Author Archives: Rob

What Does Humble Mean

This isn’t a photography post although it arose from a photographer. It actually goes much further back but I was reading a blog post by Syl Arena, a great photographer who wrote a couple of books, one of which I have. I like the book and learned a lot from it. He was writing about updating his bio and this updated bio included the following sentence.

“I’m humbled to say I have written two bestselling books on lighting…”

This caught my eye since I think the use of humble has changed recently. I have heard people accepting awards talking about being humbled. Here, Syl is talking about being humbled to have sold lots of books. I really think people don’t understand humble anymore.

If you think you are something special and then learn that you aren’t, that could be a humbling experience. If you meet someone who is demonstrably more capable than you are, that can be a humbling experience. If you find yourself stranded in the middle of a vast ocean with no way home, that can be a humbling experience. Being told you are great or seeing proof that you are is not humbling!

Why is it used then? I don’t know. I have a thought as to what it might be but I can’t get inside the heads of others and say why they use it and I am certainly not trying to put Syl down in this case – he is just an example of something happening a lot. Maybe it is a fashion that is being followed. However, I suspect it is a way of pointing out that you are not big headed about your success while acknowledging you have been successful. Being grateful would seem a more appropriate term but I don’t control others and I probably won’t find myself in a situation that needs me to worry about addressing such success. If I do, I wonder whether I will really be feeling humble?

Some Skycrane Footage

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The arrival of Erickson in town to carry out a lift was described in a previous post which you can check out here. While I was predominantly shooting stills for this lift, I continue to grab some video footage when the opportunity presents itself. I have put together a short video of the lift and you can see it below.

Old Pandas

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We were talking about baby pandas at home the other day. Apparently, San Diego zoo has a new baby panda. This reminded me about a trip we made to the zoo there in 2002. They had a new panda on display at that time. I got a couple of shots of it on film – hence the fact that there are only a few shots as opposed to a huge bunch of them! Anyway, this young panda was happily playing in its enclosure while large crowds gathered to watch.

I was fascinated by the bear’s interest in trying to hurt itself. It seemed constantly to be hanging from a branch upside down with a very tenuous grip on the wood. It looked like an accident was inevitable – especially since young animals haven’t always learned the extent of their capabilities. Since all pandas are owned by the Chinese government, I was imagining a fall and injury causing a diplomatic incident. Of course, nothing happened. Meanwhile, I dug out the old shots and here they are.

The Mighty Skycrane

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Regular readers of this blog will know how much I enjoy shooting helicopter lift operations in the city. Midwest Helicopters are the local operator and a great bunch of people who have helped me out lots of times. This lift proved to be one of those times although it wasn’t them doing the job. They had finished a job in the city on a very snowy morning and I was exchanging messages with their Chief Pilot when he mentioned that Erickson were in town for a job.

Erickson specialize in lifting very heavy equipment. Midwest fly Sikorsky S-58T aircraft which are good for about 4,500lbs. Construction Helicopters in Michigan (who have made appearances on this blog too) have S-58T aircraft as well but tend to bring S-61Ns to Chicago since they have a higher capacity of up to 8,000lbs so can lift loads too heavy for the local guys. Erickson are a different story altogether. They build and operate the S-64 which can lift a whopping 25,000lbs. This is obviously way above the capabilities of the other operators and way more than most jobs can justify.

Consequently, an appearance by Erickson in town is not so common and is worthy of a look. Moreover, they were lifting just across the river from my home so how could I not go? I have worked on site with Erickson before and so contemplated calling to arrange to be there for this job. However, I was suffering with a bit of a cold and the weather forecast did not look promising so I decided to not try and be on site but to shoot from outside the safety perimeter. Since the lift was alongside the river, getting good shots should not prove to be difficult.

Come the morning of the lift, visibility was terrible and snow was falling hard. All this could be seen from my window so I didn’t need to be out on the ground. Instead, I got ready at a leisurely pace and grabbed a couple of cameras when the weather started to improve. The streets around the Hyatt Regency hotel (the location of the job) had been closed for a while which I found curious since they obviously weren’t going to start until the weather cleared. Lifting in poor conditions is tricky enough but getting to the site in the first place is more of a problem.

As the weather started to clear, I talked to one of the crews maiming the perimeter and he confirmed that they had launched and were on their way, Time to wait. The S-64 is a big beast and you don’t have any questions when it arrives. It’s sound travels well and you know it is coming. Fortunately, there were a bunch of loads to go up (and some to come down too), so there was plenty of opportunity to shoot at different locations. Moving across the river provided some alternative views of the lift. Meanwhile, the weather was continuing to improve until it was actually sunny. Sadly, the lifting location was always in shade but you can’t have everything. Watching the downwash blow the snow around both on the ground and on the roof was quite amusing.

The lift seemed to go well and I covered everything I was after. I also got some video which I shall share later.

Gulls During the Break

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The eagles and the ducks got our attention but the gulls were also around on the Mississippi. Gulls don’t tend to get much interest but, if you have been standing around for a while waiting for something to happen, the gulls start to be a bit more interesting. Is this the bird shooting equivalent of going ugly early? They even did some diving for us close in so I guess I should be a bit more grateful. We put it down to tracking practice and we will stick with that I think.

First Crossing Shot of the Season

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Just a quick joke. I was out shooting wildlife when there were a couple of airliners overhead. It is a bit early in the year for airshows but I guess this might count as my first crossing shot of two jets for the year. Hopefully there will be a few more!

Ducks in Flight

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The eagle trip to the Mississippi provided plenty of times when the big birds were either elsewhere or just sitting in the trees wondering what to do next. This meant either doing nothing ourselves of having a practice on the other wildlife passing by. There were a few ducks in flight. Since these are small targets, they have to be reasonably close to make a shot even worth trying. However, a couple of times they came close so why not?

Wintery Suburbs

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Coming home to Chicago recently, we were landing just after some snow had blown through the area. We made a slightly unusual approach to Midway and did some maneuvering pretty low over the suburbs near the airport. I love this sort of thing since I find the rows of houses really fascinating from above. I managed to snap a few shots out of the window as we came in. These were grabbed with the camera on my phone so the control was a little limited but it was better than missing it altogether.

Some of the industrial buildings in the area also look cool from the air. This part of town has a bunch of rail yards and the geometry of them is impressive from above.

Cheap Macro

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While the idea of trying macro photography has always been of interest to me, I have never got around to actually doing it aside from an old lens I had in my pre-autofocus days that had a macro setting. The idea of renting a macro lens had occurred to me but the reason to do it hadn’t come up and I didn’t feel like renting the lens without having something to use it on.

Then I remembered reading about reversing a lens to use it for macro. I have a 50mm that I I hand held in reverse to see how well the macro effect would work. It seemed pretty good so I decided to get a mounting ring to reverse the lens on the camera. Amazon came up with a bunch of options and the one I got set me back the enormous total of $8!

The simple answer is that it works. It is a little inflexible to use compared to something designed for the task but it does work. The depth of field is extremely shallow and you get some odd distortion across the edges of the image. Obviously there is no focus or exposure control. I just set the camera to aperture priority mode and dial in the normal f/1.8 of the lens and the exposure seems to work out pretty well. Then it is a case of moving the camera around to get focus. Not something I am going to do a lot but, for $8, I don’t have to worry about getting a lot of use out of it!

Bald Eagles

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It has been a couple of years since I last made a trip out to the Mississippi to take pictures of the bald eagles that fish out there. Last winter it was pretty warm and my schedule was a bit busy. Warm weather means the river doesn’t freeze up and the birds can fish anywhere they like. When it gets cold, the ice means fishing is harder to do and they tend to gather at the dams along the river since they will usually have some open water just downstream.

This winter hasn’t been consistently cold either but it has been a while and I don’t know whether I will still be here next year so, with a good looking weather forecast, I decided to go. I was not alone in this with the number of people at Lock and Dam 14 in Iowa far larger than I have ever seen before. Combined with the relatively open river, this meant the people were healthily outnumbering the eagles.

However, there were a few birds in the air at various times. Sadly, with a lot of open water, they could choose where to fish. Also, the wind was coming from across the river so they tended to make their fishing runs away from us. Consequently, there were lots of eagle butt shots to be had but not many front views. Even so, I was with some friends so it was a good day to be out and there were a few shots that made the trip a success, even if I didn’t get anything as good as I have managed in previous years.