Cave Photography

Cave photography is tricky for several reasons. This is especially true if you're trying to use the "natural" lighting that cave tours provide.

I tend to like the orange red glow of incandescent lighting, and taking pictures without a flash emphasizes my personal memory of the experience. While using a flash yields better sharpness, it also changes the lighting to something other than what you remembered seeing. However, it does show the true nature of the rock which tends to be browns and tans. Flash is nice if you're wanting to study the geological formations, but not as nice if you're wanting the feel of that memory.

1. Come Prepared

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Make sure you have a crisp-just-recharged battery or even two. These batteries take a beating in darkly lit areas - whether it's to power a flash or to power the sensor that's being exposed for hundreds of times longer than usual. Also put the largest, fastest card you've got in your camera. In those dark caverns, fumbling around with your cards is a quick way to get them lost! You don't want to open up your camera unless you really have to. What lens you use is up to you. I used a moderately slow zoom lens which took me from 3.4 to around 5. The 50mm f/1.8 might have been better, but many of those formations are so far out of reach that to close in on them you must zoom. Switching lenses during the tour increases your risk of dropping one.

2. Expect Grain

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Push your ISO to the highest setting your camera allows and disable the flash unit if you have one built in. Even if you wanted to use a lower ISO, the long exposure time will create artificial grain and distortion on digital sensors so you're going to get grain one way or another. Also expect a shallow depth of field. Push your lens to as fast as it can go by opening up to as wide an aperture as your lens allows. (Make that little f-number as low as it can get.)

3. Set To Burst

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Set your camera to take a flow of shots instead of just one while you press the shutter button. In this setting, when you take a picture (remember to be perfectly still) hold down the shutter instead of just pressing it to take two or three shots of the exact same thing. This gives you a greater chance of capturing shots like the one you see here (this was the middle shot from a stream of three).

Camera shake isn't as severely noticed in long exposures, but hand-holding a camera means it's shots will be based on your overall stability on those slippery floors. The general rule is anything longer than 1/60 of a second should be on a tripod. Of the four different caves I've gone to, you couldn't bring those in unless you have special permission. Somehow the flow of shots or burst shooting helps improve these odds.

4. Be Polite And Trail Behind

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Our guide was rather miffed at anyone who wanted to stick around to admire the view. I think she was paid by the inverse of the hour by the comments she made and the way she wanted to cattle the fifty of us through so quickly. That's another thing. These are usually large tour groups. Most people want to pay their $20 to walk through a cave quickly, learn a couple of things then spend another $20 on a T-Shirt that says they did it. They're not interested in sticking around for an hour to fully appreciate the actual geological formations. What does this mean to you as the photographer? Stay at the end of the group.

In fact, I was so far back that the tour group behind us was just a few feet away - these tours were in 15 minute intervals. I wouldn't suggest this if you were in the last tour of the day. Zoiks! Getting locked in one of these caves with all the lights out would be terrifying!

5. Seek Sensible Stability

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If there's a handrail nearby, lean on it with as much of your body as you can, and I mean squat down to the point that your arms, side and back are resting firmly on it. However, don't lean on the walls. Let me say that again ... DO NOT lean on the walls. You can be terribly fined for destroying the cave "life" by doing so.

We emit oils and acids that create a water barrier on these stones. That means the water won't settle on these spots anymore to deposit the minerals that keep these formations "alive". I think the fine here was around $15,000!

6. Protect Your Assets

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Did I mention slippery floors? That camera strap better be around your neck. I usually have a small padded camera bag that fits around my shoulder at just the right height for the camera to rest in between shots while it's still strapped to my neck. That way if I fall on my camera, it's protected. I forgot that case on this visit, but it's still good advice.

7. Remember Variety

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Take pictures of formations up close and far back. The popcorn photo shows so much detail because I was zoomed into it and only 18 inches from it. Those things are small. Formations often look different looking back. Look up. Look down. Look behind you. Each of these are often missed photo opportunities and in most caves you'll notice differentiations in the lighting that could make wonderfully appealing shots that would otherwise be missed.

8. Be Liberal With Your Photography

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Be patient and take lots of pictures and at the highest resolution your camera allows. Out of about 200 pictures, only 20 of them came out with a decent level of sharpness. That's only a 10% success rate. Some great formations could be discerned from the multiple identical shots of them, but not appreciated because of their blurriness.

9. Last words of wisdom? Hmmm...

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Deep in the cave where the wind doesn't blow, it's hot. Dress cool. Wear good tennis shoes.

If I were to do this again, it would be by myself instead of with a family of kids and relatives. It's an inconvenience to them. I'd warn the tour guide that I'm a shutterbug so I lag behind, then offer a small tip - like $5 or $10 in advance. In American Indian tours, they usually take a $20 - but a good Indian guide is easily worth that ... some of the great shots in my Antelope Canyon trip were a direct result of advice from the guide! I would also ask the manager what types of accommodations could be made or if there were any special photography tours.

10. Final Words and Thanks

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My mother in law was very gracious in buying our tickets. It was an expense she didn't need to take, but it also created some great memories with the kids that they'll talk about for years to come. I wanted to take some good pictures for the challenge and so that years down the road they could see them and recall that first whiff of cool cave air when they were still young.

New Textures - Two Introductory Sets

When I was young I just wanted to make stuff for the pleasure of it. When I got older I was told that wasn't a way to make a living.

I disagree. God made things for a living so I guess those people's attempts to civilize me into a common worker bee never quite stuck because of my higher childlike "ideals".

My parents were pretty good with supporting me through it. Mom is an excellent painter and Dad is a great musician. They weren't like the other grown ups who usually attended school board council meetings. That is, they weren't looking for a way to build a society - just looking for a way to raise great kids.

If more people took up their personal responsibility to raise their kids instead of handing their kids off to the village (idiots) to raise them, I think they would discover that children are important... they're a joy... they bring back those squishy playdough, colored in fingerpaint, bruised knees from playing in the rocks moments. That imagination is never really lost - not completely, anyway - it's just suppressed. And like a good expectorant, when you have kids that creativity just spits right back up!

Enjoy the free cave and art textures:
Cave Textures
Art Textures

Sour Apples

Eighteen months old. That's the age of my wife's laptop - the MacBook Pro that we were going to bring with us on vacation. Turns out the day before we leave, all video output ceases. Kaput.

Interestingly, one of the symptoms of this NVidia processor is the computer randomly shutting down. We had that happen to use a couple of months ago. Something Apple did (or maybe it was just pure luck on their part) made the random shutdowns occur so infrequently (it only happened twice after getting it back) that we felt it was worth the occasional trouble compared to the hassle of the Apple store and their "genius" bar.

I have a feeling that unless you press the issue (and you know you're affected - see the KB article) that they will try to delay it in hopes that they don't have to pay for the repairs that they already publicly admitted the need for.

So we're out a laptop for this trip. Maybe that's for the best. More time with friends and family - less time blogging and flickring. I'll still use my iPhone for tweets, though.

Resolutions

I was looking for the top three most used monitor resolutions - pixel width and height - for making desktop wallpapers in my flickr stream. It dawned on me that knowing the three most used pixel counts weren't as important as moderately high resolution images in the correct format ratios.

Here are the top three as of June 2009.

1. 1024x768 ( 1:1.33)


2. 1280x1024 ( 1:1.25 )


3. 1280x800 ( 1:1.6 )

For example, the MacBook Pro supports 1440x900, which is the same dimensions as the 1280x800. Although there will be some scaling, the 26% difference of area between the two shouldn't cause enough stretching to make the image unpleasant as a desktop background.

The Internet Paradox

The Internet is a paradox. All technology is, but to keep from generalized statements - the Internet is a paradox. I've been told that any element's strength is also its weakness, so I'm prepared to look through this at both angles.

1. The internet draws the world closer together. I have a friend at work who is able to communicate with his friends in Jordan through Skype. Like the Jetsons they can video chat from thousands of miles away. I know another couple who's separated by leagues of ocean between the United States and the United Kingdom.

The paradox: The internet pushes away human interaction.Thirty years ago it was unheard of for psychologically healthy citizens to lock themselves up in a room alone for fifteen hours without physical human interaction ... even without food - they would be called hermits. Some people have noticed this problem and created sites to help people regain their physical humanity through what's called a meet-up.

2. The Internet drives the market towards greater global business opportunities. I have no idea how international business interactions took place before the Internet without plenty of money and an interpreter. Today I could open a web store, tie in a free interpreter and start selling product to Sweden in less than a week.

The Paradox: People have learned to be skeptical of businesses and the consumerist is actually empowered to drive the market down. Where the big business practice was to treat the customer as good as the cow, viral videos (such as "Supersize Me") has provided a means by which businesses suffer consequences for their parasitic actions. This in turn backfires because big government, lobbied by these large businesses, create regulation that kills off all the smaller ones.

3. The Internet makes information more readily available. At no other time in history has there been such a wealth of information across the globe - readily available - instantly available.

The Paradox: Lies spread faster than truth. Pages like Snopes have become a mainstay and students who think Wikipedia has the same credability as the Encyclopedia Britannica are sadly mistaken.

4. The Internet is my friend. You meet people who are friendly, and you open up to them with your life story because of the anonymity you think it provides.

The Paradox: On the internet, nobody knows you're a dog. Neither do you know if the person you're talking to is one... or worse! Internet perverts and stalkers are literally out to get our children by the throat. The lure has never been so pervasive or perverted.

5. Internet based education! I can get my college degree in communications without leaving my home!

The Paradox: Think about it ... a communications degree ... without face-to-face physical interaction with your professor. Hope you can speak "woof" (see #4).

Don't get me wrong. I love the internet and the wealth it provides - but something it can't provide amidst all that knowledge is wisdom. And wisdom demands direct interaction between man and God - then with man and his fellow men. Noah, through his fear and respect of God's authority, was obedient. The interaction he had with his family saved their lives as well. Noah didn't build the ark completely by himself, either.

Our world is decaying in moral stature and compassion. In the 1920's great depression, people housed strangers because they understood the power of many working as a unit. They struggled, but they made it through. Today, our mantra of looking out for "number one" drives people to desperation and daycare houses turn into meth labs. It's no surprise that the sudden singleness and single-mindedness that the Internet meme has caused leads to people trying to find way to care for themselves without asking others for help ... or just as bad ... being denied help from others because everyone is so wrapped up in themselves to see the larger picture.

Just as much as the Internet represents one of the greatest feats of mankind - a modern day tower of Babel, it also represents one of the precursors to the greatest downfall of the human race.

iPhone 3.0 Update Woes and Work Arounds

It shouldn't take nearly 6 hours to update your iPhone to the 3.0 OS, but it did for me.

It started downloading the update and seemed to receive that just fine, and it claimed to have backed up my iPhone before installing the update, but somewhere in that mix the iPhone became completely deactivated and insisted on being connected to iTunes. You know - that annoying screen on the iPhone where it shows a USB plug.

It wouldn't give me the restore from backup option, either. It was a core restore to the "original settings". To me that means complete data loss without even the benefit of the 3.0 OS.

So I did what any other person who's sipped from the Pierian spring does... I pressed ALT-CTRL-Shift while clicking the Restore button. Voila! A file dialog box asking me which firmware file to use. I pointed it to the update that just downloaded and it seemed to go well ... except during this process it neglected to restore all my 3rd party apps and their data.

I was furious, then I tweeted, then I denied it, then I tweeted, then I cried (I didn't tweet that)... but you get the point. I looked long and hard and the only restore point that iTunes offered was right before this happened even though I did manual backups a couple of weeks ago.

After a bit of research, I came across a tidbit that said the restore only restores data involving Apple's iPhone apps. You have to restore songs and video clips separately. That got me to thinking ... what if 3rd party apps somehow bind their data to the app during a sync in such a way that syncing the apps would also restore their data.

So I began that process ... and iTunes decided to do a freaking backup! I'm thinking this would take no time at all - it's only 300 megs... but it took nearly an hour. Suspiciously the same amount of time it would take when my iPhone was 4 gigs full. So maybe when the firmware installs, and when we do a restore, the data is present but not accessible until the application that calls it is installed on the iPhone.

I don't know exactly what happened to fix it, but I have nearly all my data back.

Again, the steps - not recommended, but if something goes wrong for you, who knows...

1) Downloaded new Firmware Update
2) Installed new Firmware on iPhone (first generation)
3) iPhone went wonky
4) Restored the last available backup (this surprisingly did *not* revert to the prior iPhone OS)
5) Resync'd the iPhone apps
6) Waited two hours until I got sick of the whole ordeal.
7) Slid the "Slide to Cancel" switch on the iPhone
8) Like magic, the apps were there with their data.

Hope this helps someone else out there. Better yet - hope you don't have to go through the same ridiculous install.

Cheers!

Let's Meditate on Chamad

In a recent brief facebook encounter with Rabbi Daniel Lapin, he addressed the issue of IQ.

Rabbi: Fortunately, ancient Jewish wisdom rates Wisdom as far more important than IQ, as our IQ is fixed but our wisdom can be increased. No word for "intelligence" in Torah. Wisdom is "chochmah". Increase wisdom? Sure, see tomorrow's Thought Tool.

I then asked about skill, since some people equate skill or talent with IQ:

Me: What about the word for skill? I know artisans were called by their skill to build the Ark. And I noticed more than one hebrew word for skill. What's the difference between "biyn" or "yada"?

He then kindly addressed, not the issue of skill, but of meditation!

Rabbi: There are three terms in descending order chochmah, bina, and da'at (the etymological root of data). Bezalel is spoken of as having chochmah for building the tabernacle. There's much more I'll treat in future Thought Tools which I hope you receive. Otherwise go to www.RabbiDanielLapin.com

The Rabbi is careful not to say anything without much forethought. He had to have a purpose in his answer, and I think it's starting to gel together. Skill is not based on experience as much as it's based on wisdom and meditation.

Wikipedia isn't the best source to get ancient Jewish wisdom, but I wanted some answers and needed to start somewhere.

Wikipedia: Chochma (lit. wisdom) is the mind's ability to come up with a new insight into a concept that one did not know before. Binah (lit. understanding) is the mind's ability to take a new insight (from Chochma), analyze all of its implications and simplify the concept so it is understood well. Daat (lit.knowledge), the third stage, is the mind's ability to focus and hold its attention on the Chochma and the Binah.

Oy! My brain pretty much stops mid Binah. No wonder I hardly ever gain focus and meander from one thought to another! Perhaps this is also the key to a good memory since my Binah is so short term.

So let's see what the actual Hebrew words are:

• Chochma - חכמה


• Binah - בינה


• Daat - דעת

It will be interesting to read what Rabbi Lapin has to say about these words and how they identify the potential of man.

Paurian Elevator Pitch

Great ideas come scribbled on paper cafe napkins. That's when our souls aren't stiff with starch or choked with a tie. That's when we relax with our friends and a cocktail drink. That's when we don't care how stupid the idea seems. There's magic when the logic is gone.

This spot on the web is my paper napkin in hopes to find that great idea; at least in hope to discover myself. This journey will help to define partly who I am, and in that there is hope to glimpse the meaning of life and what lies beyond.

Music, code, love, food, philosophy, paranoia, responsibility, passion, art, faith, desire, fear: they pull my life into every which way, often times at conflict with each other. It's a bumpy napkin and rips are bound to happen.


Million Dollar Napkin Idea

The Looking Glass Zoo

During my time in high school doodles were constantly being drawn on the side margins of the class notes. This wasn't unusual; many people doodled on their notes. However, a teacher saw the doodles and felt disturbed enough by them to call in a meeting with my parents. The doodles eventually stopped.

They weren't doodles of any teachers, but rather of myself. More often than not the images resembled Edvard Munch's "The Scream." Why it's considered art on a canvas and a psychological concern on notepaper is beyond me, but there you have it.

A few years later, at the university, these drawings started popping up again. This time I would cut them out of my notes and paste them or tape them in my diaries, which I kept for nearly ten years, and labeled them "The Looking Glass Zoo".

Ignore the words in those years of entries. There might be a tidbit of wisdom here and there, but most of the words in the diaries aren't really worth repeating. That's a part of my past better left buried, only to be exhumed after my death when people can then discover how much of a jerk I was before I matured.

Since I've been getting back into art and drawing, I've gained an interest in looking back through these drawings and sketches - particularly for some raw ideas that never developed back then. I hope to document these images over time and improve upon them. The journaling is more reserved and in this digital form (the blog), which helps to keep me from writing some of the more libel thoughts and gives me a chance to edit the few I do post. I miss the handwriting, though. That's something lacking on the web - too much type and too little personal handwriting.

It Takes Too Long

An Inguinal Hernia is a medical condition where the intestines seep through a natural between the lower lateral abdominal muscles called the inguinal canal. This can happen naturally, as in from birth, and can happen through sedentary lifestyle, where the muscles aren't being properly exercised. See gratuitous medical gross-out images if you'd like.

I'm an impatient man. Perhaps through being spoiled by the invention of microwave ovens, cell phones and the internet I've come to expect the natural forces of nature to work with the same punctual immediacy.

But I've been learning something lately that God's Word says on the matter: "... let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing." (James 1:4). It goes on to talk about asking in faith to receive wisdom, endurance and eventually healing. It mentions that faith without works is dead. It parallels the patience we need to have to that of a farmer, who does his work and waits for the garden to grow. "You also be patient. Establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand." (James 5:8).

I have a strong feeling that James is writing to the Jews during the time of Shavuot, known as the feast of first fruits. That's a season when we reflect on God's goodness. "Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above...". We receive at the feast of first fruits the implanted produce that God brought to fullness. Similar farming allegorical references are made throughout the book of James, which is why Shavout comes to mind.

Back to patience - When a farmer starts he doesn't stop working. He's pulling out weeds, protecting the plants from hail and bugs, and warding off other animals that might devour his hard efforts. Patience takes action, and isn't entirely about waiting.

I've been warned by two different people that this will take at least six months to naturally heal. Poetic that a growing season lasts six to eight months.

There's plenty to do ... and plenty to *not* do. As a farmer, you don't look out at the crop a month after planting it and, not satisfied with how quickly the plant is growing uproot it. I have to remember this stuff - I'm not a farmer, so thinking this way doesn't come naturally. Exercises, meditation, prayer, diet, supplements, rest, acupuncture, and reflexology seem to all play a part in this. Not overexerting myself, not lifting items more than five pounds, not overeating, not eating junk food, not getting upset.

That last one - not getting upset - is the most difficult for me, and one of the greatest causes of my hernia flaring out. I can't explain it other than maybe by getting tense and upset my muscles down there tighten (like stiffening my neck when I get angry) which pushes the hernia, rather than pulls it. Excessive coughing fits have been known to create inguinal hernias where the "patient" hadn't had one before, so this seems feasible.

So to heal, I need to be patient. That seems to mean I don't get angry or upset when healing isn't happening fast enough to my liking. It also means that I take action in belief that this can be cured in time.

As a side note, I am not being foolish about this. I have educated myself on the dangers of this condition and am prepared to move towards surgery in the event that it heads towards a life threatening condition. I also have regular check ups with a doctor. "Watchful waiting" is being practiced intelligently.