View full gallery of 177 images

I had meant to write this earlier since I put the photos online a week or two ago… but life has this way of getting busy without warning.

One of my favorite places in the world is Williamsburg, Va and I’ve posted photos from it off and on over the years. We made a trip there a few weeks ago to visit some friends who were traveling through the area. It was only a short weekend, but I managed a few shots that I like.

It also spurred me to make Williamsburg a real focus for the year and I plan to return as often as I can. I have a year-long pass, so my goal is go often and focus specifically on certain themes with every visit: people, architecture, macro/details, trades, seasonal aspects… whatever. Not that I won’t shoot some of whatever presents itself, but I think a series of specific thematic goals for each visit will make for an interesting project.

This time, I focused a bit harder on people in period costume (102 shots) than any other subject. That shows a bit in this visit’s set.

Nothing earth-shattering here, but it does add to my growing library of shots from colonial Virginia.

Enjoy!

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See full gallery of 81 photos

I wanted to create a quick post here to linking to some photos I took this past week during a three day, two night stay at The Greenbrier Resort in West Virginia.

One of many ballrooms

First off, let me say that the place is amazing. It exudes class, style and a tremendous 200+ year history. It’s also back into private ownership again after some number of years of mismanagement, sub-contracted operation, etc. The result is a definite return to its roots. A stay there is full of wonderful little touches in terms of service, grace, and atmosphere. Their top-notch chefs have returned and, from what I gather, virtually all of the operations are internal now as they once were. The staff there seem very happy and quite proud of the resort’s tremendous heritage.

The original intention was a couple of nights there visiting some friends (whose idea it was to arrange this getaway), visiting just prior to the busy season where the rates were more in our range. There is a casino opening by June and a new six year deal with the PGA for a tournament being played in August, so things are about to get a LOT busier and, we suspect, a good deal more expensive.

The "side" Entrance

The craptacular aspect of the trip, however, was my dear wife eating a bad crab cake on the evening before we were to leave (a restaurant local to home… NOT the Greenbrier). She ended up barfing, moaning and wishing for her own death some hours before we were supposed to hop in the car and head for this mini getaway. I kept delaying, hoping to talk her into going later that first day. While the barfing had stopped by then, she was too sore, tired and generally ragged out to be up for the trip and nearly threw me out of the house to go. We had reservations that couldn’t be canceled by then and friends already on the way there with similarly non-cancelable reservations. So, feeling like a complete a-hole, I rolled on over the mountains to spend a few days in peaceful luxury and fine eating while Elisabeth hung out with the cats, watched lousy TV and gingerly started eating again.

I’ve got to leave you with the wikipedia entry for the time being. It does a nice job of explaining the new ownership as well as offering some history on the cold-war bunker that is a fascinating part of the Greenbrier’s history. Unfortunately, I wasn’t allowed to shoot any photos in or around the bunker save the one 30-ton blast door in the room with the extra-horrifying wallpaper.

I’ll update this post or possibly write another soon offering more details about my experience there, including two stellar dinners and a nice chat with the chef who came out to thank us for sending him our compliments. In the meantime, I’ll leave you with this first batch of photos and encourage everyone to take a trip there. You won’t regret it.

Fresh mint marshmallows

Oh, and in case you thought I could write a post without mentioning the iPad… get real. This was my first trip with just cameras, an Epson P-3000 for storage and the iPad. No laptop. Worked great. Having the camera connection kit would have been nice, but I hear those are already starting to ship out this week. Here’s hoping I have mine before this weekend since we’re headed to one of my favorite places in the world: Williamsburg.

See full gallery of 81 photos

Today marks my first full week with the iPad. It goes without saying that I love it and keep finding more uses for it, especially as nifty apps keep appearing with each passing day.

I think it was a couple of days ago that I started to settle into truly using it rather than just marveling at it. By this I mean it is becoming routine to use it in very normal, productive ways rather than hopping around among apps just to see what’s new. I followed a similar cycle with the iPhone when it was first released and I’d hazard a guess that this is not an unusual experience for most new iPad owners.

This past week has also given me a chance to consider a few things I would love to see happen on the iPad (and, to a degree, the iPhone as well). Most of these things will depend on implementation by Apple and a few could happen through the contributions of third party app developers.

iWork Putting its Head in the Cloud(s)

I’m a big fan of Google Docs, which we have recently adopted here at Sweet Briar College through our migration to Google Apps for Education. We’re still waiting for Google to increase functionality on the iPad beyond that of the iPhone, so for right now it’s mostly an iPhone-esque, predominantly read-only experience. Some enterprising app developers are beginning to make Google Docs-connected apps (which, frankly, is probably the more versatile way to go), but it will be a while before those mature.

The iWork suite of Pages, Keynote and Numbers on the iPad is quite cool. There are a few bugs and limitations in 1.0 that have spurred user reactions ranging from an indifferent “meh… works fine for my needs” to a holy war-magnitude threat to return their iPads (to the latter group: come on, seriously!?). I’m still experimenting and, aside from needing to tweak my more HD video-laden presentations a bit to appease iPad Keynote’s current limitations, it seem to be working fine for me.

One of the major complaints from people is the round-trip process for moving documents in and out of the suite. One method is dropping them into their appropriate slots in iTunes at synch time. This works well. Another method, of course, is import and export via email. I believe it was John Gruber in this past week’s MacBreak Weekly that correctly pointed out that this is cumbersome and leads to unsynch’ed copies of your work being made in the process. In this age of cloud computing, synching our works in progress is something we’re worrying about less often either because of centralized working copies or through really well designed synching mechanisms.

My request for Apple is that the iWork suite become cloud-connected. As Alex Lindsay has stated many times (including, again, in this past MacBreak Weekly), Apple’s iTunes approach of using Internet-connected applications vs. web pages is pretty ideal. In his example, he often compares the more elegant user experience of searching and buying items through the iTunes store (a desktop and iPhone/iPad application) to using Amazon’s web-based MP3 store (even considering its relatively well-integrated iTunes helper app). I agree with him 100%.

So, returning to the iWork suite, I’d like to see them continue to be the apps that they are today (fully functional as traditional apps on the desktop and iPad), but with the option to sync live with “the cloud”. That cloud might be some aspect of MobileMe (least desirable option) or an extension of the iWork.com component Apple has been developing for document sharing and (somewhat disjointed) document collaboration.

In essence, this becomes far more like Google Docs in its centralized, cloud-based, access-from-anything-or-any-device approach… but rather than an in-browser application, you’re using the standalone iWork suite that we know today. You can still work locally without ever using the cloud component as you do today. You could start locally and then move to the cloud or you can work disconnected from the cloud with an automatic re-synch as soon as connectivity is restored.

Let me emphasize that I am referring to relatively live synch’ing of your works in progress… NOT just saving periodically to an Internet-based shared volume. Without consciously saving (or even closing the app on my desktop), I’d like to pick up my iPad and resume where I left off at my desk… then reverse this arrangement again minutes, hours or days later.

This opens the door for live Google Docs-like collaboration on documents as well. And if Apple wanted to extend an olive branch and/or take the high ground in the supposed Google/Apple feud they could even make it a front-end to Google Docs much like a number of the third-party apps I mentioned above. This last thought is probably impossible, but I figured I’d throw it out there.

Whatever the case, I’d relish being able to use the iWork suite on my iPad and my MacBook Pro seamlessly with no copying much like I achieve today with Google Docs… but I’d be doing it with device-native apps that are certainly more powerful than anything that can currently be implemented within a browser. While Google impresses the hell out of me with what they can do with javascript, AJAX, etc… a cloud-connected, dedicated application will still have the upper hand functionality-wise right now. We’ll revisit that issue in a year or two as the browser capabilities increase through wider adoption of HTML 5.

iPad Printing Support via a Network Client

The iPad currently has no means of printing, even to network-connected printers (is there any other kind of printer these days!?). Having pretty much hated printers, printing and the headaches that go with printer drivers for years, I can’t say this is at the top of my list right now. I’d very much like to keep most document sharing completely electronic anyway so we can save some more trees and reduce clutter. That said, even I find a need to print things sometimes and I do know that, for increased adoption of the iPad, others are going to need traditional printing support sooner than later.

I’m pretty sure Apple does NOT want to get into the printer driver scene on the iPad. Their intentions for stability and simplicity on this platform would seem to exclude that from ever happening and, frankly, I applaud them for that. Yes, I’m applauding Apple for a stance that I have just projected on them with no knowledge of their true intentions… but this is a wish list on my blog, so I can live in whatever fantasyland I choose without needing to acknowledge your indignant sputtering.

Anyway… I’d love to see printing implemented via PDF and communication with a desktop/server network daemon. This could be a tiny, light-weight service running on desktop Macs, OS X servers and even Linux or Window boxes if Apple wanted to provide the apps or open the standard to developers. In a nutshell, it’s there on your desktop or server to interface with your printers and utilize their required printer drivers. All the iPad has to do is locate this service via Bonjour (or direct IP address configuration in settings) to hand off the PDF’d content and the desktop takes care of the rest. There would be little or no need for intervention even on the desktop side making the process seem to be a direct iPad-to-printer conversation.

At most the iPad would offer the usual choices of portrait or landscape and a few other basics. Even the model of the printer would be pretty irrelevant, I’d think.

No, it wouldn’t be the all-powerful, options-laden process of printing at your desktop… but the goal here is simplicity. We’re all starting to accept that iPads are meant to be a simpler approach to computing that doesn’t fully eliminate the need for desktop systems in every situation. Besides, if the iWork suite was cloud-connected, you’d just open your document on your desktop without ever even “transferring” it from the iPad and could proceed to then knock yourself out with the usual exotic printing options.

iTunes Cloud-Syncing of Audio/Video “Bookmarks”, Playlist Contents, Etc.

This concept is probably closest to Amazon’s Kindle Whispersync. In fact, I might have even heard that Apple is going to do something similar for their iBooks with the iPhone OS 4.0 introduction of iBooks on the iPhone this summer.

Whatever the case, what I’m asking for here is a way to wirelessly synch where I’ve left off in my videos, podcasts and audiobooks. I frequently move between my desktop and my iPhone or iPad mid-stream while listening to podcasts and audiobooks or watching videos such as movies, tv shows and video podcasts. Video podcast mobility has really increased during this last week with my iPad. I find myself watching something like MacBreak weekly at my desk, then switching venues to the kitchen to continue listening and watching out of the corner of my eye on the propped-up iPad as I prepare a meal or bake bread.

Keeping the location where I left off in any of these media sources is pretty well accomplished by iTunes, but it requires USB-connected synching. Now with an iPad and an iPhone, I also have to be sure I tell each device to synch or I might walk out of the house with my iPhone an hour off from where I stopped listening to an audiobook on my iPad.

I’d love to see Apple establish a media implementation of the same kind of wireless, push-based syncing we already get for mail, bookmarks, calendars and contacts with MobileMe. If I pause or stop a video on my desktop, by the time I get to the kitchen with my iPad, I’d like the option (if not the default behavior) to be a resume from that very point. When I climb into the car a few hours later and jam my iPhone into the in-car dock, I’d like to resume the audiobook I was listening to on the iPad without having remembered to dock it and cross-sync through iTunes at my desktop.

If I was traveling without my laptop (a far more likely scenario now), I’d not have iTunes available and iPad to iPhone synching would just not happen at all.

This same function could apply to the contents of playlists (relying, of course, on the same media existing on all devices).

Along these same lines, having full-blown iTunes synching of my iPad to my MacBook Pro without USB would be plenty nice. 802.11n is quite fast, so even large files would come across pretty quickly. User-adjustable thresholds for the maximum size of files to wirelessly synch would cater to your individual amount of patience (and home WiFi speed).

Tethering of the iPad through my iPhone 3G

I covered this in my pre-iPad post a couple of weeks back, so I’m not going to do anything more than re-iterate my hope that this is coming. I still think AT&T would prefer to rope people into iPhones (like I’ve been for three years now) over selling month-to-month, non-contract 3G service to iPad owners. Those of us maintaining iPhone contracts and buying non-3G iPads are still generating plenty of income for AT&T and Apple… so how about some love, guys?

On a side note: AT&T, please hurry the hell up with lighting up 3G in the Lynchburg area. It’s in Charlottesville, Richmond, DC… I’m surrounded by it as long as I’m out of town.

Tethering the iPhone GPS/Camera to the iPad via WiFi or Bluetooth

Again, I discussed this a bit in my earlier pre-iPad post. In a nutshell, I’d love to see Apple implement apps (or, better yet, OS-level tools that are not app-specific) to share iPhone cameras and GPS datastreams via Bluetooth. Prop your iPhone in a little stand on the cafe’ table and you’re doing video conferencing without either device having a front-facing camera. Your iPhone 3G in your pocket could be feeding a nice stream of standard GPS NMEA sentences to my iPad for on-foot navigation while on one of my frequent trips to, say, Washington, DC. Granted, the latter scenario is less needed since the far more portable iPhone still strikes me as a plenty adequate in-hand guidance device… but you never know what cool new things could be realized with the extra iPad screen real-estate. Once again, I’m asking for Apple/AT&T to reward those of us who are paying subscribers rather than punish us for not buying 3G iPads. Combining the two devices seems to be a win for all parties.

Thus endeth my latest overly long screed about the iPad. I’m sure I’ll have more feature requests and thoughts soon, so look for future posts as time goes on. I’m sure you simply can’t wait for another 10,000 words on the topic.

…and all I can say is:

Bravo, Mr. Jobs. And Mr. Ive. And everyone else at Apple that made this thing of beauty.

I’ve been hot for a tablet-style device for years. You’re looking at a guy who not only had a Newton 2100, but a Casio Zoomer (briefly) some years prior to that. The Zoomer, by the way, was pure misery… the Newton a joy. As technology moved out of the PDA realm and into true tablet computing, the possibilities got more exciting but the implementations were always, in a word, crap.

Along came the iPhone, a device that I consider to be truly revolutionary. It’s fantastic in its form factor and, like most everyone else, I use it less as a phone and more as a miniature tablet-style device. All this did was increase my yearning.

I’ve been a Kindle owner (1st gen and DX) and a fan of e-books. All of my computers are laptops. I have a Dell netbook Hackintosh that is handy for network tasks in switch closets but has a keyboard that would make the Pope kick a puppy to death.

Computing and the Internet are the focus of my career and much of my life. Computing for me is technical, creative and often casual. I watch TV with my iPhone nearby because I can’t resist looking up things about actors of whatever other trivia springs to mind. I read blogs like I read novels and alternate between the two on the fly. TV shows, movies, video podcasts… I’m surrounded by the stuff and my consumption of these things scales from my 30″ Cinema Display at my desk to my 4.5″ iPhone screen in my pocket.

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I’ve already written about all of my wishes concerning the iPad and how I plan to use it. I won’t rehash all (or at least much) of that here.

That was written during the pre-order era. I’m, thankfully, now writing in the “got my hot little hands on the freakin’ iPad” era.

The thing is even more sexy than I expected. It has a heft to it that screams of quality and craftsmanship… the same reaction I had to the dense little iPhone the first time I picked one up. Since 90% of the thing is screen, that’s obviously the first thing you notice. Out of the box you’re treated to the usual Apple logo and, shortly thereafter, the USB-meets-iTunes symbol that means “give me an identity and some media to chew on”. Once you’ve gotten that out of the way, you’re ready to sink into exploring the iPad and the sheer bright, crisp beauty of the display hits you. And hits you again. And again the next day. And the day after that, too.

The main thing you have to understand about the iPad sounds like fan-boy hyperbole in numerous reviews and blog posts: performance and interface merge on this device and change the whole game. The thing is engaging in a way that other computing devices are not. You go from marveling at the device itself to ignoring it entirely while you become immersed in whatever content it is that you’re consuming: the web, videos, photos, a game… whatever.

In a nutshell, the thing is gorgeous to look at and wonderfully invisible all at the same time.

And by combining an unrivaled touch interface with the kind of responsiveness that leads you to believe that you can’t move faster than it can dish it out… well, that’s what makes it immersive. The invisible human/machine barrier more or less ceases to exist and it’s just you and your very touchable, flickable, pinchable content.

So do I have any gripes? Sure… some little stuff.

Yes, the screen gets all finger-smudged, but the oleophobic glass allows it to be wiped clean with the swipe of a shirtsleeve. It can feel a tad heavy when reading in bed… but on the flipside, it’s perfectly balanced and never has a tendency to want to tip forward or backward. iFixit, in their iPad disassembly, determined that the front electronics and rear aluminum case weighed the same to the gram, thus creating near perfect balance.

The docks you can buy for it are pretty fiddly. They don’t have a scooped guide like the iPhone dock, so it’s a matter of aim to get it seated. Worse, the docks don’t weigh enough and removing it is always a two-handed operation trying to hold the dock to the table while tugging on the iPad. I envisioned docking it on the bedside table at night before sleeping. Sadly, docking it nearly involves climbing out of bed and planting both feet squarely on the floor to get it seated. Beyond that, the cat would probably knock it over in the night which, admittedly, is a Dobby flaw more than an Apple flaw.

The dock issue for me, however, might well be a moot point already. The iPad’s beauty leads to that usual Apple-device conundrum of wanting to put it in a case to preserve the looks and, of course, sacrificing the beauty of its design by putting it in a case. I’m currently trying out Apple’s case which scores high in the functionality department. It protects the surface, but also folds into a wedge shape that allows for easy typing or stands up for watching video or to create a hinge-less laptop when combined with a bluetooth keyboard. The case is not dock-compatible and insertion and removal of the iPad to and from the case is NOT a trivial, mindless process. You put it in the case and leave it there until you have a damn good reason to remove it.

Unfortunately, Apple’s case most decidedly does NOT bring the sexy. It’s remarkably fugly for something with Apple’s logo on the front and especially surprising since the industrial design of the iPad is so stellar. But, as I said, the functionality aspects of that case are slowly winning me over, even at the cost of masking all of its sleek glass-meets-aluminum beauty. I at least feel less like I’m going to drop it (the case is a bit rubbery) and a tad less concerned if I do.

In the coming days I’ll write some posts about specific aspects of the iPad: as an e-book reader (and Amazon’s future role), its role in a photographers portfolio, ways in which it is (and is not) a laptop replacement, etc. I also have some pretty strong opinions on the raging debate about Apple’s seeming heavy-handedness when it comes to interface compliance, complexity, etc. I’ll write about those thoughts as well because, God knows, the Internet needs another editorial and review about the iPad.

So why am I bothering to write about this device? The odds of my writing anything original are slim to none considering the sheer volume of discussion going on throughout the net. I think the reason is because, when something impresses you this much, you feel compelled to share your thoughts with others.

On that note, I’m off to bed to read some more of Cory Doctorow’s novel, Little Brother. My copy is an ePub-formatted book I grabbed from Gutenberg and dropped right into iBooks. My Kindle DX, by the way, sold on eBay last night and was placed in the hands of UPS earlier today to start its journey to a new home. The irony? The best fitting box I could find in the house in which to pack it for shipment: the outer box UPS brought my iPad in this past Saturday.

View the New Orleans Photo Galleries

I had the wonderful opportunity to spend much of last week in New Orleans. I attended a NITLE Summit in partnership with Meraki, the makers of our kick-ass 802.11n WiFi system here at SBC. I was there specifically to discuss our deployment with other colleges and universities. Beyond the summit, however, I tacked on about two and a half extra days for two of my favorite travel pursuits: photography and good food.

Kitty at Cafe Beignet

Trust me, I engaged heavily in both. Crawfish etouffee, jambalaya, chicken and andouille gumbo, fried alligator po-boys, creole boudin, and cafe au lait with a nice order of beignets. And, no, I didn’t gain ten pounds because I spent most of my non-eating time walking my ass off all around the French Quarter, Canal Street, Frenchmen Street, the grounds of two amazing plantations and a rather nifty swamp (though, to be honest, I mostly sat in a boat during the latter).

The French Quarter is fascinating to me for its wild variety as well as how quickly everything can change. Start on Royal Street with its quintessential French Quarter architecture and numerous upscale shops, art galleries and fine restaurants. It’s peaceful most any time of the day or night and always elegant. Walk one street over, however, and you end up on raucous Bourbon Street, a veritable circus of lights, loud music, alcohol and all out debauchery. Art galleries over here, very scantily clad strippers calling to you over there. Gaslight-illuminated sidewalks and open-air cafes over here, and Ashley the Bourbon Street Queen holding court over there.

Lady with the One-String Uke

Admittedly, both streets are a ton of fun for a photographer most anytime of day or night. My tastes are more toward Royal Street (I just don’t seem to have the pub crawl gene for some reason), but there’s no way you can’t walk up and down Bourbon a few times just for the sheer entertainment value. It sure as hell looks nothing like home (except for the dude wielding the eight foot cross with ‘He Dat’ written across the top… that, sadly, was disturbingly close to home).

I stayed at the International House hotel just off of Canal Street and next door to the site of the summit that brought me to NOLA. It’s an elegantly decorated place with, for me, one gigantic flaw: no in-room desks. You can imagine how much fun photo editing can be with a laptop on your bed… emphasis on the lap part. Same goes for doing semi-emergency remote server work at 1:30 AM in the same hunched over position. I recommend the hotel if you’re not needing working accommodations or an abundance of power outlets. Admittedly, most people going to NOLA to engage in traditional bacchanalia won’t give a rat’s arse about a desk in their hotel room. This, again, is where I’m apparently missing the fun genes. Oh well.

Beyond my repeated trips in and out of the French Quarter, I spent from early morning until early evening Wednesday on a plantation and swamp tour. I knew the somewhat whirlwind timeframe of cramming in travel, two plantations, lunch and a swamp would mean little more than a sampler… but that’s precisely what I needed as a first-timer. Camera in-hand, I forked over $115 to Old River Road Plantation Adventure to make it all happen. I will say, without hesitation, that they did a top-notch job from start to finish. Our driver and guide, Elmore, had an encyclopedic knowledge of the region and history from the 1600’s onward giving a virtual lecture on everything from Creole culture to architecture, all while driving the bus. I sat in the passenger seat since I wasn’t traveling with anyone and could get in and out a little more easily considering I had a small subset of B&H’s inventory hanging from my body most of the day.

Ashley, The Bourbon St. Queen

We visited Oak Alley plantation, known best for its picturesque 28 Virginia Live Oaks that line the front entrance. Trust me, you’ve seen this place in quite a few movies whether you realize it or not. We then moved on to Evergreen plantation which, as a photographer, appealed to me most. Its trees were covered in more spanish moss than I’ve ever seen in one place as well as having two long rows of original slave cabins on the grounds. The somewhat gray morning meant a diffused light through those moss-covered oaks onto weatherbeaten shacks that were just oozing with texture. I could have spent a full day just crawling around and shooting those scenes in the changing light. But, as I mentioned earlier, the timeframe made this more of a sampler and we moved on to lunch and the swamp tour.

We spent the next hour and a half slowly gliding through a swamp on a 30-foot tour boat seeing alligators, birds, turtles, snakes and one marshmallow-craving raccoon named Lucy. The swamp really was a beautiful place, the gators fascinating and our guide both knowledgeable and highly entertaining. The tour included hands-on with a baby gator named Elvis that we, literally, passed around the boat for ten or fifteen minutes (note: baby gators are far softer than you’d imagine and apparently not inclined to bite). The adult alligators weren’t interested in our stinky hunks of chicken or the bright white marshmallows tossed practically onto their noses. Apparently they were all just coming out of hibernation and, contrary to what I’d assume, not endowed with the munchies. I get hungry between lunch and dinner, so I can’t imagine what coming out of a full winter sleeping in river mud would do to my appetite. Then again, I’m not cold-blooded and my brain is considerably larger than a walnut. Go figure.

Oak Alley

While on the topic of a Louisiana swamp, let me mention one thing critical to the enjoyment of this trip: I was visiting in late March. That is apparently the pleasant thumbnail of sanity between true winter and NOLA summer. I’ve experienced a little of NOLA summer from a past trip and I know my butt would most decidedly NOT be gliding around in a swamp were it not a wonderful 65 degrees with virtually undetectable humidity. I had no idea it was ever this pleasant in NOLA and, throughout the course of my trip, constantly marveled at the sheer pleasantness that enabled me to explore the region without thoughts of throwing myself in front of a Canal Street streetcar. Granted, as slow as those things move, I’d probably just end up with a big bruise to deal with while I continuing to poach in the NOLA humidity.

Evergreen Slave Cabins

Late on Thursday night, I rounded out my trip with a hike clear across the full length of the French Quarter to Frechmen Street. This was on the advice of the desk clerk at my hotel when asked where I might find a decent dessert and some good live music. He wasn’t wrong. The clubs all along there, with doors open to the street, were bursting with a wide variety of jazz. I spent quite a while just wandering from door to door and sampling the different styles. I got that dessert I wanted at a place called the Praline Connection where, at four minutes to closing time, they happily served me a hot bread putting in praline sauce. It was the only dessert I ate the entire week in New Orleans and, frankly, the only one I needed. Excellent.

I’ll mention one more thing from Frenchmen Street: Michael Hayden, Street Poet. This was a young guy with a small, manual typewriter propped up on two milk crates and his typewriter case. The sign attached to his crate-desk advertised all-original poems composed on demand. He didn’t disappoint. I watched him tap out two completely original and personalized poems for some girls that stopped to chat with him. What amazed me was the quality of his work paired with the sheer amount of distraction he was dealing with. A constant stream of questions from the girls, passers-by making comments, street noises, etc… none of it detracted from his ability to whip out poetry at a furious pace. After watching him compose two works, I called my wife back at home, told her she needed to “give someone some information” and handed him the phone. He briefly informed her that he’d be writing her a poem and needed some subject matter. She provided a few hints about the flowers she loves here in Virginia (it’s spring and her hormones start screaming “gardening” this time of year). A few minutes later (and amidst a dozen distractions), he finished his rather elegant poem and read it to her over the phone. I tipped him $20 and the poem is now framed here on our mantle piece.

Elvis, the Baby Gator

What I didn’t have that night was my camera and I’m still kicking myself for opting to leave it back in the hotel room during my Frenchmen St. adventures. I would love to have gotten a bunch of low-light stills and some video of about a dozen different things on that street, not the least of which was Michael’s remarkable poetry endeavors. I dug around online when I got home and, lo and behold, found a small profile of him from a newspaper in Vermont where he lived before taking his creative enterprise on the road to NOLA.

I could keep on writing about all the neat things I experienced in New Orleans last week including the great street musicians, the amazing food (corn and andouille macque choux over white corn grits at Cafe Amelie), the many sights on Bourbon Street, and nifty bits of plantation history. I won’t bore you further, though, and will instead point you toward the photos from the trip. I’ve broken them into four galleries, so be sure to back up and peruse each to see the full adventure.

All photos were shot with a Canon 5D Mark II and either a 24-70mm F2.8L or 70-200 f/4.0L lens. I might put some of the video (both from my 5D and my iPhone) up later.

Enjoy!

View the New Orleans Photo Galleries

As many listeners of TWiP know (from my endless yammering in a past episode), I adore Google Reader, which is the web-based manifestation of my love of RSS in general. Anything that brings the obnoxiously wide range of websites that I want to follow right to my eyes in an organized fashion pleases me to no end.

Part of why I love Google Reader is that it’s efficient and, being web-based, is inherently synced when I switch from desktop to iPhone (and, in five more days, iPad) and back. I had tinkered with various RSS reader apps on the iPhone that synced in some manner, but they struck me as cumbersome or pointless. Why pointless? Because Google Reader’s web-based mobile incarnation formats VERY nicely on the iPhone and Google, as they are wont to do, is always refining that interface.

So it took a cry of euphoria from a recent TechCrunch post to pique my interest in Reeder 2.0.

Yes, finally, I’ve found a Google Reader-synched iPhone RSS app that actually beats Google at their own game. The interface is smooth and fast and very pleasant to look at, from the color scheme right on down to the various flicking gestures to reveal per-entry functionality. It syncs so seamlessly with Google Reader that I can read a single article, then hit “R” to refresh on my desktop and see the count decrement by one. This might seem trivial, but it means the app is as functional as the web-based reader in terms of keeping me synchronized between desktop and iPhone. It can also cache the content very nicely to allow for offline reading (excluding, of course, following links to outside content).

Reeder 2.0 on my iPhone

Check out the iTunes entry for the app for some screenshots, the feature list and the overwhelmingly positive reviews (the TechCrunch article also goes into plenty of detail about its benefits, so I won’t repeat all of that here). Then pony up the $2.99 if you’re as into Google Reader as I am. If you’re not, maybe this is a good place to start.

Oh, and here’s hoping they have an equally sexy iPad version on the way. I would imagine they do.

The Want

The iPad has been the device I’ve been waiting for, literally, for years. The iPhone proved the case and I use it constantly: on the sofa, lying in bed, etc. I’ve always wanted a highly capable, touch-based, networked portable device that was not a laptop. The iPhone has filled that niche but left me pining all the more for a true tablet. The first day I played with the iPhone OS I knew I wanted it in a larger format for those times when tiny wasn’t a requirement. Don’t misread me… the iPhone is the device I want when running around, both as a phone and a data device. But the iPad is the device I want while lounging about, doing casual surfing while watching TV, as a reading device, in most meetings, while traveling, etc.

With the iPhone I’m already leaving my laptop behind for many meetings, short trips, etc. Anytime I don’t expect to be doing larger scale work such as editing 21 megapixel photos from my camera or heavy remote sysadmin work, I leave it behind and go all iPhone. The iPad, however, looks to be that perfect fit in the middle. I also never dreamed the Jobsonian ideals would allow a keyboard, but not only do they support their bluetooth keyboard, they’ve made a dock specifically for the iPad with one built in.

So, yes, as a hardcore Mac user, a 15+ year Linux advocate at the desktop and server level, sysadmin, programmer, photographer, Kindle reader, iPhone owner and all around alpha-geek: the iPad is that missing piece I’ve been wanting for many years dating back to my Newton 2100 days.

Many will gripe about its “lack” of multitasking. Aside from growing evidence that this will be a non-issue come iPhone OS 4.0… I don’t really encounter that hampering my iPhone usage. Keep in mind that this is coming from someone who couldn’t survive without OS X’s Spaces to keep the sheer number of different tasks I have going more organized.

My usage of the iPhone tends to be very focused and I don’t expect to be any different with an iPad. I’m reading. I’m surfing. I’m watching something or playing a game. How does it currently multitask in ways that I need? Background music from the iPod app. Background mail checking if I so choose. Alarms and notices. Sure, I might benefit from a more constantly running IM application that isn’t tied to Apple’s Push method or a few other things… but it seldom crosses my mind.

Adobe Flash? Frankly, I’d like to escape that in most cases. Flash frequently irks me in the web world… probably as often as it appeals to me. It’s the most likely thing in my browsing experience to cause the fans in my MacBook Pro to start screaming like jet engines. It’s what my plug-in-isolated Safari in Snow Leopard most often reports to be the thread that got sent down for the dirt nap, allowing Safari itself to live on. Yes, HTML 5 stands to take over much of Flash’s role and the sheer impact of the iPhone has already prompted many sites to drop Flash or at least create browser-detected alternatives.

The lack of a camera doesn’t bug me, really. If it had one, cool… but I think people complaining that it isn’t in the bezel facing front don’t consider that in normal, comfortable use the camera would be looking up your nose. This is an area where I think an external bluetooth camera or even an iPhone app where you dock/prop the iPhone nearby and it streams video to your iPad for conferencing would get the job done.

Pre-Order Day

Yes, I was in my chair well before the announced 8:30 AM online pre-order. I saw the Apple “we’ll be right back” sticky note through numerous reloads. I was being this obsessive because nobody knew (with the various rumors) what their supply was for release day.

Confirmation

Several friends were also ordering, so we were in iChat before the store opening comparing notes. Our plan was online order with in-store pickup in Short Pump (about two hours from where we live), partly for more assurance vs. FedEx possibly dropping the ball on a Saturday delivery and mostly for the usual party-like atmosphere of an Apple new product release. Unfortunately, none of us could find the reserve and pick-up link initially and, for the sake of not screwing around with unknown availability, we all just went with the home delivery. Apple clearly states delivery to your door ON April 3 and I’ve had success with this in the past with everything from the iPhone 3GS to Harry Potter books (although the latter is a UPS or FedEx and USPS combined arrangement of some sort).

After confirming the order, @paulmonkey tweeted me the elusive reservation link. By this time, though, we felt safe with our established orders and decided not to alter anything. The news later in the day confirmed this to be a good decision. People wanting to switch from delivery to in-store pickup were being warned that the retail channel was rapidly going dry and that might mean a delay. As much as I’d enjoy the trip to Short Pump with friends, that’s four hours round trip in the car that I don’t need to burn up. A friendly FedEx driver placing it in my hands on the front porch seems far more appealing now.

My Config

So what did I order? I went with the 32 GB WiFi model. I have several reasons for that choice.

First off, the price is right down the middle and agreeable. I know from owning a 32 GB iPhone 3GS that the space is adequate… though that might be a different story, I realize, as iPad apps become more complex and more usage of video playback becomes a priority. We’ll see. 64GB at $100 more started creeping out of my current price comfort zone for a first gen device. Besides, there is every chance there will be a second generation rev not too far down the road and, by that time, my wife will likely be ready for an iPad (assuming she’s not caved already and bought a first gen as well). She and I have this arrangement with the iPhones, which works since it staggers our two-year commitments and makes one of the two of us upgrade-qualified at AT&T with each new model release. I crave the latest and she’s often happy one generation behind.

Why WiFi-only and not 3G? Well, aside from wanting it roughly a month sooner (that’s really just a side benefit), I honestly decided I don’t need the 3G… at least not now. We’ll see once I’m using it heavily and whether I run into cases where I wish I’d gone that route (apply above exercise of buying next rev and giving current rev to wife here, too). I have several thoughts on this point, though:

• I’m around WiFi all the freakin’ time. At home, at work on our campus-wide Meraki system, in many public venues, etc
• I own an iPhone 3GS, so it’s not like I don’t have a capable device when WiFi isn’t there and I need to reach the net
• I have a sneaky suspicion tethering is going to be an option someday, despite what Steve so bluntly says right now

On that last point, my reasoning is that AT&T has already promised us tethering with iPhones, though they are clearly late on delivering it. If I’ll be tethering my MacBook Pro… why not my iPad? What’s to stop the iPhone from being turned into a MiFi-style device once tethering is official with AT&T? Yes, AT&T sells a 3G service for the iPad that is amazingly flexible (no commitment), but you’d think they’d want to encourage people to go for the iPhone with its two-year commitment and inevitable tethering service fee. They are bound to make more money on that combination and a lot more lock-in since it requires a commitment vs. the freedom to come and go with the iPad’s 3G option.

What am I missing going WiFi-only? The main thing will be the GPS. Dangit. Then again, my iPhone has it and is probably the more likely navigation device due to its greater portability. And, once again, I see tethering possibilities here. Why not share the iPhone GPS via bluetooth with the iPad? Or a dedicated bluetooth GPS (which I happen to own already)? Either outboard option would provide a roving iPad with a GPS data stream… assuming you even need it.

Lastly, I did order a dock and Apple’s case. I doubt they arrive on release day, but they will probably show up no more than a few days later. I’m holding off on the keyboard dock for now and will probably go with the more travel-packable, not-limited-to-the-iPad Apple bluetooth keyboard. I already use the wired version of that keyboard and love it.

What are my Hopes?

There’s a lot the iPad is already designed to do that meets my needs. Everything it shares with the iPhone capability-wise (minus talking on it, of course) for starters.

I want to use it in the field with my photography, assuming it can deal with 21 megapixel RAW photos from a Canon 5D Mark II decently. I can certainly see the possibility for at least basic editing in the field and certainly a gorgeous display for viewing your shots. Sure, the serious work will come later on my laptop… but I’d not be taking my laptop with me on trips as much if this will work. Camera, iPad and one or two portable photo tanks like my Epson P-3000 or the HyperDrive ColorSpace I keep eyeing would get the job done. Just extracting a mid-resolution, high quality JPEG from the shots on my card would be fine since I don’t -need- the iPad to ingest the entire 21 megapixel RAW file in most cases. That would be a very fast way to make a 32GB iPad fill up. I think there is little hope of it dealing with the raw 1080p video from my camera, though. Oh well.

I’d also like to see the iPad move into the realm that the iPhone still has not tackled (much to my shock): tethered camera control. This would be for HDR photography and in-studio shooting using the iPad as a great preview device. Yes, I know there are some WiFi camera control tools out there on the iPhone (requiring USB and a laptop in the equation)… but I still want wired direct connectivity with the camera’s USB port like my laptop has today. I expected to see this on the iPhone the moment Apple opened the dock port to hardware development. What gives?

I have a gut feeling I’ll be retiring my Kindle DX. The jury is still out on that until I have it in hand… but the feature comparison is clearly favoring the iPad. What are the issues for me?

• E-ink displays have merit when it comes to paper-like visual qualities and less chance of eye-strain vs. a backlit display… but I need to read on the iPad to know and other features might well trump this factor.
• The Kindle is very book-like and I use it like a book. Period. It doesn’t offer distractions. When I get into a book, I read it linearly, focus on the content and get more reading done.
• I do have an investment in Kindle books. How many will I read twice or more? Tough to say… so this might not be such a big deal.

In the Kindle vs. iPad battle for me, there are many considerations. Aside from the points above, I fully feel that Amazon will stay in the game by releasing a good iPad Kindle reader. B&N has already announced theirs, so I can’t imagine that Amazon won’t be enhancing the one they already offer for the iPhone.

Honestly, I like this three-way potential war between Apple, Amazon and B&N. If they all produce good quality readers for the iPad, I’ll have choices for where I buy any given book based on price or whatever other criteria might apply. Competition is good here. But, again, the reader applications will be a big factor. So here’s hoping Amazon keeps pace in this realm so I can continue to be Amazon-loyal in my eBook purchases. Besides, my mother-in-law’s Kindle is on our account and I’d like to keep benefiting from our ability to share purchased books, even if I’m no longer using the Kindle DX.

I’m eager to see where magazine publishers and others go with iPad-enhanced periodicals. My eyes are on Wired right now since I love the magazine and they have already talked about their intentions to hit the iPad hardcore. This stands to be fantastic for all parties involved in an era of declining magazine and newspaper revenues.

I’m sure we’ll see even more useful tools for sysadmins on the iPad. SSH clients and other network tools will be highly appreciated since, again, the iPad form factor is far more appealing for running around in the network closets and tracing various issues. Granted, I have a dual Linux/Hackintosh Dell Mini 9 netbook for this purpose (which has the required ethernet port for my work)… but the thing has the worst keyboard on planet earth. It is durable, though, and I couldn’t give a crap about scratching it up (too late… that train left the station this past summer during our network upgrade).

And, of course, gaming. The possibilities there are fantastic. Like the iPhone, it will still lack the tactile button controls I prefer for platformers… but that all depends on the game. Strategy games should be a ton of fun on here as well as network-playable traditional board and card games.

Wrapping Up

I’ve written way too much already and, frankly, nobody is going to give a rip. I’ve said little that others haven’t already said in countless blog posts since the announcement of the iPad.

At this point, I’m just pleased to have a known release date and an iPad purchased and, supposedly, locked in for arrival on April 3rd. It sucks to be nearly a month away still… but such is life. I’ve got a busy few weeks between now and then, so I suspect it will fly by.

If you have thoughts or arguments, please feel free to post them in the comments. Also, take the poll I’ve attached if you’re so inclined.

I’ve been wanting to return to active blogging and more frequent posting of photo galleries for quite some time now. The sysadmin/geek in me also wanted to completely overhaul the halfpress.com blog including finding a new approach to how my galleries are created. I also needed to refresh my approach to online photo sales, not just for the regular events I shoot, but to begin dabbling with the sale of some of my photos on an artistic basis.

The blog was originally hosted on my own server(s) using MovableType and a few layers of self-written Python code to support a database-driven, slideshow-capable gallery workflow. This approach became cumbersome after a while, namely once Lightroom came into my life and my editing workflow changed significantly (for the better).

the new halfpress

I’ve had cause in the last year to build other blogs related to my work and have taken a real liking to the modern Wordpress. As a result, I’ve moved everything to one of my beefier, more modern Linux servers and ported all of my MovableType halfpress content to the latest release of Wordpress. Once again, the sysadmin and geek genes in me have plans for some custom components, so I’m continuing to host on servers that I maintain from the physical hardware level on up.

Frederick Van Johnson turned me on to Graph Paper Press a year or so ago and I’ve been eyeballing their slick, media-centric Wordpress themes for a while. I went ahead and subscribed to their service this past week and have started out with their ultra-flexible Modularity theme. There is a lot the theme can do that I haven’t implemented, and I might still dabble with some of their other theme lines or Modularity-parented variants. For now, this gets me going.

The last major element was the hosting of my photo galleries. This is one area where I have decided to move from my own servers to outside hosting. After some inquiries to my always helpful Twitter followers, I quickly landed at Zenfolio. Their system has great backend management, nice presentation and kills two birds with one stone for me: it serves as both an elegant portfolio site and a very capable photo sales site.

I do a good bit of event photography, some of which is annual (namely for my employer, Sweet Briar College). Since 2006, I’ve been selling those photos online with good success. My photo sales galleries were always a world all their own, disjointed from my workflow and galleries on the blog. I also periodically tossed random stuff on Flickr, but I’ve never been a fan of their user interface despite the massive community they represent.

Zenfolio provides me with an opportunity to put everything in one place using an interface that I really like, including a nice Lightroom plug-in by Jeffrey Friedl that massively streamlines my gallery creation. By placing all of my photos here and linking those galleries to my blog entries, I have a fairly transparent bonding of the two sites. I also have less individual sites to manage and an opportunity now to offer virtually anything – events or non-event artistic photos – for sale online.

I’m just now completing the initial blog move and Zenfolio configuration. There are still rough edges and lots of unexplored territory, so things will likely continue to change in the coming days. Since I ported all of my previous blog content, but haven’t been blogging much in the last two years, my front page will still have quite a few old entries. This gives me more incentive, however, to get some momentum and push those things off the main page by adding new content. One can hope.

the old halfpress

The old incarnation of halfpress is by no means dead (yet). While the content has been migrated to the new site, the old server is still in operation in all of its antiquated glory: http://archive.halfpress.com.

I’m open to feedback, which you can place in the comments on this post or tweet to me (@halfpress). I’m especially interested in comments on the site navigation, overall aesthetics and my choices of imagery for the slideshow, etc. Also try the small images you see in my posts (like the ones to the left and right of this text) – they should be clickable for enlargement and I’d like to know if they pop up cleanly for everyone. I’ve implement reCaptcha, too, in my comment system and would like to see it in action with users (I had this implemented on the old site, too).

Mobile users (iPhone, Nexus, etc): please let me know if the streamlined mobile version looks good. There is a toggle switch at the bottom of the mobile version allowing you to switch to the full site if your device is up to it.

It’s almost 4 AM and I’m going to be insanely tired tomorrow, so I’ll wrap this up, send out a tweet and hit the sack!

- Aaron

view the full photo gallery

A couple of weeks ago, I got a surprise call from Senator Webb’s office asking if I wished to attend Obama’s inauguration in Washington, DC. Are you kidding!? I’d barely hung up the phone before I was renting lenses and starting to plan the trip.

Within the next hour, luck struck twice when a close friend’s sister that lives on Capitol Hill loaned me her apartment for the duration. That put me about three blocks from the Capitol steps (the site of the ceremony) AND the ability to drive since I could park my car there in her neighborhood. I tend to prefer the train to DC, but this allowed me to keep my own schedule and, better yet, take as much gear and crap with me as I thought I might need.

As far as lens rentals go, I snagged two lenses that seemed a good fit for the various possibilities. The first is a Canon 70-200 f/2.8L IS – a lens I have coveted for ages and plan to buy (AFTER I get a 5D Mark II body). Knowing there could well be some serious distance to cover, I also grabbed a Canon 100-400 f/4-5.6L IS, the first push/pull lens I’ve used. Both were superb and, ultimately, fit the bill perfectly in harmony with the Canon 24-70 f/2.8L that I already own. Security prohibited me from carrying any “large” camera bags, but one of the lens bags that came with the rentals had a neck strap and was within size requirements. Therefore, I carried two bodies and lenses on shoulder straps and a third lens in that bag around my neck so I would have the option to swap off when needed.

Click to view the full gallery

The weather was bitter cold (as is so often the case in January in DC), so I crowdsourced a bit among my Twitter compatriots and assembled a great series of suggestions for winter weather gear. A few hundred dollars (ouch) later, I was ready to go with a new wind/waterproof Columbia jacket with removable fleece liner, uber-warm socks, a nice Thinsulate stocking cap/beanie, Manzella Cascade Convertible mittens/gloves where the mitten end flips open to reveal exposed fingertips, and a set of high-tech “long underwear” (for lack of a better description) made by Under Armour. Special attention is to be paid here to the gloves that are ideal for photographers. My hands stayed toasty warm with the mitten ends closed (mittens beat gloves for overall finger warmth), but with a flick I could have my fingertips ready for working the buttons on the camera.

The Under Armour was… interesting. Dignity goes right out the window when a non-athletic guy like me crams himself into a pair of these things. I began referring to it as my “Super Suit” in honor of The Incredibles. This Teaser Trailer immediately came to mind. Maybe not that bad… but I did feel like a human sausage. Fortunately, they go UNDER one’s clothes and not even my wife has seen me in them in “raw form”. All of that said, they quite literally kept me from freezing during Inauguration as well as utterly eliminating that horrid “freezing while sweating in your coat” situation one so often encounters in the dead of winter. I’m impressed… albeit compressed… while wearing them.

After arriving in DC on Monday, I spent the evening scoping things out and getting a sense of how everything was laid out for the big day. Light was fading fast by the time I was out and about, so most of my first shots here are evening and night shots of the Capitol building. The mood around the area was already like a gigantic block party, though, with happy and excited people literally everywhere. The capitol lawn was crawling with folks wanting to see as much up close as possible before the major security wall came down on Tuesday morning.

Monday night was also special because I finally got a chance to meet Steve Simon, co-panelist on TWiP and tremendous pro photographer, in person. As coincidence would have it, the accommodations he arranged via Craigslist somewhat at the last minute were approximately two blocks from the apartment I was using. A mere block walk for both of us brought us to a decent coffee shop in the middle, a chance to chat, and a walk around the capitol grounds to see the preparations. I shared what I knew of the layout, security, etc., for Tuesday with Steve. We were ticketed to be in different parts of the capitol grounds the next day and, with millions of people attending, figured this would likely be our only chance to hang out.

I started Tuesday morning at 5 AM, grabbing a quick take-out breakfast from a local diner and returning to the apartment to eat and pack gear. I was out in the crowds before 6 AM and making my way to my ticket gate. Thus began what I refer to now as “the death march”. The next five hours were spent in an ever-increasing mob packing itself into an ever-decreasing space. By 10 AM I was crammed into a barricaded intersection with people packed so tightly that I couldn’t raise my arms or even dig my iPhone out of my pocket. I spent much of it with my cameras and long lenses clutched to my body while I was swept along with the crowd if it moved. Granted, movement was rare andnever exceeded five steps in any direction. As the ceremony time approached, the crowd started to get a bit of a cranky mob mentality and I seriously started to wonder if I might end up in a riot or stampede. A lot has been discussed about this breakdown in security and crowd management, especially for Purple Ticket holders.

Fortunately, I did make it through just a bit before the ceremony started and, ultimately, ended up on the back of the capitol lawn. While not close enough for tight shots of the platform – even with the 400mm lens – I was able to witness history firsthand rather than via Jumbotron. Any group of strangers you stood with for even a few minutes turned into a temporary group of old friends. This was most evident to me when a group of about six of us immediately fell into happy conversation and, at the close of the oath, were all tearfully hugging one another. Nobody ever got around to asking names and, I suspect, none of us will ever see each other again… but we sure were happy to be together “again” for that hour or so.

I grabbed quite a few shots of people in my vicinity and their various emotions. There are a few shots of the ceremony itself but, as I said, they are somewhat distant. Upon leaving the ceremony and heading back to the apartment to rest for a few and eat, I managed to stumble on the other event I had hoped against hope I’d witness: Bush gettin’ the hell outta Dodge on Marine One. As I came around the back of the capitol, the event was already starting and I arrived in time to get – again, distant – shots of the Obamas and Bidens escorting the Bush’s to the helicopter as well as the wave from the stairs as the helicopter, thankfully, took one of the worst presidents in US history out of our collective lives. See ya.

After a brief stop to download shots and actually bend at the knees into a sitting position for a few minutes, I bundled back up and headed out in search of some parade-related activities. The parade route itself was going to be a bit of a hike and I’d heard it was already essentially closed after filling up (or at least being locked down) by about 8 AM that morning. My assumption, though, was that Obama’s motorcade had to leave from the capitol to start the parade, so I hung around by the barriers there and was rewarded with a nice presidential and VP limo drive-by. People already lined the barricade, so I had to shoot over their heads to get anything… but it was my first time seeing a presidential motorcade and the car they now call “The Beast”.

I had originally planned to stay Tuesday night, but I was exhausted by this point and decided against breaking up my next day with driving. I packed and headed out of the city by about 6:30 PM on streets with little to no traffic. This seemed great at first until I realized the city had been chopped into a million pieces with police road blocks and barriers. Ten official Inaugural Balls meant the motorcade was going to be zipping around quite a bit and security didn’t want anything or anyone slowing it down. I spent well over an hour winding around the streets of DC with my GPS trying to find a way to get far enough past the lockdown to reach I-66. I witnessed some of the most bizarre, mid-intersection barrier arrangements I’ve ever seen and my main memory is that the city was either flashing blue lights, glowing red flares or some combination of the two. It was like some kind of scifi escape scene from a movie.

All in all, I had a tremendous, albeit exhausting, time and am thrilled to have been able to witness this historical event firsthand. I have a few shots I really like and quite a few that are just taking up disk space. They are all geotagged and appear here, as usual, in both HTML gallery and slideshow form. Also, for the sake of experimentation, I’m placing them on my me.com account as well. I have a set on Flickr, too, mostly to use their nice Map View for my geotags. Lastly, I’m putting up a Google Earth map with my GPS geologger data overlaid.
UPDATE: Oh, and one relevant bit of audio in closing: Super Suit!

Enjoy!
- Aaron

view the full photo gallery

view the full photo gallery

I had the opportunity to photograph Sen. Barack Obama’s rally in Roanoke, Va. It’s the first shoot I’ve done for the Democratic Party of Virginia since 2006. I did a great deal of political event photography for the DPVA in 2004, specifically the DNC in Boston and numerous other campaign events. I covered Governor’s Kaine’s campaign kickoff, his historic inauguration in Williamsburg, Va and the 2006 JJ Dinner with Pennsylvania Gov. Rendell.

I’ve gotten involved in so many other projects since 2006 (not the least of which is acting as producer for the TWiP podcast and, you know… a more than full time job here at SBC) that I haven’t been as involved in Democratic photography. My former blog, Documenting Democracy, has gone silent (no real loss… there are so many other superb progressive blogs in Va that have a vastly more effective voice than I’d ever have in this arena) and serves now more as a 2004/2006 photo repository. My “voice” in this scene is through my photography which I do voluntarily and offer freely to the Democratic party and our campaigns (assuming they find images that they deem useful, of course).

So… anyway… I was eager to cover this event since Obama’s campaign is so phenomenally inspiring and, frankly, historic. It’s a lung-filling breath of fresh air after the last eight, horrid, spiraling years under Bush’s sorry excuse for a presidency. Sorry to my Republican readers, but I’m briefly putting on my partisan hat here at halfpress and calling it like I see it. DPVA hooked me up with a press pass and a nice little reserved spot in the front of the risers and I quickly realized how much I’ve missed covering things like the DNC and rallies.

Click to view full photo gallery

My photos here aren’t going to win any awards or anything… but I did look for some opportunities to capture a little of the mood. One really needs to shoot from a press riser with some massive, tripod mounted Scott Bourne-class lenses to get the tight, dramatic shots. I was using a 24-70L on one body and 70-200L on the other and did a bit of roaming about when not in my slot.

I have more shots to edit, so I might be amending the gallery later. I also made sure to take some shots that represent how the press pool area works (mostly if any TWiP listeners are curious) and you’ll see videographers and wire service photogs in there. Most of those are shot with an 8mm fisheye lens both for effect and to give a sense of scale to the arena and our place in it.

I hope to fit in a few more events around the state before the big day when Virginia elects its first Democratic president since 1964. If I do, I’ll post’em here.

view the full photo gallery