer: “Isn’t the line in the book ‘let the wild rumpus start’?” She was pretty sure it was “start” not “begin” also. I just couldn’t buy the shirt with the lingering fear that the quote was wrong, so we went to a nearby bookstore to confirm the quote. Yup, we were right, and the idiots at Warner Brothers who made the shirt couldn’t even get it right. T-shirt Fail.

Maybe the line was changed in the movie, and it is “Let the wild rumpus begin” and it wasn’t an edit failure. OK, then it is a script writing failure. The book has maybe 100 words. I can totally understand expanding on the book, but there is no good reason to change the most iconic quote of the book.

After listening to music on a call today, my friend Kevin wondered how many people would be required on a call before the likelihood of getting hold music exceeded 70%. I quickly put together this formula:

Np * Pn * Ph = Pm

Np is the number of people on the call.

Pn is the probability of noobs being on the call

Ph is the probability that an average person will need to put the call on hold

Pm is the probability of hearing hold music on the call.

I estimated the probability of Noobs (Pn) as 20%, and the probability of needing to put a call on hold at 10%.

Np * 0.20 * 0.10 = 0.70

Solving for Np,

Np = 0.70 / (0.20 * 0.10) = 35

So, at around 35 people on a call, it becomes very likely that someone will subject the conference call to hold music.

Kevin disagrees with my Ph and thinks that should be 20%, which means at only 18 callers, we’re at a high likelihood of being irritated by hold music. He’s going to start tracking data so see which of us is right.

What struck me most during the interview (you’ll have to listen to it–the web page isn’t a transcript) was his inability to describe his artwork in a way that is accessible to the rarefied, erudite listeners of NPR. Even the interviewer and producer were flummoxed by his rambling, obtuse, impenetrable description of his artwork. The weirdness starts at 1:15 “it wasn’t exploring the putative differentiators…chained to the academic deconstructivist theory…new modus operandi and conceptualism … reacting to the cumulative effect of sequencing…” But then he’s able to “dumb it down” a bit later, at 2:50: “I would say that anytime we meet a person it is impossible for us to not somehow figure out what they’re about. We start doing that instinctively. Remember, I’m dumbing this down because you asked me to dumb it down.”

So, his artwork is about getting us to strip away our assumptions about a person by removing most of the context which would normally help us assess that person. His artwork, for us dummies, is about getting us to leave behind our prejudices. That is worthy artwork indeed. Its unfortunate that he has such difficulty making it accessible to the masses.

As a budding photographer, I’m fully aware that photography is part technology, part artwork. I’ve been spending a lot of time figuring out the technology, while attempting to develop my own sense of what I want to capture artistically. I certainly have a long way to go in both. When I heard his first description of his artwork, my first thought was “wow, I really don’t want to become someone like that”. I want to be able to describe my vision or purpose and have people immediately get it.

We were in the Veterans Memorial auditorium watching some performances. I’m not sure who was there first, but two people unwittingly conspired to significantly interrupt traffic in one of the aisles of the auditorium. One was a self-important dork with his video camera on a tripod. His tripod was half in the aisle, half in front of a seat, and he had his butt sticking into the aisle as he tried to determine if he could get some video of the ladies dancing on the stage in traditional Indian dress. His butt alone took up about 1/3 of the aisle as he messed with his video camera.

The second person was a mother who’d brought her kid into the auditorium in a stroller. That was bad sign number one. She evidently had missed the areas outside of the doors where EVERYONE ELSE was parking their kid carriers, and decided that her wittle bumpykins would be better served by sitting in a stroller than in a seat like the other kids (he was probably about 4). So where is this stroller parked? Right next to Mr-Tripod-In-The-Aisle. HULLOOO? I watched as a dozen or so folks turned sideways and stepped gingerly so as to pass between these two. The mother was just sitting there as they went by, not thinking that perhaps her stroller was causing an obstruction. His butt, of course, didn’t notice a thing except the video camera.

I secretly hoped for a minor oopsie when he left the video camera (still atop the tripod-in-the-aisle) to take his dSLR down closer to the stage. Some kids nearly tripped over one of the tripod legs as they went scampering up the aisle. Alas, he returned to find his video camera still intact, and his tripod legs unbent.

These people, with their rolling laptop bags, have, by any objective standard, the easiest lives that working people have ever had. Yet they have bought briefcases with wheels to minimize their effort.

I understand using wheeled bags when traveling–luggage can easily reach 50 pounds, and that’s a weight most people are not accustomed to carrying around. But 10 pounds, that you work with every day? Do these people buy milk in half-gallon jugs just so they don’t have all that extra weight going from their fridge to their counter top? How easy does life have to be?

I followed a guy out to the parking lot today who was maybe 35, appeared reasonably trim, and was towing a rolling laptop bag that sounded empty from the sound of the wheels on the concrete. I don’t know, maybe he has back problems. Maybe his deltoids are severly injured. Or maybe its just one more labor saving device so that we don’t ever have to really put forth any physical effort.

My next invention: briefcase lifts for cars (like this one for wheelchairs) so that no one has to lift that 10 pound bag themselves.

Last year Anne decided to start a precedent: older kids who didn’t make some attempt at a costume didn’t get candy. One parent of a teenager ended up yelling at Anne from the sidewalk because of Anne’s refusal of candy to a teenager.

This year I handed out candy as Anne went with the kids. I maintained the precedent of refusing candy on these rather hastily constructed grounds: kids obviously over 12 had to be in costume (or mask, or something) to get candy. If their costume wasn’t obvious to me, I asked “What are you dressed up as?” If they didn’t have a quick answer more original than “myself” or “a kid” I shooed them off the porch.

The first kid to whom I denied candy had replied “I’m dressed up like that guy when he was 17!” as he pointed at his dad on the sidewalk. His dad laughed and told him he’d been too old last year. “Busted” the dad called. The kid was good natured and walked away.

I turned away probably 10-12 kids out of the hundred or so who requested candy. All of them were surprised. Most of them were reasonable about it. One 14 year old complained to his dad in a petulant whiny voice “He won’t give me any candy ’cause I ain’t got no costume!” His dad replied “Come on. You don’t need to beg for candy. I don’t get it, but you don’t need to beg.” The kid stood on the step of my porch fat and dumbfounded that I wouldn’t give him candy. I gave candy to other kids as he stood there, then waved him off my porch.

The other people who drive me crazy on Halloween–folks who take their infants trick-or-treating. One couple had twins less than a year old, in strollers, in little pumpkin onesies. They came up, pushing their kids in front of them, and said “trick or treat”. There were no other kids with them. They were collecting candy for children for whom the candy would be dangerous. Dangerous. I assumed, based on the weight of the parents, that they would do the right thing and eat the candy themselves. Another quarter-ton mother, after I’d given candy to the rest of her brood, shoved a bag at me with the explanation “its for the one in the stroller”. Yeah, um, of course.

Shortly before the close of beggars’ night, another teen came up to the door. I stepped out, using my best Tyler Durden cool voice “Hey man.” “Hey” was his reply, not really looking at me. After a difficult pause (which I enjoyed) I prodded “What goin’ on?” “Just out gettin some candy.” “Oh yeah? What are you dressed up as?” He pointed at his shirt, thought, dropped his hand, and said “Nothin’ really.” “Good luck with that.” “Yeah, thanks,” he said sheepishly, and walked away.

My last beggar of the night? Petulant whiny fat boy. He walks up as I’m blowing out the candles in the pumpkins. “You already came here.” “Yeah, and you didn’t give me any candy.” “Because you aren’t dressed up.” “He’s a rapper” his dad calls from the sidewalk. “I’m a rapper” petulant boy exclaims. I gave him a box of milk duds. Pathetic. How humiliating.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not a scrooge with the candy. I talk to the kids who are dressed up. I try to guess at the interesting ones. I tell all the princesses they’re beautiful. I talk about hair-care with the werewolves.  I wave and smile to the parents who call up “Thank you”. I play with the middle schoolers saying “Merry Halloween” and “Happy New Year”. I try to scare the older kids just a bit, but I take my mask off for any kid that shows the slightest hesitation. But the kids who are too cool to dress up are too cool to get my candy. Sorry, I’m saving it for the kids who are trying just a little bit.

Don’t get me wrong–the kids have fun and we laughed and cheared and tipped the performers. But $60 for a family of four to get in the door, plus tips at most performances, plus $34 for lunch–feels like a bit much only to see the same shows and and shop at the same merchants. Anne and I are currently planning on skipping next year. We’ll see how that flys with the kids.