Spirit Hands

10 minutes of regret!, originally uploaded by Robert Snache - Spirithands.net.

This location I had initially planned to photograph the milky way. Upon visiting this site after two o'clock in the morning I was disappointed that there was some outdoor lamp on a farmers lot that spread light all across the field. Without a second thought I left the scene for Plan B : a site closer to the small airport where for sure there was no lights. I was completely happy with my second location. The moonrise happened a little after 3 am and I packed my stuff for home, passing this scene again.

I stopped to take a "what if" shot, a 30 second exposure to see what the camera might produce. The milky way rising in this field was still visible with the naked eye. I was taken aback and swore to myself! Why didn't I stay here first of all? The light from the farmers lamp only helped the scene.

Although the moon was now risen I am sure that I could get a good shot of the milky way. I shot 20 frames at 30 seconds and combined these for 10 minutes of startrails. I ended up with a 2 minute integrated shot for the milky way seen here www.flickr.com/photos/rbs/3542221295 I regretted not starting here as the milky way shot would have been significantly better at this location than here www.flickr.com/photos/rbs/3553373448/

I have been playing around with ideas for a way of displaying my photography on my own website. I don't have an overall plan for it yet but I wanted to test out a few ways of displaying images without doubling my efforts. I post many of my experiences via flickr and was searching for a viable and simple way of exporting those images from there.

My first thought was to link them directly, but coding every individual image takes up time. Then I thought about linking to the simple little slideshow option displayed on the flickr pages. This again wasn't ideal, but if I was able to code the slideshow into an iframe tag in HTML code, then I have something much like what I want. As you can see I have linked my Top 50 set from flickr into this blog post. This worked beautifully in Firefox and Internet Explorer and will be using once I get my website up to task!

The beauty of doing it this way is that all you have to do is link to your preferred set. Additionally I have several automated sets on flickr which I can add images to by tagging specific photos in my flickr stream.

There are some drawbacks however. A potential visitor to your site could easily click away from your website and the background of your website must be set to black. The options for the flickr slideshow are limited.

This is the code I used to display the above slideshow.

iframe src="http://flickr.com/photos/rbs/sets/72157609409001284/show/"
width="500"
height="312"
scrolling="no"
frameborder="0"
marginwidth="0"
marginheight="0"
http://flickr.com/photos/rbs/sets/72157609409001284/show/
/iframe

Sixteen Things, originally uploaded by Robert Snache - Spirithands.net.

I don't usually participate in those chain mail type of tag games, but I needed something to get my blog rolling again. This one was simple enough.

Sixteen Random Things about me!

1. Most people mispronounce my name the first time. Only once in a foreign country did someone say it right! Snache is pronounced like Snake.

2. I am Anishnabe. Want to impress a Native American or Native Canadian? Call one by there Traditional name.

3. Photography seems to have taken over all my free time and thoughts!

4. Spring is my favorite season

5. I am a Gemini.

6. I was batised in a United Church, I had no choice! I truely walk a spiritual path with is guided strongly by the spirit

7. My wife and I first met in a chat room! We will have been married 7 years on February 19th.

8. I like experimenting and learning new and different approaches to photography and more importantly the Post Processing.

9. Obama's rise was truly the most inspiring world event to me!

10. I once live in Durham, NC! Go Bulls!

11. Someday I will retire in the Philippines! Spending winters there and summers in Canada.

12. I once studied Geography and Physics.

13. I am hooked on Podcasts. My current list of favorites are TWIP, TWIT, and CBC's Age of Persuasion and Search Engine.

14. My fascination with long exposure shots can be traced to one photo I saw as a kid. It was a picture of our new band office in the early 1980's with and the lights of a passing car painted across the photo. I remembered thinking of how did they do that and I wanted to do it too!

15. I have been published for the first time in November of last year. Some day I will get around to explaining how it all came about. I have turned around and invested in Sony's next camera the rumoured Alpha 800.

16. I am basically a landscape photographer trying to learn to be a portrait photographer!

The Snowflake Misses the North Wind, originally uploaded by Rob Snache - Spirithands.net.

"I heard you have found a girlfriend"
"Yes I met my chat friend on my vacation."
"Do you have a picture?"
I had her a couple of snapshots from my trip to the Philippines.
"Oh Rob! She's beautiful!"
I looked at my cousin, eyes welling up with tears.
"You must miss her?"
I looked at her and nodded.
Patti reached over to me and gave me a hug. "Everything will be alright"

And it was.

Patti was the one in a million person in life who was quick to smile, offer support without judgment and always there for family and friends. To say that I miss her is a gross understatement.

She will be missed like the stars miss the moon, earth misses the sun and the snowflake misses the north wind

RBS 4 BHO, originally uploaded by Rob Snache - Spirithands.net.

Hoping every United States Citizen will cast their vote tomorrow. I can not vote (I am an Ojibway or Native Canadian) but if I could I would cast it for Barack Obama. No other living politician in my lifetime as inspired me the way Obama has. A man of humble roots, he is the American Dream.

I have nothing but respect for John McCain. He truly and proudly served his country and would definitely be a fresh breath of air after 8 years of George W. Bush. But this year belongs to Barack Obama.

October Sky (BW), originally uploaded by Rob Snache - Spirithands.net.

I have been on a long hiatus from updating my blog. As a short update, I have been keeping busy learning to process HDR (High Dynamic Range) images. This image is a black and white version of my best HDR image so far. The colour version can be viewed on my flickr site here :

On this particular night I had the chance to take some photos at my brother's fastball game. It was taking place on Nomination night (for the 2008 Chief & Council election). On this night I learned that a faster lens and a camera with and extended ISO range with low noise would make a big improvement on this photo. Other than those two expensive options, I could shoot in daylight or I can read more tips like this link!

http://digital-photography-school.com/blog/100-things-ive-learned-about-photography/

The Path of Souls, originally uploaded by Rob Snache - Spirithands.net.

It's now August and I have spent much of the past few weeks chasing Noctilucent Clouds that never appeared in the sky in my area. Lately I have thought more about my the passing of my uncles over that last 2 years. Their souls have and are passing along the Path of Souls til they reach their final place of rest. Capturing this on my camera has been a bit of a distraction from taking more accessible shots in daylight, but this has been far more satisfy, and even a spiritual experience. I have been inspired by other captures of the Milky Way and craved to tell a bit more of my heritage as an Anishnabe.

It is still believed by many Ojibwe that when we pass on to the spirit world our souls will travel through the Western Doorway across the universe to the Spirit World. The path that they will travel is called Nenbosh-miikan or the Path of Souls. It is of great comfort and guidance to my soul that my uncles have travelled this path and someday we will meet again.

Under the Watch of the Stars, originally uploaded by Rob Snache - Spirithands.net.

This was the best night for shooting startrails that I have experienced so far! I just wanted to share my result! Please visit my posting at flickr.com.

http://flickr.com/photos/rbs/2453914520/

If  you have taken long exposures you might have noticed annoying characteristics of your camera.  I shoot with a Sony DSLR and noticed with my long exposures the camera would take a long time to process an image once I had released the shutter.  It was always exactly the same amount of time as the initial shutter speed.  For example, if I shot an image for 1 minute it would take an additional minute to process the final result.  Total time was exactly 2 minutes.  I began to wonder why.  I learned that if I wanted to use my camera without the annoying additional processing time, I had to turn off the Noise Reduction.  Ok, so I tried that and started shooting again.  This time the images were disappointing because the excessive glow that occurred in the corners of the frame.  I soon learned that this is the nature of the beast!  Either I shoot with Noise Reduction on or learn to reduce amount of noise with shorter exposures.





I wanted to be able to understand what was happening with this noise pattern that was inherit to Digital Photography.  I soon learned that it was call Amplifier Glow.  This an extreme example of what happens when you shoot and image with the cap on.  This is called a dark frame and is a perfect example of a noise signature.  The trick that DSLR's employ to get around the noise signature is called Dark Frame extraction.  This Dark frame noise signature must be removed from your shot to reduce and hopefully remove your amplifier glow.





We can take these two shots, your original capture and your dark frame into Photoshop to remove the amplifier glow.  For this to work satisfactory the two shots must have the same Fstop and same shutter speed.  Also because noise patterns are affected by ambient heat the frame should be taken under the same relative time frame.  Best to be taken one after the other.  In this shot I have applied the dark frame on top of the original shot and changed the layer property to Difference.




This is the result of a manual Dark Frame extraction. So now you know why you might want to have Noise Reduction turned on for your long exposures. It can be much easier for your camera to process the Dark Frame then having to do it manually.

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