2015 Clayton Boys Varsity Lax Team - Horsing Around

Clayton Varsity Lacrosse - Having some fun!!! 

Selling Equipment to Make Room for New Equipment to shoot LAX games!

Well it is Lacrosse Season again and time for me to switch my photography gear to sports and action. Last year I rented a Nikon 300mm 2.8 lens and found it a great addition. But renting lens' for a season is prohibitively expensive and time consuming. So I am hunting for a fast prime Nikon or Sigma 300mm f2.8 or a fast f2.8 Sigma zoom lens, Nikon mount, with a top end of 300mm to purchase and add to my sports kit. If I make enough from my sale I might add a tele-converter to the mix to get me even closer to the action when there is enough light.  My old Tokina f4.5  80-400 zoom just isn't fast enough nor does it focus fast enough. To raise cash for my purchase I am selling some of my less used gear. Please go to ebay and check out my listings if interested. I am selling my Sinar F, my Graflex Crown graphic (renovated) 4x5 press camera , my Nikon 28mm PC lens and more to follow. I have also added two old but good camera bodies,  a Nikon D2H and a Nikon D2Hs to my sports kit. Old professional bodies with small, 4 meg, sensors that once cost $5K each. Why? because they shoot at really fast frame rates 8 per second, create raw files that are a manageable size and are built likes tanks! Check out Ken Rockwell's website where he talks about them being the best value for sports and action photography because that is what they were designed to do. I have been shooting with the D2H and have been impressed. I have a new ebay purchse of a D2Hs on the way! Of course my Nikon D600 still makes way better images overall. But for these action shots that hardly ever get enlarged past screen size these old camera's seems to be a way to prevent having to run every image through Photoshop to get the file size down to something managable . The D2H is good but the D2Hs has a bigger big buffer that will allow me to almost continuously shoot images at 8 frames per second with metering and focus. To get that with a current size sensor you still have to drop at least 5K. Quick continuous frame rate...just the thing for capturing quick moving LAX action if the light is good. They don't do so well in low light. My Nikon D600 will still by my go to for shots under lights. As a D4 is just not in my price range!


Here are links to the ebay postings if you are interested:
Sinar F 4x5 kit with accessories and case: Sinar F for sale on Ebay
Nikon 28mm PC F3.5 lens:Nikon 28mm PC lens for sale on Ebay
Graflex Pacemaker Crown Graphic 4x5 Press Camera: Graflex Crown Graphic 4x5 Press camera for sale on Ebay

See the photos below. More images on Ebay!

Graflex Crown Graphic - Renovated 

Nikon 28mm PC Lens

Sinar F with Wide angle bellows and accessories 

Sinar F in case 

Sinar F Camera 

Rural In Winter

The light is just different at different times of the year. Here are three images from a recent trip I took to Indiana for work. The Winter light certainly is evident in all three. I particularly like the Castle Silo and Historic Pink and Pealing!

Castle Silo

Rusty Barn on Main Street

Historic Pink and Pealing 

Chicago Skyline at Dusk in January

When you are stuck on the highway in traffic and the light is perfect this is what  you get!

Skyline from Dan Ryan Expressway in January 2015

Whittier Alaska!

In the fall of 2014 I was fortunate to have the VA send me to Alaska on an assignment. My first trip to Alaska but hopefully not my last!  To allow for the weather I was also fortunate that my travel allowed a couple of days of free time both at the beginning and at the end of the work assignment. One of the engineers that was working with us also had planned on taking some time after our work was done so we decided to travel together for a couple of days of sightseeing. Since it was late October the main road to Denali National Park was already closed eliminating that from our plans.  So we headed South toward Seward along the Seward Highway. The road to Seward is spectacularly scenic drive and I would recommend it for anyone with limited time. On our way from Anchorage to Seward my traveling companion and I stopped at Portage to look at the glaciers. There are several glaciers at this location and one still has a small chunk that you can walk right up to. I doubt that it will be there in even a year or two more and the information on how far and fast the glaciers have receded in Alaska should convince anyone, scientist or not, that something dramatic is taking place on our planet. I have posted a couple of images of the ice here as well as photos of Portage Lake and the surrounding mountains. At Portage Lake the road continues to Whittier Alaska.


What prompted this post is that a friend mine sent me this link to a video about Whittier AK, Whittier Alaska - Where everyone in the town lives in the same building. Since we were not on any particular schedule we decided what the heck lets go see where this road takes us. For people from the lower 48, Alaska in general has a sense of oddity. I refer to this as the “Northern Exposure” feeling. That is because to us this place is so empty, so far north with very different sun angles, different weather, and the openness. We traveled just a short distance when we come upon a toll booth for the tunnel to Whittier. We both deduced- incorrectly,  that if there was a tunnel there must be something special, a big reason if reason to need to get to the other side. The other side of a very tall, snow capped, wedge of solid Basalt/graninte. The toll taker asked us if we know anything about Whittier. “Nope!” we answer. He smiles/smirks, takes our money, explains that every half hour the direction switches in the tunnel and hands us some tourist information. We pull up and get in the queue to wait for our passage to the other side. When our turn comes we move forward and enter the tunnel. Wow! Immediately we both think to ourselves this is one hell of tunnel and what is the back story is? Sadly while we were both impressed by the tunnel the town on the other side was just a weird empty place. At least in late October.


Apparently during WWII the US military decided it needed a deep water, does not freeze, port. Our waitress at the only restaurant open told us this It needed to be mostly secret and out of the way in this part of Alaska for the submarines in WWII. Remember Japan is not far away and, at least according to Sarah Palin, if you stand on your porch you can see Russia. Immediately upon entering the tunnel it becomes apparent that this was not a small undertaking or your usual tunnel. Looking to be 20 or more feet tall. Tall enough to easily clear the largest trucks and trains, you get the feeling someone did this with some serious intent. It is big enough to say a submarine through? When you get to the other side the town is most bizarre because it did not exist until they US government built the tunnel and the "secret" military base on the other side. In 1060 they closed the secret military base. Leaving behind the buildings and the tunnel.


Now the town consists of about 200 people who mostly live in one big high rise building. Yes the high rise building in the middle of nowhere seems very strange! But the land area on this side of the mountain is limited. Still there would be enough for the number of houses a town of this population would need.  The highrise building was the former civilian residences for the soldiers and sailors. There is another large building which is now vacant that was once referred to as the "city under one roof". As I said the military base closed in 1960 and the town was badly damaged in the Good Friday earthquake and tsunami the struck Alaska in 1964. The tunnel is 13,300 feet long and is the second longest tunnel in North America. You have to wonder what the congressional budget request must have looked like. One tunnel, through a solid basalt 5000 foot mountain over 2 miles long, large enough to get a submarine through and it needs to be done yesterday. Like Alaska’s bridge to nowhere this now seems to be a tunnel to nowhere. They do use the port for shipping. The tunnel is the longest car/train tunnel in North America loading the boats with cars and materials to folks living in a lot of other coastal and island towns that are only accessible by boat or plane. Alaska has a lot of places that are only accessible by boat or plane. Fifty percent of the adult population or licensed pilots!  

 

I hope you enjoy the photos.  

Images from Whittier and Portage Alaska! 

Waiting our Turn! 

Now this is a tunnel!

View From Cafe!

Boats with Dingy

Boats with Dingy 2

Mountain Fog

Under One Roof 1

Under One Roof  2

Under One Roof 3

Dotty G!

60417

How about we go for a beer? 

One Roof Detail 

Condo! 

We Live Here! 

Harbor! 

Man and Mountains 

Reflections 

Abandoned!

Yachting Anyone? 

Reflections 

Log Cabin Gifts! 

Let's Go Fishing! 

Old Coil of Rope! 

Ball! 

Containers! 

Dedication! 

Portage Lake 1

Portage Glacier! 

Portage Lake and Glacier1

Center Peak 

Bone Yard! 

White Stone 

Rocks and Ice! 

Last Man Standing! 

Images From Wyoming

So earlier in the summer I was able to travel to Sheridan Wyoming on business and had the good fortune of having a couple extra days to photograph. It was a great trip with a wide range of subject matter. Everything from the oldest working bar in Wyoming, The Mint, to the airplane graveyard which was once the Powers and Hawkins fire fighting fleet in Graybull Wyoming across the other side of the Big Horn mountains. Here a are just a few of the images I have from that trip.


Torrent




Wyoming!



The Mint and Icon



Let's meet at the bar!



A night at the Mint



Sheridan



The Herd



Of Clouds and Mountains



Ain't what she used to be!



Well Preserved!



High Art Deco!



Heaven is for Real

Ladder to Blue



Of Grass and Ghosts!



Dare me!



Propeller



I can still shine



06



The Big Chair!