I first picked up a camera in 1978 when I was 15 years old. A friend of mine was working to be a professional photographer and let me hold his camera. I pulled the trigger of his camera a few times. From that moment I knew that I would eventually own my own camera with no means to make that kind of a purchase.
How it came about is unclear but eventually I did get a Pentax film camera with one lens. It didn’t seem like much at the time. It definitely was not fancy. A simple camera with basic lighting controls (F-stop, shutter speed). Back then the ISO was set with chemistry in the film being used. The camera came with a 50mm lens. It was enough to take a few college courses and become familiar with the photography process.
I had no idea what I was doing. It turns out, this is where everyone starts.
Since then the photography industry and methods have completely changed. My film cameras and lenses are all gone now. When I moved to digital I didn’t think I’d have a need for my film cameras and old lenses. So they were sold. Today I wish I had hung on to them. It’s one of my regrets.
After I sold my film cameras yet still years ago I bought an f1.4 50mm lens for my Nikon camera. It’s an amazing piece of glass. Lately I’ve used it exclusively. This is where I started with photography and a place I wanted to go back. So when I bolt out of the house lately with my camera that’s the lens being used.
The clarity of this lens is striking. With an aperture around f/9 and an ISO of 100 the photos look very natural.
Unfiltered with some light post processing to bring out the shadow areas. f9 / 100 ISO / 1/200
The photo above was done without filters. I do set my camera white balance to be in a warmer mode because the Nikon makes everything cold by default. Other than that, this shot was right out of the camera.
Every lens has a purpose. There are thousands of different types and brands. My focus on my own photography is to use what I own and become proficient with that. If you can frame it with a 50mm lens you can make any lens work for you.
This biggest lessons I’ve learned in my 40 years of photography is this: 1) always have your camera with you. It may not be the best camera but still bring a camera with you. And 2) stop and use the camera. If you see an image in your head don’t drive past it. Stop, turn around and go get the image. If you are with others that do not want to stop they are not on your path. Let them go.
That’s what I did here. And I had no idea a bike rider would drive right into my frame. Had I not turned around, got off my motorcycle and stood in the middle of the road I would not have captured any of this. I didn’t even see the rider coming.
Flashers on so no one would run over me. Turns out only a bike rider would ride by.
The more you pull the camera trigger the more you learn. It’s a common theme I hear from the pros: “I wish I had more images to compare”. Because you never get another chance to be in that same situation again. That opportunity has passed.
When I hold my camera in my hand today I know I’m hold a tool. I still don’t know why I take so many photos. So many of them only I have seen. I haven’t even printed many of them for myself. Still, I stand alone in these places and wonder where everyone else is?! I can’t tell you the number of times I look around and wonder why others are experiencing this same thing; this beautiful color on one of the first days of summer. But I was completely alone in a public park except for one bicyclist for almost 30 minutes.
Its because it’s my path. The place I’m supposed to be. My path has taught me to do the things I enjoy. If you can share the experience with others that’s great. If not, enjoy the walk alone.
Who knew my path would take me from a place of wonder with an old camera with a 50mm lens to where I was last night with my own camera and a 50mm lens. But I was ready.
The route from home to Jefferson, Texas is not that exciting. I’ve driven the route many times before. This time I’m towing my motorcycle with me so we can do a “Shamrock Tour” once we are there.
I managed to take a little longer route to visit my friend John who lives in Brevard, NC. We both love to ride in North Carolina. He likes this area I like the area around Andrews. Back in 1996-1997 we were looking to move to Andrews because I could not stand the traffic in Atlanta when I worked there. I decided it would be better to fly to work every day than sit in my truck. Just before pulling that trigger I was transferred to Memphis but my search for a spot to land near Andrews has never subsided.
The trip through Brevard added another hour+ to the trip but it was nice to see John and have a place to lay my head for a day. I had meetings I needed to attend on Monday morning so it was also good to be stationary for those.
Back in time – Model A Ford – Model A father checking his phone messages. It’s nice to be stationary for a while.
The term Shamrock Tour was apparently created by RoadRunner magazine at some point in the recent past. The idea is that you go to one town and from there you will do 4 days of riding with each one of the legs the leaf of a Shamrock. I call it a clover leaf tour. They have the copyright on their term so I recognize that here.
We are, in fact, following one of their tours from the magazine. Sometimes at 80 miles an hour depending on who is leading. Today we did the shorter of all the days because we were fighting with the weather a bit. When we woke up the air is moist and cool but not raining. The weather is coming though.
Weather on day 1. Luckily we are on the leading edge of this so the rest of the trip will be clear.
It changed the way we rode. We didn’t go quite as far as we normally would but, looking back, we probably could have done the route as originally planned. The rain was predicted to start earlier than it did then rain more than it acutally has.
We can ride in all weather but it’s not that much fun in the rain. Sure, if you have to go to your next destination you’d go no matter what. But these kind of tours give you the flexibility to hang close to a hotel, go to a museum, read a book or take a nap.
The four clover leafs of this “Shamrock” tour.
We did the shorter ride towards Shreveport today. That was going to include a river boat ride but it appears that may have been a weekend only thing at this time of year. Everything is shut down on a Wednesday afternoon. We suspect that come the weekend that people will move into this place and the attractions will be available again. For example, there is a Museum Of Measurement And Time that doesn’t open until Thursday at 10am and only through Saturday. I definitely want to go into this cool place.
On Thursday (October 25, 2018) we are going the longer route down towards Nacogdoches made famous by Bonnie and Clyde. The route is approximately 250 miles. We’ll leave after breakfast, of course. One thing for sure is we have three squares a day. Not sure which way we’ll do the leaf but we’ll likely do it all just like it’s published. Paul has published the route on Google Maps so I’ll have that in my phone.
It’s October 25, 2018 and I’m up early. I find this mildly ironic because I am not a morning person and didn’t go to bed last night until about 2am. Interested in the state of the covered bike this morning I got outside to check out the elements. My bike is covered but wet, the air is moist and cool with no wind. It is going to take a while to burn off the moisture but that is exactly what will happen today.
It should remain clear the rest of the week now.
We made it to Nacogdoches without anyone being lost or injured which I found to be interesting since some of the group was doing over the limit and others well under. We have two types of riders on this trip; those that want to cover ground and those happy to stay above it. Riding happens at two very different speeds.
After lunch in Nacogdoches, Mexican of course, we split into three groups. One group headed back to the hotel, I needed to go to a local Wal-mart for sundries and the other making tracks for the next city on the route. Being the longer of the days we have to cover ground in all directions when we split up. Paul and Dad head to Gallatin, TX and I meet them there. Since I left first it was odd that they beat me there. But they did. Richard and Ed headed for the hotel.
Except for one evening we at at one single restaurant for dinner every evening. The name of the place was The KnightLight Theater with friendly wait staff and good food. We dined here 4 of the 5 nights we stayed in Jefferson. By the last night we were well known there. All of the food was good but my favorite was crawfish linguini.
By the way, we stayed at the Historic Kahn Hotel while we were here. We used this as a home base and start/stop for all of our rides. The hotel is sandwiched by cobblestone streets on two sides. From the hotel everything we wanted to do was a short walk away. We walked to breakfast and dinner each evening. I never got in my car to do anything once I was here. Our stay here coincided with Halloween on a busy Saturday night. It was fun to see children dressed up going from business to business with their families. And some grown-ups doing the same. I swear I was with some witches at dinner. They sounded like it anyway.
On the 26th we got up, shared breakfast and headed to do a tour of Caddo Lake where we would learn about this natural lake and 500 year old Cyprus trees that live there. It afforded me an opportunity to sit in the front of a boat with my professional camera and take some photos against a high-contrast sky.
Caddo Lake, Texas
Looking back, any of the other skies we experienced this week would not have produced such pretty photography as you see here. The wind was cold and blowing the Spanish moss all around. I could spend some serious time just on the lake taking photographs. The trees are so majestic and old. There is a way of life here that is clearly different than any other part of the US.
Caddo Lake, Texas
Caddo Lake, Texas
Caddo Lake, Texas
We were lucky to meet Rich McFarland of Caddo Lake Bayou Tours for our guide. Rich is soft spoke and easy going. From the front of his boat I was able to snap the pictures above. Rich gave us a nice tour of the lake near his boat ram and history lesson of the area going back to it’s lawless years. It was one of the highlights of my trip this week.
Caddo Lake – Bayou Tour launch point
After the lake tour we headed back to the hotel to suit up for our ride for the day. We still had 200+ miles to ride and it was already the noon hour. Since it had only been an hour we last ate some of us were getting hungry and ate a hamburger while the rest of us took off on our bikes for tour #3. #3 was the northwest tour towards Sulphur Springs, Texas.
I like to call this particular tour the “Express Tour”. Not sure where we were headed but we were going there fast! And some of this trip was on “goat trails” including deep ruts of Texas red clay. I still have some of that on my bike to prove it.
We made it back to the hotel about the time the sun was going down. We gathered up the old folks and headed to dinner. You guessed it, back to the The KnightLight Theater! This night there was someone playing acoustic guitar and doing some singing. This was a hit for a couple of us who enjoy this kind of atmosphere and music.
It’s September 27. This day is just with the three of the Westerman clan. We shared breakfast at the Port Jefferson Outpost. I think we at here every morning before our riding. Like the other places, this little place is nice with good breakfast and helpful staff. 2 eggs, bacon, biscuit with gravy and some sweet tea. Good stuff. 5 stars from me.
We start the trip like every other on the assigned route given to us which included goat trails early and often. It wasn’t long before we were doing our own ride on the basic route outlined in the maps with copious “ad libbing” along the way.
I have trailer bearing issues and have to cut the trip short about 3/4ths the way around. Those issues behind me, the bike loaded on my trailer and my truck mostly loaded sets me up for an early morning departure. My trip home will be mostly interstate highway (30, 40 and 81). This is why I have the trailer. Slabbing 1,200 miles on a motorcycle on interstate highway doesn’t do anything but make your butt hurt and go through tires.
Me and my rig(s). New trailer bearings when I get home.
I am very glad to have access to my trailer on trips like this. You arrive in decent shape after several days of driving. I’ll be using this trailer a ton in the coming years.
Google – rubbing it in. Plane ride is < 5 hours.
So that’s it. Another successful motorcycle trip just about completed. In total, we drove about 850 motorcycle miles on this tour of the Jefferson area. By the time I got home I had driven 2,530 miles in my truck to get there and back. It took me 2 days to get back home (18 hours of driving).
A bonus was a stop in Memphis where I had lunch with both my sisters and brothers-in-law.. That was nice!
Work starts again on Tuesday so I have to B-line it home. I need to be rested and ready to go. Lots of new projects on the table at work.
It was a busy day at my work today. Friday’s are always busy. At the end of the day I took one of my drones up for some photos and a video. The above is the result of that.
Matt, a bee keeper, came over to check out the bees which I didn’t notice until I saw him in the video feed. We have 11 hives now and keep approximately 385,000 bees on our property. I hope that rises over the years. I like the bees. With the bees come the birds, flowers and butterflies. It’s good having them around.
Big day tomorrow with a meeting early followed by the “80TH Annual Ladies Board Rummage Sale“. The Largest Rummage Sale in the Mid-Atlantic is a two-day event spanning more than 50,000 square feet all under cover. It’s a fun place to show up every year. This is the place I found that 185 year old clock that was broken. I fixed it this year and its a nice addition to our family. Oh, and the 5 airplanes last year. … the list goes on. Maybe I shouldn’t go?!
Then load up the motorcycle and point in a southerly direction.
The message came into focus for me via Clipboard. It was a NatGeo article about a “movie” abut a dude that free climbs. It caught my attention. Yesterday we had a date night and went to see this movie. Watch the trailer and I’ll give you more information after.
Alex Hannold free climbs El Capitan in Yosemite National Park. Its a National Geographic documentary film that’ll keep you on the edge of your seat at times. We were excited to see the movie itself and then were surprised to have the producer of the film, Jimmy Chin, show up and answer audience questions afterwards.
It’s 1 hour 40 minutes long. At the end it only felt like you were there for 15 minutes. It’s a great story of focus, passion, persistence and perseverance.
I have no fear of heights but still don’t think I would want to climb this mountain. See it? Yes. Climb it. Not really on my bucket list.
I’m glad we went to an actual theater to see the movie. Having Jimmy show up after was good fun. They asked that we help them since most of these movies succeed by “word of mouth” reference. So, go see it for yourself.
This past weekend we celebrated fall in our small community of Lovettsville at the 9th annual Lovettsville Oktoberfest. It’s grown from a small event taking essentially one city block, a few vendors, beer truck and such to the event it is today supporting tens of thousands of visitors to the small town.
I flew the drone over the event and visited the main tent with the music and merged the two together.
I’m there primarily to help the Loudoun Amateur Radio Group (LARG) support the communications for the event. We play a critical role in helping coordinate public safety of the event each year. Our time is purely voluntary but the effort is very professional. This is our 9th consecutive year of supporting Oktoberfest at Lovettsville.
Oktoberfest 2009 to 2018
One of the more compelling events of Oktoberfest is the Wiener Dog Race. The dogs and training staff work on their skill set all year long to pull off this compelling event. Here is a very brief video of one of the races of this day.
We set up in two locations each year and then many of the members “roam” the event and provide another channel to help with anyone who many need it. It’s proven critically important the last few years.
2018 Lovettsville Oktoberfest – Radio Crew at the small tent
The crew above was just who was there when this picture was taken. There were many others who helped this weekend. Hats off to everyone who helped us!
The venue has changed in a very big way from when we started years ago. There are so many more people there now! The first event was likely less than 1000 people. This year it was tens of thousands but I have no idea how many were actually there.
If you come next year and want an easier parking experience come on your motorcycle! That’ll shorten every bit of your time fiddling with traffic at this crazy intersection we call the “Squirkle”. It’s not quite a square; not quite a circle and takes 119 signs to help people navigate it properly. When it was first put in and operational it was quiet a fiasco. Lovettsville is different. I’ll leave it at that.
The food was great, the crowd was well behaved and seemed to have a good time. Lots of people were in the tents listening to the music, dancing and mingling with their friends.
After helping here I picked up my wife and we went for a motorcycle ride. Not a bad way to spend a Saturday.
Well, it took about as many days to pull this page together as it did to travel there and back but I did finish. If you want to see the details of our trip to Iceland in August 2018 you can find that page here.
I managed to take some 1,500 photographs while I was there. Thankfully, I’ve narrowed it down to my favorites on this travel page.
We saw some new things, revisited some old places, enjoyed some awesome sea and other food, swam in the warm waters heated by the earth even though the air was 45º and otherwise had a great time on this trip to Iceland.
This is the first time we’ve rented a camper van on a vacation like this. I’m happy to report we think we’d do that again in the many places we plan on traveling together.
Enjoy the page. If you see any whacky words let me know. I’m author and editor on this one so there’s likely a mistake or two.
This year’s “Field Day” was held Friday through Sunday, June 22, 23 and 24, 2018. The planning for the event was started in 2017 and continued right up to the days before.
We moved the event from where we’ve been having it in years past to Franklin Park, Purcellville, Virginia. This is a very public location inside the park grounds where anyone from anywhere could come and join us for the event.
… if it weren’t for the rain. Honestly, I don’t know when it started and when it stopped or even how much we got but it was a lot of rain. We set up the towers on Friday in torrential downpours which continued through the days. It did manage to clear up some on Saturday but it rained every day this year.
And when we were cleaning up a small storm came through with wind and more rain! Here’s what that looked like on radar:
Thunderstorm. Field Day 2018.
Man, did it rain. I sought refuge in my van but others didn’t make it out of the path in time. Some of the tents had to be held down manually and some did not make it from what I understand which exposed a lot of gear to the elements. Last report is that all electronic gear made it out OK with some drying effort.
Speaking of van. I don’t know how I was able to get all this gear from my home to the park and back but managed to do just that. It took a lot of help from others.
Van full of gear. Field Day 2018
The preliminary report has been published and from that information it looks like we did a fine job. It wasn’t a year where we blew out the numbers but we all did a good job making as many contacts as possible. That is what it is really all about.
One thing I set out to do this year was to learn more about satellite operations. Steve, KS1G was kind enough to walk me through some of what he was doing there. I took this short time lapse of his antennae at work:
When things are moving that fast you have to deal with all kinds of physics (like Doppler effect). It’s a little like patting your head and rubbing your belly while saying your ABCs backwards. I still have a lot to learn.
I didn’t take that many photos and the photos I did take I did so with my mobile phone. So the pictures are what they are. Being sleep deprived most of the weekend I don’t remember much of the detail I just remember that I needed to take some photos every once in a while. So this is what I got. For those photos go here.
If you want to know more about Field Day for our club or our club in general go here.
All the gear is back in it’s place, my station is back to normal at home. Another Field Day is behind me. Next up for the club, a 100+ mile bike ride. Stay tuned.
I never did write much about our Alaska trip back in 2009. It was a crazy time in life with work being busier than I can ever remember. Among other distractions there was big changes in my life.
The entire trip was some of the best times in my life yet if you asked me to pick one thing out of the trip that was the highlight of the trip it would have to be what occurred in this story.
There is a back story. Well in advance of the trip we had to choose the things we would do in our excursions. I don’t remember all the details but by the time I got around to picking what we would do we didn’t have many options.
Fly Fishing was definitely on my list. But on the day that this occurred the options I wanted were no longer available. The only option left was the most expense of all of the options. That option was to fly in an old de Havilland Beaver to the top of Denali.
Gloria had already chosen what she wanted to do that day so that left me and the girls. So I signed us up to do this together. It was approximately $300 per person for a 1 hour flight. I shrugged at the idea of spending this kind of money for such a short period of time not knowing what I would see. Little did I know it would be on my top 5 of things I’ve done in all my life. Right up there with swimming in the Great Barrier Reef or walking on the Great Wall of China.
I had two youngsters with me, one that didn’t like to fly much. Which is a little odd because she flew so much with me as she was growing up. Being a pilot with an airplane she really had no choice but to come along with me most of the times we flew together.
So the building up to getting on the plane was stressful for some, suspenseful for others. None of knew what we were about to do. There was some speculation that we would not make it to Denali at all because of the frequent weather that is almost always around the mountain. The people at the airfield said that the flight could even be cancelled if things got real bad.
So it was everything from “it’s not happening” to “it could be clear”. If it didn’t happen there were no refunds. We didn’t have any time to do it again another day so we were either going to go or not but we all knew we had one chance.
It did happen!
The plane was a de Havilland Beaver (DHC-2) with a Pratt and Whitney PT6 Turboprop conversion. It was very quiet. We flew with K2 Avation out of Talkeetna, Alaska.
On Denali. Alaska 2009
I flew in the co-pilot seat to and from Denali. Pure bliss. The entire time. All of it.
The Date is July 17, 2009. It’s just one of those days that will stay with me a lifetime.
On Saturday, 18 February 2018, the day started cool in bright sunlight. There was a winter storm warning for later in the day where they said the weather would change and become overcast and quickly dump 3-5 inches of snow on the ground. I didn’t believe them until it started snowing.
Towers 1 & 2 in driving snow
It was about 30º and the air was very moist making the snow sticky which quickly covered everything.
Sticky snow
The next morning I got up and flew my drone to take some pictures of the snow covered landscape knowing that the temperatures were about to rise and it would likely all be gone soon.
My home after a snow storm February 18, 2018
Virginia snowscape looking towards my home.
And, no kidding, it didn’t take long. By the time 5pm rolled around the sky was super clear and sun uber-bright casting long high contrast shadows everywhere.
Long walk in long shadows
Mongrel at sunset on top of a bird house
With Mongrel on top of the bird house I noticed it cast a cool shadow on the ground behind us. I snapped a few photos. He’s on the house because the ground it totally saturated with water. It’s like walking on a big sponge out here.
So many places are doing without water. This just doesn’t happen to be one of them.
Mongrel really doesn’t like having his picture taken so I have to be coy about all this photography thing. When the camera is pointed away he will do his own thing. The second I put the lens in his direction he complains. So if I shoot a photo of him you now know it’s extremely quick and has to be right the first time or he’ll move off.
Me and My Shadow
This winter the temperatures have been so cold, colder than I remember previous years being. For several weeks we had temperatures consistently below freezing with lows near zero every day.
That changes tomorrow with a high of 75º in the afternoon. I’m really hoping I can peel off and get a motorcycle ride in during the evening hours. Work is busy so that may not happen.
Maybe spring really is only a few weeks away.
Other than droning I got to fly some of my other aircraft during the calmer parts of the days without precipitation. That was fun but I have no photography of that. Also spent a ton of time with my radio hobby but not photos of that either.
It’s been a fun, long weekend but that all changes in the morning.
