Tag Archives: photo

Pano 360

There is an app I have had on my phone for a while called 360 which is for taking panoramic photographs. I have had it for quite a while and have mentioned it before here but they have progressively introduced new features over that time. While the new operating system has a pano function built into the camera (if your phone isn’t too old), it is rather basic and nowhere near as good as this one.

Taking images requires a little planning since you are able to take a full spherical image. Doing this without having the whole thing look strange in close requires you to keep the camera point itself unchanged as you turn around. This is harder than you think. The software can compensate a bit but you need to try and get it right in camera as much as possible.

It shows you a grid of the total shot and so you can see which bits you have shot and what is needed to fill it all in. It gives you a live preview as you shoot including looking straight up and down when required. Once the image is complete (or as much of it as you want), it processes it and then you can upload it to a website to view later. The links here are from that site. It is a great app and fun in some situations and valuable in others when showing off a wide view is hard to do any other way.

When checking this examples out, don’t miss out on a cool feature. At the top of the viewer are three buttons. It starts on the middle setting which allows you to pan around. If you click on the left button, it creates a view from the ground up. The right button creates a view looking straight down. (This only works properly if I have shot a full 360 image.) This looks like the work that Gerry Holtz has done and I blogged about here although his is far superior.

Muscle Cars

Leave a Reply

My friend Joel recently suggested a trip out to a car show near O’Hare at the Rosemont convention center. It was a display of muscle cars. While this is a generation of vehicles that I know nothing about since American cars of the 60s and 70s were not something that meant anything to me in the UK, the chance to see some great restoration work and to see something different to my normal interests meant I was keen to go along.

The show was very well attended and there were plenty of cars on display. The quality of restoration work was generally very good. Some great looking cars and some proud owners willing to talk about what they had done to get their cars to the condition that they were in. I was seeing a whole bunch of cars that I had never seen before so that was interesting. For those who grew up with these cars, it would have been a far more interesting time since seeing these old cars would trigger lots of memories. However, I still had a good time and will certainly go again if the chance arises. If you want to see more, I do have a gallery of images here.

Windsurfing and Kiteboarding

Leave a Reply

Being on the north side of the island of Maui, we were also able to see a bit of the watersport activity that people can get up to. The north shore is famous for surfing of course with Jaws being the most well known of the surfing locations. That is a little inaccessible and the surf is not huge at the time of year we were there. However, there are plenty of other ways to have fun.

With the steady, strong breeze, this is a great spot for windsurfing or kiteboarding. As we wandered along the shore near our lunch location, we could see plenty of people out having some fun. They were making great progress as a result of the strong winds and were great to watch. It is always fun to see someone who is good at something doing it well. I grabbed a few shots before we went on our (far more leisurely) way.

Festival of Light Fireworks

Leave a Reply

Every year in the run up to Christmas, the traders on the Magnificent Mile in Chicago have a parade to get the shoppers interested. The parade has a strong Disney theme to it and attracts large numbers of families with small kids. You might be surprised to know this is not a big deal to me. However, they do finish it off with a fireworks display on the Chicago River and that is something I am happy to see.

Finding a spot to watch them from is something that is not so easy since a huge number of people are already there to see the parade. I had intended to stand on the Wabash Avenue bridge which provides a good view along the river to the display. However, that was not possible since the bridge was full of people looking at the parade, even though it was a long way away. However, dropping down to the river level provided a spot that did not give a good view of the parade but was absolutely fine for the fireworks.

I got set up with two cameras, one for stills and another for video. Rather than take a full tripod setup, I took a couple of Gorillapods to mount on to the railings along the river. This proved to be a good setup. It was flexible, easy to carry and didn’t get in anyone else’s way. One downside is that a tripod does tend to act as a bit of a deterrent to passers by. This setup seemed to encourage people to bring their kids close to my stuff so I had to make sure the kids kept their hands to themselves since their parents didn’t seem bothered about what they were up to.

Solomon Island

Leave a Reply

We had the great pleasure of traveling to Maryland to stay with our friends Mark and Rosie a while back. They are friends of ours from the UK who are currently in the US for work. We spent the weekend with them and got to enjoy a part of Maryland that neither of us had spent much time in before. They live down near where the Patuxent River meets the Chesapeake Bay and there is plenty of water around you wherever you go.

As someone who grew up by the sea, I have always enjoyed being by the water. A good local spot to visit is Solomon Island and we decided to head there for a walk around and a spot of lunch. Since they have a boat, Mark and I decided to go by water while Nancy and Rosie took the car. I wanted to have a blast about in the boat and Mark wanted to go a bit faster than he would if Rosie was aboard so this worked for all of us.

United 787

Leave a Reply

A while back I was in Seattle and headed up to Everett to see the large numbers of 787 airframes parked up awaiting rework and delivery to their customers. When you see that many of them lying around, sometimes it is hard to remember that some of them are now getting delivered and entering service. One of Chicago’s local airlines (if you have a local airline these days) is United and they are the first US operator to take delivery of the aircraft.

Houston is the base of operations for the early aircraft but as they are trying to build experience for the crews, they are carrying out internal flights before taking the planes overseas. The first revenue flight was a leg from Houston to Chicago O’Hare. I was interested in covering this for the magazine since they were planning a reception for the aircraft when it got to O’Hare. The Chicago airport media relations people were not handling the event but they gave me the contact details for United. Sadly United were not inclined to respond to inquiries.

However, I decided that it was worth heading up to O’Hare anyway since the forecast was looking quite pleasant. Admittedly, these things will soon be a very common sight but getting the first arrival seemed like something worth spending a morning on. (In truth, the 787 had already been to O’Hare a few times on proving flights but let’s not get too picky!)

I was not the only one there. A lot of people had shown up and the place under the approach to 28 was pretty busy. That is until they changed runways shortly before the 787 was due in. A convoy of cars suddenly headed out to get around to the 10 arrivals. I was part of the convoy and found a spot that seemed reasonable. I had barely got out when the 787 came into view. Fortunately, the sun was being cooperative and the 10 approach actually was better for putting the light on the nose of the aircraft rather than the rear. I wonder how long it will be before I get bored with United 787s showing up.

Half Dome Sunset

Leave a Reply

One of my goals while in Yosemite was to go to Glacier Point later in the day and watch the sunset casting its warm light over Half Dome. Half Dome is always an impressive sight to behold. Taking pictures of it never allows you to experience the scale and impressiveness of it but you do the best you can. I got up there about an hour before the sun was due to set in order to get a few other shots. I had intended to hike up to Sentinel Dome but I was running out of time so that part of the trip got scrubbed and saved for another day.

Shooting sunset type shots is a funny thing. The view looks great and you take a few shots. Then, as the sun dips lower, the light gets better and you shoot some more. This continues until suddenly it stops getting better and it is all over. You have to shoot a bunch of stuff since you never know whether it is at its peak or not. Consequently, you end up with a lot of shots that you will never use again.

The other odd aspect about this shoot was the discrepancy between the view and the atmosphere. Sunset at Glacier Point is a popular thing as you might expect. Plenty of people are there. Lots of them are families and families often include small kids. Small kids are not so enthusiastic about sitting around for an hour waiting for the sun to set. Consequently, the scenery looks great but all you can here is crying kids and desperate parents trying to buy off a tired and grouchy kid. Not quite what you had in mind. I just hope the parents still enjoyed the beautiful view since the rest of it looked painful for them.

Mariposa Grove

Leave a Reply

The last time I was in Yosemite, it had just snowed and so the access to Mariposa Grove was cut off. It is a shame since visiting the groves of sequoias is one of the high points for me. The redwoods at the coast are impressive, certainly, but they don’t have the massiveness that the inland relatives have. Previously I have taken the tram ride around the grove so this time I decided to walk it. It was a pleasant temperature but the altitude is a bit of a factor so there were times when I was wondering whether my plan was so clever.

However, the nice thing about the grove is that you are heading downhill when you are on the way back and suddenly everything seems a lot easier. Walking does give a great way to experience the whole place at your own pace as well as see some areas that you wouldn’t see on the tram. You also get some exercise!

The lower part of the grove has some big trees but not as many as the upper grove. Getting up there allows you to be surrounded by some enormous living things. Every once in a while, I had to look at a normal tree (big by most standards) to remind myself just how much bigger the sequoias are. They are vast! Again, this is a tricky thing to accurately portray in photographs. However, sometimes you just have to enjoy the prettiness of it all. Having something in to scale it every once in a while helps too of course.

Paia

Leave a Reply

Up near the near side of Maui is the little town of Paia. We checked Paia out on our way to get lunch. There isn’t a huge amount to see in the town – a selection of shops and places to eat as you might expect – but its claim to fame is that it is populated by some of the more out there members of society.

Going there is as much about seeing unusual people as it is about seeing the town itself. How long this reputation has been in place and whether it is still valid I couldn’t say. Certainly there were a few people wandering around who looked like they fitted the bill. There were far more people visiting, though, and maybe they were all there looking for the strange folk. By coming in such numbers, maybe we are driving away what we came to see. Despite all of this, we did see a few cool looking places and some signs that the community is not totally conformist!

Veterans’ service

Leave a Reply

With Veterans’ Day upon us, the city of Chicago held a service at the Vietnam War Memorial. This is located just across the river from me and, when I saw that something was being set up, I went across to see. It is the fiftieth anniversary of the Vietnam War and there are additional elements of remembrance that are associated with that.

The mayor of Chicago, Rahm Emanuel was speaking at the event as was an alderman who served with the Marines in Vietnam. It was not a huge event but there were plenty of people there and it was all done in a very classy yet personal way. All of the services were represented and there were many veterans in the crowd as well. I am certainly glad I found out it was going on.