Newhalem’s role in generating power was reflected in the local park. It had a center section that had been designed to emphasize the position that electricity has in the town with the pillars supporting the roof frame and the frame itself having an electrical theme. The big insulators were most obvious but it wasn’t hard to spot other elements too. A rather individual bit of styling and one that appealed to me.
Returning from a work trip to Dallas, I was flying out of DFW. I got to the airport in plenty of time so, with a bit of time to kill, I decided to take a ride on the train that runs between the terminals. It makes a loop of the whole airport in both directions. I decided to see what you could see from the train and did a whole loop of the airport.
First, it is not a great photo platform. Aside from shooting through the windows (which were actually not that bad), the stations are not well located for viewing the ramps and, when it has a clearer view, it is moving at speed and is a pretty unsteady base for shooting. There are always reflections too, of course.
DFW is an American hub and that is pretty obvious as you head around the terminals. No shortage of American jets including a few remaining MD-80s and one of the special scheme jets too. The longer view across the gates with the multiple fins was a shot you could get at a number of places. It wasn’t just American though. Obviously other airlines use the airport. It happened that a British Airways 747-400 had pushed as we got there and the train runs around the perimeter of that ramp so we saw it from almost all sides.
If you have a bit of spare time while waiting for a flight at DFW, I would definitely take a ride around the terminals. It is a lot more interesting than sitting waiting at a gate and the food options weren’t great either so take a ride and see what is going on and where people are going to and coming from.
Some plants bloom frequently. Others bloom once a year. What is slightly more unusual is a plant that only blooms once every 7-10 years. The Titan Arum is one such plant and an example lives in the Amazon Spheres in Seattle. Purely by coincidence, we happened to visit the Spheres when it was blooming. We had actually missed the peak opening by a day and it was starting to close up again. It had also had a hole cut into the side to allow pollination artificially. But this was a small price to pay for seeing something so unusual.
One feature the plant is known for is a smell of rotting flesh when it is blooming. This is supposed to attract insects that then assist with pollination. There was a bit of an odor but, to be honest, I wasn’t conscious of it being too bad. Maybe there is a peak period of stinkiness and we missed it or maybe the story has been slightly overblown. Either way, it was very lucky that we happened to be there during the blooming process and now we might have to wait a few years before it happens again.
I was in southern California for a day and I flew in and out of John Wayne Airport in Orange County. On the approach to the airport, I got a good view of Tustin. This is a retired military airfield and, in its earlier days, it had been an airship base. It still has two large airship hangars in the same style as those I have seen before at Moffett Field and Tillamook.
After my meetings had wrapped up and I was heading back to the airport, I took a few minutes to divert past the hangars and to grab a couple of shots of them. They are impressive structures and appear to be in great condition. I have no idea whether they are used much at this point and who looks after them but either they are well taken care of or the southern California climate doesn’t cause them too much trouble.
While I was staying in the same hotel as last time during my recent visit to Tokyo, I was on the opposite side of the hotel. This gave me a view across to a large radio mast a couple of kilometers north of Minato. In the early evening, the mast picked up the setting sun quite well. Once things had got dark, it was well illuminated and hard to miss!
Shooting parallel approaches at SFO is always fun. Despite the fact it is a relatively regular occurrence there, it is still a nice photographic challenge. So often, the approaches are not at exactly the same time and the planes end up being further apart than you want for the shot. Fisherman’s Park provided an alternative view of the approaches and also gave you new options. While the jets might be offset, you got them coming towards you, passing you and going away which meant you could use the different perspectives to bring the jets into one frame.
It didn’t hurt that there were quite a few parallel approaches while we were there. This provided plenty of opportunities to try out some different shots. It was also good to go wider sometimes to give some context to how the parallel approaches looked. This is lost if you go too close on them which is something that I tend to do.
While we were happy to see the humpbacks that I covered in this post, we were really hoping to see some orcas. There is a resident group that lives in the area and transients. We didn’t mind which ones we got. We were just hoping to spot some. We were not disappointed. There were quite a few orcas out hunting. They were quite scattered. Our previous orca trip had followed a pod for a long period and they had stayed relatively close together. This time we saw individuals or pairs spread out across the water.
The orcas are such cool looking whales. The black and white coloring is distinctive and the male whales have such a large dorsal fin that they stand out clearly. Getting shots of more than one at once is a touch tricky. Usually they surface individually and one will be diving back under as another breaks surface. I did get the occasional time when they were above the water together, though.
One whale was heading parallel to the shore as we went the other way. Between us was a fishing boat. The guys on the boat must have had a great view as it went by. For us, our pace matched theirs and it appeared that the whale was always just in front of the fishing boat! With the amount of orcas we saw, it was a very successful trip.
The day I was flying out of Narita was not a good day for weather. Another typhoon was approaching and the rain ahead of the storm had reached us. I did initially visit the viewing terrace in the terminal but, as the rain started, I decided to head inside and go to the Delta lounge which has a great view of the runway and the ramp. It wasn’t long before the heavens opened. Departures reversed direction as the wind shifted.
The arriving jets were now throwing up huge clouds of spray as they selected reverse. Combined with the heavy rain already, they were pretty obscured. Editing the photos allows you to do a lot of work with the contrast to bring out more of the detail but the real view was surprisingly limited. Some of the shots are so hidden by rain that there is little that can be done with them. Departures also did a good job throwing up lots of water in their wake.
The amount of moisture in the air meant the inlets would often be fogged, even for the jets that were landing. Trailing vortices were showing on climb out and there was lots of vapor over the wings after takeoff. The only downside to all of this was that the cloudy background makes it harder to apprecaite the effects that were on show. It does show, though, that a rainy day is not necessarily one to be ignored from a photography perspective. You can sometimes get some interesting shots in conditions that seem very unappealing. (It doesn’t hurt to be shooting this from indoors in a warm and dry room with a ready supply of food and beverages.)
The south end of San Francisco Bay has a number of areas that are encircled with walls that allow the water to be cut off. These are used to dry out salt beds for harvesting. The sun evaporates the water and the salt is left when all the water is gone. After harvesting, the tide can be allowed to flood the beds again and the process repeated. One cool thing about these beds is that, presumably as a result of algae, they can turn some interesting colors as the water evaporates. I was flying in to SFO for work and we turned right over the beds on to the approach. With the sun out, the colors looked excellent.
SkyFair was a great time to see a bunch of warbirds flying around. It didn’t stop the normal operations of the airport though. As the day wore on, a Gulfstream made an arrival. It didn’t do anything special for the remaining crowds but it was still something a little different to add to what had been a great day.
