On snow and the need for Frankenfenders

Here is the Frankenfender MKII. MKI Frankenfender was great, but had a problem in that the whip part (shown here - the front fender off of a cheap set of mtn bike snap on fenders) was too narrow and my back, rack, and bags were getting "trashed" when riding in the snow with the new and improved huge snow tires of doom. The problem that required the reinstallation of the Frankenfender MKI was the fact that the new tires simply could not be mounted in a standard fender without the studs picking. There would have been no clearance for snow or water and this would have resulted in some serious spray back and annoyance. So, after some experimentation, I decided that the good old "slice the vinegar bottle in half and bolt it to your bike like a geek" approach was much preferred to being wet. 

Makes me want to get out on the bike and see if I stay dry!

The afternoon today ended pleasantly with a walk around the Huron natural area in Kitchener. I went with Martin, and we brought the dslrs and tripods along. Somewhat optimistically, I brought more than the wider of my lenses in the hopes that we might see some beavers, but we had no luck there with that today. What we did manage to get was some nice enough wintery landscapes. I want to return there later in the winter, after a huge heavy snow fall, and take these over again.

Lately, I have been trying to stretch myself a bit photographically and think of new ways to convey an image I have in my head.

Take the simple image of someone drinking a mug of hot chocolate in a cafe. On the surface, it is a simple enough thing, but I wanted to have a little bit of fun with it and fit it into an idea I had. The idea is straight forward - compose a picture as a cube. Square crops, six photos, all showing part of the same thing. All the pictures related to each other. It would be more of a study of the subject matter than just a single photograph, and, for photographers like me who really got going when digital photography was taking off and who never worked with square formats in their composition, a real challenge.

Here is my first attempt at what I am talking about:

Another new direction?

Some frustration is coming out here I feel.

I have been hosting my photos all over the place since I got back into photography in 2007.

I have tried flickr, and still have a pro account with them even though I am not a huge fan of the way the webpage displays work - I mainly use it as a way of keeping in touch with a few nice people that I have met. I find the "white" background and no options to be limiting and not flattering for picture display. White is great for text, but not so much for pictures. Very very few of my pictures are there.

I have tried smugmug, and while I liked it, I found that after a year of using it that it was a bit too cartoony for my liking. I prefer something a little less flashy. So I left them. This is a personal preference thing and not a reflection on the service or its stability with which I never once had a problem. It is a question of the style sheets and interface more than anything. I don't have the time to devote to writing my own, and while they support that (if memory serves me correctly) I don't have the interest in learning how to create one of my own which suits me better. Also, I found that virtually no one found my pictures and looked at them while they were hosted on smugmug. I don't really care if anyone comments, but there is, in my view, very little sense in taking a lot of pictures and sharing them with people if no one looks at them. Granted, I am not the world's best photographer or self publicist (not by a long shot), but the baked in community on smugmug seemed somewhat lacking. At least for me.

Which brings me to pbase. The community is great, the service is great (customer service, when I have needed it has been first rate), and the options for photo display are nice and streamlined (if limited) and suit what I am displaying very well. There is an active group of photographers who are highly talented, who produce work on a regular basis, share it, and visit other people's work. I cannot say enough good things about the community. However, the site is not always stable. And that frustrates. Frustrates to the point where I am considering completely changing the way I share photography with the world.

The solution I have come up with goes something like this. Host the best of my photographic work on a webpage which is stable, suits the kind of work I am displaying, and is very slick in its operation. The rest of what I want to share I can do via blogger here along with stories to go along with it.

what cycling has done to me

It has made me happy.

I spend a lot of time on my bike - every other day is "ride day" and that means I try to log about 110-140km on those days. My off days are either spent not on the bike, or biking with family, or running around doing errands (on my bike, of course.)

It has prompted a collection of bikes. I have four of them right now. One old race bike (does not get ridden at all but is a classic and I have had it since I was about 14 or so), one old mountain bike (does not get ridden much - 128km on it this year), one cyclocross bike (2464 km on it this year and climbing, rapidly), and one commuter/city bike (3079km on it and going up rapidly). I don't have enough bikes. For some reason, there is always one (or six) more that deserve a hook in the basement to hang on. For example, right now I want a Kona paddy wagon (because inexpensive fixies rock!), a Kona Major Jake (because, well, because!), an Electra Rat Fink (because it is just so cool), and a Kona Dew Delux (not because there is anything wrong with my Dew City - far from it - but because this one is just that bit lighter, and has disk brakes which I think I would really appreciate in the snow.)

My fitness is better than it has been since I was 29, a long time ago. Then, I spent hours in the gym and did five spin classes a week (two back to back often) which ripped the excess weight off of me and made me strong as all get out but did nothing for my endurance. Now? Big time endurance and I feel very fit, but have not ripped off the excess weight like I did before. It is a slower process, but one which is more sustainable and long lasting. More lifestyle related if you will.

It has proven to me that it is possible to significantly cut down on my use of vehicles powered by fossil fuels. I have been bugged for a very long time about the destruction of our environment by our habits in our culture and have decided to do something about it. Being one person, my ability to effect systemic change is limited, but I can and do make a difference when and where I can and am not shy about talking about it. Yes, I still own a car because yes, I need it for some aspects of my work (variable work locations some of which are too far away to bike to in the winter and none of which have shower locations I can use spring, fall, or summer) but no, I don't use it all the time and in fact up until the recent travel for vacation (a few out of town trips) I had almost the same km total on the car as on the bikes this calender year. A real switch and one which I hope in future years swings even further toward the bikes. Using steak powered vehicles really makes you consider how much energy is used for transport.

The most important thing though is that it has made me happy.

Thoughts on car free city centres

Initially posted as a response to this post on Take the Lane, a blog from the Kitchener Waterloo Record.

Car free? Fantastic. However, I do think that it has to be more than a venue for entertainment.
Some of you might find this interesting: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/31/opinion/sunday/the-dutch-way-bicycles-and-fresh-bread.html?_r=1&src=me&ref=general
In particular, the notion of shifting planning focus from car friendliness to overall livabiltiy resonates with me.

I have seen first hand what a city looks like that has banished cars from its interior and they are very people centric. The city I am thinking of (in Germany) has ample parking near the core, but no cars allowed in it. Prior to switching to this, they had streets which allowed cars on them right through the middle of the city and the place was a congested mess. Now? It is very active and places people, not cars, first.

Waterloo is very close to being able to pull this off. Last night, I had cause to be out late with my daughter and she, with the clarity of thought that is often shown by the young, pointed out how many people there were on the street. She was surprised that it would be so active so late. She was right. The place was packed. At times you could hardly move on the sidewalk. Was there something special going on? I don't think so. What she pointed out is that there is already a large amount of people traffic on foot in the core. The public square at Waterloo Square, much maligned by nay sayers at the start, is almost always busy. It would not be a huge step for the city to widen the sidewalks so that traffic is down to one lane in each direction with no street parking and reduce the speed limit to 30kmph (this would be a positive step towards no cars on King Street) between Bridgeport and William streets. At the same time, allow merchants to spill out onto the side walks and increase significantly the infrastructure for parking bikes.

I do hope that something like this gets done - the more liveable and people friendly the core is, the more people will come to it. Making the core people - not car - centric is even more important when you consider the push in Waterloo right now towards intensifying housing in the Uptown. The Bauer buildings, the old Seagram ones, the project going in at Allen and Park, and at least one more which I forget right now all intensify housing right in the core of the city. Add to that the town house developments on the old Labbatts and Canada Cabinets properties and all the single family dwellings already in existance, and you have a lot of people right on the Uptown's doorstep who don't need a car to get to the core. Given half a chance, these people will walk the two or three blocks to the Uptown and will use it for their shopping and entertainment.

It sure beats driving to a big box store.

trying to up my game

I am working hard at the moment at developing one specific area of my photography - taking pictures of birds.

A lot of my earlier efforts did not come out so well, and left me frustrated. I was not using my camera correctly, I was using too slow a shutter speed, I was in the wrong shooting mode (not thinking), I was using too high an iso, etc, etc, etc. The excuses for operator error were incredible and rather pointless really. The good thing is though that I learned from the process and became better at exploiting the tools that I have availible to me.

In the process of trail and error as I got a bit better at bird photos I discovered a few useful things:
1) The light. You can have the best gear, the best lenses, camera bodies, and skill, but if you don't have the light, it won't help you all that much.
2) Being there. There is where the birds are. I used to get frustrated at the selection of birds I had to shoot around where I live until I realized that they are all beautiful, and if all I can find on a routine basis is a sparrow or two, then it would benefit me to learn how to better shoot them, wouldn't it?
3) Get close. Get as close as you can to your target without spooking it. If you are making a photo where the bird is the total focal point of the picture (like a portrait) the more of the frame the bird fills, the better. If you want a more environmental shot, a bird in context if you will, then close is still good, but not a critical (that rather depends on the focal lengths availible to you).

Here are some recent samples:

 

 

All for now.

Now enjoy the good weather, and bring a camera along.

Back here in blogger land again.

It has been a very long while since I have written anything on this blog. I have been preoccupied with my other project over on pbase but have decided that it is time to work on this some more. Not everything I want to write about fits well with my other project, so I am starting this one up again.

not here much and here is why

You see, my bike related photo a day project over on pbase is turning into a bike related photo a day photo blog project.

If you are interested, check it out here.

It is much more interesting than what I am doing here, which is nothing.

I still read blogs I follow here though. I just don't bother with writing much of my own.

Cheers.

pitter pat pitter pat

Run: 12.56 km @ 8.36kmph taking 1:30:08
Run km Total: 99.61km

Time to assess how the 1500km goal for November 28, 2011 is going.

On the surface, I am going to miss it. However, I think I am on track to making it with ease. In the last 33 days, I have had two days out for Christmas, and no less than 15 out from being sick. Factor that in, and I am on track to blow past the 1500km mark with ease.

Now all I have to do is do it.